The Folly of "Nation Building"

 While I hunker down in front of the computer on a bright Sunday morning, the Taliban hunkers down on the outskirts of Kabul in Afghanistan.

When the last American diplomat leaves Afghanistan in a few days or even hours, we will have an end to our latest debacle in "nation building".  This looks a lot like the fall of Saigon in 1975. Thank God for that fleet of American military helicopters that provides escape routes for diplomats and refugees. The good news is that we aren't pushing choppers off the decks of an aircraft carrier to make room for more to land as in the Vietnam disaster.

We spent close to $100 billion to train and equip the Afghan army and this was the best that they could do? Obviously the Afghanistan army strategists developed their plan by studying Custer's Last Stand and following the US Army strategy in that campaign.  In the United States we celebrated the "Battling Bastards of Bastogne" in World War 2. Today, the Afghans have the "Cowards of Kabul".

More than 100 years ago, George Santayana wrote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Those who doubt these words are invited to watch the news from Afghanistan and reconsider their opinions. This is Vietnam all over again. We send in hundreds of thousands of soldiers to bring democracy to some foreign land and end up wasting thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Why?

WRITE THIS DOWN!  If you are a politician, take a permanent marker and inscribe it on the palm of your hand, "Democracy isn't for everyone". I hate to disillusion you, but democracy does not work for everyone. If you don't believe me, ask the Biden Central Committee, who are trying to remake our nation in the model of the old Soviet Union where they had a "ruling class". There are many people incapable of making sound decisions on running their own lives and need the government to do it for them. In 1776, those people were not abundant in this nation. Today, we have raised a bumper crop of those folks who want the government to provide everything that they need.

So what do we do now? Trump had the correct idea, America First! If you can't take care of yourself, you will never be able to take care of others. Bring everybody home and let's work out another plan. Why do we send money to China to fund anything?  Why send money to countries that hate us? Close the borders and work out our own problems. Physician, heal thyself.

Every day, freedom is diminished in the United States. At the time we were invading Afghanistan and seizing power there to "bring democracy to Afghanistan", we implemented the Patriot Act in this nation. The Patriot Act is at the very top of the list of laws that were completely misnamed, The Patriot Act only gave the government more control over our lives and reduced our freedom.. 

So what's the point of this rant? "Nation Building" doesn't work. It didn't work for us in Iran, it took a long time to work in South Korea and we still have thousands of troops there, it didn't work in Vietnam, and it is not going to work in other countries that we are pouring borrowed money into and thinking that we will make a difference. 

Let's clean our own house first!