Yes, I know. There are lessons our brass never learned in Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan. There are analysts, pundits, and theorists who are writing that history. I don't give a damn about that either. I don't even care that our President has been on the wrong side of damned near every foreign affairs blunder or success in the past near fifty years he sank his ass in a chair in congress and now the White House.
I do care about and am maddened by, are those beribboned military officers who might have once put their own lives on the line until they advanced in rank through the political labyrinth of the Pentagon to pin four stars on their collars. Was kissing ass and playing the game in Washington for profit and for fun worth it for them? Was forgetting those who are in the field and allowing what might have started out as a just cause to become a sewer to dump munitions, blood, and money for the sake of their own ambition worth it? Can the General Milleys of the Pentagon covering their asses sleep at night while the nightmare of the evacuation goes on in Kabul? Will the next generation of officers learn anything from this fiasco for the next fiasco?
My heart sinks as much for the civilians who supported our mission whose fate we couldn't have cared less about. I can't imagine the fear and sense of betrayal they must feel as they mob the planes just as the memories of the fall of Saigon haunt us.
Oh yes, and then there's the pundits... the media monkeys who dance to and parrot the propaganda from overstuffed blow dried hair-dos of the organ grinders. They are all playing the same game.... the Washington circle-jerk of ambition. It isn't even about money to them. It is about sucking up to power and it doesn't matter to them what the power is about. Even the organ grinders don't care once they get their mansions on both coasts forgetting or vilifying the people in fly-over country who see through the bullshit though they are the ones paying for it.
This one is especially tragic because it began with our sending well trained and our best soldiers in for the right reasons but as soon as the morons in DC saw the profits, the mission sank into second place.... then third place... and then eventually buried in the deeps of the swamp.
I saw it coming. I hoped we'd get the people out. I sensed that we wouldn't. The Taliban was fighting Crusaders. We thought we'd just kick their asses and go home. It isn't like that. They have long memories and we forget what the panic was on cable news of last week. Islam is set permanently in the minds and souls of Jihadists. They die as martyrs. When taking them on, the West has never learned that you have to go in balls-on like it is WWIII. The whole nation has to be committed.
I remember the shock of 9/11. I remember driving cab the whole month of so. The parties stopped. The nation grieved. I had Iranian customers in my cab who apologized to me. We cried together. Then time buried the feelings, the parties gradually picked up. I became depressed as we engaged our military. The nation became distracted by shiny objects and ignored the blood and money Neo-Cons sacrificed as our attention was weirdly switched to Iraq. We were worn down and wanted to get on with our lives. After all, the numbers... the casualties only affected a few... not like Vietnam or WWII. The home front could go on as though there was no war going on beyond a few news segments now and then about how well it was going over there. A whole generation grew up, went to college, and learned nothing more than how racist, how sexist, and how homophobic we were for barring transgenders from whatever shithouse they wanted to use.
It's over for us. When the pandemic hit our hands were tied because all our pharmaceuticals were produced in China where the virus originated. We couldn't even get masks because they too were outsourced to be produced and hoarded in China. When Washington outsider, President Trump, tried to bring this to the public's attention, he was called an anti-Asian racist. That was when it really came to our attention who was behind the collapse of American power... It was Corporate multibillionaires, and political morons with major investments in China that gave up on us and sold us out. They sold us out on the so-called War on Terror too.
I moved to New Mexico where the California version of the Bi-Coastal Propaganda machine is weaker and settled in with my Pueblo friends and rancheros to watch the fall of Western Civilization. I'm far enough from the Tourist Trap of Taos where the machine hasn't quite taken hold. I'm out here where it is encroaching on lands that are still pastures for ranches and people are honest enough with themselves to help each other out in any crisis. It was a shock at first... well, not a shock, but I am pleasantly surprised that spirit is still here.
I'm just sad. Let me cry alone... alone with my fellow Vets.
