One might pardon some petty vulgarian in a private's uniform, if he were to ask his sergeant' In a nutshell, US foreign policy since the end of the Second World War, has not been conceived or conducted in the American interest but as a speculative ideological enterprise in which the goals have been hazily described as stopping the spread of Communism, spreading democracy, promoting a revolution for human rights, liberating women, and promoting a New World Order. There is really notВ much more to be said, though I intend to summarize some of my arguments in a forthcoming podcast, as soon as my voice is strong enough. That was my conclusion ten years ago, and I made several observations before and after in speeches, Chronicles, and in the Daily Mail. The whole of Afghanistan is not worth a red cent to the American people, much less the life of one American helicopter pilot. So far the government admits that our own First Afghan War has cost about $300 billion and 1,000 lives. Cheney and Rumsfeld might have thought about before going in, something that President Obamas advisors might have considered before beefing up the mis- sion. Two misinformed and ignorant American presidents have sent their countrymen to die in the rocks and stones of Kabul, protecting the right of child-molesting warlords to grow the opium that is poisoning the soul of Europe and America. Military men have told me that General McChrystal is an excellent officer, but his job-subduing Afghanistan-is not only impossible: It is not worth the doing. One friend told me he went to bed each night and woke up each morning with but one thought: 'I don't want to have my legs blown off for these people.' Returning veterans have said they find our Afghan 'allies' as revolting as our enemies, and, from what I can gather, pedophilia and homosexual rape are routine pastimes, like bowling or having a beer with your buddies in the good old U.S.A. I know too little about the place to speak with any more authority than the CIA experts who permitted a Jordani- an triple agent to blow them up, but even that little is more than I wish to know. It is one Pashtun tribe against another, Pashtun against Uzbeks and Iranians, and Uzbeks against Iranians, old guard corrupt mujahideen against idealistic Taliban, and, overall, Shia against Sunni. It is patchwork of hostile ethnicities and regions engaged in endless conflict, alternately lapsing into a cold, or blowing up into a hot, war. Afghanistan is not a nation, much less a nation- state.

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