Matthew Hoh’s Illumination of the Lie that Constituted American Involvement in Afghanistan — U.S. Army Major General Harold Greene’s Symbolizing Death by Insider Attack

© 2014 Peter Free

 

15 August 2014

 

 

Citations

 

Matthew Hoh, The Death of a General and the Racket of a War, Huffington Post (12 August 2014)

 

Associated Press and Reuters, Two star general was shot in the back of the head after Afghan soldier hid in the bathroom preparing for sneak attack, Daily Mail (07 August 2014)

 

 

Matthew Hoh noticed the same thing that I did about Major General Harold J. Greene’s death by insider attack in Afghanistan

 

It symbolized the screaming futility of being both nationally stupid and corrupt in starting and waging an unnecessary war.

 

 

An almost Shakespearean story

 

General Greene was shot to death at Aghanistan’s Marshal Fahim National Military Academy.

 

Noticing the name of the Military Academy, Matthew Hoh explains what a rat the drug warlord Marshal Mohammed Fahim was.

 

Nevertheless, despite his already known propensities for bloody corruption, the US backed Fahim’s ascent to the vice presidency.  And afterward, the US actively supported the Karzai-Fahim administration’s massively thieving government:

 

 

During this time, the United States government continued to turn a blind eye towards the Afghan government's heavy and integral involvement within the Afghan drug trade . . . .

 

Reports of American Marines and soldiers in southern Afghanistan guarding poppy fields are not exaggerations nor are the stories of helicopters and planes given to the Afghan Air Force being used to ferry drugs.

 

Fahim passed away in March of this year . . . . He was never held accountable for his immeasurable human rights atrocities nor did American officials ever challenge his drug business.

 

Thousands of American soldiers died to ensure his power and profit, while tens of thousands more were wounded and hundreds of thousands will be haunted by psychiatric wounds for the rest of their lives.

 

Rather, after Fahim's death,

 

[i] the American Ambassador to Afghanistan eulogized his "crucial role" and relationship with the US,

 

[ii] the United Nations called him a "good and trusted partner,"

 

and

 

[iii] the Afghan Military Academy, constructed with US taxpayers' money, was renamed in his honor.

 

© 2014 Matthew Hoh, The Death of a General and the Racket of a War, Huffington Post (12 August 2014) (extracts, reformatted for emphasis — bracketed numerals added)

 

Matthew Hoh concludes (in effect) that Major General Greene’s death at this Military Academy totem to American stupidity and hypocrisy draws this story of lies and corruption full circle:

 

 

Perhaps the only thing more glaring than the limits on American power overseas may be our own unwillingness to acknowledge our short-comings, recognize our own failures and admit our inability to live up to our own values.

 

© 2014 Matthew Hoh, The Death of a General and the Racket of a War, Huffington Post (12 August 2014)

 

 

The moral? — Virtually the only people who pay for the sins of the Military Industrial Complex and its conniving politicians are innocents

 

Major General Harold Greene probably included.