Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t

If someone asks: What is the best way to live? Is it the natural way or the artificial way? The answer ought to be: With regard to what? Here are two example that illustrate the dilemma:

 

First, there is no doubt that if you and your family of 10 people live on an island of 100 acres, the best way to spend your days, is to gather the edible flora that the land produces naturally, and hunt the edible free-range fauna that multiplies by its own. Having enough to feed everyone, it would be foolish to change the natural order by creating a farming community that will not add a thing to the joy of living.

 

By contrast, there is no doubt that if 1000 people live on the same island of 100 acres, necessity will compel you to cultivate the land artificially so as to produce enough fruits and vegetables to feed all these people. And because this may not be enough to appease their hunger, you’ll be compelled to artificially breed and raise the animals that will add to the island’s caloric intake.

 

 These were relatively easy cases to resolve because the choices existed at the start, and the proper one could be made without fearing that negative consequences may result.

 

But what can happen at times, is that the dilemma you need to resolve, will be the outcome of artificial policies that were adopted earlier, and have led to consequences that can no longer be tolerated. The choice that must be made, therefore, comes down to living with the terrible consequences, or putting an end to the policies that have led to them, only to realize that ending those policies will come at a cost. What you have, therefore, is a case of “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t”.

 

So then, how do you go about making a choice you can live with in a complex case, knowing that it might turn out to be the wrong choice? The answer is that you want your decision to be one that you can live with regardless of the outcome. And this says that the decision must be free of artificial considerations.

 

America was facing one such case, and made a decision that pleased some people and displeased others. What happened was that 20 years ago America was attacked by a bunch of imaginative kids, having trained to play wargames in Afghanistan and having learned to fly jumbo jets in America. They planned a multi-pronged suicide mission in which they used the jets as missiles to attack high value targets in America. They caused considerable damage and killed scores of people.

 

America had no choice but to attack the kids’ bases in Afghanistan, which was the natural thing to do. But then, on the insistence of the Jews that had by then become masters of America’s decision-making, the latter decided to occupy Afghanistan as part of the artificial plan to impose a Jewish concocted Pax Americana on the Arab and Muslim worlds as a prelude to the Armageddon that will see the messiah come to Earth and hand the Jews the ownership deeds to the planet.

 

Things did not go well for America during 20 years of occupation, anymore than they did for the Soviet Union before that or the British before them or the Macedonians before them. And so, it became obvious that America must withdraw its troops from Afghanistan—but there was a problem: How to do so with honor, and not look like a Saigon debacle that happened 46 years earlier? Also: What will happen to Afghanistan after the withdrawal?

 

Maximillian Hess thought about these matters, and wrote an article in which he expressed his views. The article came under the title: “The Withdrawal from Afghanistan Deserves to be Celebrated,” and the subtitle: “Delaying the reality of the United States’ loss—and the cruel images that accompanied it—appears to have been the only motivating factor for US presence in Afghanistan in recent years.” The article was published on September 12, 2021 in the National Interest.

 

Here, in condensed form, is what Maximillian Hess is saying:

 

“The US withdrawal from Afghanistan deserves to be celebrated. Tragedy accompanied the withdrawal, but that is what happens when one loses a war. When one has been fighting a war that did not deserve to be fought, its loss is nothing to mourn. As President Joe Biden said, ‘Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.’ The withdrawal decreases the risk of such an attack. Anyone with an appreciation for basic human rights will bemoan the threats to women and religious minorities such as the Hazara. Yet it is impossible to weigh these violations, the lost opportunities, and violence that result, with the thousands of Afghan civilians and soldiers who risk losing their lives without withdrawal. The failure to withdraw over the last decade only made it more likely the Taliban would win. As Biden said following its completion, the withdrawal ‘is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.’ Recognizing the Taliban’s victory decreases the risk Afghanistan will again become a launching pad for terror against the West. It may be too much to hope it will alleviate Afghanistan’s internal divides and the violence that so often accompanies them, but there too the war had long failed”.

 

Do not mourn the loss of the war, says Maximillian Hess, it was destined to be lost, and that’s a good thing. You should have mourned the early decision to occupy Afghanistan past the revenge operation that exacted a heavy toll on the Taliban and al Qaeda.