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What a giant coqu-up

It looks as if the USA has lost yet another war.

As Taliban fighters advance on the few remaining parts of Afghanistan that are not already under their control, the president Ashraf Ghani has fled the country in fear of his life and most Westerners residing there have done likewise.

What a dog's breakfast!

Many of us old enough to remember the fall of Saigon which marked the end of US involvement in the Vietnam war will be quietly muttering under our breath the words "not again".

It seems that the USA hasn't won an armed conflict since August 1945 when VJ day was celebrated in the war against Japan. Since that time we've seen "the mighty USA" embroiled in countless battles, wars and skirmishes but none of which they have prevailed in.

When will they learn?

Even the wars it self-declares, such as "the war against drugs" and "the war against terror" see the mighty USA relegated to failure and licking its wounds.

One might wonder why it is that the USA even bothers getting involved in battles it is clearly never going to win.

Well the answer is pretty obvious when you look at the size, value and lobbying power of the defense industry.

In 2020, the USA spent 714 billion dollars on defense and is expected to grow this figure to around $900m by the end of the decade (cite). Of course this isn't a full measure of the turnover of defense contractors since they also make huge sales to parties aside from the USA itself.

It is very much in the defense industry's interests for the US government to get involved in armed conflicts -- after all, bullets, missiles and mortar shells do not "go off" so if the profits of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon et al are to continue growing they need to ensure that there wares are actually being consumed and in need of replacement.

That the US government so readily capitulates to the demands of the defense industry is not surprising -- after all, would you want to argue with the companies that have all the best weapons?

What is tragic however, is the cost in human lives that these ridiculous battles represent.

In the 20 or so years that the USA has been involved in the Afghan conflict, almost 2,500 US servicemen and nearly 4,000 US contractors have been killed.

That's peanuts compared to the 66,000 Afghan military/police personel and the 47,000 civilians.

There were also 444 aid workers and 72 journalists who lost their lives to this war.

And to what end?

Just so that after the novelty wore off and it was decided that things were not going well, the USA could pull out and leave the Afghan people to the tyrany of the Taliban?

It would seem that the USA is the king of the half-arsed war and excels only at making things worse for those it is allegedly trying to protect.

As a self-appointed global policeman the USA is an epic fail -- but that's always going to be the case when your true motives are not the stated ones. When it's more about money than protecting the rights, freedoms and lives of those you claim to support.

This is indeed a tragedy for the people of Afghanistan who now face an uncertain future at the hands of the Taliban and the inhumanity of extremist Sharia law.

Be ashamed America, be ashamed.

While your own people die for lack of affordable medical care and you continously erode the freedoms their forefathers risked their lives to protect, the US government has no right wasting billions whilst meddling in foreign nations' affairs unless they're prepared to see things through to the bitter end.

All of this is of course, as always, just my honest opinion.

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