The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan that started under Trump is more than half way completed.  Biden has said that it will be finished by Sept. 11, 2021.  It would be 20 years since the attack on our soil.  What have we accomplished during that time with all the deaths and other casualties of war? Not much.  There are pictures of Afghan soldiers putting down their weapons to the Taliban in various parts of the country already.  It is predicted that within 6 months after the withdrawal is completed, the Taliban will take over Kabul.

Could things have been different?  I think so.  I think there was overwhelming support of going after bin Laden and the Taliban which had supported him.  But before we finished the job, we changed direction and attacked Iraq under the false pretenses of WMD.  In reality it was another attempt of the U.S. to change regime in an effort to build democracy in another country.  Efforts like this have failed every time since Vietnam.  We got rid of Gaddafi in Libya.  But what was maybe the most vibrant country in Africa is today a big mess.  We have failed the Kurds who fought for us in Iraq and Syria.  Now there are countless Afghans who sided with us who will probably be killed once the Taliban take over again.

Do you think we have much credibility around the world today about building democracy in other countries?  Do you think that people will follow us given what happens to the South Vietnamese, the Kurds, the Libyans, the Iraqis and the Afghans who sided with us?  Do other people still think that American democracy is so great after January 6th?  We need to concentrated on our own democracy, our domestic terrorism and the divides we have here before we try any more misguided foreign adventures.

 Today, June 15 marks the reopening of the state of California!  California has done well in the past few months with one of the highest vaccinated rates in the nation and one of the lowest cases per capita in the nation.  So there was already confidence before this official date arriving.  

But I don't think California or any other state is out of the woods yet.  This loosening of restrictions may still have come too soon.  Hopefully not like last year when California was doing so well but once the restriction was lifted, the big surge occurred.  I think it won't be so bad this time because about half of the population in the state has been fully vaccinated.  But we are nowhere near herd immunity and the vaccinated rates is dropping despite the prize gimmicks.  

If we don't reach herd immunity by the fall, a surge may occur with the more contagious variant getting out of control.  But even if we achieve 80% fully vaccinated in California, other states may not reach that level and if many people travel to places like Disneyland, we still can get a surge.  So we are not out of the woods yet and those who have not been vaccinated need to do that ASAP.

 I had the honor of speaking at an anti-Asian hate rally on Memorial Day.  I spoke about the Vincent Chin case and how scapegoating of Asians in the 1980s led to his murder.  I also drew the parallel of what was happening then in Michigan to what is happening today throughout the country.  That is, once again, Asian Americans are being scapegoated and thus leading to many victims of hate crimes.

Obviously, most people do not think that the scapegoating of Asians is justified.  But inadvertently, many say or write things that help the causes of the racists.  For example, Bill Maher said that there is nothing wrong with using the term China flu since Ebola is an area in Africa but that name is used to name a disease.  He doesn't realize that no Ebola Americans have been scapegoated for that disease, unlike Asian Americans with names like China flu or kung flu?  Agreeing with Trump just help him deflect blame and give racists excuses to attack Asians.

Now an article in the Wall Street Journal claim that an unnamed intelligence source said that three staffers from the Wuhan Lab went to hospitals before the first case of COVID-19 was reported.  Three Chinese people going to the hospital during the flu season?  Not unusual given that there are few private clinics in China.  No diagnosis was given, no evidence of positive COVID test, no evidence that they were admitted let alone being in the ICU.  So what is the significance of this?

But then other media picked up this non story, even liberal media like CNN and Sixty Minutes.  They make it sound like that the virus was leaked from the lab even though this is not really evidence of anything.  But next thing you know, Biden is asking the intelligence community to investigate and come up with the answer in 90 days.  He doesn't have more information than this article?  We need to investigate the origin of this virus, of course.  But this is a scientific endeavor, not an intelligence or political one.  We have not been able to figure out how HIV started after decades, so I doubt the CIA can do this in three months.

Now for my own conspiracy theory.  The author of the WSJ article is Michael R. Gordon.  This is the same guy wo used to write for the New York Times before the invasion of Iraq.  He wrote then that unnamed intelligence source said that Hussein had WMD, the same talking point of neoconservatives who wanted to wage war on Iraq.  His sources, if he actually had any, were totally wrong.  But not only did he not lose his job but he was the only journalist embedded in the military during the war.  Thus he got great access for reporting and later wrote books about the war.  Obviously, his writing helped the hawks convince the American people the need for the war.  In return, his status of a journalist was greatly enhanced despite him being totally wrong.

Is Gordon doing the same here?  I don't know but if the U.S. wants to make China look bad, one way would be to use both the conservative and liberal media to do the job as it did in selling the Iraq war.  If this time it leads to war again, what will happens to Asian Americans in this country?

 More than 4 months after Biden had been sworn in as president, there are still many out there who thinks that Trump will be reinstated as president.  In fact some are calling for the overthrow of the government in a military coup similar to the one in Myanmar recently.  Among those who said that a coup is possible are Sidney Powell, former attorney of Trump, and Michael Flynn the retired general.

I know an ordinary citizen calling for a coup is not something you may want to prosecute.  After all, that are many people who have been seduced by the false narrative that Biden stole the election.   But a former general has to be held to a higher standard.  Flynn had taken an oath to defend the U.S. and for him to make up lies against the government and advocating a coup is borderline treason.  He tried to walk that back but it is similar to the time when Trump changed what he said to "Why wouldn't it be Russia?"

In this country, the civilian president is the Commander In Chief of the military.  So the military cannot overthrow the government.  So anyone planning a coup is committing treason.  But I guess a lot of the Trump supporter don't know or believe that.  They rather have the U.S. become a third world country where coups can overthrow the civilian government.  Maybe they should move to Myanmar!