17 August 2021
Close to the Edge
What’s happened in Afghanistan is the collapse of a phony government that U.S. leaders constructed and imposed on a foreign territory known as the graveyard of empires. It had become a terrorist refuge. It is also an ungovernable crossroads of a dozen tribes from neighboring homelands. As soon as the latest of those empires, America, folded its tents and left, most of its occupants realized they were happier when they could live as they always have—loose and free. They are the ultimate libertarians.
Who was it who stormed the US Capitol on 1/6/21? It was an irregular band of resisters to Constitutional government. They probably had no objective in mind but to raise hell. However, when their insurrection was quelled, progressives celebrated a victory for democracy. The incident demonstrated rather how close America is to the kind of libertarian no-man’s land that has now been reestablished in Afghanistan.
When the trappings of civilization are stripped off a modern society, it reverts to a lower level of order. Religion and self-righteousness are two of them. Luckily, America escaped that devolution this time. The territory we call Afghanistan perhaps never will.
