Written by Patrick J. Buchanan; Originally appeared at Buchanan.org
“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire,” said Winston Churchill to cheers at the Lord Mayor’s luncheon in London in November 1942.
True to his word, the great man did not begin the liquidation.
When his countrymen threw him out in July 1945, that role fell to Clement Attlee, who began the liquidation. Churchill, during his second premiership from 1951-1955, would continue the process, as would his successor, Harold Macmillan, until the greatest empire the world had ever seen had vanished.
While its demise was inevitable, the death of the empire was hastened and made more humiliating by the wars into which Churchill had helped to plunge Britain, wars that bled and bankrupted his nation.
At Yalta in 1945, Stalin and FDR treated the old imperialist with something approaching bemused contempt.
War is the health of the state, but the death of empires.
The German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires all fell in World War I. World War II ended the Japanese and Italian empires — with the British and French following soon after. The Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989. Afghanistan delivered the coup de grace.
Is it now the turn of the Americans?
Persuaded by his generals — Mattis at Defense, McMasters on the National Security Council, Kelly as chief of staff — President Trump is sending some 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to augment the 8,500 already there.
Like Presidents Obama and Bush, he does not intend to preside over a U.S. defeat in its longest war. Nor do his generals. Yet how can we defeat the Taliban with 13,000 troops when we failed to do so with the 100,000 Obama sent?
The new troops are to train the Afghan army to take over the war, to continue eradicating the terrorist elements like ISIS, and to prevent Kabul and other cities from falling to a Taliban now dominant in 40 percent of the country.
Yet what did the great general, whom Trump so admires, Douglas MacArthur, say of such a strategy?
“War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.”
Is not “prolonged indecision” what the Trump strategy promises? Is not “prolonged indecision” what the war policies of Obama and Bush produced in the last 17 years?
Understandably, Americans feel they cannot walk away from this war. For there is the certainty as to what will follow when we leave.
When the British left Delhi in 1947, millions of former subjects died during the partition of the territory into Pakistan and India and the mutual slaughter of Muslims and Hindus.
When the French departed Algeria in 1962, the “Harkis” they left behind paid the price of being loyal to the Mother Country.
When we abandoned our allies in South Vietnam, the result was mass murder in the streets, concentration camps and hundreds of thousands of boat people in the South China Sea, a final resting place for many. In Cambodia, it was a holocaust.
Trump, however, was elected to end America’s involvement in Middle East wars. And if he has been persuaded that he simply cannot liquidate these wars — Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan — he will likely end up sacrificing his presidency, trying to rescue the failures of those who worked hardest to keep him out of the White House.
Consider the wars, active and potential, Trump faces.
Writes Bob Merry in the fall issue of The National Interest:
“War between Russia and the West seems nearly inevitable. No self-respecting nation facing inexorable encirclement by an alliance of hostile neighbors can allow such pressures and forces to continue indefinitely. Eventually (Russia) must protect its interests through military action.”
If Pyongyang tests another atom bomb or ICBM, some national security aides to Trump are not ruling out preventive war.
Trump himself seems hell-bent on tearing up the nuclear deal with Iran. This would lead inexorably to a U.S. ultimatum, where Iran would be expected to back down or face a war that would set the Persian Gulf ablaze.
Yet the country did not vote for confrontation or war.
America voted for Trump’s promise to improve ties with Russia, to make Europe shoulder more of the cost of its defense, to annihilate ISIS and extricate us from Mideast wars, to stay out of future wars.
America voted for economic nationalism and an end to the mammoth trade deficits with the NAFTA nations, EU, Japan and China.
America voted to halt the invasion across our Southern border and to reduce legal immigration to ease the downward pressure on American wages and the competition for working-class jobs.
Yet today we hear talk of upping and extending the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, of confronting Iran, of sending anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine to battle pro-Russia rebels in the east.
Can the new custodians of Trump’s populist-nationalist and America First agenda, the generals and the Goldman Sachs alumni association, be entrusted to carry it out?
Trump, Trump, Trump.
Trump is shit. he is just a big shit.
Trump is like : “Well, we have lost in Afghanistan but we must show to the sheeple americans that we have lost. We must not show to the sheeple american sthat vets died for absolutly nothing”. XD.
Yes. You loose because you want to make war at Afghans. So, you will loose for sure. Just withdraw from Afghanistan. And for sure the Taliban will exterminate the traitors. But the traitors must die, thta’s their purpose.
How can U$ America have lost ….. Both Bush and Obongo claimed Wins …. and Trmpz wants to make the same Claim ….
Implicit in the title is the assumption that we actually know what Trump’s agenda is. Given that his campaign rhetoric contained a little something for many parties, I don’t think we actually know that–and it’s a fair question if Trump knows it himself, beyond that he wanted to be president. Or maybe he did have an idea of what he wanted; but when for the general, he accepted the outside money which he’d decried during the primary, that agenda went out the window.
i think in this case it’s fair to assume his agenda is similar to the corporations/neocons/gobalists/mic
Trump belongs to the deep state now. All the doubt about during the election are coming true. Afghanistan was never about democracy or even terror – but making the secret rulers of US of A rich.
trump os fullfilling his blody agenda: america first, america great again!
he probably always was
extra news – today on the Jimmy Dore show – under Bush the Taliban surrendered – few were left in Afghanistan. Rejected by the gov’t, instead to fuel the war innocents were labeled taliban were sent Guantanamo. The Afghan populace took a fresh liking o them since America was bombing the country a generation.
People like Patrick J. Buchanan and several commentastors here think THEY are the middle of the Trump world. You are not. In many matters more like a needed hobby. Its about from 8.000 to 14.000 troops and allies engaged there shoudl send some troops as well.
You really do overestimate what Trump is are and were. Its populism as its worst and that character was only elected because the alternative was the very stiff Hillary Clinton.
Under Obama it was the Republicans which ran the business as now. If it was shoes the change are hardly from light to dark brown.
Its still McCain and warfare comitty running it. Obama just made the policis a little less visible and Trump seemes to be an elephant in a glass house.
To me its not to rely much of Trump words. I am a good western drinking alcohol as we normal do, because Noah said so. But having a drink or two too many, I could be better then him, which says the standard is very low, and we has to rely on all those, which will and can calm him down.
Thats the good thing about democrasies. When parts are out of order like Trump or Nixon it is possible to stop and change many mistakes and the system dont get down. So I vote for almost nothing will happen in US foreign policy in his time.
Its not only in those Afghanistan matters, but many and in trade as well.
And let me remind some of You, that Russia invaded the hopeless civile war in Afghanistan killing and killing – And thats why the Monster of El Qaida was made.
And we again and again read its about oil to america. Its the solution to everything bad in the whole Islamic world from Gebel El Tarek to the Pacific ocean.
Well its not. More like a very thick carpet covering Yourself in old days, where oil only were for lamps and should stay so.
Trmpz agenda …. War
We all recall Trmpz launching Cruize Missiles at Syrian Civilians to cover up U$ american Chemical preparation fir an attack !