Déjà Vu All Over Again

President Biden with help of his advisors failed. So did his predecessors. Both Democrat and Republican. Spare me the defensive attacks on the other side.

It takes me back to 1975. Leaning on a handrail of the weather deck above the well deck, i watched. The last few days have been déjà vu all over again as Yogi once said. Not watching, but a rarity for me, i have been checking the news, revisiting those moments about ten miles south off the coast of Vung Tau, Vietnam.

Nixon and Kissinger were wrong with the help of their advisors. So were their predecessors.

As i have written often, in 1975 i watched 35,000, about half of the initial refugees from the Communists taking over their country, coming over the horizon leaving their home of thousands of year out of fear. As i watched, i thought, “i don’t know what we could have done, but we damn sure should have done something different. These people deserve better.”

This is a bit different for me.

Back then, a lot of it was political posturing where ideologues were killing a bunch of people and committing atrocities on combatants, especially those taken prisoner. But the posturing was terrible, cruel, impacting lives of  innocent people.

We really should have done something differently. Those people needed help to remain in the county of their heritage. We didn’t do it. And we lost a lot of lives of our young men and women. i am not smart enough to have an answer but our folks with a plethora of intelligence, understanding of different cultures, should have figured it out and abandoned their political endeavors to do the right thing.

They didn’t.

And here we are again. Only this time, it is a reign of terror for women and anyone who will dissent and in all probability spawn incredible terrorism. i hurt for the women and the innocents who will suffer.

i am sad all of you bigots who are so entrenched in your political beliefs you can’t have concern for humanity.

We should have done something different.

Sad.

 

4 thoughts on “Déjà Vu All Over Again

  1. Well said, Jim. It’s a great sadness. And an empty feeling. Once again, deja vu all over again, we learn from history that we don’t learn from history…

  2. You really have to add military commanders as failures in Afghanistan. And you have to include the last 4 administrations beginning with Bush who left our guys there after the job was done. We should have been out of that country after one year and we stayed for 20?

    1. Shirley and i said the same thing comparing it to Viet Nam. I wish I could explain the differences in culturist ideals. It seems the colonists and their descendants believe in guns and power first. That is why some countries think the United States are the terrorists. Michael is right. One year and done. It seems Saddam Hussein was the only leadership to keep the taliban at bay. We had no business in Iraq nor Afghanistan.

  3. This is especially horrific for the young, unmarried women, most still children, who will suffer the wrath of these crazy men. You are right, Jim, we failed them. I’m very sad.

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