Think of it: 28 years after the Soviet army limped out of that infamous "graveyard of empires" at the end of a decade-long struggle in which the U.S. had backed the most extreme groups of Islamic fundamentalists (including a rich young Saudi by the name of Osama bin Laden), 16 years after the U.S. returned to invade and "liberate" Afghanistan, they're still at it. In December, with Donald Trump lifting various constraints on U.S. military commanders there, the generals were, for instance, sending in the planes. That month there were more U.S. air strikes -- 455 in a winter period of minimal fighting -- than not just the previous December (65) but December 2012 (about 200) when 100,000 U.S. troops were still in-country. The phrase of this moment among U.S. military officers in Afghanistan, according to Max Bearak of the Washington Post: "We're at a turning point." Another: "The gloves are off." (Admittedly, no U.S. commander has as yet reported seeing "the light at the end of the tunnel," but don't rule it out.)
In the meantime, drones of both the armed and unarmed surveillance variety are being reassigned to Afghanistan in rising numbers (as well as more helicopters, ground vehicles, and artillery). With the recent announcement that 1,000 more personnel will soon head for that country, U.S. troop strength continues to grow, bringing the numbers of American advisers, trainers, and Special Operations forces there up to perhaps 15,000 or more (as opposed to the 11,000 or so when Donald Trump entered the Oval Office).
In addition, the military has plans to double the size of Afghanistan's own special ops forces and triple the size of its air force, while the head of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, is calling for far more aggressive actions by those American-advised Afghan security forces in the upcoming spring fighting season. (To put this in perspective, a 2008 U.S. military plan to spend billions of dollars ensuring that the Afghan air force was fully staffed, supplied, trained, and "self-sufficient" by 2015 ended seven years later with it in a "woeful state" of disrepair and near ruin.) Meanwhile, as part of this ramp-up of operations, the Navy is planning to hire drone-maker General Atomics to fly that company's surveillance drones in Afghanistan in what's being termed "a 'surge' of intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance capabilities."
If all of this sounds faintly familiar to you, I'm not surprised. In fact, if you've already stopped paying attention -- as most Americans on the nonexistent "home front" seem to have done when it comes to most of America's wars of this era -- I just want you to know that I completely understand. Sixteen repetitive years later, with the Taliban again in control of something close to half of Afghanistan, your response couldn't be more all-American. Surges, turning points, more aggressive actions, you've heard it all before -- and when it comes to Afghanistan, the odds are that you'll hear it all again.
And don't for a moment think that this doesn't add up to another version of sending in the clowns.
If you don't believe that retired General James Mattis, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, and retired General James Kelly, aka the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, and the White House chief of staff, respectively, are clowns, if you're still convinced that they're the "adults" in the Trumpian playroom, check out Afghanistan and think again. But don't blame them either. What else can a clown do, once those giant floppy shoes are on their feet, their faces are painted, and the bulbous red nose is in place, but act the part? So many years later, they simply can't imagine another way to think about the world of American war. They only know what they know. Give them a horn and they'll honk it; give them Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy and they'll still honk that horn.
For the last decade and a half, through invasions and occupations, surges and counterinsurgency operations, bombing runs and drone strikes, commando raids and training missions, they and their colleagues in the U.S. high command have helped spread terror movements across significant parts of the planet, while playing a major role in creating a series of failing or failed states across the Greater Middle East and Africa. They've helped uproot whole populations and transform major cities into spectacles of ruin. Think of this as their twenty-first-century destiny. They've proven to be key actors in what has become an American empire of chaos or perhaps simply an empire of graveyards.
They can't help themselves. Forgive them, Father, for they are clowns led by the greatest clownster-in-chief in the history of this country. Yes, he makes even them uncomfortable because no one can pull the curtains back from the reality of the imperial presidency in quite the way he can. No one can showcase our grim American world, tweet by outrageous tweet, in quite his fashion.
And yes, it can all look ludicrous as hell, but don't laugh. Don't even think about it. Not now, not when we're all at the circus watching those emanations from hell perform. Instead, be chilled -- chilled to the bone. Absurd as every pratfall may be, it's distinctly a vision from hell, an all-American vision for the ages.
Tom Engelhardt is a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The United States of Fear as well as a history of the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture. He is a fellow of the Nation Institute and runs TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
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Copyright 2018 Tom Engelhardt
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