It's over for the U.S. in Afghanistan, but that doesn't mean the death and destruction are about to stop. Quagmires don't just go away. However, the signs are everywhere that the American course in that nation is doomed, that those directing this forlorn attempt at occupation of a country that has never tolerated occupation know there is no positive end in sight, and that the locals from President Hamid Karzai to the competing warlords and the Taliban are cutting their own deals on the assumption that our wishes no longer matter.
Predictably, the U.S. media dismissed Karzai's denunciation on Monday of the role of American mercenaries in the wanton destruction of his society. "Karzai rails against America in a diatribe," was the way a New York Times headline summarized his press conference, suggesting that his complaints were nothing more than the temper tantrum of an ungrateful child.
But Karzai is right. American mercenaries are spreading mayhem across Afghanistan thanks to enormous U.S. spending on the contractors that he has ordered out of the country. "The money starts in the name of the private security companies in the hallways of the U.S. government," Karzai stated in a clear description of the modern working of our military-industrial complex, adding: "The profits are made and arranged there " then they send the money to kill people here. " When this money comes to Afghanistan, it causes insecurity in Afghan homes and causes the killing of Afghan children and causes explosions and terrorism in Afghanistan."
Our military investments recruit rather than combat terrorists, but that is not a bad outcome if the goal is greater instability as an excuse to keep defense spending absurdly high despite the end of the Cold War two decades ago. Isn't that what it's all about? Our military budget, bigger than that of the rest of the world combined and higher in real dollars that at any time since World War II, is nothing more than a profit and jobs center for the defense industry, which has its tentacles in every congressional district. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were never about combating terrorism, which is a supranational phenomena anchored in neither country.
