BIDEN’S AND THE GOP CULT'S CHOICES ON AFGHANISTAN AND COVID

All hell broke loose and descended on the person of Joseph Biden President of the United States of America as the Taliban took over Afghanistan in the process of the United States withdrawal of two thousand five hundred troops. The, in retrospect, predictable chaos followed when literally thousands of Afghans some who qualified for special visas, Americans and other foreign passport holders rushed the Kabul airport in a desperate effort to flee from the barbaric Taliban. 

Most of the opprobrium emanated from the self same people who have stood by while six hundred and twenty thousand Americans have died as a result of their unwillingness to assist the mitigation and prevention of the outcome of a viral pandemic. Even worse they legislated, supported and  promoted non compliance of safety precautions and vaccine administration. 

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Both these responses were political to further the Republican Party cult. The aforementioned tragic shambles was a direct result of their cult leader’s sell out to the Taliban in his last year in office and the latter a cynical sacrifice of Americans in a last gasp attempt to assure minority white rule in America. The Republicans have lost their minds. Insanity has to be catchy. 

The Republican hypocrisy becomes even more in focus when the immediate genesis of this ignominious withdrawal is as a result of an agreement, in February 2020,  with the Taliban by the self same Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to unilaterally withdraw from Afghanistan. Then the cult offered no criticism. Those that shouted the loudest at Biden were the quietest when Trump did his deal in the " Peace Agreement"  in Douha, Qatar in February 2020. 

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Meanwhile the Republican Governors, particularly in Texas and Florida, have enacted laws to prevent entities from protecting  their customers or schoolchildren. It seemed like a scene from Mad Magazine to see the hypocritical thrice vaccinated, presumably immunocompromised,  Covid infected, Texas Governor Abbot in a wheel chair careering around among a jam packed maskless gathering of six hundred of the moneyed Republican cult. Nobody told him that he could be carrier and infect others with the Delta variant that could then mutate. In the words of former Bush operative Nicole Wallace “I keep wondering whether there is any lower the Republicans can go”.

As an aside all the ICU beds in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansa and Texas were said to be full. Nearly all the patients were suffering from Covid. The USA cases are now exceeding over a hundred thousand a day. The State Governments stuck to their guns that there were to be no school mandates for Covid mitigation as the number of pediatric cases rose exponentially. Two ICU’s were opened in parking garages in Mississippi. 

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TRUMP’S DEFENSE MINISTER ATTACKS TRUMP’S ORIGINAL SELL OUT TO TALIBAN

Former Defense Minister Mike Esper, claimed that Trump undermined his own misguided unilateral deal with the Taliban by attempting to get all the US Troops out before Christmas 2020, presumably Jay H. Ell guesses to help his re election campaign. Esper states he formally objected to Trump’s moves in a letter. The latter was based on recommendations of Esper’s military chain of command that they not reduce the American presence below four and a half thousand troops unless the conditions of the 2020 Douha agreement were met by the Taliban. “Otherwise”, Esper informed Christiane Amanpour, “we would see a number of things play out, which are unfolding right now in many ways”. Unsurprisingly Trump fired Esper in November 2020 just prior to the election.

The agreement that the former Defense Minister referred to was signed by the Trump government and the Taliban in Douha Qatar in February 2020.

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As another aside the Governor of Texas threatened school authorities that should they persist with their mask mandates State funds would be withdrawn. Biden promised to make good the withheld salaries. Simultaneously the Federal Government were sending temporary container morgues to Florida as well as ventilators. The Florida State Government also asked the School Board if they could use an empty school as a temporary hospital for Covid cases. Both in Florida and Texas school boards defied their governors.

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TRUMP’S RESPONSE TO THE AGREEMENT WITH THE TALIBAN IN FEBRUARY 2020

What should go down in infamy was supported by the Republican cult - Trump meeting with the Taliban in February 2020 without the  Afghan Government to pull the US troops out of Afghanistan. It’s all on tape. Trump declaring that his initiative would bring peace to the region, including that and the usual Trump tripe, “We have been killing terrorists by the thousands in Afghanistan. It is time someone else did the work. It would be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries”. Yes Trump really said all that and more. How quickly his drivel is forgotten, But wait, as the commercials go, there is more. “I really believe the Taliban”, he opined with his usual authority. Not surprising really as he really believed Putin, Rocketman and other right wing fundamentalist leaders and countries on the planet.  As the forty fifth president concluded, “It has been a long and hard journey. It’s finally over after all these years to bring our people home”. 

So the die was set on one of the few issues that Trump and Biden agreed upon. However as Espen also stated the Taliban did not fulfill its obligations so Trump’s troop withdrawal to the bare bones should not have happened. By the time Biden was about to fulfill the agreement the Taliban had done its work on the ground ready to take over the country the moment the Americans packed their bags. Trump had given him them the go ahead.

Mike Pompeo, one of the few Trump lieutenants who lasted more than two years, was in Douha in person. His comment was that he “really hopes” that the Taliban cut ties with Al Qaeda. 

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The daily case rates of Covid are reaching new highs nearing a hundred and fifty thousand. Biden announced the necessity for a third shot of the vaccine when eighty million eligible Americans, predominantly of the cult, have refused even one.

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TRUMP’S “AGREEMENT” WITH THE TALIBAN

Within a hundred and thirty - five days Trump would decrease troops to eight thousand six hundred. According to the BBC the latter was to allow Trump to tout this as an achievement before the 2020 election.The full withdrawal would be in fourteen months - kicking it down the road - nor did he make any arrangements to get the State Department to issue the Special Visas. (Little did Trump know he would not be President). There was a prisoner swap  - five thousand Taliban terrorists for one thousand Afghan Security forces. Trump would lift the sanctions against the the Taliban there and then and get the UN to abandon its sanctions. There had to be an undertaking, by the Taliban, to have talks with the Afghan Government which they didn't and no firing on US forces which they stuck to. However they carried on their war with the Afghans and prepared for the takeover. Nothing about women’s rights in “The Agreement”

Following the “Douha Peace Agreement”, the Taliban initiated nearly five thousand attacks on the Afghans and killed nearly a thousand citizens. They refused to negotiate with the Afghan Government and quietly and methodically took control, bought off and bullied a large number of the leaders of the provinces. Needless to say the Afghan President was not happy about the deal, claiming that it was not up to the Trump Government to release prisoners among other criticisms. One of those released prisoners is about to become President or whatever of Afghanistan and President Rhani is no longer there. 

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A number of Southern States announced that they have run out of pediatric ICU beds. In Mobile, Alabama they have a permanent shortage of ambulances to transport patients as the health care system is close to collapse - yet another red state that requires Biden’s Federal Government assistance. Masks in schools are not mandatory there.

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WHAT BIDEN COULD AND COULD NOT DO

 As withdrawal had been a campaign promise Biden had no desire to go back on what Trump had set into motion. However he could not turn back the clock on how Trump stood by as the Taliban broke the agreement for his last year in office. Biden’s intelligence must have told him that the Taliban had made advances in the provinces and that it would be just be a question of time before they eventually took over. However he had been reassured again and again that the well equipped Afghan forces could hold off the insurgents.  General Milley subsequently admitted that they estimated it would take the Taliban at worst a number of weeks and at best a few years. Biden consulted with President Ghani and counseled him to form alliances with opposition parties. Needless to say he didn’t. Ghani did however reassure them that they would fight to the bitter end. Biden moved Trump’s deadline to August 31 presumably to get the evacuation ducks in a row.

Well it certainly didn’t end as Biden had hoped and his retrospective disclaimer that there had to be chaos rung a bit hollow. More to the point is his acceptance of responsibility, “the buck stops here”, and “there is never a good time to leave” being nearer the mark. The internal dressing down of the military and intelligence were left to private confrontation but his  public anger against President Ghani was for all to see. The folding of the Afghan forces and their President’s funk lent credibility to his claim as to why no more American or NATO lives should be lost defending Afghanistan when the Afghanis weren’t prepared to fight for their own country.

Whichever way this is looked at Biden did not come out of this well internationally. He does appear to have committed to evacuate the Afghans who assisted the Americans over twenty years, who are otherwise certain to be massacred by the Taliban. The doubts that Trump raised as to what type of an ally America would be in the twenty first century will linger on. 

But on the home front the assessment would be far different. He came through as “telling as it is", sticking to his story and at least once doing what he promised - get the Americans out of an unwinable war. He unlike those before him, including Trump, did not kick the can down the road. He told all and sundry he expected criticism and he could not have been disappointed. The veterans who knew on the ground how useless and corrupt the Afghan army and government were had one issue in the main - the rescue of their Afghan support. 

The pressure will be on Biden to do more for the Afghanis and families that have been left behind. He has some levers, Afghanistan's money has been frozen. The Taliban are going to need support and international recognition so there has to be a period where he can pressure them to deliver. He won’t send troops in for them as he might for the Americans he claims he has been begging to leave for months.  So far he has over sixty percent of the American population’s support as the majority of the cult mercilessly attack him. 

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Florida Republican Governor De Sanctis lied, akin to criminal negligence, that there was no science behind masks for children. He has opened clinics where Regeneron, the monoclonal antibody can be administered. Full disclosure, de Santis’s main backer stands to make a fortune as a result of the purchase thereof at fifteen hundred dollars a shot. 

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AT THE END OF THE DAY

It is hard to imagine that Taliban Two are going to be a much better model than Taliban One. The Afghani women are under no illusions and are nowhere to be seen. When they do emerge they do so in their newly acquired Burkhas. The fundamentalists are going to run the country on religious Shariah Law not democracy they have declared. Shariah Law encompasses everything from burkhas to murder. While it varies in different situations the Taliban holds extremist views that maintain, the rights, for example, of women, should be in the hands of Islamic men clerics.

There is some fluidity in the situation as Biden keeps his cards very close to his chest with negotiations and decisions of this nature with foreign leaders. There are ongoing negotiations going on with the Taliban leadership. Whichever way this is viewed the photo optics are heartbreaking. It is going to get uglier and uglier. In fact it is hard to see how American troops are not going to get involved. The Republicans will pile it on Biden forgetting the warning of the Defense Secretary who Trump fired a few weeks before the electorate in relation to Trump’s “Peace Agreement" with  the Taliban, that he, Trump, had set into motion what is happening today.

It is not hard to imagine that there is no fluidity in the Republican cult’s positions.They believe that with voter suppression they are poised to retake the House. At kindest they have all gone mad and at worse they have become a minority racist science denying cult that are using every possible stratagem to cling on to power including returning to the days of the Civil War combined with Jim Crow and disregarding the lives of American citizenry to a preventable disease.