military news

Rumor hot spots keep flaring

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As the United States moves into a post-war world now that it has pulled out of Afghanistan, the Biden administration is left to extinguish right-wing-generated rumor-mill hot spots.

Such as the one about us supposedly leaving $83 billion worth of military equipment for the Taliban to use, possibly against Americans or our allies.

The rumor is false.

That won’t stem the fake news coming from the mouths of conservative politicians and media personalities. They keep harping on the equipment left behind. They suggest that the Taliban is now the second-best equipped military force in the world — behind the U.S. of A.

According to The Associated Press:

Their $85 billion figure resembles a number from a July 30 quarterly report from SIGAR, which outlined that the U.S. has invested about $83 billion to build, train and equip Afghan security forces since 2001.

Yet that funding included troop pay, training, operations and infrastructure along with equipment and transportation over two decades, according to SIGAR reports and Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.

“We did spend well over $80 billion in assistance to the Afghan security forces,” Grazier said. “But that’s not all equipment costs.”

In fact, only about $18 billion of that sum went toward equipping Afghan forces between 2002 and 2018, a June 2019 SIGAR report showed.

FACT FOCUS: Trump, others wrong on US gear left with Taliban (msn.com)

Is that the end of it? Hardly. It only goes to underscore the public-relations battle that awaits the Biden team as it tries to keep this withdrawal in its proper perspective.

medical news

Texas abortion law: seriously flawed

Some laws are easy to defend.

The newly enacted law banning virtually all abortions in Texas is equally easy to condemn. I will do so with this brief post.

The law that took effect at midnight is among the most restrictive state laws in the United States. It bans abortions as early as six weeks after conception. It makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

Hmm. Think about that one. Many women — perhaps even most women — don’t even know they are pregnant until well after that time frame. What in the world do they do if (a) they are raped or (b) they are impregnated in an incestuous encounter or (c) their doctor determines that the baby they are carrying has serious health issues?

This issue at one important level does give me fits. I could not advise a woman to get an abortion. However, I do not believe government should impose laws that restrict or virtually eliminate a woman’s right to make that choice for herself. She should consult with her partner, her doctor, her faith leader and her god. These decisions are not in the realm of pompous politicians — so many of them males — who make pious pronouncements about the “sanctity of life.”

I will add, too, that many of these pols get hideously stingy with public money when the need arises for the government to care for children brought into this world.

I will harken back to an adage that President Clinton once said about abortion. He said it should remain legal, but that it should “become rare.” I fear now what women might do if they become desperate to terminate a pregnancy … and how much harm they will do to themselves.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Nervous about this new law

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Texans are going to welcome a lot of new laws at the stroke of midnight.

I want to deal briefly with one of them. It’s a law they call “constitutional carry” of firearms. The new law allows anyone to carry a gun openly without ever having to take a test to prove they are qualified to operate this weapon.

To be clear, it does have some restrictions. A convicted felon cannot carry a gun; nor can anyone dishonorably discharged from the armed forces.

Everyone else? No sweat. Strap on the six-gun and pack it anywhere you wish.

This law makes me nervous. It’s a product of the state’s Republican-heavy Legislature and was signed by our Republican governor, Greg Abbott.

OK, I’ll stipulate that I disliked the state’s concealed carry law when it took effect more than 20 years ago. I feared shootouts at intersections. They didn’t happen with the kind of regularity that I feared.

So, over time I came to accept the concealed carry law even though I never have endorsed it.

I am not sure I’ll be able to accept this “constitutional carry” law. I always have  though that the state’s concealed carry law was sufficient. It worked. Yes, we have too many guns out there. To be honest, the existence of the concealed carry law in Texas has deterred me from getting verbally abusive of drivers who cut me off, or tailgate me, or otherwise drive in a manner that makes me angry.

This idea of allowing anyone to pack heat without having to take a test and get a license, though, does cause me some anxiety.

Good luck, everyone. Be sure to behave yourself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

national news

Political snipers taking pot shots

The political sniper squad is at it hot and heavy.

They are suggesting that President Biden will be a one-termer. That his “performance” in announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Afghan field of battle has sealed his political fate. They suggest the voters have lost “confidence” in his leadership.

Hmm. Allow me this pithy response: Bullsh**!

The president ended an unwinnable war. Our armed forces executed the evacuation of more than 100,000 Americans and Afghan allies.

We fought al-Qaeda for two decades. We killed the monstrous mastermind behind the 9/11 attack — which is why we went to war in the first place. The Taliban had revived itself long before Joe Biden took office. President Biden’s predecessor negotiated a withdrawal with the Taliban; he set a May 1 evac date, but he lost re-election in November.

President Biden was dealt a bad hand when he took office. Dare I mention, too, that his predecessor provided him with zero national security intelligence because, um, he is continuing to insist that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him?

So, for the first time in two decades, we have no Americans on a battlefield anywhere on Earth.

I could swear as well that I heard President Biden declare his intention to hold the Taliban accountable for the pledges they made in ensuring safe passage for any American still in Afghanistan who wants out. I also heard him say our intelligence forces will be on the highest alert possible for any potential terror threat that may surface in Afghanistan … or anywhere else in the world.

Lost confidence? This drama has yet to play out fully.

We have a pandemic that well could be eliminated in the months ahead. And, oh yes, our economy continues to produce jobs at a record-breaking rate.

All that said, I am not going to join the amen chorus that suggests that Joe Biden tenure as president is toast.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Appreciating a POTUS who stays out of the way

The coronavirus pandemic has gripped two presidencies hard, which brings me to this thought.

The first president snagged by the pandemic, No. 45, kept stepping into the spotlight and talked over the advice we were getting from the experts he had brought in ostensibly to “assist” him in fighting the killer virus.

He hired a first-rate team. Then he refused to let them do their job, which was brief the public on what they know and how to advise us on dealing with the peril.

The next president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., aka No. 46, has stayed the hell out of the way. He kept a couple of his predecessor’s key medical advisers. President Biden has brought in some experts of his choosing.

The refreshing and, frankly, encouraging aspect of the current president’s modus operandi is that he is letting the experts talk directly to us. He isn’t stepping on their lines. He is not contradicting them. Biden is not hurling epithets, such as “idiot” and “loser” at them.

Yes, we are experiencing a surge in infection. A variant has emerged that has dodged its way out of medicine’s best strategies to deal with it. Children have become a major concern.

However, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, is letting the experts do what they do better than anyone else, which is convey information we need and provide counsel to the nation in need of some level of expertise.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Recalling an expert on Afghanistan

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Charles Nesbitt Wilson’s name isn’t likely to pique many people’s interest.

If you say “Good Time Charlie,” or just plain ol’ “Charlie Wilson,” then we’re talking. I am thinking of Charlie Wilson today as the nation watches its longest war end in Afghanistan.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson was a Texas Democrat and a bona fide expert on Afghanistan, its politics, its people and its struggles against foreign powers. He died in February 2010 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

I knew Wilson because of my work from 1984 until 1995 as editorial page editor of the Beaumont Enterprise. Wilson represented the Second Congressional District, which at the time included vast stretches of Deep East Texas territory where the newspaper circulated. Thus, he was one of our sources for issues relating to Congress. He and I knew each other well. I respected him greatly; I hope he thought well of the work I did on behalf of our readers.

Before he died, and before he retired from Congress in 1996, Wilson spent much of his career in public life seeking federal assistance to fighters seeking to rid themselves of Soviet domination of Afghanistan.

Wilson rode donkeys through the Khyber Pass with fighters who — regrettably — became the precursors to al-Qaeda. They were called the mujahadeen. They wrote a book and later produced a film called “Charlie Wilson’s War”; indeed, Wilson told me he was thrilled to be portrayed by Tom Hanks in the title role.

In the days after 9/11, I called Wilson at his East Texas home to get his reaction to what happened to us on that terrible day. We spoke for a long time over the phone and Wilson warned me at the time that we were in for the fight of our lives if we chose to go to war in Afghanistan. He knew of which he spoke. He sought congressional aid for the fighters doing battle against Soviet soldiers who invaded their country to prop up the Marxist government.

What might he say about the end of our war in Afghanistan? I am guessing he wouldn’t be shy about saying something like: I told you so. I told you it would be a hard fight. I told you that the Taliban wouldn’t just surrender and disappear from face of the planet.

Charlie Wilson wasn’t particularly bashful about imparting the knowledge he accrued over his years in Congress. I bear him no ill will. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, Rep. Wilson earned the right to rub our noses in it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

It’s over … finally!

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Say whatever you wish about the end of the Afghan War.

That we can declare an end to our fighting there is in itself a moment worth saluting. Our longest war came to an end this morning when the last C-17 transport jet took off from Kabul airport, cleared Afghan air space and we declared an end to our evacuation of all U.S. citizens and allies who wanted out.

I have said since we went to war in Afghanistan 20 years ago that there could be no way for us to “declare victory” in the way we were able to do, say, at the end of World War II. Our military brass accepted the terms of surrender of enemy forces in 1945; the fighting stopped and we danced in the streets from coast to coast.

There would be no such celebration after the Korean War, certainly not after the Vietnam War, nor after this war.

Indeed, our war against terrorism is likely to persist, but without the hackneyed “boots on the ground” fighting a cunning enemy.

I will stand with President Biden’s decision to end this war. He knew what his three presidential predecessors — George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama and Donald J. Trump — couldn’t understand. It was time to end a war that had gone badly not long after it started in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

President Bush went to war after 9/11 intending to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban government. He succeeded. He vowed to get the men responsible for the attack on New York and Washington. That task fell eventually to Obama’s national security team that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011. Trump’s team got the leader of the Islamic State.

One thing remained constant. The Afghan War kept on going.

Joe Biden took over in January. He assessed the return on the investment we were getting in Afghanistan and determined it was time to end it. Now! So … he did.

Those who write the history of this big day will need time to evaluate all the nuance attached to it. I am going venture out on that limb and presume that history will look more kindly than President Biden’s critics are viewing this landmark day in real time.

It’s over. Thank God in heaven!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Biden deserves credit, not blame

“America’s longest war has been by any measure a costly failure, and the errors in managing the conflict deserve scrutiny in the years to come. But Joe Biden doesn’t “own” the mayhem on the ground right now. What we’re seeing is the culmination of 20 years of bad decisions by U.S. political and military leaders. If anything, Americans should feel proud of what the U.S. government and military have accomplished in these past two weeks. President Biden deserves credit, not blame.”

So says, David Rothkopf, a former senior government official and a writer in an essay published in Atlantic.

Biden Deserves Credit, Not Blame, for Afghanistan – The Atlantic

I happen to agree with him. That’s no surprise, right?

What I want to underscore, though, is that despite the mistakes and the seemingly stumble-bum effort that began the evacuation, the administration, the Pentagon, the CIA have been flying evacuees out of Afghanistan by the thousands. They are holding them in safe places and are processing the evacuees.

None of this will stop the critics from yapping and yammering about the president and his national security team. Has it gone flawlessly? No. Then again, must we expect flawless execution of a withdrawal from a war that was flawed almost from its outset?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

City hall project put on ice

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Every now and then you see evidence of local government listening to and acting on what it hears from the constituency it serves.

So it happened up yonder in Amarillo, where the city council has postponed any action on relocating its City Hall.

According to a statement published on Amarillo Matters’ site:

After listening to feedback from Amarillo residents, the City Council voted 4 to 1 to withdraw their intent to issue $35 million in certificates of obligation for a City Hall project. In the meeting, Mayor Ginger Nelson said, “There were enough citizens who reached out to say I still have questions.” Nelson added that, “We can take time; I do think it is diligent for us to take more time and spend time answering those questions…I think it’s important for us to listen to what the citizens are telling us and figure out what the best approach is.” In a flip-flop from his earlier vote, Councilmember Cole Stanley was the lone vote to continue the issuance of certificates of obligation and the project.

How about that?

The council had floated a notion of relocating its City Hall. The idea, as I understand it, took more than one form. There was talk about adding it to a bond issue proposal that included renovating the Civic Center. Then the council thought it would issue the COs, which do not require a citywide vote.

Now it has backed off altogether. I guess the current City Hall will have to serve the residents for the time being while the council wrestles with what to do, where to go … and how to pay for it.

That’s a satisfactory, if only temporary, outcome.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Vaccine deniers are falling

Marc Bernier, 65, died over the weekend of COVID-19 complications.

Who was this fellow? He was a conservative Daytona, Fla., radio talker who, um, denied vehemently the effectiveness of the vaccines that are saving millions of Americans’ lives from the killer virus. He refused to be vaccinated.

He is reportedly the third such conservative blowhard to die from the disease.

3rd conservative radio host who condemned vaccines dies of CovidPOLITICOSearchSearchClose

I won’t pile on. I wish his family well as they grapple with the grief of losing a loved one.

There is a profound life lesson to be learned from this fellow’s death. It is that vaccines that have been certified as safe and effective by federal public health officials are worth taking. They will save your life. They also will protect your loved ones and others close to you from exposure to deadly disease.

I have to ask: Do you think Marc Bernier would be alive today had he exercised common sense and stayed away from the right-wing “fake news” propaganda?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience