Afghanistan

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.