For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
– Matthew 24:28
Joe Biden has publicly announced the “end to the war in Afghanistan” and just like that..…well of course, not really the end and not today but we have an announcement to cheer us up. I suppose by announcing the final day as Sept 11 the administration will have a more sparkling backdrop and way of celebrating 20 years of US war crimes. What would be really cool though, what would give us something we could really rise-up to celebrate would be…an actual end to war today, not months from now and of vast necessity and importance, some accountability for the crime!
But even if this administration actually does follow through and pulls the 2500 or so troops or “boots” as they like to call them (further dehumanizing the soldiers who fight) that we have stationed in Afghanistan, the war will be far from over. Yes there will be the advisors, the private contractors, the embedded snitches and indebted political operatives still scuttering about working the empires will, but more horrendous, though less obvious than that to the average American, will be the aftermath, the devastation, the lost years, the lost lives of loved ones, the left-over poison on the land and the left-over poison in the hearts and minds of every Afghan.
But here behind the strength of presidential podiums and in the comfort of our homes, we the people who supported and allowed and those who created and committed this catastrophic and horrendous act on those millions of REAL people, well we can finally wash our hands, heave a collective sigh of relief and pat ourselves on the backs for being so good as to generously now “leave” this torn apart, shattered and desolate place. We can also, while we’re at it, reflect on how terribly bad things will be for those poor, incompetent Afghans who, as we’ve been told, will be henceforth, forever terrorized by their own lawless and war-crazed relatives and neighbors whether Al-Qaeda or Taliban. We can rest easy and forgive ourselves knowing, because we heard it in the news that we did a good work smashing apart their country and they will suffer greatly now in their ancient homeland without us there to monitor and control their lives.
Just as the scares left on the indigenous inhabitants of this land called America still remain and fester and inflict pain on generation after generation for 400 years, so too will the people of Afghanistan suffer into the distant future, generations after generation. Humiliated, broken and missing parts of the social body like the amputee without arms or legs, Afghans will have to limp on into their future missing fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who died in the war and make whatever they can make of it, until the next disaster lands at their feet. And there will be no accountability, no person, no nation, no anything or anyone held accountable for all this devastation, for all these crimes and so, there will be that extra heavy burden that the oppressed and persecuted bear, a burden that crushes all of humanity, no justice and no hope of justice. The war was a horrible crime. The lack of accountability and justice, that’s evil, pure evil.
The USA is, beyond all else, no matter what the patriots say, not a land of liberty, blessed by God but the land of no accountability, no justice, despised by many, feared by the rest. Check your television news where you can find George Floyd and Daunte Wright being tried, put on trial that is for having the nerve and audacity enough to go out and get themselves murdered on the street by the very ones, by the very system that was sworn to protect them. Check the story of the homeless camp recently destroyed, the inhabitants chased away for the crime of being too poor or cast-out, or unable to cope. Look at the alarming scenes of outraged protesters being tear-gassed, beaten, rounded-up and charged with the crime of wanting clean water or for standing up for the justice we are being denied. Look at Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Julian Assange and the thousands of others still held in prisons for crimes they never committed.
Look again and try to find what’s missing. Where are the war criminals, the Wall Street robbers, the bad cops, the corrupted politicians and even that bunch of leaders who just recently attempted an actual coup here in this country sending out their pawns to do the job, the killing and destruction? Why they sit confident in their impunity, surrounded by their servants, their bodyguards, their sycophants and supporters, held up by their country, their communities, their clubs and their churches. Yes there is the occasional one who is sacrificed, some bit player or perhaps a killer cop or two that pay the price for the sins of the entire system, but the system goes on and the headmen and those who profit the most from the systems failures move on, living charmed lives out on their ranches or in their mansions on fine estates, writing books worth millions and giving talks worth hundreds of thousands when they get a little short of the mammon they live on.
I am not impressed; we are not impressed by the so-called ending of wars while hearing the beating drums and paying the cost for the next round of fighting in some other land. We are not reassured or calmed by the occasional cop who simply resigns after needlessly taking a citizens life or the by the million dollar treatment of the CEO who steps down after ransacking some precious bit of nature or some unsuspecting community, stepping off, stepping-up into their golden parachute and privileged existence.
Without accountability there is no change, there is no growth, there is no liberty or justice, and there is no God, only a cancerous disease that eats away a little more and a little more every day. We watch and watch our screens and listen closely to our radios collectively holding hope, every day on the edge of our seats, on the edge of our lives holding hope that on some day, in some way we might see or hear the sight and sound of justice. But it does not come in this land of the oppressed, home of a people scared to death by a government given over to devils.
