Afghanistan: Endless War

Operation Enduring Freedom, the name of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is looking more like Operation Enduring Disaster. The New York Times reported, “General McChrystal’s plan is a blueprint for an extensive American commitment to build a modern state in Afghanistan, where one has never existed, and to bring order to a place famous for the empires it has exhausted. This effort would most likely last many more years, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and entail the deaths of many more troops.” Notice the Times does not mention Afghan deaths and costs to Afghan society. And that is typical in U.S.-centric formulations. Afghans are mere extras on the set, moving in the shadows, called out by the director from time to time to utter a few lines, have chimerical elections and then disappear again. Imperialism is a serious movie.