When did we lose the war in Afghanistan?

 As best as I can tell, the United States lost the war in Afghanistan the moment it decided to turn it into a democracy - the moment we decided we were there to do "nation building" - A primitive country run by warlords and riven by blood feuds and religious fighting.  Never had a chance.  Democracy is a dream of developed nations who can stand on centuries of enlightened thinking and culture.  Even Germany and Italy collapsed into barbarism in the mid twentieth century and they had Beethoven and Michelangelo in their history.  

 

Bush lost the war by trying to turn it into the American Revolution.

 

It is a tragedy - a human tragedy of profound misery.  To watch those who got us into it, and who lost it about two decades ago, complain about how we are getting out of it is part of the pain of what is happening now.

 

As many have said, you don't lose wars gracefully.  We are being chased out.  Glad to be gone.  Sad to have stayed so long. Weeping at the brutality of those taking over. 

 

I have a vague hope that the Taliban will try to become a responsible government and not just a killing machine, but then again, Some had a vague hope that Trump would "grow into the job" of the presidency.  They just don't change their natures, in all likelihood. 

 

Actually, civil war amongst various violent forces inside country is not unlikely.

Where is the military bureaucracy?

Should we leave Afghanistan?  Yes.  Should have long ago.  

But the heart breaking scenes of Afghan allies being left behind, desperate to get accepted into the airport are shocking. You would think Trump was in charge of this pullout, not Biden.  Biden's entire brand is that he and his team of expert and experienced governmental employees know how to do things and do them well. The rollout of the vaccines with the sharp declines in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths was proof of that. 

So, what is going on?  The departure date has been known for months.  The way things get done is through bureaucratic organizations, systems, bureaucracies.  Logistics, food, transportation, paperwork, protection, checkpoints, etc.  What the hell?

OK, so the government collapsed in 11 days and the administration thought they had months.  Why did they wait to put things in place?

LBJ had a stunning domestic agenda and accomplishment from Civil Rights, to Medicare and Medicaid, etc.  But his presidency was crushed by Vietnam. Biden can't be blamed for losing the war in Afghanistan, it was lost from the beginning because it was trying to do something impossible - set up a democracy in a War Lord country riven by religious conflict. 

So, good, leave.  The country wants you to leave.  But do it well, not like a bunch of unprepared amateurs.

I hope the administration can solve this very difficult situation and get our collaborators out before they are tortured and killed by the barbarians now in charge.

This takes the shine off of the Biden administration, and it may effectively kill his presidency.  That is certainly the goal of the Republicans, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Iranians - to kill the Biden presidency and thus weaken the United States so as to clear the field for their plans.

 

 

 I self published a book of my blog posts over the last six years.  This is a collection of my posts on my blog – demulcents.blogspot.com - from July 2015 to July of 2021. Six pretty challenging years, years where Presidential candidate and later President Donald Trump and his cult-like followers defiled the name, reputation, and goodness of the United States of America. A country that I deeply love and watched in horror at the depravity of this mentally ill person and his voters as they attacked and destroyed as much of the goodness of the great American Experiment as they could.

 

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-About-America-Trump-Defilement-ebook/dp/B09CN3DXZP/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=john+moreschi&qid=1629124522&sr=8-3

 

 

Afghanistan heartbreak

 Afghanistan fell to the Taliban religious extremists today, as "president" Ghani fled for his life when the Taliban entered the capital of Kabul largely unimpeded.  It took less than two weeks for the Taliban to conquer the country once America declared its exit. We in America thought that the war was not very violent in the last couple of years or so because there were few American and Allied casualties, but apparently that was just the happy delusion fostered by the Taliban not to target us while they continued a fierce fighting and killing of Afghan government military and officials. 

 

So, for us to leave just allowed what was already happening to advance with lightning speed.  I have read that the Afghan people did not have a fierce reason to defend a government that was so obviously and blatantly corrupt and self serving.  That essentially the Afghan military were there just to have a job and make a living, whereas the Taliban were carrying out their understanding of what their god mandated them to do - establish extremist Islamic rule and kill infidels. 

This would have been the result at pretty much any point in the 20 year war in Afghanistan, it seems to me.  On one side was the Afghan government, which we tried to tell ourselves was some expression of democracy, but was mostly just a government imposed by a foreign power (us) and propped up by a foreign power (us).  On the other side was a zealous religious fanaticism, centuries old, fighting to impose their religious vision of Islam, supported by allies in Iran (I believe).  

Afghanistan is the land where empires go to die - Persia, Alexander the Great, British, Russian, and now American.  

 

Rudyard Kipling wrote about 130 years ago - "East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet".  Oh well. We tried.  We lost. We didn't lose through "weakness", we lost pursuing a fool's errand, it seems to me.

 

Heartbreak.  One of so many heartbreaks in the world today.

My attempt to persuade folks to get vaccinated...

Underneath the refusal to get vaccinated against a world wide pandemic is a need to belong, it seems to me.  

I think there are two groups of the vaccine refusals - the New Age/holistic healing/energy healing/nutrition and essential oils/superior immune system/we are superior to allopathic medicine which is just a bunch of pill pushers Group - and the the Right Wing/Fundamentalist Christian/Jesus will protect us/tough guy & gal/we hate the government/nobody tells me what to do Group.  

 

And the real problem for people in both groups is that to take vaccines is to turn their back on their group, to lose their identity as evolutionarily superior or tougher than thou people - and most of all to no longer belong to their tribe.  

 

But, sorry to say, there are just some things that can’t be stopped without vaccines. 

If the only person at risk would be the one who chooses not to vaccinate, then their fate is on their heads. But of course others breathe their air and some of them could be very vulnerable. And some of those will travel to where the unvaccinated person will never see, who are perhaps very vulnerable.  

To my New Age unvaccinated friends, I understand how hard it is to dedicate your life to alternative holistic healing and then confront a world wide virus that can pulverize that approach. Broken bones need splints. Polio needs vaccines. The old graveyards are filled with small gravestones of young children that died of terrible communicable diseases who were killed before the vaccines were available. 

 

COVID with its variants need vaccines. They have been proven safe by over 200,000,000 vaccinated Americans as a test sample. The complications are very rare. I wish this was just about respecting each other’s choices, but it’s like telling people to respect someone who chooses to run red lights. Others are impacted. Choosing to vaccinate for some seems like a repudiation of a lifetime’s philosophy. But it’s not. I am in awe of the benefits of at least some of the miracles of modern science and this vaccine is one of those miracles, it seems to me.  

 

Heart surgery saved my life.  That was an amazing miracle done by a masterful magician who had dedicated his life to that particular scientific knowledge and skill.  All I can say is thank you, and I will also say that allopathic medicine has a lot of knowledge and magic in it and I hope people do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  I welcome the "alternative" healings, and pursue a very healthy immune system, and am grateful for the New Age modalities.  But there are places for each, and protecting against deadly pandemics is a place for vaccines.

 

To my Right Wing no-government-is-going-to-tell-me-what-to-do friends, it is harder for me to get inside your heads, as your world view is further removed than mine.  But I think it has something to do with what a dear friend of mine calls "fierce independence"  - pride in independence, a pride in not needing any help from anywhere, a pride in a kind of hyper masculinity and toughness that says who cares if I get it, I'm tough and I will be tougher than the virus.  OK.  Maybe. Maybe not.

 

But...you don't run stoplights, even though the government tells you not to - and you don't drive drunk, even though the government tells you not to - and you obey the police if pulled over for a traffic stop, even though the government tells you to - and you accept Social Security, and Medicare if you qualify, and welcome firefighters, and the Army Navy Marines Air Force Interstate Highways Libraries Air Traffic control Banking regulations, etc- even though they are government run entities.

 

And to those who think Jesus will protect them from the virus, I don't think that is what Jesus does.  I think Jesus loves you deeply and weeps when you fall short of his teachings and example, and weeps when you suffer, and weeps if you get COVID-19 but I don't think he is in the job of keeping you from sicknesses, I think his job is empathy and helping with healing.  

 

That's about the best I can do to try to help those who refuse vaccinations against a world wide pandemic to open to becoming vaccinated. 

 

One of my biggest puzzlements is what are the motivations?  My motivation in asking people to get vaccinated is to help keep them healthy, to keep their vulnerable loved ones healthy, and to keep those they will never meet but who could get the virus because of them healthy. And biggest of all to stop this terrible painful disease and make it go away like polio, smallpox, etc. all went away before it thanks to vaccines.

 

But what are the motivations of the New Agers who try to keep people from getting vaccinated?  To prove that allopathic medicine is a fraud?  It seems that the drastic drop in hospitalizations and deaths after the Federal Government created a nationwide vaccination program proves that the vaccines actually do work.  So, I am baffled.

 

And what are the motivations of the tougher-than-thou folks?  To prove how tough they are? to prove that they don't need any help from anybody?  Really?  No thought about what happens to others?

 

I guess I can understand the fundamentalist motivation, to prove to themselves and the world that Jesus loves them and will protect them.  Oh well.  America is filled with gravestones of the Faithful.

 

Please get vaccinated.  Please don't try to convince others not to get vaccinated.

 

I have done my best to be convincing.  I don't have anything else I can think of to say.

Authoritarianism 101

The former guy taught Americans what vast numbers around the world have known for a very long time - how to set up an authoritarian rule:

Tell a big lie - over and over and over and over and over and over...

Attack all investigations of facts and truth

Enforce adherence to the big lie by punishing those who speak the truth.

Control the news

Use and threaten violence repeatedly

Whatever you are guilty of, accuse the opposition of the same thing.

Flood the mental zone with repeated continual chaos.

Infiltrate democratic, military, law-enforcement, and judiciary with fellow authoritarians.

Sadly, we in the United States are living through this now. This is not some arcane study of Germany and Russia. We live in an age of attempted fascist take over.

Truth and goodness will prevail. Time for my conservative friends to get sick and tired of the Trump show and turn away.

I don’t know if the former guy just knew all of this, or just does it instinctively based on decades of corruption and domination in his crooked businesses, or was just taking directions from his Master, Vladimir Putin.  But he has taught us all about Authoritarianism.

Did I mention violence? Threats of violence?  Celebrating violence? Running from violence right after you tell your Cult – you and him go fight…for me…

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is doing its best to provide a helpful and effective government even in the face of cult led fervid opposition.  Thankfully.