Today was a good day: the fall of Kabul

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
                               -- T.S. Elliot

Everyone was surprised that Batista fled La Habana on New Year's Eve at the end of 1958. But also ...

• The Shah, Teheran.
• Somoza, Managua.
• Ghani, Kabul. 

The rapidity with which the South Vietnamese position collapsed in 1975 was surprising to most American and South Vietnamese observers... For instance, a memo prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and U.S. Army Intelligence and published on 5 March indicated that South Vietnam could hold out through the current dry season—i.e., at least until 1976.      -- Wikipedia

That's what they said about Fidel and the Sandinistas, too. That bit about the dry season in Vietnam was essentially the sort of lie that the major media were parroting about Afghanistan even a couple of days ago. 

But the reality of post-WWII colonial occupations is this: the second most people in the country become convinced that the challenged client regime no longer has unstinting unconditional, unlimited, American backing, its collapse is a question of weeks. The precise timing depends on the skills and calculations of  the insurgents. 

That the puppet regime in Afghanistan would end like this was obvious months ago, with the first reports of rural districts (roughly equivalent to American counties) "falling" to the Taliban because the insurgents made the soldiers at government outposts an offer they couldn't refuse: if they surrendered their positions and weapons, they could simply walk away.

You say, "wait!" That isn't really an offer they couldn't refuse because they had the alternative to resist a Taliban advance. And precisely the point is the government soldiers did not see any reason to act as government soldiers once someone showed up asking, "are you the people fighting for the government?"

That's when I knew it would end like this, and said so publicly on Radio Migrante months ago. The timing, of course, I had no way of knowing, it simply depended on when the Taliban felt they were in a position to tap the house of cards so the structure would collapse. It turned out that was 9 days ago. The first provincial capitals "fell" to the Taliban August 6. On August 15, they talked into the presidential palace without resistance.

I guess one could say this is one more attempt by history to teach the American rulers that the age of colonialism ended with their victory in WWII. 

The American revolution was the first major anti-colonial revolution of the modern epoch, however immensely flawed (slavery of Blacks, genocide against the Indians, brutal exploitation of the immigrant proletariat from Europe). 

I guess it shows that as a supremely social species, we advance only grudgingly. and perhaps it is fitting that such a major anticolonial victory well into the 21st century should also certainly be flawed, as was the one that set the pattern by having its slave owning leaders proclaim that "all men are created equal," and, no, Jefferson didn't mean "and women too," (see: Sally Hemings).

To deny the victory over colonialism and imperialism that has just taken place because of "Islamo-fascism" and similar denunciations is to misunderstand how historical progress takes place, including that, in a lot of ways, it sucks. Just ask Washington's and Jefferson's slaves. But despite that, July 4, 1776, was a great day. 

And today, too, has been a good day, despite what is to follow.