Why Are US Troops Fit for Streets of Afghanistan, but Not for Streets of America?

If it's distasteful to see them patrolling America's streets, why should they be inflicted on lands they're not even from?

58% of Americans want regular military deployed to help police control riots and looting. That still leaves 30% who are opposed.

On the opposed side is also the entire Democrat establishment, the liberal media, the never-Trump Republicans, including George Bush, the retired torturer of Fallujah detainees, Jim Mattis, as well as the National Endowment for Democracy, and presumably Nike and JP Morgan and other corporate entities who have sided with the protest despite its violent and criminal elements. Moreover privately the military establishment itself does not want it.

Just as there are some good reasons why you would want the military to move in, there are also many very good reasons why you would not. The police have largely abandoned shops to the mercy of the looters. If you had the military standing on commercial streets to deter looting that is something many business owners and their patrons would welcome.

On the other hand, that is probably not how the military would be used. Most likely the military would also (or primarily) be used to enforce curfews, and control and limit those protests which are peaceful. They would crack down on looters, but they would also crack down on law-abiding people and usher in a soft occupation and martial law.

This is to say that both sides have valid arguments, and if anything my personal hunch is that those who are opposed are correct in erring on the side of caution. That said the “opposers” are also extraordinarily hypocritical.

Since 2001 the US military has been occupying Afghanistan and waging a war against that country’s resistance to US occupation. Since 2014 it has been occupying eastern Syria where in Arab-populated areas it is not welcome, as sporadic protests against it show. Since 1999 it has been occupying Serbia’s Kosovo where in the Serb-populated north it is not welcome, as many acts of unarmed resistance over the years attest to. 2003 to 2011 it occupied Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, fighters against the occupation and civilians alike.

Now, where is (or was) the Democrat establishment, the liberal media, George Bush, Jim Mattis, the National Endowment for Democracy, Nike, JP Morgan, and the fashionably liberal horde on these occupations? In twenty years they have not raised a peep. In many cases, they are even the people who organized these continued crackdowns.

So this is very strange. These are people who absolutely want the US military inflicted on foreigners. Who see no problem with ordinary people in far-away lands having power exerted against them by M-16-wielding American troops, but who absolutely do not want that for themselves. Why not? If the US military is such a force for good, advancing the rights of little girls to attend school in Afghanistan, then if anything you ‘d want it to be doing more of that fine social work at home.

But it turns out not. It turns out the fashionably liberal are fine with inflicting US military patrols on cities of Afghanistan, and will even participate in the collective worship of “the troops” as saintly creatures one must constantly thank and clap for, but empathically do not want to live under them themselves.

So then why should anyone else?

If Americans should not live under the shadow of US troops’ guns then why should  Afghans, Serbs or Syrians?

If a US military formation in the streets of Minneapolis is a horrible sight then why should one be inflicted on the streets of Kandahar, where if anything they have even far less right to be? If America’s own liberals would experience their military in their streets as indignity and subjugation then what should be the reaction of Afghans to such presence?

Can guard anti-Taliban poppy fields in Afghanistan but not small businesses in Atlanta??

What makes this all the more damning is that the Pentagon itself is clearly aware of the risk that Americans becoming more personally and directly acquainted with their military could be a fiasco.

Sure enough, there are valid legal and political-theory reasons why military regulars should not be deployed. But at the same time, those are not the actual reasons the career Pentagon is weary. If they thought there was moral capital to be made from intervening they would welcome the chance to move in and be celebrated as saviors and political theories be damned.

The problem for them is two-fold. Firstly they do not want to run afoul of Nike, the liberal media, and the Democratic establishment.

Secondly, they understand that even if 58% of Americans want them on their streets today that could quickly change once those same Americans experience the realities of living under their troops. One or two innocents killed and all that could quickly change.

And that’s the most damning part. For 20 years the US generals have been assuring the public they can change things around in alien Afghanistan and “win the hearts and minds” of the populace and isolate the Taliban. This while the Taliban have deep roots in the Pashtun ethnic group, while the Pentagon occupies the country with soldiers serving 6 or 9-month rotations, and largely relies on air strikes, drone strikes, and door-smashing night raids by special forces.

Yet now that the Pentagon has the opportunity to do counter-insurgency against clearly anti-social looters in a place where its troops are celebrated, thanked and worshipped, and where they understand the language and culture the brass is more nervous and more reluctant to intervene than ever or anywhere before.

Why? Because deep down the military knows it has been lying and is afraid if Americans experienced how it operates on their own skin even they could quickly turn against it.

Then there would be no more civilian soldier-worship, and perhaps even some reluctance to inflict foreign lands with supposedly progressive, positive and “peace-keeping” occupations.

15 Comments
  1. ke4ram says

    The only time military is used is when society have become ungovernable,,, when the health and lives of the criminals become more important than the health, lives and property of those trying to go about their lives lawfully. Haven’t the media focused on the safety of the ‘peaceful protesters’ while ignoring the deaths and property damage of the law abiding victims? Wasn’t the media the ones that spread the word the Natl Guard wasn’t armed knowing there have been shootings during these ‘peaceful protests’. Are not the elected officials that refused to demand civil actions from the ‘peaceful protesters’ now going to request the peaceful and law abiding citizens,,, (most that are/were the recipients from the hate spewed by the ‘peaceful protesters’),,, to pay for the damages.

    And what about Holly Weird paying the bails bonds so ‘peaceful protesters’ could once again loot and vandal while they were safe behind their guarded gates and the rest of us deplorables were made to suffer. And what about Academia saying it was fine to riot, loot, vandalize, maim, and kill while telling everyone else they were killing Grandma due to their ignoring the dictates and guidelines of the Medical Tyrant Complex. And what about the governors, mayors, police chiefs (Houston) kneeling / agreeing / smiling with the ‘peaceful protesters’ giving all the criminal actions by the looters, vandals and killers their praise. and approval?

    No,,, we did not want the military to get involved because that would be proof,,, the final nail,,, this is no longer a nation of laws that we are now thoroughly a 3rd world despot nation in all manner, economically, monetarily and civilly.

    1. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

      There isn’t much difference between ungovernable and ungoverned given the abject abandonment of the Constitution by a citizenry that has been uneducated and diseducated in it to the point where they believe it is a living thing and/or obsolete.

  2. cechas vodobenikov says

    empathy? amerikan narcissism researchers—Twenge, Campbell, Konrath, Grijalva, etc find that in the past 2 decades empathy has declined amongst amerikans by 40+%—-what ever that means….amerikans demonstrated their empathy for Bush with a 90% approval rating after he lead the US invasion of Iraq

  3. slobotnavich says

    If we suddenly had conscription again there’d be rioting in the streets and throughout the all the major cities of our nation. But as long as the mortal risks are confined to our professional military (secretly believed to be a collective of loutish saps) the nation cheers and waves banners demanding that we should “support our troops.” If we once again had universal military service there’d be riots throughout the land, cars and buildings being burned, and marches on DC. Just recall how all the antiwar Vietnam demonstrations and riots ended instantly when the draft ended. “Huh, we’re safe now? Aw, s–t, we gotta go back to class now.”

  4. slobotnavich says

    One sure and instantaneous way to stop this lunacy would be to re-institute the draft. People are happy to see our troops stationed in far-off lands, but my son or daughter, eeeek, perish the thought. We’d vote the entire congress out of office in the next election, impeach the president, and burn Washington, DC to the ground.

  5. Synickel says

    Isn’t it against the Constitution to use military to do policing? Would using the National Guard be different or legal? Something needs to be done, but I think that would be having Sheriff’s arrest the governors and mayors that are promoting this rioting, as well as the bunch in Congress that are encouraging the same.

    Then and only then will things ever calm down. The fungus at the top has to be removed.

  6. Rowdy-Yates says

    When American troops are deployed on American cities to fight Americans then foreign nations will fund the protestors and arm them in the same manner America has done to so many nations bringing social upheaval, civil wars and government overthrows. There are so many victim nations from Libya to Iran to Russia, China, N Korea, Vietnam, Syria, and list goes on. Anyone one of them or groups of them would be more than happy to return the favor
    the problem with Americans funding misery and chaos in other nations is that they cannot believe this could possibly happen to them. Going just by the endless civil war America funded and supported against Assad which included arming and training ISIS members is scary enough that making American cities battlegrounds will bring foreign powers into play.

  7. antiwar7 says

    Nailed it. “Foreign Lives Matter”.

  8. Sir Baby de Porky says

    Because they’re needed in Afghanistan to protect the opium traffic !!!

    1. Eileen Kuch says

      US troops are already being withdrawn from Afghanistan – albeit, in rather small groups. In fact, the small contingent of them aren’t even patrolling Afghanistan’s streets, the Afghan military’s taken that over from them.
      The reason US troops aren’t fit for patrolling US streets has to do with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1876, when Federal troops were withdrawn from all Southern states 11 years after the 1861-65 War of the States was ended with Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomatix Courthouse in Virginia, This Act hasn’t yet been repealed.
      Anyway, we have in our 50 states a National Guard to back up police in situations such as the riots in a number of cities nationwide.

  9. WDK says

    Well, dude, you have some good points, but the most important reason completely escapes you, though fortunately the Dept. of Defense and the Founding Fathers have had rules, if not laws preventing the military from policing the domestic scene. That’s what the police and National Guard are for. Think of what damage a rouge general could do if he took the law into his own hands and decided to clear out Chicago of whomever they designate as an enemy. Read your history and be thankful that such laws are in place.

  10. voza0db says

    Not enough to have the pigs protecting the REAL Looters (Banks/Wall Street/Government) now the morons want the terrorists to help…

    Yep…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d55901b39128e54c709224ef58eaa2fb08b70912ecece0e905b458574fbc5e82.jpg

  11. nick1111 says

    Animals

  12. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

    The well-regulated militia that the founders outfitted via the Second Amendment abdicated long before Lincoln’s treasonous acts.

  13. commonsenseadvocate says

    I wonder if those soldiers guarding the poppy fields get a cut of the drug money?

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