Aside from inept Joe Biden and his woke generals who are all overdue for retirement, incarceration or better, what is the base reason for our Afghanistan failures over the past 20-years - and especially for our inept withdrawal?
Sure, we can cite a number of things:
- We can cite our overly polite rules of engagement with roots in Korea and Vietnam (remember My Lai). We were up against asymmetrical rules of engagement in BOTH places.
- We can cite our deluded mission to “nation build” –to transform a 2,000+ year old tribal culture into a “democracy.”
- We can cite out of touch generals and colonels and Pentagon suits.
- We can cite the greed of the military/industrial complex that profited greatly by perpetuating the conflict.
This could be a really really long list. But what is the overarching reason for our failure?
Here it is: Our failure to understand “Homo Islamicus.”
“Homo” is “man” as in “mankind” or “human”. “Islamicus” is the Muslim ideology and culture, including the Islamic economic system.
Together, the words, as described from one source, are…
“The metaphor that explains that Muslims are a specific species or race, with no links to the rest of human beings.”
Some will deem this definition to be excessively harsh or “Islamophobic.” But in the midst of battle it rings true.
The more politically correct definition derives from Islamic economics as distinguished from “homo economicus” or “the economic man.”
Homo economicus is "the human species in its capability to rationally decide, that is, essentially that people [individuals] will act in their own best interest when making decisions."
That represents the Western, non-Islamic mindset.
In contrast, the most important difference between Homo islamicus and Homo economicus is the assumption of altruism. As with other pre-capitalist systems, Islam is preoccupied with the welfare of a community [emphasis added] where every individual behaves altruistically and according to religious norms.
The Islamic culture operates more like a colony of ants: collectively, communally, communistically. Western culture operates more individually, with individual liberties – an emphasis on self-interest versus group interest.
This helps explain why there appears to be a natural alliance between Muslims and Communists/leftists in the United States: Their common bond of “collectivism.”
It also explains our lack of unity and divergent interests in our engagement in Afghanistan. In essence, we had an “every level of command for itself” mindset. The suits versus the flag officers, versus the middle ranks, versus the grunts. They each had their own agenda. The top end to preserve careers and retirement; the bottom end to survive another hard day.
While “ignarus hominum” is the more correct Latin translation of “ignorant human”, I prefer the phrase “homo ignoramus” to contrast with the reason for our many Afghanistan failures: Our failure to understand and adapt to “homo Islamicus.”
Lesson learned? We need to have a much better, existential threat-type reason to engage in future foreign wars: One that unites us – creates natural '”altruism” – to a greater degree than that possessed by the enemy we engage.
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