West Virginian National Guardsmen Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, age 20. According to a former boyfriend, she was "not excited" to be deployed to Washington D.C.
If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Rudyard Kipling, The Common Form.
I haven't commented on this as of yet. For one thing, I wanted facts to be more fully developed before spouting off.
What we seem to know right now is that Spec 4 Sarah Beckstrom of the 863d Military Police Co., 111th Eng. Bde, West Virginia Army National Guard and SSG Andrew Wolfe of the Force Support Squadron, 167th Airlift Wing, West Virginia Air National Guard were shot by Afghan refugee Rahmanullah Lakanwal in what some complete and utter moron has termed the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Mission.
SSG Andrew Wolfe.
This was completely predictable in every fashion.
Indeed, right from the beginning, to those who know me, I predicated "they're going to get somebody killed". When you put troops out on the street, sooner later, one of them gets killed, or one of them kills somebody. It's the nature of that sort of thing.
Also predictable is the manic ranting of the demented King Donald, for whom they lost their lives. Likewise, the utterly predictable Night of the Long Knives response of the administration, indicating the deployment of 500 more men in what has already been declared illegal, is predictable. The administrations backlash against immigrants is predictable, with it being perhaps surprising that the Demented King Donald took his foggy rage out on Somalis first.
How did we get here?
Well, another part of why I"ve hestiated in the politicalization of this is bad enough as it is, and its impossible to comment on it without it getting political.
Nonetheless. . .
Let's take it step by step.
The first reason, of course, we are here is that the Demented King Donald wanted a bizarre show of force due to a criminal matter which came to the head with a DOGE flunky nicknamed "Big Balls" getting beat up on the DC streets. In the minds of the MAGA right, all American big cities are cesspools of violence, even though the data shows its been going down for decades. The more cynical minded might suggest that putting troops out on the streets served other interests.
At any rate, it was always illegal and stupid. Troops, even Military Policemen, make very poor city policemen. It soon became apparent they needed to be armed, which makes some sense, but ever since I've been waiting for the moment a Guardsman, and I was a Guardsman, shoots somebody. I'm amazed that it hasn't happened.
The second thing I've worried about is somebody shooting Guardsmen. That's now happened. For the angry and unhinged, they're a natural target.
By and large, thankfully, the Guardsmen have had nothing to do. As a result of that the Service has used the classic military reaction and set them to cleaning things, in this case D.C. parks.
Two unarmed National Guardsmen picking up trash in Washington D.C.
That's better than having the troops have nothing to do, but it's also demeaning. So much for Pete Hegseth and the warrior ethos he wants to bring into the service.
Now we have the trash collector ethos.
So, the first cause. Bringing troops into a situation, and keeping them there, where they are merely targets.
Trump gets the blame for that. So do his advisors. And so Patrick Morrisey, the Governor of West Virginia, whose Guardsmen these are.
So let's be honest here. They didn't die for a noble cause. They died for Donald Trump.
Let's go further.
Some would point out that the killer is to blame, and quite correctly, and then go further to note he was an Afghan refugee who was brought into the US under the Biden Administration and then granted asylum under the Trump regime.
The latter, I note, is important. Trump is denying it but it's true.
But here's the thing, bringing in Afghans who worked for us was a noble thing to do. They were going to be murdered, probably, otherwise.
What turned this guy into a murderer isn't clear at all. Something did. But frankly, bringing in CIA operatives is flat out dangerous anyway you look at it, normally. Most will be okay and go to new lives, but not all will.
The bigger question is why we lost in Afghanistan.
We lost as the country as a whole lost interest in what was frankly a very low intensity ongoing war.
The U.S. suffered 2,459 KIA in Afghanistan.
12,520 Americans died in the Battle of Okinawa.
No war is a good thing, but when you commit to a war you better know how you plan on it coming out, and what the exit strategy is. And if it's an American War, you better plan on it lasting no more than four years. Four years is about our limit of commitment.
When we went into Afghanistan we had the moronic Donald Rumsfeld concept of a limited war. Limited war is essentially shorthand for losing the war. Clausewitzian principals hold that you should go in with maximum moral force right from the onset and completely defeat your enemy. We didn't bother to do that. To make it worse, we engaged in a second war with Iraq for no reason at all at the same time.
Going into Afghanistan made sense. How we did it did not. Not sticking it out was a mistake.
And we should remember who decided not to stick it out. Donald Trump. He surrendered to the Taliban and left the Biden Administration to pick up the pieces.
So the second cause. Fighting the war in Afghanistan badly, and then surrendering.
George Bush II and Donald Trump get the blame for that.
Republicans Against Trumpism@rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social
Asked if he’ll attend the funeral of West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, Trump said:
“It’s certainly something I can conceive of… I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere.”
So now what?
Well, determining blame only serves a purpose, really, as a corrective. There are some lessons to learn here.
The first is that deployment of National Guardsmen to cities should stop immediately. The West Virginian Governor should screw up his courage and order his men home over the weekend. Pull out. They didn't join the Guard for this. Congress, the Republican portion of which is now a bunch of weak lackies, ought to start finding courage as well.
Neither of those things is likely to happen.
And the lesson of getting into wars, getting out of wars, and not surrendering before things are done with is here as well. The US is about to attempt to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia. That's a horrible idea. Ukraine can actually win the war, but only with our help. If its lost, thousands of Ukrainians who are already refugees will not be going home and fighting in Eastern Europe may revert to its old guerilla patterns.
Finally, I suppose, some pointing out that some of our leaders are real chickenhawks is overdue. Trump never served, and back during the war in Afghanistan we had a VP who never had either. It's worth calling people out on these things.
Finally, for too long the Press has refused to treat the Trump administration for the proto fascist entity it is. They need to be called out. If nothing else that will serve to point out that Donald Trump is losing his mind.
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