How and Why the Taliban Won, by Eric Zuesse
From my introduction to the article on Straight Line Logic (https://straightlinelogic.com/2021/08...
People fighting for their homeland have, among other advantages, a moral advantage against an occupying power. They’re fighting for what’s theirs, not to steal and dominate what isn’t. It’s a lesson America’s revolutionary ancestors knew in their bones, but one most Americans have ignored, at staggering costs in blood and treasure, through America’s string of failed invasions and occupations since World War II. It’s also a lesson that should, but won’t, make those who presume to rule us quake. While the government is part of America, it is no longer of America (our rulers now pride themselves on their separateness), just as our puppet governments in the lands we’ve occupied have been part of those countries, but not of them. In other words, the government is an occupying power in our land, and is destined to meet the fate of so many occupying powers.
People fighting for their homeland have, among other advantages, a moral advantage against an occupying power. They’re fighting for what’s theirs, not to steal and dominate what isn’t. It’s a lesson America’s revolutionary ancestors knew in their bones, but one most Americans have ignored, at staggering costs in blood and treasure, through America’s string of failed invasions and occupations since World War II. It’s also a lesson that should, but won’t, make those who presume to rule us quake. While the government is part of America, it is no longer of America (our rulers now pride themselves on their separateness), just as our puppet governments in the lands we’ve occupied have been part of those countries, but not of them. In other words, the government is an occupying power in our land, and is destined to meet the fate of so many occupying powers.
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Perhaps a more simplistic way to express these current events is a closely knit group of 7th century savages just demonstrated to the so called civilized world the logic and wisdom embodied in the Star Trek "Prime Directive" and what happens when that directive is ignored.
George Washington warned the US should not “...entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition..” and I suspect by extension our own ambitions (or the greed of the powers that be) entangling us elsewhere as well.
Thomas Jefferson gave us the example of what to do when such people try to bully us as he dealt with the Barbary pirates: Bomb, burn, and go home while leaving a message not to irritate us again. Nation building was not in his vocabulary.
Maybe rebuilding Japan and Germany after WWII, which worked wonderfully, was a lesson being followed here, but the Taliban are not the same as Japanese and Germans.
...hey, I'm just rambling on here after reading an interesting article.