Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, chief architect of the Iraq war (he was Deputy Secretary of Defense, March 2001-June 2005), one of those responsible for putting the US in Afghanistan, and now Senior Fellow at the neoconservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (which is officially non-partisan, like all ‘good’ think tanks and NGOs), is worrying his pretty little head about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. As he watches the Taliban gain territory and basically defeat 20 years of American efforts, he frets to the BBC:

“To see it collapse in this way is really tragic, and I fear very dangerous.”

Good job, you fool.

Warmongering Wolfowitz then tells us he hopes Biden reverses his policy on withdrawing and tries “to buy some time.” After all, he points out, the US has a history of providing post-war stability:

“There’s this weariness with endless wars…but the fact is that the wars that we have ended—like the one with Japan, the one with Germany, the one with North Korea—were followed by American persistence and an ability to stay…and produce stability in Europe and East Asia that’s unprecedented historically.”

Yeah, it’s great that dropping not one but two atomic bombs produced post-War stability^[1]—not to mention American world dominance for decades to come. Oh and that’s funny, Paul, you forgot to mention your war in Iraq. Ah, that’s right, it’s left the country in utter shambles and killed around 200,000 civilians (though likely more). Mistakes happen sometimes, but it’s for the greater good, right? It’s not your kids and relatives dying, after all, so you can still sleep at night.

For anyone who wants to justify the US’s war in Afghanistan, it’s worth considering this description of the Battle of Tora Bora (December 6-17, 2001):

“…here is the architect of 9/11 escaping, and Donald Rumsfeld [essentially Wolfowitz’s boss at the time] is getting briefed on the Iraq war plan. That shows you where their head was at. And there was plenty of information, well known at the time, that Bin Laden was at Tora Bora, but no will to get him. There were more journalists at the Battle of Tora Bora by my count, than there were American soldiers” (full clip: 32:30-34:20)

So the man they supposedly wanted and went there to get was within reach, but they didn’t really bother? Sorry, what was the full purpose of the twenty-year war, with all its side agendas, again?

This is what a lot of the non-Western world is up against—people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, who gain power, destroy faraway places with their sick, distorted visions of what the world should look like (i.e. a place for them to reap as much as possible and leave nothing for others), and then live the rest of their lives in cushy positions like “Senior Fellow” at a think tank in Washington, helping to make sure other young diplomats and starry-eyed political wannabes become like them (internship, anyone?).

Allah protect us.

Notes

1. The threat of Russian invasion, rather than the atomic bomb, was likely the main reason for Japan’s decision to surrender, a view brought forth by the historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa (https://www.google.de/books/edition/Racing_the_Enemy/iPju1MrqgU4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Racing+the+Enemy:+Stalin,+Truman,+and+the+Surrender+of+Japan+(2005)&printsec=frontcover). A very brief overview here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/06/secondworldwar.comment1; and also at 7:00 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDSemU3gjSQ, though the entire clip is worth listening to, as Chomsky’s discussion of the utter lack of humanity that people have towards the dropping of atomic bombs—the Nagasaki one, he describes, being more of just a test to see if a different kind of bomb would be effective—is an important testament to the continued view of war by many in Washington. ↑

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