“MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY”

Afghanistan: The Longest, Hopeless Invasion
By Hill Roberts

This essay began as a thread that I originally started on June 26, 2010 on Facebook, based on my comments as posted on BBC 4’s The Today Programme. I decided to put it into essay form here for others interested to know what’s going on in one of the poorest, most inhumane countries the world has ever seen in recent memory. The essay retains the original wording of my comments on the BBC 4 Programme, which can be found on the BBC4 Radio page on Facebook.

Five years is a hell of a long time to get out of Afghanistan. It's not a proper war the Brits and Americans are fighting for; rather, a culture and a deep misunderstanding and ignorance about the country's culture and thinking. This country has always been tribal, insular, with deep-seated beliefs no Western mind will ever understand. Forcing these people to think like the West is like forcing forceps into their bodies. It is the West's quest to insist on their own passion for "democratic principles" that will always remain putrid and unwanted by the Afghanis. Resistance has grown twenty-fold for the very reason that the West's presence was forced upon them... and why should they?
 
Who are they to do it? There are equally worse countries doing the same, inhumane things to their citizens—Somalia, Yemen, the Middle East, Burma, etc., yet, the meddling into Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq pale in comparison. We know why, don't we? Burma, thank goodness, is one stubborn country not to give in to the US and the UK. OK, it's human rights record is pathetic, to say the least, but by not allowing the West to meddle in its affairs, problems are localized and no spread of so-called revolutionaries have been formed. Too bad the CIA has failed in its attempts to meddle and plant their own self- proclaimed democratic new leaders (wide grin). Shame they managed to do it in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines. Haven't you noticed that each time the US meddles, trouble brews and worsens? Does the US really expect Afghanistan to change when all throughout the centuries, they've always been insular? 

Barbaric or not, it's how they want it to be—the West just can't barge in and impose their so-called "democratic principles". So, why force it on them? The US/UK have their own backyard to clean and clear, too. They should start there. Look at the billions of dollars and pounds spent on a country that has no wish to adopt their "democratic principles." The Russians tried it for twelve long years, to no avail. No one will ever succeed in Afghanistan. No one, not in a million years!
 
Above all, look at the needless deaths of young soldiers—and for what?? For what?

Indeed, it may be very frustrating to see Afghanistan that way, but there's no one who can do it than the Afghanis themselves. The West are just wasting their time, money and effort—a futile exercise in the 21st century. Time to rethink their policies as well as their mindset re eastern culture.
 
I don't think it's a question of victory. This is where the problem lies; that word is, in itself, a subscribed arrogance. Just what kind of victory do we expect from this when this war has nothing to do with Western values? This war has all to do with protecting the West's interests, so let's not be fooled into believing that they care about those ordinary Afghanis. If they do care about people and their rights, we only need to look at India's catastrophic Bhopal accident, where, to this day, those poor people haven't received a penny. Why on earth do they have to be in Afghanistan when securing the individual's country's borders is a better answer than a stupid invasion? This inexplicable invasion for the good of "democratic principles" is one big rubbish heap! Are the Western countries really there because of democracy and to impose it on them? For starters, democracy is an idealism that would need to be updated in the 21st century. Like it or not, democracy is a bad idea—it is corrupt, time-consuming, pretentious, arrogant.
 
Democracy, for me, is a misnomer. Look at India—boasting to be the world's biggest democracy. Oh, really? 650 million with no proper toilets and houses? Why?
Democracy would need countless people to approve a single economic project, and politicians waste their time signing/making legislations—better not to have elected political officials. Things move on an awful lot quicker. China, Singapore, Vietnam come to mind. Let's not pretend that democratic countries do not have torture chambers. Whatever we say, no one, but no one, can solve Afghanistan's problems, ills, and the way they treat their women. Frustrating to the core but that's the way it is in that country: the more the West meddle, the worse reaction there will be from them—it’s as simple as that—and it has nothing to do with anything, just bloody human nature passed through each Afghani generation, and never to change, ever! As for their women, the majority close ranks with their men for fear of reprisals—and for fearing fear itself. They, too, have helped encouraged their men to be what they are, or what they have become, since they allowed these narrow-minded folks to control them. It is control and obedience they impose.
 
As for victory, there are no victors in this—only victims on both sides. I'd say "subscribed arrogance" because this is what the Western governments employ, pretending to be something else. The long view would be OK, if governments worldwide update, and I emphasize the word "update"—their  policies and rethink how to deal with countries dissimilar to their own. Somehow, their policies are so 19th century!
 
"Subscribed arrogance" is what they employ and have been employing to justify their reasons for invading Iraq, Afghanistan, and other poorer countries. Result? Needless death, billions of dollars and pounds wasted, and they are nowhere near their planned agenda and rhetorical hummings. 
 
Will they ever learn? I doubt it. They want to rule the world, that's why—with tragic, tragic results.

(Note: Union Carbide supposedly settled with $500 million—but the money hardly went to the victims of that horrendous accident in Bhopal, India.)

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Five lay bare their thoughts on language, suffrage, carnage

Beginning this week’s edition of the Forum, we are relaunching the “Pour Your Mind in English” section under a new name, “My Thoughts Exactly.” This is to better capture the spirit and intent of the section, which is to promote and encourage the felicitous use of English in expressing ideas, thoughts, and feelings. As in the past, this section welcomes well-thought-out compositions in English, particularly original essays, short stories, and verses written by the Forum member himself or herself.

Five Filipino contributors from as many points of the globe have contributed to this maiden edition of “My Thoughts Exactly”; four of them are Forum members and the fifth a keen observer of its language goings-on. The contributors are (in the order of appearance of their articles) Fred Natividad of Livonia, Michigan, in the United States, “Medjugorie, Here They Come”; Arvin Antonio V. Ortiz of Davao City in the Philippines, “149 Minutes”; Raul S. Gonzalez of Mandaluyong City in the Philippines, “A Day in May”; Isabel Escoda of Hong Kong, “Some Tangled Tropes that Annoy Me”; and Hill Roberts of Marbella, Spain, “A Philippic Against the Social Obsession with Guns.”

Here are their thoughts, exactly:

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