Afghanistan

by on August 19, 2021 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Like most Americans, I am in favor of leaving Afghanistan. We should not have stayed as long as we did. We should have supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban twenty years ago, destroyed Al-Qaeda, and left no more than a residual or support force there. Like we do with the Kurds in Iraq. Give them air support from secure bases, but let the locals fight in and for their own country. It is their land to hold and defend, not ours. I’m perfectly fine with us keeping small forces in the area, inside secure bases, helping the locals when they want help, but we should not have large scale armies taking the region over. The fact is that there are good ways and bad ways to reduce or remove our presence. The plan we see in action now is not one of the better ones, if you wish to support a peaceful region.

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Foreign Policy

by on August 18, 2021 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

We have a very experienced foreign policy team in place now in America. The Biden bureaucracies were largely recruited from the Obama/Biden White House teams, and have a great deal of foreign policy experience. They watched Russia invade the Ukraine and sent them blankets. They destabilized Libya, which caused the death of Libya’s ruler and our diplomat. They watched the Syrian civil war cross chemical weapon Red Lines and did not respond. They withdrew our troops from Iraq, allowing the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They have now withdrawn our troops from Afghanistan, allowing the rise of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Biden team has a great deal of experience in foreign policy, and we are seeing that experience in action right now. Sadly, I expect to see more of this in the years to come.

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Generational Choppers

by on August 17, 2021 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I made an honestly snarky comment on Sunday about generational choppers lifting people out of Saigon and now Kabul. I was quickly schooled by a friend who knows choppers better than me. The old heavy lift choppers the Navy used to evacuate Saigon were retired years ago. The military uses an entirely new generation of craft. Then he came back with some interesting news. If the people who know things are reading things correctly, based on pictures, aircraft identification numbers, and service histories, at least one of those old Navy choppers that evacuated Saigon was reactivated and turned over to the State Department. They took it to Kabul. Where it just helped evacuate the embassy. If I wrote this in a story, people would think I made it up.

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Afghanistan

by on August 16, 2021 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

A month short of the twenty-year anniversary of 9-11, the Taliban is taking over Afghanistan again. Everyone who paid attention to what the military and intelligence said knew this would happen in time. If America left, the Taliban would take over again. Biden said it wouldn’t when he defended his pulling our troops out. He lied. Simple as that. He tried to defend his policy of total withdrawal and just hoped it would be long enough before the takeover that he could escape blame. Well, now he’s hiding from everybody as the takeover happens quicker than most of us expected. And soon we will see if the Taliban will go back to their old ways. What will they do to all the Afghans who worked with us for twenty years? What will they do to the Afghan women and girls? How bad will it be? Or will they surprise us all? We will see.

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The Confederation of Dixie

by on August 15, 2021 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The Port of Mobile slowed down again after The War ended. The rebuilt ports in Los Angeles and New Orleans took much of their shipping business, and the American military began to downsize so needed little new construction. Mobile returned to civilian construction and shipping projects, and their market share has once again slipped as the decades have gone by. There are better locations to ship from, after all. The corporations of Mobile have always been able to overcome that location through numerous incentives, and they continue to prosper today. They are still one of the great ports in America, and the money and taxes they bring in make Alabama one of the richest States in the Confederation of Dixie. They will always have a place in the shipping business, as long as the corporations continue to innovate and acquire fresh contracts whenever a competitor gives them an opening.

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