OK.  Let’s take a deep breath, relax – and THINK.  Thinking is such a rare commodity today.  People seem to blindly follow a leader of right, left, middle, up, down, etc. rather than think things through.   

The latest mindless blowup is over the supposed blockage of the reading the names of the 13 Marines killed during the evacuation of Afghanistan by speaker Pelosi.  I searched and searched and found only a couple of right wing media outlets reporting it – and the letter in your paper.  Let’s think about this now. 

Well over 2000 service people were killed in that country in 20 years.  Were the 13 killed this year more heroic than the other 2000+?  Why weren’t their names read in Congress?  They were at least as heroic as the Kabul Airport 13.  The thing I DID find was a law proposed by a Republican congresswoman that gold congressional medals be posthumously to awarded the 13. 
Wouldn’t the other 2000+ deserve such?  Now, why this strange thrust?  The writer of the letter tips his hand – and those of others pushing this attack – when he says, “Apparently, the Democrats don’t want to admit that Afghanistan was and is a disaster that Biden created and will stoop so low as to not even allow the names of our fallen Marines to be read aloud on the House floor.” 

There you have it: “Afghanistan was and is a disaster that Biden created.”  Blame the whole twenty year fiasco on Biden.  It’s a  “lets get Biden” attack.  President George W. Bush initiated the invasion, first to get Osama bin Laden, then to get al quaeda hiding there, finally to change the culture and government.  President Barack Obama unleashed a “surge” to carry these things out but succeeded only in getting bin Laden and seeing the greater number of military deaths in Afghanistan under any president.  Finally President Donald J. Trump negotiated directly with the Taliban to plan withdrawal from Afghanistan thereby scaring the government and army of that country that we had lost such confidence in them that they folded.  This left President Joseph R. Biden with such a disastrous mess to deal with. 

Chaos understandably ensued when hundreds of thousands of Afghanis descended on the airport desperate to get out before being killed.  It is to the credit of the administration and the handful of military that all Americans, except for 100-250 who are now being flown out, and the over 100,000 – over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND! – Afghanis who were saved. THINK, please.