We should not forget Afghanistan.

So, thank God, Biden got us out of Afghanistan with no loss of life and no one left behind. Hah!

At least that one is not a lie, although it would be if they claimed it. Instead, as the media and the D party are now tied together (as Psaki gets ready to go over to MSNBC), most media simply ignores it. Fox doesn't. At least Sean Hannity. The Wall Street Journal doesn't. I'm sure some other right-wing media. But, the mainstream, that is leftist media does want you to know, as it is with all of the failures and march towards fascism, so they ignore it.

This was in the WSJ May 10, 2022.

"Though it gets little Western coverage these days, Afghanistan continues to regress. On Saturday the ruling Taliban ordered all women to fully cover themselves in public. This is a tragedy for the women and men of Afghanistan, and it’s a reminder of the nightmare for the Americans still trapped there.

 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently testified on Capitol Hill that 126 Americans remain in Afghanistan. He added that 37 seek to leave and are being assisted by the State Department. A congressional source told us that the figure may underestimate the number of U.S. citizens who want to get out, as some want to leave but need to get their affairs in order first.

 

Mr. Blinken noted that the U.S. had helped more than 600 American citizens leave the country since the end of August, but hundreds have come forward since the panicked withdrawal ended. The process has been uneven: Some freedom-of-movement issues are resolved, then others spring up. Leaving the country remains difficult.

 

The Administration vows to assist any Americans who want to leave. But that is the least it can do after the rushed retreat and the casual approach to evacuations that preceded it."

It doesn't say, and of course the world doesn't need reminding - they know - it was the worst military debacle in American history and if there was any media, and the Ds were not in power, Biden would have been impeached just for that alone. 13 Americans needlessly died that we know about when the imprisoned ISIS members, released when the Taliban swept the country, murdered them at the last airbase with a bomb. But, tens of thousands of Afghanis died, including those who helped us, and as many or more were stranded there with Taliban animals.

Bush (in later years), Obama, Trump and Biden all wanted out. Even Obama understood you just couldn't leave and in fact ramped up our troops when necessary. Biden, however, is literally an idiot in terms of decisions and policy, plus, could care less about our troops lives and certainly Afghani ones.  

Trump's endeavors, if you look at the military deaths inside Afghanistan over the years, partially pacified (the Taliban still controlled much of the country). He early on announced his desire to leave, but to show the Taliban we did not care about timelines, increased our forces in 2017 and then slowly and carefully reduced troops to about 2500 and basically maintained the peace. 

American Military Killed in Action by hostile forces per president by year (through January of next year following election):

Bush: 2001- 1/2008:  424 dead/8 years = 53 average

Obama: 2/2009-1/2017: 2873/8 years =359

Trump: 44/4 years = 11 

Indeed, so effective was the deterrence of the Taliban that in the last 10 months of 2020 (so, under Trump) there were 0 deaths (and 2/4 earlier that year were in training exercises) and that continued through the next year until the Biden debacle where 13 were killed and tens of thousands of Afghanis, some in such fear that they literally died falling off planes that they were hanging onto to try and escape. Taliban in Afghanistan: Terrifying Video Shows People Falling Off Plane Mid-Air In Kabul - Bing video. Remember Biden saying there would be no Saigon-like evacuation? It was far worse. It is painful to watch these videos. 

The fantasy that it could not have been avoided is frankly, not fantasy, but lies. The military knew this would happen. Our intelligence was aware it would happen. This has all been admitted despite Biden's continuous lies. Only Biden, demanding our flight by a deadline, having our troops leave before our citizens and the Afghanis who helped us, is responsible. Leaving at all when the Taliban violated the agreement by immediately seizing territory while the Afghani army, really not a military force at all, collapsed. 

This is from NBC News (August 17, 2021). NBC! Basically a spokesman for the Democrat Party (CIA warned of rapid Afghanistan collapse. So why did U.S. get it so wrong? (nbcnews.com)).

"As the Taliban began seizing provinces across Afghanistan in recent weeks, the CIA’s intelligence assessments began to warn in increasingly stark terms about the potential for a rapid, total collapse of the Afghan military and government, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News."

. . .

On the surface, it’s a stark contrast from what the president had said just a month ago. Speaking in the same room July 8, the president was asked directly about reports that he was presented intelligence predicting a rapid collapse of the Afghan government without a continued U.S. presence. At first, Biden challenged the premise.

“That is not true. They did not reach that conclusion,” he said then.

Trump's agreement for us to leave required the Taliban to behave itself and was the premise of our phased withdrawal, not frantic flight.

"The peace deal contains classified and unclassified portions and the central themes of the agreement are: (1) the prevention of future threats against the United States and its allies from terror groups operating from Afghanistan soil; (2) the withdrawal of all American and coalition forces from Afghanistan; and (3) a commitment from the Taliban towards an intra-Afghan negotiation that would include a permanent ceasefire."

Arguably, there is no way we could ever know what the Taliban's behavior would be after we left, but we did not have to leave before we got out all Americans and allies out. The military should have come last. As it was, they were put in a far worse situation than Saigon and everyone but Biden knew it would happen. The deaths caused by ISIS were prefaced by warnings that it was going to happen. 

All we managed to do was blow up a family and claim it was ISIS.

Moreover, General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who I have little respect for) admitted that the war in Ukraine is quite possibly as a result of Putin's having watched us in Afghanistan.

I know the media won't remind you, so I will, Britain's parliament literally condemned us for our idiocy (really, Biden's idiocy) in the way we handled matters.

The idiocy continues. In December, the administration claimed that it had repatriated 500 Americans after the frantic pull-out and that there were less than a dozen left. Now, they admit there are over 100 still - almost a half year later - and that it is trying to get out 37 and others remain. Their nightmare isn't the administration's concern, apparently. They almost never speak of it and always deflect. Indeed, Biden said that he rejected the military's reports that it had warned this would happen. 

How does he still have around 40 % approval? Afghanistan is only one of the reasons he needs to be - should be - impeached, while Trump was impeached on the phony Ukraine myth because of a one sentence request on an open line to investigate corruption (whereas Biden has bragged about his actual coercion of Ukraine when Vice President), yet the deaths of these Americans in Afghanistan and so many Afghanis goes uncared for, unnoticed by the media and frankly, roughly half the country.

Our media could care less. His supporters could care less (as long, I guess, as he pushes for the death of fully grown babies in the womb and that the military be woke, if unprepared). Our allies and potential allies won't forget. Our enemies won't. Even General Milley has admitted it may be one reason Putin decided to invade Ukraine. Milley and another general on the Joint Chiefs of Staff have also admitted that Biden was warned to keep troops there - 2500 of them, that is - Trump levels. The Generals Contradict Biden on Afghanistan - WSJ.

You just don't get it (Democrat friends). Biden did not care about our troops. He didn't care about the embarrassment to our country and all those dead or abandoned Afghanis. He doesn't care about Americans left there and he certainly doesn't care about you.

The End of the Republic

As I write that title it suddenly reminds me of the title to a Pat Buchanan book The End of the West. But the inspiration for this post is actually William L. Shirer's The Collapse of the Third Republic. Shirer, an American journalist, is actually much more famous for his The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Berlin Diaries. I always knew of this book, which concerns what happened to France, among the victorious allies in WWI and considered to both be the strongest military force on the European continent and a bastion of freedom, that it would fold so quickly when war came.

The short answer to the question is a very politically divided society, trust in useless and often cowardly leaders, both political and military. I'm not here to capture the essence of the book, but to go to two short bits that stood out for me, one at the beginning, one at the end.

The first, in the Forward, where he summed up his thesis:

"I lived and worked in France for a good many years, beginning in 1925 when the country was not only the greatest power on the continent of Europe but, to me at least, the most civilized and enlightened. In the ensuing years I watched with increasing apprehension the Third Republic go downhill, it’s strength gradually sapped by dissension and division, by an incomprehensible blindness in foreign, domestic, and military policy, by the ineptness of its leaders, the corruption of its press, and by a feeling of growing confusion, helplessness, and cynicism (Je m’en foutisme) in its people. And though at the beginning of the 1930s I left for assignments elsewhere, I returned frequently to Paris throughout the decade and thus was able to keep in touch with the deterioration one could see—or at least feel—all around."

Towards the end, he shows us the character of the leaders of the Republic self-destructing out of self-gratification and fear. It is impossible to miss the sickness and sadness:

" . . . As for the unhappy President of the Republic, who knew he was on the way out, Baudouin recorded in his journal: 'the president of the Republic says not a word. His silence, his passivity, stupefies me.' the brash young foreign minister does not seem to have been stupefied by his own--or the other ministers' --silence and passivity. If not stupified, LeBrun was at least depressed. But, like everyone else, resigned.

            Laval explains the resolution for revision to be submitted tomorrow to the two chambers [LeBrun records]. Everyone feels at a debate with the useless. All know from the events of the past few days that the game is over. We are submerged in a heavy and mythic atmosphere which annihilates you.

               'In this atmosphere of threats and fears and defeatism and baseness and dupery and confusion, all but a handful of the politicians, who only 10 months before had enthusiastically and unanimously voted the credits for war, who all their political life had thought, almost all of them, that the Third Republic was the best possible form of government for France and its democracy and freedoms a cherished blessing, were now intent, with whoops of enthusiasm, to destroy it and substitute a copy of the barbarian totalitarianism of the Nazi German conqueror, cutting suddenly loose, as Ambassador Bullitt had reported in his dispatch of July 1, after talking with the leaders, from all that France had been and meant and stood for so long.'

               How was it possible?  Léon Blum later tried to account for it, but he succeeded only in describing it.

               'The men whom I had seen the day before and with whom I had talked and shaken hands, were no longer the same men. They seemed plunged in some horrible mixture, in a corrupting bath of such power that those who touched it for a moment emerged poisoned. . . . Within a few hours their thoughts, their words, their faces even, became practically unreasonable. . . .  The poison and one now held be held was fear, quite simply the panic of fear.'

            Fear, he said that if they didn’t follow Laval, the Germans or General Weygand, as Laval warned, would take over.

            'The nature of fear permits no reasoning. If the pitiful victims of Laval had been capable of a reflection, of a critical examination, this whole structure of artifice would immediately have crumbled into dust. . . .To escape from the whirlwind there was only needed a moment in sang-froid, an effort for reflection. But no one reflected. One let himself be carried away, like a crowd in panic, by the collective currents of dread and cowardice.'

            The ease with which men can be corrupted counted too.

            'Laval did not so much convince them as infect them. . . . He offered them jobs, as formerly he promised portfolios. Every revolution produces a scramble for spoils. Laval offered embassies, prefectures. . . .'

            What hurt Blum most was the baseness with which the French politicians endeavored to ape Hitler and his totalitarian regime, thinking they could thereby curry his favor.

            'To be vanquished does not mean that you have to become a vassal. To imagine that by being obliging to Hitler one could appease his scorn or moderate his hate was a senseless chimera. . . . well I suppose that if there existed a means of softening or seducing Hitler, it can only be by baseness?'

          . . . . Paul Boulet, A professor of history and a deputy who supported Badie’s motion, later described the scene to the Parliamentary Investigating Committee.

'Every time someone wanted to speak, his voice was drowned out by 400 voices against 20 or 30! You have to imagine what it was like in this assembly where there were 400 members who did not want anyone to speak.'"

We can imagine it easily. Every time a conservative speaker is shut down by threats or actual violence in America, which happens not infrequently, we see it. We are seeing it even in law schools, where kids being trained to be lawyers - that is, to debate - think it is okay to shut down conservative speakers. Why shouldn't they. The school allowed it. No one was suspended or sent home.

How far away are we from this? Go back to the third paragraph in the second selection above and read it again. Ten months in France. Our leaders, often Republicans, are capable of great fecklessness in order to preserve their own skins.

We saw it after Charlottesville, when a group of protesters, at least some white supremacists and as vile as they come, but others who thought there was a value in maintaining their Southern subculture by preserving confederate statuary, all with a permit to march, being savaged by a left wing mob - no other word for it (one attacker had a flame-thrower). One right-winger, described as a neo-Nazi, apparently angered by the attacks, perhaps to help someone in trouble, perhaps to flee (I can find no information online on what actually happened, which makes me very cynical), ran his care into the mob and killed a woman. Instantly, not only did the left scream white-supremacy and murder loud as they could, but the Republicans did too, or at least most. Amazingly, Trump initially did not, saying their were fine people on both sides. So hot was the heat that he had to walk it back. I was shocked to see political bodies insist that it the violence was one-sided, to her Republicans say the same. The videos were there for all to see. The media reaction was certainly one-sided. 

We saw the same phenomena in Seattle when a group of left-wing morons in Seattle take over a few city blocks and declare themselves independent (if you remember CHOP). The mayor, also, apparently a moron, declares that this is what democracy looks like (it's actually the opposite of what democracy looks like). a few weeks and two dead CHOP residents murdered, she changed her mind. 

In Portland, the problem has been ongoing for 2 years now, as the police have pretty much been neutered.

In Chicago and other urban (left-wing dominated) states cops have been so beat down that they are not even allowed to chase suspects without permission (usually meaning they can't as the suspects don't exactly wait around). In San Francisco, the police are rapidly leaving. There and in many other cities (NY, where the D.A. immediately showed his true colors upon entering office and in L.A., where they won't even prosecute misdemeanors (meaning miscreants can commit most any crime they want without fear so long as they aren't felonies), Portland, where the police have acted so bravely, and the first time one strikes a so-called protester, is arrested for it, causing the entire SWAT team to quit, and so on. 

We have a star-chamber for a January 6th committee, really a political organization against Trump, as Pelosi refused to let Republicans pick their own members and allows only Trump haters among them. January 6th is probably the biggest sign of the fascist state taking over other than the joint censorship with the government and big tech (thank you, Elon Musk, I think). A cop died soon after the trespassing (by morons) and the left pretended he was killed and he was given a state funeral for political purposes. His family revealed it had nothing to do with the riot. A young woman, a veteran was murdered in cold blood by a cop while she had her hands to her side and was surrounded by other cops with big guns. Somehow, that was okay and he was not only not prosecuted, they wouldn't release his name (he self-revealed). Yet, ordinary liberals will say it was justified, but somehow Kyle Rittenhouse, set upon by a mob, was not justified in saving his own life and they think he should have been convicted. 

There are thousands of examples of our continued collapse - the deliberate weakening, almost abolition of our southern border, the deliberate weakening of our armed forces, our kowtowing to our enemies, including Iran, China and Russia, the continued destruction of our education system, the attempt to proselytize amongst our children including sexualizing infants or confusing them about gender. The false narratives (like pretending Florida's law prohibits the saying someone is gay, or pretending the overturning of Roe v. Wade means they will overturn Brown v. Board of Education), the ruination of our criminal justice system in woke cities and states, the demonization of police, particularly the false narrative that they hunt down and shoot blacks, the ruination of the minority communities with the victimization narrative, the denunciation of merit in our education system, the racialization and racialism against whites, Asians and Jews while blacks are given a privileged status, as if that is the fair way to handle past racism. The attacks on right-wing speakers which has been going on for years, the abandonment of our schools by feckless administrators who give in to violent and stupid children who think they should be running things, the dumbing down of almost everything. The politicization of our health agencies. The censorship of government in conjunction with big tech. The bonfire of the vanities like rigidity and demoralization of our businesses and institutions such that people are afraid to be normal (no, I don't mean abusive) or to speak their mind. The threats to our democracy by those who threaten Justices they don't agree with (the Goebbel's like Chuck Schumer, for example), or demand to pack the court, end the electoral college or the right to defend our border. Corruption of the DOJ and FBI which helped attack Trump and threatens concerned parents with anti-terrorism laws while not recognizing actual terrorists like Antifa as such. 

I could go on for pages and have in the past here. But, I decided not to make this post one of these extensive lists or statements. But, if you care to know, you can go down through my archives or just start reading on the web. No, not the NYTimes or the Washington Post, not CNN or MSNBC. But, it's out there. You can't take any organization at its word. You have to research it yourself, read cases and statutes and listen to what people actually said. It's often (not always) out there. 

This is more a warning that powerful and great republics can fail and fail remarkably quickly. If people do not continue to wake up (the last few weeks have been better), we will continue this slide into fascism and in one way or another, the fate of the Third Republic will become ours. It never happens the same way twice. But, it always ends up with sickening coercion, violence and elitism. 

No more Roe?

Last night a friend wrote to me of a supposed leaked draft of a Justice Alito decision overturning Roe and Casey. The news reports were acting as if it was real.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it is a fake. I'm not happy to say that. I hope I'm wrong. I suspect if it is fake, Justice Roberts will be all over it and we will have a denial from the court today. I don't remember there being a leaked draft opinion before, not in the 20th century anyway. I can't say I've researched it, but my memory of what I've read on the Court, including gossipy accounts, does not ring a bell. There have definitely been indications of leaked results before, but I believe more to members of congress than to the press. We will see.

But, my most compelling reasons are in the "draft" itself. I'm not an expert on the way Justice Alito writes by any stretch. But numerous phrases in the draft seem to be very un-Alitoish to me.

The first one that significantly struck me "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak and the decision has had damaging consequences." 

Then, there was his emphasis that there was no support in the law before the late 20th century regarding the right to abortion -  "Zero. None" the draft states. It struck me more as a statement in a bar or a text than a legal one like this. 

Then, after reviewing the historical evidence showing that an abortion right is not deeply rooted in our history, the draft states: "Respondents and their amici have no persuasive answer to this historical evidence." It is nothing more than my ear that is telling me this was not written by Alito. It could be I am wrong and Justice Alito was just "fired up, ready to go," as the Obama-campaign liked to quote of a passionate supporter. But, then two paragraphs below it, the draft contains the same phrase again, except this time, the word "amici" is not italicized. Why not? It is still a foreign word. Justice Alito is a fine writer. Would he not come up with a different phrase? 

I could go on with the textual criticism, but those were my most "egregious" examples and each one may be 100% incorrect. Why compound my error if in fact wrong? Besides, I hope I'm wrong.

Then there are these points in which I am just playing junior detective. If it is in fact a real first draft, would it say the words "first draft" on it? I don't know as they don't normally pass out the Court's actual first drafts. But, it strikes me that he would have written - "draft," not "first draft" on it. Also, why does it already have the "United States Reports" heading on it saying that it might be corrected? Do the Justices put that on their drafts? Wouldn't the publisher put that on? I really don't know, but asking.

If it was real and leaked, it is of course a scandal, most likely because of a clerk rather than a Justice. I hope it does not allow for pressure to be brought upon the Justices who would otherwise join it. And I would be delighted. It would also make the case on the Texas statute moot, as that statute by its own terms expressly makes itself of no effect if Roe and Casey are overturned. 

I admit I have also predicted that Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, even Barrett, would not sign onto overturning Roe. I will still be surprised if they do. We know Kagan, Breyer and Sotomayor, would not. I do think Alito would, and Thomas, but that's it. 7-2. 

We will see. Probably in a few hours.

________________________________________________

POSTSCRIPT (later the same day):

Well, just forget most of that above, because it was a real leak. Justice Roberts spoke out, called it a betrayal and said he has asked the Marshall's office to investigate. So, my Sherlockian analysis is kaput. But, one, for once I'm glad, temporarily at least, that I don't have millions of readers and two, I am very happy, presuming that in the face of the vicious offense I expect will come by people who differ and believe social disruption, threats and/or violence is the way to win (e.g., Chuck Schumer, at least significant parts of BLM, Antifa, some abortion proponents, etc.), whichever Justices have tentatively signed on will stick to their guns. 

Of course, I hope that they catch the miscreant, or miscreants, responsible. I don't know how hard they will try. It doesn't matter that much, but, what it means to me is that there is one more example of what the left is up to this past decade or so, much more regularly than the left (despite what the FBI and the media will tell you). They will win anyway they can. They have no shame, don't care how they win, and will simply claim it is the right doing what they are doing. And the media will back them for the most part. 

Ironically, many of my friends on the right are very concerned about whether this will hurt their team in the coming elections, which they felt so good about just a day ago (way too early). They feel it is not such a big deal about abortion and it is not worth it. I can't help but feel the opposite. It is one of the most controversial and deeply felt issues in our country's history. When should they win that issue (if, in fact, that is actually what happens - see below)? Because after the mid-term elections in November, we immediately leap into the presidential election cycle, and there will be congressional votes too. 

In fact, in case the Republicans. and/or conservatives think that if they just get passed the abortion issue and people will be on their side, remember, that they are going to attack you on it anyway, claim that you hate women, want them to bleed and die (as my sister said of me once) and want little babies to starve. They are still going to claim that guns are responsible for gun deaths, de, spite the fact that this seems to be overwhelming a problem in Democrat Party governed areas, particularly urban ones; they are going to claim that the biggest threats to this country are right wing violence based upon one incident on one day by a handful of idiots who were, we now know, instigated by federal undercover agents, when there was in the past few years, literally hundreds of riots across the country perpetrated by the left, that most crime is committed by people who almost certainly vote for the left, that most murders, including gun murders are. They are going to attack whoever is the Republican candidate, if not Trump, just like they did Trump (hopefully, with less success). 

Abortion is just one issue. Republicans/conservatives are worried that there are significant numbers of independents, even some Republicans, who would have voted for them but will not now do so because of the abortion issue. I am not suggesting that there is probably some truth in that. I just ask, at what point do you put off victories so important to your base, for some votes. What is the point? Just political control? Because you are so sure that someday your party will have complete political control and be able to do anything you want if you just give up your important victories?

Does it make a difference that the draft was released now and not the actual decision in two months? Did you want to lose this issue forever? Okay, but don't pretend you actually care about abortion or any issue.

So ends the harangue. But, a few points I want to talk about that I am understanding many people don't know about because they are either asking me or telling me differently.

First, the opinion. It's a draft. It says "first draft." It is not the actual decision. Because it says it is the opinion of the court we will assume that he tentatively has four other judges joining him, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Thomas and Barrett. I don't see that on the opinion, though it will eventually state who is joining, but everyone thinks it is the case.  Rumor has it - maybe true - that Roberts doesn't want to overrule Roe/Casey but would agree to find the Mississippi law constitutional under them. That sounds like Roberts-like prevarication because he is often more concerned about the "reputation" of the Court. But, he may join the Democrats. I suspect he will do the latter, based on issues of stare decisis aka precedent.

The way it works in the Supreme Court (and probably other appellate courts - but I base this on books I have read about the Supreme Court) is that a justice writing the Court's opinion circulates it to the other Justices. They then can make suggestions, explain how they might agree if certain changes are made, and they pass it back. He can then make changes based on those thoughts (or his/her own). It can go back and forth several times. Sometimes for months, as they have other cases. And a Justice, or all of them, can change their mind. We don't know what the ultimate decision will be yet. As with the predicted Republican sweep of the midterms, it remains to be seen.

Another issue I have heard discussed today is what it means. Most people are not going to read the decision. But, it clearly states that it means only that the power to decide will go back to the states.

And that's a wrap.