Afghanistan again, but… next time?

What happened in Afghanistan is quite simple: the country wants Sharia law, and therefore is not fighting against Sharia law. If foreigners do it ok, we have a great time and enjoy the recreation, but if they go away we give up and don't even try to fight. And if they kill our daughters then, never mind. They are only women.

And so far here we are. Now, Afghanistan borders two countries, China and Pakistan, eager to make direct contact to trade. It is not difficult to predict that the new Afghan government COULD, I say COULD, be pushed into less aggressive positions because the Chinese do not want to give the US an excuse for interfering again.

It is not impossible that the Chinese and Pakistanis will dictate Afghan foreign policy, even if one wonders how much India and Russia will like this thing.

In any case, the last 20 years have not been fun for the Taliban, so don't you go to them and say "let's take a ride again?" they will say “ok! Well!". But that's ok too.

As Biden said, with whom I agree, the US and its allies could not stay and fight a war the Afghans did not want to fight. If fighting against the annihilation of women and the Sharia is what the population WANTS, it makes sense. But if the people aren't willing to do it and their army doesn't even try to fight, it doesn't make sense. Afghan women ask themselves, instead of "why the West does nothing", a simpler thing: "why Afghan men do nothing".

Before I go to the juice, allow me another disclaimer:

I see that many in Italy are starting to say that "the US has lost". I want to point out that Italy was there, like other countries. Merkel said it was a common defeat because the German army was there. It would be nice to see that the Italians, instead of looking away whistling as if they had nothing to do with it, avoided THE USUAL spectacle. They didn't lose "their Americans," they lost a coalition.

Now let's get to the point. For the first time even in Western fiction there is a clear awareness that we are talking about: if a country is in the hands of that religious delusion, and combines something serious (like September 11), it is not possible to go there and , even spending enormous sums, "redeem them" and "put them back on the road to civilization" '.

This poses a problem: what will they do next 11 September, how to react? The other time he said "let's get there, remove the psychopaths who are there from power, and make ourselves a civilized and happy nation: how can they refuse such an offer?" .

Now this is no longer possible. It wasn't possible before, but now the message is clear. Now we know. It doesn't work with Muslims.

That pit of shit will never be anything but a place where woman is an animal to use, religion forbids white socks and kites, and all Taliban song. There is no way to change them. They don't want to change. They like it.

And now that we know it, let's suppose that a new September 11 starts from some sarcazzistan. What to do?

Because we know they don't change. We know they don't want to change. We know that no one has ever been able to make him change.

You know what? If you have a problem and you can't fix it, you can always destroy it.

As the West comes out of this affair, the only possible thing will be retaliation. Destroy what cannot be changed.

It is not a new strategy: Desertum fecerunt et pacem appellaverunt is a very old phrase, it follows (and reinterprets) what Tacitus wrote about the Roman wars in Britain. This is not new.

Do you see other alternatives? The recipe "we arrive, civilize, problem solved" does not work. In the case of Afghanistan, we know with certainty that it is a country that, due to its characteristics, does not invade, does not occupy itself, does not change.

At this point, for a country 11,000 km away that is hit by a serious attack wanted by the local government, what remains but retaliation?

If you think retaliation is uncivilized or barbaric, I am afraid to disappoint you: when one country commits a war crime against another, the Geneva Convention allows for "proportionate retaliation". It does not specify what the proportions should be, but it is allowed. And not from now. Indeed, before it was also allowed on civilians.

For example, General Graziani during the war in Ethiopia denounced that Ethiopians were using dum-dum bullets, which are prohibited, and obtained (after due notification) permission to use up to 250 mustard gas bombs on the premises, such as retaliation. For this reason he was never indicted for their use: retaliation was allowed.

Is it still? It depends on who.

Theoretically, retaliation against the civilian population was subsequently banned, and the list of actions to be considered worthy of retaliation was updated in 1949, in the new Geneva treaty. Subsequently, other updates of the War legislation and the Geneva Convention (1977 and 1985) completely prohibited retaliation against the civilian population.

But not against a country's armed forces. That's allowed.

So the answer is simple: if 9/11 is repeated, the only possible answer will be retaliation on military infrastructure.

It is difficult to think that a direct retaliation only on military infrastructures would be a deterrent : obviously immediately after the attack the military infrastructures would be dispersed in the country and the retaliation would become enormously expensive.

But one thing is certain: once under the conviction (and now we have it) that a population cannot be "civilized", the West remains only to ask "and if they do 9/11 again, how do we respond"?

And if the only useful response is retaliation, now we need to develop military systems of retaliation limited by the treaties, or press for international treaties to allow it in the event of a terrorist attack.

Probably, the politicians will choose the second way, because it is simpler.

If my conclusion is correct, say goodbye to the Geneva Convention and several other treaties.

And if it happens again, well, then the military will decide how to retaliate.

It's usually not good news. But even without making predictions, the question is clear:

the story of the Taliban represented a turning point in Western thought. If before, as a response to a terrorist attack, we went on the spot to annihilate a dictatorship and try to build a better country, now we all know that it does not work.

But this new conviction opens up new questions, such as "and if they do a 9/11 again what do we do?".

There will be many answers, ranging from "hard retaliation without fear" (which I believe will be the winner, but I could be wrong) or other things like "let's send them all away and close the borders: no Afghans, no attacks", or "let's watch every square meter of the country using computers ”.

But in any case, the fact that the West no longer believes it is possible or opportune to free a population from a dictator, nor that a population can change, is a serious turning point. Who will present the bill at the next attack.