I had always thought my grandfather on my mother's side died at age 58. . .

but it turns out, he died in 1958.

He was, therefore, about 67 years of age.

Still not ancient by current standards, but not 58 years of age, either.

That was, FWIW, the same year my parents married.

His wife, my grandmother, died at age 89, however, which is a little younger than I remembered.  It was in 1979, which is later than I remember, which means that my recollection didn't make mathematical sense, either.  I was in high school at the time, but I don't recall it that way.

That also means that she lived long enough to see one of her children die, which I knew, and two of them fall into severe illness accompanied by mental decline, which must have been hard in the extreme to endure.

Monday, February 1, 1943 The birth of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a U.S. Army unit made up of Japanese American, Nisei, enlisted men, with white officers, was authorized.

The unit served in Europe during the war and became the most decorated unit in American military history.

44nd's DI.

Operation Ke (ケ号作戦), the Japanese evacuation of Guadalcanal, commenced. 10,652 Japanese soldiers were evacuated from the island with the US not realizing that the Japanese Navy runs were taking troops out, not in, until February 8, when the mission was over.

Vittorio Ambrosio became Chief of Staff of the Italian Army.  He ultimately supported removing Mussolini when the latter would not take Italy out of the war and helped negotiated the treaty that resulted in Italy changing sides.  He also supported taking the Italian Army out of the war against the Soviet Union.  

He was nonetheless demoted to Inspector-General after the Italian switch in sides, as the Allies did not trust him.

He was married to a Croatian and passed away at age 79 in 1958.

Tuesday, November 3, 1942. The 1942 Election.

Today was election day in 1942.  Overall, the nationwide election saw an increase in Republican office holders.

In Wyoming, the following occurred:

1942.  Lester Hunt, DDS, the sitting Wyoming Secretary of State and a Democrat narrowly defeated Governor Nels H. Smith.

Lester C. Hunt.

Hunt would serve as Governor for two terms before going on to becoming Wyoming's Senator.  He killed himself in 1954 after Washington D. C. policy picked up his son in 1953 for soliciting a male prostitute.  The scandal was kept quiet for awhile, but political opponents threatened to use it against him as a threat to keep him from engaging in a 1954 bid for office.

In the Senate Hunt had been an opponent of Joe McCarthy.

In the same year that Wyoming went from Republican to Democrat for the Governor's mansion, the state went in the opposite direction for the Senate.  Edward V. Robinson defeated incumbant Harry Schwartz.

Robinson.

Robinson's election was part of a nationwide treand that year that saw a Republican increase.  He's serve only one term and lose a bid for reelection.  He was Welsh and had served in the British Army in the Boer War, and is little remembered as a Wyoming politician.

Hunt's death, it should be noted, remains an enduring tragedy of the McCarthy Era, and one which, at least in some Wyoming circles, came to define McCarthyism and certain right wing elements of the press.

More on Hunt:

Baseball, Politics, Triumph and Tragedy: The Career of Lester Hunt

Robinson, on the other hand, gives us a rare example of a nearly completely forgotten Wyoming politician.  In some ways, that's a shame, as his life story was one that was somewhat typical of the era in that he was an early, post Frontier Era, immigrant to the state when a person could still enter ranching, which he did, in spite of having an engineering background.  Following his defeat for reelection he ultimately retired to Pendleton Oregon in 1958, where he died in 1963. 

 The Marines and Army begin an offensive on Guadalcanal at Koli Point.

Marine Corps pack artillery in action at Koli Point

Putting another log on the fire. Joe Biden stokes the inflationary fires with debt forgiveness.

 High school students, Pennsylvania, 1942.

First, even though I know that it'll make for a really long post, let me put in the White House's actual announcement on its forgiving student debt decision.

FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Student Loan Relief for Borrowers Who Need It Most

AUGUST 24, 2022•STATEMENTS AND RELEASES

A three-part plan delivers on President Biden’s promise to cancel $10,000 of student debt for low- to middle-income borrowers

President Biden believes that a post-high school education should be a ticket to a middle-class life, but for too many, the cost of borrowing for college is a lifelong burden that deprives them of that opportunity. During the campaign, he promised to provide student debt relief. Today, the Biden Administration is following through on that promise and providing families breathing room as they prepare to start re-paying loans after the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic.

Since 1980, the total cost of both four-year public and four-year private college has nearly tripled, even after accounting for inflation. Federal support has not kept up: Pell Grants once covered nearly 80 percent of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but now only cover a third. That has left many students from low- and middle-income families with no choice but to borrow if they want to get a degree. According to a Department of Education analysis, the typical undergraduate student with loans now graduates with nearly $25,000 in debt. 

The skyrocketing cumulative federal student loan debt—$1.6 trillion and rising for more than 45 million borrowers—is a significant burden on America’s middle class. Middle-class borrowers struggle with high monthly payments and ballooning balances that make it harder for them to build wealth, like buying homes, putting away money for retirement, and starting small businesses.

For the most vulnerable borrowers, the effects of debt are even more crushing. Nearly one-third of borrowers have debt but no degree, according to an analysis by the Department of Education of a recent cohort of undergraduates. Many of these students could not complete their degree because the cost of attendance was too high. About 16% of borrowers are in default – including nearly a third of senior citizens with student debt – which can result in the government garnishing a borrower’s wages or lowering a borrower’s credit score. The student debt burden also falls disproportionately on Black borrowers. Twenty years after first enrolling in school, the typical Black borrower who started college in the 1995-96 school year still owed 95% of their original student debt.

Today, President Biden is announcing a three-part plan to provide more breathing room to America’s working families as they continue to recover from the strains associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This plan offers targeted debt relief as part of a comprehensive effort to address the burden of growing college costs and make the student loan system more manageable for working families. The President is announcing that the Department of Education will:   

Provide targeted debt relief to address the financial harms of the pandemic, fulfilling the President’s campaign commitment. The Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). No high-income individual or high-income household – in the top 5% of incomes – will benefit from this action. To ensure a smooth transition to repayment and prevent unnecessary defaults, the pause on federal student loan repayment will be extended one final time through December 31, 2022. Borrowers should expect to resume payment in January 2023. 

Make the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers by:

Cutting monthly payments in half for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education is proposing a new income-driven repayment plan that protects more low-income borrowers from making any payments and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income—half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. This means that the average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers.

Fixing the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program by proposing a rule that borrowers who have worked at a nonprofit, in the military, or in federal, state, tribal, or local government, receive appropriate credit toward loan forgiveness. These improvements will build on temporary changes the Department of Education has already made to PSLF, under which more than 175,000 public servants have already had more than $10 billion in loan forgiveness approved. 

Protect future students and taxpayers by reducing the cost of college and holding schools accountable when they hike up prices. The President championed the largest increase to Pell Grants in over a decade and one of the largest one-time influxes to colleges and universities. To further reduce the cost of college, the President will continue to fight to double the maximum Pell Grant and make community college free. Meanwhile, colleges have an obligation to keep prices reasonable and ensure borrowers get value for their investments, not debt they cannot afford. This Administration has already taken key steps to strengthen accountability, including in areas where the previous Administration weakened rules. The Department of Education is announcing new efforts to ensure student borrowers get value for their college costs.

Provide Targeted Debt Relief, Fulfilling the President’s Campaign CommitmentTo address the financial harms of the pandemic for low- and middle-income borrowers and avoid defaults as loan repayment restarts next year, the Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in loan relief to borrowers with loans held by the Department of Education whose individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples) and who received a Pell Grant. Nearly every Pell Grant recipient came from a family that made less than $60,000 a year, and Pell Grant recipients typically experience more challenges repaying their debt than other borrowers. Borrowers who meet those income standards but did not receive a Pell Grant in college can receive up to $10,000 in loan relief.

The Pell Grant program is one of America’s most effective financial aid programs—but its value has been eroded over time. Pell Grant recipients are more than 60% of the borrower population. The Department of Education estimates that roughly 27 million borrowers will be eligible to receive up to $20,000 in relief, helping these borrowers meet their economic potential and avoid economic harm from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Current students with loans are eligible for this debt relief. Borrowers who are dependent students will be eligible for relief based on parental income, rather than their own income.

If all borrowers claim the relief they are entitled to, these actions will:

Provide relief to up to 43 million borrowers, including cancelling the full remaining balance for roughly 20 million borrowers.

Target relief dollars to low- and middle-income borrowers. The Department of Education estimates that, among borrowers who are no longer in school, nearly 90% of relief dollars will go to those earning less than $75,000 a year. No individual making more than $125,000 or household making more than $250,000 – the top 5% of incomes in the United States – will receive relief.

Help borrowers of all ages. The Department of Education estimates that, among borrowers who are eligible for relief, 21% are 25 years and under and 44% are ages 26-39. More than a third are borrowers age 40 and up, including 5% of borrowers who are senior citizens.

Advance racial equity. By targeting relief to borrowers with the highest economic need, the Administration’s actions are likely to help narrow the racial wealth gap. Black students are more likely to have to borrow for school and more likely to take out larger loans. Black borrowers are twice as likely to have received Pell Grants compared to their white peers. Other borrowers of color are also more likely than their peers to receive Pell Grants. That is why an Urban Institute study found that debt forgiveness programs targeting those who received Pell Grants while in college will advance racial equity.

The Department of Education will work quickly and efficiently to set up a simple application process for borrowers to claim relief. The application will be available no later than when the pause on federal student loan repayments terminates at the end of the year. Nearly 8 million borrowers may be eligible to receive relief automatically because their relevant income data is already available to the Department.  

Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, this debt relief will not be treated as taxable income for the federal income tax purposes.

To help ensure a smooth transition back to repayment, the Department of Education is extending the student loan pause a final time through December 31, 2022. No one with federally-held loans has had to pay a single dollar in loan payments since President Biden took office.

Make the Student Loan System More Manageable for Current and Future Borrowers

Fixing Existing Loan Repayment to Lower Monthly Payments

The Administration is reforming student loan repayment plans so both current and future low- and middle-income borrowers will have smaller and more manageable monthly payments.

The Department of Education has the authority to create income-driven repayment plans, which cap what borrowers pay each month based on a percentage of their discretionary income. Most of these plans cancel a borrower’s remaining debt once they make 20 years of monthly payments. But the existing versions of these plans are too complex and too limited. As a result, millions of borrowers who might benefit from them do not sign up, and the millions who do sign up are still often left with unmanageable monthly payments.

To address these concerns and follow through on Congress’ original vision for income-driven repayment, the Department of Education is proposing a rule to do the following

For undergraduate loans, cut in half the amount that borrowers have to pay each month from 10% to 5% of discretionary income.

Raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore is protected from repayment, guaranteeing that no borrower earning under 225% of the federal poverty level—about the annual equivalent of a $15 minimum wage for a single borrower—will have to make a monthly payment.

Forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments, instead of 20 years, for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less. The Department of Education estimates that this reform will allow nearly all community college borrowers to be debt-free within 10 years.

Cover the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest, so that unlike other existing income-driven repayment plans, no borrower’s loan balance will grow as long as they make their monthly payments—even when that monthly payment is $0 because their income is low

These reforms would simplify loan repayment and deliver significant savings to low- and middle-income borrowers. For example:

A typical single construction worker (making $38,000 a year) with a construction management credential would pay only $31 a month, compared to the $147 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,400.

A typical single public school teacher with an undergraduate degree (making $44,000 a year) would pay only $56 a month on their loans, compared to the $197 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,700.

A typical nurse (making $77,000 a year) who is married with two kids would pay only $61 a month on their undergraduate loans, compared to the $295 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of more than $2,800.

For each of these borrowers, their balances would not grow as long as they are making their monthly payments, and their remaining debt would be forgiven after they make the required number of qualifying payments.

Further, the Department of Education will make it easier for borrowers who enroll in this new plan to stay enrolled. Starting in the summer of 2023, borrowers will be able to allow the Department of Education to automatically pull their income information year after year, avoiding the hassle of needing to recertify their income annually.

Ensuring Public Servants Receive Credit Toward Loan Forgiveness

Borrowers working in public service are entitled to earn credit toward debt relief under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. But because of complex eligibility restrictions, historic implementation failures, and poor counseling given to borrowers, many borrowers have not received the credit they deserve for their public service.

The Department of Education has announced time-limited changes to PSLF that provide an easier path to forgiveness of all outstanding debt for eligible federal student loan borrowers who have served at a non-profit, in the military, or in federal, state, Tribal, or local government for at least 10 years, including non-consecutively. Those who have served less than 10 years may now more easily get credit for their service to date toward eventual forgiveness. These changes allow eligible borrowers to gain additional credit toward forgiveness, even if they had been told previously that they had the wrong loan type.

The Department of Education also has proposed regulatory changes to ensure more effective implementation of the PSLF program moving forward. Specifically, the Department of Education has proposed allowing more payments to qualify for PSLF including partial, lump sum, and late payments, and allowing certain kinds of deferments and forbearances, such as those for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps service, National Guard duty, and military service, to count toward PSLF. The Department of Education also proposed to ensure the rules work better for non-tenured instructors whose colleges need to calculate their full-time employment.

To ensure borrowers are aware of the temporary changes, the White House has launched four PSLF Days of Action dedicated to borrowers in specific sectors: government employees, educators, healthcare workers and first responders, and non-profit employees. You can find out other information about the temporary changes on PSLF.gov. You must apply to PSLF before the temporary changes end on October 31, 2022.

Protecting Borrowers and Taxpayers from Steep Increases in College Cost

While providing this relief to low- and middle-income borrowers, the President is focused on keeping college costs under control. Under this Administration, students have had more money in their pockets to pay for college. The President signed the largest increase to the maximum Pell Grant in over a decade and provided nearly $40 billion to colleges and universities through the American Rescue Plan, much of which was used for emergency student financial aid, allowing students to breathe a little easier.

Additionally, the Department of Education has already taken significant steps to strengthen accountability, so that students are not left with mountains of debt with little payoff. The agency has re-established the enforcement unit in the Office of Federal Student Aid and it is holding accreditors’ feet to the fire. In fact, the Department just withdrew authorization for the accreditor that oversaw schools responsible for some of the worst for-profit scandals. The agency will also propose a rule to hold career programs accountable for leaving their graduates with mountains of debt they cannot repay, a rule the previous Administration repealed.

Building off of these efforts, the Department of Education is announcing new actions to hold accountable colleges that have contributed to the student debt crisis. These include publishing an annual watch list of the programs with the worst debt levels in the country, so that students registering for the next academic year can steer clear of programs with poor outcomes. They also include requesting institutional improvement plans from the worst actors that outline how the colleges with the most concerning debt outcomes intend to bring down debt levels. 

***   

More information on claiming relief will be available to borrowers in the coming weeks. 

Borrowers can sign up to be notified when this information is available at StudentAid.gov/debtrelief.

This is going to be controversial.

So, let's cut to the chase.

We've posted on the American student loan system before, which exists in the happy mythical world of the 1960s, really.  In that world, high school students, rather than get manual labor jobs at General Motors, are given a chance to get a bachelor's degree, as any bachelor's degree means that they can walk into any office across the United States, wearing a clean white button down shirt and black tie, with gray wool slacks, and become an executive.

And in the 50s, 60s and 70s, there was a lot of truth in that, which is why the GI Bill, which in some ways all American "loan" programs are based on, was such as success.

That world hasn't existed for a long time.

Since World War Two, Americans became highly acclimated to loans in general.  Going back before the war, usually the only major loan that most people had was on their house, although surprisingly automobile loans date back all the way to the 1910s, and Ford Motors introduced financing for their cars in 1919.  There were installment plans on some things as well, such as major appliances, but for real personal debt, houses were it, followed by cars.  Credit cards didn't start to come into existence until the 1950s and 1960s, and had very limited, and often specialized, use.

American student loans did not exist until 1958, when they came into existence as part of the National Defense Education Act. That act was structured the way that student loan bills still should be, it provided loans only in categories of national strategic need, specifically engineering, science and education.  In 1965, however, loans were broadened out with the Higher Education Act of 1965, which saw advancing higher education as a means of advancing social mobility.  I.e., it was part of Johnson's Great Society.

It was in 1973, however, that the entire project took a giant leap with the Student Loan Marketing Association, Sallie Mae, which joined the group of female named Federal guaranteed loan projects which took the moral hazard out of lending for certain dicey propositions, such as home loans or educational endeavors with no real long term prospects.

Educational institutions really picked up on this, and it resulted in tuition inflation that came to grossly outstrip inflation.  It also encouraged the creation of pseudo disciplines in education and the resulting massive increase in the student bodies resulted in grade inflation.  This resulted, over time, in the devaluing of a college education.

No more walking out with your baccalaureate and into the boardroom.

In recent years this has led people like Bernie Sanders to suggest the solution for everything is to have the government pay for everything, as if too much isn't solving a problem, way too much surely will.  The better evidence is that at this point in time we'd be better off going back to the original loan model, or ending loans entirely.

Stepping into this now is Joe Biden, who is trying to follow up on a campaign promise to address this issue by hurling money at it, which gets into the Sanders mindset.  Sanders would likely just forgive them all and then pay for all higher education, because if making an education easy to get hasn't devalued it enough, then making it free surely will. . . oh, wait.

Biden's act doesn't contribute to that, but it's inflationary without a doubt.  Loan forgiveness is income.  Indeed, normally, loan forgiveness is taxed as income, but due to the Inflation Reduction Act this particular example at least will not be.   As this is the equivalent to passing money out, there's no two ways about it.

And the propaganda about it being aimed at lower income people is just that.  Providing relief to the children of couples who make up to $250,000 per year is clearly aimed at the middle class, as is the suggestion that it won't go to the "top 5%" of income earners, that being a category which is unlikely to have student loans in the first place.

So what this is, is a species of temporary subsidization of education for mostly the middle class.  It'll hit lower earners too, but the middle class will be the primary beneficiaries.

For a time.

But at the same time, it'll be inflationary, which hits the middle class the most, and given the level it's at, its benefit to the target audience is of low value anyhow.  So it contributes to the reduction in value of what everyone makes, contributes to the devaluing of education, provides cash to banks for making bad loans, and advances the concept that any higher level education is of economic value.

It's not the 1950s or 60s anymore.  It's not even 1973.  If we're going to have a government supported program, it ought to support a national purpose. This one really isn't anymore.  

And I'm not suggesting that a college education has no value. Far from it.  It's become, except for those born into fortunate circumstances, necessary.  Rather, I'm suggesting that this be protected.  As Kris Kristofferson noted, via Janis Joplin; "freedom's just another word for nothing else to lose, nothing don't cost nothing, but it's free".  I don't find this to be universally true, but in this instance, as with a lot of things that are "free", they come to have low or no value over time.  This has us headed one step further in that direction.

But benefits once conferred are difficult to withdraw.

Blog Mirror: Sergeant Presley: Photographs of Elvis’ Time with the Army

 

Sergeant Presley: Photographs of Elvis’ Time with the Army

The Original Stroll - February 1958

Losing in Afghanistan.

 

United States Navy photograph by Lt. Chad Dulac.

A recent article I saw somewhere stated that a lot of Vietnam veterans are having an unwelcome recollection of the end of that war.  One Vietnam vet I know personally told me that.

And the reason why is that they're seeing an abandonment of a cause we fought for in Afghanistan, just like we did in Vietnam.

It's an open question how long a democratic country can maintain a fight against an enemy that doesn't threaten to overrun it.  The US fought for four years in the Civil War over what the nation would be, and twice that long to bring the nation into existence in the 1770s and 1780s.  World War Two was fought, by the US, for four years as well.  All those wars, and others, were fought to a conclusion, so obviously the US will do that.  We more or less did that with Iraq, actually completing what we had started with the second Gulf War.

We didn't do that with Vietnam.  We entered, in a minor way, in 1958 and left officially in 1973, but in reality we didn't really get rolling until 1964 and had pretty much gotten out by 1972.  Still, Vietnam was a pretty long war by American standards, and we'd grown tired of the whole thing by 1968.  Nixon was elected on a promise to get us out, which he did. 

By the time we left Vietnam the American Army had basically been destroyed.  Not a battlefield destruction by any means, the NVA and the VC were not capable of doing that. But its moral had completely been destroyed.  Of the four services, probably the Marines and the Air Force were in the best shape. The Navy actually experienced a late war mutiny on an aircraft carrier, showing how bad things were for it.  That's important to know, but it doesn't change the fact that we entered Vietnam in strength in 1965, converted the war to an American style war, were complicit by omission in the assassination of its civilian head of state, and then left.  The US could have prevented the North Vietnamese victory in 1975 by the application of air power, but we chose not to.  

That may beg the question of what would have occurred in the war had the US simply not become involved.  Frankly, the Republic of Vietnam stood a good chance of falling on its own.  But we did become involved and even had a bit of a role in seeing a non-democratic civilian government become a series of military ones.  Only the first one arguably understood the country itself.

Intervening in a nation militarily imposes obligations on a country, wish for them or not.  Wars don't end when the party initiating them concludes they're over.  They end when both parties do.  When we left Vietnam we did so under a fiction that we were turning the war over (back?) to the South Vietnamese.  But we'd converted the war's nature into something else by that time, and taught the ARVN to fight like the US Army, with US equipment, and US airpower.  It's no wonder the rank and file of the ARVN collapsed in 1975. They no longer had all of that like they had before.

And that's what is going to happen in Afghanistan.

Somebody whose feed I get on Facebook, at least for the time being, claims that we entered Afghanistan on a limited "punitive expedition" and should have gotten right back out. There's some merit to that claim, but that isn't what we did at all.  Indeed, we botched the war there right from the onset, and that set the path for the next twenty years.

Donald Rumsfeld, who just died recently, was Gerald Ford's Secretary of Defense and therefore was familiar with punitive expeditions. The US reaction to the Mayaguez's taking by Cambodia was sort of that.  But by the time he was George Bush II's Secretary of Defense, he'd become a member of the technology v. troops trap that has so often ensnared Americans.

Moreover, while U.S. troops first touched ground in October 2001, the US put the war on a back burner preferring instead to take on Iraq in a war that was completely unconnected with the 9/11 attacks and which didn't need to be fought, or if it did, it didn't need to be fought at that time.

Indeed, often missed in the story of "America's longest war" is the fact that the US never committed to it in the way that was either required or really military necessary.  At a high point, in 2011, there were 98,000 US troops in Afghanistan, which is a lot, but pales in comparison to the 500,000 men commitment that was made to Vietnam and Korea.  Of course, those were large wars in comparison as well.  By and large, however, the US kept its commitment to Afghanistan low and slow, which meant that the Taliban was able to adjuster, and for that matter so was Al Queada.  That kept the war running.  In December 2002, well after the US commitment had commenced, there were still just under 10,000 US troops in the country. 

Fighting guerilla wars isn't easy to start with, but to really have caught and addressed the Taliban, the initial commitment should have been heavy and exclusive.  We never did that.

It's also easy to now forget that Osama bin Laden wasn't killed until May 2011.  It took us a full decade to achieve that goal, which had been part of the initial goal in the first instance.  Having engaged the war in Afghanistan in 2001, and having not achieved that goal until a decade later, those who argue that the effort was to be a punitive raid have more or less missed that point.

As we were in the country for that length of time, it was necessary to attempt to restore a functioning Afghani civil government.  But that sort of thing takes a very long time, which we should have been well aware of.  As we're addressing in another post on a completely unrelated topic, democracy isn't instinctive and building a democratic culture takes a very long time.  Germany and Japan, which had functioning parliamentary systems that were not completely democratic, but which did function, flunked it in the mid 20th Century and didn't achieve democracy until they were occupied after World War Two.  China, which started off attempting in 1911, has never pulled it off.  The US, our own example, started off with the reputation of being radically democratic, but only 6% of the population could vote in the country's first democratic election.

Given this, we can't really expect the Afghani government to be stable for a long time.  It's had twenty years, some might note, but many nations have taken longer than that.

And its military is collapsing in the face of a Taliban onslaught.  The best we can now hope for is that some regions of the country will become self-governing under their own local warlords.  Not a cheery thought, but the best one.  A 30,000 man strong body of Afghani commandos continues to fight well, but they are about it. The best they can hope for is that the Afghan central government becomes one more contesting force, sort of in the model of Lebanon of the 1970s.

None of this had to be.  We could have avoided this by fighting the war intelligently and according to well established military principals in 2001 and 2002.  But we botched that.

Having failed that, that committed us to the long haul. That would mean keeping some troops, and more particularly air assets, in the country for a long time, perhaps another twenty years.  If that seems outrageous, we've now had troops in Europe since they landed in Italy in 1943, and some forces on Japanese soil that have been there since 1945.  Our troops in the Philippines were there, under somewhat analogous conditions, from 1898 until the country was really made free in 1945, and continued on for various reasons decades after that.  We've been in South Korean since 1950 in a technical state of halted hostilities.

When we left Vietnam in 1972 it took three years for the country to fall, giving the US the hoped for illusion of "peace with honor" that Nixon had hoped for, even as he knew the country would fall.  The country has followed the Communist path since then, with all that entails, including a slow move towards a market economy directed from above.  Lenin's New Economic Policy may never have taken root in the USSR, but it seems to have elsewhere in the Communist world, save for the Stalinist theme park of North Korea.  No such hope can be realistically conveyed for an Afghanistan with the Taliban back in power.  It never had any interest in anything other than a strict Islamic rule. And that's what is most likely to return in that country.  We'll be complicit in that.

Addendum

Prior to the US announcing its intent to withdraw during the late portion of the Trump Presidency, total non Afghani forces supporting the government amount to 7,500 troops, of which 2,500 were Americans. The Afghan National Army was doing 98% of the fighting.

In the late 1950s. . .

Egypt and Israel engaged in an artillery war.  My recollection is that it was mostly in 1958. 

During this period the two countries shelled each other over disputed territory, with Egypt doing most of the shelling.  It came to an end when Israel chose to use air power to bring it to an end.

I note that as I suspect that's what we're entering into now in Iraq, with Iran.  And if that's the case, a person should be somewhat concerned about the probably escalating course.  I.e., if they rocket us, we'll surely sooner or later take out the rocket sites, somehow.

Assuming we aren't ejected from Iraq, which is a very serious likelihood.  Indeed, if this develops, my guess is that it would be a probability, as no host nation wants to be rocketed repeatedly.

Of course, maybe they'll stop with their recent rocket strike. And maybe we won't retaliate for it.  But that seems unlikely.

All of which brings up why taking out a uniformed officer of an opposing nation, even where he is not supposed to be, in a targeted fashion isn't wise, no matter how problematic  he may be.

Random Geopolitical Observations.

1.  When a major power suggest to opposition forces in another country that they ought to engage in an uprising, it does them a disservice unless they're going to actually support the uprising.

This was the lesson of the Hungarian Revolution of 1958, and it's the lesson of Venezuela right now.

Prior to the 58 Hungarian uprising, we suggested that if an Eastern Bloc nation tried to throw off the Soviet shackles, we'd be there.

We weren't.

And we just suggested to the opposition in Venezuela that it ought to overthrow the strongman in power.

They tried, and we didn't do anything.

Maybe we should have done anything in Venezuela, and no doubt we couldn't do anything in Hungary. That's not the point.

The point is, that by acting like we'd show up, we made the opposition show up, and that does them no favors if they can't prevail.

2.  Not everything is the economy.

Over the weekend North Korea launched missiles into the sea east of the country.  This raises serious concerns over North Korea's willingness to bargain with us to denuclearize the peninsula.  President Trump, however, issued a statement that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, will come to the table as he understands the "great economic potential" that the country has that could be developed if they'd treat with us.

What makes us think that?

Societies that have fairly open economies or develop them think that way, but lots of countries don't. And no country full thinks that way.  Kim Jong Un surely knows that the most effective way of modernizing his country's economy would be to reunite the North with the South in a democratic government, which would effectively be opening the border and asking to come into the Republic of Korea, much like the DDR did with the BDR (East and West Germany) when communism collapsed there.

But it's not like Eric Honaker decided that was a nifty idea.

That will probably occur at some point, but will Kim Jong Un take North Korea there?  It seems unlikely.

3.  It's good to finish up on existing wars before getting into others.

Right now the U.S. Navy is demonstrating in the Indian Ocean in a move directed at Iran.

I'll be frank that I don't completely follow our current policy on Iran, but get it that the country isn't our friend and it sponsors groups we really don't like.

But we still have troops in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.  Now, all of those struggles do involve Iran in one way or another, and maybe that plays into this.  But at a time at which it seems like we'd like out of all of those places, is it really well thought out to be looking like we're willing to take on Iran?  I'm sure we could, but do we really want to do that?