Blame Brigade |
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So
now Afghanistan has reverted back to the stone
age, Kabul is lost, and the nation again becomes
a
backwater of venomous internecine killing
fields. The trillion dollar trained national army
turned and ran for the
hills, leaving behind priceless military
equipment, the moment the ragged savages
appeared. At which point the highly trained and equipped
national armed forces seemingly pissed in their pants and
ran screaming in terror. According to an
Afghan General, the problem was due to
government corruption, a failure to deliver
food, ammunition, pay, air cover and
coordination. The troops lost faith in
their leadership, felt abandoned, and abandoned
their posts. Bloody Fucking
Hell! And unbelievably we sent in the
helicopters, again, to evacuate the Embassy
while terrified personnel frantically shredded
piles and piles of paper and wacked hard drives
with hammers. Primitive, very sadly
primitive! I can just hear Betty Davis
cynically saying, "WHAT a fuckup!"
OH the finger pointing is in
high gear with shrill Republicans screeching
their heads off trying to blame Democrats for
pissing in their morning coffee. (Now
there's an idea). But seriously, if your
country was about to be taken over by the
boogeymen, wouldn't you stand and fight fiercely
like an Israeli? Or would you abandon your
brand new Humvee, rip off your uniform, and run
half naked to the Iranian border? WHAT
kind of pusillanimous poltroons were our
hero warriors risking their lives training?
And the historically repetitive
scene unfolded yet again, just as it had in
Shanghai in December of 1941, as millions ran
through the streets in terror, flooding the port
desperately looking for a way out. And
Saigon in 75, and Rwanda, and Phnom Penh,
Warsaw, an endless list. And now Kabul
airport where hordes of totally crazed people
clung to the outside of an Air Force cargo plane
as it took off, falling to their deaths from the
sky, or getting crushed in the wheel wells.
And rushing a commercial jet, ticketless,
climbing over each other until it was so
overloaded it couldn't take off and they refused
to debark. Seriously! What the Hell?
The insurgent forces were so freaked out by the panic
that they actually tried to be nice!
Of course, this does not happen
everywhere. I saw the Philippine
Revolution that ousted Marcos on TV. There
was no panic, no guns, no thunder of helicopters
and no explosive thuds of mortars.
Instead, a million peaceful people surrounded a
huge military base, set up a gigantic sound
system and blasted Neal Sedaca songs into the
base. Entire brigades of sentimental
soldiers burst into tears, threw down their
weapons and emerged from the base to embrace and
hug the protestors. Seeing that, the
Marcos family fled to the airport with suitcases
stuffed with money; and that was that.
Sure, it was nuts and made no sense; but it was
a helova lot better that a highly trained army
tearing off their uniforms and running half
naked in terror to the Iranian border. The
new petit Philippine President, Corazon Aquino, spent her first night on the balcony of the Presidential Palace throwing
thousands of elegant shoes into the darkness,
shouting in disgust, "size 9, size 9, size
9...."
Meanwhile, the treasonous
Republicans, foaming at the mouth with glee,
could not have celebrated the Afghan debacle with
greater joy than if they had planned the whole
thing in cahoots with the enemy. Moscow
Mitch nearly broke his fat neck rushing in front
of the TV cameras to harrumph in apoplectic
ecstasy.
MORE
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Tough Fight,
Tough Decision
By LTC Steve
Loomis
Emotions welled
up in me as I watched thousands of Afghanis
crowd the gates of Kabul International airport
desperate to get out ahead of the Taliban
takeover. Fathers clutching their daughters,
sons, and wives to get them on an evacuation
plane to freedom. Some even handed their babies
to strangers to get them out of the country.
Then I watched that fully loaded C-17 Globemaster taxying with hundreds more Afghanis
trying desperately to hang on to the landing
gear. I could not have been the pilot that had
to make that decision to take off. Next came the
suicide bombing at an airport gate killing 13
young American service members and hundreds of
Afghanis.
I remember
another terrible moment during Operation Babylift at the end of the war in Vietnam. As
South Vietnam collapsed, a C-5A Galaxy took off
from Tan Son Nhut airport in 1975 with 314
onboard including orphaned Vietnamese babies
destined for adoption in the U.S. and allies. It
crashed and 138 died, including 78 children. I
remember
the
remote 1965 jungle battle of the Ia Drang
Valley, where we nearly lost an airmobile
battalion. That battle foretold of a long,
drawn-out fight with the North Vietnamese Army.
For me, the hardest most demanding time during
the Vietnam War, was after I returned stateside
to train more young infantrymen to go to Vietnam
as the war wound down. We gave them our best
realistic training and wondered, would they come
back having done their duty, or in body bags, or
as unsung heroes?
In Afghanistan,
during the battle of Kamdesh in a mountainous
valley, the Combat Outpost Keating was nearly
overrun before finally being ordered abandoned
by the commanders. That battle foretold the
danger of fighting in this distant land-locked
country with its reputation as the “graveyard of
empires.”
Afghanistan
became a deja vu of Vietnam.
Sure, we could
have continued for another 10 or 20 years, spent
another trillion dollars, lost another 4000
American military and civilian men and women
trying to establish a democracy and/or trying to
deny Afghanistan as a terrorist base. Still, we
would have lost the fight for Afghanistan and
the fight for the hearts and minds of Americans.
It was time to bring our American heroes home!
It was time to evacuate our Afghan hero allies
and their families<.
Should we have
gotten out – yes! Should we have done a better
job planning our exit – yes! Now that we are
out, we must remember the experiences of Vietnam
and Afghanistan, learn from those experiences,
thank our selfless heroes, living and dead who
are veterans of this 20-year war, and their
families who served at home while they served
abroad.
Lieutenant Colonel
Loomis is retired in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He
is a graduate of the University of New Mexico
with a Bachelor’s in University Studies in
Journalism. During his Army career, he served in
the Infantry, Engineers and as Inspector General
and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, two
Bronze Stars, Purple Heart, four Meritorious
Service Medals, the Air Medal and numerous other
medals.
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