The USA is suffering under bad governance.  It means tragedy for innocents abroad, humiliation, sorrow, and a lower standard of living for Americans at home.

As we watch Afghanistan fall to the Taliban, we see the latest example of what bad governance brings.  The problem was the poor execution of questionable Biden administration policy.  (Trump had a good plan on how to exit, which Biden seems to have ignored along with input from his experts.) 

Biden's careless approach has created a disaster for women and girls in Afghanistan, for Afghans who worked with Americans, and for American citizens stuck in the country.  It may also hurt our allies — for example, China is now threatening Taiwan.

The fundamentalist Islamist Taliban promise to impose sharia law upon women and girls, many of whom have not known Taliban rule before.  One of the worst practices of the Taliban fighters is to forcibly take girls as their brides.  Another practice is stoning people to death for transgressions.

Reports are that Taliban are going through neighborhoods in Kabul with lists of people who cooperated with U.S. forces and inflicting torture and death upon people who cooperated with Americans.

Thousands of Afghans have rushed to the Kabul airport, Hamid Karzai International Airport — Biden shut down Bagram Airbase prematurely — to escape the Taliban.  More than 600 Afghans managed to get inside one of the first military planes. 

Fortunately for these Afghans, military personnel made the decision to lift off and fly these people away to safety, even though to do so was extraordinary.  Sadly, some desperate Afghans grabbed on to the outside of the aircraft, rode into the sky, and then fell to their deaths.  

And what is happening to Americans in Afghanistan?  Thousands are trapped in the country where they served.  The U.S. government is advising these people to go to the airport so they can leave the country, but they have also said that they cannot ensure that Americans will be safe while traveling to the airport.  The Taliban have surrounded it.  The situation could grow even worse at the drop of a hat.  Can anyone say "hostages"?

What's more, Americans in the USA are watching the fruits of their efforts over years and years go up in smoke.  Veterans and Gold Star families are grieving and wondering if their service and sacrifice was even worth it.  How maddening it must be to see Afghanistan come to this pass when a loved one lost his life in that place.  Plus taxpayers are watching their government waste their tax dollars as it abandons military equipment, installations, and our embassy in Kabul.  Also, Americans will bear the cost of taking care of so many Afghan refugees.

Biden gave a speech about the situation on Monday during which he displayed no empathy for the Afghans — though he is famous for empathizing — and showed how out of touch he is with the realities of what he and his administration have wrought.  

After his speech, Biden turned and walked off stage without taking any questions from reporters.  Minutes later, he flew back to Camp David to resume his vacation.  Seriously?

Some of us have seen this movie before, but many have not.  For them, here is one definition of bad governance: rule of a government that takes power through fraud or cheating, governs without consent of many of the citizens, is highly partisan and corrupt, controls the media and uses them for propagandizing, and promotes entitled-but-incapable political leaders to levels where they are incompetent. 

Bad governance ruins the lives and prospects of a nation's citizens and brings heartbreaking outcomes for people in other nations while destabilizing regions and nations.

Another ongoing example of the results of bad governance in the USA is playing out at the country's southern border because Biden reversed the Trump policies that were working.  This too is a humanitarian disaster, with hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens pour across the border, many infected with COVID-19.  More deadly drugs are coming across the border, too, and people are being trafficked.  Sadly, the surge of migrants is not slowing even at the hottest time of the year.

Other examples of the results of Biden's bad governance are the soaring crime rates in America's cities, higher food and gas costs for Americans, and businesses unable to hire help.  Bad policies?  Defunding the police, Fed printing dollars endlessly, shutting down the Keystone Pipeline and drilling on public lands, and the government giving workers money to not work.

The USA needs good governance again.  We must get involved politically.  As Todd Beamer said 20 years ago, "let's roll."

CS Boddie writes for Meadowlark Press, LLC.

Image: Nationaal Archief.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.