Ex-CIA operative Henry “Hank” Crumpton was very impressive on Charlie Rose’s PBS al Quaeda, antiterrorist-themed show Jan 4. Young (44) and handsome, Crumpton was the guy who supposedly led the original and very efficient ouster of the Taliban with minimal U.S. personnel by using local help. That “local help” would be the Tajik and Uzbek “former“ Communist allies and war lords---a fine group of upstanding citizens who now plague and corrupt Afghanistan in place of the Taliban.

Charlie played excerpts from Crumpton’s interview with Lara Logan of “60 Minutes.” The lovely reporter and the handsome ex-spy---the warrior and the war groupie.

I recall seeing Lara Logan on Charlie Rose last year after she had been embedded with U.S. Troops in Afghanistan. She looked quite fetching in her helmet---the troops must have loved her.

But the stuff coming out of her mouth took even Charlie Rose aback: “We have to kill all the Taliban,” she said repeatedly and then her voice of reason kicked in immediately each time, “Well, we can’t kill them all…” She reminded me of Doctor Strangelove---the one hand reaching out to temporarily restrain the other one from pushing the nuclear crazy-button.

Crumpton sounded rational in comparison---although he and his C.I.A. operatives actually did a lot of killing. And very effectively. But Crumpton has moved on and parlayed his regime-change success into a consulting business. He now heads “The Crumpton Group---a “strategic consulting firm based in Washington and Warsaw.”

He reminded me of a younger, less oily version of that parade of experts who had appeared on the Charlie Rose show nearly a decade ago with a list of rational-sounding arguments for why we should, indeed must, invade Iraq. It was a fine, modern madness.

Crumpton is the latest version of the melding of modern, global, commercial interests with the resources of the U.S. taxpayers to use the U.S. military as a force to create new markets and to more efficiently extract the resources of “backward” foreign countries.

The word “kill” was heavily featured by Crumpton during his Afghan adventure. He now has the same shtick but a different vocabulary---and that quiet, modest demeanor we like in our warriors (but not in our Presidents). Instead of just “kinetic” responses to terrorism, the ex-C.I.A. operative told Charlie Rose, we need bring Afghanistan into the 21st Century---electricity, roads and internet. He figured about 20 percent of our resources should be applied to “kinetic” uses---the other 80 percent for modernization.

When, I wondered, are we going to bring the American public into the 21st Century? We live in a society of Medieval serfs with cell phones. They don’t have a clue about the technological foundation of the 21st Century, namely science. They think it may have something to do with making all those “surgically-precise” rockets for the “kinetic” part of Crumpton’s anti-terrorist/counter-insurgency strategy. Americans don’t seem to realize how expensive modern warfare is. In fact, our Congress doesn’t even debate those costs like they did with health care costs. The Afghan and Iraq War costs are quietly and quickly approved and not even counted in the defense budget.

Medieval serfs probably had a better idea how much of their labors and taxes went to outfit the Lords and Nobles with armor, cannons and retinues of retainers and mounts so they could go off to their endless wars. Today, mass advertising and reality TV serves to distract the American serfs from real reality---and at far less cost than building Great Cathedrals.

Frightened by economic uncertainty, modern Americans who still have jobs now work even more desperately for the new aristocracy of “kinetic” Americanism. America is the largest arms dealer in the world by far (70 percent of the market). Making weapons is the only bright spot in the actual manufacturing of real goods in this country. We have over 700 military bases around the world but our modern serfs are convinced we are “peace-loving.” We are now perpetually at war, but in America itself we frantically deny that reality, despite the occasional intrusion of some “terrorist act“ by disgruntled Islamics.

The 21st Century economic reality eludes the understanding of the hard-working American serfs---and peasants, too. That’s right, we are making peasants here at home, but it’s okay---the “economic recovery” is just around the corner from this current “jobless recovery.”

Ambassador Meera Shankar from the Republic of India put the American economy into world perspective on Ch 7.3 on Dennis Wholey (Jan 5) when she said that India is the “second-fastest growing economy in the world.”

“Behind China,” said Wholey, “not behind the United States.”

“No,” said the ambassador, “that would be a bad place to be.” [To be fair, she did say that “The media in the U.S. is polite compared to the media in India.”]

Business is supposed to be “the business of America.” But the average American is mystified by the economy---probably to avoid becoming demoralized. Americans may have heard that the U.S. has already dumped billions into the “rebuilding” of both Iraq (the infamous and undocumented “pallet loads” of cash) and Afghanistan (the infamous highway that crumbled before it could be used) with little to show for it. But most modern Americans act as if they aren't aware that the war contractors---who may or may not ever bring electricity or internet to the Afghan Tribesmen---are more crooked than Wall Street financiers.

Like Henry Kissinger, who went seamlessly from killing to consulting, I see a bright future for “The Crumpton Group“ as a “strategic consulting firm.” Henry Crumpton and Lara Logan are the new, pretty faces on using the military power and tax dollars of the U.S. government as corporate investments to pursue the commercial interests of the global economy. Join us in the new 21st Century Global Free Trade Organization or we will kill you. Oh, sorry---I mean we will apply “kinetic” solutions.

Rudy Wittshirk