Robin..

 

Robin Ware is a Church Consultant that works with churches and pastors1. She has a degree in restaurant, hotel and institutional management from Purdue University2. She also has experience in the travel industry and worked with Marriott for almost 10 years.

QuickSand..

 

Win/Lose..

 

Once again, we are seeing. Americans being airlifted to safety amidst chaos and defeat, abandoning many of those who helped us. 

There will be much political posturing about who is to blame. 

The question no one is discussing is why for decades successive administrations of both parties continue to involve us in wars that not only we don’t win, but that for years we keep on fighting even when we know we can’t win and our objectives in those wars are confusing and malleable. 

If you look back over the history of our war in Afghanistan, it was clear as early as 2002 that we didn’t fully understand what we were doing there anymore or how to go about doing it.

 Yet we remained for nearly 20 more bloody years. 

Do we know what are we fighting for? Just a thought.

Real..

 

Fled..

 

The Intelligence Community's assessment in early 2021 was that Taliban advances would accelerate across large portions of Afghanistan after a complete U.S. military withdrawal and potentially lead to the Taliban's capturing Kabul within a year or two.

 In a speech to the nation, Biden says, “I do not regret my decision to end America’s warfighting in Afghanistan,” and deflected blame for the government’s swift collapse.

“The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country.  The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight,” the president said. 

Top generals told lawmakers under oath that they advised President Joe Biden early this year to keep several thousand troops in Afghanistan — directly contradicting the president’s comments in August that no one warned him not to withdraw troops from the country.

Funding..

 

Rha, Rha..

 

We get into these wars on the recommendations of presidents who are influenced by their staffs, most of whom are selected by the president and share the president’s viewpoint. 

Before the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, Green Berets were advising the South Vietnamese armed forces, our Air Force was bombing North Vietnamese supply routes in Laos, and our Navy was supporting South Vietnamese raids against the North Vietnamese coastline. 

Before the October 2002 authorization of the use of force (AUF) in Iraq, we were operating a “no fly zone,” and had military bases in several neighboring countries, a clear signal we were prepared to use military force if Saddam Hussein didn’t behave. 

One month before that resolution, President Bush was openly talking about “the war on terror.” What debates there were over these AUFs were largely full of jingoism and rah-rah warrior language, the last thing we want when committing our young to their war. 

Cause..

 

For years, the political scientist has claimed that Putin’s aggression toward Ukraine is caused by Western intervention. Have recent events changed his mind?

The political scientist John Mearsheimer has been one of the most famous critics of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Perhaps best known for the book he wrote with Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” 

Mearsheimer is a proponent of great-power politics—a school of realist international relations that assumes that, in a self-interested attempt to preserve national security, states will preemptively act in anticipation of adversaries. For years, Mearsheimer has argued that the U.S., in pushing to expand nato eastward and establishing friendly relations with Ukraine, has increased the likelihood of war between nuclear-armed powers and laid the groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive position toward Ukraine. 

Indeed, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.”

Make no mistake about it, some like it Burning?

Feel..

 

Useless..