By Doug Casey - June 3, 2021

International Man: After almost 20 years, the US government announced it is officially leaving Afghanistan and is pulling its troops out of the country soon.

What’s your take on this? Did the US government accomplish anything?

Doug Casey: The US presence in Afghanistan for 20 years is clinically insane. The place has long been acknowledged as one of the planet’s most isolated, backward, and valueless regions. Its inhabitants belong to disparate groups which are mutually antagonistic. Afghanistan isn’t even a real country. It’s a region.

How stupid are US leaders that—on top of those points—they could learn nothing from the total failure of earlier British and Soviet invasions? Or our own experience in Vietnam?

In Vietnam, a primitive country the US invaded on the pretext of propping up a very corrupt and unpopular government, war hawks said, “We can’t withdraw because it would show that the commies beat us. We have a huge commitment. It’s too hard.” People like myself countered, “It’s not hard at all. Cut your losses. You simply put the soldiers on the boats, you put the boats in reverse, and leave.”

Of course, by the time the US left Vietnam, it was a chaotic emergency evacuation with people being kicked off helicopters from the top of the US Embassy. A desperate run for cover. But that’s the proper fate for invaders, no matter where they’re from. It’s sad in the case of the US, which betrayed its founding principles, however.

Who benefited from the US invasion of Afghanistan?

It was a huge loss for the world in general, the common people in the US and Afghanistan in particular. The only winners were the various members of the military-industrial complex. The generals in the Pentagon, who got to play big shot, build their careers, and rack up brownie points with corporations who will hire them when they retire. Weapons manufacturers and members of the Deep State profit immediately and directly, however. They’re financed by government debt and money printing.

The Afghan adventure served absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever. There were zero benefits to either the US or the natives.

In fact, not only were there zero benefits, but everything was a negative accomplishment. It resulted in the further bankruptcy of the US government and the American people, who are directly and indirectly being taxed to pay for it.

The trillions of new dollars floating around have resulted in massive new layers of corruption everywhere. And considerable new enemies for America—in Afghanistan, in the region, and around the world. The US has earned the contempt of people all over the world, who saw it as a giant bully pushing around primitive tribesmen. It amazes me that anybody tries to defend the US war in Afghanistan on any basis whatsoever. It was a total and absolute net loss.

International Man: The acknowledged and direct financial cost to the US taxpayer of the war in Afghanistan was nearly $1 trillion. The war also killed over 2,300 American soldiers, about 1,000 non-US NATO soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Afghans.

That is to say nothing of the indirect, delayed, and unacknowledged costs.

What are your thoughts on the costs of this war?

Doug Casey: Direct deaths are just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Not too many people die in combat today because of body armor, excellent medevac facilities, and medical technology.

For every American soldier that died, there are probably 10 or 20 other soldiers who are severely and permanently maimed in some way. God knows what the numbers are for the psychologically maimed because of what they had to do to others and what was done to them in Afghanistan. The 2,300 dead US soldiers are actually the least part of the damage the war caused. Nobody can even count the Afghans . . .

[SNIP]