Unexpectedly, Wrongo found the time to post a few cartoons. Yesterday, we saw the musical âSixâ on Broadway, along with a very enthusiastic packed house. The audience had to show proof of vaccination, and wear masks for the performance.
The story is about the six wives of Englandâs King Henry VIII, if they had turned into pop stars, and were speaking today about their lives with fat Henry.
We saw it two years ago in London, arranged by Connecticutâs invaluable Goodspeed Musicals. It has made a fine relocation to New York. We thought the castâs singing was better here, as was the all-woman backing band. The message, of a transition from female victimhood to female empowerment was very well received by the audience, which included many teen and pre-teen girls.
It appeared that most theater district restaurants were doing acceptable business, although some that we had frequented in the past had permanently closed. The parking lot we always use had fewer than half the cars we would normally see. This is probably explained by the fact that many of Broadwayâs shows wonât reopen for a few more weeks. On to cartoons.
The Arizona recount didnât go well for the GOP. And never call it an “audit”:
Republicans think blowing up Americaâs credit rating is hilarious:
This is who McConnell and GOP are. They’ve become terrorists, trying to kill us by blowing things up.
Itâs the Republican playbook: Block everything no matter the consequences and then blame someone else:
Bidenâs tough trick:
Biden said he knew how to forge consensus. Weâll soon see:
Turkey Pond â 1944 tempera painting on panel by Andrew Wyeth
(Sunday Cartoons will not appear this week, because Wrongo and Ms. Right are seeing a Broadway show on Saturday. It is our first visit to NYC in 18 months.)
âA months-long hand recount of Maricopa Countyâs 2020 vote confirmed that President Joe Biden won, and the election was not âstolenâ from former President Donald Trump, according to early versions of a report prepared for the Arizona Senate.â
This is the end of the saga of a partisan audit of Maricopa County by the Cyber Ninjas, the Arizona Senateâs hand-picked outside auditor. Their âauditâ showed that Trump lost by a wider margin than the countyâs official election results. According to their hand count, there were 99 additional votes for Biden, and 261 fewer votes for Trump.
The Republican majority in the State Senate had ordered the audit, which was financed by $5.7 million in donations from far-right groups. Even though the audit was run by Trump partisans who had unrestricted access to both ballots and election equipment, they failed to make even a basic case that the November vote was badly flawed, much less rigged.
You can read the three-volume report, but the headline is that Biden got more votes than originally reported.
Every challenge to the 2020 election results has shown that the election was reasonably well run and not stolen. It is a remarkable achievement that so many state and local entities managed to run a good election under such difficult and challenging circumstances as America faced in 2020. Itâs doubtful that this result will stop the Big Lie from persisting in the fever dreams of Republicans.
You can make a case that the audit wasnât about 2020 at all, but about 2024. And the intent wasnât to prove election fraud. The goal was to further undermine the public’s faith in our electoral process. So, mission accomplished.
Finally, consider this: Reuters interviewed nine of the 15 declared Republican candidates for secretary of state in five battleground states  ̶  Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada. Ten of the 15 have either declared that the 2020 election was stolen or called for their stateâs results to be invalidated or further investigated. Only two of the nine candidates Reuters interviewed said that Biden won the election.
Wrongo will write more about the continuing slow-rolling attempted coup by Republicans next week.
The weekend is upon us. Here on the fields of Wrong, a heavy rainstorm took down a few limbs and many leaves. A gopher is attempting to create a winter nest along the bluestone walkway that leads to the Mansion of Wrong. So Wrongo will be girding for battle with said interloper before heading off to Broadway. Wrongo guarantees this will not become another US forever war.
Itâs the time of the week to unplug from the cacophony of global news and domestic politics, and to find a few moments of relaxation to help carry you through another hellish week to come. It’s time for our Saturday Soother.
Today, in honor of the official arrival of fall, grab a chair by a window, and take a few minutes to listen to George Winston play âWoodsâ from his 1980 album, âAutumnâ. Itâs an emotional backdrop to the change of season:
More than 660,000 white flags have been put on display at the National Mall in Washington DC in memory of Covid victims. The display is called âIn America: Rememberâ, organized by artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg.
âReality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesnât go awayâ  ̶ Philip K. Dick
And a corollary: Delusion requires passionate and unyielding belief to keep pesky facts from intruding. This is why for some people, cults are a viable form of social organization.
The Covid vaccines save lives. America has an abundant supply. The shot is free. But many Americans remain unvaccinated. Some donât have access, but it appears the vast majority of the unvaccinated are making a decision that appears to be driven in part, by their politics.
âSince May of this year, more than half of the deaths from the coronavirus have been in states that voted for Donald Trump. There have been 239 deaths per million among red-state residents, compared with 150 per million in blue states.â
And for vaccinations, states that voted for Trump in 2020 have lower vaccination rates. Hereâs a chart:
Are Republicans following a political strategy with vaccines? Brian Beutler thinks so:
âTo grasp that Republicans encouraged COVID spread to harm Biden, you donât have to believe, in a conspiracy-addled way, that they convened in secret and built a playbook for maximizing infections. You simply need to observe that a critical mass of conservative elites view undercutting Biden and Democrats as a political lodestar, and make immensely consequential governing and broadcast decisions on that basis alone.â
According to the NYT, that thinking has led to 16,200 preventable deaths since July 1 nationwide. And itâs important to realize that most deaths occurring now are preventable in a way that was absolutely not the case at the start of the pandemic.
Following on Phillip Dickâs quote above, a reality is that Covid is now a preventable disease.
Ignoring reality, Red State governors are actively discouraging vaccination and masking. They are actively encouraging a preventable but deadly illness to spread. They are putting the entire nation at risk of a vaccine resistant variant. They’re threats to our national security.
Polls show that Bidenâs approval rate has slipped, in part due to the Covid surge. Covid may be hurting Biden politically, but it’s hurting Red State Republican constituents literally (and seriously). The Red State Covid fatality rate isn’t high enough to really hurt their vote totals except in marginal districts. The Republican bet is that the intensity/turnout advantage they get from anti-Vaxx deniers will pay off in the 2022 mid-terms.
They seem to have internalized that a pandemic combined with pandemic denialism helps them. In 2020, the Republican ground game benefited from the fact that Covid denialists were more willing to go out in public. They used the fact that their voters were more likely to vote in person to push Trumpâs Big Lie election-fraud theories.
But here we are. Theyâre living in a world where the virus is fake, and thousands of people are dying from taking the vaccine. Theyâre taking Ivermectin and anti-malarial drugs because the fake virus is a little threatening, but not bad enough to take the vaccine. It can be deadly, but âit isn’t for meâ because it’s a liberal conspiracy.
But the ârealityâ is that excess deaths from all causes since February, 2020 according to the CDC is 830,400. Last year, the age-adjusted all-cause mortality rate in the USA rose by 15.9%. This is by far the biggest one-year rise in that rate in the 120 years that official records have been kept for this basic measure of overall public health.
Time to wake up Red Staters! Many of the GOP higher ups (and their media lackeys) think that youâre not masking or taking the vaccine, will hurt Biden and the Democrats. Maybe you should be thinking about the greater harm that following their lead may bring to you and your family.
To help you wake up on this last Monday of summer, listen to the Foo Fighters, who are going through a âdisco discoveryâ stage wherein they call themselves the Dee Gees, cover the Bee Geesâ âYou Should Be Dancingâ:
âRepublican legislators in more than half of US states, spurred on by voters angry about lockdowns and mask mandates, are taking away the powers state and local officials use to protect the public against infectious diseases.â
KHN found that at least 26 states pushed through laws that permanently weaken government authority to protect public health. The actions varied but included these:
In 16 states, legislators have limited the power of public health officials to order mask mandates, quarantines, or isolation. In some cases, they gave themselves or local elected politicians the authority to prevent the spread of infectious disease.
At least 17 states passed laws banning Covid vaccine mandates or made it easier to get around vaccine requirements.
At least 9 states have new laws banning or limiting mask mandates. Executive orders or a court ruling limit mask requirements in five more.
Hereâs a map showing where these assaults on public health are happening:
Draft legislation created by the American Legislative Exchange Council, restricting the emergency powers of governors and other officials, has inspired dozens of state-level bills, according to KHN. In some states, governors can no longer institute mask mandates or close businesses, and their executive orders can be overturned by legislators.
This toxic stew has led at least 303 public health leaders to retire, resign or be fired since the pandemic began. That means 1 in 5 Americans have lost a local health leader during the pandemic, when many hospitals are full, and people are still dying in large numbers.
This is America in 2021: Itâs vitally important to the freedom of True Americansâą that the government be prevented from doing anything to help or protect them, except for cutting taxes.
We live in a dysfunctional democracy, and that seems to be the way we like it. No evil deity could have done better at setting us up to fail.
There are two big ideas that are colliding in the weakening of state-level public health and the subsequent loss of public health officials. One is the doctrine of federalism, our system of government in which the same territory is controlled by two levels of government. The US Constitution has established a system of âdual sovereignty,â under which the States have surrendered some of their powers to the federal government, but also retained sovereignty in others.
These 26 states are using federalism, asserting their power over federal regulations and processes that are designed to keep people safe. Itâs unclear what the federal government can do to reverse these actions.
The second big idea is: what are the foundational goals of government? The safety, health and longevity of our people should be the primary metrics for good governance. The decline in the quality of our governance shows clearly in the American peopleâs decline in both health and longevity.
Public health as a function has been in decline for decades. This attack on public health is the latest step in the systematic effort to discredit the profession, to box it in. Few in public health have direct power; most are working on social/environmental research, information sharing, and creating best practices in regulation of product and worker safety.
Our dysfunctional democracy got that way by catering to corporations and wealthy donors. Politicians are disinvested in the American people; they have disinvested from creating what should be a fair sharing of social gains.
This makes them anti-public health. To the extent they have any interest, itâs in public healthâs policing powers, like the bounty hunter policy thatâs been enacted in Texas.
But, todayâs Saturday, and itâs a legal requirement for this column to help readers find a few moments to leave the clash of cultures behind and relax for at least a few minutes. Leaves are starting to fall on the fields of Wrong, and next week marks the end of summer. Weâve placed a few mums around the yard, and Wrongo got around to calling the shop thatâs fixing his snowblower for an update.
â…the next month is make-or-break not only for President Biden and the future of American social policy but also for the right to vote and our democracy itself.â
True. Heâs talking about Democrats attempting to pass both the big stimulus package without ANY support from the Republicans, and a voting rights bill that might get some support from Republicans. Â Dionne goes on to say: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âFailing to enact Democratsâ social policy plan would be a big problem. Failing to protect democratic rule would be catastrophic.â
The media has focused on Bidenâs big social policy package, not on the voting bill. They talk almost exclusively about the billâs cost. They ignore the billâs initiatives: On childcare, paid leave, elder care, health care, education, and the pro-family child tax credit, all of which are popular across party lines.
Dionneâs best observation about the big spending package is this: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âYes, the much-discussed $3.5 trillion price tag is a lot of money. But that number is based on 10 years of spending. Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, points out that the $3.5 trillion should be placed in the context of an anticipated gross domestic product of $288 trillion over the same period â meaning that this debate is over roughly 1.2% of the economy.â
The politics of the big deal are clear. Democrats must come together and vote as a block in the Senate, or they will fail to deliver on the change they promised in the 2020 presidential election.
The politics for a voting rights bill are less clear. As with the big deal, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVA) has opposed the voting bills put forward by Democrats in the House. So, Senate Majority Leader Schumer asked Manchin to come up with a proposal that he could vote for and to find 10 Republicans to support it as well.
Manchin accepted that challenge and working with a group of Democrats including Sens. Klobuchar (MN), Merkley (OR) and Warnock (GA), developed a bill he supports. Marc Elias of Democracy Docket yesterday analyzed Sen. Joe Manchinâs compromise voting rights bill and found itâŠsurprisingly acceptable:
âThe Freedom to Vote Act, introduced this morning, reveals a surprisingly good voting rights bill. It reflects a sobriety and understanding of the challenges facing voters that is worthy of its lofty name. It is not just a reformulation of the prior For the People Act, but in many places, it is an improvement.â
You can read the bill here. With respect to voting by mail, the bill rolls back many of the Republicansâ disenfranchisement schemes. It forbids states from requiring notarization or witnesses to vote by mail. It provides for a free postage system for returned ballots, requires states to notify voters whose ballots are rejected due to a signature omission or mismatch and creates an easy way for voters to cure those ballots.
One of the big objections is that the new bill permits states to decide whether to require voter identification, but it broadens the list of acceptable IDs for states that require them. Under the new bill, states must allow utility bills and leases as well as student IDs and virtually any identification issued by a governmental entity to serve as an acceptable ID.
So, the challenge is whether Manchin will find 10 Republicans to support it. The big question is what will happen If he canât: Will he and Sinema stick with their refusal to alter the filibuster and thus be complicit in the death of a bill as important to democracy today, as the original Voting Rights Act was in 1965?
Time is running out to save our democracy from a Republican Party that is rejecting it.
That alone tells us what real peril we were in. It also should tell us what needs to be done to protect the country going forward.
It would be fantastic to pass both bills, but Manchinâs Freedom to Vote Act must pass, even if it means further weakening of the Filibuster. Wrongo doubts that Manchin and Sinema want to be associated in history with those who failed to stand up for democracy at the hour of maximum danger.
Within the next month, weâll know where they stand.
Controlled burn, Yosemite NP, CA – Early Summer 2021 photo by mrcnzajac
(Note: The Wrongologist is taking an end of summer break. Our next column will appear on September 7)
Yesterday brought the final evacuation of Kabul airport by US forces. The actual deadline for all US troops to be out of Afghanistan was 3:29 pm EST Tuesday, which is Tuesday 11:59 pm local time in Kabul. But we exited a day early. This was the time of greatest risk to our troops, since fewer and fewer of them were available to maintain security at the airport for those getting on planes.
Several other news outlets are confirming Southpaw’s report. Here’s Natasha Bertrand of CNN:
3:29 pm EST is 11:59pm on Aug 30 Kabul time. A day early.
The Biden administrationâs end game relied on the Taliban acting in good faith as the last of our troops departed, including protecting the final American evacuees. Reuters had reported that the Taliban were waiting for “the final nod” from US forces before securing full control of the Kabul airport.
It seems like Biden’s faith was well-placed.
What follows is Wrongo’s thinking written before hearing that the US had successfully left Afghanistan and turned over the airport to the Taliban.
Let’s pull back and get some historical perspective on our decision to go to Afghanistan. Michael Krepon of the Arms Control Wonk blog makes a great observation about what was called the âunipolar momentâ in 1990, after the Soviet Union had collapsed.
The concept held that the US, as the worldâs sole superpower, didnât need to respect weakness, limit NATO expansion, or pay allegiance to international norms. Washington could and should throw its weight around. The sole superpower could play by its own rules.
That idea may have caused the downfall of the US in the Middle East. GW Bush subscribed to the unipolar moment. Before 9/11, he wanted to exit the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ATBM) Treaty with Russia, even though Putin was willing to accommodate some changes. Putin indicated that if he and Bush couldnât make a deal, Russia would exit the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (SALT II), which prohibited land-based missiles carrying multiple warheads.
Bush didnât care about the prohibition and walked from both. That meant that Bush dispensed with limitations on national missile defenses and the abolition of land-based missiles carrying multiple warheads, two central tenets of our hard-won nuclear arms control strategy.
Bush then reacted to the 9/11 strikes with a ânever againâ impulse that was also fueled by unipolar moment hubris. Krepon reminds us that Bushâs 2006 National Security Strategy declared:
 âIt is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.â
âThese sentiments fueled the ill-fated war and institution building project in Afghanistan….The end of the unipolar moment was hastened by these wars… For those harboring any doubt, the unipolar moment definitively crashed and burned with the fall of Kabul.â
More: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe finest hours of US expeditionary forces in Afghanistan came at the front and back ends of this two-decade-long saga. The routing of al-Qaeda was essential….The final act of leaving Afghanistan was suffused with grace even in the midst of chaos and terror. Evacuation efforts at Kabul airport were truly heroic, reflecting a nobility of purpose that had previously been buried by US counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies.â
As the sun sets on our physical military presence in Afghanistan, we can be happy that we’ve gotten all of our remaining troops out safely. Krepon reminds us that John Kerry began his career in public life as a young veteran, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kerry asked them:
âHow do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?â
Where will we go from here? Air strikes by the US wonât end with Afghanistan. Krepon also reminds us that going forward, we really need âMore Think, Less Tank.â
America will dissect its failed adventure in Afghanistan for decades. From Heather Cox Richardson:
âIn the past, when American troops were targeted by terrorists, Americans came together to condemn those attackers. Apparently, no longer. While world leadersâincluding even those of the Talibanâcondemned the attacks on US troops, Republican leaders instead attacked President Biden.â
Whatâs ahead of us now is seeing how the Biden administration manages defeat. There will be serious political fallout after Bidenâs end game in Afghanistan is finished.
The Republicans are going to try to mix fact with fiction, scoring points to take advantage of what they perceive as a Biden weakness.
Democrats may be ambivalent enough about what they think Biden should have done with the Kabul end game that they wonât respond forcefully enough.
The media will play their âI Told You Soâ and âBiden is Damagedâ narratives. They will continue giving airtime to the same retired military hacks who brought us Afghanistan in the first place.
âHow, exactly, did the Biden administrationâs critics think US military involvement in Afghanistan was ever going to end? âCertainly not like thisâ is not a valid answer…
Please be specific. Did you envision a formal ceremony at the US Embassy with the American flag being lowered and the Taliban flag raised? Did you see the Taliban waiting patiently while the US-trained Afghan army escorted US citizens, other NATO nationals and our Afghan collaborators to the airport for evacuation? Did you imagine that the countryâs branch of the Islamic State would watch peacefully from the sidelines, or that regional warlords would renounce any hope of regaining their power, or that a nation with a centuries-old tradition of rejecting central authority would suddenly embrace it?
If there is a graceful, orderly way to abandon involvement in a brutal, unresolved civil war on the other side of the world, please cite historical precedents.â
Thatâs the problem, zero precedents.
Thereâs press and political criticism about Biden working with the Taliban. Itâs at least ironic that weâre cooperating with them after 20 years of fighting them, but this is just both players being practical in an end game. In Bidenâs press conference on Thursday, he rejected critics who said we shouldnât be cooperating with the Taliban to defend the airport perimeter:
âNo one trusts them…Itâs a matter of mutual self-interest. Theyâre not good guys, the Taliban. But they have keen interests,â
Thatâs realpolitik pragmatism at work, something we rarely see. But Republicans are neither pragmatic nor calm. Some Republicans said Biden should resign, while most focused on demanding that the withdrawal timeline, set for Tuesday, be lifted to allow a forceful counterattack against the Islamic State. Saner Republicans in Congress cited the attack as another indication of the presidentâs poorly executed withdrawal strategy.
The most vocal Democratic criticism came from Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who questioned whether Taliban guards had failed by letting the ISIS bombers get so close to the Kabul airport.
âWe canât trust the Taliban with Americansâ security,â
Thank you Captain Obvious. The silliest response came from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN):
âItâs time for accountability, starting with those whose failed planning allowed these attacks to occur. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, and Mark Milley should all resign or face impeachment and removal from office,â
Under Blackburnâs scenario, Nancy Pelosi would become president! Itâs doubtful that she thought that through.
Democrats didnât demand GW Bush IIâs resignation after 9/11. Nobody clamored for St. Ronnieâs head the day after 241 Marines were killed in Lebanon. There was fierce criticism of Reagan, but no one tried to invoke the 25th Amendment. The Bay of Pigs was an epic disaster, but Republicans did not immediately demand JFKâs resignation.
Itâs time to move on. We need to end the evacuation on time. There is no question that we will leave some worthy immigrants behind. They will be a bargaining chip when the Talibs want US foreign aid or recognition.
Take a moment and try if you can, to settle into our Saturday Soother. Hard to believe it’s already the final weekend in August. Itâs also hard to believe that Senator Robert F. Kennedyâs assassin, Sirhan Sirhan was granted parole on Friday after two of RFKâs sons spoke in favor of his release.
In the Northeast, weâve ended a hot spell, but since we had plenty of rain from hurricane Henri, everything on the fields of Wrong is green and growing.
If you can, shed the noise of the world and take a few moments to clear your head. Then, grab a seat outside and listen to Michael Franti & Spearheadâs new tune, “Good Day For A Good Day“.
The band says the inspiration for the new song – waking up every day and wondering what terrible thing is coming: hate, pandemic, pollution, or disaster, and how we could replace that with a little bit of love, good vibes, and joy:
19th century schooner wreckage at Race Point, Cape Cod, MA
The seaweed-covered wreck above is an appropriate meme for our disastrous Middle East policy that today led to even more deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan. ISIS in Afghanistan has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The latest news is that 11 American Marines and a Navy Medic were killed in a suicide bombing at a checkpoint at the gates of the Kabul airport. It also appears that at least 15 US military were injured. The deaths marked the first US military fatalities in Afghanistan since February 2020, when two American soldiers were killed in an insider attack by an Afghan soldier.
Imagine that you are a Marine guarding the entrance to Kabul airport. Imagine that the day before, you had been briefed about the potential of a suicide vest detonating near your position. Imagine doing your job, checking individuals who want to get past you into the airport, when you know you might get suicide-bombed.
Theyâre close enough to touch. You can smell their breath, but all you can do is stand there are be hyper-vigilant.
At least when someone shoots at you, you can shoot back. But there’s nobody to shoot at after the bomb goes off. Â Just take the dead and wounded to the medic and write up the after-action report. They knew they’d be targeted by ISIS bombers. And, yet, they went ahead and did their duty, processing evacuees and trying to assist in winding down this terrible war.
“Strategically and for a long, short and medium-term interest, is the decision to completely withdraw from Afghanistan, was a very bad one. That said, the decision having been made the execution of it has been pretty bad.”
Itâs a viewpoint, but consider HR McMaster, former Trump National Security Adviser who said on MSNBC:
âKabul blasts are what happen ‘when you surrender to a terrorist organization’â
Yglesias also provided a little history on similar bombings at Kabul airport:
âOn 8 September 2009, at around 8:22 AM, a suicide bombing took place near the entrance of the airportâs military base
On 3 July 2014, Taliban fighters fired two rockets into the airport, destroying four helicopters. One of the four helicopters belongs to Afghan President Hamid Karzai
On 29 July 2015, three American defense contractors and one Afghan national were killed by a gunman outside the airport in the late evening
On 17 May 2015, a suicide bombing by the Taliban near the entrance of the airport occurred, killing three and injuring eighteen.â
The point is that we have been dealing with violence at the very location where this violence took place for a very long time, without pundits or members of Congress paying any attention to it.
So, as we sit at home, watching the drama unfold in Kabul, letâs salute the courage of our service members who died trying to rescue Americans and others from Afghanistan.
Letâs also give the single finger salute to the media, the pundits and the politicians trying to prove that they are tough enough to put more American soldiers in harmâs way in order to minimize the âopticsâ of our humiliating loss in Afghanistan.
Expect the âBenghazificationâ of the end of our time in Afghanistan, particularly if Republicans gain control of the House in 2022. Thereâs way too much shit to throw at Biden for that not to happen.
And regardless of your politics, spare some sympathy for Biden as well. Heâs now under titanic pressure to avenge these deaths. Perhaps he should remember Ronald Reagan, who withdrew the Marines from Lebanon after 241 of them were killed in a bombing of their Beirut barracks in 1983.
Ezra Klein at the NYTquotes Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThereâs no denying America is the most powerful country in the world, but what weâve seen over and over in recent decades is we cannot turn that into the outcomes we want. Whether itâs Afghanistan or Libya or sanctions on Russia and Venezuela, we donât get the policy outcomes we want, and I think thatâs because we overreach â we assume that because we are very powerful, we can achieve things that are unachievable.â
Cathedral Valley, Capitol Reef NP – photo by Richard Strange
The White House reported that 21,600 people have been evacuated from Kabul in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 58,700 persons evacuated. But thereâs already a 50,000-person backlog for US visas for non-governmental organization workers.
Today, letâs talk about 1) Where these Afghan refugees are headed, and 2) The Special Immigration Visa (SIV) program in the US that has come under criticism from politicians and the media.
Letâs start with the SIV program. The State Department has allocated 50,000 SIVs for Afghanistan. PBS reported yesterday that 34,500 of them are already allocated, while about 300,000 Afghans have some history of working with the US, and therefore, may be at risk of reprisal from the Taliban.
Wrongo listened to Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) who is trying to assist a few Afghans with US visas, say that the reason for the backlog is lack of planning by the Biden administration. Thatâs untrue. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) introduces some reality into the discussion of the SIV backlog:
âOver the last decade, Republicans have pushed to intentionally create a massive backlog in the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program – the one we use to bring Afghan partners to America, by putting onerous conditions on the applicationsâŠIn 2016, Obama asked to increase the cap for the SIV program. Senate Republicans objected. Then, the Trump Admin started slowing down SIV processing. When Biden took over, there were 10,000 unfilled visas, despite 17,000 applications in the pipeline.â
Sen. Murphy continues: (parenthesis and emphasis by Wrongo)
âObama admitted over 2,700 Afghan refugees. Trump admitted 400, bc (because) he had dismantled the refugee system. Biden had to rebuild it. And today Trump Republicans are making it clear they will oppose bringing more Afghan refugees to the US. Steven Miller: âResettling [Afghans] in America is not about solving a humanitarian crisis; itâs about accomplishing an ideological objective to change America.ââ
Is anyone more repellent than Steven Miller?
Any reporting by the media about the âchaosâ in Afghanistan that doesnât include these facts, isnât worth your time. Also, letâs differentiate between whatâs happening within US control, from whatâs happening beyond our control: All the chaos is happening outside of the Kabul airport gates.
Inside, weâre moving thousands of people in a largely orderly fashion to intermediate countries, where the process of their immigration can begin.
This is by far the biggest military evacuation in US history, and it’s being handled surprisingly well. That might change in an instant, anything could happen. But so far, the US media has been suckered into a chaos narrative that’s almost precisely the opposite of the truth.
âMore than half a million Afghans had already fled violence and instability in their country this year alone, even before the Taliban swept back to power a week ago. But an equal number of new refugees could very well hit the road in the next few months, despite Taliban efforts to stop people from leaving.â
Hereâs a chart showing where Afghan refugees are located. Pakistan has nearly 1.5 million while Iran has about 800k:
GZero reports that Europe currently hosts 780,000 Afghan refugees, second only to Pakistan, along with another two million undocumented Afghans. Iran is worried that the Taliban, who are Sunni extremists, may intensify a long history of persecution of Afghanistan’s Shia minorities, pushing even more refugees across the Iranian border. GZero asks:
âThis all raises the question: What happens if possibly millions of people who fear persecution get trapped inside their own country? They will probably join the ranks of the 3.5 million vulnerable Afghans who are already internally displaced.â
Since the White House just announced that the US will stick to August 31 as the end date for the airlift of refuges and the complete withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan, no one knows what will happen to those people left in Afghanistan who have expressed a desire to leave.
Other countries could work to repatriate their citizens by negotiating directly with the Taliban. Most likely, GZeroâs prediction of a large internally displaced population will come to pass.
Bidenâs decision is certain to spark criticism at home and abroad. Those faulting Biden should answer: Werenât they originally all for ending this war and taking our troops out? What is the US supposed to do when not even $2 trillion over 20 years was enough?
While you ponder what to do, listen to James McMurtryâs new tune, Â “Operation Never Mind“, from his new album out this week, âThe Horses and the Houndsâ. The song is about how Americans think about our soldiers:
Sample lyric:
we got an operation goinâ on
it donât have to trouble me and you
the country boys will do the fighting
now that fightingâs all a country boy can do
we got a handle on it this time
no oneâs gonna tell us we were wrong
we wonât let the cameras near the fighting
that way we wonât have another Vietnam
(chorus) no one knows, âcause no one sees no one cares, âcause no one knows no one knows, âcause no one sees it on TV
donât they look just like on âSEAL Teamâ
Lord donât they look the best
when we trot them out at halftime
or the seventh inning stretch
they stand up in their uniforms and help us sell the show
dying by their own hands for reasons we donât know
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley, California photo by Gerold Guggenbheul
Wrongo is as tired of writing about Afghanistan as you are reading about it, but the time to say what needs to be said is when people are paying attention. So, letâs talk about the mediaâs response to Afghanistan.
Yesterday, Wrongo pointed out that out of a combined 14,000-plus minutes of the national evening news broadcast on CBS, ABC, and NBC in 2020, the year Trump made his deal with the Taliban, a total of five minutes were devoted to Afghanistan. Now, many more minutes are focused on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and much of that is critical of Biden. From Eric Boehlert:
âLed by the New York Timesâ and CNNâs frenzied reporting and analysis, the media have gone all in with the narrative that Bidenâs presidency sits on the precipice of ruin in the wake of USâs long-expected troop departure from Afghanistan. (Fact: It does not.)â
Various Biden critics are engaging in fantasies about Kabulâs collapse: if only weâd used more force, demonstrated more will, stayed a few months longer, then the Taliban would have adopted a different strategy. Ryan Crocker, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, was sharply critical of the withdrawal of the last 3,500 troops. Fred Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, argued that âkeeping American military forces in Afghanistan indefinitelyâ would be âworth it.â
Another NYT column recently said that Biden should âsave his presidencyâ in the wake of the Afghanistan controversy. Bidenâs ending an extremely unpopular war and is bringing the troops home, at least so far, without a single US casualty. But he must âsave his presidencyâ?
It is a huge relief to find out America has been filled all along with people who know, with 100% certainty, how to properly extract the US from Afghanistan.
“As we try to look past the abysmal reporting on the evacuation from Afghanistan, one of the things that strikes me is the inability or unwillingness of reporters to visualize what is required to make things happen in the real world.”
More:
“An evacuation takes coordination among an enormous number of entities â getting the right people in the right place at the right time, along with the airplanes and their fuel, which involves other airports, air controllers, logistics people keeping track of where the planes are, and the military personnel helping out….And then there are the State Department people who are checking identities and preparing paperwork to get refugees into the US.”
Rofer closes with: (brackets by Wrongo)
“The first inclination of too many reporters seems to be to find someone to backbite someone else. It should be to understand the [physical] situation…”
The criticisms downplay the impact of the deal with the Taliban. Once the Taliban had secured an agreement that the US would be pulling out, and that forces would be reduced to minimal numbers BEFORE Bidenâs presidency began, they merely had to wait. Trumpâs special skill as president was that he accomplished nothing, or he made things much, much worse, in every way.
So far, the airlift from Afghanistan is performing better than the news media’s record over the past four years, when they were reporting on everything Trump said. Now they’re saying that Biden can’t eat the shit sandwich Trump prepared so well.
But hereâs a subject that has gone unnoticed by the media: the cost of caring for our veterans. The Watson Institute researches the cost of the Afghan war. They just released an update on the ongoing costs of caring for the military who were injured in Iraq and Afghanistan:
âBetween 2001 and 2050, the total costs of caring for veterans of the post-9/11 wars are estimated to reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion….This estimate is double the authorâs previous projections in 2011 and 2013.â
They say that most of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans have yet to be paid and will continue to accrue long into the future. The costs are $1 trillion higher than earlier estimates for two primary reasons. First, the number of post-9/11 veterans with disabilities is far higher than originally projected. More than 40% of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been approved to receive lifetime disability benefits.
Second, the VA has ramped up their levels of responsiveness. They have expanded the geographical footprint of VA health care, hired thousands of additional medical and support personnel, and expanded clinical specialties in areas such as womenâs health, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).
These expenditures are already baked into the system. We should be focusing on the fact that these costs will DOUBLE Americaâs projected military expenses of $2 trillion for Afghanistan.
The post-9/11 wars were the first major test of our all-volunteer military. On September 11, 2001, roughly one in every four American men were military veterans, but over the past two decades, the number of veterans in the population has declined to fewer than one in eight.
Barring reinstituting the draft, the number of military in our population will continue declining. The Census Bureau projects that the number of veterans will be just 1 in 14 by 2040. By 2050, when the costs of providing medical care and benefits for veterans of the post-9/11 wars reach their peak, few living Americans will have direct relatives who were involved in these wars.
So, two hidden costs of the Afghanistan war: A lazy media, and a 40+% casualty rate which is what happens when you continually redeploy the same soldiers into a 20-year long battle.
