English blog post 1

What caught your attention this year? What are you interested in at the moment? This can be a story, an event, a hobby, skill, relationship...anything. Focus on one thing only and try to write as clearly and concisely as possible.

At the moment, I have been thinking about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. This was the end of a war that had gone on longer than I have been alive. I learned about 9/11 as history, when I was in second or third grade. All I knew at the time was that someone had attacked us, and that it was a devastating day. I remember the same video that was always played from the video series Brainpop, an animated education series for young students hosted by an average-looking guy and a robot named Moby. They say that Al-Qaeda was an extremist group that hated the US because of its western values. An animation of the collapsing towers plays and the robot beeps sadly.

We never learned about the American intervention in the middle east leading up to the event, or the long history of such organizations being supported by the US to fight Russian-backed groups or take certain leaders out of power. We didn’t learn about the CIA connections to these terrorist group leaders nor about why the war continued after Bin Laden was assassinated. I remember seeing President Obama announced that Bin Laden had been killed over the news. I did not wonder until a long time later about why some people living in a desert on the other side of the globe hated the US specifically so much, or what we could have done to bother them. For two decades, the government continued funding this war and sending more troops and increasing the military budget. All this was done despite evidence of an improving situation or without a clear reachable goal in sight. Growing up, I honestly thought that war was the natural and perpetual state of the nation in order to maintain the safety of its people. The actual reasons are a lot more complicated and less morally clear. I have family members and friends that served or were directly impacted in the war. It’s a sensitive subject for most Americans.

Now that it has ended, there are a few baffling elements. I am ashamed to see how the incumbent president handled the situation. He denied all responsibility and made it clear that he did not care about the people fleeing for their lives, crowding the departing flights and clinging and falling from the sides of planes. The end of wars was something that Trump ran on, but like every promise he made he did not fulfill it. I suppose he had predicted his re-election would be inevitable. It is absurd that President Biden maintains that there was nothing that they could have done to be more successful in the withdrawal, even after the bombing that killed around a dozen US soldiers. He blames Trump, or the military intelligence he was given, everyone but those he put in charge of the withdrawal.

The most interesting reaction to arise from all this has been the media reaction. The is the first time that corporate media has turned on President Joe Biden. He was defended after the rape allegations, despite being clearly a corrupt politician, despite his deteriorating health and inability to speak clearly. But it took ending a war for these media networks to actually criticize him. The subsequent Taliban takeover has been heavily reported in the news as well as the violence committed in Afghanistan now. The media has made ending a war seem worse than a war itself. There was very little reporting on the violence and civilian casualties because of the US and its allies that has taken place over the last 20 years,

The American imperialist mindset directly damages US citizens and leaves trails of blood and destruction in places around the world. Think of the tremendous amount of money spent that could be put towards much better aims. These wars cannot be seen as “good wars” and it is time for this perceived role to be brought into question. The news is full of disappointed soldiers frustrated because of the sacrifices they made and for all those who have not come home. There is but one answer to this: the best way to honor those that have fallen is by ensuring that the nation is more careful about how and when it sends its children to war. Does this decision by the current administration point to a de-escalation of US wars around the world and deconstruction of the military-industrial complex? Current foreign policy in the rest of the middle east suggests not. There is a lesson to be learned that is not being communicated by the media or people in power.