Afghanistan

The collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, revealed what little American lives and money had purchased over 20 years there. It also laid bare a gaping disconnect between reality and what senior U.S. officials had been telling Americans for decades: that success was just around the corner.

As the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction since 2012, my staff and I have audited and investigated U.S. programs and spending to rebuild Afghanistan — a mission that, it was hoped, would turn the theocratic, tribal-based “Graveyard of Empires” into a modern liberal democracy.

In hundreds of reports over the last 12 years, we have detailed a long list of systemic problems: The U.S. government struggled to carry out a coherent strategy, fostered overly ambitious expectations, started unsustainable projects and did not understand the country or its people. American agencies measured success not by what they accomplished, but by dollars spent or checklists of completed tasks.

I call this the Malala Delusion identical to previous iterations of the Noble Savage trope.

The Liberal-Left wanted desperately to believe that Islam’s violent excesses could be mitigated.

Malala became their sacred totem trotted out to shame the Islamophobes whenever help was needed to prop up the Elites delusional thinking on Islam.

Across the west Malala salved the cognitive dissonance that arose from importing a murder cult to our civilized lands.

Behold Malala for she is Islam at its most pure and good!

That worked about as you’d expect when Islam’s good vs. evil balance sheet was scrutinized.

Even today she is occasionally called upon to make an appearance but like a stripper past her prime only faded memories remain.

Good on Malala though, she made out like a bandit just like Afghanistan’s western contractors.

Last I heard she and her foundation reside in Bermuda.