Where is the Rage?

 

My grief and anger has continued to rise as more photos of those beautiful young marines have been circulating on social media.  Any one of them could have been my son or daughter and it turns my stomach that 14 families have had to endure the awful experience of having two marines walk up to their door and ring the doorbell.   Their families will never be the same.

And it was all unnecessary. 

And this doesn’t take into account the 2,300 that went before them and the thousands more that were injured and maimed over the past 20 years, whose sacrifices are now being nullified by the reckless withdrawal of Team Biden.

Making matters worse, the Taliban ginned up a flag raising ceremony meant to mock the iconic image of the US soldiers pushing up the flag at Iwo Jima.   There have been other photos of Taliban sporting our confiscated equipment and joyriding in one of our Blackhawk helicopters.   Incredibly, the Taliban conducted a press conference before our own ossified president could get out of his pajamas.  This was all meant to humiliate us, to show that these throwbacks could bring the most powerful military force the world has ever seen to its knees, just as they did to the Soviets in 1989.

My blog this week, however, is a reaction to the reactions

Since the bombing, Twitter has been seething with rage with some notables like Jesse Kelly ranting on Tucker Carlson’s show.  He was hardly alone.  There were many, many calls for the resignations of Biden, Blinken, Austin and Milley.   Upon learning that we had left behind some $80 billion in US weaponry, turning the place into the most heavily armed terrorist hotspot and arms bazaar in the world overnight, many even called for court-martials and impeachment.

I listened carefully to the reactions of our political and military establishment, both to the words and the tone.

I was taken by what I didn’t hear—rage, or any real anger for that matter.  The responses were clinical and devoid of emotion. 

From Biden, we got the expected flat, bumbling speech, after waiting all day, blaming Trump and vowing not to exact revenge but to “complete the mission.”

From Milley and Austin, nothing.   They just lost 14 of our finest.  You’d think they’d have something to say. 

From Col. McKenzie, a clinical zoom call, incredulously talking about a “common purpose” with the Taliban.  We have no common purpose with the Taliban, you dolt.

Most curious was the silence from people who had a lot to say about a lot of things in the past.

Barack and Michelle Obama- Zilch.  We heard a lot about the Cambridge police, Trayvon Martin, and George Floyd from Barack.  Suddenly, the cat got his tongue.  Michelle suddenly mute on women’s rights and after spouting off about her fears she has that her daughters might get pulled over by the police.

General Jim Mattis- Mad Dog simply vanished.  After asserting that “Trump was a threat to the Constitution” during last summer’s near assault on the White House after Trump ordered up the 82^nd Airborne, the man who let bin Laden slip out of Tora Bora is nowhere to be found.  This is the same guy that resigned the Trump administration over Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria because he thought we were betraying our Kurdish allies.  Now that Biden betrayed our Afghan allies as well as our European allies, the General of Pithy Quotes is nowhere to be found.

Pope Francis- His Holiness never missed an opportunity to take oblique shots at Trump and the US over capitalism, immigration, and climate change.  Scrolling through his tweets, he is also now a salesman for the jab.  Nothing about Afghanistan.  Nothing about the gross abuses of human rights and women’s rights in Afghanistan.  Francis had lots to say about “environmental sins” and “equity.”   Beheadings and child marriages—not so much.

Uncontrolled anger does not make for good decisions.  But there are times when rage is an appropriate response.  From the Establishment, we saw none, if we saw any response at all.

The response to the bombings in Kabul echoed the responses of our local people here in Chicago with the murder of police officer Ella French.  I did not see any anger in the responses from Mayor Lightfoot or Police Chief David Ward, neither of which could even get her name right.  No change in personnel.  No commitment to do things any differently.

Because they really don’t care.  In both places, on the streets of Chicago and in Kabul, the neo-Marxist  establishment virtually guaranteed this outcome.  Joe Biden and Mark Milley put these wonderful young people in this position.  Lori Lightfoot and David Ward put Ella French in the position she was in.

The silence and lack of emotion speak loudly.