Author Archives: Abby Zimet

Kabul, it’s been noted, was not lost yesterday. It was the inevitable final fall of a calamitous, arrogant, 20-year, trillion-dollar, too-many-deaths imperial misadventure doomed, like too many before it, to failure from its inept start. In Biden’s speech, generally deemed resolute but callous about the mayhem unfolding, he asked a tough, good question – “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war?” – but framed it in a cynical, disingenuous way by adding, “when Afghan troops will not?” The fourth president to oversee yet another senseless war in “the graveyard of empires,” he thus found an easy target for what is the “breathtaking failure” of longtime U.S. foreign policy while blithely ignoring the blood-soaked, hubris-laden history behind it – a “post-imperial Western fantasy” of disastrous military or CIA interventions through Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and then Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, which was never at war with the U.S. and where Donald Rumsfeld, may he have no rest, demanded Bush “punish and get out.” Bush and his imperious ilk spoke of nation-building, “as if nations were made of Legos.” Instead, we got our forever war, where rather than offer schools, clinics, water, job training to a beleaguered population, the U.S. blew up whatever infrastructure they had and spent 86% of a staggering trillion dollars – though some say it’s closer to 2 trillion – on often hapless military initiatives that, thanks to “a complex ecosystem of defense contractors, Washington banditry” and corruption, largely returned to the U.S. economy. Add in corruption by Afghan elites, and ultimately less than 2% of U.S. money actually went to the people who needed it. A final irony: Even as the West frantically fought to stop it, soaring Afghan poppy production fueled the insurgency, spreading from six to 28 provinces: “Opium floated the Taliban back to power.” All topped by a rushed, artless, possibly balance-tipping “deal” giving too much to the Taliban by the idiot Former Guy. Continue reading →

In his latest masterful maneuver to overturn the election, Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani, fresh off his peak successes with hair dye and Four Seasons Total Landscaping, went to a Michigan House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday to present what he’d touted as “extraordinary witnesses” with compelling proof of egregious election fraud in the state. Continue reading →

Trump’s Monday presser, after a weekend of rage-tweeting, was a wowzer. Yes, he stormed offstage after a racist, sexist meltdown, offering further welcome proof in this difficult time of his cool competence under fire. Continue reading →

In another bizarre exhibition of the ragged state of the Republic, the Senate Intelligence Committee heard “testimony” Tuesday on the Russian connection from Attorney General, wilted southern flower, good ole obstructionist boy and “flustered Gump in the headlights” Jeff Sessions, who despite his high-ranking position as the country’s top lawyer somehow couldn’t seem to remember being anywhere or doing anything, except not to worry, whatever he did that he can’t rightly recall, it was all good and proper. Continue reading →