Remember back in 2001, when we first invaded Afghanistan our enemy was just one terrorist group - al-Qaeda? Those were the good old days, because now there are 20 terrorist groups in Afghanistan. Twenty!



Afghan Security and Defense departments on Sunday said 20 regional and international terrorist groups are fighting against the Afghan government and warned they are trying to expand their activities by establishing big military bases in the region.

President Ashraf Ghani has repeatedly said 20 terrorist groups are in the country.

If the number of terrorist groups multiply 20 times over, then you are doing it wrong.

Fortunately, Donald Trump is president now and he's gonna win this war for us.

How will he do that, you ask?

First of all, he's going to bomb the sh*t out of Afghanistan, because no one has ever done that before.



As of June 30, U.S. and coalition aircraft had dropped or expended 1,634 munitions in Afghanistan so far this year, according to U.S. Air Force numbers. By comparison, in 2015 and 2016, that figure was 298 and 545 respectively.



This, of course, is killing a whole bunch of civilians, but if you want to break an omelette, yadda, yadda.



Gen. Dowlat Waziri, a Defense Ministry spokesman, blamed the high toll on the insurgents' use of human shields.

However, Trump and his crew are outside-the-box thinkers.

The true brilliance of the Trump Administration is on display with what can only be described as Blackwater 2.0.



The United States should hire a mercenary army to “fix” Afghanistan, a country where we’ve been at war since 2001, spending billions along the way. The big idea here is that they could extricate U.S. soldiers from this quagmire, and somehow solve it.

Not surprisingly, the private-military industry is behind this proposal. Erik D. Prince, a founder of the private military company Blackwater Worldwide, and Stephen A. Feinberg, a billionaire financier who owns the giant military contractor DynCorp International, each see a role for themselves in this future. Their proposal was offered at the request of Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, his senior adviser and son-in-law, according to people briefed on the conversations.

I know what you are thinking, "That's the greatest idea I've ever heard!"

But wait! It gets even better.



In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Prince laid out a plan whereby the fighting force would be led by an American viceroy who would report directly to Trump. Modeled after General Douglas MacArthur, who ruled Japan after World War II, the viceroy would consolidate all American power in a single person. His mission: Do whatever it takes to pacify Afghanistan. No more backseat driving of the war from pesky bureaucrats in Washington, or restrictive rules of engagement imposed on soldiers. An American viceroy with a privatized fighting force would make trains run on time in Afghanistan—if they had trains.

Who would this viceroy be? Probably Prince had himself in mind, and that should worry everyone.

OH YEAH, BABY!

How could you not love this idea!?!

Mercenary army. No rules of engagement. An effin-viceroy, just like the British Empire. What's not to like?



In his Journal op-ed, he wrote that the British East India Company should be the model for U.S. operations in Afghanistan. This private company was the instrument of British colonization of India for centuries, led by a viceroy with monarchical powers and a private army to rule the natives. Prince’s solution for Afghanistan amounts to neo-colonialism.

British East India Company as a model of neocolonialism. Brilliant! It's not like Afghanis would remember that.

This has success written all over it.

Bannon went to the Pentagon to push for it with Kushner's backing, so this is being seriously considered. Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s deputy assistant for national-security affairs, also seemed to endorse it.

Fortunately Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is against it.