August 18, 2021
Over the last week we have been transfixed in horror watching the rapid Taliban takeover in the wake of American withdrawal from Afghanistan. The utter lack of resistance from Afghan troops has been stunning to witness, particularly in light of the investment of twenty years, billions of dollars and countless Afghan and American lives designed to prevent this very outcome.
Images of people rushing American military planes in a desperate effort to flee evoke nothing so much as the fall of Saigon in 1975. Our current foreign policy debacle may have its origins with the Bush administration, but accountability for it cuts across partisan lines and multiple administrations. It stems from the American illusion that every country yearns to fashion itself in our image and the stubborn refusal to acknowledge actual conditions on the ground.
Meanwhile, stateside, we are trapped in a country seemingly gone mad. We are in the midst of an out-of-control spike in COVID cases, made all the more enraging because it was entirely preventable. Unlike 2020, when our only tools were masks, hand washing and social distancing, we have three highly safe and effective vaccines that a frustratingly large percentage of Americans refuse to take.
That distrust stems from disinformation trumpeted by hypocritical right wing hacks on propaganda networks, or circulated in closed loop ecosystems on social media. That alone would have been enough to contribute to an increase in COVID cases, given the highly infectious nature of the Delta variant. The fatal accelerant, though, has been Republican governors who believe that their path to The White House lies in being as Trump-like as possible. They have issued orders prohibiting vaccine or even mask mandates, even as their hospitals run out of ICU beds and ventilators.
Governors Abbot of Texas and DeSantis of Florida are the worst offenders, by far. DeSantis not only banned mask mandates, but threatened to withhold the salaries of local school board officials who flouted his order, (Source: “Ron DeSantis Takes His Hatred of Mask Mandates to a New Level,” by Benjamin Hart, NYmag.com, 8/10/21). Not to be outdone, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission threatened to pull the liquor license of any restaurant requiring proof of vaccination. Governor Abbott is not relenting on mask mandates, even as Texas has seen a 400% increase in COVID cases in the last month and 53 hospitals have run out of ICU beds, (Source: “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is literally fiddling while COVID-19 cases burn through overwhelmed hospitals,” by Peter Weber, TheWeek.com, 8/13/21).
Their actions, in turn, have emboldened an army of belligerently idiotic vigilantes who attack public officials and parents who advocate for common sense public health measures in order to protect children! In California, a teacher landed in the hospital after a parent attacked him over a mask mandate on the first day of school. In Tennessee, parents and school board members advocating mask mandates were threatened by protestors who told them, “We will find you….You will never be allowed in public again,” (Source: “Arguments Break Out in Tenn. Parking Lots as Parents Grow Heated Over School Mask Mandate,” by Rachel DeSantis, People.com, 8/12/21).
The link between the wretched situation in Afghanistan and our confounding COVID response is the uniquely American tendency to staunchly hold on to opinions, regardless of actual facts, combined with our enduring belief that we can solve any problem with enough guns or money. In Afghanistan, senior military officials ignored “clear signs of failure or futility,” for years, (Source: “A 20-year failure to acknowledge a war gone wrong,” by Greg Jaffe and Greg Miller, The Washington Post, 8/16/21). Here in the U.S., it has allowed the Delta variant to run rampant, as thousands of unvaccinated Americans choose to believe easily refutable myths over scores of epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists, (Source: “Myths vs. Facts: Making Sense of COVID-19 Misinformation,” by Doug Most, The Brink, Pioneering Research From Boston University, 8/13/21). For centuries, American hubris has proven lethal to people around the globe. With Delta, it looks like the chickens are coming home to roost.