CSotD: Credibility
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John Darkow is hardly the only cartoonist to depict the last plane departing Afghanistan, or even the only one to offer “credibility” rather than our Afghan allies as what we’ve left behind.
It leaves me asking if all these cartoonists had a better plan.
It’s not necessary to have a detailed plan in order to criticize what you’ve been given, but either you think we should leave or you think we should stay.
If you think we should stay, it’s fair to ask what you think we’d be able to accomplish, and, if you think we should leave, it’s fair to ask how you thought we’d be able to get out painlessly.
As for our credibility, it’s fair to ask you to state where you thought it stood anyway.
It brings to mind two quotes, one of which is apparently apocryphal, but said of a minor dictator, “He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” There are those who welcome the umbrella of US protection, but still don’t like our overbearing personality.
In this case, they wanted the Taliban out of power, but they were happy to send a few troops and leave it to us to do the heavy lifting, just as they’re happy to have us in Western Europe as a hedge against Russia but they’d rather we didn’t make any demands in return.
Which leads to the second quote, Pierre Trudeau’s famous saying that living next door to us was like sleeping with an elephant, “No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast … one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”
If our friends and neighbors didn’t notice any twitching and grunting during the Trump administration, they certainly shouldn’t be feeling any at this stage.
When Obama came to power, he promised that the elephant would settle down, and everyone was so delighted that they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize before he’d done anything to make the promise come true.
Then we all discovered he didn’t have that kind of power after all. You can blame Mitch McConnell or you can say “shit happens,” but, in any case, it was a chance to build our credibility that didn’t much happen.
Now Biden has done something. It may lower our credibility in some quarters, but it might raise it in others.
My guess is that we’ll have to see what else he does, but, if you think our credibility was based on playing “Cops of the World,” we’ll have to disagree.
Even our allies weren’t that happy sleeping with the elephant and they weren’t so sure that we were really their SOB, either.
And there’s another element of credibility: When we left Vietnam, there was a collective sigh and a sense that, thank god, we’d never do anything like that again.
Giving us credibility issues within our own borders.
Bob Englehart points out that we’re so busy pissing on ourselves that it hardly matters whether the world does or not.
Biden is getting it from all sides, and, again, the question is raised of what they expected him to do, what they wanted him to do, what they thought a credible president would have done.
Dave Granlund raised this issue before the remains of the 13 dead were repatriated, and it might have been a good gesture to have all those presidents at Dover to greet what we hoped were the final dead of the war.
Instead, the rightwingers began by spreading a lie that Biden hadn’t shown up, and, when that slander fell apart, they went nuts over his having glanced at his watch and apparently they’re also upset because he saluted his guards and you’re not supposed to salute if you’re not in uniform, though it’s a tradition begun by St. Ronald of Reagan.
As noted the other day, our internal credibility is at the point where we’d rather quarrel than take even a moment to behave decently.
So what are we leaving behind? Xolo (CartoonArts) says nothing has changed, and, again, he’s not the only cartoonist to say so.
But the Taliban have their own credibility to worry about, which they didn’t, back in the days when having kicked out the Soviet Union seemed like all the credibility they needed.
Even then, they had to contend with a resistance, and it is worth remembering that Osama bin Laden left them a thank-you present on the eve of 9/11 by assassinating the leader of the Northern Alliance. Even at the height of their arrogance, when they were blowing up statues and beating women in the streets, the Taliban had been looking over their shoulders.
Now they’re broke and will have to play nice with others to qualify for foreign assistance. Perhaps not all that nicely, but not like before.
And 20 years after being dethroned, they’ve got even more reason for caution, since the Northern Alliance is back and, meanwhile, there are splinter terrorists within who feel they’re not extreme enough.
Juxtaposition of the Day
There’s an element here of what the Irish say of the little people: “I don’t believe in them, but they’re there.”
The Americans thought they’d wiped out ISIS, though, granted, it was on the word of Donald Trump, and yet there they were, toting a bomb to the gates of the airport and firing rockets over the fence.
Whether or not we believe in them, they’re most certainly there.
As for the Taliban, being in charge isn’t exactly a bowl of cherries. It’s hard enough, in a decentralized, tribal system, to make promises to the World Community about treatment of your people when you can’t guarantee that some jackass out in the countryside isn’t going to grab a gun and party like it’s 1994.
Internal discipline aside, and besides the resistance that thinks the Taliban has gone too far, they’re facing terrorists who feel they haven’t gone far enough.
While seeking aid from a world community that doesn’t trust them but is willing to use them as pawns, which might be the best offer they get.
Well, that’s their problem now.
We’ve got our own credibility to rebuild, and a new set of America Firsters to squelch.
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