A Bungled End to the War in Afghanistan

It is finally over...almost The 18-year war the United States fought in Afghanistan, to defeat, er, rather, to bring to justice, that is, not lose any ground to…uh, Osama bin Laden, no-no, al-Qaeda, I meant, the Taliban, wait, we’ll just call it terror…has ended, maybe in 14 months, with a truce signed February 29, 2020, by the U.S. and Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar. Strangely, it was U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, not Mike Pompeo, who signed for the U.S. even though Pompeo was at the signing, almost as if he knew there was dishonor in signing it. 
        The current Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was not included because “talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.” In other words, they haven’t started yet. This treaty, or truce, or whatever it is, is strictly between the U.S. and the Taliban. Trump left it up to the Taliban to make peace with the Afghan government. This took Ghani by surprise and he lashed out at several points Trump guaranteed the Taliban. For one thing, Ghani will NOT agree to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners! The Taliban immediately responded that they “would resume fighting Afghan forces.” Think there will be any lasting peace once U.S. and NATO forces leave?

In the name of peace......fire!

        While it appears this could be more of a withdrawal or retreat without surrendering (like a poor man’s version of the truce we have with North Korea where technically we’re still at war) than a treaty document, Pompeo claims the Taliban has committed to certain peace moves that aren’t clearly spelled out (about like Trump wrangled from Kim Jong Un at Singapore – a lot of words but no substance), but somehow this is a glorious day for our military and a bold move by Trump. The Taliban has however continued to gain momentum and last year the BBC found they were in control of 70% of Afghanistan. When the U.S. invaded in 2001, the Taliban controlled about 55%.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urgently stressed "the importance of sustaining the nationwide reduction in violence, for the benefit of all Afghans" in the looming withdrawal of U.S. forces in areas that have been repeatedly contested. All the Taliban has to do is wait until U.S. forces flee and then any ‘contesting’ will be to their advantage. We are leaving the NATO troops to fend for themselves. We are leaving President Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan government high and dry, defenseless, and without a fallback plan. Trump is simply withdrawing our forces, destroying what equipment is left that we don’t want to fall into someone else’s hands, stuffing the flag in a bag and hightailing it out of Afghanistan like rats deserting a sinking ship. Surrendering is the foremost trait of a coward.

Did we win, draw even, or at least can hold our heads high? No.

         But I am celebrating the end of the U.S. involvement in the war. Not for a second do I believe the killing has ended. It is just the end of U.S. military forces doing a majority of the fighting, killing, and being killed. So, what did they ultimately die for? To Trump, what does that matter?
The U.S. suffered over 2,400 KIAs, over twice that number injured. NATO troops paid in blood with over 3,500 casualties. Between the Taliban and US-led forces, well over 50,000 Afghani civilians were killed simply to fight, or prop up, an unpopular government (that Bush and Cheney thought would do their bidding.) The U.S. tried to fight the war in a more streamlined way, yet in a similar fashion to the Soviets. It’s no wonder we couldn’t succeed. The British discovered the same damned thing earlier in the century. Afghanis have to settle Afghanistan’s problems and challenges. Anyone else involved in their ceaseless feuding unites the Afghanis just long enough to savagely bleed the invaders, drive them out, and then they go back to killing each other as they’ve done for centuries. Their fighting is religion-based with the Sunnis and Shiites believing the other holds a heretical view of Islam, deserves no mercy, and must be destroyed. The Taliban is the political and military muscle of the Sunnis in Afghanistan. As long as any religion is used to justify bigotry, hatred, differences, and divides, the killing won’t stop.

Does Trump deserve credit for ending U.S. involvement? Yes, in the same way that the driver who crashes a car into a wall to stop the pinging noise in the engine is responsible for putting an end to the annoying sound. Trump didn’t have many options in order to get out without actually surrendering. Plus, this is an election year; he needs something to brag about since the coronavirus and the slowing economic conditions around the world are going to impact how he is viewed. And while he’d never admit it publicly, the germ-o-phobe in Trump has him near panic over the coronavirus. This is what happens when you don’t read. Trump spends more time watching TV, refuses to learn or listen to others, and has the least scientifically-inquisitive mind of any president in history. Does anyone trust Trump to come up with a responsible plan that he just staples together on the fly? Trump is retreating from the world because he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t understand foreign policy, diplomacy, and honoring our word. So in order to avoid the realities of dealing with a world he’s too ignorant to understand and work with, Trump retreats from it like a turtle pulling back into its shell but puffing himself up to project a tough guy image to a world that is not even looking in his direction anymore.

        Here is Trump qualifying his ending the war, as reported by the BBC. Speaking at the White House, Mr. Trump said the Taliban had been trying to reach an agreement with the U.S. for a long time. (Yes, the Taliban has been trying to get the U.S. to leave for 18 years!)

        He said U.S. troops had been killing terrorists in Afghanistan "by the thousands" and now it was "time for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries". (If Trump is saying the Taliban will now have to kill ‘the terrorists,’ then who have our troops been killing for 18 years? The U.S. has been switching designated enemies from al-Qaeda or Taliban to terrorists since 2002 right after U.S. troops ousted the Taliban from Kabul. Who are the 'surrounding countries' who should now step into Afghanistan's affairs? Iran? Pakistan?)

        "I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we're not all wasting time," Mr. Trump added. "If bad things happen, we'll go back with a force like no-one's ever seen."

Check out Trump’s language: “If bad things happen, we’ll go back with a force like no-one’s seen.”

Really?

You’ll go back after you turned tail and ran? You got nothing for your treaty. The Taliban agrees to “not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.” How about in areas they don’t control? How will that be enforced once U.S. and NATO troops are gone? What constitutes “bad things?” But the ‘reveal’ so to speak, might be the phrase “no-one’s seen.” If you don’t do anything, will anyone see it? Trump is a coward to his core. He’d no more go back to Afghanistan than he’d go back to Marla Maples.

This Afghan debacle is a war George W. Bush launched immediately after 9/11 in which we never should have been engaged. Afghanistan didn’t attack us, Iraq didn’t attack us. Elements of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda attacked us and they were spread across the Middle East; from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, with a heavy concentration in Pakistan. Yet Bush chose Afghanistan because he thought - as primitive as they appeared to be - the Taliban would be easy to knock off and he could claim he was keeping the caves in eastern Afghanistan out of al-Qaeda's hands. Now, Trump is ending it like the fiasco it has been for the U.S. all along; like a cowering cur with its tail tucked between its legs, limping off the battlefield dragging the flag in the mud behind it. This is Trump’s foreign diplomacy. This will be his legacy. He has no honor, and he has no pride in anything except when he looks in a mirror.

            Addendum-dum: On March 4^th, Trump authorized dozens of drone airstrikes on Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan after the Taliban launched numerous attacks on Afghan Security Forces on March 3rd, which is exactly what the Taliban said they’d do. They did not attack US forces, but Trump ordered US forces to respond. This will unravel any treaty and I fully expect Trump to accelerate withdrawal in an almost panic mode that will increasingly appear to be a rout of US forces.

Trump told reporters on March 3^rd that he spoke on the phone with the leader of the Taliban, He stated, “We’ve had a good conversation. We agreed there’s no violence, we don’t want violence. But we’ll see what happens.” Does that sound like a confident statement or that anything was ironed out? Less than 24 hours later Trump sends in the drones to attack the Taliban. How good was that conversation again?

Trump Supporters Still Want Their P*ssies Grabbed

At a recent Trump rally, women (and one guy) wait to have their genitals fondled.

Trump in 2005:  “…when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

In Trump’s mind, being a star means being above the law. So pussy grabbing by Trump is not illegal. 
Trump even admitted, "I was aware at the time that I was being recorded by a TV program".

However, this was just “locker room” talk, remember? He meant every word of it, he just didn’t mean for you to find out. It’s his way of puffing up his street cred with other serial sexual predators – by exchanging ideas for violating women safely behind locker room doors. You weren’t supposed to catch him admitting what he really did to his victims. But he thinks what he did was okay. He told the world he “could get away with anything.” Getting caught voicing his preferred method was his only miscalculation. And the people who voted for him approve that message!

Does he care if you disapprove? Does Trump care about anything other than making money off of gullible people? Trump has a simple five-word response that sums up his attitude. Verified by numerous named sources in Bob Woodward’s book Fear: Trump in the White House, one of Trump’s most frequent responses to a variety of issues is “I don’t give a fuck”, "I don't give a shit", or “I don’t give a damn.”

Case in point: Money trumps the law.

Trump in November 2016, to Chris Christie (when he and Steve Bannon explained to Trump that legally the money raised for the Trump transition team could only be used for actual presidential transition team tasks as it prepared to take over the government): “Fuck the law,” Trump shouted. “I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money.”

THIS IS THE REPUBLICAN’S LEADER - AND THE BIBLE-WIELDING EVANGELICAL’S CHOSEN MORAL REPRESENTATIVE.

Congratulations GOP and Christians, this is the man seen as the embodiment of your values around the world. This is the man you believe God picked to lead the U.S.

Does he care about presidential optics he has created? Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, shoving aside Montenegro’s Prime Minister Dusko Markovic so Trump could be in front at the NATO members photo op in May 2017, being laughed at when falsely bragging about his accomplishments in front of the UN General Assembly. 3000 Puerto Ricans are confirmed dead from Hurricane Maria and its after-effects, which were criminally mismanaged by the Trump administration, yet Trump gives himself an A+ and told reporters "I think we did a fantastic job in Puerto Rico."  Trump proudly says he’s a nationalist…even though he admits he shouldn’t say it. He doesn't care that nationalism has strong negative connotations and is closely associated with white nationalism and in particular National Socialism…you know, Nazis.

Did Trump really hire “the best people” to work for him? Recent Trump administration departures include Nikki Haley, Don McGahn, Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, Tom Price, David Shulkin, Rob Porter, Dina Powell, Scott Pruitt…many left under a cloud of corruption…and those names are just the most high-profile ones. These are Trump’s hand-selected “best people” and they have been either forced out or found they cannot work with him. Why would they no longer want to help Trump make America great again?

What about that massive parade that was supposed to showcase our great military (and by extension, it’s Commander-in-Chief), right down Pennsylvania Avenue…uh, soon, how 'bout July 4^th, no, no, Veteran’s Day on November 11^th, no wait…? Never mind, it’s been cancelled. As usual, Trump didn't give a damn about the cost until the Pentagon released figures showing the parade that Trump wanted would cost nearly $90 million. Then, to save face, Trump claimed he cancelled it due to budgetary concerns after Democratic politicians falsely inflated the price. That’s how Trump honors our military…with a false show of force designed to stroke his ego that would have wasted millions of dollars, it would have added nothing to military might or readiness, and that money would have been far better spent on our military families and veterans.

Does Trump actually care about helping our military? Trump has gone golfing at least 70 times since taking office yet hasn’t once visited troops in an active zone he sent them to. So far, all "General Bone Spurs" has done is use our soldiers, sailors, marines, and air force crews for photo opportunities or to send them off secretively - like they're a bunch of pawns or playthings - while he flexes his muscle and uses his military school background to play-act as the new sheriff in town. He told everyone on live TV he was smarter than our generals.
We lost four Green Berets in Niger October 4, 2017, because Trump added Chad to the list of seven banned countries - all because they didn’t use the right kind of paper for their passports. Chad troops then pulled out of Niger and the vacuum was filled by ISIS-supporting militants. With no advance intelligence, Trump ordered the US African Command to send lightly-armed US troops into the area with no plan, no support, no backup, and no extraction force available. Then when four Americans were killed (along with several Niger troops) Trump did nothing. Absolutely nothing. He even ignored the Defense Department's statement for him to read to the public about the ambush. Nor did Trump call any of the families of those killed until he was exposed at a press conference on October 16^th lying that he was the first president ever to call all the families of those who died in service to the US on his watch. He further sullied the whole affair by insulting the widow of Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, on her way to claim her husband’s body at the airport, and his off-the-cuff callousness was confirmed by the widow’s mother and her congresswoman who were riding in the car with her. Trump claims they are the ones who are lying about the incident, even though Chief of Staff John Kelly corroborated that Trump had said to the widow about her husband’s death “well, he knew what he signed up for…” 
How and why did we lose a SEAL in Somalia? Why was Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens killed in that botched raid in Yemen just a week into the Trump presidency? Why are we still losing military personnel in Syria when Trump can, and does, launch Tomahawk cruise missiles from the comfort of his golf resorts as his way of resolving issues in that country? Trump even salutes generals of countries we are technically still at war with.

         Taking care of our military starts with our veterans. Yet what has Trump done for them? According to the publication Stars & Stripes, Trump’s approach to the whole Veterans Administration issue was to appoint a trio of wealthy Mar-a-Lago members (those are people who pay him personally hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) who have no military experience to run the VA in secret. And although Trump has repeatedly promised his total commitment to “take care of every veteran”, now, almost two years into his administration, he has yet to detail how he would do that, or when he might start. Meanwhile, wait times at almost every VA facility have increased because Trump froze federal hiring and spending which blocked any additional staff or doctors being added, or upgrading with needed equipment, thereby degrading veteran’s health care even more.

Why hasn’t anyone handed Trump an AR-15 and asked him to show us how he would have confronted the gunman at Margery Stoneman Douglas High School during his killing rampage on Valentine’s Day 2018? Trump said that’s what he would have done, run into the building and confront the shooter. Lead by example, Trump.

Does Trump care that everyone around him considers him an idiot, or more generously, a child? – The transcript of the July 20, 2017 meeting at the Pentagon reveals Trump left a room full of staff members, Cabinet officials, and military leaders stunned after showing he couldn’t grasp simple concepts on diplomacy, and reasons not to launch a war - Rex Tillerson blurted out ‘fucking moron’ as Trump left the room; the West Wing resembles a dumpster fire as seen through the eyes of Michael Wolff in his book Fire and Fury, the September 2018 New York Times op-ed letter that claims others are actually running the government as "the adults in the room" instead of Trump, the entire White House is understaffed and feels they have to be the guardians at the gate to keep Trump from acting on his wildest impulses as chronicled in Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk, reporter/author Bob Woodward, who has an impeccable record for honest and accurate reporting, writes in his latest book Fear: Trump in the White House that many are concerned that the president acts like a petulant five-year-old, or describe him as having the attention span of a 5th or 6th grader, incompetent, completely self-centred, lacking a moral compass. And don't forget, after claiming as a candidate in 2016 that "the world was laughing at us" Trump is the one who actually got laughed at - by the entire UN General Assembly on September 24, 2018.

Does he care about the deficit?

In September 2018, Trump's top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, gave a talk at the Economic Club of New York in which he said that tax cuts aren't to blame for deficits. It’s entirely too much spending, mainly on social programs. Just how could Kudlow make such a preposterous claim? Because the GOP - who rammed through that Tax Cut Bill that transfers the tax savings wealth to the top 2% of people in this country, authorized with Trump's signature - tells him to say that. They don't want to answer for what they did to the other 98% of Americans. But it is Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cuts - and only Trump’s tax cuts - that are fueling the increase in deficits. It is now 17% higher than at this time last year according to his own Treasury Department. And even though Republicans control the Executive, Judicial and Legislative arms of the government, there's been absolutely no spending discipline at all by them. However, Republicans blame what they call “obstructionist Democrats” as causing the spending increases that are ballooning the deficit...and claiming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the culprits that really need radical reductions.

Does Trump care that a legal U.S. resident was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey? Jamal Khashoggi was no threat to Saudi Arabia. He was simply disliked by the Saudi prince over an article he wrote. And the official story, from the Saudi government, and even Trump himself, has changed five times? Is it okay for someone to murder a legal resident, then as president, a shrug of the shoulders is the only requirement in order to maintain a highly profitable financial arrangement (not just for US defence contractors but Trump personally)? Is it okay to kill journalists or representatives of the press? Is it okay to at least body slam them to the ground like Montana Senator Greg Gianforte did last year since Trump told a recent rally crowd that someone who could do that was his “kind of man”?

The presidency is supposed to be the beacon of moral leadership to the world. Instead, we have a president who has thoroughly disgraced, dishonoured, debased and degraded the office.

You in his administration…you in the GOP who cover for him...you evangelicals who CONTINUE to support him…you who voted for this vastly unfit-for-office man…you are all complicit. You are all enablers. You all figuratively lift your skirts every day and encourage Trump to grab your pussy because he's a star. And because he's a star, you support his getting away with ANYTHING by letting Trump just be Trump. As his hands grab your genitals it gives him the courage to imprison babies of migrant parents at the border, let economically-friendly countries kill American residents with no consequence, side with Putin against all of the US Intelligence agencies, sign a tax bill that promptly gave him a $2 billion windfall because tax breaks in the bill were specifically designed to go to real estate developers and people who own golf courses. How did that happen? That is going to make America great again? For who? Trump has not hidden who and what he is from anyone. By voting him into office, you have made this nation the laughing stock of the world. 

Just ask the UN.