Four More Years: Central and South Asia

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Four-More-Years-Central-a-by-Conn-Hallinan-121201-975.html




Four More Years: Central and South Asia
By Conn Hallinan
OpEdNews Op Eds 12/1/2012 at 20:33:48

From the ice-bound passes of the Hindu Kush to the blazing heat of the Karakum Desert, Central Asia is a sub-continent steeped in illusion. For more than two millennia conquerors have been lured by the mirage that it is a gateway to immense wealth: China to the east, India to the south, Persia to the west, and to the north, the riches of the Caspian basin. Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, British, and Soviets have all come and gone, leaving behind little more than forgotten graveyards and the detritus of war.

~snip~

It is a clich© that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, but a clich© doesn't mean something is not true, just that it is repeated over and over again until the phrase becomes numbing. It is a tragedy that the US was "numb" to that particular platitude, although we have company. In the past 175 years England has invaded Afghanistan four times.

Our 2001 invasion was itself built on a myth -- that the Taliban had attacked the US on 9/11 was fabricated to lay the groundwork for the invasion of Iraq 17 months later. That both invasions turned into disasters is hardly surprising. Rudyard Kipling and TE Lawrence predicted those outcomes more than a 100 years ago.

~snip~

In short, the US needs to get out, and as quickly as possible. Its NATO allies have already boarded that train -- the French are leaving a year early, the Dutch are gone, and the Brits are bunkered down -- and prolonging the war is more likely to end in a debacle than any outcome favored by Washington. It is not our country, we don't get to determine its history. That is a lesson we should have learned in Vietnam, but apparently did not.