Armed with Weapons that Wound Them...

Retired Russian general, Pavel Grachev, calls the American fight in Afghanistan, “pointless.” He says that, like the Americans, when he was fighting the Mujahideen in Russia’s Afghanistan War, he thought he was doing what was necessary to keep Russia safe. It was only later, he says, that he realized how “pointless” it was.

To counter that stark assessment, the Obama Administration has come up with a lie, similar to the Bush Administration’s “Weapons of mass destruction” lie; the one Bush used to justify the war in Iraq. Obama’s lie: The Taliban pose a threat to the entire world. And just like the media cowed to Bush and refused to challenge him, this media—which is the same media; they kept their jobs—seems ready to roll over for Obama and collect their paychecks.

The first question to Obama should have been: “With what do the Taliban threaten the world?” They have neither a single airplane, nor a single ship, nor a single port; (Afghanistan is landlocked.) They have no long-range missiles, nor short-range missiles, yet we are to believe that they will destroy the world unless we send thousands of troops and billions of dollars to destroy them.

It could be a matter of pride: can’t be run off by a bunch of farmers. Imagine its biblical connotations: “nation of farmers and goat herders defeat superpower.” The likely conclusion would be that God is on their side. That would never do.

So, America assumes the role of liberator, and savior of mankind. In that drama, the people opposite us must be evil and bent on mankind’s destruction. Farmers? Goat herders? Destroyers of mankind? And with what will they destroy mankind—our own weapons of mass destruction?

In Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, ‘brigands” of Paris rise up and are summarily put down by the authorities. These “brigands” have no weapons to begin with; they have only their passions, and they come to fight “tooth and nail”. After being beat back, they surge again, this time “armed,” as Hugo writes, “with the weapons that wound them.”

This is the nature of the people we fight. They are poor, and except for some foreign fighters who have joined their cause, they are local. These “locals” are of Afghanistan; they are grounded there. They do not want to destroy the world. Anyone who tells you they do, is lying. These men only want to rule their own land, Afghanistan, like every other man on Earth wants to rule his.