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With the Taliban having just captured three more provincial capitals, and now in control of two-thirds of Afghanistan, the liberal oligarchic press is awash with narratives of Afghanistan being both a “failure” and a “mistake”. However, the 20 years’ war has, for them, been an unprecedented success.
While this assertion may sound counterintuitive it is nevertheless true. Indeed, Afghanistan has been an exercise in counter-narratives from start to finish. For example, the Taliban were always willing to hand over Bin Laden, providing evidence was given.
Then, of course, the whole 9/11 event, that sparked the war, has multiple inconsistencies. For example, there are thousands of ‘Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth’ who claim a controlled demolition occurred on that eventful day.
Anyway, I digress, the war on terror wouldn’t be the first one to have been sparked with a false flag attack, Vietnam and Cuba can attest to this. Today, China is also in the midst of being framed for genocide and slavery. What actually, distinguishes Afghanistan is that it has been an unprecedented success for the Western transatlantic liberal elites.
Yes, there have been deaths, 241,000 to be precise. However, only 2,442 were U.S. military personnel and they were not from the draft-dodging class of Bush Jr. In return for this “collateral damage” there has been an unbroken 20 years of war profits for the liberal transatlantic elites.
Using conservative estimates, the U.S. has spent $2.261 trillion and the UK $30 billion. Weapons sales and the provision of other services to the war front, which has been rapidly privatized, has led to large enterprises making an absolute killing.
Without the 9/11 investment and its 20 years dividend, how could the likes of Halliburton, who former Vice President Dick Cheney was also its Chairman, have profited hand over fist. The same goes for Blackwater which had a revolving door between the Republican Party and the CIA.
Then those who control opium production, and the illicit profits that can be used to fund clandestine groups such as terrorists, have also been winners in Afghanistan’s occupation. After the occupation opium production, which had been eradicated, was once again thriving with Afghanistan providing two-thirds of the global opium cultivation.[1]
Beyond naked profits, Afghanistan has been a boon for liberal ruling class interests. 2.3 million Afghan refugees have fled abroad with 90% being hosted in Pakistan and Iran, which helps to destabilize these countries. On the home front, Afghan refugees have contributed to a global refugee system that is used to fuel the politics of divide and rule.
Amongst Western subaltern, the right, subscribing to the old imperial ideology, personally blame the refugees and immigrants, who flee war and poverty, for “diluting” Western civilization. Perversely, while not identifying with the liberal message of multi-cultural globalization, the right does support liberal invasions in the Global South which wrecks others civilizations.
In contrast, liberals (often termed the liberal left) are set against the right on moral grounds. They see immigration and multicultural societies as an innate good. However, equally perverse is that they see no connection between their “innate good” and liberal hard power i.e. the human rights atrocity of war which is the foundation of global population movements. Indeed, many actively support these neo-imperial wars based on the very human rights liberals claim to hold dear.
Ironically, both the liberal left and the right, for various reasons and to various extents, support liberal wars and thus liberal globalization. Tragically, seeing themselves as diametrically opposed, they remain ignorant of basic contradictions within global capitalism. Absurdly, their melee is resold to us as democracy.
With events in Xinjiang today, which are heavily entwined with Afghanistan, the same pattern continues. The liberal left call for action over trumped-up human rights atrocity propaganda. These calls to defeat China are then buttressed by the right, with their various narratives of zero-sum engagement where China’s rise is seen as their civilizational loss.
For the hegemonic interests of the liberal elite, Afghanistan has provided 20 years of uncertainty on China’s Western border. It is here that the forces of destruction meet head-on with the forces of construction and threaten inland development.
The chaos of Afghanistan has provided a training ground for Uyghur extremists who returned to China to unleash chaos. These jihadi fighters were originally fighting the U.S. but now bizarrely are funded by the U.S. in its efforts to destabilize China.
This stratagem will continue with a new cold war which will provide yet another windfall for weapons manufacturers. Indeed, it is the very manufacturers of weapons who also fund the Xinjiang atrocity propaganda.
Clearly, if we look at the oligarchic liberal press we will always be blinded by propaganda that sells their “success” as a “mistake” within the fog of what is supposed to be our collective democratic process.
Afghanistan lies in ruins with a GDP of just $20.68 billion ($531 per capita), in 2019, while the U.S. spent $52 billion occupying it in the same year. Thus, Afghanistan is an unprecedented success for those who profit, from the racket of war and raise themselves up through the destruction of others.
Most of all, the 20 years of Afghanistan have been a success in brainwashing. To believe that a true democracy can carry out such violence and destruction and still be considered “the best governing system”, which others should strive to follow, is a perversion of the human desire for global peace and progress.
Importantly, the assertion that “the Afghanistan war is over” is also propaganda. Large private contractors will remain, as will covert CIA operations. U.S. airbases will provide a launchpad for long-range bombers and drone strikes.
To have gone 20 years like this and still believe in the sanctity of our oligarchic liberal press, the same class who profit from these hideous “mistakes”, is incredulous.[2] Indeed, they should not be absolved through propagandizing it as a collective democratic “mistake” that we have learned from for, in fact, the madness continues as our liberal elites carry on this strategy against China.
Unfortunately, profits must continue and new ways will be sought to destabilize the Global South as their development would upset the liberal disorder. Development would lead to democratic globalization and so an end to the desperate fleeing towards the very countries that subjugate them. The rise of the Global South challenges liberal hard power and their globalized form entwined with war. This challenge, in turn, will bring an end to the liberal hegemon’s twenty-plus years on the monopoly on truth.
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Notes
[1] There are numerous photos online of allied troops guarding the opium crop as well as personal accounts of irregularities where NATO itself is accused of profiting from the opium trade.
[2] For example, Rupert Murdoch was heavily involved in initializing the think tank Project for a New American Century
