Afghan economy better than expected, says IMF … In 2013, the economy will continue to grow and inflation is expected to be stable. An IMF report, released on Monday, noted that a large crop has boosted real GDP growth to 12 per cent and helped moderate inflation, which was 6pc year-on-year in December 2012. The IMF team reached staff level understandings with the authorities on a path to complete the combined 2nd and 3rd reviews, subject to implementation of key structural benchmarks for submission of laws to parliament and strengthening banks' capital. − Dawn

Dominant Social Theme: Let us civilize Afghanistan properly with a stiff dose of Western regulatory democracy.

Free-Market Analysis: We often repeat our points because they are idiosyncratic and no one else will. Perhaps it costs us readership but the truth is not always convenient.

One important argument is that the West's current wars are for control not resources. We get a lot of pushback on this because we don't offer the standard argument that the West is in the grip of despotic corporations looting impoverished countries via military action and unilateral demands.

In fact, we don't believe corporations run the world at all. We believe corporations are run by a tiny, ruthless power elite and that this power elite does not care about resources, as the world contains plenty of resources and the elite already controls most of them.

The furor over Peak Oil is just one example. Turns out that fracking allows US and Australian industry – just two examples – to turn from oil importers into oil exporters.

There are also reports (on alternative websites) that fracking is a suppressed technology that has been around for decades.

Oil, like most other resources, would likely be in plentiful supply were the Invisible Hand allowed to operate. But a power elite struggling to create world government suppresses easy access to many resources. It even attempts to make food and water scarce.

Scarcity is a main dominant social theme of the elite. Another dominant social theme is that modern war is necessary for self-defense or it is part of a "great game" played by nation-states to gain resource advantages and strategic dominance.

Today, the Great Game is supposedly being played out between the US and China.

But this is probably nonsense. China was controlled entirely by British officials throughout the 1800s. And there is ample evidence that Western powers have steered China's fate ever since and even conspired to put Mao in power.

Elites NEED faux opposition in order to make their world-spanning plans a reality. They create false-flag opposition and resultant military conflicts all the time.

The war in Afghanistan famously has no purpose and no reason at this point to exist. But the mainstream media is constantly offering rationales. The most popular ones nowadays often have to do with occupying Afghanistan so that it does not fall into the Chinese "orbit."

Of course, the Pentagon INVITED China into Afghanistan to exploit Afghan minerals and energy resources. But we are presumably not supposed to remember this.

The other fortitudinous event that has come out of the war in Afghanistan is that it has given the West the opportunity to build a civilized economy in what had been a tribal backwater.

This is the "White Man's Burden" dominant social theme, a hoary one that has been dusted off with new rhetoric.

The power elite never lets memes go. It just dusts them off and recycles them.

The IMF in this case is the "white man" and this article in Dawn is intended to be a reaffirmation of how far Afghanistan has come since the US decided to attack it, er … free it, er … keep it out of the hands of the Chinese, er … civilize it.

Well, you get the point. Here's more:

The economic outlook for Afghanistan is broadly positive and growth and inflation in 2912 were better than expected, says the International Monetary Fund.

An IMF team visited Kabul during Jan 19 to Feb 2 to conduct discussions on the combined second and third reviews of Afghanistan's IMF-supported programme under the Extended Credit Facility.

To build revenue momentum over the medium term, the Afghan authorities will continue and intensify their preparations for the successful implementation of the value-added tax in 2014.

You may believe all this is, dear reader, but we don't. What it does tell us is that the REAL reason for the Afghan war had to do with extending the power elite franchise in order to put the finishing touches on the feasibility of world government.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Northern Africa were evidently and obviously not fully under elite control. That's the reason that war has flared up in these regions, from what we can tell.

War is the anvil. Supra-national organizations like the IMF are the hammer.

They are brought in after the fire of war has raged to reshape the economy. In this case, we can see that the IMF intends to inflict on Afghanistan all of the failed recipes with which it has tortured other economies.

Its officials want VAT taxes, austerity and certain economic policies. In this case, the IMF has done us a service because the ludicrousness of this report highlights the REAL reason for the Afghan war.

Afghanistan is in no way a Western country and the latest attempt at bringing it into the Western orbit has seemingly failed, just as a previous one 100 years ago failed.

The exact same outcome is anticipated. The stubborn Pashtuns and devious Punjabis – two of the oldest tribes in the world – have fought off Western depredations and probably ended incipient hopes of creating true world government.

The IMF's ridiculous verbiage is highlighted for us in this regard. Afghanistan was supposed to be pacified by now. But the idea of the Taliban paying a VAT tax only emphasizes the disconnect between what the Western power elite intended and what has actually occurred.

There probably will be no VAT tax in Afghan's immediate future. There may not even be a Karzai government or a central bank or any of the other "modern" facilities of economic control that the West has tried to emplace.

The IMF may end up exiled. Women may continue to wear veils and be educated separately.

Some of the changes the West wished to bring to Afghanistan were no doubt positive. But these changes were mostly promotional.

The real reason the US and NATO were in Afghanistan was to impose a Western style demos onto a tribal peoples.

Not for resources. Not to fight China.

To control what's left of the world. The IMF proscriptions show us that.

Western-style regulatory democracy is not an unmitigated blessing, by any means. The elites that propound it have an agenda that has nothing to do with the betterment of the world.

They are seeking to rule this weary globe not to better it.

The IMF was supposed to be in charge by now. Instead, its silly – and injurious – recipes ring hollow.

We can see in their purveyance what was really intended – and what will probably not come to pass.

The elites that want to run the world justify war in all sorts of ways. Do not be fooled. There are plenty of resources and those who run such places as China have much more in common with Western power elites than they do with anyone else.

Please internalize this insight to better understand the Way the World Really Works.