A Final Solution to the Afghan Question
Gee, why didn't we all think of this?
There are much better solutions for Afghanistan:
1) Build roads and electrical grids. Employ Afghans to do this.
2) Employ the thousands of Afghan widows in the country in weaving Persian carpets. Pay fair trade wages.
I can go on and on about what we can do in return for occupying the country. If we want an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, or a geopolitical and geo-economic presence there, we have to give something in return. That's just the way it is. Eventually though, we will have to come home. It just costs too much.
Susan
There are much better solutions for Afghanistan:
1) Build roads and electrical grids. Employ Afghans to do this.
2) Employ the thousands of Afghan widows in the country in weaving Persian carpets. Pay fair trade wages.
I can go on and on about what we can do in return for occupying the country. If we want an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, or a geopolitical and geo-economic presence there, we have to give something in return. That's just the way it is. Eventually though, we will have to come home. It just costs too much.
Susan
posted by Susan Stark at
4:26 PM
5 Comments:
Was that guy serious? Or was it a new version of "A Modest Proposal"?
The best solution is to just get the fuck out of there. Keep in mind that fighting those crazy bastards helped push the Soviet Union into the history books and out of the here and now. Don't say it can't happen here, because when you run out of money, anything can happen. Ask the nearest homeless person.
So far, we've spent about $10,000 per Afghan on this war. That's serious money there. There are countless ways we could be dispersing that money in Afghanistan that are better for us, better for them, and so lavish that they would be eating out of our hands by now.
The stupidity is so overwhelming, it hurts to read about it. It's like watching a really bad movie where the script is so poorly thought out that you can't stop cringing long enough to enjoy the show, only these aren't Hollywood hack writers, they're the people running our country.
MGuy
Here we go again. The ruling class is NOT stupid or naive. They make war because war and "reconstruction" are profitable, because it leads to direct full-spectrum control over resources, because it surrounds other power-centers (i.e., China, Russia, etc), because it generates fear and patriotism and consent - read: social-political control - at home. War is NOT about the local population, battles and statistics and justifications can be made up, the ruling class doesn't care how expensive or bloody war is for the working class in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the USA. Yes, if we lived in a FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT AND SOCIALIST world, your ideas would probably already be policy. But that's not the point for the folks calling the shots.
The US should leave and pay reparations of about $25,000 per Afghan - $10,000 in direct payment to each person and another $15,000 per person in infrastructure rehab and de-mining, etc. Then leave. After that, the 30 top US officials who did this war crime should be arrested, tried, convicted, and punished appropriately (and if the trials of the Nazis are any guide, mostly by execution).
Unfortunately -- in light of peak-oil, -water, -arable-land, -food, etcetera -- unsustainable-and-destructive by definition growth "solutions" (roads for cars, frivolous widgets for exports, etcetera) are the wrong way to go as well.
As much as I detest and disagree with what we're doing (and have always done) militarily, politically and economically in that region (and we are guilty as sin and fully responsible for the aftermath), the cold, harsh, indifferent truth is that our domestic infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating (infrastructurereportcard.org).
We can't even help ourselves and your advocating building more unsustainable infrastructure and industry overseas? We need that money here, not there.
Reality is more in line with what the Bank of England has recently stated:
Bank of England warns families to expect fall in living standards
Get used to it folks.
We live at the end of empire, in the century of contraction, in a culture of make believe.
We're not going to grow, consume and indebt our way out of the problems of growth, consumption and debt.
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