ET – Seconded!
Corporatism is a multi-headed monster. Politics merely gives us two seemingly different heads to vote for, but really they’re both just parts of the same beast.
In political circles, Trump is a maverick, an outsider, but the Beast doesn’t care about that. Politics keeps the voters divided, everyone blaming the “other side”, but whichever “side” “wins”, the policy of the US as a whole changes only slightly.
The “news” media are yet more heads to the same beast, owned by corporatism. The invasion of Afghanistan was initiated under a Republican administration, but the Democrats continued it throughout their entire tenure. Eventually a Republican, Trump, ordered withdrawal right at the end of his tenure, thus dropping all the actual implementation, and consequent blame, onto the incoming Democrat Biden. The various “news” media assume their predetermined positions, blaming either Trump or Biden according to their political bias, thus keeping the voters divided. US military violence continues, unimpeded by pesky voters.
The “liberal” media are currently making a huge fuss about “women’s rights” in Afghanistan, which they never mentioned until the occupation needed a “liberal” justification under Obama.
All war is a corporatist stealth tax. Only governments spend money on war, so war always transfers vast amounts taxpayers’ money to the private sector, via the arms trade and the “private military contractors” ie. mercenary companies.
The parallels with Iraq are… I was going to write “stunning”, but actually they’re utterly predictable. Remember the Iraqi translators, abandoned upon US withdrawal? Who cares about some brown-skinned foreigners? Remember all the US weapons that fell under the control of ISIS and al Qaeda, who then used them (with US assistance) against the Syrian government? Corporatism’s objectives are fulfilled, twice over. The US will now replace the weapons abandoned in Afghanistan, moving taxpayers’ money to the arms manufacturers. And soon those weapons will be used “against US interests”, and the US will be “forced” to fight. Again. Que bono?