The withdrawal of American forces and our allies from Afghanistan is a mess. We have until Tuesday to complete it and nobody with a brain thinks it can be completed by then. So, there will be some jockeying for position with the Taliban and more Isis-K attacks, and maybe some other terror groups will make an effort to get in on the action too. In the military a situation that has gone completely sideways is often referred to as a 'cluster-fuck', and this one certainly qualifies.
The GOPs are sharpening their razors and swords, hoping, as you would expect, to take advantage of the situation and perhaps even destroy the Biden presidency. They will try, but it's doubtful they'll succeed because what they are doing is so transparently hypocritical and blatantly political. They will likely never acknowledge that this withdrawal was precipitated by The Big Orange Idiot himself, when he released 5000 Taliban from detention last year and paved the way for their comeback. But you can count on the usual cast of characters, of course, to blather on about how this is all Biden's fault, and that he's incompetent and should resign, or be impeached....blah, blah, blah. If you listen to Moron Taylor Greene, or Ted Cruz, McCarthy, Ron Johnson, Jim Jordan, or any of the other by now standard idiot voices coming out of the far right, it will depress you.
But, as a thinking and self-educating person, you should also know that it's all just good ol' BULLSHIT. These fools love to deepen their foolishness by yammering on and on, but when you look at what they are saying it's readily apparent that it's just the same old Republican line of attack. "Dems bad, very bad, bad."
And, as always, the actual facts of the situation all tell the same story: this was never going to end well. You can scatter blame around, trying to kill the lies, but facts--especially well-documented historical ones--inevitably rise to the top, like the head on a beer. And, the facts are very clear in this case. We jumped into Afghanistan with both boots after 9-11. There was a national rage that needed to be serviced, one way or another....and George W. was ready (and appeared to be pleased) to be the 'decider' who directed us to attack the country that only later was proven to be the host for the terrorists of Al Qaeda who planned and executed the attacks.
So, there we went. And, we began pouring resources of every kind into our commitment to be there. If you look closely at the below aerial photo of Baghram Air Base, outside of Kabul, the sheer volume of buildings, runways, warehouses, vehicles etc. cannot help but impress you that we held very little back in our effort to best the Taliban and build modern Afghanistan into a functioning democracy....which it has never been in modern times.
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| Bagram Air Base, Kabul Afghanistan |
We have spent over TWO TRILLION....as in two thousand billion....dollars to fight the Taliban and to try and develop the Afghan military to a level that would allow it to become an effective force for the modern country we envisioned. Unfortunately, we didn't really--as usual--understand the people and the society we were attempting to re-model in our own image. There are still war lords running all of the country outside of Kabul, and it more closely resembles a 15th century caliphate than it ever will a modern functional democracy.
We seemed to intentionally ignore the signs that what we were doing there was never going to work, at least not on the level we intended. We did help the women of Afghanistan move into the 21st century, but without our presence they will very likely face a heartbreaking retrograde back to the abject repression of former Taliban rule.
Of course, the Taliban claim that they have changed. Not too sure that is either real or what we, again, imagine it to be. When the last C-17 or C-130 has climbed out of Bagram, and Afghanistan once again becomes a much quieter place, there are already indications that the Taliban will revert to form and become the enthusiastically cruel masters that they were in former times. It will forever remain one of the greatest ironies of human history that a movement claiming to be highly pious and religious have consistently acted more despicably than anybody, going all the way back to the Nazis.
The thing is: there never has been even the possibility that it would end any other way. All the money and blood, sweat and tears we invested in the Afghan military and in propping up the government will be as dust in the wind. When it became clear that the Taliban were on the march and headed into all Afghan cities, the speed with which the Afghan army abandoned its weapons and fled home or anyplace safer, was a clear indication that we gave them all the training, all the best equipment, and NONE OF THE SPIRIT that they needed to be able to stand firm against an enemy that is comprised of highly motivated fanatics. They suddenly saw the hand-writing on the wall and knew it was time to skedaddle.
One of the qualities that all soldiers cannot do without, if they're to succeed in combat, is 'esprit de corps', a sense of pride and determination to live up to a high standard of courage in actual fighting. If that is missing, troops who come up against a genuine threat....will just fade into the woodwork. When that 'spirit' is present in large measure, all things become possible. A perfect example is that of the Marines on Guadalcanal who were dug-in on a ridge protecting the landing strip. A handful of them held off charge after charge by a much larger force of Japanese, who eventually backed-off in the face of what they assumed was a much lager force of Marines. That is the fighting spirit, friends.
And, although a small number, relatively, of Afghan soldiers joined their 'special forces' and expressed determination and even a willingness to die for the freedom of their country, they were far too few to carry the day. And, sadly, I doubt if many of them will survive this transition to Taliban rule.
So, here we are. And, there is plenty of blame to go around. The GOPs are always wanting to re-write history, and they apparently have no difficulty lying, so they will do everything in their power to lay all of this at Joe Biden's feet. But, they, as usual, are full of shit. It started with W., continued unabated with Obama, and the Idiot just made it worse, despite his slimey attempts to avoid any responsibility, as usual.
We all bear some blame for thinking we could just go out there and 'fix it', by injecting massive amounts of money, equipment and spending over 5000 American lives (including both military personnel and contractors). Well, we have a tendency to think we can do anything we set our sights on....but, perhaps this is showing us a side of ourselves that we have refused to look at closely. We think, on some level, that people all over the world want to be like us. They do not.
What they want is less unnecessary dying, from war, disease, starvation and climate chaos. And, that may be the one thing we are unable to give them. Hell, we can't even do that for ourselves.
We need to face the truth that is starring us in the face: we are not here to save the planet, and are failing at even saving ourselves.
Oh, America..................................what the fuck?
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