September 6, 2006- Back Again

   As we get closer to the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks next week, all sorts of retrospectives are going on about what has happened in these last five years, and one that surely will be noted is that day was the beginning of the War On Terror or the Long war or whatever the fuck it is called right now, the war that America says started that day and has raged ever since. Iraq and the goings on thgere have become the focal point of that war, but the reality is that the first front in this war was in Afghanistan, when America went in, ostensibly to go after those that had been responsible for the events of september 11th, 2001. This was what was said to have been the first "victory" in that war too, the ousting of the Taliban regime and the instituting of a "democratic" government. Afghanistan was the first place to have historical elections and to allow citizens the "freedoms" that they had been denied for so long. Afghanistan was supposed to be the model for what America planned to do in this new type of war, to get rid of oppressive and hostile regimes and replace them with a democratic governemnt of the people's own choosing. We heard an awful lot about Afghanistan, that is, until President Bush got all crazy to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam, saying that he was part of all of this, and from then on, Afghanistan has become a forgotten front in the war, even though it is the original front in it all. Iraq has moved into the forefront as the example of what America hopes to accomplish in this war, and what everyone has seen in Iraq has made it look like a very bad example indeed, of an example of failure and nothing else, so shifting the focus back to Afghanistan on the anniversary seems to be logical, yet, it does not seem to be happening. That is not because Washington has forgotten about Afghanistan or feels that they are any less important now than they were five years ago, they very much care about what goes on there, after all, their reputations ride on it. The reason that they are not telling any stories about their successes in Afghanistan is because the story there is about as positive as the story in Iraq is, albeit less bloody. Far from having a model Third World puppet state like they planned, Washington is pretty much back to where we were five years ago, with trhe Taliban moving right back in where they were then, more so every day, to the point where they control the entire southern region of the country and are moving closer to the only place where America has any sort of control of at all, Kabul. The dudes that6 Washington bragged about kicking  the hell out of Afghanistan are now back in more than half of what they use dto control, since they never controlled the entire country anyway, no one ever has, that country is just too rugged and remote and such for anyone to ever control it all. This is basically how the Taliban got started to begin with, they trook control of rural regions and consolidated their power and steadily moved on and controlled other parts of the land. Now, five years later, we  seem to be going through the same process again, a process that washington promised us all was done forever. How did something that was supposed to be so final in its outcome just come full circle in a five year period of time, the answer to that is not very complicated.

   The American policies in Afghanistan, especially their policies towards the opium trade, have had a serious impace on the Afghan people. America just wiped out as much of th epoppy crop as they could when they came in, and that was the only way that the local farmers had to make any money  at all. Combine that with the general chaos and destruction that waging a war brings to a land, and southern Afghanistan has become a Third World basket case once again. The farmers that had to stop growing opium poppies now see their families starving because there are no crops of any kind being grown and no money of any kind coming in either. The Taliban have stepped right in and filled that void just as they did before, providing the starving families with food and money and shit, and that has led to them being able to establish a prima facie government there again. The people do not supporet them because they like them, they  never have, they support them because they give them sustenance and money and a life of some kind, oppressed or not. many of the things that the Taliban forbids are not such a big deal in places like Afghanistan, like TV and movies are nothing there, as there is no electricity in many places, so TV and movies are non existent as it is. Truth be told, there is not an awful oot going at all in places like southgern Afghanistan, so the Taliban's restrictions nevfer were the hardship that the West said that they were, the people saw them as a logical tradeoff for the Taliban providing them with a life of any sort at all. Since they have not seen any improvements under America, they are willing to listen to the Taliban again, many don't even hate them that much for their shenanigans in 2001 and were not that sorry to see them go. So it has not been very hard for them to re-establish themselves again in the south of Afghanistan, because they don't have to do it by gunpoint at all, they just come bearing gifts and they are in. As more and more of Afghanistan falls away from America and into the hands of the opium warlords and outlaws and the like, the Taliban will have an ever easier job of coming back, as they are ususally preferable over warlords and outlaws and such, even if they are strict. This is a  phenomenon that has been gaining strength over Afghanistan way for the last five years, even as America claimed victory in Afghanistan, this process was underway, and it has been slowly but steadily gaining steam ever since. Once America turned its attention over to Iraq it became miles easier for the Taliban to ply their trade and we are now seeing the results. Five years after September 11th, America does not really control any more of Afghanistan than they did then, they do njot even really control Kabul that much, that is being steadily taken over by the warlords who America turns a blind eye to simply because they are loaded with money and can rebuild Kabul, but they are rebuilding it to suit themselves, not Washington, so it is just a matter of time before America loses control of Kabul as well. The Taliban have a way to go before they can retake that city, and the warlords that are settling there are not going to let them get it back easily, so in reality, Afghanistan circa September 2006 is a tinderbox waiting to explode all over someone, it is just a question of who.

   America could have easily prevented this when they went in five years ago, after all, there was no real central governemnt there, and no one gave them much of a fight, the Taliban mainly beat a hasty retreat to regroup fpr another day,  and America did reign supreme there. The Afghani people also welcomed the Americans for the most part because they saw them as liberators, ones that would free them from centuries of oppression. Afghanistan may be remote and isolated, but not so much so that they did not know what was happening in the rest of the world in terms of progress, and they wanted to get in on that and stop living 1,000 years in the past. Even if the Taliban fed and clothed them and such, they knew that there was no way that these fuckers would ever let the land catch up to the rest of the world of the 21st century, they just thought that they had zero choice in the matter, that there was never going to be anyone better coming in there for them, that is, until America came in. Then they saw their chance to finally join the rest of the world instead of being isolated and remote, so they welcomed the Americans in. The Americans came in saying everything that the Afghanis wanted to hear, that they were indeed there to liberate them and help them into the world of today and so forth. The thing is that America's ideas of how to do that differed greatly from those of the Afghans themselves. The Afghans said that the way to make the country strong again was to go after poverty and the like and help the people get out of the Third World. America said thanks but no thanks to that one and offered its own ideas, that they go after terrorists instead and that will make things better again. There was no question of which side was going to win here, so the Amerrica way was put into action. That did not do shit except to drive the Afghiani people deeper and deeper into poverty and despair, and when that was pointed out to Washington, they duly ignored it and continued about their ways. People who had it rough under the Taliban  now had it way the fuck worse under American rule, and they started turning against vthe Americans in greater and greater numbers. Even though they saw how strict the Taliban were, they saw them as honest, while they saw America as liars and such. America said that they were going to do this and that for them to make their lives better, and they did none of it and wactualy  made everything worse, and when  the Taliban  told you somethjing, it was going to go down, if they said that you would be caned for singing a song and you sang, you got caned, if they said that you were busted if you did not grow a beard and you remained clean shaven, you were busted, they kept their word, harsh as it was, while America just said whatever sounded good and then did something altogether else. So Washington seems to have n one except themselves to blame here for the fact that Afghanistan five years on is every bit as much a disaster as Iraq is, just less publicized, because Washington could have done a much better job of nation building than they did, even if America was traumatized to the max about the events of September 11th. They couold have slowed down on the terrorist hunting because they had the Taliban disorganized and on the run, and besides that, the taliban had zero chance of ever standing up to the American forces anyway. Washington could very well have helped the Afghani people out, gotten them on their side, and used them to help go after the Taliban and related outlaws after that, yet they did not.

   That is because Washington was indeed lying to the Afghani people and the American people and everyone else, and that was because they had anotrher agenda in mind for Afghanistan. Washington did not give a fuck about freeing the Afghani people, they know that is not ever possible because that country is so fucked up and remote and such, no one ever has controlled it and probably no one ever will. They just wanted to use Afghanistan as the starting point  for their global conquest tour that they had in mind. Afgfhanistan was a place to get Americans used to the idea that America was at war and see how it all was gauged, and it all came through pretty well for Washington, their mass brainwashing and propaganda campaigns were hugely successful, and that was why Iraq suddenly came into the picture. Bush saw that the American people would accept was now and went after the real foe that Mr. Businessman wanted because that foe controlled a lot of oil money. Iraq never got underway until we had the sham elections in Afghanistan and such, to put on the show for America that Washington wanted to build democracies across the world, so that everyone could get use dto the idea. Then once they did, Afghanistan was pushed to the back burner and left essentially alone. That was why the Afghani people starved and the like, because once again they had been used by a foreign power, just as they had been for thousands of years. Washinton knew that to effectively control Afghanistan, all that you had to control was Kabul, so they did that and told the Ameerican people that they had the whole country under control. All that they want to control is Kabul as well, and that is why they have let the warlords move in and change things to suit themselves, so that they have a big stake in Kabul and wil help America keep the Taliban out of there. So they lied to and conned the Afghani people and the result has been tragedy for those people. America still does not care either, they would just as soon see many of those Afghani peasants die so that they will stop bothering them, and they never will care either. Afghanistan served its purpose for Washington by the time 2003 started, it is now just something that Washington can't quite figure out what to do with. They already have what they wanted there and have no further use for the rest of the country and probably do not even care that the taliban is taking over in the south, just as long as they don't take up arms against America, and there's little chance for that as the Taliban have had their fill of fighting America and would just as soon stay away from them. Washington does not care if they have their little Islamic fundamentalist enclave in south Afghanistan and that is why they are not doing much to stop them. The only way that Washington will make a real deal out of Afghanistan is if it becomes a political issue, and that is not too likely, because Iraq has the monopoly on spawning political issues, and there is just not room for any more right now. So Afghanistan will remain essentially forgotten and that is just the way that Washington always wanted it to be because they have already used it up as muich as they see fit and no longer want to waste any more time and such on it so if it is forgotten, so much the better, and that is why Afghanistan will not be one thing that is endlessly pushed in your face this next week to commemorate September 11th, 2001 and there are many other things that will be so that no one notices the difference, no one that is, except the ones that it was all supposed to help so much, the people of Afghanistan.

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