An Immodest Proposal
I’ve been quite disturbed lately about the way the government has been spending my tax money, trying to lay hands on Osama bin Laden by bombing the bejesus out of Afghanistan. It’s not our intentions that bother me; everything I’ve been told by the media supports my impression that bin Laden is a villain of the first order.
No, my objection is to the needless expense of this War on Terrorism. We drop bomb after bomb, send in troops, banish the Taliban, and what do we get for our money? A new coalition government, and lot of rubble and dead goats. What good is a new coalition government to us, if the real Evil Guys are still running around loose? The whole purpose in fighting a War on Terrorism is—duh!--to conquer Terrorism and erase all Terrorists from the face of the earth. So where’s bin Laden? Nobody left in the rubble seems to know. Even the goats’ lips are sealed.
Add to our dubious investment the cost of that food we’ve been airlifting to starving Afghan children. Peanut butter doesn’t come cheap. Furthermore, the PR value has been diluted somewhat by the other payloads we’ve dropped (Is it a bomb, or a box of peanut-butter? A bomb! No, peanut butter. Bomb! Peanut butter…).
Yes, even now, when we have brought the Taliban to their knees and forced them to throw down the weapons we gave them to help fight the Russians, it appears that our job is far from done. It appears that bin Laden is not going to walk out of his luxurious fortified underground bunker with his hands up. It appears, in fact, that even if he were to do so, Afghanistan would still become a money pit that makes Boston’s Big Dig look like Wicked Small Badaydas. Just the bucks we’ll need to spend to encourage our friends in the new coalition government not to rape and pillage will run in the billions, never mind small change for rubble clearance and goat replacement. The dollars will just hemorrhage away until the day we tiptoe out of Afghanistan like we did Cambodia.
No wonder US citizens are demonstrating wildly in the streets against this costly intervention in a civil war fought on foreign turf by people of a culture vastly different from ours.
And so, with appropriate humility, I hereby offer a plan that will do no less than establish stable, long-term democracy in Afghanistan, raise the standards of economy, health and human rights throughout that beleaguered country, and win the War on Terrorism for all times. It’s relatively simple, has been done before, and will almost certainly cost less—and be substantially more rewarding--than shambling along in our current mode.
I propose that we make Afghanistan our 51st state.
The following are ten compelling arguments for Afghan statehood. Any thinking American could easily find more, but ten’s a nice, round, comfy number.
It would:
1) set up and maintain a government that’s workable, democratic and friendly--or at least, like the deep South, passably tolerant to the rest of the US;
2) grant every citizen, from the humble goat farmer right up to the Taliban chief, the right to practice tax-exempt Islam with the complete acceptance, understanding and support of his newfound fellow US countrymen;
3) rid Afghanistan of all poverty and hunger while opening the way for Progress, coincidentally ending the recession for international airlines, fast food franchises, WalMart and other US corporations too numerous to mention;
4) halt the outflow of refugees (indeed, refugees would flow in, to work in the new Kabul McDonalds and the Khorum Disney World [see #3]);
5) guarantee women the right to work for up to 79 cents on a man’s dollar, if their husbands let them, and the freedom to sneak out to vote and grab a latte-to-go at Starbucks (see #3) between fuel-gathering, water-gathering, food-gathering, goat-tending, child-tending, husband-tending, clothes-washing, food-cooking, and other miscellaneous marital and societal joys;
6) give these new citizens rights to welfare, free long-term seating in expensive hospital emergency rooms, and federal subsidies for not growing opium poppies;
7) build superhighways and set up a rail system that will ultimately make a marvelous cross-state jogging/biking path;
8) set up a postal system, which will open the way for the Progress, coincidentally ending the recession for Fedex, UPS, etc. (but probably not for Guaranteed Overnight Delivery, because certain elements in the State government will undoubtedly protest that there is no G.O.D. but Allah);
9) bring the vast quality-of-life benefits of Internet and Cable TV to the region; and
10) establish a police and judiciary system that is simple, direct, free from prejudice and absolutely impervious to corruption.
Once Afghanistan becomes a state, it will be easy to find Osama bin Laden and his cronies by tracing the flow of catalogs for arms, electronic surveillance devices and computer equipment through the mail system (or Fedex, or UPS--see #8). Once he’s in custody, it’s a simple matter of indictment, trial, appeal, appeal, appeal, and voila—infinite justice.
This concept might appear far-fetched on the face of it. However, Afghanistan is no more physically remote than Hawaii, and no more culturally remote than Texas. And the PR benefits will be beyond price: as other Islamic countries of the world watch their comrades in arms—at least the males—living in mountaintop condos, working nine-to-five with paid breaks for mint tea and prayers, driving SUVs and worshipping at the mosques of their choice, you can expect that they, too, will clamor for US statehood. Terrorism will become beside the point. Over time, we will pull the entire world, country by country, into the US (except for Canada).
And when that happens, we will be able at last to lay down our arms and live in peace on our terms.