Beyond the ‘mainstream’ framing and distortion, key readings on Afghanistan

Hasty exit

Empire’s legions crash and run

Hubris hushed

Trumpets silenced

Liberal hats still urging on

High-tech helmets chased by turbans 

Righteous mission over-spun

Weight of our so moral burden

Imperial bondage theirs to learn

Great Game upended

Deathly merchants

Spent armoury of lies and guns

The rapid fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has been widely treated by the Western political class and ‘mainstream’ media as a disastrous turn of events. 

In truth, beyond the tragic human carnage and sordid abandonment, the humiliating retreat of US, UK and other NATO forces represents a positive historic outcome in setting back the tyranny of imperialist invasion, occupation and plundering of states around the globe.

And, whatever troubling governance to come for Afghanistan, it reaffirms the ultimate right of determination for indigenous peoples over rapacious external forces. 

Glenn Greenwald makes the elementary point:

“Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan, not the U.S. and NATO.“

In their chaotic retreat, we now glimpse the true extent of the interventionist deceit and madness of this warmongering mission.

Or maybe not so mad for some. For when it comes to the motivations and manoeuvres of power, there’s always mercenary method in that madness. 

That interfering madness will continue in Afghanistan, as elsewhere, in whatever devious form.

Yet, as with Vietnam and the fall of Saigon, the liberation of Afghanistan and easy capture of Kabul illustrates the latest historic failure of imperial invasion and regime change as a model of control.