It looks like one of our sunflowers is finally about to do something. This is the one that grew from bird seed, I think, in one of our other plant pots. We also have two of an apparently slightly different variety that came up from that wildflower seed packet I planted, and they don't even have flower buds.
It's hard to grow sunflowers when you barely have any sun, as has been the case in recent weeks!
We did finally get some zinnia blossoms, as I reported earlier. You can see them behind the sunflower, along with our bright pink lobelia.
Here are more zinnias, behind that second variety of sunflower I mentioned (and in the foreground, our purple loosestrife). That's a dahlia in the background on the right.
So, let's talk about Afghanistan. The chaos is continuing, and Biden is taking a lot of heat for it. I do think our exodus could have been better planned, but why should Biden bear the burden (that's a tongue twister) of criticism for what's going on there? We are in Afghanistan because of George W. Bush. We spent 20 years and $85 billion training the Afghan military, which ultimately proved to be as formidable as a package of gummy bears. And we're getting out now because of an agreement made by Donald Trump. It seems to me that Bush, Trump and the Afghan army (and president) are all far more responsible for what's happening in that country than Biden is.
I also wonder about all the Afghan refugees that we see flooding the airport. Are these really all people who worked with Western countries during the occupation, or are they also economic migrants who want to get out and find a better life in the West? I can't blame them for that, but I also don't think we can simply keep airlifting until the people stop coming. We'll wind up taking two-thirds of the population.
The USA couldn't stay there forever. The Afghan army and its institutions of government had their chance to take control, and they failed miserably. That's squarely on them.
And although I was against invading Afghanistan from the very beginning, I disagree with people who say our military presence over the past few decades has now been rendered completely purposeless. It could be argued that we helped stabilize that part of the world for a couple of decades, and that's not nothing. What we've hopefully learned, both here and in Iraq, is that nation-building as envisioned by the Bush administration DOESN'T WORK. We can't occupy and impose our will on other cultures. We need to help friendly cultures grow more organically, and we simply have to cultivate better relationships with unfriendly ones. Diplomacy and foreign aid -- those are our only options with the Taliban now, and those are the tools we need to use to help the Afghan people.
Here's one more wildflower -- a crown daisy, or Glebionis coronaria. This one finally got around to blooming. I'm not sure why it's lopsided, but maybe it will open up more over time.
54 comments:
I agree with you about Biden. And it was Trump who decided to withdraw. As I have said, if Soviet Union couldn't win in Afghanistan, what hope was there for Bush's 'Coalition of the Willing'. Fingers crossed that the Taliban is not speaking empty words.
Thanks for your reflections on Afghanistan. They echo my own thoughts but I'd like to say two more things. Why was it so important to get out of there by 9/11 of this year? That put unnecessary extra pressure on the departure process. Secondly, who was advising Mr Biden ahead of his decision to get out? What does this say about American intelligence and the predictions of highly paid strategists?
Dubya and his British lapdog Blair should come on TV to apologise for their foolhardiness. Typically, they are not in the mob waving passports at Kabul Airport, desperate to save their skins.
Good point about economic migrants using the crisis to their advantage.
You talk a lot of sense.
I agree too. If Biden bears any blame it is only for not questionning his advisors more closely. They should have anticipated how quickly things could turn. But that's easy to say with hindsight.
I agree with you about Afghanistan. It should have been managed so much better, but that’s all I Biden should own (sadly, that’s turned out to be a lot). The rest, he inherited. A no-win situation. I despair for the women of Afghanistan. YOU are a very wise man and have such a way with words. Your professional backgrounds always shows.
But thanks for the beauty to go with the ugly truth. I love zinnias. Can’t wait to see that sunflower.
RE: Afghanistan, well said.
About Afghanistan: PREACH!
That's what I've been saying. There is plenty of blame to go around, but let's all work to get Americans and allies out of the country before we start throwing stones.
I like your point about there having been stability in Afghanistan for two decades. That, alone, is something. But no, Bush never should have gotten us in there. It's a huge mess. One more situation that makes me feel hopeless and confused.
Yes, to everything you wrote about Afghanistan. Thank you for writing it down. Lovely flowers too.
Afghanistan has a long history of failure. It comes from colonial times when Britain was in Afghanistan and then pulled out. It's been chaos ever since.
I appreciate your take on Afghanistan. You explained it very well for me.
Politics here has gotten so twisted that the hate and hostility constantly being displayed does not help at all.
The Afghan war was a lie from the beginning and once there, people tried to Westernize the country, whether they liked it or not. Not I guess. However, that does not give the Taliban to take the country by force, a coup etat as it were. It seems that governments and those with power and guns will do as they please and force others too. It's fucking mess and the Afghan people deserve better.
Does not give the Taliban the right. Typo. Sigh.
Agree with much of what you have written. But the part about how some refugees might just be trying to get out and we can't take them all stopped me cold. There is so much armchair analysis of this situation while people are fleeing for their lives. Who cares why they are coming? They are fleeing in terror. Hate to say it, but the "we can't take them all" reads like a typical American response of not in my backyard.
You know... there is much that can be said about the situation. I'm married to a Vietnam vet and I hear my share of it. All I know is it's a heartbreaking situation and I can't imagine being a female in that country.
I hope your sunflower blooms and fills your garden with its bright yellow beauty! We get volunteers most years and I find they bring me great joy... something that's in great demand right now. (buried a dog this morning)
Excellent points on the Afghanistan situation. It gives me comfort to know that we are thinking on the same lines. I have a friend who blames Biden completely so I've kept quiet in her presence. To me the situation is way more complicated. I am certainly no expert on that part of the world. The various tribes have been at war with each other since Isaac and Ishmael. I'm not sure anyone can stop it now.
It is the way we exited! Has been explained enough. YES, Trump and Bush have skin in this game, BUT the exit is ALL on Biden. He deserves the criticism! U don't leave a country and leave your people behind. They should have come out first. Then the equipment and lastly...the military. And the embassy should have been destroyed! Ending this twenty-year fiasco was the right thing to do, but it was done with poor planning!
"The critiques of how the Biden administration handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the fact that getting out was the right thing to do. The failure of our multi-trillion-dollar military misadventure in Afghanistan should prompt a thorough rethinking and revision of a foreign policy that has for far too long prioritized arms and military dominance over diplomacy and global cooperation." From Forbes this morning. Biden's numbers have fallen for the first time during his administration. Agreeing with UNKNOWN above. The exit of men from the country far outweighed women and children. That is another terrifying statistic.
Hi sweet Olga, Steve and Dave. This is number 2 trying to comment. I will type everything and blogger would wipe it out. I stop trying when that happens. I've been to sleep and now trying again. Steve we all know that Biden will be blamed for anything that he is trying to do right. All you see is that dog ass Ted Cruz complaining about what Biden is doing and as a law maker I can't remember anything he has done but get paid and take vacation. They will forever try to make Biden look bad and the entire world deserves someone like Biden because for the last 4 years all we had was a lying con-artist (no good lying Trump). He is a wonderful person and a great President. Our troops couldn't stay over there forever. They stayed too long and Afghanistan still couldn't secure their own. You see what leader they had. He was the first one out of there. (Their President, I think that is what they called him) He left them all behind so why should Biden lose sleep. They knew they would take over again. Time and money wasted. I don't blame those people from wanting to get out. I would have probably rode that plane like a cowboy riding a horse. That is if I was that stupid to go after money and work in a place like that. No money is worth your life being taken away.
Today an employee of the American University of Kabul (which as you know is not American at all), tried to get to the airport. He was gassed as he held his two year old child.
He messaged my daughter and son-in-law that he and his wife returned home. They fully expect to be killed by the Taliban.
This one story breaks my heart. Watching the news makes me aware that this story is just one of thousands.
Angelicastar: they call them idealists, those visionaries who believe in the possibility of change. My daughter was one of those 'stupid' people. She went there for three years. She believed in what she was doing.
These are the stories we need to hear I tbink. Armchair analysis of the situation by anyone (myself very much included) as we sit in our cozy homes watching the chaos I find upsetting and disturbing. Unless the person is an expert 9n the situation. Someone on another blog said he and his family were discussthe situation over morning coffee and they decided the people liked having the Taliban as leaders.Real people are living and dying in terror while we pontificate.
Sorry typoes everywhere.
We should definitely have learned some lessons from the Russian invasion.
Yeah, I don't know where that 9/11 deadline came from -- was it Biden's choice, or was it in Trump's withdrawal agreement? Undoubtedly our intelligence was woefully lacking.
Well, I'm not a political analyst and I'm sure I know very little about the situation compared to the experts, but that's how it appears to me!
Yeah, the intelligence on the abilities and motivation of the Afghan army was apparently severely lacking.
Well, the other aspect of the story is that apparently Biden deliberately held off on evacuating people because the Afghan president asked him to wait, fearing that an evacuation would destabilize his government. Whether this was ultimately the right decision will be debated, but that's the source of some of this last-minute maneuvering, as I understand it.
Thank you!
Yeah, we should be focusing on the task at hand, absolutely.
The world has always been chaotic. We just see so much more of it now, given the plethora of sources and ubiquity of phones with cameras. It's not necessarily a bad thing but it can be emotionally taxing.
Thanks, Robin.
It's a classic example of an artificially created country with boundaries set by Western powers, grouping together people of different tribes who otherwise would not necessarily share a common identity. A recipe for endless conflict!
Well, don't take my explanation as gospel, because I'm no expert! But that's how it appears to me. Everything is so politicized these days.
Yeah, I think in many ways this IS a "referendum" on the westernization of the country. The Afghan people clearly didn't want the style of government that we tried to impose on them. They didn't fight for it and they didn't identify with it.
But I think it's a valid question -- and granted, if we'd had a more orderly evacuation it's one that would seem less pressing. I just don't think it's realistic to say that we'll take anyone, and who cares why they want to get out. Obviously people who have a specific reason to flee, who are in mortal danger, should be declared refugees and should be resettled. But there must be a process for determining that -- that's all I'm saying.
Oh no! I'm sorry about your dog! I do feel terrible for the Afghans who are all now going to live under an oppressive regime. I wish they had seen more urgency in preventing that.
Like everything in our political and social culture these days, the issue has become poisonously partisan. I certainly agree that Biden didn't prepare well enough for what happened. It sounds like everyone expected to have much more time and what eventually occurred was seen as wildly unlikely. Again, failures of intelligence.
As I said in my post, it could have been better planned. I certainly don't think Biden intends to leave anyone behind. From what I understand, he deliberately waited to evacuate at the request of the Afghan president, who felt that earlier evacuations would destabilize the government. No one expected him to turn tail and flee so quickly. My point is that HE, as well as the US presidents who orchestrated our presence and withdrawal, are the true sources of all this chaos. I'm not saying Biden is completely blameless, though.
Amen to Forbes. I couldn't have said it better. I think your point about men fleeing rather than women and children goes back to my question about WHO all these people are?
I agree completely, Angelicastar. Biden's political enemies are ultimately just interested in making him look bad, by portraying him as the one responsible for this chaotic fiasco. I'm simply arguing that he is not entirely or even mostly responsible. But I also agree with Bob above that we need to focus on getting vulnerable people out, and then we can parse the blame.
Debby: Yes, absolutely, we MUST hear these stories and I completely agree that we should be doing everything in our power to get vulnerable people out. The example you give is a powerful one. There's no doubt that many people trapped in that country are in danger.
Karen: I think people assume that because the Afghan military so spectacularly failed to defend the country, but I certainly wouldn't say a majority of people are happy with the Taliban. I also don't think it's so terrible for people in the West to form opinions based on the news they're consuming -- I mean, that's just human nature.
I'm sure this is heartbreaking for her, seeing all that she worked for collapsing and people she knew endangered.
well, I've already posted my thoughts on Afghanistan but I disagree that the withdrawal could have been planned better. had we started earlier, the panic would have started earlier, the Afghan army would have melted away earlier, the Taliban would have moved in earlier but none of this was under our control. the Afghan people, the Afghan army, the Taliban were always going to do what they did. Trump started it when he negotiated with the Taliban and released all those prisoners but didn't have the balls to follow through, he purposely left it for Biden to finish because he knew the chaos that would follow and he didn't want to be blamed for it.
Entirely possible, Ellen -- and a good point about Trump wanting to stick Biden with the blame.
Makes sense although I think every single person would have a reason to flee the Taliban. Noone can live safely under them.
He was 12 and suffering from prostate cancer. A blessing for him, but still sad for me. (which almost feels wrong saying, given all the "real" tragedy in the world...) We still have six dogs (four have died in the past two years), but it's an aging pack. I hate the inevitable.
I'm sorry, BUT Joe Biden owns this. From day one of his presidency he has been overturning pretty much anything and everything of the previous administration. So now we are supposed to believe that he didn't have the time or want-to to make changes on his exit!?!? I don't buy that. This is what I believe...he wanted to look like the great person who stood up on the 20th anniversary of 911 and say, "I ended this forever war!" And IF his exit plan was done so well, WHY would he leave Americans behind without the capability of defending themselves? Makes no sense. This 'pull-out' did not have to go this way! He is absolutely 💯 responsible for this mess. He said it himself, 'the buck stops with me' AND 'I made this decision!' George W. Bush took us into this mess, Barack Obama 'traded 5 Gitmo prisioners for an American deserted and Trump released 5,000 himself! They all have a part in this. BUT Biden owns the exit. He is not fit 'medically to run our country. And the people who keep covering for him...are going to get us all in a mess we can't get out of. His whole family should be looked at for elderly abuse, my opinion! I know people over there and this is not only scary, embarrassing, but but did not have to happen.
I never said "his exit plan was done so well." Also, I have seen no reliable evidence that Biden is not medically fit. That's a whole 'nother argument, though, for another day.
Steve, I really appreciate your perspective (probably because I agree with it - that good old confirmation bias!). I also appreciate your kind and thoughtful responses to all the commenters. It is hard to believe that all Biden's government/military advisors were so completely blind to the possibility of the collapse of the Afghan army and the government. Sheesh, Mike and I predicted it, and what do we know - besides history!? But we (armchair quarterbacks Mike and I), in our infinite wisdom, haven't come up with any better plan to extricate the US and its Afghan allies from this endless, futile war. I appreciate President Biden standing up and doing this hard thing despite the public outcry.
It will be educational to look back in a year's time, or five year's time, to see how this plays out.
Thank you for the sunflower optimism!
Chris from Boise
WOW...okay!
I agree, but do we then resettle as a refugee every single person in Afghanistan? All 39 million of them?
Thanks for your comment, Chris. It IS amazing that our intelligence didn't predict this happening so quickly -- as you said, it seems fairly obvious. I suspect if the Afghan president had stayed and the army felt they still had a government to fight for, they might have offered better resistance. But even then, who knows.
I'm with you on Afghanistan, every word. What a mess, but getting out was always going to be a mess of one sort or another. We should never have gone in.
Post a Comment