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Mark Schweickart

Joe --  Congrats on putting out a new edition of your book, and for putting in the energy to market it through your website, Good luck with that.

Sheila McCarthy (Gardner)

Joe: The new website is spectacular. Congratulations!

Michael McLeod

Joe! Dude! 

James Hamilton, M. D.

Afghanistan 

 We all know it is a mess. We all know it is a crisis. 

What I would like to hear is what those of you, who would like to comment, think the current administration should do at this point in time. The Taliban has given the USA an ultimatum (unbelievable!) that we have until 31 Aug to retrieve our American citizens and those who assisted us in the last two decades. That is, essentially, a threat.

I don't want to hear a lot of blame, hatred and missed opportunities. Joe Biden is in charge now. What should he do and what do you think he will do? Do you have confidence that he will accomplish his goal of getting all of these people out of Afghanistan safely? How should he respond to this "deadline"? Are he and the people he has in critical positions up to the challenge? Should they believe or trust the Taliban?

Folks, this is America. The world awaits our correct response. Your thoughts from our generation which has seen wars, hostage situations and threats in our lifetime?

Brevity will be appreciated and more likely to be read 😁!

Jim

Michael McLeod

Jim:

It's too late to do anything other than get the hell out and learn something from how wrong it's gone.

I hope somehow we can offer compassionate aid and immunity to individuals but what shape that can take I do not know. 

Joseph Gentilini

Thanks to Mark, Sheila, and Mike  on their comments about the 2nd edition of my book and the new website.

David Mitchell

Jim,

It might seem futile to do anything more in Afghanistan at this point without risking further harm to Aghan civilians, but I am a stubborn sort and would still make some attemtps. I would consider several moves that would probably constitute "breaking our word", but iI could not care laess about "committing" such a "horrible act" at this time.

Here is a short wish list (yes, crazy and impossible) that I would consider.

First: I would reverse the decision to limit this to August 31st - as our friends the Brits have begged us to do for our allies sake. That is one of the last possible alternatives to this nighmare ending. 

Further, I would consider re-inserting troops at the recently abandoned Bagram Airfield, with the hope of launching more extractions from that airport. I do not know if there are any other airfileds in the country that could be reached at this time.

I would go so far as to bribe Taliban officials for the safe passage of some of the final Americans and other key personel among our Afghan "counterparts" who served so vaiiantly by our sides. 

Once there is no hope of further extractions, I would bomb the crap out of major Taliban stronholds that are not in large population areas like Kabul and other major ciities. Crazy? Yes, but we could still make them pay a price.

And finaly, we need to be doing whatever we can to re-supply the so called "Northern Alliance" - that group of Afghans up in the Panjshir Valley who are anti-Taliban and who were never conquered by them. Ther are several districts in the North comprising this group and their resistance against the Taliban has already begun - led by former Afghan Vice Pres. Amrullah Saleh, and Ahmad Massoud - son of one of the legendary "Lion of Panjshir", who faught against the Russian invasion to defend Pandshir. I have no idea how long they can hold out, but we could sure offer them some usefull weapons.  At least Tajikistan supports them.

If my ideas sound futile and useless, so be it. I am bitter and enraged at this turn of events! I just spoke last night with one of two good buddies in my Marked Men For Christ group who are both Army Afghan helicopter pilot veterans. The one I spoke with is a retired Colonel who commanded a squadron of Black Hawk helicopters in Afghanistan for 3 tours. He got one of his young translators out a few years ago and the guy is now a Seargent in the U.S. Army. Together they are trying to get the guy's family out of Afghanistan, and are on the phones all day long, working whatever contacts they can. 

This difficulty with Visas for our allies is directly the fault of Donald Trump and the likes of Stephen Miller, his racist toilet-scum advisor who has slowed the visa process down to a crawl so we we would not have all these "brown skinned" people coming to our country.

You can find video after video documentting this guy and his efforts to sabatoge the visa process - especially one young lady (who worked under Mike Pence) who has come out about this horrible scandal. Even the white supremicist Fox commentator, Laura Ingraham gave him sympathertic interviews on her show - how utterly discraceful! 

How's that for no anger or blame Jim?  

We have a scum-bag coward of a former pres. who set this all up, and now an idiot sitting pres. who was dumb enough to let it happen. Sad days for our country.

This will work against us for generations. This will be the signal for China and Russia to ignore any warnings from us in the future. I hope Taiwan and the Ukraine are ready for what comes.

--------

p.s. And my Army friend reminded me of this thought;

We havent' pulled our troops out of Germany. We haven't pulled out trroops out of Japan or Okinawa. We still keep naval bases in Italy and elsewhere, and we rotate troops in and out of Poland, etc. etc. Why do this now? 

Frustrated! 

Mary Ann Nolan (Thomas)

Joe G. I just downloaded your new book on my iCloud kindle reader. I look forward to reading it.

Michael McLeod

Dave: hoo-ah!

Nicely done.

And Pompeo's hypocricy in all this is astonishing.

David Mitchell

Mike,

Don't even get me started on "bobble head" Pompeo!

Photo from Doha meetings where we sold the loyal allies down the river - without even allowing them any voice in their own surrender - unbeleiveable!  More and more of Chump's staff are calling this a sellout. 

And just listening to more of Laura and Tucker's racist anti-immigrant rants about not wanting these refugees in our country ("probaly in your neighborhodd" - Tucker)  makes me sick at my stomach. We need to send those two to Kabul to do their show from there. Wonder what they'd say about the "deadline" then - Ha! 

Why don't we launch Crimes Against Humanity charges against Chump, Pompeo and some of that bunch of criminal traitors?

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

200 female Afghan judges who placed men in prison whom the Taliban liberated as soon as they marched into Kabul, are unable to obtain papers from the State Department and so were turned away at the gates of the airport yesterday. Does anyone wonder what fate awaits them if they are left behind?  How many Afghan Christians is the Biden Administration preparing to rescue and bring to the U.S.?  Same number as the Obama Administration rescued during the Arab Spring?  None.

 https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/08/18/the-general-who-recommended-abandoning-bagram-air-base-has-already-left-afghanistan-hm-n1470790

https://www.christianitydaily.com/articles/13027/20210825/over-28m-raised-and-thousands-of-christians-evacuated-glenn-beck-shares-astonishing-update-on-afghanistan-rescue-mission.htm

Mark Schweickart

I posted, back when it happened, that two of my brothers passed on recently, Tom in April 2020, and Bob in Frebruary this year (both from cancer, not Covid). Due to the lock-down our family was not able to gather for a funeral service, so we planned to get together for a family reunion/remembrance as soon as things lifted. We were going to meet at my brother David's place in Minnesota next month, but due to the current spike in the  Delta variant, not many were anxiuos to get on a plane just yet, so it has been posponed again. Nevertheless, prior to this cancellation, I had begun working on some sort of a eulogy to deliver, and you know me, it started coming out as a song. I thought I would share this with you since a few of you knew a lot of my family members, and even if you did not, I think the old pictures from days gone by might remind you of your own families.

(And as a point of explanation, both Tom and Bob moved out here to California years ago, Tom to L.A. and Bob to San Francisco.)

Joseph Gentilini

Mark, the tribute to your brothers who have passed was very touching.  May we all be able to say at our end that 'we had a good run.'!  Joe

Joseph Gentilini

to 9863 -

Mary Ann, thanks.  If you have any reaction, let me know.  My email is: joe0848@outlook.com

David Mitchell

Mark,

How difficult to have suffered this double loss in such a short time.

Hope you can be with us a lot longer. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Mark, you have truly honored your brothers with this beautiful tribute.  Hopefully, your family will be able to gather soon to add their memories to your own. Thank you for sharing.

Michael McLeod

Thanks for sharing that with us Mark. I'm really sorry about your losing them.

John Jackson

This article is, I think, a thoughtful and nuanced view of the situation in Afghanistan.  While hardly letting Biden off the hook for many aspects of what happened (“Biden’s exit certainly has not gone well”), it makes the point that anything we could have done over the past few months to process visas and get U.S citizens and at-risk Afghans out earlier would have been inherently self defeating by showing that we were throwing in the towel -  thereby emboldening the Taliban and convincing the Afghan government and their military that the jig was up and they were doomed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/briefing/afghanistan-policy-biden.html

This may not be a popular view, but I'm wondering if the biggest mistake wasn’t just deciding to leave.  The U.S. currently has nearly 200,000 troops deployed overseas including 54,000 in Japan, 24,000 in Korea, 35,000 in Germany, and 12,000 in Italy and these troops have been there for 70+ years.  What's another 4000-5000 in Afghanistan given its volatility and the potential to revert to a haven for Al Qaeda and ISIS?  One pundit compared staying to life insurance - our involvement was an inexpensive term insurance policy that kept Afghanistan from going down the tubes.  We weren't going to win - it would always be a stalemate - but we would prevent the worst from happening.  And there had been no U.S. casualties for the past 18 months as we were in advisory and air support roles while the Afghan military did the fighting.

However, it bears repeating that Trump’s pullout timetable was even more aggressive (four months earlier) and his team gave little if any thought about getting our Afghan allies out thanks to Trump's general incompetence/lack of caring and Steven Miller’s opposition to any type of immigration.

And let’s also not forget Trump wasn’t concerned about the inevitable slaughter of our Kurdish allies who were fighting ISIS in Syria by pulling out the small force we had there in 2018.  Trump’s logic (I use the word loosely) was so appalling to Defense Secretary Mattis (one of the few genuinely competent people Trump chose for his cabinet) that he resigned in protest.

The U.S. created the postwar world and all its institutions and this gave us power and credibility that no other nation has come close to matching.  We had not only military power but also enormous soft power (which is often more useful).   There were definitely costs to our leadership but the advantages we gained made our investment in the rest of the world worth it.

But now we are retreating from alliances and institutions that have held together since 1945 – and no one retreated faster than Trump.  “America First” may save us a few bucks but in the long run the intangible costs will dwarf anything we save.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Mark,

 Moving song with powerful verse. Condolences on your loss.

Jim

Donna Kelley (Velazquez)

Mark, what a wonderful tribute to your brothers. I am sure there is a lot of singing-along up above.

Joe, I have just purchased your book and really look forward to reading it.  I will be in touch when I finish it.

David Mitchell

John,

Well said.

I beleive we will regret this action for a long, long time.

(to hell with a deadline - the Brits are sending armed teams into the city to safey escort some of their citizens to the airport - why aren't we?)

----------------------

Meanwhile, I assume the people of Missisppi are praying that we don't pass any laws against stupidity. Otherwise, Ivermectin sales might plummet.

John Maxwell

Mark Schweickart

Hey everyone -- thanks for the kind words about my eulogy song. It is much appreciated. 

Michael McLeod

There are certain writers who inspire me, and when I say inspire I mean that when I read what they write it's the equivalent of snorting cocaine. Actually I have never snorted cocaine. I am just looking around for a cheap metaphor to convey the fact that sometimes just reading words on a page that are put together extremely well provides a jolt to my synapses that is damn near physical. Actually, of course, it is physical; it changes the patterns in the way I think and if I happen to be working on a story of my own I can use that burst of cerebral chemistry for momentum.

Anyway, Garrison Keillor is often, of, late, my drug of choice in that regard. Plus he's 80, which makes it all the more inspirational.

Here are the opening paragraphs of a recent column of his:

Kathy Hochul took over as governor of New York on Tuesday and so far as I can see nobody said a single bad thing about her all week. In fact, the advance press was entirely favorable, about her extensive experience in local government, her good work habits, her love of getting out and meeting constituents and hearing their complaints. And, it must be added, nobody complained that she had laid a hand on them in a way that made them uncomfortable. It was extraordinary, a politician nobody is furious at. This is big news, people.

She’s from upstate and so to New York City residents, she is a complete mystery, as a Martian would be or a Mennonite, and this seems like a chance for everyone to get a fresh start and focus on the environment, health care, education, public safety, rather than the inappropriateness of commenting on a woman’s outfit. For years Governor Hochul served as an anonymous lieutenant governor to a man who hogged the stage, sang, danced, conducted the band, a man for whom public attention was oxygen. And then in short order he became a man whom people were thoroughly tired of reading about, or reading about anything that sounded like him, such as glaucoma, homogeneity, or combovers. When she took over, it was a huge relief.

A fresh start: it’s a basic necessity in life. I wake up in the morning, put my bare feet on the floor, and think, “The dumb things I did yesterday, forgetting my credit card at the restaurant, cursing my computer for not accepting my PIN, I shall not repeat today. I was cranky yesterday. I shall be agreeable starting now.”

David Mitchell

So much bad news these days. Politics, Covid, Racism, Mexican drug cartels, forest fires, hurricanes, and now this mess in Kabul.

Maybe a bitterseet memory of another recent loss will soothe me- just a little.

These two guys were in my opinion, thee very best, and this still reigns as my favorite song - ever. 

"Dream" was a great song - "Kathy's Clown" was a song that the girls sang at me in 5th grade to tease me about my crush on Kathy Shanahan. As much as I loved "Dream", grew to resent "Kathy's Clown"

Oh, and "Till I Kissed You", "Wake up Up Little Susie", "Bye Bye Love", "I'll Do My Cryin' In the Rain", and on and on.

You probaly all know this - but a couple of young guys from Liverpool, England (named John and Paul) were greatly influenced by Phil and Don. Some music critics beleive it was the wonderful harmony of John and Paul that ended the success of Phil and Don, who's harmony was the best before them.