Our government under Republican and Democratic administrations lied continually about how we were winning the Afghanistan war, when the reality was it was a disaster, and they knew it. The Washington Post just published Special Inspector General For Afghanistan documents they obtained after a three year FOIA court fight. The documents show everyone involved knew Afghanistan was indeed another graveyard of empire. Yet Administration and military lies about it never stopped. This includes Obama too.

Why did we even invade Afghanistan? What was the military plan that was supposed to dismantle al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban from power? Did our government not understand that fighting entrenched forces in mountainous areas is difficult at best. Or was it just the war pigs needed another war, which of course makes defense contractors happy too. Our invasion arguably had no legal justification but we went ahead and did it anyway. And it all went south rapidly.

“After a month of the U.S. bombing campaign rumblings began to reach Washington from Europe, the Mideast, and Pakistan where Musharraf had requested the bombing to cease. Having begun the war with the greatest imaginable reservoir of moral authority, the U.S. was on the verge of letting it slip away through high-level attacks using the most ghastly inventions its scientists could come up with.” said author Stephen Tanner.

The WaPo report is devastating. Incompetence and failure was covered up with lies. This is quite a lot like what happened in Vietnam and Iraq.

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

The interviews, through an extensive array of voices, bring into sharp relief the core failings of the war that persist to this day. They underscore how three presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — and their military commanders have been unable to deliver on their promises to prevail in Afghanistan.

Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.

“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, an Army colonel who served as a senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers. “Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.

George Nader, adviser to Trump 2016 campaign has already been indicted for “bestiality pornography found on his cellphones featuring toddler-age boys, baby goats and other farm animals” and for bringing a “14-year-old Czech boy to the United States for sex.” Truly, Trump only hires and attracts the very best…

Today, Nader and seven other were indicted on campaign finance charges for concealing $3.5 million in campaign contributions to the Clinton 2016 campaign, via bundling and straw donors. The indictment does not specifically name the Clinton campaign however “campaign-finance records clearly reveal that person to be Clinton.”

Further, the indictment says Nader was reporting on his attempts to buy influence to a foreign government. He has been an adviser to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, and presumably this could also be MBS.

From the indictment:

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, 48, of Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 7, 2019, along with George Nader, Roy Boulos, Rudy Dekermenjian, Mohammad “Moe” Diab, Rani El-Saadi, Stevan Hill and Thayne Whipple. The 53 count indictment charges Khawaja with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation. Nader is charged with conspiring with Khawaja to make conduit campaign contributions, and related offenses.

According to the indictment, from March 2016 through January 2017, Khawaja conspired with Nader to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions, directed to political committees associated with a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election.

Nader allegedly reported to an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain influence.

The Democratic primary is in full chaos mode and this of course is completely normal and expected.

Ok, so Obama says he will speak up to stop Bernie Sanders in the unlikely event Sanders looks like he could win the Democratic primary. Which is pretending to hedge a decision but making it clear what the decision is.

Elizabeth Warren just cratered in a Quinnipiac poll, down 14 points in a month. Her all-in support for Medicare For All is probably the reason. Rick “Everything Trump Touches Dies” Wilson has created pitbull attack ads for Republican candidates for years. Most that business has gone away. He still has friends who are Republican operatives. Wilson said they did the happy dance when Warren doubled down on Medicare For All.

This is because Republicans know they can destroy Warren (and Sanders) on that in crucial battleground states. Polling there shows lots of folks, including those who voted for Trump in 2016 and might vote for a Democrat now, said M4A is a complete dealkiller. They want private insurance. Period.

Michael Bloomberg (and Joe Biden) agree that making that crazy marijuana stuff legal would be very bad because it leads to heroin or some such folderol. Looks like they are competing for the ranting Democratic elder voter.

To win a Democrat must take several battleground states. Pretty much, voters in those states don’t want woke. That’s probably why Biden is doing well.

Also, the African-American vote is a core constituency for the Democratic Party. Biden has that vote with no one else, including Harris, close. Bloomberg and Buttigieg are particularly abysmal here.

My guess is things will continue in near chaos for a while longer!

Mass shooters (4 or more dead) often generally share four similar traits, according to a study commissioned by DoJ and done by The Violence Project. They are 1) childhood trauma, 2) personal crisis or specific grievance, 3) a roadmap or script that validates their feelings, and 4) access to a firearm.

The data and conclusions are below. However, the most deadly mass shooting in the U.S -, Mandalay Bay here in Las Vegas where 58 were murdered and hundreds injured – remains an outlier and a cipher. Stephen Paddock had no apparent grievances, politics, or trauma. He had no manifesto. Despite literally tens of thousands of hours spent by multiple law enforcement agencies, no one has a clue why he did it. The report does say most shooters are suicidal. Maybe that is part of the answer?

It’s getting worse

“Mass shootings are becoming more frequent and deadly: Of the 167 incidents the researchers logged in that 53-year period, 20% have occurred in the last five years, and half since 2000.

They’re also increasingly motivated by racial, religious, or misogynist hatred, particularly the ones that occurred in the past five years.”

Assault weapons increasing are used instead of handguns, with predictably increasing carnage.

Most shooters are suicidal.

But researchers said they were particularly struck by how many mass shooters displayed symptoms of being in some sort of crisis prior to the shooting. “Those are opportunities for prevention.”

The study found strong links between suicidal motivations and mass shootings.

Nearly 70% of shooters were suicidal before or during the shooting, and the numbers are even higher for school shooters.

Shooters increasingly are motivated by fame.

Even if it’s just 15 minutes of cheering for them on 4chan after the shooting and before they go to prison, assuming they are still alive. Columbine was the, um, triggering event here.

Access to guns.

Most young shooters stole their weapons from parents or friends. Yes, absolutely, guns should be locked up. And maybe most of the times they were. But a kid will probably know where the keys are.

The presidential election is already over in 35 states. The battleground states will determine the outcome. Those states are not woke and do not want to be woke. Rick Wilson says potential swing voters in them could easily vote for Trump if the Democratic presidential candidate is woke. This especially applies to woke Democratic candidates saying Medicare for all and eliminate private health insurance.

Rick Wilson is an original Never Trumper, hardcore conservative, Republican operative for 30 years, and author of best-selling “Everything Trump Touches Dies.” He elaborated on this last night on Periscope last night before appearing on CNN. His new book “Running Against The Devil” will be released Jan 15.

His major points:

1) Republican pollsters were dancing when Elizabeth Warren said she wants Medicare for all and no private health insurance. They know they can destroy her on this with hit ads in battleground non-woke states. People in those states want their private insurance. Period. This isn’t a question of what is right. It’s that swing and undecided voters there might vote Democratic, except for this issue, which is a dealbreaker, so then they’ll vote for Trump. This applies to Bernie Sanders too. They don’t want a socialist.

2) We have an electoral college. It isn’t going to go away anytime soon, if at all. Therefore, Democrats have to win in swing states, some of which have deep blue urban areas and very red rural areas. A few percentage points can tilt their electoral votes. Defeating Trump needs to be the primary and sole focus. Saying that Hillary won the election because she got more votes is delusional and shows ignorance of what is needed to win.

3) Bloomberg and other billionaires running vanity races need to get out, then pump billions into Democratic voter registration and pit bull attack ads against Trump. Bloomberg could spend a billion on this without blinking. Let’s hope he does. Because the Trump campign may have 1.5 billion to spend.

4) Be woke after a Democrat wins the presidency. Not before. Because there is no chance of anything woke happening until Trump is gone.