If you’re ever in doubt as to the need for term limits, and a return to the Founders idea that citizens should serve in government as servants, and then return to their real jobs, I present Joe Biden as the clear answer you seek.

Biden, who’s been around government longer than most Americans have been alive (both by median and average age) was involved in the final collapse of South Vietnam. He has blundered about for the last 47 years and managed to stay in power long enough to see another nation tank, this time under his complete and utter lack of leadership.

Now, for those of you about to run off to Snopes, or any other leftist source, and prove me wrong, Joe has always been gutless enough to waffle about his true intentions unless he was putting black men into prison. He did not vote against aid to South Vietnam, but he did oppose it, and along with the other clowns in the Senate, he contributed to the blocking of the legislation that would have, among other things, allowed for the United States to aid South Vietnamese in escaping the communists at the end of the war.

This time, in conjunction with the plutocrats and doorknobs in charge of foreign policy, and the Pentagon, they have missed the opportunity to evacuate the people in Afghanistan who fought on our side. Mind you, we brought 210,000 illegal immigrants into the country across the southern border last month, but it was evidently way too hard to bring about 125,000 people under a certain sentence of death out of Afghanistan.

For those of you unfamiliar with how this will go, I can give you a broad picture to use as a template. Pol Pot in Cambodia, and the evil people involved in the North Vietnamese regime, managed to enslave and/or murder over 2,000,000 people in the first 5 years after the war ended in Southeast Asia. Reeducation camps, rape, shootings, starvation, and torture were routine and applied liberally (choice of words intended) to their enemies. 

This time around, there will be no reeducation camps. Nor will their be families left behind as members are killed. Nope. The Taliban have a habit of raping and murdering your family in front of you, enslaving the ones they want to continue to rape and torment, and then killing you in the most painful manner they can find. There will be no exceptions, and the deaths will be beyond belief in numbers and violence. If you were our friend, your entire family is doomed. If you were in a small village, probably the whole village will be wiped out. That’s how this will play out. 

We, the United States Military, left behind a considerable quantity of weapons, ammunition, and equipment. I doubt that we will send Tomahawks and B-52 strikes with cluster munitions to destroy it. No, we will watch it be exploited for intelligence value by the Communist Chinese (the same lovable rascals who released a bio-engineered virus on the world last year) who have declared their support of the Taliban. Some of those items will be used directly against us down the road, some will be sold, and all will lose their secrets. A couple of days of air strikes against things, not people, could prevent this, and the fact is we really should have had special forces people blowing this stuff up as the government fell. But we didn’t.

And Joe has assured us this would never happen. Not 6 months ago, not a year ago, but 38 days ago. He lied about this as well. And then he ran away to Camp David where he’s eating ice cream and his handlers are trying to cover up his advanced dementia. There is a lot of lying going on in Washington for the last few decades. I’m willing to bet most people just accept it as the truth because “The government said so.”  Strangely, veterans I talk to are the least likely to accept that. Largely because we were obligated to follow orders blindly (*mostly*) during our service, but got to see behind the scenes stuff the average person didn’t. We, the collective we, were disposable. Some of us know the truth: and it isn’t what’s coming out of Washington. If they lie to us about something as obvious and checkable as the fall of Afghanistan, why wouldn’t they lie to us about a lot of other things we can never check?

So, here we are, 46 years after Saigon fell with the same clown-show political scum in power, many of whom are secretly gleeful that we “got ours.”

Me?  I had lunch with a friend who’s an Afghanistan vet today. He had a very distinct opinion about what is happening. Strangely, it sounds pretty much like what my friends fathers and older brothers said in 1975.

We have once again betrayed and hurt our veterans for political expediency. I cannot count their sacrifice as a loss, for they showed us what true love of country meant. Generally from the rank of E-1 to aboutt O-6.  Most in the general officer ranks had very little skin in the game and it was about politics.

But the men and women who came home in body bags, or with no left leg, or with nightmares and mental health problems related to the conflict deserved better. This withdrawal could have been handled much better and it wasn’t.

Importantly, we should never have tried building a democratic nation state there. It generally doesn’t work well in places like Afghanistan. What should have happened after 9/11 was an aerial blitz of all Al Qaeda camps, special forces turned loose with blood warrants, and an economic destruction of the place that would make salting the earth look like a gift. 

Yes, I know I’m a barbarian. But I’m a big believer of kicking your attacker in the crotch and hitting him in the head with a hammer just before you leave to have a beer down at the saloon. Hurt him so bad that he’s not going to bother you soon. But don’t stick around to lecture his family about how they should behave. Kill all the bad guys you can find and leave. Quickly. Leaving them wondering if you’ll come back and fearing that possibility.

I apologize to the Afghan patriots who worked with us, and to the Vietnamese who fought the communists on behalf of my nation. Hell, if the Dixie Chicks can apologize for us I can too. My statement is simple:

If you have to choose between working with us and surviving, our track record says go it without us.

I am ashamed of our government. We could have done so much better. And we should have.