No Exit

Another week of disorientation and madness is coming to an end, however I would like to comment on perhaps the only part of the story this week that has real relevance and import and direct effect on the loss of lives....the "new" Afghanistan policy.

In spite of the tumbler effect of everything emanating from the mouth of President Jabberwocky (thank you Bret Stephens!), there was the speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday which laid out the forward-looking strategy for America's longest war.  After a weekend of what may have been actual analysis by the administration of where we go from here, they presented what the critics have called the only real solution for moving forward....no solution at all.  Basically, we continue onward with the vacuuming of our money and our young American's lives into the bottomless void of an un-endable war. 

My question is why?

Well, the answers might seem logically apparent when you study the history of the thing and analyze the forces at work--a resurgent Taliban that we simply cannot eradicate because of continued support from the Pakistanis and now the Russians; the seemingly endless corruption of the government in Kabul that sucks down our treasure; our effort to create a reliable defense force from the ranks of the citizens which is rife with continuing desertions, while turning on us and killing our soldiers from time to time; surging Opium production; failed diplomacy with the Taliban; surges in troop strength which are ineffective; etc.

So, our "President" has decided to change his mind (such that it is) and embrace what we have been doing for the past 16 years as his 'new' policy.  Good Luck with that!  In the meantime, we continue to suffer losses that devastate families, ruin young lives, and drain our treasury in the hopes of .....what?  That maybe we can forestall further encroachment by the forces of evil and terrorism?  Really the only benefit of all this is that Afghanistan will not re-become a base for launching terrorist attacks against us again.  But the problem with this is that it is open ended and will not end anytime soon.

However I want to add one additional reason that this will not end soon.....too many people are making too much money on this war.  Eisenhower was right all those years ago when he warned us about the rise of the Military-Industrial Complex.  Think of it...our 43rd President (GWB) pushed hard for the Congress to pass legislation called the Authorization for the Use of Military Force of 2017 (AUMF) that gave him virtually unlimited power to use military power against those forces responsible for the attacks of 9/11 or any 'associated forces'.  That associated forces clause was the opening for development of all kinds of additional actions and weapons.  The AUMF was used to justify the Iraq War, all our actions in Libya and Syria, etc.  It is still in force today, and the corporate war machine loves the opportunity to continue to squeeze tax money from the government---our tax money---while supporting the misery of all the results of never ending warfare. 

In 2001 when the AUMF was passed by the House, there was one lone vote against the resolution from a newly elected representative, one who is still in Congress today, Barbara Lee (D-California).  She wasn't against the action, but was against the wording of the resolution which has resulted in a 16 year war.  She instinctively knew that we were headed for this scenario.  

 Well, the good news is that Barbara Lee has not given up.  She proposed an amendment to the upcoming Appropriations Bill in the House that would revoke the AUMF.  Her committee approved the amendment and actually applauded when they took the vote, overwhelmingly approving it.  Whether it passes the full House is uncertain, but there are those who understand where the pressure to continue this madness is still coming from and are doing their best to stop it.  If it were to pass, there still is no solution for the morass that we are experiencing in Afghanistan, but it will at least temper the instinct of our leaders and the corporate military machine to drag us into more wars.....well, maybe...!

Back to Reality, Such That It Is.......

Ah,where to begin?  I have been 'offline' for about two or three weeks now for some R and R.  I spent a week with some buddies on a 38-foot sailboat flitting around Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay and having some modest adventures as only a 69 year-old man can do.  It was fun even though there was hardly any wind.  Thank God for 'motoring'.  I successfully put my back out while twisting in many unusual ways to help docking, mooring and placing bumpers so we wouldn't scratch the 'rental'.  I am still trying to recover from THAT!

Now I am in the NC mountains at a family cabin for the next two weeks.  Sweet tranquility and time for my jangled sciatica nerve to quiet down.  Today is the 'bucket list' experience of a lifetime, watching a total solar eclipse from my deck which is in the path of totality....looking forward to that today!

I suppose the best news is that for the past two weeks or so, I have not felt compelled to comment on the disintegration of our government.  What a horror show!  It was very easy during the sailing trip to disengage from the daily spiral of bad news.  I confess I did squeeze in an hour of MSNBC a day to feed my need for some awareness of what was happening, but overall it was truly liberating to only be thinking about wind, and how to keep from falling off a pitching deck.

But now I am back in range of the television and grimly watch the unearthing of the most fetid of human ideologies' reappearance in a place where it was never supposed to be.  The image of Nazis parading in our streets while our President suggests there are some really fine people in this group is almost too much to bear....marching and intimidating the congregants at a local synagogue no less!  Would all the veterans of WWII who gave their lives to extinguish this cancerous plague on humanity be a bit upset by this?  Apparently 'our leader', who has not one whit of brain cells to retain any history-- except of course the ridiculous bubba meisah that General Pershing stopped terrorism by killing Turks with pig blood coated bullets, thinks these are some fine people.  True colors emerge, don't they?

I must admit that it has been refreshing to see hints of actual concern on the part of our Congressional Republicans, although I wonder if it is too little too late.  This whole Charlotteville incident does seem rather like a 'tipping point' of sorts.  Whatever fantasy people might have had that Trump is a salvageable human being has been perhaps irretrievably lost.  Let's hope that some adults will now take the helm and figure out how to right this ship before it hits the iceberg and sustains an unfixable tear in its hull.  At the very least maybe they will figure out how to minimize the damage until next year when we have an opportunity to send some adults to Washington and regain control of our country.

However,  let's not forget for a minute that every moment Trump and his minions retain the governmental controls over our society, they are changing things for the worse, polluting our environment, denying our most vulnerable citizens constitutional guarantees, removing safeguards instituted to protect us from greedy and despicable humans.

The mass fleeing of major segments of our society from further support for the 'disease called Trump' is a hopeful indicator that sanity, the Constitution and separation of powers may actually be the salvation of our teetering democracy.