TO THE CONSCIENCE OF AMERICA, HUMILIATION CLIMAXED IN AFGHANISTAN
By Ramakant Tiwari
United States Of America is a cocktail of immigrants whose identity can best be defined by the absence of an original, ancient identity. Biritish intruders invaded the continent in a bid to colonise to plunder all their wealth, wiped out entire race of original natives whom they called ‘Red Indians’ who happened to be neither red nor Indians. Thus was founded a sanguinary empire based on blood of ‘Red Indians’, deceit and conceit to dominate the world. For black-collar labour in fields they immigrated Africans, for blue and white collar jobs they immigrated hard-working talented Asians to become so-called super power led by white-collared ‘whites’. Large chunk of economic activity was ‘out-sourced’ to immigrants within the territory of America while the conceit ingrained in the British turned American psyche prodded them to lord over the world by whatever means. After World War-II, they went into a hyper drive, created an array of ‘International-Sahukars’ in the form of World Bank, IMF, IFC, WTO, FTA etc. to exploit and extort countries struggling to stand up to feed and house their people under siege behind the sham of human rights, child labour, gender and equality issues, unfair competition, globalisation etc.
As ‘self-appointed’ World-cop albeit mandated by considerably compromised United Nations, America has a history of invading countries far and wide for economic gains, for whimisical reasons then withdrawing tactically after the objective of plunder is completed. America believes in subtle-colonisation through puppet governments and not in the original British version of direct colonisation for territorial gains. That way, certain amount of credit certainly goes to America for being the military super-power coloniser without territorial aspirations and that was sufficient reason for them to declare themselves as a great anti-colonial power first to be liberated from vice like clutches of the Buckingham Palace in London. With these stars and stripes in the hat of Uncle Sam, American hegemony set out to subtle-colonise the world, often with the twin objective to counter Cold-war prowess of the earstwhile USSR. Owing to absence of a foundation that could inspire and adrenalise American soldiers on war-fronts, due to absence of a well-defined identity and ancient roots to sacrifice for, due to absence of a genuine cause to do or die in battle-field in a long haul, Americans gifted themselves a series of humiliating defeats even by smaller countries that possessed steel-will to guard their roots and heritage identified with their countries. Glimpses of US humiliation-galore makes an interesting reading.
Twenty years long Vietnam war with carpet-bombing of entire country gifted the first humble-pie to post World War-II USA after soldier-slaughter of 57,000 Americans and two million Vietnamese before 55-days long withdrawal process. Only political price that America paid was that President Lyndon B. Johnson declined to contest for second term in view of certain defeat.
Small country like North Korea refused to be humbled by the mighty US military machine in Korea war.
In the invasion of Bay of Pigs (‘Pigs’ to whom the bay actually belonged, may be debatable for some), Uncle Sam turned frigid and declined to militarily support anti-Fidel Castro rebels conceding Castro a cakewalk.
After 241 American troops were killed in a suicide bomb attack in early 1980s in Lebanon, Americans flew back merrily in response to their instincts to retreat instead of hitting back hard and wiping out entire terrorism from that tiny country. Yet, President Ronald Reagan is still regarded as one of remarkable war-hawks in US history.
They received a hard knockdown in Somalia in a UN approved mission, had egg on their face before deciding to retreat abjectly.
When US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed killing hundreds, instead of launching an all-out war on terrorism, they bombed a chemical factory in Sudan as well as training camps of Al-Queda just like Pakistan issued a ‘not to rejoice stern warning’ to Bharata when Laden was killed within a few hundred meters from Abbotabad Cantonment !!
Suicide bomb attack on USS Cole was taken by them in their own strides.
In 2001, supercilious President Bush set out in search of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq that did not exist at all. It was veiled by their ‘sincere’ desire to develop a ‘modern and vibrant’ democracy in Iraq after capturing Saddam Hussein. Bush never regretted for the illicit invasion based on false intelligence reports rather mentioned later in a press conference, Saddam Hussein had a carpet at the entrance of his office woven into a figure of his father George Bush Sr. that he used to step on everytime he moved in and out of his office. Pictures of the carpet shared worldwide, must have been reported by the CIA which prompted him to invade Iraq in search of the phantom of WMD !! So lofty are morals and scruples of America.
Pakistan had been another tale of humiliation for Obamas America when Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State admitted, they had been providing ‘milk to snakes’ in Pakistani backyards and left it to President Trump to stop flow of millions of US$ into that country as ‘reimbursement’ of expenses incurred on nourishing those ‘snakes’ of Hillary Clinton by providing that ‘milk’.
President Trump too, betrayed Kurds in 2019 by ordering his marines to return home from Syria and washed his hands off by declaring, “It’s not our problem.” And the same Trump was declared by Biden during Presidential election campaign, “most reckless and incompetent commander-in-chief we’ve ever had.”
These humiliating withdrawals were probably at the back of his mind that President Obama was reluctant to invade Syria and committed to withdraw from Afghanistan in an appropriate manner. Shock and surprise caused by such a sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan by President Biden was so unnerving that a new word ‘to biden means to ditch’ was added to English lexicon. His decision was amply described by Alexander Pope centuries before –
Lo! Thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restor’d;
Light dies before thy uncreating Word;
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And Universal Darkness buries All
Twenty years of Afghan operations by America led to man-slaughter of 2,448 soldiers, 3,800 U.S. contractors, 66,000 Afghans in uniform, 47,000 civilians, 51,000 terrorists and 450 relief personnel at the cost of 83 billion US$ including cost of 75,000 vehicles, 600,000 weapons and more than 200 fighter aircrafts. Not all that went down the drain on Aug. 15/16, 2021 as entire armamentarium was supplied by US corporates and paid with American taxpayers money !! Not only those with million US$ bounties on their heads announced by FBI are Ministers in Afghan Government to extreme humiliation of America but also proved themselves to be a devious ally who could never be trusted even when immense danger threatens security of the civilised world. Even now disclosed Doha-resolution could not mitigate their predicament as they not only handed over arms and ammunitions worth millions of US$ on a platter to worlds most dreaded fanatics and terrorists but also walked out of Bagaram air-base like cowards. Finally a President in office candidly confessed, “…we have been a nation too long at war…we no longer had a clear purpose.” When the spineless President mewed in a White House presser, “we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay”, he liberally garnished extreme humiliation of America with his comments for generations to be ashamed of. Not even once did he condemn those dreaded anti-humanity terrorists. Elected by riding on a wave of dubious anti-Trumpism, Biden now has to ride an anti-Biden wave for the rest of his first and last term in the White House before going down into history as a blabbering, blundering President nothing short of a blithering fool. One shudders to visualise the possibility of his sudden exit or demise and accession of Kamala Harris into the Oval Office which she may convert into a Laughter House with her Laughing Fits. Subtle hints by President Biden that now China is their topmost priority, does not cut ice at all. Whole world suspects their intentions now as they may tactfully decline to respond if China invades Japan, Korea or Taiwan. Or may be Americans have a left-over appetite for yet another humiliation-peak possibly in China. Then he handed over to China a golden opportunity on a platter to Debt-trap and colonise Afghanistan at least in immediate future.
NATO is in tatters ruing the fact that Biden did not have the basic courtesy of informing them of his catastrophic decision to suddenly withdraw. Had they recalled words of President Woodrow Wilson to British King George V in 1918, “You must not speak of us as cousins, still less as brothers…we are neither”, their frustration and disgust would not have been there as emotionalism was never a consideration in US-Europe relations. While UK, France and Germany have been toying with the idea to fill the vacuum by raising a European army for overseas missions, world had been an eye-witness to their slide into Islamic fundamentalism with hardly any perceptible action to stem the slide. Consequences of such operations would be disastrous for them, may even pose existential crisis for those countries.
After all this brouhaha, question pops up naturally, what’s military core-competence of America. Yes, there is one after all, much to the relief of so many. America specialises in stealth operations like killing Osama bin Laden in a mid-night swoop in his den by intruding international borders without informing host governments, by assassinating assertive world leaders to ensure regime change, carpet-bombing countries of their choice and smartly flying back to Andrews Air-base, slapping whimisical sanctions even against duly elected democratic governments, financing export of proselytising cults like Christianity to disrupt entire identity of target countries just like Chinese export communism after turning capitalists themselves etc. etc. Their duplicity and depravity are intertwined and nourish each other behind their Statue of Liberty off NY harbour which was amply detailed in ‘My War With CIA’ by Prince Narottama Singhanakh of Cambodia. Will Uncle Sam ever come to his senses ?
