An Islamic army has beaten the U.S. military’s proxy force in Afghanistan. The embassy that flew a rainbow flag in June was overrun in August. The U.S. military is nominally secular, but its focus for the past 10 years has been on all things LGBTQIA+ (See “Obama hails end of U.S. military restrictions on gays,” Reuters 2011, for example, and “With Transgender Military Ban Lifted, Obama Cements Historic LGBT Rights Legacy,” NBC 2016).
Given the enormous asymmetry in equipment and funding and the stunningly rapid victory of the Muslim faithful armed with basic rifles, is it now fair to say that Islam is more powerful than America’s current state religion?
Is Rainbow Flagism truly our military’s official religion? The U.S. Air Force:
Our Navy, in 2017:
Seventeen days later, they proudly rammed a cargo ship with a $1.8 billion destroyer and, two months later, smashed a different destroyer into a tanker.
Our Army:
(Trump had a West Point graduate and then a former Army Ranger in the role of Secretary of the Army; Biden appointed someone who had never served in the U.S. military.)
Recruiting new soldiers under the rainbow flag:
Separately, why was it only LGBTI that was celebrated by the U.S. Embassy Kabul? Why not LGBTQIA+?
Perhaps the above post is too negative. Maybe we should say that we’re proud of having spent 20 years and $4 trillion (counting PTSD disability pensions to veterans and all of the welfare that will need to be paid out to Afghan immigrants and their descendants) to transform a nation. When we started the war, Afghanistan was being governed by the Taliban. Now that two decades of war are over and we have run away, the Taliban are governing Afghanistan.
Related:
- from whitehouse.gov: “The Biden-Harris Administration Champions LGBTQ+ Equality and Marks Pride Month”: “… nabling all qualified Americans – including transgender Americans – to serve their country in uniform, ensuring that LGBTQ+ Americans are leaders at every level of the federal government, …”; also “A Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month, 2021”: “Nearly 14 percent of my 1,500 agency appointees identify as LGBTQ+…”
- from army.mil: “Serving with pride: LGBTQ Soldiers celebrate diversity, speak their truth” (June 2021)
- dodpride.org (for the desk generals and admirals at the Pentagon)
One could write a similar post focusing on other problems besides being too woke… and it would probably be similarly off point.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/14/the-military-knows-it-has-a-problem-with-domestic-extremists-white-supremacists/
The ultimate outcome with the Taliban back in charge was fairly predictable. The question was simply when would we pull out. Could have done it a long time ago or we could have kept the defense related gravy train running indefinitely. The actual pullout exercise could obviously have been done better. Poor execution on that one!
Agreed. I was reading an interview with a soldier who served time there. He said a favorite saying of the Taliban was, “You have the wrist watch, we have the time.”
LinePilot: I have no idea about the reality in the military, but the wokeness in Silicon Valley is definitely affecting performance.
People from India or China who don’t give a whit about wokeness have a definite edge over white males, who are being inundated with ludicrous propaganda in college and earlier.
They are also more isolated from LGBTQIA+ propaganda. (As an aside, is LGBTQIA+ a finite or an infinite set? My European education is showing its weaknesses here.)
In case some righteous person misconstrues what I wrote above: White fake wokeness has gotten so bad that I _prefer_ working with people from India and China. They are funnier and more relaxed.
As the bible says, “pride” comes before the fall.
I dunno. We have an academic industrial complex in this country designed to educate and produce “strategic thinkers” in Institutes, Programs, Think Tanks, Foundations and in the Military, the State Department and elsewhere. And when it comes down to what we’re doing, a bunch of lightly and tangentially educated armchair noodlers and people with about average IQ look at the combined work product and think: “This is the best they could do? This is the Wizard behind the curtain? This is the teamwork and vaunted planning, contingency and execution planning we rely on for our survival as a superpower everyone’s trying to take potshots at? For this amount of money?”
And you think of all the books, papers, monographs, emergency memos and directives, “work products” and feedback loops involved and think that it’s just an almost random bunch of rent-seekers trying to move up the ladder, sell a book, and talk to Serious People at Important Conferences.
Whether you’re LGBTQIA+ or not, “withdrawal” is “withdrawal” and “surrender” is “surrender” and “death” is “death” so what’s going on?
And I belabor the point a little but it shouldn’t go unstated: It’s pretty clear to me that the Taliban will treat any LGBTQIA+ people it finds in Afghanistan who can’t leave and were working for a more westernized, secular, liberal democratic country not just “equally” but quite a hell of a lot worse. So anyone over on our side who is LGBTQIA+ in our Strategic and Tactical Planning and Execution Craftwerks should have presumably known that, because I know next to nothing but I know that.
A small group of Taliban have taken over, raised their flags and forced their will over the people of Afghanistan. Taliban is first, everything else is second.
A small group of LGBTQIA+ have taken over, raised their flags and forced their will over the people of America. LGBTQIA+ is first, everything else is second.
So yes, Taliban/Islam/LGBTQIA+ are far more powerful than we imagine.
Rainbow Flagism or otherwise, how many trillions would it take transform Afghanistan into a “democracy”.
This reminds me of the part near the end of the film “The Ten Commandments” where Pharaoh’s army has been crushed, and he says to Nefretiri “his god _is_ God”.
The US brought the religion of LGBTQIAetc. to Afghanistan, and created an army of “300,000 well-equipped [Afghan troops], as well-equipped as any army in the world, and an air force.” The Taliban came with Sharia law and “something like 75,000” troops.
(These are the force estimates provided by our Commander in Chief Biden a barely a month ago when he said that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan “is not inevitable”: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-military-withdrawal-afghanistan-conclude-aug-31/story?id=78729387 )
Well that massive army of the American Pharaohs was pushed aside and scattered as if by a torrent of water, and the Taliban was able to walk on dry land straight into the promised land of Kabul. So yes, it looks like when it comes to real power in the Middle East, Sharia law trumps western LGBTQIAism. Their culture _is_ the culture.
Biden’s numbers were wrong, Afghan army was far below 300,000. And looking at how well Taliban is equipped now comparing to before American involvement a large part of US Afghan – equipped army was Taliban.
Maybe US needs to focus on common sense while dealing with third parties and on Taliban rage in Kabul right now, immediately, to save remaining thousands of Americans there.
And lying or incompetent US commanders should really take responsibility and resign.
When men turn from God their nation loses at war. Every time.
Vietnam 2.0. We need to listen to Joshua on this one: “the only way to win is not to play.”
Birth rates, per thousand per year: US 12.5, Afghanistan 37.9.
Infant mortality, per thousand live births: US 5.8, Afghanistan 110.6.
The reason for the American defeat is therefore obvious. It is Mouse Utopia as applied to the human condition in peaceful and prosperous* western countries. Rainbow Flagism is but a symptom, not the underlying cause.
* Though perhaps we should get used to saying formerly peaceful and prosperous.
Dear Lord P, you just disproved Mouse Utopia as one of the over-“education” and under-independently thinking /observing real world/problem solving malady afflicting Western Societies “smart” (really idle) population. Afghanistan population density – 60 per square kilometer. US population density – 34 per square mile, more than time and a half less then deflated Afghan numbers.
https://babylonbee.com/news/rumors-that-the-taliban-have-taken-over-are-unfounded-says-jen-psaki-wearing-burqa
satire but … 🙁
How could any sentient local citizen throw his/their future in with the U.S. after seeing our history since 1945?
The number of rules now required to be considered riteous these days make the Taliban look like the tooth fairy & all these rules are justified by universal truths that originate in religion. The so called secular left is really a supremely bastardized version of christianity. You can’t use the word master in your source code or drink with a straw anymore because a ball of fire in the sky deemed it unrighteous.
The word “master” is indeed heresy these days.
I’ve been thinking to start an initiative to rename Massachusetts. It contains the string “massa”, which is worse than “master”. Fervent renaming proponents like GitHub have made it clear that origins of words do not matter: What matters is whether someone feels attacked by a word himself/herself/zirself/themselves or feels attacked on behalf of others.
So the Massachusett origin (which is cultural appropriation anyway) should not matter. Renaming is the only solution!
re. Elon Musk: Actually the Taliban are firmly in favor of masks: but only for women.