An interview with Lt. Gen. (ret.) H. R. McMaster, who was fired in 2018 from the National Security Council by Trump. McMaster is the author of several highly acclaimed books on military strategy and foreign policy, a very smart man who is worth listening to.
What I Say: I admire McMaster, but he is not the first person to suggest that Ukraine could be made into an "Afghanistan" for Russia - i.e., a long, drawn-out war of attrition which would ultimately fail. Perhaps it could, given the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian people; but to my mind this is no solution at all.
After 20 years of non-stop war, Afghanistan, so far as I understand from news reports, is now in ruins, physically and financially, ruled by murderous, fanatical theocrats, and in immediate danger of mass starvation. What the hell kind of life is left for the ordinary people there? How many millions of Afghans have died in 20 years? How many are maimed, crippled, widowed, or orphaned? To our abiding shame, the United States sat on that country for two decades and left it a living hell.
Is that the best Ukrainians can hope for? I ask you. We can't set all the world afire to save just one country from burning down - but can't somebody come up with a good plan to save both?
What would Captain Kirk do?
Today is the time for help, not tomorrow, or next week, next month, next year - but NOW, while there is still someone to save. Not 20 years from now.
A U. S. Marine grieves at the memorial of a comrade killed in Afghanistan, 2012
Ben Rhodes, an American political commentator and former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, writes in the Guardian:
Most importantly, the abandonment of Afghans to the Taliban, and Biden’s occasionally callous rhetoric laying the blame on Afghan security forces, who had fought on the frontlines for years, evoked a sense of national shame – even if that emotion should apply to the entirety of the war, and not simply its end. Indeed, in the chaotic days of withdrawal, the predominant concerns in US politics often had little to do with Afghans. The evacuation of Americans, the danger of Islamic State Khorasan Province, and the loss of US service members eclipsed the gargantuan Afghan suffering. Overwhelming public support for Biden’s decision, though undercut by dissatisfaction with the process of withdrawal, confirmed Biden’s core instinct: the thing most Americans agree upon is that we went to Afghanistan to take out the people who did 9/11 and prevent further attacks, and it was past time to abandon the broader aims of post-9/11 foreign policy, no matter the subsequent humanitarian cost.
In short, Biden’s decision exposed the cavernous gap between the national security establishment and the public, and forced a recognition that there is going to be no victory in a “war on terror” too infused with the trauma and triumphalism of the immediate post-9/11 moment. Like many Americans, I found myself simultaneously supporting the core decision to withdraw and shuddering at its execution and consequences. As someone who worked in national security, I have to recognise the limits of how the US can shape other countries through military intervention. As someone who has participated in American politics, I have to acknowledge that a country confronting virulent ethno-nationalism at home is ill-suited to build nations abroad. But as a human being, I have to confront how we let the Afghan people down, and how allies like Britain, who stood by us after 9/11, must feel in seeing how it all ended.
It is a cruel irony that this is the second time the US has lost interest in Afghanistan. The first time was in the 1990s, after much of the mujahideen we supported to defeat the Soviets evolved into dangerous extremists, plunged the country into civil war, and led to Taliban rule.
The final verdict on Biden’s decision will depend on whether the US can truly end the era that began with 9/11 – including the mindset that measures our credibility through the use of military force and pursues security through partnerships with autocrats. Can we learn from our history and forge a new approach to the rest of the world – one that is sustainable, consistent, and responsive to the people we set out to help; that prioritises existential issues like the fight against the climate crisis and genuine advocacy for the universal values America claims to support?
What I Say: The twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, following close on the heels of the Afghanistan withdrawal, certainly does mark the end of an era - a nice, neat convenience for future history teachers - and the way forward is not at all clear. The political divisions in this country have reached a horrendous frenzy now, exacerbated by the covid pandemic, that will not easily be tamped down. There is a level of savagery and hysteria, not to mention widespread ignorance, arrogance, and sheer gullible superstition, on the tribal extremes of both the left and the right.
Before you start to contradict that last statement - was the anarchy at the Capitol on January 6th any more brutal than the nationwide anarchy that occurred last summer? If you condemn the one, you must condemn the other. In my view, both are equally nauseating and frightening, symptomatic of a dangerous, possibly fatal illness in the American body politic. As Mr. Lincoln said - A house divided against itself cannot stand. We have been warned.
As to foreign affairs, I hope all my truckbuddies will recall that the whole Afghan mess was the creation of the Bush-Cheney administration - and that Democrats criticized it from the very start, along with the shameful, senseless, needless war in Iraq that was based on Bush-Cheney's lies about non-existent "weapons of mass destruction." It was necessary, and right by all standards of earthly justice, to hit back against the evil men who attacked our cities and mercilessly killed three thousand of our citizens on 9/11. But it was not at all necessary to destroy two governments and colonize a Little America in the most inaccessible, inhospitable region on the other side of the world, at the cost of so many lives, so many dollars, and the respect and goodwill of nearly all the world.
Biden is responsible, as he himself has said repeatedly, for last month's frantic, shameful evacuation from Kabul - but we must remember that it was Bush-Cheney who dug us into that hole in the first place, against all reason and history and common sense, with glib Madison Avenue phrases like "regime change" and "nation building" - which are simply code for invasion, occupation, and control by a puppet government. This has always been clear to those of us who had eyes to see it for what it was - Vietnam 2.0. It was never about giving the Afghans what they wanted - it was all about giving them what we wanted for them. And a cash cow beyond the wildest dreams of the military-industrial complex.
Your Head Trucker generally believes in obeying the law and following the rules - but there is an exception to every rule, especially when the exception clearly serves the greater good - especially if there's a chance of saving lives. It seems to me that the secret trip to Kabul by Representatives Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Pete Meijer (R-Mich.) is just such a praiseworthy exception, and deserves high commendation. (It should be remembered that Meijer is one of only ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last January - a very brave act, indeed.) And as far as I can tell, no law was broken.
Moulton and Meijer are both army veterans who already served a number of years in Afghanistan and Iraq; they know the situation over there from the perspective of the soldier on the ground, not a fat cat lolling around in a cushy Washington office. They undertook this trip into deadly chaos at their own risk, and not at the taxpayer's expense. They stayed at the Kabul airport only 14 hours, and flew out on a plane that had empty seats. No one was deprived of a chance to get out of Afghanistan, and they gained valuable first-hand views of the crisis, which ought to be appreciated by their fellow lawmakers.
The idea that this was some kind of "ego trip" is patently ridiculous - I wonder if the reporter who wrote that glib phrase has ever put his or her pretty little ass on the line for anyone. And the other inane claim that their visit "diverted resources" from the evacuation effort is equally laughable - what exactly is that phrase supposed to mean, anyway? Does anyone think these combat veterans were being chauffeured around in a gold-plated limo, and banqueted with champagne and caviar and dancing girls? Inside an armed compound at the airport - essentially, a fort under siege? Seriously, people.
It's a bullshit phrase, meaningless and patently false. As experienced soldiers, they surely blended right in with the rest of the troops, who were no doubt glad that at least two of our elected representatives actually came to see with their own eyes exactly what is happening - instead of just mouthing about it back home for the TV cameras, spewing empty words and promises, and generally just making shit up.
And Congressmen have visited war zones many, many times before in our history - it's really part of the checks and balances of our system of government - the legislative branch checking up on the executive, often with good reason. Cf. Vietnam. Now we have what is about to become a humanitarian disaster of the first magnitude - shouldn't somebody check it out, and not just take the Administration's word for it? If the story checks out, okay, no harm done. If not - Congress has a duty to act in the best interests of the nation.
Also ridiculous is the idea that their secret visit "put our troops and diplomats at higher risk." What fucking moron wrote that propaganda? HOW can anybody in Kabul airport be at any greater risk than they already are?? Where the enemy controls the entire government, other terrorists are at large in the country, and everyone at the airport could be shot up or blown up at any moment? This journey to the most dangerous spot in the world was a selfless act, not a selfish one.
I say, Good job, guys. You are real patriots. Thank you for your service.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think the chaotic fall of Kabul is a monumental fuck-up?
And the blame for whatever is happening there right now is squarely on Biden's shoulders. Though the last three presidents also bear responsibility for this long, ghastly misadventure on the other side of the world.
I am proud of our troops, who by all accounts have done an excellent job in a bad situation - but I am deeply ashamed of the waste of lives and money and goodwill in Afghanistan these twenty years.
I remember the pictures of the fall of Saigon, and today's events seem to be a rerun of that debacle.
Not that I ever wanted us to be in Vietnam OR in Afghanistan; but there's a good way to leave and a bad way. Again we see the same lies, the same denials, the same "alternate facts" that clearly are at odds with the images on the TV screen.
I remember very clearly sending off a hot email to George Bush when he sent the troops to Afghanistan, reminding him that the Russians had tried for twenty years to pacify those people without a shred of success, ditto the British before them, and what made him think we could do any better?
Alas, my words, like many others', fell on deaf ears, apparently. Now, for all we expended in that far-off wasteland, there is only blood and sorrow and shame to show for it.
I am completely disgusted. Nauseated. Mortified. What a black day for America. Again.
When will they ever learn?
Update, 8/16/21: President Biden spoke from the White House this afternoon on the situation in Afghanistan, putting the best face possible on a colossal 20-year mistake. He states plainly that it is hopeless to pour men, machines, and money into a faraway country whose own government is corrupt, divided, and unwilling to defend its own people in a civil war that the United States has no business meddling in. These are the glaringly obvious truths it took American leaders 20 long years to admit in the Vietnam debacle.
At least Biden is stating them plainly here and now, saying at the 4:45 mark, "I stand squarely behind my decision." And at 6:30, "We gave [the Afghans] every opportunity to fight for their future. We could not give them the the will to fight for that future." No, of course not - it wasn't their dream of the future, only an outsider's idea. You simply can't live someone else's life for him - whether speaking of individuals or nations. It goes deeply against the grain of human nature to be reduced to a mere puppet, even if it is for his own good. That 's not liberty, is it?
Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam! If I foresaw this, living in obscurity far out on the Texas prairie twenty years ago, why did no one in Washington? What the hell is wrong with people?
When will they ever learn?
Update, 8/17/21: Jonathan Steele has written a fine opinion piece in the Guardian on the lessons of history in Afghanistan that is worth reading.
Also noteworthy: The Guardian'seditorial on the manifest unfitness of Boris Johnson for his office: "When events demand stature, Mr Johnson always shrinks to the occasion, and the vacuum where leadership should be diminishes Britain in the eyes of the world." Quite.
It occurs to your Head Trucker that while we now think the President will be revered by future generations for his legacies of such good things as Obamacare and gay rights - it's possible that those accomplishments will be overshadowed by his use of unrestrained drone warfare in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the whole world that the Administration takes a notion to drop a bomb on unsuspecting civilians, without warning or mercy, at any moment of the day or night.
No charges pressed - no law violated - no chance to surrender - no court of appeal - no defense. Just a quick, soft whistle in the air, and Boom! You're dead. Too bad, man: your name was on The List. And all your family too, old and young and babes in arms. Nothing left but a bloody, mangled mess, a butcher's nightmare. Even the pieces are unrecognizable.
This is the cost of war. Look at it, don't turn away and pretend you didn't see.
Congressman Walter Jones, a republican from North Carolina, is raising that question in the House Armed Services Committee's hearings on the Afghan war this week. Maureen Dowd writes in the NYT:
The impossible has happened in the past few weeks. A war that long ago reached its breaking point has gone mad, with violent episodes that seemed emblematic of the searing, mind-bending frustration on both sides after 10 years of fighting in a place where battle has been an occupation, and preoccupation, for centuries.
Afghan security forces cold-bloodedly murdered some American troops after Korans were burned by military personnel. Then an American soldier walked out of his base early one morning and began cold-bloodedly murdering Afghan innocents, leaving seven adults and nine children in one small village dead.
There was an exhausted feel to the oversight hearing, lawmakers on both sides looking visibly sapped by our draining decade of wars. Even hawks seem beaten down by our self-defeating pattern in Afghanistan: giving billions to rebuild the country, money that ends up in the foreign bank accounts of its corrupt officials. . . .
Jones was once so gung ho about W.’s attempts to impose democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan that, after the French opposed invading Iraq in 2003, he helped lead the effort to rename French fries “freedom fries” and French toast “freedom toast” in the House cafeteria.
But now he thinks that both wars are sucking away lives and money, reaping only futility, and that he was silly about the fries. He said he’s fed up with having military commanders and Pentagon officials come to Capitol Hill year after year for a decade and say about Afghanistan: “Our gains are sustainable, but there will be setbacks” and “We are making progress, but it’s fragile and reversible.”
He said he had recently visited Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital to see wounded troops: “I had a young Marine lance corporal who lost one leg,” in a room with his mother.
“My question is,” the Marine asked him, “Why are we still there?” . . .
[Jones] concluded: "We can declare victory now. But there’s one thing we cannot do, and that is change history, because Afghanistan has never changed since they’ve been existing."
The epitaph of our Sisyphean decade of two agonizing wars was written last year by then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates: “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to send a big American land army into Asia, or into the Middle East or Africa, should have his head examined."
What I Say: Your Head Trucker is no military man, but as a student of history, the insanity of trying to subjugate and occupy a country so impenetrable and so far away has long been apparent, as shown by the disastrous careers of invaders in other lands down through the centuries, from Alexander to Napoleon to Hitler. This takes no special knowledge of military science, just a simple appreciation of the facts of geography, terrain, an enormously long supply line, the lack of dependable nearby allies, corruption, and the natural resistance of any people to a foreign invader.
It's crazy. It's stupid. It's a totally ridiculous proposition, one that is doomed to fail before it ever begins. And yet . . . why does our country keep doing this terrible thing? Korea - Vietnam - Iraq - Afghanistan. Does nobody in Washington ever have a brain bigger than his goddamn dick?
I bet the Marine lying there in Bethesda missing a leg wonders that too.
As I wrote some time back, I no longer care to post many stories about the awful things that happen in the world. Too much bad news makes me numb and listless. But this horror in Afghanistan - done by a soldier wearing the uniform of my country - it so grieves my conscience and all my moral sense, and is so utterly repugnant to contemplate that I have to speak out and say the only thing I can:
I'm sorry. And I am so ashamed for my country.
That doesn't cover it or change it or make it any less terrible, I know. But I hope the Afghan people know that this inexcusable massacre is not something the American people ever willed or wanted, nor the vast majority of our soldiers.
I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to say. So very, very sorry.
May God give peace to the dead, comfort to the grieving, and have mercy on us all.
Right now, what this community needs are heteros to show up on their behalf and say "Look, these are my people you're trying to discriminate against. You can keep your religion in your church, you can keep your ideologies in your home, but when it comes to the civil arena, when it comes to civil constructs, their citizenship is every bit as valid as yours or mine."
--Jeff Wilfahrt, father of the late Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt,
a gay soldier in the U. S. Army.
This country is spending $549 billion this year on the military budget, and the Administration has requested another $159 billion on top of that to continue what we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which is about half of all the military spending by every country on the face of the earth. And what is that accomplishing?
(Seriously - and I am not going to get into a screaming match with anyone on this issue - but after nine years, exactly what is the freaking point, what exactly are we getting or trying to get from occupying those places? You should understand that I admire very much the bravery and skill and sense of honor that keeps individual soldiers there, doing their job and following orders - that's not the question. What essential national-level good are we doing, what good are we getting from spending all that money and blood, is what I would really like to know. If there is any good to be had. If any Blue Truck readers can answer the question directly in 100 words or less, please hit the comment button.)
Rep. Alan Grayson, D-FL, has introduced a bill in Congress to address the monumental drain on our economy, and give many of you a zero income tax bill next year - check it out:
God, I wish he was my Congressman.
As Joe Jervis says, "Not a chance in hell of passing, but at least somebody is screaming about war spending."
President Obama, in a "Christmas at the White House" special with Oprah, gave himself a B+ on his first year in office:
Obama: Good solid B-plus. I think that we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Frankiln Delano Roosevelt. We stabilized the economy, prevented the possibilities of a great depression, or a significant financial meltdown. The economy is growing again, we are on our way out of Iraq, I think we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan, we have reset our image around the world, we have achieved an international consensus around the need for Iran and North Korea to disable their nuclear weapons, and I think that we're gonna pass the most significant piece of social legislation since social security and that's health insurance for every American.
Oprah: So B-plus--what could you have done better?
Obama: Well, B-plus because of the things that are undone. Health care is not yet signed. If I get health care passed, we tip into A-minus.
What grade would you give him, guys?
BTW - Michelle looked fabulous in purple and pearls. She just keeps getting more beautiful all the time, I think; and she seems more comfortable in her role as First Lady now. Here's the First Couple talking about approval ratings, family traditions, and chimney arrangements for Santa's White House visit:
I have to believe what he says: I have no training whatsoever in military science, and to tell you the truth, with few exceptions international relations hold little interest for me. From my little outpost here on the windswept prairie, it's all very far away, incredibly complicated, and does not directly affect my day to day life one way or another. Though of course I realize there are important indirect effects; and certainly where our national security is concerned, and the protection of American lives, and humanitarian concerns in any quarter of the globe, there needs to be an adult in the White House with a clear gaze and a steady hand on the levers of the greatest military and economic might the world has ever known.
Disappointed as I am - and nearly heartbroken - over Obama's failure to live up to his stirring promise to be a "fierce advocate" for gay rights, the fact nonetheless remains that he is a brilliant man; and he has access to all the detailed knowledge of people, places, and situations abroad that can be determined. And whatever the reason for his footdragging on gay rights, I do believe his heart is in the right place, and his values good. So I have to trust that he is doing the right thing here, what is ultimately in the best interests of the nation and the world.
Certainly I trust him to do the right thing infinitely more than I ever trusted that lying, conniving, manipulating, prevaricating, mendacious, monkeybrained son of a bitch who had the job before him. Not to mention his nefarious, slime-sucking puppetmaster cohorts. Though to give the devil his due, Bush at least has had the decency to come home to Texas and just shut the fuck up, as far as I know; whereas Cheney is reprising his role as National Bogeyman, and going for an Academy Award with it.
I'm not a warrior at heart; I don't like to kill things, though I would and I have when absolutely necessary. In a general way, it hurts to think of more young troops going off to fight somewhere in some unpronounceable place on the other side of the world, to bleed and suffer and die for an uncertain result. The British in the days of their great Empire tried for a hundred years or more to put a lock on Afghanistan, and couldn't do it. Back in the 1970's, the Soviet Union, with all its immense resources right next door, tried to subdue the place, and they couldn't do it. How can anyone ever really win a guerrilla war against fanatical fighters in a mountainous country?
Being ignorant, as I said, of military science, I don't see how it's possible; no matter how many guns and bombs we bring to the field, there's no definite fighting front, and there's always another cave, another rabbit hole they can hide in, and come back to fight another day. Or if not in a mountainous region, in a steaming jungle like Vietnam - which the President says is a false analogy. Let's hope he's right about that; he knows much more about it than I ever will, and by this point he should have a very sharp idea of the odds.
Occasionally, I meet soldiers here, either just back from overseas or about to deploy. I talk with their wives, see their kids. These young people in uniform are very decent, ordinary, small town folks; flesh-and-blood human beings who live, love, laugh, and work, and go off to war believing sincerely that they are in some way helping protect all those they leave behind. They're not just numbers on a chart, they're my neighbors.
So - God help our troops, and God bless America. What else can an old shitkicker say about all that?
After the jump, a few excerpts that I found particularly compelling from the President's speech tonight at West Point. Full transcript here.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
and welcome to the Blue Truck, a blog for mature gay men with news and views on gay rights, history, art, humor, and whatever comes to mind. Plus a few hot men. The truck's all washed and gassed up, so hop in buddy, let's go.
CAUTION: For mature gay men only beyond this point. Some posts and links may not be suitable for children or the unco guid. You have been warned.
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My Story
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Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.
