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Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

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Letter: Lessons from Afghanistan

By Charles Cousins , Vancouver
Published: September 8, 2021, 6:05am

This won’t make people happy, but:

The scenes broadcast from Kabul in the final two weeks of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan are heartbreaking not only because of the human tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes, but also because we know it’s all grist for the soulless mill of American politics.

Anyone may cast blame or wrap themselves in a flag of their choosing, but honor is required as the caretaker of conviction, or else humanity is lost. The marriage of capitalism and politics has always been a problem, but now we have the internet to thank for the light speed dissemination of millions of voices that coalesce around bumper sticker philosophies. A state that political greed is more than happy to exploit at the expense of degrading the cement that holds together the aggregate of our potential as a singular society, weakening the foundations of our republic.

Politics is just the tip of an iceberg upon which our ship of state has already run aground — and those people left with a will to set us right again must finally turn a hand to bailing our swiftly sinking ship with the same spoons they must use to feed their children.

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