If you want to make yourself look a mug, try to be an expert on the geopolitics of Afghanistan. Unless you have months of spare time, you will never really understand it. The moment you think you have untangled the web; another complexity throws a spanner into the workings of your brain.

What we do know, is America and its allies invaded it 20 years ago in revenge for the 9/11 attacks. The idea being to overthrow the Taliban and install western style democracy in the region. This would make the world a safer place (don’t laugh).

The Taliban ran to the hills and to regions that would not harm them and waited. After twenty costly years, those who implemented a western style democracy left the Afghans to it. Hey presto, the Taliban walked back in, taking weapons off the western funded Afghan army, like they were taking sweets off kids.

Surrender Without a Fight

300,000 Afghan soldiers trained and armed by the west, appear to have just jacked it in without a fight. Why is that? Did they not really want a western style democracy implemented on them? It appears to me that they didn’t really want to die for something they had little belief in, so they just gave up.

I don’t know by the way; I am just guessing. I am guessing because all the military leaders, presidents, and prime ministers, don’t seem to know the answers either. The only people who do seem to know how to resolve this crisis, are blokes called Mick or Colin, who are calling up radio phone debates. They know how to solve this crisis. It normally involves nuking someone.

What is apparent, is that endless military deployments in other nations that we presume want our way of life, are a waste of time, life, and money. Perhaps the best we can do is make safe those who tried to work for a more civilised way of being? Evacuate them, give them a new life and leave those who caved in, to sort themselves out?

Political figures who opposed these incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq, were at the time, demonised and called unpatriotic traitors. They said we would be embarking on never ending, unsolvable conflicts that would fuel terrorism, not end it. They were right. Rather than thinking impulsively, they used logic to foresee how this would unfold. The then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, was hugely opposed to incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq and was bullied and discredited right up until he got heart attacked in Scottish Highlands.

Capitalism & Democracy

Let’s be honest, Western capitalist democracy is hardly a utopian climax on the road to righteousness, so it’s not an easy sell. Look how fucked up America is and, right here in Britain, we are tearing ourselves apart over Brexit. Ok, it’s far better than having your head lopped off for nicking an orange, but supercharged capitalism is a seriously flawed ideology that is alien to most Afghanis. What right did we have to force it upon them?

So, twenty years, billions of pounds and thousands of dead servicemen and civilians are the result of western incursion. For what?  The same regime as before 2001. I don’t know if pulling out is a good idea or not. However, what else could we do if the western sponsored Afghan army, aren’t interested in resistance?

One thing is for certain, the geographical position of Afghanistan means that it is a problem that won’t just disappear. China will be eyeing it up as I type this post. Maybe it’s their turn to fund it, invade it, and spend twenty years working out who is the western enemy and who is the communist ally? Everyone else has had a go and been humiliated, so why shouldn’t they?

As Americans say…Good job!