Joshua Foust is a smart guy who writes smart things, particularly about Afghanistan. But this?
I’ve at least made friends with the servants here [at Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait]. “The who,” you might ask? I’m referring to all the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Filipinos who work as the base’s (and all of CENTCOM’s, it seems) second-class citizens. They don’t get bonuses like we do, but they work their tails off to send money back home to their families. They also seem to be held in utter contempt by a depressing number of people here, uniform or no. That idea, of importing servants to do our dirty jobs, may be just how things work, but it is a bit depressing.
It’s never pleasant when the inner workings of an imperial project are exposed, because those inner workings nearly all involve poor people doing all the work and getting treated like shit. Although it’s late in the game, I hope that Josh will make the connection between the way we run things in Ali Al Salem and the entire project of Afghanistan.
Tags: afghanistan, Joshua Foust