Joe Biden can whine all he wants while trying to blame Donald Trump for the quick collapse of Afghanistan and the ensuing exodus of all U.S. Government and contract employees, but Biden is wearing this turd. And it stinks to high heaven.
I think you are going to see a lot of anger directed at Biden and his team from the Deep State and the army of public and private companies that have been feeding at Uncle Sam’s porky pig trough. The total collapse of U.S. policy in Afghanistan means the multi-billion dollar contractor feeding frenzy is over. And I am not talking only about companies engaged in military support/security services. Other likely candidates for the budgetary chopping block as the flood of U.S. assistance shrivels to a trickle (if that) are so-called humanitarian organizations working with women and orphans in Afghanistan. I would not be surprised to learn that the U.S. Government was funding programs to support homosexual and transgender rights in Afghanistan. Yeah, I’m sure the Taliban will be keen on keeping that boondoggle going.
There was a working assumption among the Washington Deep Staters that despite the drawdown in U.S. military personnel ordered by Donald Trump, the need for military and intelligence contractors would continue. Take a look at this piece from last May by New York Magazine:
- Triple Canopy is hiring armed guards at Bagram to provide security for remaining U.S. personnel at four sites across the country.
- Raytheon Technologies is posting for logistics and intelligence analyst positions in Bagram.
- CACI and BAE Systems both posted jobs for signals intelligence specialists for an estimated term of 12 months.
- SOSi posted openings for intelligence analysts for yearlong deployments, where “the work environment could require 100 percent of time spent outdoors.”
- PAE, Inc., who scored nearly a billion dollars’ worth of contracts with the Pentagon over four years, is hiring for a contract for the State Department.
- Fluor Corporation is hiring for technicians, working for both the U.S. and the private sector.
- Louis Berger, who built and maintains the country’s largest power plant, inside Bagram, is posting more than 20 new positions at the base.
I suspect the earnings expectations for most, if not all, of these companies is swirling down the toilet or burning in the document destruction barrel as our “official” American residents scamper to the Kabul International Airport to await the “save-my-ass-from-the-Taliban” flight.
Trump’s plans to close down the contractor welfare program in Afghanistan is one of the reasons so many in the national security and defense sectors were rooting for Biden. They truly expected that the Biden team would reverse Trump’s decision to draw down the military effort. Big mistake. Slow Joe Biden apparently fell into a deep slumber this week and no one in his posse felt the need to wake him up and put together some sort of action plan.
Sort of reminds me of the Nazi Generals afraid to wake the sleeping Adolf Hitler to warn him that the D-Day invasion on the morning of June 6, 1944 was underway.
The Pentagon and the massive Defense spending cartel are going to have a tough time justifying more dollars for overseas misadventures that no longer exist. Not saying they won’t try, but rallying members of Congress to pony up more bucks for failed shitholes overseas is a tad difficult when the folks at home are fretting over the flood of illegal immigrants and soaring prices for food and fuel.
What are some of the other delights we can expect in the coming months from this fiasco:
- Increase in the production and distribution of heroin followed by more overdose deaths in the United States and Europe.
- Heightened tensions between the Sunni Taliban and Shia Iran.
- An economic decline in Pakistan as the army of truck drivers who supplied the insatiable appetites of Westerners deployed in Afghanistan with luxuries from home.
- An emboldened China will challenge the United States in Taiwan. If we won’t act to save Af-gone-a-stan, why would we lift a finger for Taipei.
The words of General George Patton still resonate:
Men, all this stuff you hear about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of bullshit. Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
We now know Patton was wrong. We have lost a war. Our second in forty years. And a vast majority of Americans are sick and angry about this.