A Tale of Two Photos Captures Different Americas
Posted By: usmc0302, 8/31/2021 10:40:24 AM
Two photographs, taken 76 years apart — within the lifetime of many — drive home the change our country has taken in that short span of time. First, the famous photo of the Japanese surrender on the deck of United States Ship Missouri on September 2, 1945. Then, the photograph of the catastrophic exit from the war in Afghanistan, where scores of human beings grasp a Air Force Globemaster as it races to escape Kabul.
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Two photographs, taken 76 years apart — within the lifetime of many — drive home the change our country has taken in that short span of time. First, the famous photo of the Japanese surrender on the deck of United States Ship Missouri on September 2, 1945. Then, the photograph of the catastrophic exit from the war in Afghanistan, where scores of human beings grasp a Air Force Globemaster as it races to escape Kabul.
This Horrible Fiasco Demands Change
7 replies
It might seem that there is little to be added to what the whole world has witnessed viewing the unutterable shambles of the U.S. departure from Afghanistan. But that would be an illusion. The story of the perilous departure from Afghanistan of NATO forces and civilians and their Afghan collaborators who are now in mortal danger is obviously a matter of great suspense. The United States could certainly tell the Taliban government of Afghanistan that if all those whom the Western powers wished to evacuate were not allowed to leave it would be an act of war.
Meltdown of a Superpower
13 replies
A week after the Fall of Kabul, the flailing hegemon continues to embarrass itself:
America's official deadline for total withdrawal from Afghanistan is August 31st, so half the remaining time has already elapsed, and in that first week of a final fortnight, according to the Department of Defense, it evacuated just 2,500 Americans - or about 350 per day. That seems an under-performance - or, as The New York Post's front-page headline distills it, "DUMKIRK".
Ripples of Kabul
8 replies
The American-nurtured Afghan military of the last 20 years that had suffered thousands of prior casualties evaporated in a few hours in the encirclement of Kabul.
Enlistees apparently calculated that their own meager chances with the premodern Taliban were still better than fighting as a dependency of the postmodern United States—despite its deterrent embassy pride flags, powerful diversity training programs, and indomitable new Afghan University gender studies majors.
We saw Joe Biden's horrible press conference. Sixty-nine percent of American disapprove of how he handled the recent debacle in Afghanistan. Who else was involved in this disaster? The first domino to fall in Afghanistan was caused by secretary of defense Lloyd Austin and chairman of Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley. According to the AP on July 6, 2021:
The ‘Thank You for Your Service’ Red Pill
15 replies
Americans have been given an ultra red pill with the events in Afghanistan. As the incompetence and corruption of America’s military apparatus are laid bare before our eyes, as America’s military leaders are hiding in shame (as they ought to be), and as America’s credibility abroad is being shredded, there is much demanding our reflection. The American people deserve better than the military apparatchiks and crony politicians we have now, but we must learn from our experiences and adjust course. This is the requirement of all free people.
The Silence of the Shepherds
18 replies
Republican officials’ timidity with regard to the outrages that the Democratic Party is committing against the American people under the Biden Administration dampens the American people’s urge to resist. Their default of leadership helps the Democrats’ seizure of long-term oligarchic power. The people’s deep resentment, however, will follow whoever and whatever ventures offer protection. As ever, leadership falls to whomever actually leads.
Our Ridiculous Way of Fighting Wars
21 replies
As we look at the disgraceful coda of the Global War on Terror and the tens of thousands of our countrymen who have been maimed or killed with scant results, it is clear to all but few (sadly, those few seem to occupy a lot of Defense Department jobs and think tank posts), there must be a better way to fight our wars. If we look to history, and even demands from the anti-war Left, we might find a better way forward.
"Have you or a loved one been hurt or injured by the Democrat Party?" That's the only question Republicans should run on radio and television ads from here on out. It's the same question civil litigators regularly use in late-night commercials when they're looking to add new members to class action lawsuits, but compared to asbestos poisoning, the side-effects of prescription medicines, or injuries from medical devices, the Democrats are the Grand Pooh-bahs of causing physical and emotional harm to everyday Americans.
The Silent Majority is Going to Get Loud
10 replies
When government fails to act in the interests of its citizens, it’s their duty to take action. For 20+ years, the United States has seen failure of government through unrestricted illegal immigration, one-sided trade deals, uncontrolled spending, and failed foreign policy.
American Armageddon
12 replies
Americans are growing angrier by the day in a way different from prior sagebrush revolts such as the 1960s Silent Majority or Tea Party furor of over a decade ago.
The rage at the current status quo this time is not just fueled by conservatives. For the first time in their lives, all Americans of all classes and races are starting to fear a self-created apocalypse that threatens their families’ safety and the American way of life.
How States Could Constitutionally Assume
Abandoned Responsibilities of
the National Government 0 replies
Abandoned Responsibilities of
the National Government 0 replies
The COVID pandemic has witnessed the exercise of state “police powers” on a scale and scope unprecedented in America’s peacetime history. Out of fear of contagion, massive amounts of private property in the form of shops, restaurants, bars, and other businesses were peremptorily seized and shuttered. The rights of landlords to collect rents and evict tenants were suspended. The ability of people to cross from one state to another was hobbled by regulations, quarantines, and delays. And most of this was accomplished by governors and mayors acting by decree, with only the most tenuous of statutory authorizations.
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President Joe Biden received praise from an unlikely source on Tuesday: Ann Coulter.
Biden had just concluded his address to the nation on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a war that had lasted 20 years. The president has been criticized for failing to anticipate the rapid crumbling of Afghan security forces in the face of the Taliban’s advance.
That caused a chaotic scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where the U.S. military hurried to evacuate more than 123,000 Americans and Afghans despite being surrounded by the Taliban and ISIS-K.
The World Health Organization has issued a warning about yet another new COVID-19 variant it fears could potentially evade vaccines. That variant, called Mu, was first detected in Colombia in January, and has been announced just as the Delta variant finally appears to be peaking in the U.S. Over 4,600 cases of the variant, whose scientific name is B.1.621, have been spotted since then, and it has spread to more than 40 countries. Almost 2,000 cases of the variant have been detected in the United States. The WHO's weekly bulletin claimed its mutations suggest it may be more resistant to vaccines, as was the case with the South African
How many times has Joe Biden ranted at us about why he is right on Afghanistan? I’ve lost track, but I think this at least the fifth “official” rant.
But this one was the worst yet and you could feel it. He was just so angry. He’s not angry at the Taliban. He’s not angry at his own failures or those of his people. He’s angry at the people left behind. And, he’s angry at you. He’s angry at you for not simply accepting what an “extraordinary success” this all was.
He keeps screaming about ending the war, a point that no one is even contesting
Appearing Tuesday on CNN’s The Lead, The Bulwark editor-at-large and Never Trump pundit Bill Kristol said people in his social circle who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 will likely not support him again in the wake of the fatally botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
JAKE TAPPER: You’ve been fairly supportive of President Biden, but not of the execution of this withdrawal. I think you also support a residual counter-terrorism force left in the country, right?
BILL KRISTOL: I would have, yes.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki dodged a question about President Biden looking at his watch during a transfer ceremony in honor of the slain 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing near Kabul airport.On Sunday, Biden and the families of the 13 fallen troops attended the ceremony as the bodies of the service members arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Biden was caught on camera glancing at his watch after flag-draped caskets were brought off the plane.He was blasted by family members at the event, with Darin Hoover - the father of killed Marine Staff Sgt Taylor Hoover Jr
We’ve written about Biden checking his watch while he was at Dover AFB yesterday watching the transfer of those who died in Kabul from the airplane to the hearses (snip) Marine Lance Corporation Rylee McCollum was one of those who died. (snip) his wife, Jiennah went to meet with Biden. (snip) Roice [McCollum’s sister] said. The president brought up his son, Beau, according to her account, describing his son’s military service and subsequent death from cancer. It struck the family as scripted and shallow, a conversation that lasted only a couple of minutes in ‘total disregard to the loss of our Marine,’ Roice said.
President Biden asserted that a new Texas law banning abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat “blatantly violates” Roe v. Wade in a written statement on Wednesday.
“The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes,” said Biden.
The president added that “my administration is deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade nearly five decades ago and will protect and defend that right.”
The law went into effect on Wednesday after the Supreme Court declined to act on an emergency petition to block it. The law’s unusual enforcement mechanism
A private airplane that was flying into Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan to rescue stranded American citizens and Afghan allies allegedly was told to turn back or they would be shot down.
In the past 24 hours, American officials in charge of giving clearance at the airport told fellow Americans they would be fired upon if they didn’t leave, Mary Beth Long, a former Department of Defense official, told American Greatness in an exclusive interview. (Snip)
Some American citizens, she said, have made the perilous journey to HKIA four times, only to be turned away at the gates each time. As a result of the Biden Administration’s
I ask this question for two reasons:
I have seen enough videos and read about enough officer-civilian interactions to know that the act of subduing a lethal threat requires several rounds.
If an intruder entered my home and threatened my wife and child, I would shoot until I was able to ensure the target was immobilized.
As to the first statement, there are plenty of examples of police officers firing multiple shots at a suspected threat. In the past year, the American public has been thoroughly able to parse through the shootings of criminals like Breonna Taylor and Antonio Brown, to name just two examples.
Exclusive: In secret texts, U.S. military
officials lamented leaving Americans
behind in Kabul 30 replies
officials lamented leaving Americans
behind in Kabul 30 replies
"We are f*cking abandoning American citizens," Army colonel wrote in a frantic series of texts that detail how a group of Americans were rejected at airport as rescue flight awaited.
President Biden declared to a puzzled country on Tuesday that the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan was an "extraordinary success," while his Pentagon portrayed a prosaic, workaday process to repatriate Americans still stranded in the war-torn country.
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) has reportedly gone missing after attempting a rogue evacuation mission to rescue five American citizens that President Joe Biden’s administration left behind in Afghanistan.According to the Washington Post, U.S. officials are now “unsure of Mullin’s location” after he requested help from the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan on Monday with his evacuation of a woman and her four children. From the report: The call to the U.S. ambassador to Tajikistan came in Monday. On the line, two U.S. officials said, was Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) with an unusual and urgent request: He needed assistance in transporting a huge amount of cash into the country, saying he was
A day after the U.S. officially pulled out of Afghanistan, and less than a week after a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. Service Members, Rep. Carlos Gimenez has just tweeted that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) has blocked the names of those dead servicemen and women from being read on the floor of the House of Representatives. Rep. Brian Mast (R), a wounded combat veteran from Afghanistan, tells The Floridian that during a Republican-only “moment of silence,” Speaker Pelosi refused to recognize them to” read names or bring up bills or anything.”
Comments:
A short read into military and political leaders of 75 years as compared to today. Not encouraging.