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Michael Ramirez Cartoon: Left Behind…Again
Michael says, “The Biden administration closed the embassy and evacuated U.S. diplomatic personnel, leaving 16,000 Americans still trapped in Sudan.” Now, a second American is dead. What’s next?
183 was the total number of people killed in the terrorist bombing at Kabul Airport during the U.S. withdrawal of Afghanistan. It is not surprising that you completely discount or do not remember the 170 innocent Afghans who died in that attack, since you have made it abundantly clear that you don’t care about Afghan people.
I don’t think it’s a wacko idea to ascribe changes in sex and family roles in modern times to war, especially starting in the 20th century, but maybe even going back to the U.S. Civil War. I’m pretty sure academic historians have written about it, though some of them would look on those changes with greater approval than most of us on Ricochet would. However, there is a question of whether war was the cause or just the trigger that accelerated changes that had been building up in society due to changes in technology and economic relations.
13 Americans. 183 people total.
You’re a cold-hearted redacted, you know that?
I see your points but since we have been at war for a relatively tiny fraction of our history, and that it hardly affects everyday life in the U.S. the way war affects life in actual war-torn countries, I would ascribe our social trends on other more prevalent factors.
I’ll try to answer these in reverse order.
We haven’t had a really satisfying victory in a war since WWII. We did accomplish our primary objectives in Korea and in the first Gulf War. Even these were rather disappointing, but the military side was a success, and the objectives were limited to: (1) keeping South Korea out of Communist hands, and (2) getting the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
On the religion of We Won The War, I strongly recommend Peter Hitchens’ book, The Phoney Victory. Hitchens is British, and describes the British version of it, but I recognize an American version, too. The essence of this religion is that we saved the entire world from Fascist conquest and a thousand years of darkness. It’s principally directed against the Germans and the Japanese. It comes complete with a Messiah, Churchill.
The British version is more sad, as it covers over the decline of Britain from a major world empire to a minor vassal state of the US, for the sake of . . . what, exactly? Well, it turns out that the big winner was Stalin and his Soviet Union. The US, having eliminated the two Great Powers containing the Soviets on the east and the west, was stuck with a 40-odd year Cold War.
This religion depends on extreme demonization of the Germans and Japanese, and absurd ideas that they somehow presented a global threat, and specifically a threat to the US, which they never did. Absent Anglo-French intervention after the German attack on Poland — led by the British — it seems unlikely to me that the European war would have spread much. If it had, it would have been a German attack on the Soviets, which would have greatly weakened both, to our benefit.
The Japanese were bogged down in China, and would probably have been bogged down in China for decades. We could have profited from this through trade with both sides. Instead, we provoked the Japanese into a desperate attack on us, and then lost about 400,000 men, and vast wealth, to make the Soviet Union the world’s biggest empire.
Thanks, Drew. I’m not concerned about Afghans killing Afghans. It’s sad, but it has nothing much to do with me. I’m concerned about the American forces, and withdrawing several thousand troops from a civil war situation, with only 13 deaths, is quite successful in my view. Every death is an individual tragedy, of course, but it was war.
Yeah, maybe. I mostly object to the reaction that many have, including the OP and you, I think, getting outraged over supposed failure for not extricating people from a dangerous situation in which they placed themselves. I find such people reckless, and even foolish, though I generally agree that they get to make their own decisions. But when they make such a reckless decision as to go to Afghanistan or Sudan, and get in trouble, I’m not going to blame others.
I take a similar view as when the fire department does not rescue someone who drove into a flash flood. It’s sad, but I’m not going to blame the firefighters. I blame the guy who drove himself into a flooded wash.
From a political and geopolitical point of view, you are correct, I don’t care about the Afghan people. I wish them well, though I don’t think that they’re going to do well unless and until they adopt the true faith, which seems unlikely.
Afghanistan is the concern of the Afghans. I don’t want us getting involved in other countries’ civil wars.
You, on the other hand, apparently want to see US military men dying, year after year, in one benighted foreign land after another. My oldest son is actually one of those guys, a sergeant in the Marine Reserves.
Now it’s Sudan, the issue at hand, and apparently you — and Ramirez, and many others — want to do . . . what, exactly? Send in our troops again?
Dear Lord. I do get annoyed at it. You people never learn. Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. All miserable failures. But you get emotionally worked up, and want to do it again.
We have enough problems in our own country.
Hitchens can find a cloud in every silver lining. Reading his brother’s stuff was a pleasure, even when he was jabbering atheist lefty nonsense. Reading Peter is a chore.
Interesting.
I almost never liked Christopher Hitchens, even when I was an atheist myself. I did like him a bit, briefly, when he criticized Islam, but that was back in my embarrassing neocon days.
I greatly enjoy “reading” Peter Hitchens, though I put “reading” in quotes because I’ve generally listened to his books in an audio version.
It’s possible that I just like him because I agree with him about many things, and you dislike him because you don’t.
You make for some adventurous reading. After all your criticism for Americans choosing to fight the Germans and Japanese in World War II, and the Russians in the Cold War, what was the better alternative for the U.S.? Simply allow Germany to take over all of Europe and whatever they could grab in Africa? The complete elimination of the Jewish race? Let the Japanese continue their Genocide against China and the rest of Asia? Permit Russia to gobble up all of Europe? How would you have responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor? An apology to Japan for not providing them with U.S. oil to continue their Genocide?
I’m sure I’ve heard that before . . .
I agree with him about a lot of things. He lacks a charity of spirit. So do I. I don’t like that about myself, either.