{"id":245835,"date":"2021-07-20T17:31:32","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T17:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=b9368f599949169e209c7cb62229a946"},"modified":"2021-07-20T17:31:32","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T17:31:32","slug":"biden-tried-to-absolve-himself-for-afghanistan-aftermath-but-he-voted-for-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/07\/20\/biden-tried-to-absolve-himself-for-afghanistan-aftermath-but-he-voted-for-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Tried to Absolve Himself for Afghanistan Aftermath \u2014 But He Voted for War"},"content":{"rendered":"\"President<\/a>

Former president George W. Bush recently took a break from painting portraits of the wounded soldiers<\/a> he fed into the maw of dual wars 20 years ago to complain about the end of one of those wars. In a rare interview, given to German news agency Deutsche Welle (DW)<\/em>, Bush had himself a nice little sad about the fact that the Biden administration was finally shutting down<\/a> U.S. military involvement in the two-decade bottomless pit that was, and will ever be, his Afghanistan conflict.<\/p>\n

Calling the withdrawal a \u201cmistake,\u201d Bush said<\/a>, \u201cI think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad and sad.\u201d Of course, the results of U.S. intervention (and its aftermath) in Afghanistan are indeed bad and sad. After 20 years of war, thousands of dead, wounded and traumatized U.S. servicemembers and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians killed, severely injured or displaced, absolutely nothing of substance was accomplished beyond lining the pockets of the warmaking industry. Despite U.S. propaganda to the contrary, the women and girls who suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of the Taliban before the war are threatened with the same fate now, because U.S. intervention was never actually about human rights — and imperial war and militarism aren’t solutions to human rights abuses in any event.<\/p>\n

After the interview, DW<\/em> reached out to Kabul-based journalist Ali Latifi for his thoughts on Bush\u2019s comments. \u201cI think it’s very interesting that he’s suddenly, you know, concerned about women and children,\u201d said<\/a> Latifi. \u201cHis war made a lot of widows and made a lot of children orphans.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of comparisons have been made to the U.S.\u2019s scrambling retreat from Vietnam 46 years ago. While sailors are not pushing perfectly good helicopters<\/a> off the flight decks of Navy ships to make room for fleeing U.S. personnel, the onrushing chaos in Afghanistan cannot be denied. A major effort<\/a> is underway to evacuate Afghan translators and others who aided the U.S. war effort. There is no good way to end an unwinnable war. \u201cA hundred percent we lost the war,\u201d special operations forces Marine Raider Jason Lilley told<\/a> Reuters<\/em>. It was time to go.<\/p>\n

But are we going? Mr. Bush can rest easy on that score, because while virtually all U.S. military forces have been withdrawn, the private military contractors (read: mercenaries) remain in Afghanistan in force. In fact, those companies are hiring at an enormously escalated rate, as they rush more private soldiers into the country to fill the gaps left by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

\u201cContractors are a force both the U.S. and Afghan governments have become reliant on, and contracts in the country are big business for the U.S.,\u201d reported<\/a> New York Magazine<\/em> back in May, when the withdrawal was in its early stages. \u201cSince 2002, the Pentagon has spent $107.9 billion on contracted services in Afghanistan, according to a Bloomberg<\/em> Government analysis. The Department of Defense currently employs more than 16,000 contractors in Afghanistan, of whom 6,147 are U.S. citizens — more than double the remaining U.S. troops.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the war is over, and ultimately lost, why do these contractors remain? For that, you\u2019ll have to ask the mining industry, not that the leaders of that industry tend to do much talking. They\u2019re too busy, see. Afghanistan holds upwards of 1,400 mineral fields containing lucrative materials like barite, chromite, coal, copper, gold, iron ore and lead. The country has huge reserves of natural gas, as well as petroleum. The gemstone mines turn out emeralds, rubies, red garnet and lapis lazuli.<\/p>\n