On Leaving Afghanistan

The wailing and moaning about our retreat from Afghanistan shows the victory of images over thought.  After one trillion dollars and twenty years, our work there has come to nothing.  And that nothing describes the level of thought from most reporters, who can only compare pictures of the US withdrawal from Vietnam from their childhoods with what they see now, and declare our troop withdrawal a failure.

On Leaving Afghanistan

National Public Radio drips with stories about the plight of Afghan women and people who like to read who are now ruled by the Taliban.  It’s sympathetic, really.  But if they aren’t willing to fight for their freedom, why should we?  The Afghan military and political leaders raced out of their country within a day.  After twenty years of blood and gold, none of them had enough courage to fight for even themselves, let alone their country.

President Joe Biden deserves credit for making the bold and risky decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.  It was always going to be messy.  He knew that.  Even former President Trump thought the US should leave Afghanistan, and many Americans agreed with him, as did Obama before him.  Biden is successfully wrestling with our military leaders, who are very invested in the US remaining there.  

President Joe Biden successfully managed to do what two previous Presidents wanted to do, but couldn’t.  He is willing to take the criticism and stand by this decision despite the leaks and complaints aired against him.

The American taxpayer funded a corrupt military exercise in a corrupt country run by a Department of Defense that can’t even pass an audit.  No wait, they can’t even do an audit.  No one knows where all the money went.  Not just in Afghanistan, but anywhere in the entire Defense Department.  

Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires.  The United States lasted longer than most, achieved the objective of routing the group responsible for the 9-11 terror attack, and is leaving after another, very expensive, lesson.  

Iran and Helping MEK

Huffingtonpost Post blogger Joan Z. Shore beats the drum for U.S. Support of Iranian dissidents MEK, who are also considered terrorists by the United States.

"Remove the MEK from the list of terrorist organizations," she writes. But only of we have the "guts" and "integrity" to do so.

Well that does it. As long as the collective manhood of our nation is called into question, we must go to war.

Alternatively, we could let the Iranians themselves say what they want through elections. And let em fight their own government if they've got a problem with it.

As awful as the current Iranian regime might seem to us, their replacements could be worse. After all, didn't the United States spend a lot of money helping the Afghan freedom fighters? And what became of that? The September 11th attacks.

All of which takes us away from the central issue: why isn't the Iranian government the problem of the Iranian people? And why do Americans have to die there?

Karzai's Conundrum

Afghanistan leader Karzai has threatened to join the Taliban if everybody doesn't get off his back about corruption and voter fraud. Nobody believes him, of course, because even he knows the Taliban would kill him in a New York minute if they get near him.

Karzai is in the very uncomfortable situation of needing all these foreigners in his country in order to have a country at all. There's no question that he needs them to restore order, establish infrastructure, etc. He can't muster the resources on his own to do any of it.

But guess what? We also need him. That's what he's saying with his rants. We do need him. So stop dropping in with demands and thinly veiled insults about integrity. He's getting sick of it. That's all he's saying.

Waterboarding is Torture, and Torture is Wrong - ACCOUNTABILITY !!

Peggy Noonan should have her ass kicked. She is an advocate for "just passing by" the horrors of the Bush Administration torture policies. I wonder which of her friends would be indicted?

Accountability is critical to never having the United States of America EVER involved in a torture program again. And I don't mean the lowest level person you can find. I mean the people who issued the orders and justified them legally when concerns were raised about possible prison time.

The SERE program put our troops through simulated harsh interrogation techniques. Then those techniques were employed by our own government as tactics in our own interrogations of terror suspects. It's like someone saw the abusive tactics being used to harden our own troops against interrogation tactics, and thought "Wow! What a great idea! We should do something like that."

President Obama is flailing around trying to prevent a full scale investigation into the torture program of the Bush Administration, sending the likes of Rahm Emanuel and other emissaries to the media trying to get everybody to get over the torture program that didn't work.

Bad news, President Obama. We're not going to allow you to pull a Clinton on us and sell out your support base for the sake of unity. We won't stop screaming until everybody knows you turned your back on the worst human rights violation for decades by the United States.

Let the party begin.
























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Son of bin Laden

Osama bin Laden's son is taking a stand against his father's violent and radical ways. Although he spent his teenage years in Afghanistan with his father, at a certain point he wanted to leave and his father let him.

Now he is trying to get a car race for peace going in the Middle East. Don't know if it will take off or not. But it is a good idea to try to distance yourself from such a father.

DreamWorks Shame in "The Kite Runner"

Child actors in Afghanistan were paid only $10,000 to appear in a movie "The Kite Runner." Now they are are being ostracized by their towns and family members have lost their jobs.

For God's sake, give the kids and their families more money. DreamWorks should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, but they probably aren't. DreamWorks took advantage of ignorant peasants and it is disgusting.

Click on the title to this post to see the BBC article.