Dispatches From Exile Weekly Mind Dump 5/7-13/23
Have we reached a fork in the road in which one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness and the other, to total extinction?
As I noted in subtack.com “Notes,” I’m launching a new feature here in “Dispatches From Exile.” My aim is to synthesize the major world and domestic events of the week into a wrap-up of where I see we’re trending as Americans and global citizens. Therefore, I’m calling it, “Weekly Mind Dump.” My aim is to be in more regular touch with readers, supplementing my articles with free-flowing commentary.
Of course, this is not only ambitious, but pretentious. I recall Woody Allen’s fictional “speech to graduates”: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Let us pray I don’t become as darkly pessimistic as Woody.
“Mind Dump” commentary — in contrast to “Dispatches” articles — will be unshackled from journalistic orthodoxy. Largely unsourced, conversational, personal and laced with my characteristic blistering humor, it will be short, pithy and brilliant. And still free!
If this isn’t your cup of tea, please deep-six it and move on. At the same time, I do welcome your feedback. Feel free to chime in.
And, so, here goes.
Back in the 1980s, I was the State Department’s Senior Country Officer for Afghanistan. My job was to deal with U.S. policy on Afghanistan at the working level. The Soviet Union was fighting a protracted and losing battle to conquer Afghanistan. The job of myself and colleagues throughout the government was to expand Russia’s hell with the goal of getting Moscow to leave. I’ve written about how I kept a grim, steadily growing body count on my office wall of Soviet casualties.
But we also focused on humanitarian challenges ranging from protecting refugees to providing food and medical assistance to Afghans. We also intervened with the Afghan mujahidin to treat Soviet POW’s humanely. The ferocious tribal fighters that made up Afghanistan’s “holy warriors” too often tortured and executed Soviet soldiers whom they captured. A particularly horrific cruelty was to skin POW’s alive.
I recall the case of one young Russian who had fallen into the hands of a band of extremist Islamist Afghan guerrillas. We learned they were mistreating him and planned to skin him alive. We scrambled to have our embassy people in Pakistan intervene to save this young man’s life. It worked! We placed him in a rat line for Soviet POW’s who wished to be resettled abroad. The young man traveled the rat line to safety in a Western country. Others followed. I consider our saving these soldiers’ lives as one of the most rewarding acts of my career as a diplomat. To this day, I often wonder how these men’s lives turned out.
Not having learned their lesson from their Afghanistan debacle, the Russians have now blundered into Ukraine. This meat grinder makes their Afghanistan experience almost look minor. The Soviet Union lost some 15,000 KIA in Afghanistan over ten years. It is estimated Russia has lost around 40,000 KIA in Ukraine in the little over a year it has been fighting in that country.
I’ve been glued to the riveting clips of battle action taken by Ukrainian drones. Some send chills up your spine. This week, two stood out. One showed a Russian soldier firing from a trench. A Ukrainian drone dropped a bomb on him, wounding him severely. One could see the Russian assessing his condition — his legs were paralyzed. He paused a moment, then confidently brought up his assault rifle to his chin and blew his brains out. Another clip showed a Russian soldier severely wounded from gunfire. As Ukrainian troops closed in, he reached into his chest belt for a grenade with which he blew himself up.
Russia is destroying itself over Ukraine. The key question is what happens when Putin is gone and will Russia break apart into multiple independent nations, as the Soviet Union did in 1991. I wrote about this a year ago in “Here's How Putin Will Be Taken Down” in which I predicted,
Certain verities of Russian history repeat themselves. Vladimir Putin would be wise to pay close attention. His own rule is on the line. And if he is taken down, his own siloviki (i.e., the security elites) will do it, spurred by a collapsing economy and public disgust. The catalyst, as in 1917, may come from the armed forces.
While it’s too early to say conclusively, Ukraine is headed toward victory. It will undoubtedly take many more months and more destruction and loss of life. But Ukraine’s combination of charismatic and competent political and military leadership and popular support contrasts with Russia’s shambolic leadership, military incompetence and fleeing for the exits of hundreds of thousands of its citizens.
What keeps me up nights is whether the United States will continue to be the bulwark of democracy and freedom and assured ally to those, like the Ukrainians, who are defending these values.
Like the creature from the black lagoon, that sociopathic misfit Donald Trump has reared his bloated orange visage again from the depths of the MAGA marsh. CNN, now in the hands of an Elon Musk doppelganger plutocrat, this week hosted a defacto Trump political rally in the form of a “town hall.” The result was a disaster for the news media and a victory for the dark forces that continue to swirl in the febrile soul of America. This was followed by Trump stating that if re-elected he would pardon the terrorist foot soldiers who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and would bring back the entire grand guignol that infested the B-horror movie that was his presidential administration — starting with the strangelovean Mike Flynn and usurpist Jeffrey Clark.
In his CNN circus act, Trump wouldn’t commit to assisting Ukraine, stating the falsehood, “We’re giving away so much equipment, we don’t have ammunition for ourselves right now.” Of course, he was the president who was impeached for attempting to extort, mob-like, his counterpart, Volodymir Zelensky, and suspiciously parroted the Kremlin line and snuggled up to Putin.
In a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey, 44 percent of voting-age adults say they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Trump in 2024 while 38 percent would definitely or probably vote for Biden.
Let that sink in.
The great American pundit H.L. Mencken said in 1920,
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
Well they did just that in 2016 and we still haven’t recovered from the corruption, mismanagement and toxicity of the Trump years. On the contrary, the American body politic continues to be poxied by Trumpism, which should greatly concern all thinking Americans. Should “the plain folks of the land” repeat their mistake and re-enthrone the worst president this country has ever had, well, all bets are off.
The Ukrainian people may lose their freedom and national identity. NATO will dissolve. China will run rampant in Asia. A true Axis of Evil comprising the vilest regimes will emerge. And so on.
At which point Woody Allen will appear prescient.
There’s no question and all of it takes time and relationships. It’s tireless work. People think this can be done with an app but apps don’t create relationships. People solve problems not chat gpt! lol
As Giles so aptly stated, he provided Jeffrey Clark and the DA of Fulton County several key pieces of evidence to contribute to the list while all of that town hall and viewers were watching and cheering him on with glee. I refused to watch but read all about it naturally. The fact is the mango Mussolini menace did prosecutors a favor! Whether he’s convicted and goes to prison or if he’s pardoned (I cannot imagine) we will have a problem on our hands. And was it Marx who did the movie “who’s next or whims on first)? We have a cancer and we need chemo and radiation. The good news is that the polarization seems to be growing in China and obviously things are catching up with Putin. Everyone is polarized or vastly unhappy on this planet. Let’s see what happens.