Chapter 492 Afghan Gemila
Central Asia.
Afghanistan is a strange country, and this place known as the cemetery of empires is a place with special magic. Starting from Alexander the Great, the monarch who conquered three continents fell here.
Then Genghis Khan did not get any benefits in Afghanistan.
In modern times, the British Empire was the most powerful in the nineteenth century, and the period known as the empire on which the sun never sets also faded away in Afghanistan.
Time is moving to modern times, and the aggression launched by the Soviets against Afghanistan did not bring any benefits to the Soviet Union at all except for increasing the death rate of its own soldiers.
The next one that does not believe in evil is the United States. As the first battlefield in the war against terrorism in the 21st century, the United States has been mired in the quagmire of Afghanistan for more than ten years.
No matter what the purpose of the United States was at the beginning, whether it was really anti-terrorism, or to install its own forces in Central Asia and the Middle East. But more than ten years have passed, and it cannot be said that the United States has completely failed, but for Congress, the benefits ultimately gained from Afghanistan are very, very limited.
This is a big gap from their original preset goals, and in terms of strategic intentions, the battle has actually failed. The decades-long war in Afghanistan alone has killed nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers, and many more have been seriously injured and disabled.
Continuous conflicts consumed a large amount of supplies, and the successive waves of rebellion made the US military overwhelmed. What worries Congress even more is the war budget that continues to increase every year.
There is nothing wrong with the United States being the country with the highest assets in the world, but they have invested too much military power in the wars in Central Asia, the Middle East and Northeast Africa. Modern warfare is all about money.
Now Congress's budget is exceeded every year, and there is a fiscal deficit every year. This made the head of the finance department a headache, and life in Congress was not easy, because the number of soldiers killed in action was too large.
Domestic opposition to the war is on the rise, especially now that the unemployment rate in the United States remains high, and the people hope that the government will invest money in civilian construction instead of spending millions to watch the fireworks of a Tomahawk missile.
In this case, the Afghan troop withdrawal plan was brought to the fore. The bigwigs in Congress have had enough of paying for the decisions of the previous cabinet and parliament. They don't want to keep throwing money into the bottomless pit of Afghanistan.
Beginning this year, the U.S. military has begun to gradually withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. There appears to be a dawn of peace in a country that has been ravaged by war for decades, including the Soviet Union's previous wars and reign of terror.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops is only one side, and the more profound side is the start of the new energy plan.
The reason why Tony's new energy plan is called the most important change in the 21st century is not limited to the fact that traditional petrochemical energy is replaced.
In the revolutionary wave of new energy, the Middle East and Central Asia, which originally represented important energy supply regions, began to lose value.
Among the various wars that have occurred in the world in the past fifteen years, the conflicts caused by oil resources are the most. No matter what kind of skin it wears, the core inside is simple and naked oil interests.
The United States has begun to adjust its foreign policy, including gradually loosening its control over Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf.
Although the original Afghanistan was not an oil-producing country, but because of its special geographical location and national territory (Afghanistan's territory is in the shape of a long and narrow corridor), it is a corridor connecting Central Asia and the Middle East to East Asia. And this long and narrow corridor leads to the former Soviet Union at one end and China at the other end.
From a strategic point of view, the United States needs to master such a strategic location. Because of the geographical relationship, this country has become an important forward base for the competition for Central Asia and the Middle East over the years.
But just like the simplest business, when the value of oil is not so important, or not worth the lives of countries, the value of Afghanistan also plummets.
Because oil is no longer so valuable, those bigwigs who originally supported various warlords in the Middle East and Central Asia suddenly withdrew their capital.
These idiots who can only destroy but don't know how to build are now in control of various oil fields and oil wells, but they are gradually becoming less expensive. Wars driven by oil interests have become ridiculous.
Because all smart people have seen that petroleum may still be useful in chemical products in the future, but that is only a by-product. After the most important energy value is stripped off, no one will make a living for the raw materials of some chemical products. kill.
Because there is no source of funds and various weapons provided by the benefactors behind them, the major warlords in the Middle East and Central Asia seem to have died down in an instant. The so-called war of faith and jihad are just absurd excuses, and those warlords wage wars for profit.
As long as they have money, they can simply sell the lives of their compatriots as commodities!
Now that no one wants the goods, it is time for the warlord business to close. The conflict in the Middle East that has plagued the world for decades seems to be seeing the dawn of resolution at this moment.
At that moment, it seemed that peace was really about to come to this war-torn land.
Countless ordinary people look forward to it, as long as peace comes, even if life is hard and tiring, at least there is still hope for life.
There will not be someone holding a gun barrel to force them to die at any time, nor will a missile suddenly appear from the sky while they are sleeping peacefully at home.
For many people a peaceful life is more precious than anything else.
In Gemila, Afghanistan, due to the withdrawal of US troops and the recent ceasefire of warlords who have no sources of funds, this small town has entered a relatively peaceful period.
Some people who left their homes because of the war returned to live here, after all, it is hard to leave their homeland.
Gmila is a very, very small city, and the largest building in the city is an oil refinery built by the former Soviet Union here. Because this refinery used to have many warlords fighting each other here, but now it has been abandoned. Because oil cannot be sold at a high enough price, it is not enough to support the warlords to use precious weapons and ammunition to seize here.
In its heyday, Gmila had a population of nearly 70,000, but today only less than 9,000 and less than 10,000 people still live in this small town and its vicinity.
Because of the war, a large loss of population is inevitable.
But as long as there is hope of rebuilding their homes, there will always be people who come back to contribute to their hometown. Like Dr. Ethan.
As a scientist with good talents in the fields of biology and medicine, Ethan can go to other countries to seek a high-paying position. After all, talent like him is popular all over the world.
Not to mention his life-saving grace to Tony Stark. When he was in the United States, Tony basically treated Ethan as the company's chief scientist.
But because of the new energy, Ethan and Tony broke up. Because compared to Tony, Ethan has a deep-rooted pain for the war caused by energy interests. His family died in this kind of war.
New energy, power to change the world! How strong its energy is, it will cause much damage to this world. Ethan has a deep understanding of this point. He repeatedly persuaded Tony Stark to suppress his plan, or implement it after having a complete plan.
But Tony's pride and arrogance hurt Ethan. In the end, the good old man could only give Tony a final warning by leaving. And the war in Eastern Europe that happened later verified Ethan's previous conjecture.
There seems to be a ceasefire in Eastern Europe now, but Ethan knows it's only temporary. When Doom and Wu Chang are better prepared, this war will only intensify.
Ethan sighed, it was already one o'clock in the afternoon. It's time for him to go to the temporary school to teach the children. As a scholar, Ethan firmly believes that only by mastering the knowledge of this era can his compatriots survive in the future, and only wise people can live better in this world.
New energy is a crisis but also a turning point. As long as the next generation seizes the opportunity well, it may not be impossible to build a new and beautiful Afghanistan.
Ethan found himself a top hat and put it on, although there are not many students in the school, there are less than fifty students. And he is the only teacher, but he has always been in awe of knowledge and science.
Just one and a half kilometers away from the oil refinery, an abandoned house and makeshift tents are the whole school.
When Ethan just stepped into the school gate, he realized that there was one more person in his school. A grown man.
A crisp suit was spotless, which seemed out of place in Gamila. The most unexpected thing was that Ethan saw that this man had ten rings on his hands.
This man with ten rings has a majestic face with Chinese characters and a pair of very bright eyes.
At the same time, he has long black and thick hair, which is about the length of the back. With a carefully groomed beard, it looks very similar to Tony Stark's beard.
This is a person who has been in a position for a long time. In an instant, Ethan could make the simplest judgment. And it looks like an East Asian, which is obviously different from the Afghans in Central and West Asia.
But this man just stood in front of him, without saying a word, he still looked very imposing. If Dr. Ethan has read Hong Kong cartoons. You will definitely feel that the man in front of you is very similar to the most popular villain boss in "Feng Yun": Xiongba.
The man who looked like Xiongba gave Ethan a lot of glances, and suddenly said, "Are you Dr. Ethan?"
He uses very authentic Arabic, and there are quite a few people who speak Arabic in Afghanistan, and Dr. Ethan happens to be one of them.
He nodded and said, "I am, may I ask you?"
The man who looked like Xiongba smiled: "You can call me Zhang Tong, I came to you because I need your help with something."
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