The final act of the ‘war on terrorism’ wasn’t the ‘mission accomplished’ handover to the new puppet Afghan government Biden’s handler-advisers hoped. Instead, it was marred by the military industrial complex’s ‘mistake’ of murdering innocent men, women, and children in their last drone strike while fleeing the country.
Too bad, so sad, says the Pentagon, as it acknowledged Friday.
Those last civilian victims were only highlighted because US state media/stenographers, or ‘main stream media,’ was upset about not continuing the war, mostly exercised about the supposedly ‘sloppy’ exit and rhetoric about girls and women in school.
Uncounted and unreported over the last 20 years: up to six million victims. That’s a lot of the women and girls who won’t be attending any school at all—part of the ‘late style’ raison dêtre for continuing the occupation.
One wonders if the defense companies’ executives will continue to sleep well at night in view of this havoc. No doubt, their piece of the $300 million/day bought a lot of Ambien, if it was needed at all.
Now, consider this situation as part of the world view of the US ruling elite’s ideological workers as they gin up the bourgeoisie, when they ask: does the US have what it takes to compete with China for another Cold War?
In a victory in Cold War 2, as one pundit puts it, “public image will be the key.” He doesn’t ask “which public,” a critical flaw. From world’s perspective, the US is already viewed as a greater threat to democracy than either Russia or China. No, the “public image” US ideological workers are intent to prop up is their own self image.
In the pundit’s world view, Chinese restriction of playing online games more than three hours a week, curbing pop celebrity, and media guidance on gender roles are a “public image” problem. Seriously. This pundit believes these “symbols of freedom” Americans can do and Chinese can’t are going to win a “public image” battle on the world stage, where the US supports bloodthirsty murderers like MBS hacking up journalists and drone murdering innocent civilians without consequence.
How about economic security? While the US is the most unequal nation in the world and has no plans to change that situation, the CCP emphasizes “common prosperity” for all. In a contest for hearts and minds, CCP’s emphasis on “a people-centric approach for the public interest” and achievement of eliminating absolute poverty starkly contrasts with the US ruling class’s approach to squeezing the last bit of labor for their stock values. One thing the pundit’s right about: “America has created a system based on spreading the wealth around — not to the poor, but to the rich and the well-connected.” That’s apparently not so much a problem of common prosperity in his whacked out world view, but one of just one of incompetent productivity.
So, finally, the pundit bemoans a “gap in institutional competence” which is “dismaying.” As if the people of world said to themselves “the US elite is so competent compared to the USSR” I want to be on Uncle Sam’s side!
Ironically, the shill concludes: “If the U.S. is going to come out on top this time, our decisive weapon won’t be nuclear missiles or autonomous drones — it will be the attractiveness of our own society.” Ironic, because it’s precisely war machines like the drone which murdered innocent men, women, and children which makes the US unattractive to the world. It’s actions like the mass murder of civilians in Afghanistan, toppling other countries with missionary zeal like Iraq, Libya, Syria with unsavory allies like MBS in Saudi Arabia who cuts up journalists, causing chaos, supporting coups like the one earlier this month in Guinea, supports and finances the oppression and murder of people in Yemen, etc. etc. etc.
And in how many of these killing sprees around the world is China engaged? Zero.
In the battle for hearts and minds, the US ruling class strategy seems to be: kill all those who disagree. “Public image” indeed!
Notes
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/pentagon-drone-strike-afghanistan.html
https://bylinetimes.com/2021/09/15/up-to-six-million-people-the-unrecorded-fatalities-of-the-war-on-terror/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-threat-democracy-russia-china-global-poll