Afghanistan already is the longest (official) war in US history.

In order to begin to understand that mess, as usual in modern history, we may have to go back to the end of World War II, when Pakistan`s colonial nominees, the “Taliban”, were sent to take over Afghanistan to give them a strategic edge over India in the war over Kashmir.

Today the Taliban and Pakistans ISI (Directorate for Inter-Service Intelligence) alliance are at the heart of why the USA is stuck in an endless war: the USA aligns, or so it would seem, much more with India in terms of values, policy, economy, etc, than with Pakistan. But in order to fight the Taliban, the USA took Pakistan as their allies, alienating India, heating the Kashmir conflict, and aiding and legitimizing Pakistans military and ISI… which in turn ends up helping their “enemy”.

Typical of USA military-intelligence (oh, the irony) one sided mind, narrow vision, treacherous, lying and forceful approach, they end up shooting themselves in the foot.

The debate at the CUNY Graduate Center in NY last year between Christopher Hitchens, George Packer, and Peter Beinart made it quite clear.

Yet, the real war is at home. As Packer brilliantly noted: with our society and economy in unquestionable decline, it makes no sense to try to maintain power abroad when national infrastructures, education levels, healthcare, and even political discourse have never been so low.