US Government on the lookout for its next costly geopolitical blunder
Twenty years in, and we can call it a day in Afghanistan. Clap the dust off your hands in a confident manner, break out the champagne and Mission Accomplished sign, crank “We are the Champions” by Queen to eleven on your This is Spinal Tap-inspired speakers, and breathe a sigh of relief. We’ve done our job and gotten out of Dodge.
It took the Taliban about five minutes to retake the capital. The Afghanistan army absorbed $88 billion being trained to repel the attack any intelligent person knew was inevitable once the varsity team took the bus ride home and probably fought bravely for at least a minute and a half. I’d say that’s money well-spent. And you know what? Good for them. They’re giving the French a run for their money on quick surrenders. If you’re not busy doing something better than the French, what are you really doing with your life?
You have to respect the Taliban’s starting lineup. They just wanted it more. One wonders if they were in their locker room giving the losers “a lot of credit” whilst commencing with the celebratory raping of goats, manufacturing the world’s best heroin (so I’ve heard from…a friend), and taking books away from young women.
AP News reports the following costs for a war that has been running since home landlines and answering machines were still a thing:
Afghan military, police, Taliban fighters, and civilians: 164,436
Allied service members from other nations, aid workers, and journalists: 1,660
Real people (A.K.A. American service members and contractors): 6,294
Monetary cost to Americans: $2 trillion
Estimated interest costs by 2050 (because much of it was financed by the government, who—one presumes—had to front Jupiter as collateral): $6.5 trillion
$6.5 trillion is a big number. That’s like a gazillion-cagillion-funpillion dollars! Even Napoleon Dynamite couldn’t make that much in five seconds. Did you know if you stacked $6.5 trillion in $1 bills, you’d reach the end of your task before the DCEU ever catches up to the MCU in scope, box office success, and quality as determined by aggregated Rotten Tomatoes scores?
What can we say we accomplished in Afghanistan? At least we brought democracy to a people completely disinterested in democracy. At least we can say we really taught Muslim extremists a lesson they won’t soon forget for as long as it takes for them to regroup and get back to their game plan of hating like…everybody. At least we can say we royally screwed up a country that already struggled with getting its act together. At least we can say we firebombed the ever-loving daylights out of some large rocks and turned them into smaller rocks. At least we can say we brought the “world police” subtitle from the underrated and underappreciated 2004 vehicle Team America: World Police closer to reality and farther away from satirical farce. But where do we go from here?
Well, it’s interesting that you’d ask that question in the form of a rhetorical paragraph-ending question composed by the writer of this article. Thirsty for Clicks has it on good authority that presiding prunejuice-swilling-soup-for-dinner-at-4pm-septuagenarian Joe Biden and his secretaries of War, Defense, and Homeland Security are eyeballing several countries that have real potential to become our next exciting and obscenely expensive geopolitical quagmires. It makes statistical sense to be a wartime president from a reelection point of view. And if you can’t goad some angry hillbillies from a failed state to start a war with you, you’ve got to get in the kitchen and do some cooking yourself.
Would the money typically spent on war better be suited to ending suffering here in America, you say? That’s the thing. It’s the government’s money. Who are we to tell them what to do with it? They earned it fair and square through forced seizure and they really don’t think you’re striking the proper tone so fix your face or they’ll fix it for you with the American government version of a Jihad.
We could always work our magic in Israel and Palestine again but that’s kind of played out and Democrats count on liberal Jews voting for them but don’t make habit of swiping right for Israeli, conservative, and religious Jews. It’s just a matter of time before North Korea fails to pass the vibe check but America’s got a high body count in Asia and no one respects a slut coming back for a re-tap, no matter the current no-shame culture we live in. We’ve heard they’re assessing situations in different African countries for potential American-led wars just to further test the seemingly limitless boundaries of black people’s loyalty and devotion to the DNC, having been astonished at the absence of backlash to things like Oregon lowering academic standards for graduating black kids and telling black people in Georgia they can’t afford internet, don’t know how to MapQuest the best route to the DMV, and can’t be expected to carry a state ID, so they can just vote on the honor system.
I’m super jazzed for whatever is in store. I live and work in the ghettos of Flint, Michigan and there’s nothing I see on a daily basis that would justify allocating money to my hometown’s benefit. Absolutely nothing.
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Image taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/p4cb9q/the_taliban_have_more_blackhawk_helicopters_than/