Thirteen U.S. troops died trying to get these people to safety — Afghan interpreters, soldiers, and the families of our service members. Veterans spent sleepless nights during the chaotic withdrawal fighting to keep them alive. Now our own government is going to abandon them.
Anyone making updated ‘I did this’ stickers for gas pumps like we saw in the Biden administration?
When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.
pope tweets good
Image: Tulip tree blossom Poem, "At the Moving Wall" (c) constance lee menefee You said you came to the Moving Wall to see your father with no gift, just yourself, and that wasn't enough, just his flesh and blood having never been held by his eyes, or his hands even, he wanted you named after his best friend second-hand, second-guessed; yet you carry him under your skin, his bones slide with yours, maybe your laugh is his laugh, or vour teeth, or your love of the open sky over granite outcroppings; you came to him, today, with no offering, so reached up and pulled off a tulip tree flower pale-green banded orange blossoms full of ripe pollen promise, floating like surprising water lilies in the shallows of light vearning leaves, and you stood before his name and thought yourself alone not enough for this dead soldier, this dead father. -end-
Poem, "At the Moving Wall"
(c) constance lee menefee
... remembering the children: this poem was written for Ben - the son of a soldier who died in Vietnam before he ever saw his son. I met Ben at a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that travels around the country ...
The idea that a student op-ed was deemed a threat to national security … a nation run by incompetent and fearful snowflakes
"Escalation in the pursuit of sunk costs in the Middle East has become something of an American military tradition. It is one this administration’s leaders — ... — claim to have learned from and one they invoked on their way to power."
"one might be forgiven for concluding that America’s war against Iran has gone pretty well. That would be a mistake. And it is a mistake with a time-honored but deleterious tradition: that of mistaking tactical success for victory and of operational excellence for a strategy."
This article from @ryanevans.bsky.social is a great reminder that we haven't broken from the failures of GWOT, but are doubling down on its flaws.
warontherocks.com/tactical-suc...
treason and slavery in the same grave. the union forever
Don't get me wrong, Vietnam was a defeat, but the strategic consequences were IMHO minimal. The same is true for Afghanistan.
This is one of the few US wars where its global strategic situation is significantly worse afterward than it otherwise would have been.
So much for turning the Iranian population against their government.
So new name for old dynamic. TYFYS.
Anyone have the slightest clue of wtaf spencer is talking about here?
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/u...
Does America stand by the Afghan Allies who stood by it?
Mullin once suggested it should. Now he can prove it.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
We have a government that has spurned our closest ally in order to embrace a theocratic monarchy.
Think about that for a moment.
"For Mullin, Afghanistan remained a test of accountability when the burden fell on someone else. Now it falls on him."
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
The limitations on violence established after World War II were not brought by pacifists or peaceniks but by literal old soldiers. They knew. They had seen.
IYKYK
ALL GUNS, NO BUTTER is no way to head into the midterms.
This will surely rally the people of the UK to pressure their government to join in the fight.
seriously the weirdest choice for an action novel author, but he makes it work. Only time I've ever thought, yeah, you go MP!
We can only hope. I don't think most folks cosplaying soldiers in law enforcement understand how much grunts hate cops, to say nothing of ICE.
This story only works if RFK also knew the troop #s well enough to validate … yeah, no
"This is like asking a tarantula to watch your laptop. It won’t help, and now everyone is scared. No, I’m sorry. This is unfair to tarantulas, who are not known for their racial profiling."
Brilliant. A 'broken windows' approach that is positive instead of punitive.
Mr. Buria chastised the Army secretary for selecting Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant, a combat engineer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to take command of the Military District of Washington, said three current and former defense and administration officials familiar with the exchange. The command provides security and performs ceremonial duties in the nation's
Gutter racism. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/u...
A fantastic discussion on civilian military relations with a great American. A stark reminder of how much better the world would be if there were more Eisenhower Republicans in American politics.
Buy The State and the Soldier and read it! www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
@kschake.bsky.social
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
“We'll come out of this. And let me tell you something: If none of us are here to see it, tell your children who the cowards were.”