WHO IS IN CONTROL? This is a question any reasoned person will ask before riding in someone’s car, or before walking onboard an aircraft that will carry you miles above the earth, going hundreds of miles per hour. We trust the airline captain, because we know hundreds of hours of training and certifying, testing and practice, have been completed. We are willing to trust our lives to the care of a captain after weighing the risks and accepting the responsibility for our choice. How comfortable would you be with the crew shown in the picture above? How comfortable would you be flying on an airline that would allow these people to assume these positions of responsibility?
We certainly have a right and duty to review the bona fides of the individuals in the picture above. Most who have followed any news of late realize that these are members of a terrorist organization, who believe in only one way to live, and all who disagree with them, or resist them, need to be eliminated. These fighters do not hide who or what they are. They do not couch their beliefs in hidden agendas, or with flowery speech. We know exactly where they stand, and what they stand for. The extremely dangerous individuals are the ones who have put these terrorists in the positions they now occupy in that cockpit above. The ones we now speak of do not openly reveal who they really are, or what they really stand for. They do have hidden agendas, and they do speak with flowery statements. How do we ferret out those who act contrary to what they reveal openly? All one has to do is to look at the actions they have taken, for actions always speak louder than words.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be rich, to be able to afford anything your heart desired? Granted, with money comes great power and great responsibility, but it also comes with consequence, often times compromising one’s better judgement, wisdom, and even moral conscious. As tax payers in this Nation of ours, we bear responsibility for allowing our government to conscript our hard earned dollars, for which we supposedly celebrate on this coming Labor Day. Beyond that, we alone bear the responsibility for those we either put in positions of power, or who have even been placed there though often times nefarious means. Those who treasure FREEEDOM and LIBERTY have a responsibility and a duty to expose hidden agendas, woke extremists, tyrannical government entities, and compliant corporations and media. We do this by speaking out, and by writing and publishing contrary information to the false narratives being promulgated.
“BUILD BACK BETTER”. How has that been working out for you . . . . and for our Nation? Leave it to the current occupant of the White House to plagiarize, once again, for which it required a withdrawal from a previous run for that office, a phrase used by someone else. The phrase was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, as a framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, to build better infrastructures following natural disasters. It is openly globalist in nature. Even Bill Clinton used the slogan in 2006 while serving as a UN special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery. More could be said about this phrase, but not for this blog. We only mention it since this phrase has become an unmitigated disaster, as it is being used as a foundational principle to fundamentally change our Nation. We only have time and space to mention a few ways this is being done.
We have a more appropriate phrase . . . . “BILLIONS BUNGLED BADLY”. For a moment, let us just consider what has occurred in Afghanistan over the last 20 years. We do not wish to overlook the thousands of lives lost, including Afghans who were trying to defend their own country from an invasion of terrorists. We will not overlook the tens of thousands wounded, who’s lives have been irrevocably changed, which ripples through time on their families, friends, associations, and businesses. We will not overlook the hundreds, maybe thousands, that our government leaders have admitted leaving behind as they directed our Nation to run away with tail between our legs. That cost can never be calculated in dollars. It can only be viewed in the pages of history yet to be written. There are other consequences to decisions that cannot be measured in dollars. Consider for example the abandonment of the Bagram Air Base. Consider the phrase “Geography can become Destiny.” Look at a map of Afghanistan and the surrounding countries. Afghanistan is landlocked, and the United States has now no access directly to it. Iran borders it on the west, and China on the east, two countries that top the list of countries wanting the destruction of our Nation. Pakistan (possessors of many nuclear weapons) shares the largest border, who continues to harbor and support several terrorists groups. This is the country where our Nation found and killed Osama bin Laden, planner of the 9-11 attack on our Nation which killed nearly 3,000 people and altered the course of our Nation. Our Nation now has no foothold in this festering, turbulent area of our world. We currently have over 25,000 troops in South Korea, 65 years after the Korean War. Our Nation has about 50,000 troops in Japan and surrounding areas, and about 34,000 troops in Germany following World War II. The United States has between 150,000 to 200,000 troops stationed around the world in multiple countries at any one time. It seems illogical to not keep a few troops in Afghanistan, the source of the worst ever attack on U. S. soil, especially considering it’s geographical strategic importance.
Few in our Nation wanted to see a large contingent force of troops remain in Afghanistan, but the ability to maintain a watchful presence seemed appropriate. It was not the pullout of troops that dismayed most in our Nation, it was the method of how that was accomplished, and where the pullout was from. The eventual cost of this pullout, called a “retrograde” (read that as “retreat”), cannot be fully measured now. Who knows how other nations will react over time to our sudden and haphazard pullout. Nations against the U. S. see it as weakness and may take advantage of this, either in economic terms, or potentially in kinetic terms (read that as war). Nations that have been our allies for decades now have to consider our Nation’s dependability, and commitment to promises or agreements made. Do you really believe most of the Afghans who supported us in the last two decades will be so willing to offer assistance to us ever again? Many of them were left behind in our hasty retreat, and most will eventually suffer to the point of death for supporting our Nation. Are you proud of how our government and military leaders have performed in the last several weeks and months? We started this blog by asking a simple question, “WHO IS IN CONTROL?” We ask this question because it is clear that the title of our blog cannot be denied, “BILLIONS BUNGLED BADLY.”
Without considering the human costs, or the costs to our Nation’s credibility and security, let us simply count the cost of the weapons of war our Nation’s leaders left behind in Afghanistan in our hasty retreat. The following is just a partial list because it does not include AMMO, BOMBS, MISSILES, ROCKETS, DRONES, UNIFORMS, MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), BOTTLED WATER & ENERGY DRINKS, PHONES, and even things like widows and door knobs. It has been estimated that over 3.5 million items were left behind. Again, remember, that is your tax dollars at work. The cost of the items we will list do not include the cost to transport and maintain these items, and the infrastructure required to do all of that. Consider also the cost of releasing around 5,000 prisoners, violent offenders. What do you suppose is the recidivism rate of those terrorists? Below is a list provided by the U. S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING OFFICE (GAO):
22,174 Humvies
634 M117
155 MxxPro (Mine Proof Vehicles)
169 M113 (Armored Personnel Carriers)
42,000 Trucks & SUVs
64,363 Machine Guns
8,000 Trucks
162,043 Radios
16,035 Night Vision Goggles/Devices
358,530 Assault Riffles
126,000 Handguns
176 Artillery Pieces
The SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AFGHAN ATTACK AIRCRAFT (Reconstruction SIGAR) added the following items to the list:
33 MI-17 (Helicopters)
33 UH-60 Blackhawks
43 MD 530 (Helicopters)
4 C-130 Transports
23 Embraer EMB 314/A29 Super Tucano
28 Cessna 208
10 Cessna AC-208 Strike Aircraft
What is the cost of all of this equipment? How about anywhere from 83 to 90 BILLION DOLLARS! Imagine the improvements that could have been made within our own Nation had this been applied to our benefit. Not only did we experience “BILLIONS BUNGLED BADLY”, but in the process we have squandered lives, respect, and security, and equipped our enemies with some of the best equipment our Nation has to offer, now in the hands of terrorists, and eventually into the hands of other nations who would take advantage of all of this to our potential demise. If you add to the debacle of the Afghanistan retreat the myriad of other baffling decisions made by the current administration, including the push to add even more to our Nation’s bloated financial deficit, the continuing desire to fund people for not working, the rate of inflation, the cost of illegal aliens and Afghan “refugees” flooding our Nation, and the human cost of suicides, homicides, criminal theft and assaults, you have to admit that the current administration is responsible for “BILLIONS BUNGLED BADLY.”