Peeling The American Onion
Peeling The American Onion
It Ain't Over 'Til The Last Burger King Leaves Kandahar
Most won’t say it, so I will:
America has thankfully lost another war. Let’s make this the last.
This is nothing here to celebrate. This should only be a monumental gut-check moment of serious reflection and a desire to seek redemption for ourselves. We don’t need to spend a single minute right now analyzing how Biden has or has not messed up while bravely handling the end of this mess he was handed — including his incredible private negotiations all this week with the Taliban leaders to ensure that not a single enemy combatant from the occupying force (that would be us; e.g., U.S. soldiers and spies and embassy staff), will be harmed. And Biden so far has gotten every American and foreign journalist out alive, plus a promise from the Taliban that those who stay to cover it will not be harmed. And not a single one has! Usually a force like the Taliban rushes in killing every enemy in sight. That has not happened! And we will learn that it was because of the negotiating skills and smarts of the Biden team that there was no mass slaughter. This is not Dunkirk.
Dozens of planes have safely taken off all week — and not one of them has been shot down. None of our troops in this chaotic situation have been killed. Despite the breathless shrieks of panic from maleducated journalists who think they’re covering the Taliban of the 1990s (Jake Tapper on CNN keeps making references to “beheadings“ and how girls might be “kidnapped” and “raped” and forced to become “child brides”), none of this seems to be happening. I do not want to hear how we “need to study” what went wrong with this Taliban victory and our evacuation because (switching to all caps because I can’t scream this loud enough): WE ARE NEVER GOING TO FIND OURSELVES IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS AGAIN BECAUSE OUR DAYS OF INVADING AND TAKING OVER COUNTRIES MUST END. RIGHT? RIGHT!!
Just look at this:
Korea.
Vietnam.
Cambodia.
Iraq (1991).
Iraq (2003).
Afghanistan.
There are two themes that run through this list of countries we’ve invaded since World War II.
One, none of them ever invaded us or posed any kind of threat to our lives — the only true justification to ever use armed force.
And number two, they ain’t white. Since May 8, 1945, for some reason, we only kill people of color. Probably just a co-inky-dinky.
As with the Viet Cong in Vietnam, we were defeated in Afghanistan by a rag-tag army that did not own a single helicopter, not a single jet fighter, no stealth bombers, no missiles, no napalm, no Burger King at the PX, not one air conditioned tent — not one! — not a goddamn tank in sight, just a bunch of guys with beards in pick-up trucks firing bullets into the air. Oh, and one other similarity with Vietnam — it was their country! Not ours. We were the invaders. In Vietnam we killed 2 million people. In Afghanistan, estimates of the dead go as high as 250,000. In Iraq we killed nearly a million (going back to Bill Clinton’s civilian bombing campaign).
We spent over $2.4 trillion in Afghanistan for 20 years while the poor in America went without food, medical care, decent schools. The water in the Black-majority city of Flint was poisoned by the Governor. A thousand people shot by the police in the U.S. each year.
We sacrificed over 2,400 American lives to invade a country where Bin Laden was nowhere to be found. Bush said early on he no longer had any interest in capturing him. In 2011, Obama’s seal team found him in a house just down the road from Pakistan’s “West Point”. Who woulda thought!
What a tragic mess. Defund the military-industrial complex, defund the NSA, defund Homeland Security. They sent our young troops to their deaths. For shame! No Afghan attacked the World Trade Center. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia! Not from Afghanistan, not Iraq, not Iran. How come “Bandar Bush” — the Saudi Royal Family’s tender nickname for their longtime friend, George W. Bush — why didn’t Bush attack Saudi Arabia? Oh. Right. They have something we need. Fill ‘er up!
So, yes, we lost this stupid, senseless war and I’m happy that it has finally ended. Our fake Afghanistan Army couldn’t wait for us to leave — and, as soon as we did, the Afghan soldiers stripped off their fake Army costumes we gave them, threw them to the ground and spit on them. They joined the Taliban in the streets in celebration. The Taliban did not shoot a single one of them. The Afghan interpreters and others who colluded with the enemy, the USA, for 20 years — yes, they might be in trouble (just like if Russia invaded Alaska and a bunch of Alaskans collaborated with them and after the Russians left some Americans might want retribution from the collaborators). You get that, right?
The pundits on TV wail: “We’ve abandoned our Afghan helpers! No one will ever trust us again! No one will ever believe us! Our word is no good!!”
EXACTLY! Correct! Yessss! We should never be believed! Note to the rest of the world: You see us coming? RUN! Nothing but tragedy awaits you. Do NOT help us. If we sign a climate agreement, we will not follow it! If we sign a nuclear deal with your mullahs, don’t believe it. It only means we’re getting ready to bomb you. And you should know that when it comes to we, the American public, there is not a single morning where we ever wake up thinking about you or giving a rat’s ass whether 80% of your people live in a state of oppressive abject poverty. It’s always only about us, baby — and what YOU can do for US, for our AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE!
And by the way, make sure there’s always a roof where we can land that goddamn escape helicopter when we need to get the F outta Dodge!
It’s always Saigon Time in America.
P.S. May our troops and the Afghan civilians someday forgive us. Much condolences and love to all families who lost loved ones in this disgustingly sad war. I can only imagine how you all have felt this week. Nineteen of our American veterans commit suicide every single day. Please, don’t leave us. I/we will not abandon you. (If you need to talk to someone, call 800-273-8255).
And now for today’s “Rumble with Michael Moore” podcast. This episode is entitled, “Just Where the Heck Is Afghanistan? Name 3 of the 7 Countries It Borders.” (International law states that you cannot invade a country if more than 50% of your own people have no fucking clue where it is.)
My guests on my podcast are Vijay Prashad (who writes brilliantly about Empires and the Third World); U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright (ret.); and my friend and journalist from The Intercept, Jon Schwarz. We will tell you things about Afghanistan you haven’t heard before, especially in the last week.
(If you’ve never listened to a podcast, give this one a try! No one talks in soundbites, no one censors us, and you can listen to it anytime you want. And it’s free. All you have to do is hit the play arrow!)
For a full transcript of this episode, go here:
https://rumble.media/episode207transcript/
Thank you for decades and decades of writing and talking and informing and film making, telling the truth, risk taking, and giving a good God damn, not only about Flint, Michigan, the danger of guns in Colorado, the corrupt health care system, Bernie Sanders and democracy, but for sounding the alarm after January 6, 2021.
I am grateful for your podcasts. Often I listen to them late at night when I can't sleep, wrought with anxiety about the fate of our country and the entire beautiful planet earth. Most of the time I can't get through even one of them without crying. I remember sitting in the dark listening to what you were saying once, about our country, how dearly you love it, and how mad you get regarding blatant stupidity, and you were gasping for air. I was also gasping for air, choking on my emotions that railed to break free. Journalism as therapy during lock down.
Finally, your (new) heading image looked to me like rows of corn, in a corn field. I looked at it and thought how wonderful that is, for me, with generations behind me settling the northern part of Iowa. I thought about the mid west, in terms of literature that has come out of it, the food that was grown there before Monsanto choked the farming families, and what the values are among Americans there. I considered that even though my family farm was ripped away from me when I was a girl, the land is gone, but I carry everything else inside of me, much like many Haitians and Afghanis may feel later, when the cushion of numbness and shock wears off.
Of course, it isn't a cornfield, at all.
Congratulations on starting bold. We love you. We support you into success. Thank you.
I do not consider leaving Afghanistan a defeat