Consider the following quote, from
Eugene Robinson in 2010:
“In Afghanistan, momentum has
become a substitute for logic. We're not fighting because we have a clear set
of achievable goals. We're at war, apparently, because we're at war.”
What a strange compulsion! But
there is precedent; others have found themselves unwittingly fighting in
Afghanistan for no apparant reason. The Soviets, the British, and on back to
Alexander the Great. Some have demolished Afghanistan, but none have subdued
it; yet that impossible goal keeps getting sought. Again, why such a strange
compulsion?
Afghanistan itself is a strange
place. Poor, ignorant, backwards, lawless and tribalist, yet somehow these
opium farmers can't be subdued. How do they do it? Maybe it's their unifying
xenophobia; maybe it's the diagonal terrain; and maybe the place just isn't
worth conquering.
For whatever reason, the place has
a reputation as a "graveyard of empires"; why then do empires keep
going there? By any rational calculation, it's not worth the trouble. It isn't
even worth the trouble in terms of macho posturing. What is the source of this
imperial self-destructiveness? Why seek defeat?
I
theorize that these conquerors unconsciously desired defeat. Their empires were weary of existing, and sought
collapse. Empire consciously defies defeat; it prides itself on its
eternal-winner status; but pride is a sin and eternity is not for mortal man;
so time reverses desire, and defeat acquires the glamour that victory used to
have. Such masochistic feelings must be denied, but they survive unconsciously
and find expression as perverse compulsion.
Defeat for an empire is victory for
humanity as a whole; so imperial self-destruction has its virtues. But
Thanatos, the death-wish, is hard to witness at close range; not every society
can successfully host such acting-out. Afghanistan is one that can. It is where
empires go to die.
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