My Daily Extremist Narrative

Gonna tell you all a story 'bout a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his fam'ly fed
And then one day he was shootin' at some food
When up through the ground come a-bubblin' crude ...

Or lithium, or diamonds, or gold, or whatever ...

I'm sure it will do no good to suggest that, perhaps, what's under the ground in Afghanistan is purely the concern of those who live there, and that any development deals or assistance they might or might not want from Western concerns, they can be relied upon to negotiate for, just like real grownup people. 'Cause, you know, that would just be a lot of kum-ba-ya singing on my part, no doubt. Still, you can always count on some realist to say something that's really funny, in a hideous sort of way:

Some experts cautioned the U.S. to avoid giving the impression that it has designs on the country's mineral wealth.

"That would play right into the extremist narrative that the West is out to subjugate Muslims and plunder their resources," said Paul Pillar, a veteran CIA official now at Georgetown University.

No, we Americans would never, ever, ever consider subjugating Muslims and plundering their resources. I'm guessing that Veteran CIA Official Paul Pillar has probably never seen any bumper stickers saying:

NUKE THEIR ASS
AND TAKE THEIR GAS

I've probably never seen one either. I'm probably just imagining things. You know how it is with us extremists and our narratives.