As the US pulls out of Afghanistan, the question arises as to how well the Afghan military will respond when the burden of confronting the Taliban falls on their shoulders alone. The short answer is–not well at all.
I was so young back when the Vietnam War was on and when it collapsed. Fifty years ago. And the whole thing has been repeated as exactly as any kitchen recipe. I’d say this should tell you that the same cooks are in charge. But they sure didn’t learn anything. The cake still collapsed just exactly like it did before. Only now, since the war was twice as long and far more globally expanded, the disaster will be so colossal the survival of the USA as a unified nation will be put into the most serious jeopardy it has faced since 1860.
Why did the US pull out of Vietnam in 1973? Because of Jane Fonda? Oh come OFF it, you Hollywood idiots! The US ground forces in Vietnam were in a state of mutiny; Army “Grunts" were killing their officers, refusing combat and making ground ops impossible. (Check out the 1971 article by US General Heinl in the Armed Forces Journal, “The Collapse of the Armed Forces”)
What happened after 1973 when the US pulled out of Vietnam? The immediate collapse of the South Vietnamese Army. The frantic scene on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon when staff and their Vietnamese friends clambered desperately aboard helicopters ferrying them to safety, and one poor soul tried to hang on to the landing skid of the last helicopter to leave, are still iconic. And what did they illustrate? That the Vietnam War had ruined the US military, disgraced the USA in the eyes of the world, destroyed the US image as the world’s peacekeepers for democracy and wounded the US economy so badly it never quite recovered. What characterized the Vietnam War? The rise of the CIA and its heroin import business, the inability of the US armed forces to prevail and the consequent disaffection of the US service membership as well as its corruption by drugs. What was the keynote of the 1970s, besides bad fashion and disco music and drug addled degeneracy? Stagflation.
What characterized the US long slog in Afghanistan? Military impotence and the growing disaffection of the US Army and Marine Corps used for targets on useless patrols, four star shills’ lies to the US Congress about non-existent progress, and the corruption of the US global military from drug trading and degeneracy including child sex trafficking.
What is the US facing now after 20 years of the War on Terror (or perhaps call it the Nam War gone global)? Bad hair fashions, social unrest and polarization and leftist fanatic violent insurrection (welcome back to the 1960s! These Antifa/BLM people even look to the Black Panthers and Weather Underground for inspiration!) aided by politicians who deliberately dismantle law enforcement in every Democrat controlled major city, Hip-Hop, drug addled degeneracy and child sex trafficking infesting elites from Hollywood to Chicago to Washington DC. And, most deadly of all, Stagflation.