Sampad Patnaik
In December 2019, the Washington Post published its investigation into an 18-year-old propaganda by the US government about military successes in Afghanistan, while “hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.” The Post mentioned that it could only publish after a three-year-long legal battle under the US Freedom of Information Act.
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The story revealed that piling frustration among generals and experts finally breached the US government’s information smokescreen. By 2019, a conservative estimate of US expenditure in Afghanistan was at around $978 billion over 17 years. At the same time, the occupation failed in achieving three critical goals – reducing corruption, training and organising indigenous army and police, and gutting the country’s opium trade that financially sustained the Taliban. The failure and the lies of the Afghan war were traced to three successive administrations – under George Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
This story was largely ignored by most US media. But in the little coverage it received, the US government was made to appear well-intentioned. The Post itself wrote that the US government could not settle on clear objectives and was also unable to “tell friend from foe.” It added that ushering in a culture of democracy was stymied by the indigenous culture’s stubborn strands of “tribalism, monarchism, communism, and Islamic Law.”
The US media tried to spin large-scale corruption of enormous US government expenditure in Afghanistan as a problem only among Afghans. However, it is hard to believe that the US intelligence and politicians had absolutely no idea about thousands of ghost Afghan soldiers that were supposedly being paid for training, but never existed. High-grade military equipment often disappeared without a trace. With its military-technological prowess, the US could not locate and uproot opium trade – the economic lifeline of the Taliban – to a large extent.
The discomfiting explanation is that many representatives and affiliates of the US government participated in this elaborate corruption. Loot of this magnitude had to have the blessings of American bureaucrats, military contractors, intelligence operatives, politicians, and even some senior military personnel. However, a reading of the US history and its ‘nation building’ projects point to a deeper problem – this corruption is merely a consequence of a structural problem in the American economy- the Military Industrial Complex (MIC).
America’s MIC is a trillion dollar business through an alliance between its defence industry and top military-security establishment, seeking to determine foreign policy. The MIC generates huge profits and high-paying jobs from the invasion and occupation of other countries. But the project is presented as “protecting or ushering in democracy,” “nation building,” “protection of religious and sexual minorities.” To earn legitimacy around the globe, the MIC playbook was also deployed in Afghanistan to bring forward some women and minorities to token positions of power.
The MIC’s “permanent wars” are unpopular among the majority of Americans, who noted that in Afghanistan alone there were around 2,500 deaths of their troops, physical and mental trauma of thousands from among 775,000 American soldiers. Most of these soldiers come from the working and lower middle classes. Americans understood how Afghanistan, by 2020, drained $2 trillion in expenditure, while benefiting select corporations. As a recent article analysed, “If you purchased $10,000 of stock evenly divided among America’s top five defense contractors (Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics) on September 18, 2001 — the day President George W. Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and faithfully reinvested all dividends, it would now be worth $97,295.”
The threat of the MIC was flagged as early as 1961. Outgoing President Eisenhower had then spoken of “a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… the total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.” Anti-war activists have been warning that the MIC hand is seen in America’s forays into Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. Every new country that America steps into attracts fresh orders for choppers, armoured vehicles, bombs, guns, and assorted weapons. With a military budget of an estimated $778 billion, the USA was the world’s largest spender in 2020, accounting for 39 per cent of global military spending or as the next 12 largest spenders combined, as per an analysis by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Despite its war profiteering, the MIC has been largely flying under the radar of American political discourse. Mainstream media, heavily dependent on advertisements from defence manufacturers, actively works to suppress dissenting voices. As America withdrew from Afghanistan, media houses and vested interests have been exploiting the anguish of Afghans. Despite 20 years of failure, the Biden administration’s decision to exit is being portrayed as “sudden,” “irresponsible,” and “selfish.” Afghanistan has demonstrated a poor human rights record even during the height of American occupation. But the record is amplified or muted by US media depending on how profitable the war is for its defence advertisers.
America’s longest war may have ended, but Afghanistan is just one box on the chessboard. Ordinary Americans are helpless as the mighty alliance of the MIC, political class, military-security elite, and corporate media continue to recruit and sacrifice their children and their tax dollars to plunder countries in the Middle East and Africa. In capitalism’s holy ground, even democracy is a business.
The writer is an Oxbridge scholar and former journalist.
