From time to time, over the years, here at Daily Kos, I have complained that I am tired of choosing leaders for other nations.
Choosing a leader for this strife-torn nation or that, over time, gets wearying. It never works out so well as I had hoped.
People sometimes ask, well, if I am so tired of it, why do I not just stop doing it?
I choose leaders for other nations because it is my duty as an American. I choose leaders for other nations to bring democracy to their people.
Back in 2014, I chose a John Hopkins University professor to lead Afghanistan, and I chose a bunch of murderous warlords to help him bring peace and human rights there.
The plan did not work out anywhere near so well as I had hoped.
In fact, it was an outright disaster.
It has taken me 20 years, two trillion dollars, 6 million Afghans fleeing their homes from war, and some unknown hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives, to take Afghanistan from Taliban control to Taliban control.
Wait. Sorry.
After 20 years, two trillion dollars, and the lives of 2,448 U.S. service members, I have left Afghanistan.
This gives me cause for reflection.
On reflection, I have decided that the failure of my invasion of Afghanistan should be blamed on the people I invaded.
Particularly, that the leaders of Afghanistan were so corrupt.
I know for certain that Afghan leaders were corrupt, because I controlled Afghan leaders using a system of wholesale bribery. The leaders that I chose for Afghanistan were so corrupt, that they took the bribes that I paid them.
Check out the Kabul mansion that I bought for the corrupt warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, with my bribes.
Also, I blame Afghanistan for the failure of my invasion, because the Afghan army that I created gave up without a fight.
Did I not equip and train them as well as any modern military in the world?
Did I not have the aspirational goal, at least, that the Afghan army be so well trained, that every single Afghan soldier would be able to write their own name, and read simple words?
This is very nearly the same high level of training, as soldiers in the U.K. or France.
And did I not allow the corrupt military leaders of Afghanistan to rarely admit to me that many Afghan soldiers were actually deserters, and allow them to pocket the deserter’s pay themselves, thus allowing me in return to reassure the American people that the well trained and well equipped and very big Afghan army would be taking over the war?
The Afghan army should have fought harder, for the democracy of having me choose their leaders for them.
After America left, they should have continued to fight in the American way, which is to destroy the village in order to save it, rather than giving up after it was clear they had lost.
Well, at any rate, I have learned my lesson. I will never invade another nation, ever again.
I will put human rights at the heart of my foreign policy.
Oh yes, about the Afghan army. I forgot to say.
Did I not equip the Afghan army so very well, by giving them equipment that I bought from the American military-industrial complex?
I will never again invade another nation.
I promise.