8-26-21 Afghanistan: America’s $4 Trillion Mistake

Nearing Midnight: Afghanistan: America’s $4 Trillion Mistake – Todd Strandberg - https://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/ The nation of Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban at a pace that has many western leaders scratching their heads in wonderment. A couple of weeks ago, the State Department was warning that Kabul could fall within 6 months. A few days later, the date was switched to 90 days. After it was revised to 72 hours, the downfall of Kabul only took 8 hours. President Ashraf Ghani greeted a Taliban delegation at the presidential palace after signing an agreement to resign and transfer power to the Taliban. According to the Russian embassy, he then fled the country with four vehicles and a helicopter full of cash. The Afghanistan military had a force of over 300,000, with an annual budget of $3-4 billion, equipped with Humvees, Mobile Strike Force Vehicles, helicopters, A-29 fighters, and advanced weapons. It crumbled to the Taliban’s lightly armed forces of 75,000 men. As Afghan cities were falling like dominoes, the Pentagon was singing the praises of the Afghanistan military. “They have an air force, a capable air force,” something the Taliban does not have, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said. “They have modern equipment. They have the benefit of the training that we have provided for the last 20 years. It’s time now to use those advantages.” The downfall of Afghanistan reminds me of when ISIS militants took control of the city of Mosul in June of 2014. It only required 300 fighters to capture a city of 2.5 million people. During their three-year reign, ISIS committed many atrocities. By the time the Iraqi military liberated Mosul, large areas of the city were completely destroyed. In both cases, Islam is the cause of the defeat. When you have a demonically controlled people fight against another group of demonically controlled people, you will see the outcomes that often defy simple logic. Islam doesn’t even work well in oil-rich nations. I recently watched the video that pointed how much the United Arab Emirates is a mess. The Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building, and it’s not linked up to a sewage system. Each morning, 30 tanker trucks line up to pump out tons of human waste. Hundreds of homes that were built on fake islands are all slowly sinking into the Persian Gulf. The workers in UAE are mostly the equivalent of slave labor. The people with the money are rich because they get welfare from the government. So when the oil runs out, the whole system will collapse. The old joke about when the oil runs out, sand will be the only export is not even true. The sand in the Middle East is too dirty to be of any use. I have a non-Muslim example of how demonic influence destroys a nation. The people of Haiti follow a version of Roman Catholicism that is infused with voodoo rituals and beliefs. Haiti was founded by a large portion of the population pledging their allegiance to Satan for independence from France. This pact with the devil is the only way I can explain why this nation is the poorest nation in the Western world. The Biden administration has had to face criticism and anger over the scale of just how fast things have deteriorated. Many of the images coming out of Kabul look very familiar to the fall of Saigon. Biden made America look bad by our military leaving the country with its tail between its legs. Every President going back to President Bush deserves some blame for staying in this hell hole. It was foolish for us to think we could bring stability, security, and ultimately, prosperity to the people of Afghanistan. We invaded the country because we thought it was the headquarters of the group that carried out the 9/11 attack. It turned out most of them came from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. We only lost about 2,500 soldiers in the war, but we have taken on huge financial burdens. We have thousands of people who received injuries that will lead to medical bills of $1 trillion over their lifetime. Since we spent an average of $100 billion per year on the Afghanistan war, that amounts to $2 trillion. If you add up the compounding interest on the debt for 20 years, our total bill for this Afghanistan folly will be around $4 trillion. The Bible proves itself time and time again that scripture is the only way to understand world events. Secular planners thought they could turn Afghanistan into a productive democracy. I doubt they admit their error, but it’s clear to me that they were wrong. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).