{"id":12213,"date":"2012-08-30T17:01:12","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T00:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12213"},"modified":"2012-08-30T17:09:40","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T00:09:40","slug":"afghanistan-where-empires-go-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12213","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan, Where Empires Go To Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Quickly Will the U.S. Leave Afghanistan?<\/em>
\n
\nThe Best Laid Plans – Losing It in Washington <\/strong>
\nBy Tom Engelhardt – 26 August, 2012<\/p>\n

In the wake of several deaths among its contingent of troops in a previously peaceful province in Afghanistan, New Zealand (like France and South Korea) is now expediting the departure of its 140 soldiers. That\u2019s not exactly headline-making news here in the U.S. If you\u2019re an American, you probably didn\u2019t even know that New Zealand was playing a small part in our Afghan War. In fact, you may hardly have known about the part Americans are playing in a war that, over the last decade-plus, has repeatedly been labeled \u201cthe forgotten war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, maybe it\u2019s time to take notice. Maybe the flight of those Kiwis should be thought of as a small omen, even if they are departing as decorously, quietly, and flightlessly as possible. Because here\u2019s the thing: once the November election is over, \u201cexpedited departure\u201d could well become an American term and the U.S., as it slips ignominiously out of Afghanistan, could turn out to be the New Zealand of superpowers.<\/p>\n

You undoubtedly know the phrase: the best laid plans of mice and men. It couldn\u2019t be more apt when it comes to the American project in Afghanistan. Washington\u2019s plans have indeed been carefully drawn up. By the end of 2014, U.S. \u201ccombat troops\u201d are to be withdrawn, but left behind on the giant bases the Pentagon has built will be thousands of U.S. trainers and advisers, as well as special operations forces to go after al-Qaeda remnants (and other \u201cmilitants\u201d), and undoubtedly the air power to back them all up.<\/p>\n

Their job will officially be to continue to \u201cstand up\u201d the humongous security force that no Afghan government in that thoroughly impoverished country will ever be able to pay for. Thanks to a 10-year Strategic Partnership Agreement that President Obama flew to Kabul to seal with Afghan President Hamid Karzai as May began, there they are to remain until 2020 or beyond.<\/p>\n

In other words, it being Afghanistan, we need a translator. The American \u201cwithdrawal\u201d regularly mentioned in the media doesn\u2019t really mean \u201cwithdrawal.\u201d On paper at least, for years to come the U.S. will partially occupy a country that has a history of loathing foreigners who won\u2019t leave (and making them pay for it).<\/p>\n

Tea Boys and Old Men<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plans are one thing, reality another. After all, when invading U.S. troops triumphantly arrived in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in April 2003, the White House and the Pentagon were already planning to stay forever and a day — and they instantly began building permanent bases (though they preferred to speak of \u201cpermanent access\u201d via \u201cenduring camps\u201d) as a token of their intent. Only a couple of years later, in a gesture that couldn\u2019t have been more emphatic in planning terms, they constructed the largest (and possibly most expensive) embassy on the planet as a regional command center in Baghdad. Yet somehow, those perfectly laid plans went desperately awry and only a few years later, with American leaders still looking for ways to garrison the country into the distant future, Washington found itself out on its ear. But that\u2019s reality for you, isn\u2019t it? …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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How Quickly Will the U.S. Leave Afghanistan? The Best Laid Plans – Losing It in Washington By Tom Engelhardt – 26 August, 2012 In the wake of several deaths among its contingent of troops in a previously peaceful province in Afghanistan, New Zealand (like France and South Korea) is now expediting the departure of its more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3439],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12217,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12213\/revisions\/12217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}