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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2021 at 10:47 am
The end of the COVID-19 plague may finally be in sight.
No fewer than three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—are now available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines have been given. And 189,709,710 Americans have now been fully vaccinated against the virus.
States such as Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana have thrown caution—and masks—to the winds. Bars and restaurants are reopening. Social distancing is the new taboo.
In Boise, Idaho, anti-mask protesters organized a public mask-burning. Children cheered, “Destroy them!” as masks were burned in an oil barrel.
With the pandemic appearing to reach its end—at least in the United States—Americans will soon revert to one of their favorite pastimes: Forgetting events that caused them unpleasantness.
A typical example: The Vietnam war, which raged from 1965 to 1975, costing the lives of 58,000 Americans and $843.63 billion in money and resources. The conflict divided Americans more than any other since the Civil War (1861-1865).
The Vietnam war was brought on by the lies of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson—that North Vietnamese forces has fired on innocent U.S. Navy ships peacefully patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin.
The Vietnam War
Having forgotten—or ignored—the truth that they had been lied into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war in Southeast Asia, Americans allowed themselves to be lied into another such war in Iraq, lasting from 2003 to 2011.But no sooner was the war over than Americans acted as if it had never happened.
The Iraq war grew out of the lies of the Republican George W. Bush administration—that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had plotted 9/11 and was preparing to strike the United States with nuclear and/or biological weapons.
No doubt as soon as the “all-clear” sounds on COVID-19, Americans will forget that it ever happened—and thus learn nothing from it.
Yet history remains an unforgiving teacher. And while Americans usually ignore its lessons, history always exacts a punishment for doing so.
At the center of its lessons on COVID-19 is the catastrophe that inevitably occurs when there is a confluence between natural disaster and an evil and incompetent administration.
And in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the figure who stands most responsible for the deaths of more than a half-million Americans is Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States.
Under his tyrannical rule, the United States suffered not simply from a lethal virus but a combination of denial, lies, Republican subservience, chaos, extortion, propaganda as news, quackery as medicine, demands to “re-open the country,” Ignoring the danger and—finally—resignation (“Learn to live with the virus”).
DONALD TRUMP AS SUPREME EGOTIST
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks attacked President Donald Trump in terms usually reserved for serial killers. On the March 13, 2020 edition of The PBS Newshour, he said:
“This is what happens when you elect a sociopath as president, who doesn’t care, who has treated this whole thing for the past month as if it’s about him. ‘How do people like me?’ Minimizing the risks. ‘Does the stock market reflect well on me?’ And he hasn’t done the things a normal human being would do, which was to, let’s take precautions….
“And he’s incapable of that. And he’s even created an information distortion field around him.”
David Brooks
INTRODUCING CORONAVIRUS
Coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019. Its first reported victim became ill on December 1.
By December 31, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of Coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
Trump first learned of the virus on January 3, 2020. Then he went golfing on January 4, 5, 18 and 19.
On January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.
On January 27, then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to get Trump to act.
But, according to officials who spoke with the Washington Post, Trump was “dismissive” of early briefings “because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.”
Trump fired Mulvaney one month later.
Then Trump returned to the golf course—on February 1, 2 and 15.
TRUMP CONFESSES TO BOB WOODWARD
On February 7, he decided to share some of his Coronavirus Intelligence with legendary Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward.
Woodward and Carl Bernstein had achieved imperishable fame in 1972-74 as the Washington Post reporters whose Watergate-related stories led to the fall of President Richard M. Nixon.
Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward: And so, what was [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] saying yesterday?
Donald Trump: Oh, we were talking mostly about the virus, and I think he’s going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation.
Woodward: Indeed, it is.
Trump: It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 25, 2021 at 12:33 am
In the 1970 film, Patton, General George S. Patton is a man driven by his obsession to be the best field commander in the war—and to be recognized for it.
And he views similarly egotistical British General Bernard Montgomery as a rival for that latter achievement.
So, in Algeria, he conjures up a plan that will sideline “Monty” while he, Patton, defeats the Germans–and bags the glory.
The trick lies in throwing a sumptuous dinner—in the middle of the North African desert—for a visiting British general: Harold Alexander.
George C. Scott as George S. Patton
As Patton (George C. Scott, in an Oscar-winning performance) tells his aide: “I want to give a dinner for General Alexander. I want to get to him before Montgomery does. I want the finest food and the best wine available. Everything.”
The aide pulls off the dinner–where, indeed, “the finest food and the best wine” are on full display, along with attentive waiters and a candelabra.
So think about it:
- In the middle of the desert
- while American and British forces are forced to subsist on C-rations
- and are under repeated air attack by the Luftwaffe
- and tank attack by the Afrika Korps
a handful of ultra-pampered American and British military officers find the time—and luxuries—to throw themselves a fine party.
Now, fast-forward from Algeria in 1943 to Washington, D.C. in 2016.
Returning to Congress after their traditional summer recess, House Republicans planned to cut $23 billion in food stamps for the poor. This would include include ending waivers that allow some adults to get temporary assistance, while they are in school or training for a job.
The cuts included drug tests of applicants and tougher work rules. As Republicans see it: There’s no point in “helping” the poor if you can’t humiliate them.
The food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, served more than 46 million Americans and cost $74 billion in 2015.
Republicans claimed the program was unbearably expensive at $74.1 billion a year.
Meanwhile, Republicans were eager to spend billions of dollars for another project: An unnecessary war with Syria.
One of these right-wingers was Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard—and one of the leading instigators of the 2003 war with Iraq.
Bill Kristol
He—like senior officials on the George W. Bush administration—falsely claimed that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and planned to use them against the United States.
Another Kristol lie: Hussein planned 9/11 with Osama bin Laden.
He has never apologized for either lie—or the resulting war that killed 4,487 American soldiers and wounded another 32,226.
In a September, 2013 column, Kristol called for a return to slaughter—not only in Syria but Iran as well:
“…Soon after voting to authorize the use of force against the Assad regime, Republicans might consider moving an authorization for the use of force against the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
“They can explain that Obama’s dithering in the case of Syria shows the utility of unequivocally giving him the authority to act early with respect to Iran.”
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice—who also lied the nation into the needless 2003 Iraq war—was another big promoter of “give war a chance:”
“My fellow Americans, we do not have a choice. We cannot be reluctant to lead–and one cannot lead from behind.”
Among Republican U.S. Senators calling for war were John McCain (Arizona) and Lindsey Graman (South Carolina), who issued a joint statement:
“Using stand-off weapons, without boots on the ground, and at minimal risk to our men and women in uniform, we can significantly degrade Assad’s air power and ballistic missile capabilities and help to establish and defend safe areas on the ground.
“In addition, we must begin a large-scale effort to train and equip moderate, vetted elements of the Syrian opposition with the game-changing weapons they need to shift the military balance against [Syrian dictator Bashar] Assad’s forces.”
Except that there were no “moderate, vetted elements” of the Syrian opposition. The opposition was just as murderous as the Assad regime—and eager to replace one dictator with another.
In addition: A major weapon for “degrading Assad’s air power” would be Tomahawk Cruise missiles. A single one of these costs $1,410,000.
Firing of a Tomahawk Cruise missile
A protracted missile strike would have rained literally billions of dollars’ worth of American missiles on Syria.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon was spending about $27 million a week to maintain the increased U.S. Navy presence in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East region to keep watch over Syria and be prepared to strike.
Navy officials said it cost about $25 million a week for the carrier group and $2 million a week for each destroyer.
* * * * *
Is there a lesson to be learned from all this?
Yes.
Powerful people—whether generals, politicians or the wealthy—will always find abundant money and resources available for projects they consider important.
It’s only when it comes to projects that other people actually need that the powerful will claim there is, unfortunately, a cash shortage.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 27, 2021 at 12:05 am
On September 12, 2001, President George W. Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
Secretary of State Colin Powell then pointed out there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda. And he added: “The American people want us to do something about Al-Qaeda”—not Iraq.
On November 21, 2001, only 10 weeks after 9/11, Bush told Rumsfeld: It’s time to turn to Iraq.
Condoleeza Rice
Bush and his war-hungry Cabinet officials knew that Americans demanded vengeance on AlQaeda’s mastermind, Osama bin Laden, and not Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. So they repeatedly fabricated “links” between the two:
- Saddam had worked hand-in-glove with Bin Laden to plan 9/11.
- Saddam was harboring and supporting Al-Qaeda throughout Iraq.
- Saddam, with help from Al-Qaeda, was scheming to build a nuclear bomb.
Yet as early as September 22, 2001, Bush had received a classified President’s Daily Brief intelligence report, which stated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
The report added that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al-Qaeda.
Even more important: Saddam had tried to monitor Al Qaeda through his intelligence service—because he saw Al-Qaeda and other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime.
Dick Cheney
Bush administration officials repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed huge quantities of chemical and biological weapons, in violation of UN resolutions. And they further claimed that US intelligence agencies had determined:
- the precise locations where these weapons were stored;
- the identities of those involved in their production; and
- the military orders issued by Saddam Hussein for their use in the event of war.
Among other lies stated as fact by members of the Bush administration:
- Iraq had sought uranium from Niger, in west Africa.
- Thousands of aluminum tubes imported by Iraq could be used in centrifuges to create enriched uranium.
- Iraq had up to 20 long-range Scud missiles, prohibited under UN sanctions.
- Iraq had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological agents, including nerve gas, anthrax and botulinum toxin.
- Saddam Hussein had issued chemical weapons to front-line troops who would use them when US forces crossed into Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld
Consider the following:
August 26, 2002: Cheney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.”
September 8, 2002: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice said on CNN: ”There is certainly evidence that Al-Qaeda people have been in Iraq. There is certainly evidence that Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists.”
September 18, 2002: Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee, “We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons—including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas.”
October 7, 2002: Bush declared in a nationally televised speech in Cincinnati that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.”
March 16, 2003: Cheney declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “We believe [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”
Bush never regretted his decision to invade Iraq—on March 20, 2003.
Even as American occupying forces repeatedly failed to turn up any evidence of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs), Bush and his minions claimed the invasion a good thing.
In fact, Bush—who hid out the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard—even joked publicly about the absence of WMDs.
He did so at a White House Correspondents dinner on March 24, 2004—one year after he had started the war.
George W. Bush at the 2004 White House Correspondents’ dinner
To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night. While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.
“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.
“Nope—no weapons over there! Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.
Meanwhile, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women—-the elite of America’s media and political classes—laughed heartily during Bush’s performance.
It was a scene worthy of the court of the ancient Caesars, complete with royal flunkies: “Hey! The country we just destroyed wasn’t a threat to us after all! Isn’t that a gas?”
The war that Bush had deliberately provoked:
- Took the lives of 4,484 Americans.
- Cost the United States Treasury at least $2 trillion.
- Created a Middle East power vacumn.
- Allowed Iran—Iraq’s arch enemy—to eagerly fill it.
- Frightened and repelled even America’s closest allies.
- Killed at least 655,000 Iraqis.
- Bush retired from office with a lavish pension and full Secret Service protection.
- He wrote his memoirs and was paid $7 million for the first 1.5 million copies.
- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice retired to private business, wrote their own memoirs, and lived in comfort as respected elder statesmen.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 26, 2021 at 12:14 am
September 11, 2018, will mark the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on United States soil. Inevitably, this is a time to remember all those whose lives were so cruelly snuffed out.
But it is also a time to remember those Americans who made this atrocity—and the Iraq war that followed—inevitable.
British historian Nigel Hamilton has chronicled their arrogance and indifference in his 2010 biography: American Caesars: Lives of the Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Hamilton noted that Richard Clarke, the national security advisor on terrorism, was certain that Osama bin Laden had arranged the USS Cole bombing in Aden on October 12, 2000.
For months, Clarke tried to convince others in the Bush Administration that Bin Laden was plotting another attack against the United States—either abroad or at home.
But Clarke could not prevail against the know-it-all arrogance of such higher-ranking Bush officials as Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject. Then she “insisted the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting” in April, 2001, writes Hamilton.
Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz—whose real target was Saddam Hussein—said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
Wolfowitz insisted that bin Laden couldn’t carry out his terrorist acts without the aid of a state sponsor—namely, Iraq.
Wolfowitz, in fact, blamed Iraq for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Clarke was stunned, since there was absolutely no evidence of Iraqi involvement in this.
“Al-Qaeda plans major acts of terrorism against the United States,” Clarke warned his colleagues. He pointed out that, like Adolf Hitler, bin Laden had actually published his plans for future destruction.
Osama bin Laden
And he added: “Sometimes, as with Hitler in Mein Kampf, you have to believe that these people will actually do what they say they will do.”
Wolfowitz heatedly traded on his Jewish heritage to bring Clarke’s unwelcome arguments to a halt: “I resent any comparison between the Holocaust and this little terrorist in Afghanistan.”
Writing in outraged fury, Hamilton sums up Clarke’s agonizing frustrations:
- Bush’s senior advisors treated their colleagues who had served in the Clinton administration with contempt.
- President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz seemed content to ignore the danger signals of an impending al-Qaeda attack.
- This left only Secretary of State Colin Powell, his deputy Richard Armitage, Richard Clarke and a skeptical Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, to wage “a lonely battle to waken a seemingly deranged new administration.”
Richard Clarke
Clarke alerted Federal Intelligence agencies that “Al-Qaeda is planning a major attack on us.” He asked the FBI and CIA to report to his office all they could learn about suspicious persons or activities at home and abroad.
Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
Neither Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor would any of them be brought to account.
Disgustingly, these were the same officials who, afterward, posed as the Nation’s saviors—and branded anyone who disagreed with them as a traitor, practices the Right continues to exploit to this day.
Only Richard Clarke—who had vainly argued for stepped-up security precautions and taking the fight to Al-Qaeda—gave that apology.
On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings. Addressing relatives of victims in the audience, he said: “Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you.”
Yet even worse was to come.
On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush took Clarke aside during a meeting in the White House Situation Room:
“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam [Hussein, the dictator of Iraq] did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”
Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al-Qaeda did this.”
“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”
Hussein had not plotted the attack–and there was no evidence proving that he did. But the attack gave “W” the excuse he wanted to remove the man he blamed for the 1992 defeat of his father, President George H.W. Bush.
Bush believed that his father would have been re-elected if he had “gone all the way” into Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War.
He would finish the job that his father had started but failed to compete.
On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2021 at 12:05 am
“Many of the people who work in American foreign policy today were shaped by the experience of the 1990s, when the United States was ascendant. The Berlin Wall came down. Democracy was spreading across Europe, Latin America and East Asia.
“Russia was on its back foot, and China had not yet risen. We really could shape events in much of the world. NATO could expand into the former Soviet Union without fear that Russia would invade one of those countries. We could bring together the whole world to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.”
So wrote Ben Rhodes, author of The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House (2018).
For eight years, Rhodes saw Barack Obama up close as few others did. He served as, first, a speechwriter, then deputy national security adviser, and finally as all-around aide and diplomat-without-portfolio.
Rhodes noted that Obama sometimes warned that America’s post-Cold War moment in the sun wouldn’t last: “Shock and awe. Regime change. A trillion dollars later, we couldn’t keep the electricity running in Baghdad.
“The Iraq war disturbed other countries—including U.S. allies—in its illogic and destruction, and accelerated a realignment of power and influence that was further advanced by the global financial crisis.
“By the time Obama took office, a global correction had already taken place. Russia was resisting American influence. China was throwing its weight around. Europeans were untangling a crisis in the Euro-zone.”
To begin at the beginning:
Even as the rubble was being cleared at the Pentagon and World Trade Center following the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush was preparing to use the attacks as an excuse to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Hussein had not plotted 9/11, and there was no evidence that he did. But that didn’t matter to Bush and those planning the invasion and conquest of Iraq.
British historian Nigel Hamilton has dared to lay bare the facts of this disgrace. Hamilton is the author of several acclaimed political biographies, including JFK: Reckless Youth and Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency.
In 2007, he began research on his latest book: American Caesars: The Lives of the Presidents From Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Nigel Hamilton
By Nigel Hamilton (Nigel Hamilton picture)
The inspiration for this came from a classic work of ancient biography: The Twelve Caesars, by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus—known as Suetonius.
Suetonius, a Roman citizen and historian, had chronicled the lives of the first twelve Caesars of imperial Rome: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
Hamilton wanted to examine post-World War II United States history as Suetonius had examined that of ancient Rome: Through the lives of the 12 “emperors” who had held the power of life and death over their fellow citizens—and those of other nations.
For Hamilton, the “greatest of American emperors, the Caesar Augustus of his time,” was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led his country through the Great Depression and World War II.
His “”great successors” were Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy—who, in turn, contained the Soviet Union abroad and presided over sustained economic prosperity at home.
By contrast, “arguably the worst of all the American Caesars” was “George W. Bush, and his deputy, Dick Cheney, who willfully and recklessly destroyed so much of the moral basis of American leadership in the modern world.”
Among the most lethal of Bush’s offenses: The appointing of officials who refused to take seriously the threat posed by Al-Qaeda.
And this arrogance and indifference continued—right up to September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center and Pentagon became targets for destruction.
Among the few administration officials who did take Al-Qaeda seriously was Richard Clarke, the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council.
Clarke had been thus appointed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton. He continued in the same role under President Bush—but the position was no longer given cabinet-level access.
This put him at a severe disadvantage when dealing with other, higher-ranking Bush officials—such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
These turned out to be the very officials who refused to believe that Al-Qaeda posed a lethal threat to the United States.
“Indeed,” writes Hamilton, “in the entire first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Clarke was not permitted to brief President Bush a single time, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new al-Qaeda outrage.” [Italics added]
Nor did it help that, during his first eight months in office before September 11, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
For months, Clarke tried to convince others in the Bush Administration that Bin Laden was plotting another attack against the United States–either abroad or at home.
But Clarke could not prevail against the know-it-all arrogance of such higher-ranking Bush officials as Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 23, 2021 at 12:09 am
Want to play the blame game? Let’s see who we can blame for Afghanistan:
(1) The Bush administration: They got us into this mess with no exit strategy and then dropped the ball, failing to get Bin Laden and starting another war in Iraq. I hope the war profiteers’ profits were worth all the American (and other) lives lost. The war in Afghanistan was a rushed response to the events of 9/11. Everyone in Congress supported it except for one Representative. Barbra Lee of California voted ‘no’ because she believed we should have been cautious. She was right.
The USA ignored what happened previously to the Russians. And the irony is that we helped the resistance fighters (the Mujahideen) with arms and training which were later used against us. The Mujahideen became the Taliban.
Afghanistan
(2) The Obama administration: Obama got Bin Laden, but shortly thereafter we lost Seal Team 6 in a helicopter that was shot down by the Taliban. After that, Obama was pretty much hands off. He wanted to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, nut he got burned when he pulled us out of Iraq and the Iraqi army collapsed under pressure from ISIS. He did not want to make the same mistake. But that decision left us in limbo land. We weren’t winning, but at least we weren’t losing. The plan continued to be propping up the ineffective Afghan government and training their army.
(3) The Trump administration: Trump came into office and increased the number of troops to 14,000. But he planned to reduce the number of troops back to the level he inherited from Obama and eventually pull out entirely. They made a deal with the Taliban that did not include the Afghan government and signaled that a pullout was coming. Whatever happened to “We don’t deal with terrorists”?
No telling how the pullout would have worked under Trump, but if the Afghans folded like they did, the result would have probably been the same. Interestingly, the GOP pulled down a webpage that lauded Trump’s “Historic peace agreement with the Taliban”.
And let’s not forget that Trump negotiated the release of Abdul Ghani Baradar (one of the founders of the Taliban) from a Pakistani prison. And he’s the one who signed the peace agreement. That peace agreement was supposed to have led to discussions between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but that never happened.
(4) The Biden administration: They went along with the Trump agreement, basically giving the green light to the Taliban. The Taliban would have waited us out for a hundred years if necessary. Joe gets the blame for what happens under his watch, but he should get credit for ending an occupation that should have ended many years ago.
(5) Pakistan: They let Bin Laden and the Taliban hide. We got Bin Laden, but we couldn’t get the Taliban without starting a war with Pakistan. And they have nuclear weapons.
(6) The Afghan people: Who let the Taliban take over in the first place? They did. Who counted on the USA and others to keep them safe? They did. Who took advantage of our training and weapons, only to fold like a cheap suit against the Taliban when they were on their own? They did.
I do feel sorry for those who did what they could, but overall, there was no way they could ever defend themselves.
So, there’s plenty of blame to go around.
Biden is getting heat from both sides. The pullout is a mess, largely because of underestimating the speed at which the Taliban would take over and the collapse of both the Afghan government and Afghan army. There is fear that many of the Afghans who helped the US are in danger and they may not get out. Some people have already died trying to cling to a jet as it took off. Biden is sending more troops to cover the evacuation.
President Joseph Biden
But Biden gave an honest speech. He admitted that there were failures. He took responsibility and defended his decision instead of trying to deflect. It’s hard to imagine Trump doing the same.
Time will tell if the decision to pull out at this time was the right move. There is no denying that we have been mired in this quagmire for too long. We have wasted too many lives and too many resources.
The spin will continue. Liz Cheney hilariously blamed Obama and Trump while conveniently forgetting to mention her dad’s involvement (along with Bush and Rumsfeld) in getting us into this mess in the first place. George Bush told a German broadcaster that Biden’s order to pull out was a grave mistake. That’s like an arsonist blaming the firefighters for not handling the blaze he created.
Hopefully, we will learn from this fiasco. The moral of the story is that we shouldn’t go around and mess with others’ business when we can’t even get our own shit in order. And if we should fall into that trap again, we should at least refrain from “nation building”, which is the height of American arrogance.
__________
Ed Muurahainen is a historian, writer, and musician. He resides in Orlando, FL, where he studied psychology, political science and logic at Valencia College and the University of Central Florida.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 16, 2021 at 12:07 am
On July 8, President Joseph Biden said that America would withdraw its armed forces from Afghanistan by August 31, thus ending the nearly 20-year war.
“How many more, how many more thousands of American daughters and sons are you willing to risk?” Biden said to those calling for the United States to extend the military operation.
To put the consequences of this effort into human terms:
On December 21, 2015, a suicide-bomber rammed an explosives-laden motorcycle into a joint NATO-Afghan patrol. Six American troops and an Afghan were killed.
One of the dead was Joseph Lemm, 45, a detective and 15-year veteran of the New York Police Department. A technical sergeant in the New York Air National Guard, he had been deployed three times—once to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan.
Joseph Lemm
Lemm left behind a daughter, Brook, 16, a son, Ryan, four, and his wife, Christine.
New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo ordered that flags on all state government buildings be flown at half-staff on December 23 in Lemm’s honor.
“Staff Sergeant Joe Lemm served this nation with the selflessness and bravery that embodies the U.S. Armed Forces and the NYPD,” Cuomo said in a statement.
Lemm’s death was a double tragedy—that of a dedicated man who should not have died so needlessly.
A total of 2,312 US military personnel in Afghanistan have died and 20,066 have been wounded since 2001. The cost of military operations is put at $824 billion.
The history of American conflict in Afghanistan began on September 11, 2001.
On that date, 19 Islamic hijackers slammed two jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
A fourth plane, headed for the White House or Capitol Building, failed to reach its target when its passengers rioted—and the hijackers dove it into a Pennsylvania field.
The mastermind of the attacks was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire then living in Afghanistan, under protection by its ruling thugocracy, the Taliban.
The administration of President George W. Bush demanded his immediate surrender to American justice.
The Taliban refused.
So, on October 7, 2011—less than one month from the 9/11 attacks—American bombers began pounding Taliban positions.
The whole point of the campaign was to pressure the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden.
But the Taliban refused. Bin Laden holed up in the mountains of Tora Bora, and then ultimately escaped into Pakistan.
After December, 2001, American Intelligence completely lost track of Bin Laden. CIA officials repeatedly said he was likely living in the “no-man’s-land” between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Thus, there was no longer any point in pressuring the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden
Still, the United States continued to commit forces to Afghanistan—to turn a primitive, warlord-ruled country into a modern-day democracy.
There was, admittedly, a great deal to detest about the Taliban:
- When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they turned soccer stadiums into execution plazas for mass beheadings or shootings.
- Taliban “fighters” have proven their “courage” by throwing acid into the faces of women who dared to attend school.
Taliban religious police beating a woman
- On August 8, 1989, the Taliban attacked Mazar-i-Sharif. Talibanists began shooting people in the street, then moved on to mass rapes of women. Thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate.
- The Taliban forbade women to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative and wearing the burqa—a traditional dress covering the entire body. Those who disobeyed were publicly beaten.
Yet, as horrific as such atrocities were, these did not obligate the United States to spend eternity trying to bring civilization to this barbaric country.
And, in pursuing that goal, both the Bush and Obama administrations repeatedly overlooked the following realities:
- Hamid Karzai, the “president” of Afghanistan (2001-2014) didn’t believe in democracy—despite American claims to support his efforts to bring this to Afghanistan.
- His authority didn’t extend beyond Kabul, and he was viewed by most Afghans as an illegitimate ruler, imposed by America.
- The same can be said for his successor, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani.
- American soldiers in Afghanistan felt surrounded by enemies and hamstrung by unrealistic orders to win “hearts and minds” at the risk of their own lives.
- The Taliban poses no threat to the security of the United States.
- Afghan “insurgents” are fighting American forces because (1) they are in a civil war; and (2) they believe their country has once again been occupied by foreigners.
- Counterinsurgency was preached as the key to defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan—where it hasn’t worked.
- Americans entered Afghanistan without an exit strategy.
All these truths applied just as firmly to America’s failed misadventure in Vietnam.
Almost 50 years ago, American “grunts” felt about their so-called South Vietnamese allies as American troops now feel about their Afghan “allies.”
Dr. Dennis Greenbaum, a former army medic, summed up how Americans had really felt about their supposed South Vietnamese allies.
“The highest [priority for medical treatment] was any U.S. person. The second highest was a U.S. dog from the canine corps. The third was NVA [North Vietnamese Army].
“The fourth was VC [Viet Cong]. And the fifth was ARVIN [Army of the Republic of South Vietnam], because they had no particular value. The only thing below them was the civilians,” said Greenbaum.
When you despise the “ally” you’re spending lives and treasure to defend, it’s time to pack up.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 20, 2021 at 12:06 am
On August 2, 1934, German President Paul von Hindenburg died.
Adolf Hitler was then serving as Reich Chancellor—the equivalent of prime minister. Within hours, the Nazi Reichstag [parliament] announced the following law, back-dated to August 1st:
“The office of Reich President will be combined with that of Reich Chancellor. The existing authority of the Reich President will consequently be transferred to the Führer and Reich Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.”
Immediately following the announcement of the new Führer law, the German officer corps and every individual soldier in the German Army [Wehrmacht] was made to swear a new oath of allegiance:
“I swear by God this holy oath, that I will render to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the German Reich and People, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, unconditional obedience, and that I am ready, as a brave soldier, to risk my life at any time for this oath.”
Soldiers swearing the Fuhrer Oath
For Germans—especially officers of the Wehrmacht—taking an oath was a holy act. Previously they had sworn obedience to the German state. Now they swore personal allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
President Donald Trump wanted to resurrect “the German experiment.”
On February 5, 2020, Republicans refused to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump quickly began purging independent officials throughout government—and appointing political loyalists in their places.
On May 6, 2000, Foreign Policy magazine carried an alarming story under the headline: “Trump Taps Point Man to Remove Pentagon Officials Seen as Disloyal.”
Specifically: “Michael Cutrone, who has been detailed as Vice President Mike Pence’s top national security aide for South Asia, is set to arrive at the Pentagon to serve in a behind-the-scenes role vetting Defense Department officials for loyalty to the president, according to two current administration officials.”
Veteran Pentagon officials feared that the few remaining professional appointees who could resist illegal or irrational policy ideas would be removed from their posts or undermined. This would ensure far tighter White House control than had been the case under Defense Secretary James Mattis.
Their fears reached a crescendo during the months after Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election—from November 3, 2020 to January 20, 2021.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley feared that Trump and his allies might attempt a coup or take other dangerous or illegal measures. He and the other Joint Chiefs planned to resign, one-by-one, rather than carry out orders from Trump that they considered to be illegal, dangerous or ill-advised.
Mark Milley
Milley shared his fears of a coup with friends, lawmakers and colleagues.
“They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed,” Milley told his deputies. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.”
In the days leading up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building, Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military.
Milley saw Trump as the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose.
“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides—referring to the February 27, 1933 arson of Germany’s parliament building which enabled Adolf Hitler to assume dictatorial powers.
The military’s plans to thwart a Trump coup are revealed in the new book I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker.
In a July 15 statement, Trump attacked Milley: “I never threatened, or spoke about, to anyone, a coup of our Government. So ridiculous!
“Sorry to inform you, but an Election is my form of ‘coup,’ and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley.”
Which implies he would choose some other general to plot a coup.
William Kristol—a Right-wing political analyst—has been dubbed “the godfather of neoconservatism.” And with good reason.
Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, was one of the leading instigators of the 2003 war with Iraq.
Bill Kristol
But on February 15, 2019, Kristol posted on Twitter:
“Members of Congress take this oath of office (see Title 5, Section 3331 of the United States Code): ‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.'”
On May 7, 2019, he posted “the new GOP Congressional oath”:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend Donald Trump against all oversight; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to him; that I take this obligation despite mental reservation and in the spirit of evasion of duty. So help me God.”
No doubt Kristol, who considers himself a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, remembers all too well the fate of those who took a similar oath to Adolf Hitler.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 14, 2021 at 12:11 am
For America to avoid permanent military entanglements in the Middle East, it must learn to mind its own business.
Perhaps the most important reason for doing so: America’s past efforts in that region have usually gone horribly awry.
Two examples should suffice:
Iran: Mohammad Mosaddegh was the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953. His decision to nationalize the Iranian oil industry led to his overthrow in a CIA coup.
He was replaced by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled until 1979 when a national upheaval forced him to flee. Iranians have never forgiven the United States for subjecting them to the 25-year reign of a brutal despot.
Shah of Iran
Afghanistan: In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. America began supplying shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan Mujahideen fighters. These shifted the balance of the war to the Afghans, who brought down countless Soviet airplanes and helicopters.
Deprived of air supremacy, the Soviet Army lost 14,453 killed and 53,753 wounded, and withdrew by 1989.
Americans congratulated themselves on their Realpolitic. But many of the Stingers remained in the hands of jihadists—who decided that America was now “The Great Satan.”
One of those jihadists: Osama bin Laden.
According to Michael Scheuer, a primary step for disengaging from the Middle East is for America to its role as Israel’s permanent bodyguard.
Scheuer is a 20-year CIA veteran—as well as an author, historian, foreign policy critic and political analyst.
Michael Scheuer
For decades, the United States has pursued two policies in the Middle East—one based on relations with the Arab world and the other based on relations with Israel.
Policy 1: Maintaining access to vast amounts of Arab oil at low prices.
Policy 2: Maintaining the security of Israel.
Since the Arabs and Israelis hate each other, each side constantly tries to sway American support in its direction.
Every step the United States takes to defend Israel—diplomatically or militarily—ignites hatred of Americans among Islamics.
And every step—diplomatically or militarily—the United States takes to improve its relations with Islamic countries convinces Israelis that they’re being “sold out.”
In short: The United States is like a giant with one foot stuck in Israel and the other stuck in the Islamic world—leaving his private parts fully exposed to both.
This is not to deny that Israel has a right to exist. Every nation—including Israel—has the absolute right to defend itself from aggression.
But no nation—including Israel—has the right to expect another nation to act as its permanent bodyguard.
Millions of Americans believe they are morally obligated to defend Israel owing to the barbarism of the Holocaust. America, however, was never a party to this, and has nothing to atone for.
Another reason many Americans feel committed to Israel: Many fundamentalist Christians believe that, for Jesus Christ to awaken from his 2,000-year slumber, Israel must first re-conquer every inch of territory it supposedly held during the reign of Kings David and Solomon.
Right-wing Christian fantasy: Dead man hovering
After Christ returns, they believe, the Jews will face a choice: Become Christians or go to hell. For evangelical Christians, Jews remain the eternal “Christ killers.”
And if Jews must assume temporary control of the Middle East to bring about the return of a man who died 2,000 years ago, so be it.
This is also the view of many Right-wing members of the House of Representatives and Senate.
Unfortunately, such unbalanced views are shared by millions of equally irrational evangelical Christians.
During his October 9, 2013 appearance before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael Scheuer absolutely rejected the conservatives’ assertion that jihadists wage war on America because they “hate us for our freedoms.”
SCHEUER: These people are fighting for something substantive, for something religious….They are not going to fight us because we have women in the workplace.
That is an insanity. What they are fighting us about is what we do.…Invariably, they attribute their motivation to U.S. and Western military intervention and support for Israel and Muslim tyrannies.
Scheuer’s take on Israel brought him into direct conflict with Rep. Peter T. King (R-New York).
Congressman Peter T. King
KING: I would just say we would have more dead Americans if we didn’t stand by our allies in the Middle East. We would just encourage al-Qaeda to take advantage of us.
SCHEUER: You know, you are presiding over a bankruptcy. What can be worse? What has been the goal of al-Qaeda since it was formed? To bankrupt the United States. Who is winning today, sir? We are done like dinner.
KING: We are winning and we will continue to win unless we take the advice of people like you.
SCHEUER: Sir, you are exactly wrong. We are losing. Two U.S. field armies were defeated by men in the field with weapons from the Korean War.
KING: The fact is we have not been successfully attacked since September 11.
SCHEUER: The fact is, sir, we have had two military defeats overseas, which is far more important.
And, warns Scheuer, more defeats—domestic and international—lie ahead unless the United States radically changes its policies toward the Middle East.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 13, 2021 at 12:10 am
According to Michael Scheuer, the United States faces a danger that threatens “the core of our social and civil institutions.”
Scheuer is a 20-year CIA veteran who, from 1996 to 1999, headed Alec Station, the CIA’s unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden at the agency’s Counterterrorism Center.
He’s also the author of two seminal works on America’s fight against terrorism: Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (2003) and Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq (2008).
And in Marching Toward Hell he bluntly indicts the “profound and willful ignorance” of America’s “bipartisan governing elite.”
Scheuer defines this elite as “the inbred set of individuals who have influenced…drafted and conducted U.S. foreign policy” since 1973.Within that group are:
- Politicians
- Journalists
- Academics
- Preachers
- Civil servants
- Military officers
- Philanthropists.
“Some are Republicans, others Democrats; some are evangelicals, others atheists; some are militarists, others pacifists; some are purveyors of Western civilization, others are multiculturalists,” writes Scheuer.
But for all their political and/or philosophical differences, the members of this governing elite share one belief in common: “An unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
And he warns that this “bipartisan governing elite” must radically change its policies–such as unconditional support for Israel and corrupt, tyrannical Muslim governments.
Otherwise, Americans will be locked in an endless “hot war” with the Islamic world.
On September 28, 2014, President Barack Obama provided an example of this “unquenchable ardor to have the United States intervene abroad in all places, situations and times.”
In an appearance on 60 Minutes, Obama spoke about his recent decision to commit American troops to fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Steve Kroft: I think everybody applauds the efforts that you’ve made and the size of the coalition that has been assembled.
But most of them are contributing money or training or policing the borders, not getting particularly close to the contact. It looks like once again we are leading the operation. We are carrying…
President Obama: Steve, that’s always the case. That’s always the case. America leads. We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world.
And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don’t call Beijing. They don’t call Moscow. They call us. That’s the deal.
President Barack Obama
Kroft: I mean, it looks like we are doing 90%.
Obama: Steve…when there’s an earthquake in Haiti, take a look at who’s leading the charge making sure Haiti can rebuild. That’s how we roll. And that’s what makes this America.
Scheuer believed that America shouldn’t be the world’s 9-1-1 number. And that the place to start was by not deploying troops to Syria.
By the time Obama gave his 60 Minutes interview, more than 470,000 people had been killed in Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war. The conflict began on March 15, 2011, triggered by protests demanding political reforms and the ouster of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
And cheering on America’s intervention was the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—which was safely based in Great Britain.
According to its website:
“The silence of the International community for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria encourages the criminals to kill more and more Syrian people because they have not found anyone that deter them from continuing their crimes that cause to wound more than 1,500,000 people; some of them with permanent disabilities, make hundreds of thousands children without parents, displace more than half of Syrian people and destroy infrastructure, private and public properties.”
In short: It’s the duty of non-Muslims to bring civilized behavior to Islamics.
In fact, there were powerful reasons why the United States should steer clear of that conflict.
First, since 1979, the U.S. State Department had listed Syria as a sponsor of terrorism.
Among the terrorist groups it supports: Hizbollah and Hamas. For years, Syria provided a safehouse in Damascus to Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–-the notorious terrorist better known as Carlos the Jackal.
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez–“Carlos the Jackal”
Second, there were no “good Syrians” for the United States to support––only murderers who had long served a tyrant and other murderers who wished to become the next tyrant.
Third, the United States didn’t know what it wanted to do in Syria, except “send a message.”
Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theorist, wrote: “War is the continuation of state policy by other means.” But President Barack Obama didn’t state his “state policy” toward Syria—or what he intended to gain by attacking it.
Obama had said he wasn’t “after regime-change.” That would leave Assad in power–-and free to go on killing those who resist his rule.
For America to avoid permanent military entanglements in the Middle East, it must learn to mind its own business.
Among Michael Scheuer’s warnings: The United States cannot defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) through air power alone.
President Barack Obama authorized airstrikes against ISIL in September, 2014. Since then, the United States Air Force has dropped thousands of bombs on ISIL convoys.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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TRUMP AND COVID: COUNTDOWN TO CATASTROPHE: PART ONE (OF EIGHT)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on November 1, 2021 at 10:47 amThe end of the COVID-19 plague may finally be in sight.
No fewer than three vaccines—by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—are now available. A total of 90.4 million doses of these vaccines have been given. And 189,709,710 Americans have now been fully vaccinated against the virus.
States such as Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana have thrown caution—and masks—to the winds. Bars and restaurants are reopening. Social distancing is the new taboo.
In Boise, Idaho, anti-mask protesters organized a public mask-burning. Children cheered, “Destroy them!” as masks were burned in an oil barrel.
With the pandemic appearing to reach its end—at least in the United States—Americans will soon revert to one of their favorite pastimes: Forgetting events that caused them unpleasantness.
A typical example: The Vietnam war, which raged from 1965 to 1975, costing the lives of 58,000 Americans and $843.63 billion in money and resources. The conflict divided Americans more than any other since the Civil War (1861-1865).
The Vietnam war was brought on by the lies of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson—that North Vietnamese forces has fired on innocent U.S. Navy ships peacefully patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin.
The Vietnam War
Having forgotten—or ignored—the truth that they had been lied into a needless, bloody, budget-busting war in Southeast Asia, Americans allowed themselves to be lied into another such war in Iraq, lasting from 2003 to 2011.But no sooner was the war over than Americans acted as if it had never happened.
The Iraq war grew out of the lies of the Republican George W. Bush administration—that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had plotted 9/11 and was preparing to strike the United States with nuclear and/or biological weapons.
No doubt as soon as the “all-clear” sounds on COVID-19, Americans will forget that it ever happened—and thus learn nothing from it.
Yet history remains an unforgiving teacher. And while Americans usually ignore its lessons, history always exacts a punishment for doing so.
At the center of its lessons on COVID-19 is the catastrophe that inevitably occurs when there is a confluence between natural disaster and an evil and incompetent administration.
And in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, the figure who stands most responsible for the deaths of more than a half-million Americans is Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States.
Under his tyrannical rule, the United States suffered not simply from a lethal virus but a combination of denial, lies, Republican subservience, chaos, extortion, propaganda as news, quackery as medicine, demands to “re-open the country,” Ignoring the danger and—finally—resignation (“Learn to live with the virus”).
DONALD TRUMP AS SUPREME EGOTIST
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks attacked President Donald Trump in terms usually reserved for serial killers. On the March 13, 2020 edition of The PBS Newshour, he said:
“This is what happens when you elect a sociopath as president, who doesn’t care, who has treated this whole thing for the past month as if it’s about him. ‘How do people like me?’ Minimizing the risks. ‘Does the stock market reflect well on me?’ And he hasn’t done the things a normal human being would do, which was to, let’s take precautions….
“And he’s incapable of that. And he’s even created an information distortion field around him.”
David Brooks
INTRODUCING CORONAVIRUS
Coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019. Its first reported victim became ill on December 1.
By December 31, the outbreak was traced to a novel strain of Coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that affect birds and mammals. In humans, Coronaviruses can cause pneumonia and may cause bronchitis.
Trump first learned of the virus on January 3, 2020. Then he went golfing on January 4, 5, 18 and 19.
On January 19, the first Coronavirus case appeared in the United States.
On January 27, then-acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to get Trump to act.
But, according to officials who spoke with the Washington Post, Trump was “dismissive” of early briefings “because he did not believe that the virus had spread widely throughout the United States.”
Trump fired Mulvaney one month later.
Then Trump returned to the golf course—on February 1, 2 and 15.
TRUMP CONFESSES TO BOB WOODWARD
On February 7, he decided to share some of his Coronavirus Intelligence with legendary Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward.
Woodward and Carl Bernstein had achieved imperishable fame in 1972-74 as the Washington Post reporters whose Watergate-related stories led to the fall of President Richard M. Nixon.
Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward: And so, what was [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] saying yesterday?
Donald Trump: Oh, we were talking mostly about the virus, and I think he’s going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation.
Woodward: Indeed, it is.
Trump: It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?
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