There is so much to unpack here. Shit is swirling down the drain at breakneck speed. I've been riding a roller coaster for the last 24 hours or so.
As I type this, BidenHarris is busy being fashionably late for his address to this nation about that nation. Not that what he is going to say has any importance - where the hell has he been for the past few days? On vacation. At Camp David. Nero fiddling while Rome burns. I get it - vacations are supposed to be important. But If I could go for 20 years not taking vacations so other folks could benefit, I think he could cut ONE vacation short when shit hit the fan. I was getting shot at so that other folks could go relax for a few days. His biggest problem on this vacation is deciding whether he wants "pheasant under glass" or "coq au vin" for dinner. The pressures are not the same. WE are not the same.
I have no problem resettling Afghan refugees here. The ones they are bringing over are the ones that helped our troops, and whose heads are now on the chopping block because of that, very literally. So long as they are thoroughly vetted, I'm ok with it. However, I do not have a whole lot of confidence in the BidenHarris regime properly vetting them. They don't have a great track record at implementing, well, anything. So, there IS a potential for some Taliban to sneak in to wreak havoc here. Should we then abandon our friends so that wolves don't sneak in among them? No, I don't think so. We OWE them. They laid their lives on the line to help us, and we should return that favor. That's what friends do. We just need to be aware, alert, and ready to put down any infiltrators like rabid dogs. We shoot rabid dogs around here, but we don't throw the babies out with the bath water.
I lived in Greensboro, NC, when we brought in a bunch of Hmong tribesmen that had helped Special Forces in Vietnam. As a matter of fact, I lived in the same neighborhood they settled the Hmong in, I lived on Spring Street then, and the Hmong were settled one block over, across what was then an open field, but is now a housing development. The Special Forces Association got together with the Lutheran Church to bring them over. The government dropped the ball there, and the private sector picked it up and ran with it, because SF don't abandon their friends, even when the government does.
Afghans that helped us 50 years later are no better, and no worse.
As far as China "building a major highway in the Wakhan Corridor for trade purposes" goes, all I'll say about that is that when civilians see a "major highway" built for "trade purposes", military planners look at the same highway and see an MSR - Main Supply Route - and think "invasion corridor". Afghanistan may want to rethink China's role in their economic development plan, but that's for Afghans to figure out for themselves. Maybe it's just China's turn to have their asses handed to them by "a bunch of illiterate goat-herding, cave-dwelling tribesmen". I personally think that inviting the CCP in to build their very own high speed invasion corridor into Afghanistan is a bad idea, but that is for Afghans to determine. It's their country.
I'm sick near to death of hearing Democrats and Republicans point fingers at one another and try to shift blame for this. They're all full of shit. There is enough blame to go around for all. This war has been mishandled from the very inception, with both Democrats and Republicans presiding over the shit-show and all making bad decisions that all lead us right to where we are today.
Bush took us in, to eradicate the Taliban, the enemy. That was proper, so far as it went... then that dipshit dropped the ball, figured if war on one front was good then war on two fronts was better, and took us needlessly into Iraq. That had the effect of dividing our force, dividing our attention, and suddenly focus was taken from Afghanistan, where it should have been, and placed on Iraq, where it was unnecessary. Afghanistan became the red-headed stepchild war, and has remained so ever since, even after we left Iraq.
Obama couldn't figure out what to do with it at all. His decisions reminded me of a blind man throwing darts at a dart board to reach a decision on any given day. We were all over the board then.
Trump tried, but his biggest mistake was inviting the enemy we originally went in to eradicate to the negotiating table. You kill folks who are trying to kill you... you don't serve them hot chai.
Which brings us to the BidenHarris regime. They are utterly clueless, just wanting to get America out of a "forever war", with no thought whatsoever to the repercussions of a precipitous, panicky route.
Fighting a war with kid gloves is no way to fight a war or defeat an enemy. the Taliban understood that, but the Americans seem not to. You can't have a "kinder, gentler kind of war" and expect to win it. Sure, we had pretty low casualties in Afghanistan, as casualties go, but that just means that soldiers were not being allowed to fight the war properly, because they might hurt someone's wittle feewings. Fuck that. Send the troops in, kick the enemy's ass, bring the troops home, and send in the diplomats. It really is that simple.
We had "mission creep" in a huge way. somewhere along the line, eradicating the Taliban took a back seat to "nation building" along US lines. Afghanistan is not suited to western-style government, and the US predictably lost a lot of folks that the Taliban gained when they tried it. Instead of fighting the Taliban, we fed their recruiters with that bone-headed bullshit.
You "build nations" by being their friend, and assisting them in implementing a government THEY can live with, not by imposing your own sort of foreign-to-them government. The Russians made that same mistake, and now we have, too. Thanks, Baby Bush!
There is more, much more, in the way of examples of US blunders and why we lost this war, but the foregoing should suffice. This war, like Vietnam, was not lost by the troops - we won nearly every engagement in both instances - it was lost by dumbassed politicians in Washington, DC and glory-seeking generals and their bullshit "rules of engagement". The only legitimate rule of engagement is "kill the guys who are trying to kill you. Have no mercy on them, because they won't have any mercy on you".
Now those sons of bitches own it. Republican and Democrat alike.
Here are my credentials for having an opinion in the matter. If it's not enough, I don't care. it's all ya get:
![[Image: attachment.php?aid=9849]](http://rogue-nation3.com/attachment.php?aid=9849)
ETA: Americans have always ha a unique penchant for going in to foreign lands, and expecting it to be just like home, and expecting the people there to want the same things Americans want. I've never been like that. When I went, I realized acutely that I was the alien there, not the locals, It was THEIR country, not mine, and because of that I went in expecting I would have to conform to their culture, not the other way around. That, perhaps, is the single biggest mistake America made in this entire debacle. They were too busy being Americans, and acting like Americans, to listen to what the locals wanted for THEIR OWN nation. We were too busy telling them what they wanted instead of listening to the Afghan vision for Afghanistan. Too busy "nation building" in the image of America to kill the enemy we allegedly went there to kill.
Now that enemy is right back where they were before we went to begin with, and probably stronger. An exercise in futility.
.
As I type this, BidenHarris is busy being fashionably late for his address to this nation about that nation. Not that what he is going to say has any importance - where the hell has he been for the past few days? On vacation. At Camp David. Nero fiddling while Rome burns. I get it - vacations are supposed to be important. But If I could go for 20 years not taking vacations so other folks could benefit, I think he could cut ONE vacation short when shit hit the fan. I was getting shot at so that other folks could go relax for a few days. His biggest problem on this vacation is deciding whether he wants "pheasant under glass" or "coq au vin" for dinner. The pressures are not the same. WE are not the same.
I have no problem resettling Afghan refugees here. The ones they are bringing over are the ones that helped our troops, and whose heads are now on the chopping block because of that, very literally. So long as they are thoroughly vetted, I'm ok with it. However, I do not have a whole lot of confidence in the BidenHarris regime properly vetting them. They don't have a great track record at implementing, well, anything. So, there IS a potential for some Taliban to sneak in to wreak havoc here. Should we then abandon our friends so that wolves don't sneak in among them? No, I don't think so. We OWE them. They laid their lives on the line to help us, and we should return that favor. That's what friends do. We just need to be aware, alert, and ready to put down any infiltrators like rabid dogs. We shoot rabid dogs around here, but we don't throw the babies out with the bath water.
I lived in Greensboro, NC, when we brought in a bunch of Hmong tribesmen that had helped Special Forces in Vietnam. As a matter of fact, I lived in the same neighborhood they settled the Hmong in, I lived on Spring Street then, and the Hmong were settled one block over, across what was then an open field, but is now a housing development. The Special Forces Association got together with the Lutheran Church to bring them over. The government dropped the ball there, and the private sector picked it up and ran with it, because SF don't abandon their friends, even when the government does.
Afghans that helped us 50 years later are no better, and no worse.
As far as China "building a major highway in the Wakhan Corridor for trade purposes" goes, all I'll say about that is that when civilians see a "major highway" built for "trade purposes", military planners look at the same highway and see an MSR - Main Supply Route - and think "invasion corridor". Afghanistan may want to rethink China's role in their economic development plan, but that's for Afghans to figure out for themselves. Maybe it's just China's turn to have their asses handed to them by "a bunch of illiterate goat-herding, cave-dwelling tribesmen". I personally think that inviting the CCP in to build their very own high speed invasion corridor into Afghanistan is a bad idea, but that is for Afghans to determine. It's their country.
I'm sick near to death of hearing Democrats and Republicans point fingers at one another and try to shift blame for this. They're all full of shit. There is enough blame to go around for all. This war has been mishandled from the very inception, with both Democrats and Republicans presiding over the shit-show and all making bad decisions that all lead us right to where we are today.
Bush took us in, to eradicate the Taliban, the enemy. That was proper, so far as it went... then that dipshit dropped the ball, figured if war on one front was good then war on two fronts was better, and took us needlessly into Iraq. That had the effect of dividing our force, dividing our attention, and suddenly focus was taken from Afghanistan, where it should have been, and placed on Iraq, where it was unnecessary. Afghanistan became the red-headed stepchild war, and has remained so ever since, even after we left Iraq.
Obama couldn't figure out what to do with it at all. His decisions reminded me of a blind man throwing darts at a dart board to reach a decision on any given day. We were all over the board then.
Trump tried, but his biggest mistake was inviting the enemy we originally went in to eradicate to the negotiating table. You kill folks who are trying to kill you... you don't serve them hot chai.
Which brings us to the BidenHarris regime. They are utterly clueless, just wanting to get America out of a "forever war", with no thought whatsoever to the repercussions of a precipitous, panicky route.
Fighting a war with kid gloves is no way to fight a war or defeat an enemy. the Taliban understood that, but the Americans seem not to. You can't have a "kinder, gentler kind of war" and expect to win it. Sure, we had pretty low casualties in Afghanistan, as casualties go, but that just means that soldiers were not being allowed to fight the war properly, because they might hurt someone's wittle feewings. Fuck that. Send the troops in, kick the enemy's ass, bring the troops home, and send in the diplomats. It really is that simple.
We had "mission creep" in a huge way. somewhere along the line, eradicating the Taliban took a back seat to "nation building" along US lines. Afghanistan is not suited to western-style government, and the US predictably lost a lot of folks that the Taliban gained when they tried it. Instead of fighting the Taliban, we fed their recruiters with that bone-headed bullshit.
You "build nations" by being their friend, and assisting them in implementing a government THEY can live with, not by imposing your own sort of foreign-to-them government. The Russians made that same mistake, and now we have, too. Thanks, Baby Bush!
There is more, much more, in the way of examples of US blunders and why we lost this war, but the foregoing should suffice. This war, like Vietnam, was not lost by the troops - we won nearly every engagement in both instances - it was lost by dumbassed politicians in Washington, DC and glory-seeking generals and their bullshit "rules of engagement". The only legitimate rule of engagement is "kill the guys who are trying to kill you. Have no mercy on them, because they won't have any mercy on you".
Now those sons of bitches own it. Republican and Democrat alike.
Here are my credentials for having an opinion in the matter. If it's not enough, I don't care. it's all ya get:
ETA: Americans have always ha a unique penchant for going in to foreign lands, and expecting it to be just like home, and expecting the people there to want the same things Americans want. I've never been like that. When I went, I realized acutely that I was the alien there, not the locals, It was THEIR country, not mine, and because of that I went in expecting I would have to conform to their culture, not the other way around. That, perhaps, is the single biggest mistake America made in this entire debacle. They were too busy being Americans, and acting like Americans, to listen to what the locals wanted for THEIR OWN nation. We were too busy telling them what they wanted instead of listening to the Afghan vision for Afghanistan. Too busy "nation building" in the image of America to kill the enemy we allegedly went there to kill.
Now that enemy is right back where they were before we went to begin with, and probably stronger. An exercise in futility.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’