Address to the people of Afghanistan

America’s responsibility and Afghanistan’s potential

Address to the people of Afghanistan

America’s responsibility and Afghanistan’s potential

Emanuel Pastreich

December 7, 2028

As I mustered up the courage and the grit required to stumble forwards towards the goal of creating a better America, of launching a third campaign for president of the United States, as I struggled to make some, any, positive contribution, to climb up the steep forty steps of Kandahar, then, there I was, lost in these thoughts then, there in the midst of the gathering clouds of war--no! the gathering spiritual and intellectual darkness which threatens humanity itself, and that renders even the best of our civilization poisonous and militarized—then suddenly, out of nowhere, images of the green valleys and snowy peaks of Afghanistan appeared before my eyes.

Why was it that as I struggled with the darkness made corporal by the brutality of misguided technology, as I lamented how the souls of Americans have been trampled on by a narcissistic boot of desire for the instantaneous, that at that very moment it was Afghanistan, its pristine lakes and villages hewn of ancient stone--and also, the horrific actions carried out by Americans in that noble country, Americans wrapped in ignorance, and conceit, that appeared to me.

I sat there in silence, thinking long and hard about the contempt for basic morality shown by my fellow Americans, and the brazen acts of my nation’s military that charged down the well-trodden path of dying empires.

This speech is for the people of Afghanistan who have suffered so terribly and yet have not given up hope, adhering to their aged wisdom and maintaining their villages and their honorable families as they have done for so long along crystal streams that flow down from the ancient glaciers.

I will not dwell on the clownish characters who color themselves foolish with the mawkish terms “conservative” or “progressive” and who either planned and carried out the butchery in Afghanistan, or even who want come back for more murder and thievery, nor will I talk about those who have simply, but wrongly, refused to investigate the truth, the truth about what actually transpired. You know who you are.

This speech is intended to be overheard by Americans—but it is not addressed to them because Americans are fatally convinced that they are the center of everything.

The fog of denial that wraps itself around the American mind dictates that no direct appeal to reason or logic can be successful at reaching the American.

The only way to get through to the American heart is by being overheard.

But it makes a certain sense that the long march towards a new America which is a republic, and not an empire, that a fresh affirmation of all that was positive in the American experiment described in the Declaration of Independence, should start in Afghanistan, from our recognition that the desire for true independence by the people Afghanistan from all foreign powers, including the United States, is in full accord with our own traditions of independence and freedom.

First, however, we must face the tragic beginning, the original march through hell, the original sin, that started at the moment that the United States, which had toyed with globalism for the last hundred years, decided that it would plunge headfirst into the pitiless pool of imperial domination.

I am referring to the start of the American invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.

That act, pushed on us by forces lashed together by a tangle of lies so imbricated that it would require a few more speeches for me to accurately unravel it, was only the last round of horrors inflicted on the Afghan people who have been so often victims of foreign empires from the Persians to the Mongols, from the British to the Russians.

Dear people of Afghanistan. I speak directly to you about the horrible conquest of your nation that my nation undertook. Other countries have also acted cruelly towards Afghanistan. It is not my duty to address those sins. My duty is to speak for the United States, that twisted mixture of good and evil that I would be president of.

The United States invaded your country, killed your people, massacred women and children in the marketplace, and we occupied your country without good reason for twenty years—the longest war in American history.

We spread depleted uranium across your fields, an evil substance that will cripple innocents for generations. We littered cluster bombs, some deviously designed to look like toys so as to attract children, across your villages. We created conflicts between the tribes of Afghanistan that should never have happened, and we did so to advance our arrogant and selfish plans for Afghanistan as our possession, for Afghanistan as a pawn in our new global empire.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that it was American multinational banks and multinational corporations who wanted to possess Afghanistan—but again, my role today is to apologize for all the collaboration of all of us in this evil project.

We were not thinking about your delicate cultures or your love of family and tradition. We were thinking about the deposits of lithium and rare earth elements that we could use in our computers, and in our weapons—in fact, we are still thinking about them because we are addicted to a twisted idea of happiness that demands them.

We were thinking about how we could, covertly, make money off of the opium trade again. And we were thinking about how we could use Afghanistan as a pawn in a larger geopolitical strategy for the domination of Central Asia.

I apologize for the evils that my government, my nation, wrought on your innocent citizens, and I ask that you work with us to make sure that the truth, the full truth, is recognized in its complete form and that the first steps are taken to make sure that the billionaires who started this must pay the money they made off of that war to compensate the Afghanis who have suffered so much.

It was not your average working American who planned this war of conquest, although it was the working people, and not the bankers, who died in the mountains of Afghanistan.

I am not here to tell you, honorable people of Afghanistan, how to seek compensation from those criminals, but I will stand with you when you make the demand.

Today I am here to take responsibility for what was done by the United States, by all of us as a whole-even if we did not know all the details.

Compensation is part of the solution. Stating the truth is part of the solution. Expressing respect for the long traditions of Afghanistan, far deeper than those of the much younger United States is part of the solution.

But money is the root of all evil; money is the reason the United States invaded Afghanistan in the first place. Money cannot solve all problems of Afghanistan.

The responsible parties in America must pay compensation, but at the same time, we must keep the bankers and billionaires, and their bogus charities and foundations, as far away from good people of Afghanistan as possible.

Afghanistan should be allowed to maintain its fierce independence; Its farmers must be allowed to grow their own food, and its craftsman to make their own furniture. Afghanistan does not have to be forced into a global trade system. It does not have to use digital money or QR codes.

We Americans can learn so much from Afghanistan about what is truly important in life, and in death, about what we should strive for during our brief time on earth, and about where to find the answers to our questions about the spiritual—something that your people have done, with great humility and frugality, for millennia.

I welcome a dialog at all levels between Americans and Afghanis, touching on all topics, that will be the foundation for an entirely new relationship between our countries, one that is equal—although we have so much to learn, and that is mutually supportive.

Like the United States, Afghanistan is a diverse nation of many peoples, and like the United States, Afghanistan is formed “out of many one,” E pluribus unum.

Whether it is Mazar-i-Sharif and the Blue Mosque, or the Panjshir Valley, the stunning beauty of Afghanistan across the ages offers us the ultimate inspiration.

Let us start from what we have in common, not what is different. Let us start from truth and justice, not from arrogance and narcissism. Let us start from cooperation, not competition and brutality.