Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges: US Collective Suicide – Consortiumnews
The debacle in Afghanistan, which will unravel into chaos with lightning speed over the next few weeks and ensure the return of the Taliban to power, is one more signpost of the end of the American empire.
The two decades of combat,
the one trillion dollars spent, the 100,000 troops deployed to subdue
Afghanistan, the high-tech gadgets, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare,
Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles and GBU-30 bombs and the Global Hawk
drones with high-resolution cameras, Special Operations Command composed of
elite rangers, SEALs and air commandos, black sites, torture, electronic
surveillance, satellites, attack aircraft, mercenary armies, infusions of
millions of dollars to buy off and bribe the local elites and train an Afghan
army of 350,000 that has never exhibited the will to fight, failed to defeat a
guerrilla army of 60,000 that funded itself through opium production and
extortion in one of the poorest countries on earth.
