How to Understand What’s Going on in Afghanistan
The recent U.S. troop pullout from Afghanistan has put the Taliban firmly in power. Most of us are pretending we understand why, but if you want relief for your nagging anxiety of whether the world has spun out of control, let some Seoulite sass and logic help ease the pain.
U.S. President Joe Biden's 'abrupt' decision to execute a 'long-standing plan of action' was made because the right-wing went after his son, Hunter, one too many times, again.
Yes, The Seoulite has an undergraduate degree in International Relations from Stanford University. But all of us subscribers at The Seoulite have a Ph.D in K-DRAMA, which allows us to get to the truth with faster precision. With our recent analysis of the Son Jung Min case, we know how far fathers are willing to go to sacrifice nations, institutions and others' lives to avenge the welfare of their children whether they're the victims or the bullies.
In this case, let's get to the heart of the matter. Even though Hunter is a troubled man, he is Joe Biden's remaining son after his other son passed away. As Joe nears the last years of his life, how would he feel to see his son remain vulnerable to attacks by the neocon right wing when he could no longer protect him? If the right wing is going to go after his name sake, Joe has just taken away the punch bowl from the deep wellsprings of what would have funded the next generation of Bush-Cheney neocons - the mineral wealth in Afghanistan. All because they couldn't leave Hunter alone.
Is this another Vietnam?
Y’all are focused on a helicopter.
Whether a helicopter is evacuating Americans out of chaos.
That’s already too late. You’ve come into the movie way after the intermission.
This is another story about how the prequel to Star Wars was the real story… and the Star Wars Trilogy… is just the leftovers they give to the people who hang around the after party when the lights come on.
The real story is about the war over riches that come out of the ground.
It’s a tradition of the oppressor -- and in this case you can say it’s an Anglo American tradition of white men making sure they can get their hands on the fields and mines of oil, minerals, sugar, fruit, pastures in other countries once they’ve been denied in their own countries.
There’s a great big hole in U.S. history. The plantation economy did not die with the civil war. It just went overseas. That’s another subject. Okay, let’s talk about it briefly. You can’t just take away a man’s way of making a living, especially if it’s brought him riches - not just food on the table. He’s going to kill to find a way to replicate it again. Think how the plantation owner’s sons did it. They married into New England wealth to finance a globalized plantation economy. Just think about Hawaiian pineapple and sugar.
One American fruit company essentially owning Guatamala to bring us bananas. Turning Cuba into our pipeline for sugar, gambling, and tax evasion until John F. Kennedy messed it all up (people in public blame Castro, but in private they blame Kennedy). Assassinating uncooperative warlords in African nations for mining and oil rights. Putting in puppet leaders in Southeast Asia for oil and rubber. And… letting us believe Afghanistan is just a backwards desert when in actuality it’s one of the world’s richest mines - rare earth mines - in the world. Estimates put it at $1 to $3 trillion dollars of untapped minerals.
The major mineral resources include chromium, copper, gold, iron ore, lead and zinc, lithium, marble, precious and semiprecious stones, sulfur and talc among many other minerals. The energy resources consist of natural gas and petroleum.
How does this relate to Hunter Biden?
This is The Seoulite’s early stage interpretation. But this is how a Korean would sniff out the political game board, especially when you see someone rational making a seemingly rash decision? Justifying it with a vague, but plausible explanation that just doesn’t 100% make sense? Oh, the real reason is 100% ration, but 1000% vengeful.
They went after his son. And like we’ve covered with the whole SJM case, people are willing to upend entire countries for their sons. SJM’s father is gripping an entire nation’s conscience. Mr. A’s father is corrupting an entire nation’s justice system.
The Republicans have launched relentless attacks against Hunter Biden - seeking to destroy him yet again. And so, what does Joe Biden do? He makes the master play. Remember, when you elect a Vice President who has also been a Senator and career politician, they know which invisible spider webs hold together billion-dollar deals. And Biden just cut off the Afghanistan lifeline to the Bush neocon Afghanistan cash cow.
Yes, there was Iraq and its oil. But Afghanistan and its minerals was also a prize in 2001. Long story short? The British in the 19th century and early 20th century weren’t quite able to extract the minerals even though they had their hands on mineral leases first. Then the Americans were given an offer, but they ignored it while pursuing better opportunities elsewhere. Throw in a few world wars as distractions and suddenly you saw the Soviet Union moving in and treating Afghanistan as almost a vassal state and assessing the mineral riches they were about to seize as a jackpot. The CIA, which had been born out of an elite force of this neo-plantation class, drove out the Soviets. But it took a couple more decades until George Bush in 2001 could really wrestle the government of Afghanistan into control where they could secure their own cooperative leader. You put on a big show declaring that all mineral rights are owned by the government.
And then quietly say the government must be compensated adequately at market rates, which are a paltry 5 to 10%. Like a realtor commission. The foreign company that makes the sweetheart deal with the government they put in? Monopoly on the riches! Most likely in Afghanistan, a Bush-connected cabal was pumping profits out of the ground. Now, with the Taliban in force those deals are null and void. The cash has stopped. Revenge complete.
Biden says you mess with my son, I mess with your money. Try it again. That’s how it’s played in Korea at least.
Just look at how Moon Jae-in, a seasoned number 2 politician before he became the president, played the ultimate whisper revenge against President Lee Myung-bak. Yes, everyone was in awe of his election after the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. But less noticed was President Lee’s abrupt trip to the United Arab Emirates immediately after President Moon’s inauguration. Why did this retired President suddenly have an inkling to go to the Middle East? One of President Lee’s major ‘deals’ on the eve of his presidency was inking a $40 billion nuclear construction deal with the UAE.
The Korean political skeptic interpretation (without access to National intelligence files) would assume President Moon threw a revenge wrench into that deal, which prompted the ex-President to have to scuttle himself over to the Arab state to salvage what he could. What has been publicly confirmed in a similar vein? President Moon’s office publicly excoriated the National Intelligence Service for trying to ‘bribe’ the Blue House by giving it special appropriation funds at the start of the presidency. This has long been a tradition of the intelligence agency giving some of its budget to the Blue House staffers in return for leniency and relationship building. Most likely, the agency made a routine call of asking where to send the money now. Instead, the Blue House used this as an opportunity for revenge and publicly expressed its shock and disgust at this unbelievably corrupt practice and was amazed that this had been going on! Remember, President Moon had been Chief of Staff to the President and leader of the National Assembly. He knows all of the spider webs holding deals together. Nonetheless, the national intelligence service conspired against his previous 2012 presidential campaign by weaponizing its spies to launch cyberattacks against him so that he lost to President Park Geun Hye. Now it was payback time.
Therefore, is it surprising that a man who has seen everything could exact political revenge the most delicately among anyone in office? It’s usually the number 2 who has to do the dirty cleanup and the one who sees the public face and the true colors of everyone who surrounds the principal. In some ways, they become better at playing the game than the president if it’s in their nature.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden attend an NCAA basketball game between Georgetown University and Duke University in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2010. Picture taken January 30, 2010. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
In conclusion, some right wing neo-cons kept coming after Hunter Biden. Joe Biden never really wanted Afghanistan to begin with. Remember, he has been trying to apologize for over almost 20 years for the ‘mistake’ he made when he supported George Bush’s war in Iraq.
According to a CNN article from January 2020:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/17/politics/biden-iraq-kfile/index.html
In his 2007 book "Promises to Keep," which was released during Biden's presidential bid at the time, the then-senator devoted a chapter to his 2002 vote and titled it "My Mistake."
"I made a mistake. I underestimated the influence of Vice President (Dick) Cheney, Secretary of Defense (Donald) Rumsfeld, and the rest of the neocons," Biden wrote. "I vastly underestimated their disingenuousness and incompetence."
To me it sounds like he was strong armed and threatened into voting yes. As were probably most people back then. It sounds like a man who at 78 years old is saying - I am done being bullied!!
Especially when you consider Dick Cheney is 80 and Donald Rumsfeld just died in June. Better late than never to say enough is enough.
When Biden is saying it’s time for the Afghans to fight for themselves… look at that truth in his eyes. He’s saying… it’s time we finally say eff off man! We’re 80 years old!
Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War
Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History