ON AFGHANISTAN: A SINISTER WASHINGTON BOONDOGGLE

The Washington Post article ("At War With The Truth") made me cry. The truth is always the first casualty, but not the worst. It's the lives (generally young) and limbs lost, that evokes a deep and unrelenting sadness. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

Excerpt:

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.


This expose did not come as a surprise to most Americans. Certainly not to me --someone with an intimate connection to the place and its bloody past. 

Afghanistan.  Forty years. 40. So many dead. All sides. All ages. Afghan. Soviets. Pakistanis. Americans. So much blood shed. For what? TO WHAT END? 

DEATH, more death. Unrelenting violence.

Maimed children (the lucky ones) begging on the streets with huge smiles on their faces....grateful for life. Widows in their black burkas searching for their loved ones. Smiling Soviet troops waving from their vehicles on their way to their deaths. Mujahedin with their Lee Enfields and AK-47s smiling and nodding their goodbyes as they trudge towards their deaths. Some with roses in their hair and tawiz (amulets) around their necks. Young Marines in a culture brief eager to avenge 9/11.

Haunting smiles. Haunting faces. Everywhere. All sides. EVERYONE was/is impacted. There are no "innocents" here. Except the children. And the young gullible fighters following orders (lawful and unlawful).

Afghanistan. It's like a scab. That keeps getting picked at, never to heal. 

The PTSD. No one was/is immune. Not the Soviets, nor the Americans, nor especially the Afghan people who've borne the brunt of it. Forty years. 

Quote: "Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures." 

How do George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice et al live with themselves with so much blood on their hands? NONE of them with a sibling or child in these unending wars.

How do you confess/admit to the American people (to the grief stricken mothers) that these post 9/11 American casualties were in vain? That, all along, it was a boondoggle, concocted in Washington, for such nefarious reasons that any rapid, and clear, revelations of what transpired, and continues to transpire, might just shock the American public at large to rise up from their long slumber to challenge the embedded tyranny of what has lately been labeled "the Deep State." 

The American Revolution was fought over stamp taxes. Today, we the American people are not under a foreign yoke. But we are under the boot of an insidious "class" of individuals (forget the party labels) whose self interest can be classified as "treasonous." Furthermore, these traitors have all sorts of convoluted foreign "connections" due to a fatal flaw in our political system, which allows foreign money to flow into the coffers of our political class.

Back to the Afghan quagmire. Afghanistan was NEVER "winnable." Whatever that means. Hell, a military logistician at the rank of corporal, taking a quick look at Afghanistan's topography and location alone, would've rendered a "no go" verdict on any long term military commitment. 

The reason for invading Afghanistan --albeit under the draconian medieval Taliban-- were flimsy at best. 9/11 wasn't an Afghan attack. The mullahs in Kabul had NOTHING to gain from such an act of war against the globe's Super Power. 

Their distrusted Arab guest, Osama bin Laden --who was hoisted upon them by their external paymasters, the Saudis and the Pakistanis-- approved the Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's scheme to strike America. Bin Laden hightailed it out of Afghanistan by the end of 2001 to Pakistan. Along with Zawahiri, he ended up in the bosom of the Pakistan Army for "safekeeping" at the behest of the Saudis. 

So many what ifs of history... one in particular stands out: What if Bush junior instead of publicly shaming Mullah Omar had behind the scenes quietly reached out to him through intermediaries? To work out some sort of an exchange, wherein Mullah Omar handed over his guest for tangible benefits without any fingerprints or evidence of such a transaction that would threaten his position and have him lose public face/honor. Perhaps the Bush administration never really sought OBL after all given the Bush family's close Saudi ties.

Meanwhile our troops spent almost TWO DECADES on a wild goose chase. On missions that had little tactical utility in the long run because of a nonexistent strategy. Sure there were efforts at "strategy" but, due to the inevitable mission creep, the effort to hunt down OBL continued to morph until the end result (today) is something absurd: nation building along the lines of a "western democracy."

The fanatically xenophobic Taliban (even by traditionally xenophobic Afghan standards) weren't our enemy. Not "Taliban Central." At that juncture --prior to our sending troops to overthrow the Taliban-- not even the CIA's former ally, Jallaluddin Haqqani, had any ill intent towards our homeland. While there was no love lost for the American 'infidel,' they didn't care for meddling foreigners, even the so-called Muslim brothers. Our boots on the ground (conventional vice surgical strike) was the game changer. It was akin to entering the worst hornet's nest imaginable. Setting aside our natural inclination to dislike such seemingly medieval entities, the reality was/is (to the best of my current knowledge) that the Taliban had no global aspirations. None. They just wanted to be left alone to oversee their "lovely" Emirate. 

George Bush had another agenda. Iraq was the actual prize. Afghanistan was supposed to be the entry point to Iraq and, more specifically, Saddam Hussein, who was in Bush's cross hairs for reasons one can speculate over. 

Which inevitably brings us to the events of 9/11. After all, to this very day, having our troops in harm's way in Afghanistan is in order to prevent another 9/11. So goes the stale mantra of our "policymakers."  

Who was behind 9/11? 
The profile of the 19 hijackers (Arabs) and the mastermind/leadership (Pakistani -KSM and Saudi, OBL) has zero Afghans. True OBL was plotting in Afghanistan under the very noses of his hosts, the Taliban. But Mullah Omar was betrayed by OBL and the Paks.

Yet, Washington gave the Saudis and the Paks a free pass. Worse, the Pakistan Army (PAIC or Pakistan Army Industrial Complex) were given billions in essence to host bin Laden and his merry band of terrorists. 

Reading the findings, the interviews, I weep for those heroic volunteers in our military who've died or been maimed in our endless wars "on terror." RIP.

President Donald Trump was elected precisely because he was an outsider who promised to bring our troops home. One can hope that the endless wars can be brought to an end and the proper focus can prevail on limiting/controlling ACCESS to our HOMELAND via visas and the border. 

REMEMBERING VERNIE D. LIEBL ON THE 75th ANNIVERSARY OF D-DAY

Clockwise from top: Vernie in front on horse to the right ; Vernie left holding cat with brother George; Vernie sitting to the right fishing; Vernie bottom left sitting, sister Pearl is third from left and sister Francis is on the far right with friends.

Top: Vernie between horses on ranch, 1938; Middle: Vernie far right; elder brother Ray in center with wife Beulah Sadie in front of him; front right of Vernie is eldest sister Pearl; in front of her is Ray Jr, Vernie's nephew (Ray and Sadie's son). Far left is Annabelle (Annie), his sister in 1941. Bottom: Vernie far right, with sister and brother Ray, 1941.

Upper left: Vernie as a baby with his siblings in the arms of a neighbor; his mother Neva is far left. Vernie as a baby April/May 1921. Liebl brothers, eldest Ray (left), Vernie (middle) and George (right); in front of his dad is Ray Jr. A future US Marine.  Vernie with sister Francis and brother George.


Vernie Liebl's 357th Infantry Regiment of the 90th Infantry Division landed on D-Day on Utah Beach. Vernie was wounded on July 11th  when the 90th Division cleared the Foret de Mont-Castre (Hill 122) during fierce German resistance. The 90th Division suffered 5000 killed, wounded or captured.  Vernie was hospitalized in England and returned to the Front on July 31st. He was killed during the battle to liberate Hayange on 10 September 1944.

Vernie was buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery, Saint Avold, Lorraine, France (Plot C Row 24 Grave 30). His parents --Josef and Neva Liebl-- placed a marker near their burial plot in Beaver Creek Cemetery, Twisp, Washington State in his honor:

May God continue to bless/rest Vernie's soul, and the souls of all those killed by forces of evil during a conflict in which the righteous ultimately triumphed after much bloodshed. 

The monument to the 90th US Infantry Division at Utah Beach, Manche, Normandy, France

Monument erected to honor Vernie and his fellow soldiers who died liberating Hayange, September 10, 1944:

357th Infantry Regiment 11 Soldiers Plaque

<< Back to Hayange

View larger image

Details:

Affixed to the street-facing front of a three-storey, duplex residential building situated at No. 29 Rue du General de Gaulle (D952) on the north side of the road.  The rail line runs directly behind the house.   Plaque Bronze plaque commemorating 11 soldiers of the 357th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division.  It is situated directly above a smaller plaque that marks the site of the interred ashes of Lieutenant Colonel Edward Smith Hamilton, the "Liberator of Hayange."  

Monument Text:

A la memoire des soldats du 357eme d'infanterie 

90eme division de l'armee americaine tombes pour la 

liberation du Hayange le 10 septembre 1944 morts aux service

de leur patrie et pour la liberte de l'humanite 

Nous n'oublierons pas

Company A

Albert Lemmon

Alphonse T. Ludwig

Willian L. Minton

Donald Miller

Lawrence A. Peters

Richard Fern

Gabriel J. Poletts

Bernard A. White

Company C

Vernie D. Liebl

Rex L. Sprouse

Company D

Stanley A. Wozniczka

In honor of those soldiers of the 357th Infantry 90th Division US-Army

who in the liberation of Hayange on 10 September 1944 died in 

the service of their country and the freedom of mankind  

We shall not forget