VEN (KABUL) —  Everything old is new again, as President Trump on Monday night announced additional troop increases in the 16-year-long so-called “war” in Afghanistan, but this time to defeat terrorism instead of the failed strategy of nation building which — sadly —  had beguiled and misled the two previous well-intentioned administrations.

What began as the Soviet Union’s 10-year Vietnam  in December 1979, has become a vast, demoralizing,  no-win situation for the United States in all but one area of keen interest to the American intelligence community — opium production.

According to the BBC, as of October 2016, opium production in Afghanistan increased by over 43% from 2015, as more hectares were put under poppy cultivation, a growth pattern that — ironically — mirrors America’s military presence there:

And even more ironically, the increase in heroin overdoses in the United States corresponds to the increase in opium production in Afghanistan, baffling social scientists and community organizers alike:

As even Wikipedia points out, “With a farm gate price of approximately $125 per kilogram for dry opium, an Afghan farmer can make 17 times more profit growing opium poppy ($4,622 per hectare), than by growing wheat ($266 per hectare).”

---

 

However, of greater concern to America currently is the ominous threat posed by statues of long-dead Confederate generals and soldiers,  statues of  presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson (who owned slaves), statues of social engineer and culture rapist Christopher Columbus who — in league with the genocidal colonialist monarchs of  15th-century Spain —  started it all in 1492 when he discovered the New World, as well as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, manspread/mansplainers,  Mount Rushmore,  Stone Mountain,  gluten, fat shamers, Islamaphobes, and of course literally-Hitler Donald Trump and his many racist supporters.

As Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly famously wrote in 1971, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Developing . . . .