NORTH CAROLINA - Javad Zarif is so correct, saying that the U.S. never should have invaded Afghanistan (nor should the U.S. have invaded or attacked or sanctioned so many countries since World War 2 for that matter.)

But one must be reminded of what former U.S. Secretary of State Madelaine Albright suggested years ago: that given the fact of the existence of the U.S. military’s might, it ought to be USED for something, as if that could be good excuse for shattering countries and cultures that are not American, and murdering millions of people. This has been done repeatedly especially since 9/11.

Albright, a Jewess of questionable merit for the jobs she has attained (unless a doctoral degree is worth mention, or later that she was the first U.S female who became the top U.S. “diplomat”), also said that the demise of some half a million Iraqi children in the 1990s when Iraq was under U.S. sanctions imposed by President Bill Clinton was “worth it”. This occurred largely because the U.S. prohibited the import of chemicals to make Iraq’s water supplies free of bacteria and other pathogens. (Just imagine having to drink from the Tigris River flowing through Baghdad after the river arose in Turkey for starters and flowed south over 1000 kilometers.)

Albright was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 by another President, Barack Obama. Why is anyone’s guess! But U.S. Presidents of late have been inclined to award unindicted criminals or criminal minds big awards – Trump just gave the same medal to a vicious right-wing radio personality, Rush Limbaugh, whose verbal stock in trade has been racism, misogyny, far-right politics, and sheer banality.

Maybe Trump felt sorry for Limbaugh who announced he had Stage 4 lung cancer, but he’d have done better sending him a mere note of condolence on toilet paper? Trump cheapened the so-called Medal of Freedom badly, in the same way, perhaps, that the Nobel Peace Prize has been cheapened in this century, particularly by its award to Barack Obama in the early stage of his reign and who later never did anything of note for peace, particularly in the Middle East where his administration soon sparked the destruction of Libya and Syria by terrorists.

But again, the truly honorable and honest Mr. Zarif is so correct. The U.S. never should have invaded Afghanistan, he said, except as others may note that Usama ibn Laden, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attack, was allegedly there, and yet to this day no one has ever come clean about all the actors who were involved (the CIA, the Mossad, the Saudi leadership?) in the planning or execution of the attack in Manhattan.

But now we have the spectacle of the U.S. signing a peace deal with the Taliban. Trump HAS lived up to one of his campaign promises, which was to pull the U.S. out of Afghanistan, where to date more than $2 trillion has been spent, no real U.S. friends were ever made, and many thousands died. Imagine what $2 trillion could have done to solve real problems and make real friends in Asia, no war-making permitted. Imagine the friends the U.S. could make in Iran if the U.S. dropped and then apologized for the hideous economic sanctions and realized that friendships with Iranians could be far more profitable and beneficial than propping up a racist, Apartheid regime in what is still called Palestine most everywhere.

Zarif has said, also correctly, that the U.S. “surrendered” to the Taliban after years of “humiliation”. And again correctly, that the U.S. is and has been THE problem in West Asia, which eventually it will be forced to leave altogether. Inshallah. But what Zarif has failed to mention is just this: that the U.S. Military Industrial Complex and its many corporate and contractor minions, which President Eisenhower warned about in 1960, have gotten rich murdering faraway foreigners and stealing control of resources since the 1950s…and the U.S. today has become virtually bankrupted, too.

Indeed, it is the recognition of horrific policies that have not benefitted most Americans that underscores Senator Bernie Sanders’ bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Presidency in November. He seems to be the front runner currently, but his competitors are trying to ensure he will not be nominated … against the will of most Democratic Party and independent voters together. This is a travesty. The screaming question is why do party members oppose Sanders, who is claiming he cannot beat Trump when he is the best of the candidates against Trump? Partly the answer is that Sanders’ economic programs may not work, but that not the prime reason.

Simply put, those of the “Establishment” so long established in positions of power and with reams of perks and privileges increasingly not available to average Americans, whose fortunes have been in decline for half a century since the Vietnam War, cannot conceive of giving up their power. Indeed, it has been noted that the privileged, enjoying great relative prosperity, would often sooner engineer their own destruction through their own rigidity and blindness than giving up even a small portion of their perks for the greater good.