Everyone loves a clown, they're so jolly and, ahem, gay. All the colors of the rainbow. But what if something sinister lurked behind the makeup?
What if that something was USGOV. Where would you run?
Perhaps the sheer, utter, jaw-dropping incompetence of the clowns would save you, as it has the Taliban. Which was perhaps the plan all along. Either way, turpitude, chicanery, malfeasance and gross dereliction of duty hold sway.
Cheers,
LSP
Reports are coming in that the UK's 2 Para have been running patrols into Kabul to save British citizens left behind by the US surrender of Afghanistan and its capital city to the Taliban. Scandalously, it's alleged that US command on the ground, to say nothing of its hide-away leader, Puppet Prez Biden, haven't communicated with their allies, despite thousands of Americans being stranded in a country overrun with Islamist fanatics. Via Alex Wickham:
Well, thank God for the Paras and you know the 82nd Airborne would be in there right away, if it wasn't for someone forbidding them from fighting the enemy. Some say that's the story of our Afghan adventure over the last two decades, and what does it mean?
At least this. A political class getting rich off of de facto, and cheap, mercenaries who they couldn't give a dam for, as long their lives make them moar money and moar power. What an utter betrayal of our young men and women who signed up to serve our country. Patriots in the service of self-serving traitors.
Your Old Pal,
LSP
The savage woman beating, enslaving, Biden trolling Taliban were two months off from taking Afghanistan in what has to be the most humiliating, catastrophic, blunderous, incompetent American defeat since Vietnam, and our guys were pumping out this, in June. Here it is, from Understanding Men and Masculinities: Towards Creating Egalitarian Gender Relations in Afghan Society:
This paper examines how Afghan men from diverse socio-economic, ethno-linguistic and age groups challenge and redefine masculinities in the face of socio-political and economic changes. Understanding diverse and shifting masculinities and the men who practice more equitable gender relations by departing from hegemonic masculinity can help to inform more effective gender-based initiatives. The paper demonstrates the ways in which masculinities are constructed, deconstructed, and change over time and space in different ways for different men.
What were they thinking? Not much, as in no kidding. The author, Munazza Ebtikar, is or was a doctoral candidate at St. John's, Oxford. What a beautiful college, and who knows, perhaps she made it out before Afghan men decided to get all hegemonic on her compound. Let's hope Ektibar hasn't been reconstructed. You can write her here, to find out:
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) Shahr-i-Naw, Kabul, Afghanistan, Post Box number: 38–015
Have you noticed how everything the ProgLeft proposes or enacts produces the exact opposite of its intended result? It's like an axiom. In the meanwhile, here's the Commander-in-Chief of the, ahem, Free World:
Some kind of joke? No, this one's deadly serious.
Cheers,
LSP
"America's Elites are trash" and "China knows it." Former CIA Ops Officer Bryan Dean Wright isn't too happy with the Afghan debacle. Here he is, via twitter:
Former US intelligence colleagues are angry and deeply worried at what has happened in Afghanistan.
Here's what I'm hearing, and why there's nearly universal belief that America and the world are in for one of the most dangerous, unpredictable times in modern history.
Afghanistan has shown the world -- enemies & allies alike -- that our military & intel assets are largely irrelevant because we can't deploy them successfully.
The blame lays at the feet of multiple Presidents. The Generals. The Spies. The Congress.
America's Elites are trash.
China knows it.
They will become emboldened, covertly & overtly. War over Taiwan and contested islands in the S. China Sea and E. China Sea is now more likely.
Russia will consider similar covert & overt moves, focused on Crimea, & former Soviet satellites.
The fear is that China & Russia will act in concert.
Why? America was whipped by a tiny rebel force and couldn't even retreat properly.
Meanwhile, the American people are angry, COVID weary, & divided.
If there were ever a time to push American hegemony aside, this is it.
If Cold War III grows hot, America will need to quickly build up & work with foreign counterparts.
But who will trust America after Afghanistan?
Who believes we have the leadership to use our military might well?
Who will trust us when we say "We Will Stand With You"?
Beyond China/Russia, others will take gambles too.
Terror orgs like al-Qa'ida & ISIS are degraded but not dead. Their ideology is very much alive.
Iran's Hizballah -- with terror cells throughout the US -- may see an opening to create chaos too.
Meanwhile, the disaster inside Afghanistan is only just beginning.
The Taliban will launch a terror campaign against American collaborators. The pictures will shock the conscience of the world, further degrading American moral authority.
Biden & Co will struggle to respond.
There's also the nightmare of tactical weaponry now awash in Afghanistan, in the hands of the Taliban and -- soon -- on the global black market.
These arms will fuel chaos around the world for decades.
The Pentagon has no idea where this stuff is and no plans to destroy it.
Finally, if Afghani refugees pour into the US, there are profound implications for security, culture, the economy, & politics.
Are they properly vetted?
Do they hold Western/tolerant values re: women, gays?
Do they bring skills/education?
Which party will they support?
The existential problem is that America needs good leadership to right its ship but there is none.
Our federal bench is weak.
Biden is a corrupt old man. Impeachment is a long shot; VP Harris is an unpopular paperweight. The Legislature is a feckless cabal of empty suits.
Leadership could come from a state Governor, it's true, but not soon enough.
The above threats by China, Russia, & Co will metastasize well before the 2024 elections, and even a heroic new President will need years to clean things up.
Again, our enemies and allies know this.
Upshot: There is fear and outrage streaming through former intel officers over the Afghanistan debacle.
America is rudderless. And the world now knows it.
Grave dangers lie ahead, some predictable, others unimaginable.
Keep your loved ones tight. Pray. And vote for change.
I can't add to that except to wonder if "voting for change" still has any... meaning.
God bless,
LSP
But remember, punters, there's no luggage racks on the back of hearse. Christ says as much, "Put not your trust in earthly treasure which moth and rust consume." Again, "Labor not for the food which perishes but that which endures for everlasting life." Something like that.
And what a sad exchange, to swap out eternity for the fools' gold of the present moment. Saying that, I'm rather looking forward to an island; all can visit, but only some can stay in the Big House, others will have to live "onna beach." Just the way it is.
Sermon over,
LSP
What's happening in Afghanistan is surely tragedy, it's also farce. The Upheaval nails it, and here's a snapshot:
But most of all, farce because our political leadership was somehow reportedly “stunned” by the speed with which the allegedly 350,000-strong Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), despite twenty years of training and almost $90 billion in U.S. security assistance, threw down their weapons and totally collapsed, letting the Taliban seize control of the country in less than a week, instead of the year and a half the military and intelligence establishment had assured them it would take.
But how, exactly, did this come as a shock? Why in the world did they seriously believe those estimates?
Did they somehow fail to read their own thousands of pages of government “lessons learned” reports, as obtained and published by the Washington Post in 2019 as “The Afghanistan Papers,” that described in minute detail how the vaunted ANSF was nothing more than a Potemkin paper army, inflated only by lies, corruption, and pederasty?
You must and should read the whole thing here. Again, words fail, other than "we became a self-licking ice cream cone." Exactly.
Your Pal,
LSP
The military industrial complex spent 20 years on the gravy train with the Afghanistan war. They built missiles, they built tanks, they built aircraft and helicopters. They hired armies of lobbyists and think tank writers to continue the lie that was making them rich. They wrapped their graft up in the American flag, but they are the opposite of patriots... The corruption is deep.
Our old enemy, the Weather, is at it again, changing from triple digit furnace to pounding rain, and all in the space of an hour. I tell you, our adversary can turn on a dime. So it wan't easy driving home from the 'sprawl, pretty much zero vis.
Still, we made it, by the grace of God. In other news, the Taliban's about to seize control of Afghanistan and we have to ask, why did one single American life die there? To fight the scourge of Jihad? For democracy, wimmyns' rights, rare earth minerals?
The people that used our fighting force as de facto mercenaries, for their own wealth, power and political leverage deserve an accounting. Imagine, your young soldier comes home minus legs, and all for what. So that a gang of millionaires can make themselves even richer and more powerful.
Don't get me wrong, defeat the Jihad, and by all means use extreme force, but playing some kind of game with peoples' lives, enemy or friendly, is beyond outrageous.
There's a special place in Hell for those that do. I say this as a religious professional. Of course you all know far more about this than I do. Just saying, I've got a kid in the fight.
Your Old Pal,
LSP
Here we are, back in Dallas, and Blue's taking it easy. I was worried a couple of days ago because he seemed disoriented and lost. Perhaps he'd had a stroke, a dog stroke. But he's better now, and cheerfully begs for treats.
Dogs aside, Dallas is worse now that it's removed statues of famous generals and replaced them with nothing. Has that made one single POC better off? No, it has not. Speaking of which, Leonidas Polk said this:
"I believe most solemnly that it is for Constitutional liberty... for our hearthstones, and for our altars that we strike."
Amen to that. The South fought for freedom against what they saw as central government tyranny. Maybe they were wrong, but here we are, not allowed to leave the country or, you know, have a job unless you do what you're told. So mask up, serf, and don't even think of travelling past your home town, much less having a job. Because science.
In the meanwhile, our millionaire socialist overlords fly private jets around the world to whoop it up at parties on Martha's Vineyard.
Cheers,
LSP
Perhaps you scorn Emmlou. Go right ahead, and I will fight you, physically. So will the monkey. And he's hard. You have been warned.
Your Pal,
LSP
