St. Mark in Afghanistan
R.C. Roberts gives his observations on Afghanistan, noting that America did not lose, because it did what it came to do; it came to pillage
There are 610,000 Vietnam Veterans still alive in the United States today, according to the American War Library; what a name for an institution of such a peaceful, democratic, and morally superior nation. I imagine that, as of the 15th of August, they all became caught up in a collective deja vu; once again, the helicopters of our Fidélean Republic sank over the embassies of a foreign country, of which we were 'in conflict with', and flew away officials, 'military advisors' and soldiers. And behind them, a sun setting over a chaos beyond words.
The War on Terror began on September 11th, 2001, and rocked our otherwise sleepy Sixth Republic, who had contented itself with the Fukuyamian fantasy that the American Empire had triumphed, through the virtuous nature of capitalism and its devotion to democracy, over Soviet Communism. It sang the song of 'the end of History', imagined a world without crises, and believed that if all the world deregulated their markets, we could all meld into some Arthur Jensen-style 'holistic system of systems'. With the attacks on the Twin Towers, a fattened psychosis that had fed on a bogus corporate tat tvum asi was brought down to Earth.
Twenty years later, what has come of this awakening? We have attempted to therapize ourselves, to justify our denial of the obvious fact that our Empire is fragmenting, that we are not the superpower that we once were. The growth of therapy, as a profession and as an object of consumption, might as well be seen as the circling of a group of scavengers over a dead body; it means our decline has begun to smell.
On one side, we have the Imperialists; we see this denial in the sense of toeing the line on various economic theories that smack of traditionalist nostalgia; we must keep the course! Deregulate, get the government out of the way, until the population begins to protest our regressive policies. Take money from the poor and the working class and give it to the polizei who will crush them. The Imperialists seem to take the Empire for granted, and ask that we turn our military might against their own people, who suffer the most from this Empire. They talk of America as 'the policemen of the world', that old, worn out Rooseveltian description, and would be too happy to take up Mencken on his sarcasm that America might as well replace the Statue of Liberty with a statue of a policeman in a spiked helmet.
On the other side, we have the Anti-imperialists. Their ideology is one of a revolving door; just as many go in and accept it every year as those who leave it and decline its ideology. It shares the tendency of the imperialists to take our Empire for granted; talk to the nearest follower of Caitlin Johnstone neo-yippie or admirers of Glenn Greenwald, and you will hear a story told about the big, mean, all-knowing, all-encompassing American Empire, whose reach, rage, and military prowess knows no bounds. To them, we are not led by human beings but supervillains and mind controlling Gods who wish for nothing more than to destroy the world. They often recognize the role of the United States in worldwide suppression of different ideologies, but often decouple this from reality but not realizing that there are just as many operations committed by the CIA and FBI that fail as there are that succeed.
The failure of the U.S. in Afghanistan has been like a piece of meat thrown between hungry dogs; the imperialists and the anti-imperialists tug on it, trying to show their various opinions or beliefs are true. Each side have their various favorites, for both sides, putting their opinions in print or, if it so pleases the corporate powers, on television, while many people use this opprobrium to argue endlessly online, pretending the way they shout their opinion into cyberspace matters; each side makes their case to no one.
From the imperialists, we are told that we were not 'dedicated enough', and we watch their enablers crying on TV 'about the women', whom they do not bat an eyelash for when we hit them with our drone missiles. The noblesse de robe of the regime tells us about the empathy of soldiers and the military, hoping we do not remember what war actually is; one begins to notice that every military movie from Transformers to Marvel were cries by the military for an objective to make their senseless killing have a purpose. If we had 'cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war', our imperialists maintain, we would have won the war. Their issue, contrary to their cries and faux-empathy, is not that there is damage being done, but that the damage being done is both not by us, and that the damage we did was not fatal enough.
For the anti-imperialists, the failure in Afghanistan is never related to the U.S. Not in any meaningful way, anyhow; instead, it is dressed in the garb of moralism. The defeat of the U.S. is a sign from the Heavens above that the U.S. is evil, and that the world despises not only them, but all of 'the West'--which, curiously, never includes Russia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Turkey, or Scandinavia-- and shows to all who see it the essence of evil of the U.S. It never occurs to them that the U.S. lost, as they did in Vietnam, because the objective never was to win, nor does it occur to them that the empire they love to hate is waning; as a rule, a nation that begins going into debt to pay for an outsized military while leaving its infrastructure to rot is a nation that is in decline, and thus indulges in the paranoia that unless they can fight to the death, they will lose out to other nations. Afghanistan is more a sign of the decline of the U.S., as a nation and empire, rather than about its evils and the assumed moral retribution being awaited for by anti-imperialists, as if they were Seventh Day Adventists awaiting the predictions of William Miller.
What does Afghanistan mean? It means that the uniting illusion of the anti-imperialists and the imperialists--that is, that of the grand, all-encompassing, far reaching 'evil empire'--is false. One could argue that, perhaps, the U.S. was trying to 'colonize' Afghanistan and Iraq, in the way of empires past, but they would not have a grasp on the new mode of empire; empire of markets. America never really wanted control of Afghanistan, they wanted enough security to pillage it mostly unopposed. As we become increasingly unable to provide for our own people by way of investments in infrastructure, the American government will go into debt to maintain a massive military, both to palpate our paranoia and--primarily, in fact--to have a force that can take resources. America goes panning in other nations, and the strainer we use is our military. We did not lose in Afghanistan, in my opinion, we merely got all the gold nuggets we wanted, and now we could care less who controls the country.
It is also the case that Afghanistan stands as proof that the elite in America have long been aware of its limits, especially since Vietnam; it cannot go into another country and establish a country that lasts, or a vassal state, it can only cause countries to collapse, overturn elections, and weasel its way into controlling others' resources. This is imperialism, no doubt, but it is definitely not the type of imperialism conjured by the current crowd of anti-imperialists, nor is it the grandiose 'we can fight anyone' misplaced machismo of the imperialist crowd.
We have never had a Pax Romana because, contra popular narratives, you cannot and should not compare us to Ancient Rome; we have always been more like the Serene Republic, the Venetians. Our imperialism infiltrates through the marketplace, supported by ruthless Intelligence Agencies and clever military ruses. We do not conquer, we pillage; there is no Pax Romana, there is a Pax de San Marco. The Peace of St. Mark, which amounts to little more than the peace of markets.
Like the Venetians, we are far more ambitious than the Romans; they controlled the Mediterranean with legions, but the Venetians controlled it with spices, slaves, and spies. Like Venice, we would rather sack Constantinople than conquer Gaul.
Just look at Afghanistan.