a sentence that should be embroidered, framed and hung

[donsu]

"Nation-building is a term created by people living off Pentagon contracts."


http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_597.shtml



The parable of the hatchet or the nonsense of nation-building in Afghanistan


Nation-building is a term created by people living off Pentagon contracts. It is one of those queasy political expressions with no hard meaning, yet its use raises few eyebrows. The term sounds as though it means something, and it is treated as though it were something you might study. At least this is true in the United States where people are hypnotized by hype and substance-lacking words, where inflating nothing into something is an everyday art.

-snip-

Yet the warlords cannot be removed. They were an integral part of the American strategy for invading Afghanistan, and they remain pillars of the existing state. America’s strategy consisted of bombing the Taliban and their supporters while warlord militias did most of the dirty work on the ground. America sent in thousands of Special Forces to search the mountains for Osama bin Laden and remnant Taliban bands, but for the most part they have been no more successful than the Russians were years ago. They have been successful in alienating and insulting many villagers with their tactics of bursting in with guns and grenades firing.

Apart from having killed thousands with bombs and mines, this is pretty much the sum total of America’s achievement in Afghanistan. The Russians actually had done a better job of making secular changes, especially for women, but this was ignored in American propaganda to win support for the CIA’s costly mujahideen-proxy war, the war that gave us figures like Osama bin Laden and led to the eventual rule of the Taliban.

-snip-

Canadians and others find themselves in Afghanistan because a brutal American administration, in the wake of 9/11, instead of using diplomatic and legal powers to capture Osama and the boys, pressured everyone to support an invasion. Canada was later able to resist pressure for the even more pointless and destructive invasion of Iraq. Canadians today are asking what is the purpose of the mission in Afghanistan. The answers offered include that empty term, nation-building.
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[400Years]

1. so true