Home By Christmas 2009

Published June 9 2009

In 2009 the Pentagon has announced the capture of an American soldier by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The young man supposedly walked off base with three Afghani soldiers, although there were also reports that Bowe Bergdahl had lagged behind a patrol. A video was released by the Taliban on which the soldier admitted, "I'm scared, I won't be able to go home."

He added later in the twenty-eight minute interview, "Yo my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home. Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power."

The Pentagon was quick to comment that exploiting a soldier in this video was a violation of international law. Somehow that same international law was never applied to enemy combatants or civilians during the GW Bush years.

Next we'll be hearing that the USA does not deal with terrorists.

Political flaks know what to say when they don't know what to do.

Talk talk talk.

Only words I want to hear from Obama are 'Bringing the troops home'.

Bowe Bergdahl remained a prisoner of the Taliban for five years, since the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said upon his release, "He will now return to regular duty within the command where he can contribute to the mission."

Once more condemned to the Endless War the soldier served as a clerk.

According to Wikipedia on June 25, 2014, the U.S. Army stated that there is "no evidence" that Bergdahl "engaged in any misconduct" during his years in captivity. A 2010 Pentagon investigation referred to above dealt with events leading up to his capture. In July 2014, Bergdahl was returned to active duty, having previously ruled that he had not betrayed the United States during his captivity.

The Army still sought justice and referred the case to the military court in 2015.

According to Wikipedia on November 3, 2017, Nance accepted Bergdahl's guilty plea and sentenced him to be dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank, and fined $1,000 per month from his pay for ten months, with no prison time. The fine and reduction in rank were to take effect immediately, while the discharge was stayed pending automatic appeal.

That judgment was vacated on July 25, 2023, Judge Walton vacated the conviction.

In 2021 President Biden ordered a complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan after nearly twenty years of occupation. There are still 175 military advisers there.

They did not get home for Christmas.

Bowie Bergdahl's whereabouts are not known as of July 2025.

ps there are over 200,000 US troops overseas today. The Pentagon has no plans of disengagement from the Eternal War.

$55 Million For Rubbers In Gaza

The other day the Orange Messiah signed an executive order to cut all finances to US AID, the principal U.S. agency to offering assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms according to the website.

"I want to shut it down."

The only exceptions were Zion and Kemet aka Egypt. Billions and billions. Palestine no longer exists for Trump, who has asked surrounding countries to absorb the 1.8 million from Gaza.

"I want to end Palestine."

Prior to October 7, 2023 the population of the Gaza Strip was 2.4 million. The MAGA leader's math means that Zion has killed over 600,000 people in its war against Hamas, the militant force of the Strip.

Zionist supporters have told me, "They're cockroaches. We have to exterminate them."

Palestine and the Arab nations were the only safe havens for Jews during the reign of the Thousand Year Reich.

"Not a single Arab worked the death camps of Buchenwald and Treblinka. It was Germans and yet you buy BMWs and Benzs."

"They build good cars." I heard that answer from many of them.

"Shame. I'm Irish. We will never forgive the British for their stealing Eire for eight-hundred years." Of course the Irish watch British TV and buy British. Everyone practices hypocrisy at their own pace.

Back to US Aid.

A fellow American complained to me that US AID provided $50 million in condoms to the Palestinians after hearing President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt announced that Trump had prevented a “preposterous waste of taxpayer money.” Trump’s team, she said, used the president’s pause on foreign aid to thwart a plan in which “there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.”

None of this was true.

The Guardian on Tuesday printed that the only Middle East contraceptives provided or funded by USAID during that three-year period went to the country of Jordan in fiscal 2023. This was “a small order of injectables and progestin-only contraceptive pills” totaling about $46,000.

As always whoever says it first is the truth for MAGA devotees.

An Iraqi Christian friend complained about the condoms' expenditure.

I defended US AID by saying, "In 1837 the British invaded Afghanistan to replace Emir Dost Mohammad Khan with the former King Shah Shujah as a more pro-Raj king and counterbalance the Russians in the Great Game. The Afghans weren't happy with this arrangement, but business was good at first, but the greed of the British led to higher prices in the Kabul market. Te situation worsened when in 1841 the East India Company's first political officer William Hay Macnaghten cut subsidies to the Ghazi tribe controlling the Khyber Pass and they joined the Jihad. How many of the 8000 East India troops escaped from Kabul?"

My Iraqi friend had no idea.

"Use one hand."

"Five?"

"One."

A surgeon, William Brydon.

"People around the world don't hate Americans. They hate America for the Eternal War. US AID helps millions of people all across the globe. I have traveled and seen the benefits and # 1 is that people don't hate Americans, most of whom have only visited one foreign country. New York. So fuck Donald Trump. Fuck MAGA. The 2024 election was stolen. I don't have to explain." I cut off any further discussion by offering garlic onion potato chips. Lay's, because potato chips are the modern manna for Americans. Crunchy, salty, and only $5 a bag. $7 billion a year. Now that's waste, but fat bald American males, a separate gender of male, love potato chips as much as they loved Donald Trump. Their fat bald Messiah.

THE PRESENCE OF THE GONE by Peter Nolan Smith

Boston is a four-hour bus ride from New York. My brothers and sisters lived in the southern suburbs of my old hometown. After my return from overseas in September 2011 from my European posting I called several times to arrange visits, but my father’s death in 2010 had disconnected our present paths from the routes of the past.

We are still family and that December my younger sister asked, “Are you coming home for Christmas Eve.”

“I’m working late on the 24th.” I also had to open the safe at the diamond exchange the morning of the 26th and I apologized for my holiday no-show.

“I understand.” Pam was heading to her in-laws in New Haven for the 25th.

We wished each other ‘Merry Christmas’ with love, thinking that we might see each other until some distant date in 2013.

Happily Pam phoned from New Haven on the 26th to announce that her loving daughter and she were arriving at Grand Central Terminal that morning.

“We’re having a ladies day in the city with the various members of my husband’s family, but I could meet you for a drink at the Michael Jordan’s steakhouse after our shopping.” My sister had promised to take her daughter down to Chinatown to purchase cheap knock-off fashion bags and glasses. Sawah was an easy teenager to please.

“That sounds good to me.” My boss Manny wasn’t at work, so we could close early. “I’ll see you then.”

My co-workers were more than amenable to my suggestion of cutting out at 4:30 and we packed away the jewelry in record time. After Hlove and I double-checked the safe and security alarms, we were good to go.

Twenty minutes later I entered the Grand Central Terminal from Vanderbilt Avenue. The elegant train station was bustling with comings and goings of commuters and holiday shoppers. There was few open spaces like it in the world and I glowed in the power and beauty of New York before noticing my sister waving from a table shared with three other women and my niece, who greeted me with a kiss.

I shook hands with the older woman with a pleasant smile
“I’m Ryan’s mom.” She was married to my sister’s husband’s brother. Her son was serving his fourth tour in Afghanistan.

“I’m Ryan’s fiancee.” A pretty girl with long brown hair offered from across the table. “We met in Afghanistan.”

“She worked for intelligence,” Pam said to prevent my asking any questions. Her hair stylist had worked a miracle on her color, then again she was known as Auntie Stunning to her nieces and nephews. I was simply Uncle Bubba. “If she told you what she really did she would have to kill you.”

“I’m not a spook,” Marie protested with a laugh.

“My brother says the same thing.” My sister has joked that I have been in the CIA since graduation from college. “His last job was writer in residence to a British Embassy in Europe.”

“Unofficial position.” Madame l’Ambassador was a long-time friend.

“Definitely a spook.” Another young lady commented from the banquette. “I’m Marines too. Just back from Afghanistan.”

“Happy you could make it.” My sister hugged me with tenderness.

Whatever difficulties separated us during our youth have been buried under the hubris of time. The defense lawyer was my good friend and saved me with a timely loan after Hurricane Sandy. She knew me well and asked, “Care for a glass of wine?”

“A Mer-LOT.” I mimicked my father’s pronunciation of the wine and my sister laughed, “Glad to see that someone is keeping up the tradition.”

“Not only that, but I teach people about the milkman’s and lumberman’s handshakes.”

“Oh, no.” My sister and niece groaned in familial harmony.

My father loved to show children these handshakes on his travels with the Elder Hostel. The tour operators warmed him that parents might think that he was strange. We did the same. He ignored everyone and I demonstrated both to Ryan’s mother.

“Another Smith tradition.”

Their train was leaving in twenty minutes, so we rapidly conversed about our connections and histories. I told them about my petitioning to the Pentagon to get a pension for my anti-war protests in the 60s and my sister mentioned our entering Studio 54 with the legendary wrestler Andre the Giant.

“The greatest athlete of all time.” I liked saying that because it’s true and most people don’t realize how true it was.

“You must have lived a great life?” Marie asked with envy. She was young. Life in the 70s was nothing like today. “I read about those times. They seem like a dream. Everyone and everything was so free, especially the drag queens.”

“Really?” Her comment took me off guard. Maybe she was a spook.

“Yes, there nothing like that now.”

“There was back then.” I told her about Boston’s The Other Side, the trannies of the Meat Market and a transvestite trapeze show on 45th Street. “I think the place was called GG Barnums. I had a friend Dove. She was always trying to get me to go home with her. I refused her each time, even though she looked like a vogue model.”

“Some of them were so beautiful.” Marie cooed, while her future mother-in-law frowned with moderate disapproval. America was changing albeit step by little step.

“Dove was gorgeous and she saved my life once.” I recounted how Dove had stopped a beating at the hands of a New Jersey biker pissed that I had interfered with his roughing up a gay ballet dancer.

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. So many of them are gone like so many of my gay friends.” I think about them often.

“I know what you mean.” Her future sister-in-law was talking about fallen Marines.

“My brother died of AIDS. He comes to me in dreams along with my mother. They visited me at a Cape Cod cottage, then he runs out to a beach filled with all the gone like that movie LONGTIME COMPANION.” The final scene filled the empty beach with the dead and I started crying about the loss of my friends and family. I could feel the gone in the air. They were everywhere.

Pam put her arm around me as did the Marine, who said, “I know, I know.”

I stifled the tears with my palm.

The mother nodded with sympathy. Her son was halfway around the world.

“Thanks.”

“We all have these stories.” Marie grasped my hand. She shared the trauma. “Everything will be better one day.”

“I like to think that.” I wanted the troops back home and a cure for AIDS and to see my kids in Thailand soon, each a simple request complicated by hard times.

My sister signaled for the bill. She paid fast. The train departure was in four minutes. We rushed down the stairs to the platform. They caught the 7.05 to New Haven with a minute to spare. Pam hugged me with my niece joining her embrace.

It was good to be with family and I waved goodbye walking back into the terminal.

No one is really gone as long as we remember that they were here.

Not my brother, my friends, or the fallen Marines and soldiers or the Afghanis lost to decades of war.

We are all here.

Then, now, and later.

Xenophon's March

In 401BC ten thousand Greeks fought at the Battle of Cunaxa for the Persian king. The mercenaries heard Cyrus the Younger had been killed in battle. The rebel throne-seeker's death stranded in Ephesus without food or transport home.

Suspicious of nobles the Ten Thousand under Xenophon marched over three thousand miles through the Persian Empire from Ephesus on the Aegean Sea east to the heart of the Persian empire, north to the shore of the Black Sea and back west to Byzantium, where a Hellenic fleet transported the 6000 survivors back to Greece.

The Ten Thousand were lucky, but their general understood their mission.

“Men, the enemy troops you can see are all that stands between us and the place we have for so long been determined to reach. We must find a way to eat them alive!”

In 1839 the British Raj invaded Afghanistan with 15,000 trained troops.

Three years later 700 British and 3,800 Indian troops followed by families, civilians, porters and servants numbering 14,000 retreated from Kabul

Only one soldier from the column reached Jalalabad.

Dr. William Brydon.

HIstory is repeated by people who don't read history.

The 80s were a new day for America under Reagan. We financed the insurgency against the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan. The Kremlin fought the mujaheddin for ten years.

Millions dead.

Millions more in exile.

A nation in ruins.

Russia luckily extracted its army from the 'Bear Trap' in February 1989 by bribing Afghan rebels to not combat the withdrawal.m The last Russian soldier to cross the Amu Darya was Lieut. Gen. Boris V. Gromov.

"There is not a single Soviet soldier or officer left behind me."

Only the dead.

The USA walked away from the following civil war .

I read more books about the region. Peter Hopkirk's THE GREAT GAME, Peter Levi's THE LIGHT GARDEN OF THE ANGEL KING, André Deutsch's A HISTORY OF CONFLICT and anything else venturing onto the subject of Afghanistan. I planned a trip across the region, although peace evaded the landlocked country until the Taliban seized power with the backing of the Pakistan secret service.

Gianni's prediction about something bad had legs.

Civil War, the Taliban, Al-Queda, 9/11.

GW Bush authorized a low-level invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. The Northern Alliance rolled over the Taliban troops and their Arab comrades with the help of US air power. The ease of the conquest emboldened the president to open a second front on the War of Terror before the invasion of Saddam's Iraq.

Afghanistan like Iraq was an easy conquest, but the Taliban were not accepting defeat. They had retreated to prevent the mass starvation that winter and the war raged for twenty-two years through four presidents without ever a sign of victory or even stability.

This afternoon I recalled the words of William Gladstone, the 19th Century English politician.

"Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own."

Our artillery shelled family compounds.

Our troops machine-gunned civilians.

The Air Force bombers and drones dealt death from above and below.

Black-Ops assassinated leaders of all factions and the CIA conducted torture sessions from Day One to now. Only bribes to warlords will prevent a repeat of the 44th regiment's disastrous retreat from Kabul.

Bribes to grow drugs.

Heroin.

A busload of smack could finance my retirement in Thailand for several hundred years.

Earlier in this year President Joe Biden announced the USA was completely leaving the land-locked country by 9/11/2021.

Troop levels dropped to 3000 troops scatted about the airport, embassy, and a few CIA safehouses and torture dens.

The fighting continued between the Taliban and Afghani army. The Pentagon had insisted on teaching the farm boy inductees complicated weaponry rather than the solid performance of the AK-47, RPG, and .50 caliber machine gun. As supplies dwindled for the sophisticated arms soldiers surrendered their positions. The Taliban took one city than another without much resistance. Still the USA military blisslessly touted the resilience of the Afghanis, but the trillions of dollars spent by the military-industrial complex couldn't prevent the collapse and yesterday the Taliban entered the capitol city without threatening the airport or embassy.

The Press and GOP accused President Joe Biden of 'losing Afghanistan'.

It was never found by those idiots.

The President responded by saying, "So I’m left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay: How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghans — Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not? How many more lives — American lives — is it worth? How many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery?"

In as one.

Out as one.

Now.

No one in America gave a shit about the endless world.

Except for people like Melvin Sterne, editor of CARVE.

He taught English at the university.

And their are my Friends in the service and their families

The answer is not more troops.

The answer is no troops no matter how bad the consequences for the Afghani people. Our bullets, bombs and torture can not save them or the dead.

They all have faces, names, and lives and as Joe biden ended his speech, he said, "I know my decision will be criticized, but I would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another President of the United States — yet another one — a fifth one.

Because it’s the right one — it’s the right decision for our people. The right one for our brave service members who have risked their lives serving our nation. And it’s the right one for America."

Bring the troops home.

THE ROAD TO KABUL by Peter Nolan Smith

Afghanistan was a two-day drive from Italy in the summer of 1972. At the end of the school year my future friend Gianni bought a school bus in Milano and told his parents that he was going on vacation.

Kabul was his destination.

His parents offered to pay the gas, viewing the venture as a mind-expanding experience after which Gianni would enter medical school. His companion for this voyage was his future wife, Julie, who knew the real purpose behind the trip, since she was holding over $20K in a money belt around her waist.

Hashish cost $5 a gram in the cafes around the Duomo cathedral. Gianni was planning on quadrupling his money by a smuggling venture to Kabul, which was the first step of the hippie route through Asia.

"Kabul, Kathmandu, Kuta Beach."

On the journey through Turkey and Persia, he didn't let Julie touch the steering wheel. Italian men are like that with cars and Muslim men are that way with their women.

In Kabul he packed the school bus with several hundred kilos of hash bricks and headed back to Italy, where he sold the shipment for millions of lira.

Gianni made three more of those trips during his years in medical school. Julie and he had a good life. No one asked the source of his good fortune. In Italy questions about income were considered impolite.

In 1979 I met Gianni at Hurrahs. The club booked punk bands. I worked the door. He was an intern at a big NY hospital. He loved the Damned, Buzzcocks, and B-52s. We became friends. He thought my girlfriend was beautiful.

Lisa was a model from Buffalo. She dated a ranked tennis player. I was never jealous. She came home to me every night. I never questioned the smell of another man's cologne on her skin. Accusations wouldn't have changed the model's moral code, when it came to getting ahead and I had little to offer her other than love.

One evening we ate over Gianni apartment on the East Side, which was near his hospital. His wife cooked northern Italian dishes.

Lisa played with their young daughter. Alice had blonde hair. She could have been Lisa's baby. Her unspoken dream was sacrifice for her career. Lisa wanted to be a top model. She was only 5-7. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she was short.

One night Gianni and I sat on his balcony, smoking reefer. He critiqued the weed like a connoisseur of fine wine and Gianni explained the source of his expertise.

Hash runs to Afghanistan enhanced my appreciation for the doctor.

"Now you’re a good citizen." Afghanistan was an exotic destination on the other side of the world. I had read THE HORSEMAN about the traditional horse game of Buzkashi, which was as violent as a Mongol charge. It had been made into a movie with Omar Sharif and Jack Palance.

"Maybe." He leaned forward so his next words were for my ears alone. "I would have kept doing it. The money was too good. Better than anything a doctor can earn in Italy or here, but once the communists overthrew the monarchy, I could tell something bad was going to happen and all things bad have long legs."

“Like what?"

"Chaos.” It was a feeling. "Afghanistan is on the map of the Great Game. You know what that is?"

"England and Russian trying to control the high plains of Asia for control of India's riches." I had read Rudyard Kipling's KIM. English pundits had traveled the high plains to upset the schemes of the Tsar. The 1975 movie THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING had portrayed two British deserters attempting to set up a kingdom based on destiny and Enfield rifles in the arid valleys beyond the Himalayan rainshadow.

"In 1842 3600 British soldiers retreated from Kabul. The only one to survive the rout, was a doctor, William Brydon." Gianni knew his history. "They tried to put a king on the throne."

The prize had been India and it still is for the Russians."

"The Russians."

"Yes, the Russians." The Commies were on the march throughout the 3rd World.

We returned to the dinner table. Our conversation focused on Lisa’s upcoming trip to the UK. David Bailey wanted to shot her for British Vogue. I planned on meeting Lisa in London a month later.

In November the two of us lived in a studio behind the Chelsea football pitch. Saturday afternoons Fulham Road was a war zone between the visiting fans and the Old Stafford firm of hooligans. Lisa and I lazed in bed until the only sign of the post-game riots was wind-blown trash. Vogue went with another model for the cover and I hung out at punk clubs, while she socialized with high society at Annabelles. She came home with her disheveled hair. It wasn't from the wind.

I was a third wheel on the bicycle of her ambition and returned to New York. The US Embassy was overwhelmed in Tehran. The Pentagon was powerless to rescue the hostages.

America had lost its taste for empire in Vietnam and the road to world domination was open for the Reds. The magnet pointed south through Kabul. Their army invaded in 1979. President Carter boycotted the Moscow Olympics. Ronald Reagan beat him in the 1980 election. He had bribed the ayatollahs to delay their release.

Lisa went missing in Europe with a Russian gangster from Odessa. I spotted her in a lingerie ad for Perla. Her smile invited men to bed. I hoped that she was lucky. I never saw her in Vogue and I looked every month from cover to cover.

The 80s were a new day for America. We financed the insurgency in Afghanistan. The Kremlin fought the mujaheddin ten years.

Millions dead.

Millions more in exile.

A nation in ruins.

The last Russian soldier to cross the Amu Darya was Lieut. Gen. Boris V. Gromov.

"There is not a single Soviet soldier or officer left behind me."

Only the dead.

The USA walked away from the war.

I read more books about the region. Peter Hopkirk's THE GREAT GAME, Peter Levi's THE LIGHT GARDEN OF THE ANGEL KING, André Deutsch's A HISTORY OF CONFLICT and anything else venturing onto the subject of Afghanistan. I planned a trip across the region, although peace evaded the landlocked country until the Taliban seized power with the backing of the Pakistan secret service.

Gianni's prediction about something bad had legs.

Civil War, the Taliban, Al- Quada, 9/11.

GW Bush authorized a low-level invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. The Northern Alliance rolled over the Taliban troops and their Arab comrades with the help of US air power. The ease of the conquest emboldened the president to open a second front on the War of Terror.

Iraq.

Afghanistan was an after-thought, but the Taliban were not accepting defeat. They had retreated to prevent the mass starvation that winter. The war has lasted nineteen years and two presidents with an end finally in sight.

This afternoon I recalled the words of William Gladstone, the 19th Century English politician.

"Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own."

Bombs in the compound.

Machine-gunned civilians.

Death from above and below.

Only bribes to warlords will prevent a repeat of the 44th regiment's disastrous retreat from Kabul.

Bribes to grow drugs.

In 2021 it's not about hashish now.

It's heroin.

A busload of smack could finance my retirement in Thailand for several hundred years.

Sadly Gianni passed from Co-Vid and I'm too old for that segment of the Great Game.

I have a wife and kids and grandchildren.

They want me alive for another thirty years and Kabul doesn't fit into that equation.

Then again being dead never had.

THE SURRENDER OF DESIRE by Peter Nolan Smith

Before 9/11 I was madly in enamoured with a blonde model from the UK. Judith was smart, funny, and liked her drink. We seemed doomed to be friends, then one wintry evening we drank ourselves past the portals of inhibition. Judith invited me back to her apartment. We made out on her sofa. This wasn’t only about sex. I fantasized more about her as someone to love than a one night stand. After ten minutes of passionate groping she suggested sharing a shower. We stripped naked and stepped under the hot water.

All systems go.

Except for one.

My penis was as flaccid as al dente spaghetti and failed to response to Judith's attempts to bring it back to hardness.

“Don’t worry, this happens to all men,” Judith told me later in bed.

I never got a second chance.

This was not a one-off occasion either and as someone once wrote, “Fear is the first time you can’t get it up for the second time, but terror is the second time you can’t get it up for the first time.”

I became a eunuch with women.

I confided to a security guard at the diamond exchange about my failing and Big Dave repeated the blonde’s statement. “It happens to everyone.”

The excuse sounded no better coming from his lips, except Big Dave added, “But never with this.”

A blue pill was pinched between his thumb and index finger.

“Viagra.”

“Viagra’s for old men.”

“You’re closer to 70 than twenty. Next time you get the green light for consensual sex, drop it 30 minutes before getting in the taxi. You won’t have softieitis. Trust me.”

I thanked Big Dave and stuck the pill in my wallet. It remained a useless bump for months.

Every woman in New York seemed privy to my mission unaccomplished with Judith. I had no takers, until I read THE HOLE OF HEAVEN at Joe’s Pub. An attractive Korean artist offered to buy me a drink. I thought her gesture was a compliment of my literary prowess, but an hour later we were in a taxi, heading to her Soho loft. Maria from Korea filled my ear with whispered desires. I liked oriental flesh. My libido responded au natural, however the doubt created by previous debacle was spreading southward to my loins.

As the taxi stopped before her loft building, I paid with a $20 and surreptitiously withdrew the linty Viagra pill. I swallowed it, as Maria fumbled with her keys. We had two glasses on wine on her sofa and she said, “I’m going to change into something more comfortable.”

“I can hardly wait.”

Other men had heard the same line. I didn’t care, because the Viagra had flooded my veins with a tsunami of lust.

“It’ll only be a minute.” She changed into a push-up bra, g-string panties, garters, silk stocking, boa feather high heels. Her smile widened lasciviously with a glance at my trousers. “You like what you see?”

“Yes.” I was no lie, except without warning blood pounded through my temples as if I was seconds away from transforming into the Hulk. Closing my eyes barely relieved the pain and this agony was joined by a variety of other unforeseen reactions. My body shivered with a strobe of hot flashes and my heart was bodychecking against my ribs.

“Are you all right?” My hostess was genuinely concerned for I could feel my face burning with blood.

“I don’t feel so good.” More like I was minutes away from a heart attack.

“Did you take a Viagra?” Her voice blew as cold as the first day of winter.

“Yes.” I was in no condition to lie.

“So I don’t turn you on enough?”

“Yes, but____” I never had a chance to explain about my problem with the blonde.

She shoved me out the door five seconds later.

Worst the headache would not go away and neither would the ungodly erection.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” My friend Jamie Parker shook his head upon hearing my story. “You only need Viagra for women with whom you don’t want to have sex.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but swore never to take another and have been faithful to that vow.

Strangely the Pentagon experimented with dosing US mountain troops in Afghanistan with Viagra to help them deal with chasing the Taliban around the Afghan peaks. The test was canceled after the Religious Right heard about the oxidation program.

Soldiers with erections is not Christian.

And I agree.

They would have been better off with coca leaves.

Yum Good.

Tell No Evil

Soldiers are notoriously unreliable. The Afghan troops are disorganized under US supervision, while their Taliban counterparts have fought the occupying forces to a stalemate.

Same tribesmen.

Different motivation.

This quandary befuddles military strategists, although modernists within the Pentagon tout the value of a soldier designed along the second stanza of Alfred Tennyson's famed poem THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Now the six hundred has been reduced to one.

A drone missile.

No sex.

No need for 'don't ask, don't tell'.

A eunuch warrior capable of violating Assimov's three laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Next stage; the Terminator.

Nothing is evil for Mr. "I'll Be Back'.

Another Awful Afghan Autumn

Another autumn has passed for coalition soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. The Taliban rise from the opium fields and the fighting season this its stride. Hardliners in the Pentagon are pressing President Obama to stay in place. He has said yes. I am seriously disappointed by his decision, because most couldn't located Afghanistan on a map or find New York.

So what to do?

Pull out?

Not easy.

16,000 British troops withdrew from Kabul in the winter of 1842.

Only one soldier made it to safety.

Bomb the shit out of them.

The Russians tried that.

The USA too.

I hate to say this, but the best policy would be to reinforce the troops there with a plan to get the fuck out in the summer and pay the right people bribes for a safe exit.

Nothing else will work.

Nothing.

Rush To Judgement

On the night of June 30, 2009 Private Bowe Bergdahl was captured by the anti-occupation Haqqani Gang. The circumstances of that evening vary from his video statement that he had fell behind his patrol, the Taliban claiming that he was drunk during an ambush, or that he walked off base heading for the mountains. The US forces conducted initial sweeps to liberate Bergdahl, however he had vanished with his Afghani captors Attempts to free Bergdahl bogged down with negotiations called for truce discussions between the Taliban and the US-backed Kanzai government. Nearly five years after Bergdahl's disappearance President Obama negotiated his release for five Taliban prisoners at the Gitmo Torture Center in Cuba and Bergdahl was freed by the kidnappers. A helicopters flew him to safety and he was later transported to Germany to a military hospital. Family and friends were ecstatic to have him back in safe hands, until FOX News and CNN repeatedly reported on accusations from his squad members that Bergdahl had been a deserter and searches for the missing soldier had resulted in the deaths of several American troops. GOP politicians were incensed by the President's failure to notify Congress about the swap and called for his impeachment on the grounds that Obama had broken the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act. Politicians on both side of the aisle questioned whether the five Taliban prisoners endangered America. The President defended his action by saying the Taliban had threatened to kill their hostage, if news of his release was leaked to the press. Bergdahl had suffered torture and long periods of isolation, but his detractors called him a traitor without any proof and a good percentage of the American public bought this rush to judgement as the truth, since their trusted opinion-makers had seen emails from the soldier condemning the Long War in Afghanistan. "The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American." Many Americans considered his statements to be treason. There was talk of sending him back to the Taliban. His hometown cancelled their celebration, concerned that the festivities would be ruined by anti-Bergdahl protestors. I was reminded of Stalin sending Soviet POWs from the Nazi concentration camps straight to the gulags of Siberia. Condemned without a trial. Guilty without proof. And not one mention of ending the Long War. For me I'm happy to see Sgt. Bergdahl from home, but I want all the troops back. There must be some deal we can cut with the Pentagon to free them from their captivity. Like giving the Chiefs of Staff new uniforms.

The Ugliness of Free Enterprise

Senator Elizabeth Warren has been lauded for suggesting that the interest on student loans be lowered to subsidized America's Future, however no one is proposing free education since this country prefers free enterprise. The entire yearly debt of college owns comes to $50 billion dollars. The same cost of running the wars in Afghanistan. So the choice is education or the endless War on Terror. Talk about that Ms. Warren and we might think you know what you're talking about.

Who Won The Kentucky Derby

This afternoon Orb won the 139th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. Orb paid $12.80 to win on a sloppy track of mud. Not a single sportscaster mentioned that today eight US soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan or that its President was still receiving millions of dollars each day from the CIA. It is time to end this war. And to admit defeat. Afghanistan was a failure. The Pentagon leaders should be put on trial. For Incompetence. It's time for the troops to come home. End the war now. ps I bet $ 10 on Itsmyluckyday at 15-1.

Inside Attacks

The NATO and ISAF troops in Afghanistan are approaching the eleventh year of occupation of that war-torn country. They have fought the Taliban in armed battles, suffered IED attacks, and suicide bombing, however this year an increasing number of supposed Taliban infiltrators into the Afghani Army have turned their weapons on their instructors and foreign troops or what the IASF have termed 'Insider Attack'. More than fifty foreign soldiers have been killed or wounded in these 'insider attacks' or 'green on blue', forcing commanders to restrict contact between the Allies of the Afghan government and the Afghan Army. The entire Taliban accusation smacks of misinformation, for some of these attacks come after instructors have berated recruits in a Camp Pendleton fashion or argued with Afghani soldiers over command issues, but the military have focused on the other side and closed training of police throughout Afghanistan. To misquote GW Bush "mission unaccomplished'. And the UN Secretary General has finally said the obvious; "From now until the end of 2014 you may see adaptation of our presence. Our troops can redeploy, take on other tasks, or even withdraw, or we can reduce the number of foreign troops. If the security situation allows, I would not exclude the possibility that in certain areas you could accelerate the (withdrawal) process." Bring the troops home. ps the name of the last US fatality is Stephens, Riley G. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He died from a green on blue attack.

2000 Dead?

In August 2012 the New York Times reported that US Military fatalities in Afghanistan has hit 2000. Three out of four of the dead were white, 9 out of 10 KIAs were enlisted service members, and one out of two were killed in either Kandahar Province or Helmand Province in Taliban-dominated southern Afghanistan. Their average age was 26 and many of them were Marines. This morning ABC News reported that 'seven days before the 12th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the war reached a deadly and tragic milestone this weekend as the 2,000th American soldier died in combat.' This announcement ignores the hundreds of dead from other causes as well as the hundreds of thousands of Afghani dead and wounded in this long long war with the fucking Pentagon telling the White House and the American people to stay the fucking course. And no one in America pays any attention to these numbers. It's Monday Night and it's time for Monday Night Football. But not for the troops in Helmand Province. Bring them home. The painting depicts the massacre of the British Army at the Gandamak Pass in 1842. As I said, "BRING THEM HOME AND FUCK THE PENTAGON."

Last Shot of WWI

Last night in Charlotte NC Barack Obama spoke about ending the war in Iraq. Our troops left that country in Dec 2011, but the USA maintains a large presence in Afghanistan. Only yesterday two soldiers were killed there. The president vowed to bring our troops home by 2014. VP Biden ended his speech with a shout-out to those serving overseas, but Mitt Romney never mentioned Afghanistan in his speech. Only Clint Eastwood said the word in his famed conversation with an empty chair. The GOP candidate was the first Republican nominee since 1952 to not mention war during his convention speech. I didn't see his speech. Nor did I see the last shot fired in WWI, which was on Lake Michigan in June of 1921, when a US gunboat sunk a German U-Boat, U.C. 97 One sailor, Ernie Pyle, later wrote that the ship was "still in sinking condition...it constantly shied to the right and once in a while felt as if it wanted to lie down." The sunken submarine lays in unknown waters. Even Mitt Romney doesn't know where.

2000 Plus

Tonight Texas is playing Tennessee for a berth in the Little League World Series. The crowd at Willamsport, PA is about 5000. I was watching the game this evening with my landlord's two kids. The score was 0-0 in the 2nd inning. ESPN showed happy faces eating hot dogs and slupring slush. There was no mention of the 80,000 troops in Afghanistan or that the number of US Military deaths in that long war have topped 2000. This morning the New York Times did not ignore that number. The center pages of the A Section was filled with the faces of the dead. Life Magazine had published the faces of the dead from a week in Viet-Nam. In the Times I noticed that some were young and some were old. A few were female. They all have names, although none of the dead Afghani dead are counted in the death tolls. One of the most recent US casualties was Lance Cpl. Gregory T. Buckley Jr. from Long Island. The New York Times reported that three out of four were white, 9 out of 10 were enlisted service members, and one out of two died in either Kandahar Province or Helmand Province in Taliban-dominated southern Afghanistan. Their average age was 26 and they were Marines. Eleven years with the Pentagon telling the White House to stay the fucking course. Fuck you. Bring the troops home. Barack Obama, do it before the election. According to the NY Times Mrs. Buckley recounted things her son loved — basketball, girls, movies, the beach — bitterness choked her words. “Our forces shouldn’t be there. It should be over. It’s done. No more.” Sorry for your loss, Mrs. Buckley. And this is the failing the White House, the GOP, the Democrats, the Pentagon, and especially the Press like ABC whose lead-in story for the 7PM news was the Ex-Penn State Pres. Citing His Own Child Abuse and a woman losing $4.68M Down Payment on NYC Apartment. Fuck you, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOx, CNN and the rest of your useless flacks. The news of today is not dead and California is in the finals for the final berth in the LLWS.

2000 Plus

On June 13 the Pentagon announced that the death of a US Marine has brought the death total of Americans in Afghanistan to 2000. None of the major news shows mentioned this milestone in the war that will not end. The right were quick to attack the mainstream media's failure to report this news, but neither had Fox News. This war has been forgotten by the American public, who simply want it to go away without any fuss. Meanwhile the Pentagon remains true to its mission and promises to stay the course. It's an investment, not a gamble. As for the other side Operation Enduring Freedom has cost Afghani civilians tens of thousands of lies. How many to be exact? No one really knows, since the Pentagon decided early in the game not to take body counts to avoid any mirroring of the Vietnam debacle. The answer is easy. Too many. Of them and of us. Bring the troops home.

Two More

Steven Sutton RIP

Julian C Chase RIP Today The New York Times added Julian C Chase of Maryland and Steven Sutton from Georgia to The Names Of The Dead bringing the total of soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 1976. There is no mention of either man in drudgereport.com, cnn.com, or Fox News. Marine Julian C Chase died in Helmand province, probably on a patrol against the opium growers. A teacher said in the Washington Post, “From very early on, his plan was to go on to the Marines. For him it was just one more step in learning and growing as a whole person.” Steven Sutton was also killed in Helmand province by an IED. Both men will be missed by friends and family. Bring the troops home.

Another

Two days ago Eric D. Warren, a US Marine Hospitalman was killed by an IED attack in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. The dead have names. His friends in Shawnee will miss him. They have families. He came from Oklahoma. They are not forgotten. Bring the troops home. ps the photo is of Eric D. Warren taking photos. It was his hobby.

One More

Monday. Qal-ah-ye Mirza Jal, Afghanistan. Enemy combatants attacked a PATROL of the Indiana National Guard with RPGs. Circumstances unknown, but Arronn Fields of Terre Haute died his his wounds suffered in this engagement in a town that even I can't pronounce and Goggle maps couldn't find in its search engine. The 27 year-old was the 23rd Indianan to die in that war since 2001. The Pentagon no longer sends a car to inform the family about their fallen son or daughter. Arronn's father received a phone call near midnight. The ex-military man told the Banner Graphic that the family was devastated by the news, but also added that, "We'd fish. It was a time for him and I to reflect on life. We spent just about every spring and summer in the evening fishing. He was a good fisherman." Their loss did not make CNN, NBC, or Fox News. One more death in the war that will not end soon enough. Arronn Fields RIP

Dead And Forgotten

Three names; tobias alexander, jesse ozbat, samuel watts. 3 names added to 1,934 already on the list No mention of these soldiers from Oklahoma, Virginia, and Illinois on CNN, Fox News, or NBC. Only the NY Times is keeping count and no Americans know the names of the Afghani dead, but they can tell you the name every contestant in AMERICAN IDOL. Bliss is ignorance.