Bad business model.

Editor,

There is a certain logic in trying to defeat a malignant force of your own creation and protecting tribal elders and other respected local leaders, who as in any guerrilla war are prime targets for assassination, from them.

But training an indigenous force to oppose them on their own, if it is not impossible for the reasons reported, will take a very long time. Meanwhile, American troops do the fighting, and every civilian they kill, every ignorant and brutal house raid they execute, increases Afghans' hatred for them.

This is a tragedy of immense proportions, and there is no way the Americans can set it right.

If there is one lesson in this, and it will never be learned in the halls of American power, it is that imperialism is a bad business model. While it makes money for the corporate bosses, the juggernaut is impossible to stop. When it starts losing money, the military is tasked with saving it and destroys itself along with American society in the process. That's what Afghanistan and Vietnam have in common.

re: "Doubts About Certitude" (12/16/2009)