Afghanistan Chronicle

Why would I chronicle about Afghanistan safely from afar when Biden was aggressively selling his "Build Back Better" program in the Summer of 2021 and people were falling from airplanes?

As an historian, I memorialize what I can and 2021 provided a lot of material.  In early 2020, I woke up confident in certain inalienable protections I’d been granted by nature since birth, then I consented to wear my mask, and got my three shots to protect myself from getting COVID and to prevent its spread to others before it didn't prevent the spread and I still got it.   My experience then and even more now was of a world out of control, made of serious, historical events, ones that increasingly fractured the country in ways I've never seen. 

Aside from COVID, the years of 2020-2 went beyond simple change.  There were the aftereffects of an impeachment over an anti-corruption phone-call with the President of Ukraine (who still leads that nation, only now it's invaded by Russia one year into the Biden epoch), COVID-era misinformation most commonly put in the form of memes trying to prove scientific things, increased public acceptance of censorship especially on social media despite the most common sense spirit of the First Amendment, the riot on January 6^th and a retro-impeachment despite the Constitution, and then the Afghanistan debacle, the second great defeat in American history after Vietnam.  After this period of chaos, some things done by us Americans can never be put back into the bag.

In the summer of 2022, the world is on the precipice of two potentially world-ending flashpoints: in Eastern Europe and in the Taiwan Straits.  In reference to an expanded Ukraine War or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, we should beware of the lessons of the recent past:

• Why undermining the Afghan government, releasing prisoners without consideration, and failing to support the national army especially with air support when the Taliban violated the deal, led to the collapse of morale and the rapid fall of the country.
• Why the administration would keep a Trump-era deal with the Taliban without following the actual letter of it, while Biden tore apart almost every other policy of his predecessor.  The Trump deal became political cover for Biden's execution of the withdrawal under far worse circumstances.  
  
• Why the inaccuracies, flip-flopping, stubbornness, and blundering of the Biden administration on the world stage made a pre-planned, conditions-based withdrawal into an embarrassing rout with the final conditions of our departure almost exclusively at the whims of different on-site Taliban battle-commanders. 
  
• Why such a momentous decision by our leaders requires just as great a response and justification to the public, especially considering our incredible now-wasted 20-year investment in the conflict, something undeserving of a flippant and arrogant brushing off of legitimate questions.
• A useful investigation like the 9/11 Commission, and unlike the January 6th partisan TV show, where the failures are examined in as objective way as possible.  Certainly, almost no member of the past two administrations or the current Congress is neutral enough to stave off partisan taint and grant a real commission the prestige needed.
• How the failures in Afghanistan emboldened the decisions of America's rivals in just one year since August 15th, 2021, the fall of Kabul.        

So, stubbornness proved to be a worse approach to foreign policy than blustering our way through, as evidenced by the lack of aggression from our enemies prior to August 2021 and the head-in-sand, no compromise approach to withdrawing US presence from Afghanistan during that summer.  And I am jaded not just with our obstinate and unavailable leaders or their reflexive media supporters, but with our own people who had they historical and civic training might be courageous enough to demand better than what we got: like millions of dollars of operable military equipment dumped on the side of the road, the bombing at the Kabul gate killing and wounding dozens, an innocent family blown up and called terrorist masterminds, or babies being flung over a fence to try to get them out.  

Domestic political consumption is largely composed of an uninformed and ignorant American public that frets when it sees terrible footage, but often doesn't know how to change political, military, or diplomatic leadership because domestic partisanship from both sides obscures necessary truths to make an informed decision.  Yet, this lack of interest jeopardizes American interests abroad, smacking them in the face only when an event, like the killing of 13 soldiers, suddenly appears before them like some demonic phenomenon.  They simply want out of confrontations, unwilling to sacrifice blood and treasure after rubber-stamping the decision-makers of the past.  Forget that the world has been aflame and people are killed in extremely violent ways from East Africa, Yemen, to Burma.  

For our interests, Afghanistan mattered not just in that we left, but in how we left.  There is an obligation after all the death to say something a little bit more than just enough to avoid serious political blowback. This need to inform others of the truths is what drives me, even if only a few people view it or the burning sarcasm seems off-putting to those that always toe a partisan line and go back to believing all is chipper in Biden's (or Trump's) Afghanistan. 

So, I approached this enfolding story not as some neophyte who was suddenly made aware that Afghanistan existed.  Instead, I was informed by 20 years of watching the issue, starting on September 11, 2001, when I was sitting in my dorm room waiting to go to my political science class on terrorism. Generally, I supported ending American involvement, but only if it was calculated, careful, and didn't result in pulling the plug on the government's forces before they were ready.  That action transpired in April and May of 2021 when the national army realized there would be no backing under Biden, no air support or direct US involvement, so they fled the field, precipitating total collapse.  

Having watched the "War on Terror," Iraq, and Afghanistan carefully, I was severely frustrated and angry at the handling of the retreat as I was at many times after 9/11.  The flashbacks came quick and I didn't even serve in the war or suffer really.  After all, I stayed comfortably at home merely studying.  However, I didn't like seeing our country's people and resources throw into a toilet while our leaders merely went on vacation or declared some kind of bizarre victory.  So, I wanted to share my experience even if it was a few online posts.

 My journal posts on social media to chronicle the desolation:

 

August 15th, 2021:

(On the fall of the capital, Kabul)

GG Afghanistan.  Well done Administration over there at the vacation home in Camp David!  What’re we fixing next?  With the brutal and repressive Taliban triumphant after 20 years, women finally set to be back to the early Middle Ages, and thousands of freed Al Queda prisoners all in the rear view mirror and ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, can we now focus on here at home and stopping those pesky freedom things from holding ourselves back in the Neanderthal era?  Can we finally police the masking or punishing of vaccinated or COVID-surviving/immune, healthy individuals?  I say there’s nothing we can’t do if we put our people to research it while in month 17 of this success.  Even if it takes 18.5 more years to reach the Afghanistan level of success only here at home with COVID, anything is always worth a try.

August 16th, 2021:

(Weapons and Biden's Foreign Policy Experience)

A real, epic disaster! You don't often get to witness the destruction of a nation simply by a superpower voluntarily leaving in haste, but here at home we have our own safety problems, so if we can just get healthy little Jimmy to not have to be asked to wear three masks while staying behind a plastic shield or if we can just stop complaining about what he/she/they are or aren't "learning" in that virtual classroom. At least Obama's alleged saying that "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f... things up" will be proven wrong now that Biden is returning from his vacation retreat, providing strong leadership after we hear his speech today, and maybe even him personally rescuing the panicking people falling from our helicopters and planes, that weren't going to be needed according to Joe like they were in 1975 Saigon, Vietnam. It will be okay.

Since May/June, Joe never really wanted those provincial capitals, Bagram airbase, a treasure trove of abandoned weaponry, Al Qaeda and ISIS prisoners, the capital city, an allied/non-extremist government, allied interpreters and friends now being rooted out door to door by the Taliban for beheading, Afghan women, our Kabul embassy, our flag raised instead of lowered, the safety of American personnel, the blood invested over there etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Supposedly with more troops headed there making a combined total of troops greater than at the start of the hasty rout he imposed a few months ago against almost all advice, we got the better end of this bargain. It will be okay, this is where Joe's experience and specialty comes into play, especially considering the one agreement from the last administration that he decided not to rip up (with the Taliban), or when he's the "last one in the room" and an important decision has to be made, right or wrong or stupid. We will be safe, somewhere, don't worry.

August 17th, 2021

(On Biden's Afghan speech)

What a speech! He said the buck stops with him, and I think we need to just accept his word once again like when he said the country wouldn't ever fall because of our training and the technology that the Taliban now are using. I admire his truthful consistency like when he told us if we go get the shot, we wouldn't have to wear a mask. But medical and military problems change so he's right on top of both issues even if there was an away message at the White House all weekend.

On everything else, he didn't say anything that he might have gotten even slightly wrong other than it being a mild surprise, like covering your eyes and saying boo to a baby or jumping out from behind a door to give a mild scare to a cognitively dysfunctional old man in a way that doesn't provoke a heart attack. So maybe, he was only very slightly surprised at the speed of the collapse he initiated 5 months ago. Lay off him folks.

All blame is accepted by him, except for everything being Trump's fault because Biden didn't like the managed withdrawal deal with the Taliban from 2019-2020, but unlike "Remain in Mexico" concerning COVID among foreign nationals at the border and every other other Trump-era deal he shredded without regard for what was in them just because Trump negotiated them, he decided to keep this one that he specifically disliked.

Because he decided to stick with the disliked Afghan deal anyways, it took courage to decide in April that we're leaving some landlocked place far away, and difficult logistical decisions have to slowly be made about the people still there and he shouldn't be rushed into planning to get them out once the troops were gone that rather easily defended our interests before.

If 3,500 US troops and the US airforce can hold a country together prior to June and lose no provincial capitals or Kabul or our airbase at Bagram or our embassy or women or our allies, I can think of no better way to leave Afghanistan without taking a humiliating "L" than to increase and not decrease US troop presence to about 7,000 after already leaving, even if temporarily, and then to beg, I mean negotiate, with the vicious Taliban victors to play nice as we huddle at a part of an airport to continue unplanned evacuation while they start the beheadings and start distributing child brides to their men.

It's better that we have more soldiers over there now that the country is lost rather than leaving behind a force that's barely 1/10 the size of US forces protecting South Korea since 1953 in that other forever war. Better to lose a country in the worst way possible so Biden doesn't have to oversee another forever war or leave it to a fifth president since hundreds of thousands of troops are permanently deployed all over the world going as far back as 1945, doing soldier things like the small force was in year 20 of the Afghan conflict.

Maybe Biden is on to something about having no troops anywhere, and that will come as a pleasant surprise to China as it eyes Taiwan and its increased doubts on whether US forces will help defend the island as it has promised to do since 1949. I'm sure the rather successful SecDef, SecState, and the Joint Chiefs can find better things for fighters to do here at home short of unemploying them. Teach them things about our terrible history instead of military science to inspire them to fight and possibly die for it, even though we don't seem to have the attention span to fight for our interests anyways, or ordering them to get the COVID shot without clearing up lingering mistrust from the Anthrax shot debacle? Seems like a better thing for our employees to do than being paid to fight.

In short, I think we need to accept our leader's expert, sound military logic that it's better to redeploy in the middle of a nightmare than to hold on in an earlier, better position. It all takes courage and people just need to adjust their thinking if we're going to be mentally ready when our weakness invites terrible nations to advance in the wake of our departure. Americans are tired, maybe from reading my lengthy congratulations, and Biden is too, so I just wanted to write how courageous and well-executed this all was.

Have a nice day (while we still have them)!

August 18th, 2021

(It's Rude to Question A Leader in the Middle of Losing A War)

Gosh, can't they just stop yelling (rude) questions at Biden about Afghanistan? I was going to stop posting, but it got me so mad seeing those disrespectful, logical questions. The press conference was about COVID only and we know there aren't supposed to be real questions about that either, so what are the origins of this sudden journalistic nerve? The real experts are in this for a little while at least and if they can just survive hostile territory and go on an unexpected journey to their potential rescuers before the firm deadline of August 31st and before being abandoned to torture and murder and then provide some answers to the administration at a debriefing, then Biden's people will let us know months later what's really going on on the ground among those that barely made it to the finish line.

Perhaps if reporters would just send some favorable comments in the form of a politely worded voicemail to the White House's or State Department's answering machine, they'd get an adequate response whenever deemed timely. And I really don't get why people put so much pressure on them when they put "a lid" on answers to reporters or simply walk away from the press like today, something that these ungrateful press should understand since it was acceptable to them throughout the 2020 campaign (because: "Drumpf").

And let's be honest, do we really value answers to tough questions by government secretaries unless they lead off by saying something is "personal to them" while providing as little as they want afterwards. Even without any valuable information, an empathetic statement is all I need! Today, I got just that and I really felt better about their decisions because they said they felt something too.

Just take Brian Williams and other "journalists" as an example when they rightly labeled Biden's speech yesterday as a strongly worded, courageous, and principled statement about withdrawal. Spot on! Or imagine the benign deference of one of the thousands of hostages cowering outside of the Kabul airport tweeting a plea to anyone on Twitter, maybe even to the Taliban spokesman to let them in for a flight to American "freedoms" because both tweets fit within Twitter's terms and conditions as a private company? That's how tweets are done folks! Could a banned Drumpf after January 6th or Biden's ridicuously hostile interrogators learn a thing or two? Indubitably!

And for those complaining about the State Department not adequately or urgently processing the papers of those trying to flee, drowning them in a sea of red tape, likely because they burned the evidence of American collusion in case they're caught, just remember that we haven't even fully implemented NYC's segregation plan to have vaccination cards and photo identification IDs (NOT for voting, double emphasis added) checked for the un-vaccinated, especially adversely affecting minorities should they wish to be permitted to enter restaurants in areas where they live in large numbers. It's just one city so far, but hopefully everywhere soon, so give SecState Blinken some time to process the desperate people being beaten or shot for entering the relative safety of half of Kabul airport! If DeBlasio is leading the way on IDs in NYC by denying unvaccinated minorities dinner at a sit-in restaurant, Biden can't be too far behind in vetting those desperates in Afghanistan 6,600 miles away who want in to our country-with some conditions!

This had to happen and at this press conference, Biden is simply trying to give the same amount of moral strength to rejecting questions about Delta as he did to the past 5 months of horribly mismanaged withdrawal. This is "personal to me" so I have no other answers other than to politely beg the press to leave Joe alone and let him solve COVID by some arbitrary and politically advantageous deadline and maybe think about Afghanistan's next deadline if he's ready and willing after vacation.

August 19th, 2021

(Foreign Policy Expert, Joe Biden, Questioned by Ignorant Amateur in an Interview)

God, forgive me if I'm wrong about [this], but why is George (Stephanoplous) now all of sudden going so unnecessarily hard against Biden, after they had such a great relationship before? As Biden said, people stopped dying or falling off of airplanes to escape to our COVID-era "freedoms" a long 4-5 days ago and no one's being killed right now. Who knows how many people are trapped throughout Afghanistan in jeopardy waiting on further text messages from a State Department that is known for having a missing Department Secretary and for being absentee, but Biden says at least they're not dying over there, which is great comfort, and that should be enough for me, a self-described news amateur, or anyone else not working in Biden's difficult role.

Even if the amount of contact with those left behind is unknown, let alone their specific fates while being forced to journey unprotected to Kabul airport, then why can't George just recognize the President's desire to pick up the pace of withdrawal regardless of the consequences since Biden knows the dying ended? If it happened days ago, even if it was always going to be this chaotic in Joe's careful mental planning of the operation over many months, the deaths were "priced in" and were probably going to be over with at some point if a President says so, so why should either man worry about it? Who is George to question him about this or get that unnecessary COVID question in at the end?

He ain't a doctor or a President so just let Biden speak. Come on man! It's about empathy, folks, and I think Joe knows better.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/full-transcript-abc-news-george-stephanopoulos-interview-president/story?id=79535643&fbclid=IwAR3Evc9JEYt2reWWia50tQbl3vM_SH85h4Q7_BRH6n7TMXUUG2c-SSgO95o

August 20th, 2021

(Timeline of Afghan Defeat, Samples from Declassified Report, and a Template to Question Failed Military Leaders)

 

After hearing the President and his top national security leaders speak heroically in defense of their policy this afternoon, I was further inspired and wanted to do some basic journalistic work since most of the media has changed for the worse lately, maybe except for Joy Reid if anyone else wants to join me and think about watching her. The media is not doing its job in defending the Biden Administration nearly enough as they always deserve (because: Drumpf). Because it's not delusional to believe "America is Back" or that our allies are confident of our ability to support them or that we still will never leave a man or women behind in a nightmare, I wanted to delve a bit into the superb decision-making here in a nation that is steadily building back better, especially overseas.

Though I eat these sorts of long reports for breakfast (perfectly legal figurative language for reading while I'm eating), if anyone has a meme to contradict anything in the report, the transcript of America's President's press conference, or any of the ways I carefully lay out the contradictions always in the Biden Administration's favor, please consider it your duty to drown actual arguments or evidence with that meme, for or against.

Attached in a link is the 214 page Inspector General Report for Afghanistan Reconstruction from July 30th, 2021. I know there are lots of words and numbers and stuff, but by breaking some of it down, I want to show that regardless of what the bureaucracy was saying about the upcoming Afghan collapse a month ago, Biden and his largely silent secretaries were presenting a better Truth for all Americans in the past 4-5 days since people supposedly stopped dying over there.

Finally, note that I use the page number for the PDF file and not the document numbers because every page matters to me, including prefaces or appendices. I presumed that only the most committed would print out this report and use it for coffee-table reading.

Here are just a few samples from the report:

#1: "July 12–15: Four media outlets publish maps indicating Taliban control majority of Afghan districts, with many taken since May 1," when Biden emphatically insisted the formal withdrawal begin no matter what (p.7). But in reality, when Biden declared on July 8th, four days earlier that "the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable," he knew that the weaponry didn't matter in the face of a majority of districts falling to the Taliban (p. 55) and the costs of death, destruction, self-eliminated intelligence capabilities, and the creeping rise of a new terrorist state during the height of the Afghan fighting season would be "priced in" into his decision. Without the most well-equipped army equipment left behind, the US wouldn't be able to get its forces out because they might be fired upon by weaker technology if they didn't leave only the most advanced welcoming gifts.

That stuff or airports or other tools to maintain so-called "over the horizon capabilities" weren't needed because US soldiers weren't going to be fighting back unless they were heavily attacked so why bring home the equipment or the capabilities home too? And who needs a forward base like Bagram in a country when it could be far away in Qatar (p. 60) and when Afghanistan and not Qatar is supposed to be a jumping off point for the "over horizon strategy" to target resurgent terrorist groups like Al Qaeda (p.60)?

If our contacts are burned by the takeover and driven into hiding or more likely killed, what need would we have of protecting them from the terrorists we can no longer see over the horizon? Biden made the right calculation to abandon all the stuff and contacts so that American forces wouldn't be attacked by the Taliban's lower class technology prior to routing the remaining Afghan government's better equipped forces and after he knew from briefings that the Taliban had already seized the majority of districts by July 12-15, and so that our intelligence contacts would be burned, and then we wouldn't have to see what's over the horizon anymore because presumably it's pretty scary.

#2: NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg might have believed and been clear-eyed that there were significant risks in ending the military mission (p.30), and one could infer that he meant the perils of precipitously doing that and that he was clearly disagreeing with the US approach, but when Biden simply told our NATO allies we were done without giving time to hear out those risks, he was taking a multilateral approach and working with our allies for what's best for the world by not listening to them at all and eventually leaving them high and dry to get their own people out, like France and Great Britain are currently doing. If SecGen Stoltenberg and NATO were really "clear-eyed," they would have antipicated Biden's get out-at-any-cost, destroy-your-allies'-confidence, make-sure-Americans-don't-fire-any-weapons-or-they'll-be-attacked approach and had the rest of the allies ready to step up and fill in the gap left behind by a self-defeated US administration. Biden is and was ready, the rest of the world is and was not.

#3: On Biden's orders, he ensured the dissolution of another Drumpf-era capability, instituted as a result of the aftermath of the 2012 Benghazi disaster at the US consulate in Libya, and designed to withdraw non-military American personnel and Afghan allies from the outer provinces first. In Afghanistan, making the US soldiers come out first instead of the weak and undefended simply because the largely feckless Afghan government that was about to be abandoned anyways regardless of the consequences requested they remain for stability purposes has to be one of the soundest military and logistical decisions of this 20 year war.

You'll note on page 50-51 of the report, that although most of the districts had already been overrun by the Taliban, clearly displaying the ineptitude to everyone but Biden on July 8th of the Afghan army to perform without the prospect of American soldiers and aircraft backing them, that the personnel and allies left behind were perfectly capable of defending themselves if they simply joined in on the looting of superior technology left behind. Imagine what they couldve done if those left behind to their own devices got to a fully loaded Bagram airbase when the lights were turned off, signaling to the Taliban and looters to enter before the un-notified Afghan government could arrange its troops to claim it? I can think of no better instance of self-help for a nation, maybe since Nixon's Vietnamization strategy in the late 1960s-early 70s to bolster South Vietnam, than forcing civilian Americans and their allies to pick up some really great weapons and learn how to defend themselves after America's paid government employees who fight for a living are withdrawn first to move on to bigger and better things.

#4: Finally, I'd like to consider the issue of stepped up Taliban violence at the same time as the complete elimination of so-called insider attacks or any other form of violence directed at US forces (p.63). It is true that no American soldier has been killed by the Taliban since February 2020. Rather than this fact showing the effectiveness of the February 2020 agreement under Drumpf to prevent the loss of life of US personnel while maintaining a conditions-based withdrawal and at the same time showing the ineffectiveness of the Afghan military forces to prevent the loss of their own citizens, instead, Biden correctly inferred on April 1st that pulling the plug on US soldiers would lead to the Afghan military stepping up to defend a country, even civilian Americans left behind, that it was barely defending at all since he took office. Biden correctly proved that he didn't need conditions on US withdrawal including getting civilians and allies out first or to perform a viability test on the Afghan army, which it failed long before Kabul fell and 10-15,000 people are still scrambling to exit from airports that were already hard to control in July (pg 117-121).

Now that you have my template, I urge you all to read the report for yourselves, listen to Biden's speeches, and think about what you can do to support his decisions and prevent anyone at the top from being forced to resign in disgrace and lose their jobs because there are many other important issues like vaccine mandates, January 6th retribution, Drumf's financial records, or infrastructure that we should be focusing on.

Here are some topics to consider using this form of gung-ho analysis:

• Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), their viability as a US-trained, superior-to-the-Taliban fighting force, especially considering the advantage Biden gave to their "air-force" over the Taliban's non-existent one prior to their seizure of those planes and helicopters with the country (pgs. 63-81)
• The peace plan and relations between what Biden characterized as the strongly-backed Afghan government (now defunct) and the Taliban (pgs. 83-88)
• strong indications in July of the impending human rights disaster especially for refugees and displaced persons, especially women after US withdrawal, that Biden at least "priced in" to his withdrawal non-strategy (pgs. 90-91, 105-109).
• Maps and other information considering the rise in opium production, the sales of which increases finances to the Taliban and correspond in increase to the control of provinces by them, and which may lead to a spike in supplies of Opioids in the US where the problem is already a significant crisis. Biden factored this in also so the main entry points for opioids into the US through ports of entry and at the Southern border will be addressed by the President and especially Vice President Harris already tasked with some things soon enough, we can presume (pgs. 98-105).
• COVID in Afghanistan, dismal vaccine numbers there, and how it won't be a problem with a large refugee influx into the US during the Delta wave if Biden and Faucists have anything to say about it (pgs. 141-147). 

Sources: 

 

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2021-07-30qr.pdf

https://www.whitehouse.gov/.../remarks-by-president.../

 

August 26th, 2021

(Putting the Defeat into Historical Context and Fallout for the Afghans and Americans Left Behind)

History in the making:

Let's just take a minute from our necessary crusade to mask vaccinated COVID survivors outdoors as in Oregon, or "locking up" and/or "possibly deporting the unvaccinated to warzones" (criminals, if you ask me at certain times of the day), or crowd-source credentialing natural rights on Facebook/taking away the ability to speak about their laughably deadly, "precious freedoms," and appreciate the largest forced airlift in US history.

I know rhetoric tends to get away from us sometimes especially in the post-Drumpf era, even if it rarely comes from the Biden regime, but take a pause and think about the magnitude of the efforts our brave soldier employees are forced to do at their own peril by a rigid, nonsensical August 31st deadline. Without that added pressure, without approximately 15,000 scattered American civilians and allies being told through text to come through hostile territory and then to stay away and then to come and then to stay away, etc., from "precious freedom" at the Kabul airport, we couldn't truly shine and display our values to our angry allies who supposedly, according to one US general, are showing us up and should stop being so active so we can catch up at our own pace.

It simply wouldn't be historic enough if we picked up the pace and had a better plan to get the remaining 90-95% of Americans out. I say make the airlift more epic! Ramp up the difficulties and the carnage and be lauded for reaching a higher bar! And lets be frank, it's just flexing by the administration when it evacuates approximately 70-80,000 non-Americans before the large numbers of Americans still there. Let's see what Joe can do for the remaining lower priority evacuees, i.e. the Americans, in just 5 days. Unless you're an anti-Muslim racist, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

And it's even more historic considering what else he is and isn't doing right now. Even with a tragic suicide bombing today that didn't have to happen yet probably isn't at all Joe's fault, I wouldn't want to take anything away from month seven of selling the Build Back Better plan or a talk about cybersecurity that just became an issue, so just take a deep breath and appreciate this moment, his moment. However well they're executed, the administration's efforts clearly display an ability to think they can multitask during a perilous situation!

Finally, historical parallels are often difficult to work out and we don't test analogies on the SAT any longer probably because of discrimination, but why not use them here anyways if it's just more rhetoric and not based on reality? Maybe Hitler forcing the largest Allied evacuation in history at Dunkirk because he might fire on the defeated British soldiers? Or in terms of forcing Americans to walk to their own freedom because most of the soldiers were withdrawn along with the generals first, maybe the Bataan Death March even if it wasn't really "precious freedom" to the Filipinos or GIs that they were marching towards? I'm just speculating on some other potential historical analogies.....

After Tuesday, will those left behind in Afghanistan be POWs or hostages? After 9/11/2021, war trophies? I guess it depends on if Joe thinks the war is over or not while the remaining persons are under Taliban control. Even if he's unfortunately not in office 3.67 years from now, and I might add that I hope most COVID restrictions are still in place then to keep us completely safe from unvaccinated maskless terrorists, best let a 5th US president deal with the hostages so as to not taint Joe's record on not leaving the conflict to another.

Truly unprecedented effort Biden people and I hope history pats you on the backside!

 

CORRECTION 

 I neglected to include the final post about deadlines in my own rush to get this out.  Taking my cues from Biden's firm adherence to maintaining defeat deadlines, I forgot this final post.  My apologies! 

August 30th, 2021

(The Importance of Enemy Deadlines:  Taking Only Strengths from Retreating Under Fire)

It's over with in Afghanistan for the Biden regime and I think their beliefs are far from delusional because as always they're going to lead us to a 100% happily ever after. I was sitting here today reflecting on 20 years of closely watching the conflict, unlike most Americans who didn't, whether it was from my dorm room on 9/11/01 waiting ironically to go to my 10AM political science class on terrorism or to witnessing the end of today's firm deadline from the relative safety of my home, where there was the completion of the largest forced airlift in US history in response to the Biden regime's unnecessary creation of a problem. 

 

For myself, what is my greatest lesson from today? "Marfew Warfel, is it the impact from the thousands of American and allied lives lost, the 70-80,000 or more Afghan dead, the destruction, or the resources thrown away especially since Joe's April 1st announcement? Nope. "Bulkybob, is it the creation of a now heavily-armed, still repressive, Al Qaeda-allied, and radical Taliban state right on the 20th anniversary of 9/11? No again! 

 

It is the power of deadlines! I think we can all learn something from Biden's successful use of the self-imposed deadline in Afghanistan, regardless of the carnage in its wake. Some leaders like Drumpf, if you can even call them that, can't get their deadlines done whether it's the conditions-based May 1st, 2021 Afghan withdrawal agreement from the administration that lost the November 2020 election and thus couldn't declare victory or check the conditions on May 1st 2021 that they made in February 2020 or 14 days to stop the spread from 18 months ago. Why make a deadline if you're going to adjust the conditions and postpone declaring victory? Take Drumpf's failure by declaring we'd be open by Easter 2020. He didn't write his deadline in a way that allowed him to declare victory! 

 

Contrast that to Biden's victory in having a free and open Independence Day in 2021. Kamala and Joe celebrated sometimes double-masked, fully vaccinated, constantly tested, with the best medical staff, and outdoors in well-distanced placements with a limited group to interact with, but they deemed that to be free and open, so they met their deadline and won. The whole point of a deadline is to declare victory on that date and time and nothing should get in the way of that. We should take the Biden approach to more aspects of our lives. 

 

Here is my summary of this approach. Who knows what the range of application could be? Physical fitness/weight loss goals? Keeping emergency powers by reimposing any number of COVID mandates regardless of their efficacy by setting an undefined date where the goal of 0% COVID of any variant will be met? Losing thousands of NYS health care workers during the largest spike in hospitalizations since January 2021 over an abrupt mandatory vaccination deadline? Whatever the consequences, pick a date and make sure you can win! 

 

Here are some factors to consider when making your Victory Deadline:

 

1. Pick a date and time for some goal to occur, then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES.

2. Decide what it is that you want to achieve, then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES.

3. Write your deadline statement in such a way that you can declare a victory no matter what, then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES.

4. Pick a person or group to blame (Strawman) for any hiccups, large or small, in the pursuit of your goals, then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES.

5. If you do not want to set a specific time and date, consider instead setting lofty or impossible goals, what I call metric deadlines, but not setting firm dates for them to be completed or by setting an unreasonable date and then publicly postponing the deadline while blaming the offending groups for the postponement of your own goal, declare victory anyways, then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES.

6. Conduct a retrospective only after your goals are met, you have declared victory, any flaws are blamed on the offending groups, your self-evaluation is necessarily biased in your favor, then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES.

7. Considering the permission you've been granted to speak by your own subordinates and regardless of the immense power of your position to set goals and to execute them, turn your back on any questions of your goals and decisions, blame your underlings for getting you into trouble, walk away, then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES.

Bye Afghanistan (then IGNORE CONSEQUENCES)!

 

Thank you for reading!  Pray there is no need for a Ukraine, Taiwanese Chronicle, or worse

 

 

Political Mirroring: A Sarcastic Political Philosophy

An Antidote to Today’s Political Troubles in November 2017

“'Cause I am, whatever you say I am

If I wasn't, then why would I say I am?”

By Eminemicus, 2000 c.e.

Philosopher, Poet, Political Historian & Recent Critic of D. Trump Since October 2017

Author’s Preface: The highlights are probably the minimal amount you’ll read.  Reading is hard for many, but if you don’t want to try, don’t bother asking me what I believe. 

Maxim:  “Avoid political discussions when “everyone’s society” cannot receive a guaranteed benefit.”

The Highlights of Abstract Mirroring:

• Political mirroring is the willing acceptance of political beliefs for expediency and only because of ones’ intellectual superiority in the context of a forced political conversation.
• The Mirror Equation: Belief Acceptance + Context = Harmony
•  Belief Acceptance:  Assent means you willingly accept a belief. This philosophy owes nothing to the unreason of the average 2017 political debate.  It applies to all ideologies when needed by its users. Belief acceptance is solely for the purpose of surviving the boorish political conversation. 
• Context: The people, place, and time of a political discussion are critical to mirroring.  If you’re not there and aware, it doesn’t count.  For our purposes, there are no “glorious pasts” or “progressive futures” other than what you should agree to in a conversation in context. 
•  Harmony: The purpose of this philosophy is to make debaters feel better and comforted that their flawed arguments are correct.  Harmony exists when committed debaters believe they are right. 
• This is a method more than an ideology as available facts and logical arguments mostly are not available when added to the simplistic abstractions offered today. 
• Mirroring is the most logical, moral, and rational way to approach the irrational context of current political debate.

Table of Contents:

Volume I: Part I

I.                    Introduction of Mirror Philosophy

II.                 What is Mirror Philosophy? 

III.               When does it apply?

IV.              Format Matters: Never Tie Yourself to Illogical Argument in a Permanent Format

Part II: The First Dilemmas

V.                The Flaws of Accepting an Historical Context:  Accepting One and Only One Idea from this Genius Dead White Person

VI.             The Slavery Non-Dilemma:  Freedom of speech and movement are essential to Assent

VII.         Mirroring Agents: Unacceptable Mirrors and the Societal Context Escape Hatch

VIII.        The Dictator’s Suicide Order

IX.            Conflicting Beliefs, Styles, and "Clash of the Titans Debates

X.            The Progressive Future and Microfaults:  Confessing Petty Problems is Like Therapy

 Part III: The Ethics of Mirroring

XI.             Mirroring and the Preservation of Reason:  A short commentary on GDWM Socrates  

XII.           Microethics:  Mirroring is The Most Ethical System for November 2017:  Maximizing the Good AND the Categorical Imperative principles

XIII.     An Early Conclusion to Volume I:  Altruism not Hedonism 

XIV. Glossary of Terms

Snowden Betrays "Rule of Law" and "Democracy"

Whistleblowers Uncover Illegalities, Not LEGALLY Secret Information

Why do American citizens pay for their employees to break the law and uncover LEGALLY collected information?  Why must we rely on criminal foreign conspiracies like Wikileaks for protection at the same time as we taxpayers MUST pay for a massive and occasionally mind-numbing federal bureaucracy?  It is absurd to laud Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden as American heroes, or even as mere whistleblowers, when they disclose LEGALLY-kept secret information to foreign entities simply because they want to for ideological reasons.   It is wrong to idolize the would-be protectors of our Republic at Wikileaks from Sweden when they can't even follow our legal process to ferret out illegality. Republics work on two basic principles: representation of the voting public and rule of law.  How can you break the law for your own ideological reasons and still claim you are protecting the Republic when "the Republic" thinks differently?  It's a logical contradiction!

And when Manning and Snowden released OUR secret information, nothing improper was found and certainly nothing to justify the information release.  The trial of Bradley Manning shows less about the value of the stolen information and more about the value we place on employees following the law even if they disagree with it.  And I think justice was served by the Manning verdict because one employee disagreed with the law and will necessarily be punished for his crime in breaking it under unwarranted circumstances.  "Due process" works in America, even for traitors.

Bradley Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy, perhaps a trumped up charge in the first place when one considers that simply reading Wikileaks for inside information about battlefield activities can hardly be considered intentional assistance to an unidentified enemy of the US who happens upon a website.  He released it to Wikileaks and it then laundered the illegal documents for open viewing.  But, random viewership does not constitute an illegal relationship between an American employee and an enemy.  Though farfetched as a criminal allegation because of its indirectness, I wouldn't justify that information release either because other moles in the US can push the limits further by releasing information that directly harms US troops.

So what value do Americans get out of this relationship if there can be even more important information stolen, which could then be used to contribute to the deaths of more US employees?  Both the weak information already stolen and the potentially damaging information yet to be taken are legally-kept secrets and taking them is a crime, so why do we have to trust third parties, like Wikileaks, that get donations to pick and choose from OUR information?  Why do we have to trust the editorial abilities of Wikileaks when we have no say in their organization other than to give them donations?  I'd prefer American democracy and rule of law over Wikileaks doing what it wants with OUR secrets.  Do we want more secret information out of government extracted by foreigners to punish OUR government or do we want more of our employees to survive their jobs?  I choose the later.

What Manning's conviction on the other counts shows is that the US is serious about its employees' conduct and the oath that they take when they agree to serve us.  Manning was justifiably convicted of espionage and lesser charges because he knowingly collected top-secret information and disclosed it to Wikileaks, a foreign enterprise that traffics in illegal information.  And its information is largely about the US because it believes that the sole superpower needs to be checked while growing powers like China deserve a pass.  Perhaps I was taking liberties with Wikileaks' mission, but they can't gain any freedom of press in China (or Russia) so why the US is the main target mystifies me.  

Whistleblowing is an Abstraction that Serves the Public Only when the Powerful ACTUALLY Break Laws

Wikileaks is not a journalistic outlet, it is simply a laundering website for stolen information.  As I've written before, its only output is based on crime and therefore, it is an organized criminal entity because voluntary donors contribute money to continue stealing from the American people.  Actual journalistic outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post do a further disservice to American taxpayers by abetting Wikileaks in theft.  They "wash" the stolen secrets of their espionage and produce journalism of limited value.  It is of limited value because the stolen information converted into news articles are legal secrets, the information taken has proven not surprising since its release, and though its content is controversial because of the larger ongoing political debate about privacy and government, the general topic is already subject to more fruitful debates among policymakers.  So what's the big deal with journalists collaborating with government moles and a foreign criminal entity?  Isn't a free and vibrant press more important than monitoring overseas activities?  Well, the big deal is that allowing Wikileaks to continue laundering opens up a gaping wound in the services we pay for and it puts our secrets and our security in the hands voluntary donors, foreigners, and moles.

In fact, the NSA is a legal administration we pay for to protect our society's information from the less than nice actors across the planet.  We also elect and pay representatives to represent our views, which have consistently given a mandate to continue a reasonable security administration to protect us from terrorist threats.  Therefore, the NSA's data collection regime is quite legal despite disagreement as to whether it improperly affects our privacy.  But any alleged invasion of privacy should be combated in the courts, taken to Supreme Court, where real experts determine the boundaries of national security and privacy.  I do not want amateur and rather low-level zealots to interpret our laws or decide their constitutionality.  I do not want ideologues to interpret the privacy abstraction for us when we pays millions of public employees to do better jobs. 

Can't we just pay our public employees to do their jobs without having to worry about would-be heroes undermining their legitimate effort?

Are Manning, Snowden, and Wikileaks really striking a blow for "Democracy"?? 

(NO.  Absolutely the opposite is the case)

 

How do you strike a blow for whisteblowers everywhere if the place you are fleeing to makes their own whistleblowers disappear?  How can you value democracy, exposure of the truth, and rule of law when you flee from the vastly more fair due process of the United States to the authoritarianism of Russia or China?  How can you claim asylum from torture when the place you are fleeing to actually tortures domestic dissidents?  What evidence is there that a CIVILIAN contractor accused of espionage will be treated as foreign enemy combatant when his crime took place in the US, where torture is banned expressly by order of President Obama, civilian courts have a long tradition of handling these types of trials, and they are available because there is not the required warzone exception to close them and open a Guantanamo-style military tribunal (see. Ex. Part Milligan)?

So, there is no evidence that Snowden faces anything other than fair due process, at least the process that the rest of the citizens he seeks to protect also have to face. And Manning's trial and partial acquittal because of allegations his treatment was harsh shows that a MILITARY trial can be quite fair for both the defendant and for the public as it seeks justice.  A sentencing judge will determine if his treatment while in custody is worthy of further scrutiny and if military misconduct occurred on the part of his captors, they will go to jail for their crimes.  And private contractor Edward Snowden will receive a CIVILIAN trial if he ever returns.

Why expose "the truth" to help "democracy" if you are going to a country that oppresses it?

In many of Snowden's supposed host countries where he would seek refuge from the awful "terror and injustice" of the US criminal justice system, there is no comparable legal process for whistleblowing, at least in an open way that allows for protections of the accuser against their bosses.  For example, in Russia, Sergei Magniztsky exposed alleged corruption in his own country.  He discovered the largest known tax-fraud in Russian history.  Yet, he was found murdered in jail and then tried after his death for tax evasion.  What abstraction could a government use to do this after his death other than an authoritarian one, an abstraction far removed from democracy, and one that actually twists the truth for its own ends.  The data trawling NSA program to legally collect phone numbers from foreigners calling into the US is NOT comparable to prison murder and posthumous show trials of actual whistleblowers.  In the NSA case, US government officials emphasize national security with minimal invasion of privacy as opposed to the Russian government using violent repression to stifle those who speak out.  Russian authorities likely did this just to sully his reputation and prevent his martyrdom.

In the US, there are whistleblower protections in almost every facet of government and even in private enterprise.  That means there are clear rules to report misconduct and lawbreaking that avoid show trials, secret police, and indefinite detention in a non-combat area.  There is the Whistleblower Reprisal Program and its hotline that allow Defense Department employees the ability to report without fear of retaliation from their bosses.  If Bradly Manning actually found anything illegal at the Defense Department, he might have done this instead of collaborating with a foreign illegal enterprise, Wikileaks, that seeks to undermine and defraud American taxpayers of covert services they pay for.

Of course the Obama Administration prosecutes more whistle-blowers, but Shouldn't we have a hearing or a trial to determine if their whistle-blowing was justified, and if not, don't we want to remove the criminals from government?

Whistleblowing should be invoked only in the case of CLEAR ILLEGALITY, DECEPTION, or ABUSE of authority.  Most reports of Manning and Snowden's leaked information show that it was embarrassing, but not the most secret or valuable secrets.  What is also clear is that none of three criteria have been met to justify giving them a whistleblower label, meaning the information should have remained secret, and the two government employees who accessed the information criminally released it. 

Claiming the title of whistleblower does not absolve the accused of potential criminal penalties and that is rightly so.  And yes, many critics correctly point out that the Obama administration has lead the way in the conviction of whistleblowers.  Claiming you're a whistleblower is fraught with peril and you must have a convincing case of illegality.  Yet, the Federal government has the right under our law to present a case for prosecution so that the "people's interest" is defended.  Do critics of the number of prosecutions want the government to abandon its duty to seek justice for the American people and simply clap for employees who release any information they want?  There are serious consequences for trying to ferret out corruption if you have taken an oath to serve the American people.

And the aggregate number of prosecutions is less meaningful compared to the actual CONTENT of what the leakers released or disclosed.  We have laws that state expressly that some activities of government employees must remain secret.  If you break that law, you may be convicted and punished because we believe in the rule of law abstraction.  Federal workplace confrontations between employees and those in power should always be scrutinized in a careful way.  But, Snowden and Manning are not whistleblowers and therefore simply raising Obama's prosecution number of actual whisteblowers is a red herring to cover for two non-whistleblowers who will be brought to justice.  What bosses acted improperly toward Snowden or Manning?  How does the legal NSA program compare to whistleblowers in the army who fight their commanders over sexual harassment?  They don't.  Snowden and Manning are simply ideologues who committed a crime in the name of ideology.

And media figures also raise the issue of the World War I-era Espionage Act that is used to try many of these whistleblowers as if the age of law negates any utility for the public.  But, we shouldn't age discriminate  even against laws.  Heck, the 1st amendment dates from the 18th century, yet we still debate the freedom of the press abstraction.  There might just be some good things we can get out of an old law that new ones can't do any better.  Besides even if there is a better law available to combat espionage, we still have to follow the laws on the books right now and follow the process to change it. 

And according to General Military Law 10 U.S.C. 2011, it is illegal for any military personnel to restrict a public employee from communicating with a member of Congress.  Therefore, rather than trouncing around Russia and Latin America, Snowden could have contacted any number of NSA critics in Congress who can use proper, legal, AMERICAN channels to seek a solution that fits his ideological vision.  I wish this debate were about simply changing old pieces of legislation like the Espionage Act because that would conform to the rule of law abstraction instead of journalists abetting theft by accepting Snowden as a whistleblower.

Look to Congress and you'll find a wide array of opposition to the NSA and to government encroachment on "privacy."  Tea Party and Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed the collection of data by the government and they didn't need Snowden or his information in order to express that criticism.  Then with the right argument and the right support, Snowden could have helped change the Espionage Act and incorporated his improvements so we all benefit legally.  In fact, current amendments to the defense appropriation bill would limit the reach of the NSA and have repeatedly threatened to end NSA use of metadata (See Watkins).  This would be an actual legal way to stop the NSA program and they didn't need Snowden or political asylum in a  less democratic country to do it. 

Russia Offers Asylum to a US Spy who Escaped Fair Due Process, the US Supported an Actual Whistleblower Beaten to Death in Russian Federal Prison.

The Whistleblower Protection Act is the legal means for government employees to disclose misconduct, illegality, and generally bad behavior.  It is not an umbrella protection for ideologues who think the US government is collecting too many phone numbers or because it keeps secrets about the necessarily secret activities of its paid employees across the world.  Why do we pay government employees to do their job if a handful of employees can undermine that work simply because they are disloyal to what they view as a corrupt administration and do not believe as their superiors do?  If the real power of this country, the mass of voters,  do not like something, let them show their displeasure by electing officials to represent their point of view.  Even then the responsibility of governing this nation, and all of the responsibilities that the US performs worldwide that other countries won't, must be placed with the public servants chosen by voters and not with the disloyal. 

American laws are not supposed to interpreted by lone zealots deciding for the American people what is best for them, their security, or privacy.  Instead, if the public is really going to be served best, we must strengthen legal systems to detect and destroy corruption while bringing justice to those who use their positions of power for illegal aims.  We do NOT have a federal workforce of individual ideologues interpreting our laws and our democratic-Republic themselves regardless of what the voters and their public servants have decided.

 Say no to a government of dictatorial ideologues!

Sources:

"Dictionary.com" http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/republic?s=t

Mattingly, Phil and Nichols, Hans.  "Obama Pursuing Leakers Sends Warning to Whistle-blowers "  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-18/obama-pursuing-leakers-sends-warning-to-whistle-blowers.html

Nuemen, Scott.  "Death And Tax Evasion: The Strange Case Of Sergei Magnitsky"
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/11/201120083/death-and-tax-evasion-the-strange-case-of-sergei-magnitsky

Office of the Inspector General.  "Whistleblower Reprisal Investigations."  http://www.dodig.mil/programs/whistleblower/wri.html

-------------------------------------.  "Protected communications; prohibition of retaliatory personnel actions."  http://www.dodig.mil/Resources/PolicyReferences/whistleblower/10_USC_1034.pdf

Starr, Barbara "Snowden did not access 'crown jewels' of NSA intel, official says."  CNN  http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/22/politics/snowden-intel

Supreme Court.  "Ex Parte Milligan." http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/2/case.html

Timesleader. "Congress-debating-reach-of-NSA's-power."  http://www.timesleader.com/news/news/698345/Congress-debating-reach-of-NSAs-power

Watkins, Ali.  "Skeptical Congress Turns Its Spycam on NSA Surveillance."  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/17/196962/skeptical-congress-turns-its-spycam.html#.Ue_n-KxnAR4