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Five years ago, the 20-year American war in Afghanistan came to an inglorious end. In April 2021, the United States had begun its final withdrawal, with the goal of pulling out the 2,500 U.S. troops that remained in the country by September. Within weeks of the first U.S. departures, the Taliban had swept up scores of positions as Afghan government forces melted away. By early August, the group had taken control of most provincial capitals. Finally, on August 15, 2021, the U.S.-backed government in Kabul collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of terrified Afghans besieged the cityâs airport. Roughly 120,000 were evacuated in planeloads by the United States, its allies, and even groups of private citizens. In a heartbreaking final blow, 13 American service members died in a suicide bombing at the airport four days before the last U.S. soldier departed on August 30. Two decades of heroic effort had ended in shame.
Recriminations followedâsome justified, some not. The same group that had harbored al-Qaeda while it planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks had triumphantly returned to power, and fears of a resurgent terrorist threat mounted. After all, the main reason that successive American presidents had decided to keep U.S. forces in the country for so long was the belief that without them, Afghanistan would once again become a safe haven for terrorists even if the Taliban did not manage to take full control.
Nothing of the sort occurred. Over the past five years, not a single act of terrorism against the United States was carried out by a group based in Afghanistan. Washington spent roughly $1 trillion on the war. More than 120,000 Afghan civilians were killed or injured. More than 775,000 American service members were deployed to Afghanistan, more than 20,700 were injured, and more than 2,400 diedâall to defend against a threat that turned out to have been exaggerated. (...)
The United States of Amnesia and Threat Inflation.
One aspect of the current clash of civilizations that goes largely unnoticed in the US is that there is only one civilization, if we can call it that, doing the clashing. That would be the US and its arrangement of vassals that emerged from WWII. As if participating in an exploitation video called good vassals gone bad, the former liberal governments of Europe have moved hard to the foreign policy right. Through near complete reversal of the Western liberal order, the West is back to fighting WWII. Only without any defensive missiles. Or competent leaders.
Rumors, as in stories in the mainstream press, have it that the US is running dangerously low on defensive (âinterceptorâ) missiles. Iran reportedly possesses and has been using offensive (âstrikeâ) hypersonic missiles that fly too fast to be reliably intercepted. The minimum lead time for the US to produce more defensive missiles is three to five years. Without defensive missiles, US âassetsâ in the Gulf including (US) military bases cannot be defended against Iranian missiles. That US military planners didnât foresee this suggests that competence isnât their strength.
Not that Americans would know anything about it. No news or low-quality propaganda are what we are fed. For one-and-one-half-trillion-dollars-per-year (Pentagon budget), higher quality propaganda should be the least that we get. Depending on the telling, either Ansar Allah (the Houthis) or Iran-affiliated militias in Iraq (remember Iraq?) have destroyed critical oil and gas infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Aramco Jizan and Abqaiq Oil Stabilization Plant have been largely destroyed. Refineries and pipelines are ablaze. ...
The Saudi refineries that have been destroyed represent critical infrastructure that feeds global oil and gas supplies. Qatarâs Ras Laffan LNG processing facility was significantly destroyed in March. The Strait of Hormuz has now been substantially closed for five months with no signs of reopening. And the worldâs SPRs have been brought to dangerously low levels. The time-to-repair for both the Saudi facilities and Ras Laffan is five years. For those doing the math, the world is screwed. The consequences of Trumpâs war against Iran will be with us for decades. ... ...
