Nothing seems to fit the situation quite so well. If you read the definitions of this old saying you’ll see. Here’s the Wikipedia description: “…a metaphorical idiom in English for an important or enormous topic, question, or controversial issue that is obvious or that everyone knows about but no one mentions or wants to discuss because it makes at least some of them uncomfortable and is personally, socially, or politically embarrassing, controversial, inflammatory or dangerous.” That’s as inclusive a definition as we could find, and a summation of them all.
It must be the greatest conspiracy theory out there. But, unfortunately there’s something to it. Plugs himself says things he’s not supposed to say at nearly every public appearance. You can bet the reporters he calls on aren’t about to ask who made up the list. He keeps saying, “I’ll get in trouble…” or “I’ve been instructed.” Whoever is behind the curtain must be pulling their hair out, but some things are beyond their control. What gets said publicly can’t be retracted. They can send somebody else out to try to clean it up, but how are you going to clean up, “I’ve been instructed”? The most powerful man in the world has “been instructed”? He’ll “get in trouble.”
The international press is unabashed. A personality on Australia’s Sky News has said that a whole bunch of heads have to roll over the Kabul disaster, or a presidential resignation is in order. What are we to think as we watch every obvious protocol violated? How distracted must he be to check his watch during the somber ceremony of the dead returning to the United States? Deaths for which he bears responsibility.
Is it OK to nap while the new Israeli Prime Minister tries to make his case? There is probably some perfectly logical explanation. We must have missed it.
The reality of the United States’ humiliation on the global stage is electrifying, in a bad way. The troops have already been warned not to exhibit any disrespect. There have been calls for resignation. CNN says that’s ridiculous. The same people who backed Trump in the call for insurrection are the buffoons who now suggest high level resignations. It’s not a quote, but it’s their line of logic. You might well have missed it. The big investigative bureau admitted that those arrested on January 6th were “one offs” and not part of a larger conspiracy. That came amid the Kabul catastrophe with no fanfare at all. So they’re still talking insurrection on the mainstream outlets.
How is it possible to have awarded the Taliban (even the UN has designated the group a terrorist organization) $85 billion worth of weapons, vehicles and assorted armaments? It looks like the very definition of treason. Not to say that it was done on purpose. Surely not! Who would do that?
You don’t suppose the guy who bowed to the waist to Islamic hierarchy would do such a thing? Will those weapons be used against our own military or one of our allies?
A video is starting to circulate. It’s a conversation between that insufferable Steven Colbert and the fake messiah himself about the possibility of a third term. The fake one says he wouldn’t seek another term, but if he had a front man with an ear piece, he could sit in his sweats in his basement and tell him what to say. If you doubt it, look it up. That is the elephant in the room, though you’d probably be banned from every social media outlet if you were to repeat it.
Did the Kabul catastrophe happen by accident? Is it possible that the American military is on the run from the likes of these derelicts by design? That’s a good possibility. Maybe we’ll find out. Some day. For now, everyone is out of Kabul. Not everyone, but all that could be saved by August 31. The Taliban has conducted their customary celebrations. Not only did they run off the U. S. military, they got unbelievable military hardware. The terrorists now have more vehicles than we’ve ever seen in one place, hundreds of thousands of high tech firearms, night goggles and scopes, helicopters and aircraft including C-130 transport aircraft. No wonder they’re having a party.
However, they celebrate in ways we wouldn’t understand. They hang people from helicopters. A radio report says they’ve cut queers into small pieces and scattered them in the streets. Yeah, it’s a great victory for the suspect administration. What a great job they did.
We’re starting to get a sense of the fallout. Allies are saying publicly they’ll not participate with the U. S. under the circumstances. The world will not soon forget the disaster unfolding in Kabul, particularly as the blood-letting of the Taliban gets under way. Hopefully we’ll never experience the mental anguish of having to know the details. We already know too many. They held a mock funeral for the United States. Some of the celebrations got so wild that people were killed. That’s OK. Life is cheap in their culture. Besides, they think they won the war and who’s going to argue?
The White House occupant comes out and reads a speech proclaiming the evacuation operation an historic success. Watch it if you can. Meanwhile the media is awash in heartbreaking stories of people who are marked for death in some gruesome fashion for the cardinal sin of having cooperated with our guys. It seems like cooperation is the norm when soldiers show up in overwhelming force with armaments on display. To the Taliban, this was treason.
Nobody knew what was coming. Except they did. Maybe you’ve seen some of the inside communications that are coming out now. Reuters printed a transcript of a conversation between the occupant and the President of Afghanistan. The problem was the “perception” that things weren’t going well. In fact the Taliban were moving in and the Afghan army was either there to greet them or running for cover. But that wasn’t the “perception” that was beneficial from a public relations standpoint.
The Afghan president took the money and ran, nobody’s sure where. He took millions of American dollars with him, that much is fact. The Afghan government was so obviously corrupt, and so was the army. It was propped up courtesy of the American taxpayer. It didn’t stand a chance against a committed enemy. Not even the Taliban.
We hope the goat ropers are enjoying their celebrations. They won’t last long. The country is in economic collapse. It required foreign currency, and without it things will spiral out of control. We hope the Taliban will rue the day they thought taking over Afghanistan was a good idea. The chaos so far is but a preview of what’s to come. We’re apparently supposed to keep pretending this was all an accident, or that it couldn’t have gone any other way.
It’s hard to know how things could go any worse if the high officials were TRYING to screw everything up, ensure that people were left behind or killed, embarrass the military and slime America in disrepute while arming the Taliban and allowing them to claim victory. Try to fathom a worse outcome.
Here at home our southern border is so out of control that some charitable entities are threatening to bring displaced Afghans to the Mexican border and walk them in. We citizens get lockdown orders and mask mandates. Those crossing the border get free transportation to the destination of their choice.
Both Canada and Australia have gone over the edge with authoritarian mandates. Australia is encouraging people to call authorities if they see anyone flaunting the rules. You might have seen the massive protest in Sydney. The police were holding a line, wrestling some to the ground and who knows what all. Protests aren’t illegal in Australia, but these protesters were in violation of Covid regulations. Do these police not have families? No doubt they’re nice polite people, but they have their orders. Kind of reminds you of another time, doesn’t it? They better figure out whose side they’re on.
We better figure out whose side the presidency is on. It seems like the big guy is squinting at his teleprompter, trying to keep up with what the words mean. He botched the homecoming of the flag-draped coffins. Who looks at their watch five times during a somber ceremony? Or any ceremony? Some parents of the slain walked out on their meeting with him and said it was scripted. He thought it would be a good idea to remind them that he lost his son to cancer. They weren’t amused.
The sad fact is that he’s expendable. How long does he have, after all? Will there come a point where he simply can’t keep it together in public? Nobody knows. What everybody knows but few will say, is that these developments, catastrophic for the United States as they may be, suit the aspirations of a former administration perfectly. While we convulse with the pain of apparent idiots running the show, parties are animating the mansion on the coast. That justifies the cover.
