If you fail to study history, you are bound to repeat it. I don’t know where I read that. Maybe I didn’t, but it sure seems appropriate to today. The senile guy that we have to call president has seen fit to replay the ending of another lost war. Oh, they will try to play it as though it was all planned and executed with military precision, but the truth is that it was something that shouldn’t be repeated in a family newspaper.
I am beside myself with the ineptitude of our military and civilian leaders. Where do you think they learned about warfare? Perhaps from some Marvel magazine that has a rough-looking character that flies and punches with the strength of a dozen men.
I watched the people clinging to the planes that were flying out of Afghanistan and contradicted Sleepy Joe who said that wasn’t going to happen and that the Taliban retaking the Capital was not going to happen. He came back from Camp David to tell us that there was no problem and that the Taliban had promised no retaliations for all the men they had lost due to our training of the Afghan army. Right, and if you believe that, just watch about 10 minutes of news on almost any channel and see the falsehood of those statements.
I have told you that I suffer from PTSD and that it was due to the horror that was Vietnam. It was acerbated by the ridiculous retreat from Saigon while men were still fighting in the jungles. “Oh, no!” President Biden said. “You won’t see people hanging by their fingernails as helicopters are leaving, as they were in Vietnam. We have a plan.” And although he didn’t know what that plan was, he had the military and state department assuring him that it couldn’t happen in the Mideast.
These are two of the most dishonest branches of the government as witnessed by a general who walks lopsided by all the ribbons and badges that proclaim he is a master of warfare and a state department that can only be found lying because their lips are moving.
OK, I’ll admit that I am super angry. I take medications to overcome the anxiety that I feel for a war lost to a “ragtag army.” Ragtag is not my word, it is the word of the generals that assured our presidents that with a few more thousand men and another two or three billions of dollars, we could have won the war.
We didn’t win that war and we didn’t win this war, and just to remind you that we haven’t won a war since World War II. The jungle fighters of Vietnam were also a ragtag army, but they managed to kill our soldiers till we gave up and came home. The politicians and military advisers to the president make all kinds of excuses for this debacle.
There will be more soldiers coming back from Afghanistan that will be dealing with PTSD. It won’t be because of their actions but because of the actions of the people we vote for to give the soldiers, sailors and marines orders that enable them to win wars. I shudder to think of what the veterans of the other wars we have lost thinking about the leadership of our country today. It is unconscionable to think they gave their all to return to this country with another loss.
It wasn’t only a loss of face; it was a giveaway of all the technology we left behind. Billions have been spent coming up with weapons that can see over the mountain, as Biden said so astutely. We have furnished the Taliban with enough weapons of war that they will be the premier military force in the Mideast.
Many of the videos I have watched have shown the Afghanistan army to be impossible to train. Many of the professional trainers were complaining that equipment had to be replaced constantly as the Afghan army was stealing almost everything that wasn’t bolted down. They only had a few days they could train because the Afghan army would just take off to go home whenever they wanted.
Like some of you, I have been around long enough to see a few presidents come and go, but this President is a danger to our entire country. Yes, I remember a few weeks ago I said that he finally did something good by saying he was going to bring our troops home, but this guy has a hard time figuring out how to do that. I can’t believe that he decided to do this the way he did.
We have a lot of citizens of Afghanistan who were promised safety if they would help us. We needed help from the indigenous population to communicate with the soldiers we were training, and so we promised them that we would stand by them and keep them safe if they would work with us. We signed documents that promised them safety. We gave our blood and treasure to continue the fight. We were fighting an army of poorly armed and uneducated soldiers that knew the one secret to beating the United States.
That was not to confront us in battle, as we were the premier fighting force of the world. We had weapons that were only dreamed of a few short years before yet the loss of life could not be sustained. Ho Chi Min, in Vietnam, knew that they didn’t need to take a position and hold it against our fire power. He just told his leaders to make it as difficult as possible for us to overcome their position. He knew we couldn’t hold those positions. He told his soldiers not confront, but to hit and run. We could not endure the loss of life and fortune.
These lessons were learned by the Taliban, Isis and other groups that our soldiers would meet. We could not fight these wars as we did in Europe during the Second World War. As I write this, I am listening to the TV where in-country reporters are telling us the Taliban is hanging anyone that helped the Americans. I shudder to think of what they will be doing as they see American soldiers. It is said that God never gives us more than we can stand, and I think we are at that point.
God Bless.
