GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Why did we have an election?

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For background, here are U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan the last 10 years. Note that the war started in 2001, so the first several years are not shown.

It’s easier to read if you click on it. In brief: for the last 2-3 years, we’ve had about 10,000 troops and 25,000 civilian contractors in Afghanistan, which is down from much higher levels through the greater part of the Obama administration.

It’s been a 16-year war, and I have to ask: Why? And Donald Trump used to ask that same question. But yesterday, Trump sided with the Deep State in further extending the Afghanistan war. He justified it with the usual platitudes, basically, This Time We Mean It And Have A Plan To End It – the same things Presidents Bush and Obama said.

Of course I don’t want to let Afghanistan be a haven for Muslim terrorists; but do we have a credible plan to win, all the sudden? What is it? I listened to Trump’s entire speech, and did not hear specifics.

We know that Trump is willing to loosen the rules of engagement, that is, let the military fight more effectively. And he spoke of dealing with terrorist sanctuaries or supporters in Pakistan. Both reasonable.

But suppose we kill all the terrorists. What then? We leave, and things go back to what they were. I don’t have any great ideas here; just a nagging sense that this war cannot be won by conventional means. And, once again, I have to ask if it is really about opium cultivation?

Opioid epidemic

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Ever notice how phrases “pop” at you in public discourse? It can be hard to tell if it’s just you, or if the phrase came into fashion recently.

In 2017 (about since President Trump was sworn in), I’ve been seeing more about human trafficking, and more about opioid epidemic. Both are horrible things. Were we collectively talking about them before? I don’t think so. Why weren’t we? Was there some sort of political-media embargo? Or did we just not want to? Were we being distracted?

Trump has been making more of a fight against human trafficking than President Obama did. Which is good. I may post on that soon. This post will be on the opioid epidemic.

In 2014, I noted how U.S. involvement in Afghanistan strangely coincided with a 30-fold increase in opium cultivation in that nation. (Also in 2009, Bruce (the GayPatriot) acknowledged it indirectly.) Afghan heroin could certainly be contributing to the U.S. opioid epidemic.

Today I want to show you this chart seen on Zero Hedge.

The U.S. has the highest rate of drug deaths in the world. 4x of Asia; 6x of the world average; 9x of Western Europe; 16x of Africa.

I’m not sure what it means. Perhaps several things.

  • Does Africa not have a drug problem? (Looks that way.)
  • Is the U.S. weak on drug rehabilitation? (Probably.)
  • Are drugs in the U.S. a big business? (all that Afghanistan heroin comes here? plus Latin American cocaine, etc.?)
  • If yes, then surely certain U.S. political-financial forces would be out to protect the U.S. drug business? Surely those forces would hide in plain sight, as respectable authorities, or politicians of the 2 major parties?
  • Are we suddenly talking about the opioid epidemic in 2017 because, say, some of those forces lost some power in a recent election – making it OK to notice? Or just because the term hit a critical mass?

One thing is for sure: the “War on Drugs” of the last 3+ decades has been a miserable failure. A city council member in Ohio proposes to handle it Darwin’s way: Deny 911 assistance to repeat drug overdosers.

His reasons have to do with saving his city’s finances. But one side effect would be to have drug overdosers face an increased (that is, a natural) death rate. That’s an unusual idea.

UPDATE: Commenters are noting the role of Medicaid and Obamacare in giving people more access to prescription opioids. Also here is a chart from the CDC (via Wiki):

It looks like a trend since 2000 in deaths from all opioids (heroin, synthetic and prescribed) that has accelerated in the last 5 – 7 years. Wiki says:

Fentanyl, a newer synthetic opioid painkiller, is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin…strong enough that police and first responders helping overdose victims have themselves overdosed by simply touching or inhaling a small amount…Fentanyl has surpassed heroin as a killer in several locales.

Yikes.

What to make of these items?

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I come across items from time to time, of which I don’t know what to make. Conspiracy theorists make something of them. Not tending to be one, I file them in the back of my mind and await more information.

The latest is, a prominent German journalist discussing how intelligence agencies manage the media, whether by perks, bribes, help in writing stories (which are thus ‘planted’ stories), or harassment and retaliation on journalists who don’t co-operate. The implication is that our biased media is managed, not only by the political Left, but by the U.S. and other governments.

Another is this year’s spate of deaths among mid-level bankers (previously mentioned here). Most of them are officially suicides, but it’s an odd cluster; the more so as the last few years have been great for the financial sector. Whether these deaths are murders (to cover up something) or genuine suicides by the despondent, either way they would suggest a banking system much worse off than is generally believed.

Finally, there’s this chart:

The first implication is that, while the Taliban’s rule of Afghanistan in 2001 was repressive, at least they shut down heroin production. The darker-minded might also suggest that wealthy narcotics interests (and by extension, banking interests?) were particularly offended by the Taliban and eager to see them go. Which, if true, could make Afghanistan at least partly (apart from the al Qaeda/9-11 aspect) a modern-day Opium War.

P.S. If you want to help make sense of any of these in the comments, be my guest!

Obama administration blows a CIA station chief’s cover

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Recall how in 2003, a massive scandal erupted when Richard Armitage, a State Department official under then-Secretary Colin Powell, happened to leak Valerie Plame’s name to a journalist. Plame was a CIA Stateside employee (arguably NOT under cover). Armitage was basically gossiping, and he never underwent any prosecution because it was no big deal. Except, of course, the Left/media had a field day pushing the scandal complete with the darkest possible allegations against President Bush, lionization of Plame and her partisan-liar of a husband, a federal prosecutor and a ‘gotcha’ conviction of Scooter Libby (a Bush staffer who was not the key leaker; Armitage was).

Recently, the White House leaked the name of a top CIA officer in Kabul, Afghanistan. His name was really a secret. He does serve abroad (and in a danger zone), and he is endangered by the leak. As the Washington Post puts it:

The Post is withholding the name of the CIA officer at the request of Obama administration officials who warned that the officer and his family could be at risk if the name were published…

The CIA officer was one of 15 senior U.S. officials identified as taking part in a military briefing for Obama…Their names were included on a list…circulated by e-mail to reporters…

It is unclear whether the disclosure will force the CIA to pull the officer out of Afghanistan…The identities of at least three CIA station chiefs in Pakistan have been exposed in recent years. In one case, a CIA officer became a target of death threats after his cover was blown, forcing the agency to rush him out of the country.

Should we expect any big scandal, Left/media outrage, federal prosecutors or trumped-up convictions over this?