What About Our Afghanistan ‘Allies?’
The last time the United States ended a war by sitting down and telling the country we beat what was going to happen now that they lost, was World War II. With the exception of Desert Storm, which was really a training exercise to test smart bombs and other hi-tech, military gadgets developed during the Reagan years, every other conflict where we had boots on the ground — Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan — was really a civil war in which we chose to help one side against the other.
This latest episode was allegedly the result of a 20-year attempt to get rid of the Taliban who had given Bin Laden a safe haven before the Twin Towers attack in 2001. Of course, it turns out that just about the entire gang that hijacked those four jetliners on 9–11 were actually from Saudi Arabia. I notice how we invaded Saudi Arabia to make things right, right?
So, yesterday I was watching the NBC Nightly News and ol’ Lester (that’s Lester Holt) was talking about how we needed to get all these guys out of Afghanistan who had served as interpreters for our troops. Their role was to accompany our troopers into the field and interpret what was said when our boys captured some Taliban schmendrick (that’s Grandpa-talk for some poor unfortunate), whacked him over the head a few times and asked him where his buddies were hiding out.
In other words, these Afghan ‘interpreters’ were fingering other Afghans who would then receive the usual treatment that Taliban fighters received from U.S. troops. Fine. That’s what happens in war. You shoot someone or someone shoots you.
But what blew my mind as I listened to ol’ Lester run through his script, and the same script was then repeated by Richard Engel, the NBC correspondent in Afghanistan, was how ol’ Lester referred to these interpreters.
He called them allies! He actually used that word and he used it more than once. Allies. Ze hais? (Grandpa for ‘understand?’)
These so-called allies were employees of the United States Department of Defense. They didn’t ally with us because they believed that we were right, and the other side was wrong. They allied with us because they got paid, the same way that other Afghans got paid to clean the latrines at our military installations, wash the dishes at KP, take out our garbage, whatever menial tasks needed to be done.
Referring to these interpreters as ‘allies’ is a disgrace. It’s a complete and total debasement of the English language, it’s also a shabby and shoddy attempt to disguise our true role in Afghanistan, which had nothing to do with building any kind of political alliance at all.
Know our real reason for being in Afghanistan? We were there because after 9–11 we had to show everyone that we still had the biggest swinging dick in the Near East. Nobody was going to knock down the Twin Towers and blast a hole in the wall of the Pentagon and walk away scot-free. Like the lady in Alabama who explained why she wasn’t going to support a mandate to receive the vaccine: “You push me, I push back.”
If the United States is enamored of one, basic behavioral trait, it’s the idea that no matter what, we have a God-given right to stand our ground. We don’t get out of the way. We don’t try to find another place to be. I’m here and if you don’t like it, tough sh*t.
And guess who among us is always ready to come up with another justification for standing our ground? The liberal media, that’s who. You think it was just a coincidence that both Lester Holt and Richard Engel described these interpreters as ‘allies?’
Don’t worry. When the first planeload of ‘allies’ lands at Andrews or some other air base, the liberal media will be standing there waiting to interview the ‘heroes’ as they get off the plane.
