Afghanistan Was a Ponzi Scheme Sold to the American Public

[Synthaholic]

There is nothing incorrect in this article. Thank you President Biden for ending this scam.

Afghanistan Was a Ponzi Scheme Sold to the American Public

When a scam falls apart, it collapses fast.

foreignpolicy.com

Afghanistan Was a Ponzi Scheme Sold to the American Public​

When a scam falls apart, it collapses fast.​

To understand the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, think of Bernie Madoff. It is helpful to see the U.S.-built Afghan state as a Ponzi scheme—it was all a house of cards, and, at some level, everyone knew it. Certainly, anyone who was familiar with the U.S. government’s own inspector general reports over the past 10 years would know.

For those unaware of the Madoff scandal, a Ponzi scheme is a series of lies, with little or no factual basis, that are sold to investors as brilliance. It depends on a continual infusion of funds from new investors; the new payments are initially used to pay the original investors. So long as more and more investors can be conned into providing their money, funds are found to pay previous investors, and the scam can continue. When it becomes hard to get continued funding, or when important investors begin to withdraw, others notice, become skeptical at first, then panic, and finally withdraw their money—and, as in a bank run, the rush for the exits ensues.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) notes that “Ponzi scheme organizers often use the latest innovation, technology, product or growth industry to entice investors and give their scheme the promise of high returns. Potential investors are often less skeptical of an investment opportunity when assessing something novel, new or ‘cutting-edge.’”

This definition can easily be applied to Afghanistan. First, there was a promise of very high return with little or no risk to the investor framed as a guarantee that the United States could defeat jihadis supported by and umbilically linked to Pakistan’s sprawling intelligence service, on their home turf, with only a small force, in a time frame tolerable to Americans, and with relatively few American casualties. Coming after a decade of American hubris following the demise of the Soviet Union, and amid the widespread fear and general panic after 9/11, the U.S. public was primed to believe in magic.


Investors were then told fantastical things by the Bush administration about how it had devised an entirely new approach to a terrible scourge and how it would eliminate evil. These promises were framed in terms of American exceptionalism, the mystique of special operations, the uncanny accuracy of armed drones, and the mysteries of counterinsurgency warfare decoded and applied by uniformed wizards.

This seduction often involved mystical and even incomprehensible ideas about why the original scheme was viable and would pay off. In 2001, Richard Armitage, then-President George W. Bush’s deputy secretary of state, exemplified this mumbo-jumbo in his comments to the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, who had tried to explain to him the complex history of the region, saying that “no, the history begins today.”

 

[Synthaholic]

Centuries of life in the valleys and mountains that became Pakistan in 1947—amid an exodus and religious pogroms that killed at least 500,000 people—were rendered irrelevant by the entry of the U.S. military into Afghanistan in 2001. The magical assumption was that Pakistan’s military and intelligence elite would not pursue their own national interests—as they defined them—which, of course, included continuing to support the Taliban and to provide safe havens across Pakistan’s 1,660-mile border with Afghanistan.

Although it may have been the most serious delusion, the belief that the ISI would cease to support the Taliban was hardly the only one. The Bush administration and its cheerleaders sold the notions that in Afghanistan, they could create a centralized, pro-American state where no such state had ever been successfully constructed; that they could transform rural mores; and that they could redefine traditional personal status arrangements. All this, their Ponzi pitch went, would be somehow achievable in a reasonable time frame, with minimal casualties and financial costs.

Many former officials expect U.S. intelligence to dry up.
Of course, as the SEC points out, none of the con artist’s claims are true; investors are at first paid by persuading still others to invest. Thus, the U.S. Congress continually allocated funds, while the administration gathered promises of support from other countries, never really questioning the viability of the project. “Kick the can down the road” was the equivalent of the imperative of attracting new investors in a Ponzi scheme. In this case, the grifters—a series of U.S. presidents—used these new funds to pay the original investors. The Afghan government continued to be financed, contractors got paid, ghost armies were invoiced, and real soldiers sent to their deaths. The more funding to be found, the longer it could go on. Once a major investor withdraws, or is seen to do so, behold the rush for the doors. The Biden administration had to get it underway; even former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban in Qatar wasn’t enough to pop the bubble. But once the announcement was made, it was all over.

 

[Rambunctious]

We were suppose to go in and get Bin laden and his buddies and come home...but as usual when the greedy lifers in DC and the Pentagon saw a gold mine of building 10 million dollar gas stations roads and billion dollar schools and an embassy...it became a money laundering wet dream.....

 

[Otis Mayfield]

The goal was to keep Afghanistan from harboring groups like al Qeada and ISIS.

The Taliban said it wouldn't harbor such groups in the future but the jury is still out.

 

[toobfreak]

There is nothing incorrect in this article.

That far remains to be seen.

Thank you President Biden for ending this scam.

Joe Rabid-stupidity Biddum ended absolutely nothing, he merely carried out Trump's exit strategy but then totally muffed it, worse than his falling up the steps to his airplane. What shame I feel for you that you declare it a victory in your pettiness even as Americans and children are STILL trapped over there with no Biddum-Milley plan in sight to get them out! To bad those aren't THEIR kids! When an idiot like you makes such a point to publicly credit Biden, one can only assume you like all tards are once again just trying to steal false credit just as you always try to place false blame.