I seems just a couple of weeks ago that the U.S. began withdrawal of troops out of Afghanistan.  Then last week, the Taliban took over several cities.  Then Biden decided to evacuate the civilians from the embassy by sending in troops.  They said that maybe in weeks the Taliban will take Kabul.  Well, the take over was much faster than expected.  The Americans barely got out and who knows how many Afghans who helped us are stranded.  This makes the fall of Saigon seem like slow motion.

I think most people, including me, find it hard to believe that after twenty years of training by the American military and given weapons, the Afghan soldiers could not hold against the Taliban forces for even a few weeks.  Upon reflection, I think the major reason for this failure is that the Taliban was fighting for their religion, at least the extreme version of it, and against the infidels who invaded their land.  The government forces were fighting for a paycheck.  Most of the soldiers do not believe in their own government.  This is the same dynamics when the Soviets tried to help the communists who ran the country against the Mujahedin.  The Mujahedin were fighting for their religion and saw the Soviets as invaders.  They were much willing to sacrifice to win.

The Soviets got into the quagmire in Afghanistan.  The U.S. was too happy for that during the Cold War.  In fact they supported the Mujahedin.  What we didn't realize is that after the Mujahedin would give rise to al Qaeda and ISIS.  With the Taliban victory who knows what terrorists groups will be emboldened.  I don't have problem with going into Afghanistan to go after al Qaeda after 9/11.  But veering off to Iraq and did not finish the job led to the mess with have today.  The Russians are probably laughing at us today.

The most important lesson is that we can never listen to war hawks like Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz again.  They made up lies about WMDs to get us into Iraq.  I will have more in the future about these war hawks and what are they up to today.  Another lesson is that we have not won a war since WWII.  We have spent trillions, lost thousands of lives and what have we got to show for it?  It is not our military might that is the problem.  It is the leadership that lead us into stupid wars that is the problem.  Our foreign policies need to change.  Otherwise we will keep getting humiliated despite spending tons of money and losing lives overseas.

Even though Bush and Cheney started this mess and Trump had declared the withdrawal before he was voted out, Biden is going to get a lot of the blame here.  His team failed to see how quickly Kabul was going to be lost.  We almost didn't get our people out.  Almost 40 years after Saigon, we are desperately evacuating.  This is going to be hammered by the GOP.  Biden can blame Trump but he is going to look bad just as Nixon did.  Add to the COVID surge which is mostly the fault of the anti-vaxxers who are mostly Trump supporters, Biden is going to have a tough few months ahead.

 The Tokyo Olympic games are over.  I have to give credit to the Japanese for hosting these games under terrible situation.  There were many who felt that the games should not be played.   I was borderline on that.  But Japan pulled it off and even though there were some increased in COVID cases, no great surge occurred.  For that we can all breathe a sigh of relief.  Now for some random thoughts on the games.

I was wrong about the women's soccer team and the men's basketball team.  I didn't think that the women would lose after that first game debacle.  Over the years they have been so much better than other teams and they have the best players available, unlike the men's basketball team which had some non all stars on the team.  But age may be catching up with the women.  Rest of the world may be also.

I was at least right about Kevin Durant needing to play better.  And did he ever!  He was the obvious MVP and the reason the U.S. won the gold medal.  He may be the GOAT of U.S. Olympic basketball.  I was also right about the lack of big men almost cost them.  Gobert dominated inside against them.  If he was a better scorer, we would have been in trouble.  What if we have to face someone like Jokic next time?  We have the best athletes by far but we still need some big men.

I was almost right about Doncic dominating.  He kind of ran out of gas the last two games after shouldering too much of the load to get Slovenia into the semifinals.  If he had taken the last shot against France instead of passing off, they could very well have been in the finals.

Good stories about couple of Asian Americans.  Everybody knows about Sunisa Lee who won the all around in gymnastics after Simone Biles dropped out.  There must have been great pressure on her going from number two to number one all of a sudden.  She is Hmong from the Twin cities.  My daughter went to college there and I remember seeing a lot of Hmong and Somalia refugees who settled there.  Minnesota has a history of taking in people from other countries.  Good to see spotlight on them.

Another Asian American is Jordan Windle who placed 6th in platform diving.  He was a Cambodia orphan who was adopted by a single gay man.  Jordan's father was rejected many times trying to adopt because of his status.  He turned out to be a great father as Jordan recalled how his father supported him all these years and saved him when he was only 16 lbs at two years old!

Simone Biles have put mental health at the front of the conversation which is great.  But the demonstrations expected at the games was practically non existent.  I guess given the pandemic hanging over everybody, nobody feel like protesting.

There were some new games to increase the interests of young people.  So skateboarding, surfing and sports climbing were added.  These all seem like sports for rich westerners.  I think we should find some sports that people in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America are playing.  I doubt that would happen because the people in charge want to increase the medal counts of rich countries and increase the tv ratings in rich countries as well.

I am sure I will think of something else to rant about but I am sure others can also.  On a lighter note, I wonder if people looking at the medal standings are thinking that Taiwan won a lot more medals than expected.  That is because Taiwan calls itself the Republic of China or ROC.  I see ROC has won a lot of medals.  But turns out it is the Russian Olympic Committee, not Taiwan.  This is all stupid if the Russia is banned but their athletes can compete under ROC,  Wasn't the ROC complicit in the cheating in the first place?  Did they sing the ROC anthem when an athlete win the gold or did they sing the Russian national anthem?  

 June 15 was the date that California reopened completely.  That was only one and half month ago.  I wrote a blog which said that we were not out of the woods yet.  So in a little over 6 weeks, things are looking bad again.  The cases are increasing rapidly here in California as is in most states.  I am sure the death rates will climb as well.  The delta variant is proven to be more infectious and dangerous than previous variants.  We are advised to wear masks indoors even if we are fully vaccinated.  

I never did stop wearing masks indoors when I go to public places.  But I can see others who have been vaccinated and thought we were back to normal getting frustrated.  The overwhelming majority of the people who get infected and get seriously ill or die are the unvaccinated.  But by telling the vaccinated that they have to wear masks seem to give the message to the unvaccinated that the vaccines don't protect us.  Those unvaccinated either do not understand or purposely don't care the fact they are not getting the vaccine is allowing this pandemic to continue.  I believe all the incentives in the world are not going to get them to do their part of simply getting a couple of jabs in order to save their lives and those of others.

I think it is time to have a national mandate for the vaccines.  Freedom?  I think the first freedom is not to die because there is no freedom after you die.  We have seat belt laws, we have laws against taking drugs, you can't drive 100 miles an hour etc.  This is a war and in time of war, freedom is going to be curtailed.  We used to have a draft.  You didn't have a choice of not going into the military if you were drafted.  There was no freedom then.  The country took away the freedom of hundreds of thousands of young men and tens of thousands of them died in Vietnam for an unworthy cause.  It is time to take away the freedom of not getting the vaccine in order to save hundreds of thousands of lives.

 Today is the first day of LA county restarting mask mandate for indoors even for vaccinated people.  The CDC has not make the change in recommendation yet but LA is jumping ahead because of cases increase.  There are many states that doing worse than California but LA had been the hardest hit area in California so it is not surprising that it is making this move.  The question is will others follow suit and will it be effective in stopping the variant surge?

I think if things continue this way, California as a whole will follow LA in mandating masks indoors again.  Some states may follow but others will not, at least not until things are much worse.  Florida is having 20% of the cases in the country now and I doubt that DeSantis will add restrictions anytime soon.  Even here in LA, the sheriff has said that he will not enforce the mandate.  I think the people who has not been vaccinated and not been wearing masks are certainly not going to follow the mandate.  So I am pessimistic that this will work.  I think there will be a surge in the fall unless we can get at least 20% more of the population fully vaccinated before cold weather hits.

In sports I noticed that Nick Saban, the football coach at Alabama, announced that his sophomore quarterback has already rack up a million dollars of endorsement.  Saban noted that Bryce Young has yet been named the starter.  It maybe his way to say that it is easy money if you come to Alabama!  So the rich will get richer or continue to be rich, but in a legal manner now!

 After watching the NBA finals this week and the European soccer championships, I will not be surprised to see upsurge in COVID cases in Wisconsin, Arizona, Italy and the UK in the next few weeks.  Given the ease of restrictions in the U.S. and the UK recently, i am not surprised that there were fans in the arenas and stadiums for these championship games.  But I was disappointed to see fans were allowed to watch the games on large tv screens outside of stadiums where the games took place and also at venues of the visiting teams.

So if the game was in Phoenix, there were also thousands of fans in Milwaukee watching the game together.  Same in Phoenix when the Suns were playing in Milwaukee.  Venues in England outside of Wembley were fill with spectators as were those in many Italian cities.  Even cities in the U.S. where there are lots of Italian or English fans, there were crowds gathered to watch the game today.

Most spectators in whatever venue were not masked and they were closer together than those in the stadiums.  After big plays or at the end of the games, people were hugging each other.  I think these gatherings were probably more dangerous than the those inside the stadiums.  Also people will gather at bars and other crowded places after the games.  Given the variants in both the  U.S. and Europe, I will not be surprised that there will be an upsurge in the next two to three weeks. 

 When people ask me where I came from.  I would say Detroit.  Then they give me a puzzle look, obviously not satisfied with the answer.  Then I would say Hong Kong.  Then they usually say one of two things.  The first is that they will say that I am Chinese since I am from Hong Kong.  The second is that they feel sorry for the people of Hong Kong because they are being abused by the Chinese.  So that gets me thinking.  Are people of Hong Kong Chinese?

Ethnically 95% of the Hong Kong people are Chinese.  But there is a big division among the people of Hong Kong of whether they are Chinese or not.  Age of a person will likely shape his view but even within an age group, the views are not homogenous.  

Take people who are older than me, in their seventies and over.  Many had escaped from China when the country was doing badly and they may have been persecuted by the CPC.  Most of these people are wary of the communists.  They maybe less likely to identify as Chinese so as not been associated with Communist China.

The people who are in the forties to sixties and were born in Hong Kong during British rule would be more likely to realize that Hong Kong was not a paradise under British rule.  These folks may have heard about the failure of Mao and the CPC during the fifties and sixties but they did not live in China during that time.  But they have seen the rise of China and how that has helped Hong Kong becoming an economic powerhouse as well.  During their adult years, their standard of living had risen many folds and became greater than that of the UK.  So while they may not want to move to China, they are more likely to think of themselves as Chinese.

Then we have the young people who were born after the return of Hong Kong to China.  They never lived under colonialism.  They believe that Hong Kong always had democracy.  I think they believe that they are superior to the mainlanders.  At the same time, the economy of Hong Kong has not grown like before so that the young people's standard of living is worse than those of their parents.  The big problem is land prices are so high that it is virtually impossible for a college grad to buy a flat now a days.  As a result, it is easy to believe that they are more British than Chinese and that it is worse under Chinese rule.

There are exceptions to every group that I mentioned, of course.  Ultimately, it may not matter if individuals in Hong Kong believe they are Chinese.  Hong Kong will be part of China and Hong Kong's future depends on China and not the UK or Western countries.  Hong Kong is still a big asset for China and China will try to keep it happy.  Despite tough talks from the U.S. and the UK, Hong Kong's survival depends on China. 

 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!