THE END OF THE TWENTY YEAR WAR

 Well, it's been a mess but it's finally over.  The last American troops have withdrawn from the country of Afghanistan, bringing the longest war in American history to a close.

Given the chaotic pullout, and the tragic death of scores of people (including thirteen members of the American military) in a suicide bombing just a few days ago, many political pundits are wondering if the American public will blame President Joe Biden for what's been going on.  Today he made another direct address to the world asserting that he has done the right thing, despite the difficulties that have arisen.  Interestingly, his approval ratings have taken a hit even as most Americans still support the withdrawal.  But then, that's where I am; I think after twenty years and two trillion dollars, it was time to end the war, but I also think that that ending certainly could have been handled better by the Biden administration.  Obviously he was wrong when he asserted that the American trained Afghani army wouldn't be overrun by the Taliban.  He was also wrong about not evacuating Afghan refugees earlier when he had the opportunity.

So Joe Biden deserves some blame for the violence in Afghanistan.  But then Donald Trump also deserves some blame for negotiating a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that released thousands of Taliban soldiers and mandated no Taliban attacks on American soldiers while saying nothing about preventing ones on the Afghan military, allowing the Taliban to say they were following the agreement while overwhelming the Afghan military.  And Barack Obama also deserves some blame for having a surge of American troops enter Afghanistan back in two thousand and nine, which did nothing to quell the violence.  And of course, George W Bush must take some blame (most of the blame in my opinion) for getting us into the mess of Afghanistan in the first place.  As the New York Times recently reported, the Taliban were ready to negotiate an American withdrawal as early as two thousand and one, but Bush refused them.  So, just like the mess of Viet Nam could be blamed on both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, the mostly disastrous Afghan war that has endured through four presidencies can be blamed on all four presidents.  (And both political parties for that matter!).

Honestly, my cynical nature about the American public makes me think that most Americans will stop even thinking of Afghanistan much now that all the American troops are home.  Although there may be a few stories about the Taliban's mistreatment of women and the refugees arriving in the coming months, I imagine that in about a year or so our longest war will already be forgotten by most of the public, and things like the economy and covid will be given much higher priority.

If there's one good thing that can come out of what has happened in Afghanistan, it this: hopefully, the country will realize that, even though we have the biggest military in the world, invading and occupying hostile foreign countries is not something that can be done lightly.   The last successful American war was way back in nineteen ninety one when America attacked Iraq,  drove their forces out of Kuwait, but decided not to completely force Saddam Hussein out of power.  However you may have felt about that war, it was done quickly with a clear mission, something that our last two messes in Iraq and Afghanistan have never had.

THE MESS IN AFGHANISTAN

   "I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan-two Republican, two Democrats.  I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth."-President Joe Biden

The longest running war in American history has come to a tragic, and sadly fitting end.  Fulfilling a promise that he made on the campaign trail, (and one that was supported by a large majority of the country), President Joe Biden has pulled American troops out of  Afghanistan.  By doing so he held to a withdrawal bargain that the Donald Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban fighters of Afghanistan before he left office.  The  result has been an overwhelming show of force of the Taliban, who have taken over all the country's major cities in a surprisingly short period of time, as the American trained Afghan soldiers fell or fled without American support.  Over the years our country has spent tens of billions of dollars trying to train an independent Afghan army, and yet the Taliban was able to topple them in a matter of days, a powerful example of what a difficult conflict this has been.

The whole situation with Afghanistan has always been a complicated one: I still remember how after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the country was filled with understandable anger and rage.  Surely, striking back at the people who organized the attack made sense, and their headquarters were in Afghanistan.  But once the invasion was made and the Al Queda organization there was smashed, how much obligation did the US have to stay and try to stabilize the country? The goals of the war were met within a few years, with the war becoming more of a violent occupation than an outright war, one with no easy endpoint.

  The first president to deal with Afghanistan, George W Bush, seemed to lose interest in it when he prioritized the invasion of Iraq in two thousand and three.  Barack Obama, on the other hand, ran on ending the war in Iraq, and he did.  But he doubled down on the conflict in Afghanistan, surging in thousands of more American troops in two thousand and nine, along with trying to train and build both a native army and the country's infrastructure.  His intentions were good, but the results were mostly more failure, with much of the money intended for infrastructure building being lost because  the country's centralized government was weak and corrupt.  The continuing difficulties of the war  led Trump to run on a campaign of withdrawal, which Biden has continued.

It should be noted that not all of the effects of the American invasion of Afghanistan have been bad: the New York Times recently noted that in the twenty years of the war, the infant mortality rate has been cut in half, and far more of the Afghani people have access to electricity.  And of course, things have gotten better for the women of the country, with girls being allowed to go to school and adult women being allowed into the workforce on a wide scale for the first time.  So far, the Taliban has pledged that they will not force girls out of schools and women out of their jobs in their new regime, but the history of the Taliban does not bode well for the Afghani women. 

 Although I essentially agree with the withdrawal of American troops, the handling of it has been a chaotic mess, with the Taliban retaking power far faster than the Biden administration expected, leading to a horrifying refugee situation that's led to terrible images of desperate people clinging on to departing helicopters (a grim reminder of a similar situation that happened at the end of the Viet Nam war).  The best thing the country can do is help as many refugees as possible relocate here in the US or in other countries.  The Republican party will scream over an influx of Muslim immigrants, but it's the least we can do for all the people who allied with our country in this decades long war. 

THE BIDEN BUDGET BLUEPRINT AND A CONSERVATIVE CONTRADICTION

Way back in nineteen seventy one, congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Bill, which would have created a public childcare program for all American parents.  Sadly, a program  that would have been a great benefit to poor and working class households was vetoed by President Nixon.  The reason he gave was that he didn't want  a "communal approach to child-rearing."  He also added that it would have "family-weakening implications."

Last February, Utah Senator Mitt Romney proposed a universal monthly payment of three hundred and fifty dollars per child to families with children.  His proposal went nowhere, as members of his own party attacked the idea, calling it  “welfare assistance”.

 Recently Democrats in congress unveiled a three and half trillion dollar spending bill that would, if passed, be the biggest social spending plan since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs of the nineteen sixties.  Along with trying to fight climate change, a significant portion of the bill is reserved for spending on a national childcare program plus a generous paid leave program for new parents.  The bill will have to pass through reconciliation in the Senate, which means that it will probably have to undergo some cuts before all the Democratic Senators will support it.  The support of all the Democrats is necessary because the Republican party will inevitably unanimously vote against it. 

Equally relevant is the fact that recent population studies have found that Americans are having fewer and fewer children in the past few years.  While there are a number of reasons that American fertility rates are down, from better sex education, more birth control choices and more women wanting to focus on their careers, one of the main reasons is that having children in America is expensive.  And it's an expense that Republicans (except for Romney)  have done nothing to relieve in years.  Yes, the party that wraps itself in family values refuses to do anything to help poor and working class families and those families have responded by having less children.

I find it amusing that some conservatives have responded to the country's lowering birth rate with alarm, failing to see that it's the inevitable result of their anti-family policies.  Just take a look at our lack of paid national maternity leave: the US is one of the few countries in the world to not have any national maternity program.  Instead, we allow twelve weeks of unpaid leave for women who work at companies with more than fifty people, and no mandatory leave at all for women who work at companies with less than fifty workers.  Oh sure, women who work at high paying jobs often get paid leave, but women in poor or low paying jobs have little or no choice but to go back to work just a short time after giving birth.  So it's no surprise that so many women are saying no to motherhood or having less children.

Why do conservatives fail to understand this contradiction?  Part of it may be that they're still stuck in the fifties mentality that dictates that the most successful families are ones in which dad goes to work and mom stays home with the kids.  The fact that the country's growing income gap and stagnant wages for the middle class means that many families can't even afford to live this way anymore doesn't seem to enter into their thinking.

A more cynical reason is that conservative politicians oppose these programs because the wealthy corporations that pay for their campaigns don't want them to exist.  And, as long as the Republican party is able to convince middle class white voters to support them while doing nothing to help the middle class, they can just keep right on doing nothing to make child rearing a little less expensive for our families.  They just shouldn't be so surprised when those families respond by having fewer or no children.

ANDREW CUOMO AND REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY

During the pandemic, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo became a media darling as he tried to handle being the governor of a state that was the epicenter of the pandemic.  For a while there the tough talking New Yorker was poised to become the next Rudy Giuliani, and even a presidential run didn't seem out of the question.  What a difference a few months can make.

When the first sexuall assault charges were made against Cuomo, his denials seemed somewhat reasonable.  Perhaps he was just an overly affectionate guy from a different era when it was alright for a boss to be so.  But now that a through investigation has been made, it's clear that the man went beyond mere friendly affection.  Eleven different women detail stories of him making creepy comments and groping them, and there is one clear case that he retaliated against one of the women after she spoke out about it.  Add to that reports that he openly lied about his success battling covid, and it's easy to see why President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have both called for him to resign.

Right now the governor is fighting back, releasing an odd video in which he defended himself by showing pictures of him being publicly affectionate with other people in the past, as if that explains the behavior that many of these women claimed happened in private.  To me, there's no question that he should step down, both for the good of the state and his political party.  But it is possible that he could successfully hang on to office and finish his term.  In other words, he could pull a Donald Trump.

In October of twenty sixteen, which seems like a lifetime ago, the infamous Access Hollywood tape hit the Trump presidential campaign like a ton of bricks.  Along with the tape, twenty five different women claimed that he had sexaully assaulted them in the exact manner that he had bragged about on the tape.  It's so hard to believe now just how finished Trump's political career looked, as numerous Republican party members withdrew their endorsements of him and Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence considered dropping off the ticket.  Trump, like Cuomo, just plowed onward, dismissing the words he spoke on the tape as "locker room talk" and shrugging off all  the sexual assault charges, claiming that he would eventually sue all the women making them (something he still hasn't gotten around to doing). 

It appears that Cuomo, just like Trump, seems to think that blanket denials will work for him.  But the Democratic party is not like the Republican party in that they do not just worship power.  Even if Cuomo does stay in office, his career as a Democratic leader or spokesperson is over; I can't imagine that the party will ever embrace him again.  This stands in sharp contrast to Trump, who's time as a pariah in the Republican party only lasted until election day.  Once he somehow eked out a victory, everything was forgiven, and some of his biggest critics, like Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, became some of his most toadying lackeys.   Things like yet another woman coming forward to say that Trump once raped her in a dressing room were completely ignored, as absolute loyalty to him became the standard for nearly every member of the party.

It seems hard to believe that the same Republican party that once forced Senator Bob Packwood to resign because of sexaul assualt charges back in nineteen ninety five could now continue to support Trump even as he is out of office, but those are the depths that the Republican has sank to ever since they turned a TV celebrity into a demagogic cult leader.   No, the Democratic party isn't perfect, but they certainly hold the higher moral ground when it comes to punishing deplorable behavior from a party leader.