Dropping the White Man’s Burden:

Why We Must Abandon Afghanistan

In 1897 Rudyard Kipling may have had Afghanistan specifically in mind when he wrote “The White Man’s Burden”:

                “Take up the White Man’s Burden-

                The savage wars of peace-

                Fill full the mouths of Famine-

                And bid the sickness cease.”

His version of this burden was British imperialism, whose “savage wars of peace” always succeeded real brutal warfare.  Under the lens of armchair historians, many of their imperial colonies throughout the world may have fared well, in balance.  Has the introduction of parliamentarianism, Western education and acculturation, and Western technology and health measures overcome the decades or even centuries of military and social subjugation?  What might have ensued if these proto nations had been left to their own devices?  Certainly, the West would have not had the economic and cultural ascendancy generated…