Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 31, 2024

And this is a large reason why Afghanistan has often been referred to as the “graveyard of empires” (not theirs, those of the occupiers).

I wish the Afghan women would rise up and kick “Talibutt”—right out of their country!

trump on abortion rights….I can’t keep up!

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.”

“I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do, I do!”

I have heard that the languages that are in one place have different dialects that are not the same even within 20 to 40 miles apart from one another ?

…When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.Go, go, go like a soldier,Go, go, go like a soldier,Go, go, go like a soldier,So-oldier of the Queen!

-R. Kipling.

Republicans are seeing that the Taliban just made women become invisible in public and they are drooling and can’t wait to do the same HERE!!

It’s a shame that this arc from 23 years ago DOESN’T seem dated.

Afghanistan is tRump’s Project 2025 testing ground.

Check out the history of the various attempts to occupy Afghanistan. Fluid tribal alliances are a way of life.

Of course, without the US, Russia would have lasted much longer in Afghanistan. The Russian soldiers were notorious for lousy hygiene (causing a huge amount of disease) and substance abuse (not just vodka), which also played key factors.

Didn’t the Mujahideen (the kids that WE armed and trained to fight the Soviets) grow up to be the Taliban?

Afghanistan is home to 90% of the world’s opium poppies (which, after refinement, are known as heroin). And who disproportionately buys those products? We do! Yes, we’re the ones who, thanks to our insane, counterproductive War on Drug-Using Americans, financed both sides of our longest-running war

Our country is the world’s largest market for illicit drugs, and our national policy has driven all those billions of dollars squarely into the gladly open hands of our own domestic criminal underworld, which then passes the loot along to their counterparts who control not only the south Asian heroin and fentanyl supplies but also the Latin American coca and marijuana fields and their incessant turf wars and corruption of public officials.

Whenever you hear the words “drug money”, remember where it’s coming from. And remember what’s driving ordinary people to flee those hellish conditions and head for our southern border. It’s our own stupid anti-drug laws.

Why don’t we take a lesson from Prohibition? After it was repealed, entrepreneurs opened taverns all across America and are now a source not of crime, destruction, and death but of conviviality, employment, taxes, civic engagement, and responsible behavior in cutting off people who’ve had too much.

It is too confusing when you are tempted to shoot yourself as the enemy but decline because you are thinking about switching sides again.

23 years later……. Nothing’s changed!

Let’s all get invovled in a land war at Mar-Al-Lego