Remove the Dark Lenses and Let in Some Light

ED Noor: This has been my 24/7 problem since Operation Cast Lead really opened my eyes in 2008. The depression can be almost overwhelming until balance is found. In the case of post Cast Lead, I was forced to come to understand compassion and action, but to compartmentalize. Knowing ugly truths whilst surrounded by those who prefer the beauty of naivete is a challenge. In some cases the struggle to protect their innocence has won. Perhaps that was enabling, I don't know.  

Isolation can be difficult when your tolerance for fools is zero ~ although you make exceptions for those you love. Nothing is worth breaking family for unless circumstances truly are dire. But I digress. Just plain common sense talking in this little article. Nothing special; just a reminder of our shared humanity.

SOURCE

By Corey Lynn 

May 30, 2021

I find it intriguing how some folks automatically see through a set of dark lenses, as if their entire existence depends on them finding the negative in everything.

It’s almost as though they are in competition to spot more evil than everyone else. Someone could share a funny story, a photo of their dog, or a beautiful tale of their adventure through nature, and the dark lenses will instantly transpose it into some dystopian feature film, as though there is absolutely no good in this world and you’re not allowed to be joyous.

Are they a glass half empty kind of person 

or did they go so far down the rabbit hole 

they lost sight of humanity all together?

Has love, laughter, and compassion 

been programmed out of them?

ED Noor: In The Child Soldiers of Portland we cover fully the effects of current teaching on the psyches of children in today's liberal educational system of the West Coast. It is grim. Very grim.

How can one begin to move forward, to transcend the evil that does surround us, and co-create with others to build a better future, when they won’t allow the light in?

ED Noor: I learned that developing gratitude was a life-changer for me. Good mood, bad mood, every night I give thanks and identify each thing. Sometimes it might just be "I woke up this morning" or "my daughter gave me a grandchild". No matter, just finding things to be grateful for is enormously uplifting over time. You may begin struggling to find things but start small ~ within weeks the list will be too long to complete. Your emotions should be considerably uplifted by this simple activity. Hopefully you will also be humbled. That might sound strange, but it is part of the process.

Given the past year we’ve all had, it’s understandable that people find themselves in a state of depression at times, and angry as hell by the injustice against humanity, but this is when you have to dig deep. 

If you allow them to crush your soul,

you just turned it over to the devil himself,

and that doesn’t help anyone.

There is far more good in this world than evil, you just have to open your eyes and your heart and let it in. Helping others is a great way to achieve this, and is sure to remove those dark lenses, at least for a time. Hold onto those moments.

Everyone is going through difficult times right now, and if the powers that be get their way and society continues to proceed from a place of fear, we are likely to see more difficult times ahead. But that doesn’t mean it has to be all bad, and those trying to distinguish the flickers of light by finding negativity in everything, are not helping.

If one’s heart is so full of rage, 

how can they find joy?

How can they laugh at jokes, 

at friends, 

and at themselves, 

which is so important?

How can they show compassion for those around them when misery is all they see?

It is hindering oneself and those around them.

Take it from me, I’ve been down the dark rabbit hole for far too many hours over the past five+ years, and it can swallow you whole if you don’t come up for air. It has the ability to taint everything if you let it.

Regularly doing activities, interacting with others, and having conversations that don’t have anything to do with the darkness that is trying to consume us, is critical for one’s mental health and well being.

When those small moments come where someone shares photos of their thriving garden or adorable pets, or a funny joke, I am elated to share in those moments. It snaps you right out of the spell.

Don’t let the spell get hold of you.

This isn’t the time to bring each other down. We need to raise each other up… even those who may not agree with you. Many people are stuck in fear right now, and yelling at them or asserting they are wrong isn’t going to pull them out of fear. Kindness melts fear. Knowing that others have your back no matter what, melts fear. Allowing others to work through their fear can be a powerful move.

This is the time for co-creating, for building anew, for finding solutions, and yes… making others aware of various agendas being played on humanity so that they can come to the realization in their own time.

You cannot control another human being

and force them to see that which you want or believe,

you can only offer the seed and hope it grows.

Remove the dark lenses and let the light in, if not for yourself, then do it for others so they may find joy during a time where it is critical to our survival and building a future together.

Dedicated to our dear friend Zap.

Deagel Organization Predicts Massive Global Depopulation of 50 to 80% by 2025

ED Noor: I felt a need to share this information with you all. It jibes well with my previous post: I had originally considering posting them together but each is very different and contains different but important data that must be shared with you. Take it all at face value, do your research. This information is just another tool in the box.

Historically, a change in the economic paradigm Deagel organization predicts massive global depopulation of 50 to 80% by 2025. Deagel.com

~ Deagel, a true intelligence organization for the US government, predicts a massive 50-80% global depopulation by 2025. Few people are familiar with this website and even more say the organization does not legitimately exist. Despite the overwhelming removal of its significance, WikiLeaks documents revealed that it was legitimately used as a reference material in a Stratfor report on the technological capabilities of the North People's Republic of Korea.

~ According to its own website, Deagel provides news and information on international military aviation and advanced technologies. The website contains articles from 2003, but little is known about the real owners. Many online researchers have mistakenly confused this site with "deagle.com" which is owned by Edwin A. Deagle, Jr., Assistant to the Secretary of Defense and Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Deagel's reports, particularly the aforementioned research on North Korea, were also provided to the president during presidential briefings. Deagel thus provides information which is then used by global intelligence communities and governments.

Here is a partial list of known Deagel partners and customers, according to their own websites:

~ National Security Agency,

~ North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),

~ Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),

~ the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),

~ the Russian Defense Procurement Agency, Stratfor,

~ the World Bank and

~ the United Nations.

~ The advantage of these forecasts is that the Deagel site has no conflict of interest in these forecasts. They are literally mercenaries. The site analyzes which budgets will be allocated to which markets to purchase military aircraft. That’s all that really matters to them.

These forecasts are based on the reconciliation of various publicly available reports from institutions such as the CIA, the IMF and the UN. They also include a small amount of data from a variety of "dark sources" such as web gurus. But all of these sources are on the internet. The list is constantly evolving. Forecasts of population growth or decline, military spending, and purchasing power parity across countries around the world have fluctuated somewhat, but since 2015 one prediction has not changed: 

China will be the largest economy on the planet in 2025.

Massive global depopulation of 50 to 80% according to Deagel.

~ This highly regarded intelligence organization has bleak prospects for the United States in the years to come, including an 81% decline in its population, from 327 million in 2017 to 100 million in 2025. 

In fact, it predicted a similar cataclysmic fate for the UK, Australia, Germany, Japan, Denmark, and other US allies. 

For example, according to Deagel, the population of France will increase from 67 million inhabitants in 2017 to 39 million in 2025, that of England will increase from 66 million to 15 million, that of Australia from 23 million to 15 million. that of Germany from 81 million to 28 million, while the population of Canada will grow from 36 million in 2017 to 26 million in 2025 (ED Noor: Not according the the graph above!)

~ To make matters even stranger, a statement on Deagel's predictions page apparently claims that the population movements are due to suicide and assures us that the organization is not "a merchant of death or satanic worship":

~ “Historically, a shift in the economic paradigm has resulted in a death toll that is seldom highlighted by mainstream historians. When the transition from rural areas to large cities occurred in Europe, many people unable to accept the new paradigm committed suicide. They committed suicide by a psychological factor. This is not common but it is true. A new crisis combines old, well-known models with new ones. We are not a dealer in death or in satanic worship or in weapons as there are rumors floating around the Internet about this. "

~ “Take into account that the forecast is nothing more than a model, whether it is wrong or correct. It is not the word of God or some magical device that predicts the future.“ ~ Deagel.com

~ Most of the economic and demographic data used to make the forecasts are widely available from institutions such as the CIA, IMF, UN, US government, etc.

~ There is a tiny fraction of the data coming from a variety of shadow sources such as internet gurus, unsigned reports and others. But all of these sources come from the Internet and are in the public domain for at least a minority. For example, several years ago, Dagong, the Chinese rating agency, published a report analyzing the physical economy of states by comparing it to that of China, Germany and Japan. The conclusion was that the US GDP was between $ 5,000 and $ 10,000 billion instead of $ 15 trillion, as the USG officially stated. We assume that official data, especially economic data, published by governments are false or distorted to some extent.

Historically, it is well known that the former Soviet Union drew up false statistics years before its collapse. The West and other countries are now inventing their numbers to hide their real situation.

We are sure that many people can find government statistics in their own country which, through their own personal experience, are hard to believe or are so optimistic that they may belong to another country.

~ Despite the "quantity" of digital data, there is a "quality" model that does not translate directly into digital data. The 2014 strain of Ebola has a death rate of 50-60%, but try to imagine what would happen if there was an Ebola pandemic with hundreds of thousands or millions of people infected with it. So far, the few cases of people infected with the Ebola virus have “benefited” from intensive health care with antiviral and respiratory assistance, but mostly with abundant human support from doctors and nurses. 

In a pandemic scenario, this type of health care will not be available for the overwhelming number of infected, leading to a dramatic increase in the death rate due to the lack of appropriate health care. The “quality” factor is that the death rate could increase by 80-90% in a pandemic scenario from the reported rate of 50-60%. The number itself does not matter what is relevant is the fact that the scenario may evolve beyond the initial conditions of a 50% balance sheet to over 90%. By the way, no pandemic or nuclear war is included in the forecast.

~ The key to understanding the process America will enter the next decade is migration. 

In the past, especially in the 20th century, the key factor that enabled the United States to achieve its status as a colossus was immigration with the benefits of population expansion favoring credit expansion and brain drain. the rest of the world for the benefit of States.

The collapse of the Western financial system will wipe out the standard of living of its people while putting an end to ponzi schemes such as the stock market and pension funds.

The population will be hit so hard by a full array of bubbles and ponzi schemes that the migration engine will start to work in reverse acceleration due to ripple effects, leading to the demise of states. This situation invisible to states will cascade with unprecedented and devastating effects on the economy.

The offshoring of jobs will surely end with many American companies relocating abroad thus becoming foreign companies !!!!

~ We see a significant portion of the American population migrating to Latin America and Asia while migration to Europe ~ suffering from a similar illness ~ will not be relevant. Nonetheless, the death toll will be horrendous.

Take into account that the population of the Soviet Union was poorer than Americans today or even then. The ex-Soviets suffered during the next struggle in the 1990s with a significant death toll and loss of national pride.

Could we say "twice the pride, twice the fall"?

Nope. America's standard of living is one of the highest, well over double that of the Soviets while adding a service economy that will accompany the financial system. When retirees see their retirement disappearing in front of their eyes and there are no service jobs, you can imagine what will happen next. At least young people can migrate.

Never in human history have there been so many elders in the population. Over the past centuries, people have been fortunate enough to reach their 30s and 40s. America's downfall is expected to be much worse than that of the Soviet Union. A confluence of crisis with a devastating result.

~ The demographic crisis in the former Soviet Union countries extended for more than two decades, if we admit that it ended at the beginning of this decade (2010s). The demographic crisis will hit the world in the near future and is expected to last between three and eight decades more or less depending on technological advances and environmental issues.

The consequence is more likely a frozen picture with the number of populations remaining the same for a very, very long period of time. Countries expect population figures to reflect births / deaths as well as migratory movements.

Many countries will increase their gross populations as a result of immigration while their indigenous populations may decrease. (ED Noor: Brazil for one.)

~ Over the past two thousand years we have seen Western civilization built around the Mediterranean Sea move to Northern Europe, then in the mid-twentieth century move to an Atlantic axis and finally focus on the United States. United for the past 30 years.

The next step will see civilization centered on Asia with Russia and China at the top. 

Historically, a shift in the economic paradigm has resulted in a death toll that is seldom highlighted by mainstream historians. When the transition from rural areas to large cities occurred in Europe, many people unable to accept the new paradigm committed suicide. They committed suicide by a psychological factor. This is not common but it is true. A new crisis combines old, well-known models with new ones.

~ Sorry to disappoint many of you with our forecast. They have worsened more and more each year since the start of the pre-crisis in 2007. It is already said that this site is non-profit, built on free time and we provide our information and services AS IS without others. explanations and / or guarantees.

~ We are not tied to any government in any way. We are not a dealer in death or in satanic worship or in weapons as there are rumors floating around the Internet about this. Be aware that the forecast is nothing more than a model, whether it is wrong or correct. It is not the word of God or some magical device that predicts the future.

Posted by Guy Boulianne.

On The Shocking 2025 ‘Deagel’ Forecast: War, Population Reduction, & The Collapse Of The West

Ed Noor: Some very interesting concepts written here. I am unfamiliar with the men in it but their conversation is worth the read. 

April 21, 2021 

Via InternationalMan,com,

International Man: Deagel is a private online source for the military capabilities of the world’s nation-states. It recently released a shocking five-year forecast. The report analyzes countries by projected population size, GDP, defense budget, and more. In it, they predict a 70% reduction in the size of the United States population.

This is a bold prediction. What are your thoughts on this?

Doug Casey: I’ve got to say that I wasn’t familiar with Deagel ~ it keeps a low profile. Deagel is in the same business as Jane’s ~ which has been in the business of analyzing weapons systems for many decades.

A look at the Deagel website, which is quite sophisticated, makes it clear we’re not dealing with some blogger concocting outrageous clickbait. It seems to be well-connected with defense contractors and government agencies like the CIA.

They’ve predicted that about 70% of the US population, and about the same percentage in Europe, is going to disappear by 2025. It’s hard to believe that anybody in their position would make a forecast like that. There’s no logical business reason for it, especially since it was done before the COVID hysteria gripped the world. It stretches a reader’s credulity.

Could it possibly happen? It would be the biggest thing in world history. Does it have a basis in reality, or is it just some bizarre trolling exercise? I’m not sure ~ it’s hard to take almost anything from any source at face value these days. But for the last several years, I’ve been saying that World War III would basically be a biological war. Of course, it will have substantial conventional, nuclear, space-based, and AI/computer elements as well, but its most serious component will be biological.

Essentially, it will involve the use of bacteria and viruses to wipe out the enemy.

The odds are that it will be between the US and China. But since anyone with a CRISPR in their garage can hack the genome and DNA of almost anything and anybody… there are no limits to the possibilities.

Certainly, from the Chinese point of view, a biological war makes all the sense in the world. 

That’s because the Han Chinese share a lot of genetic similarities. Presumably, a bacteria or virus can be bred to favor the Chinese and take out most everybody else. The fact is that anything that can be done eventually will be done. It’s just the law of large numbers.

Somebody might respond, “Well, that’s horribly racist.”

Of course it’s racist.

Notwithstanding rational and philosophical arguments against it, all ethnic groups and countries are quite naturally racist. A fear of different racial and ethnic groups has been bred into humans, as a survival mechanism, over the hundreds of thousands of years since we became biologically modern.

All races and ethnic groups like to think that they’re “the best” or the most worthy, and that non-members are “other”, perhaps only marginally human. Biological warfare plays directly into feeling.

Americans who ~ like everybody else ~ see themselves as “the good guys”, believe we’re immune to that. However, don’t forget that the US pioneered modern biowarfare. Fort Detrick, Maryland, has been an epicenter of it for over 70 years, and there are undoubtedly many other more clandestine sites where US government agencies are working on biological warfare. No doubt the Chinese and other major powers are working clandestinely as well. It’s not something anybody wants to advertise for many reasons 

What shocks me is not that a biowar is being researched or even actively wargamed, but that a connected organization like Deagel is actually saying it publicly. It’s not like what goes on in the spook community is an open book.

Deagel doesn’t explicitly say what, exactly, will cause the great die-off. But there are many advantages to biological warfare over other types of warfare, so it will probably be featured. It’s probably inevitable, now that the technology has made it practical.

What are the advantages of biowar? What might wargaming generals like about it?

First, it doesn’t destroy material. That’s a huge plus. After all, what’s the point of conquering a country if all you have to show for it is a smoking radioactive ruin? That’s the major advantage of the neutron bomb, of course; it kills the people but limits damage to buildings. Bioweapons essentially make atomic weapons obsolescent.

Second, bioweapons can be structured to attack only certain racial groups. That’s potentially either a big advantage or disadvantage to China. The diverse population of the US could also be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on who strikes first. But, on the bright side, you can perhaps immunize your own population, or at least the military and “essential” workers, to control the damage.

Third, bioweapons are very cheap and easy to fabricate. Anyone with access to a good high school chemistry lab is in business. There’s no need for expensive and tricky U-235 or, for that matter, any of the junk toys the Pentagon spends hundreds of billions on.

Fourth, bioweapons don’t need sophisticated delivery systems; again, no need for B-2s, B-52s, cruise missiles, ICBMs, or any of that. A sick tourist or two, or a few packages sent in the mail, can get the job done.

Fifth, bioweapons, whether they’re viruses or bacteria, not only offer plausible deniability but the potential to blame a third party. You can launch an attack, and nobody can really be sure who did it. Or even that an attack is, in fact, being launched.

There’s every advantage to biological warfare from an aggressor’s point of view. And, the aggressor doesn’t even have to be a nation-state, which is, of course, another excuse for governments to further clamp down on their populations, as COVID has shown. Guns are good self-defense weapons, and governments are trying to eliminate them; basement biowar labs are strictly offensive. Imagine the bureaucratic enforcement possibilities.

International Man: In addition, Deagel included a lengthy disclaimer, which states:

“After COVID, we can draw two major conclusions:

~ The Western world success model has been built over societies with no resilience that can barely withstand any hardship, even a low-intensity one. It was assumed, but we got the full confirmation beyond any doubt.

~ COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through the so-called Great Reset.”

Doug, you’ve written extensively about the economic, political, cultural, and social decline in the US ~ long before it became a popular topic of discussion.

Has anything changed in your perspective on the future of the US?

Doug Casey: No. I’m afraid the election of actual Bolsheviks in 2020 ~ and I don’t use that term lightly ~ has sealed its fate. Not to mention that the nomenklatura in most major cities and states are cut from the same cloth.

In point of fact, the US is on such a self-destructive path that the Chinese don’t have to do anything in order to win. All they need to do is lay back and be quiet. The West is destroying itself.

As for this COVID crisis,

it impresses me as 80% hysteria,

a bad flu season that has been blown out of proportion.

It’s well known (insofar as anything can be known, considering the abysmal quality of reporting and the extreme politicization of the issue) that COVID mainly affects the elderly, the sick, and the obese. The average age of descendants is 80; however, the ages of those who die are rarely mentioned.

The media reports the number of COVID cases constantly, but that’s as meaningless as counting who gets a common cold.

Anyway, aren’t all those who get infected become immune? A virus ~ like the Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu, the Bird flu, and the Swine flu ~ goes viral, then goes away. Even the Spanish flu, which was actually serious, came and went without destroying the economy.

Nonetheless, the public has been so terrorized that they’re panicking to take potentially dangerous experimental injections. Even though there are numerous cheap drugs that can mitigate the virus after diagnosis, they’re never prescribed.

The opinions of physicians and world-class scientists who differ with Fauci ~ an overpaid lifelong government employee ~ are actively suppressed. However, this is a whole different subject.

There is one thing I question about Deagel’s statement that you quoted:

“The COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through something called the Great Reset.”

That’s a very odd statement because the crisis isn’t extending the life of the dying economic system. It’s putting the final nail in its coffin. It would be nice to hear how they figure that out, as COVID seems to be medically vastly overblown. The Great Reset has nothing to do with preserving the current economic system; it’s about formalizing a new one.

Here’s a wild and crazy thought. What if the real problem isn’t so much the COVID virus itself.

What if the real problem is the new vaccines? What if, after X number of months or years, they turn out to have very deadly effects? There’s a reason new drugs are tested over a period of years, which is far from the case here.

Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and numerous others who think they’re “elite” have long said that the earth’s population ought to be reduced radically, perhaps by 80%. Is it too shocking to believe that some group would take advantage of this to cull the human population?

It’s something that would be hard to believe even in a science fiction novel. But it now appears to be technically feasible. History is replete ~ overrun, actually ~ with psychos who try to destroy everybody once they get in power.

In point of fact, science fiction is a much better predictor of the future than any think tank has ever been. So maybe there’s a Dr. Evil at large, anxious to eliminate deplorables and other undesirables. If he exists, I doubt today’s woke transgender version of James Bond can counter him. Who knows where this is going? But it’s the wrong direction, and the trend is still accelerating.

International Man: The disclaimer in the Deagel report goes on to say,

“The collapse of the Western financial system ~ and ultimately the Western civilization ~ has been the major driver in the forecast along with a confluence of crisis with a devastating outcome. As COVID has proven, Western societies embracing multiculturalism and extreme liberalism are unable to deal with any real hardship.”

Is the Western civilization seeing a confluence of crises coming together in a perfect storm?

Doug Casey: That’s a very good point. It seems like everything is starting to happen at once and at a hyperbolically accelerating rate. While the worlds of science and technology are approaching Ray Kurzweil’s utopian Singularity, the worlds of politics and sociology are approaching a dystopian anti-Singularity.

Let’s briefly look at the financial, economic, social, and political aspects of the potential collapse.

We’re absolutely en route to a gigantic financial crisis, featuring the destruction of the US dollar. And with it, the savings of a large percentage of the planet’s people will be impoverished because their savings are in dollars. Much of the value people thought they had in stocks, bonds, real estate, pensions, and insurance could disappear.

That’s bad enough, but what’s worse are the economic consequences. We’re likely to see wholesale unemployment, a collapse in business activity, and corporate bankruptcies, even while taxes go up radically. I’m increasingly of the opinion there will be a crack-up boom along the way; however, we might be entering that as we speak.

What’s even worse are the social ramifications, such as critical race theory, which emphasizes the differences between race groups, creating actual race hatred. One consequence of the financial and economic upsets will be riots like those of 2020. The mass migration of people from alien cultures who don’t share Western values into the US and Europe is destabilizing. The US has, in fact, become a multicultural domestic empire.

The political consequences are evident. The Biden people in Washington, D.C. are exactly the same personality types who took over Russia in 1917 or France in 1789. They aren’t going to let go of the apparatus of power now that they’ve got it. They will find a way to re-install themselves in 2024.

What about the military? The US spends something like $1 trillion on defense annually, but nobody knows for certain. These budgets are complicated; military spending is hidden here, there, and everywhere. It doesn’t defend the United States; it just antagonizes foreigners. It’s also interesting that the Department of Defense is now trying to root out conservative political views from the rank-and-file soldiers.

But let’s get back to what could collapse the populations of North America and Europe by over 50%. Perhaps Deagel is anticipating a serious collapse of complex society because food won’t be grown, processed, and sent to cities. Maybe COVID is seen as just a catalyst. Most people in today’s highly urbanized world, from cubicle dwellers to ghetto rats, are incapable of surviving for more than a week if supply chains break.

International Man: The report also discusses a prediction regarding a potential war that involves Russia and China against the US.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it likely that we’ll see a conflict of this kind during the 2020s?

Doug Casey: As I said earlier, a war, at least with China, seems inevitable. It will likely be fomented by the US because, as the economy goes bad, governments always look for somebody else, an outsider, to blame.

At this point ~ and I recognize this will outrage jingoists and nationalists ~ the US government is actually the most dangerous force on the face of the planet. Much more dangerous than the Chinese, the Russians, or anybody else. Why? The US government is unique in actively and aggressively looking for trouble absolutely everywhere, sticking its nose into everything. Only the US has troops in a hundred other countries and is fighting hot wars in several more.

It’s said, for instance, that the Russians are aggressors because they may retake the Crimea and the Donbas region. Most Americans, who can’t even find these places on the map, are unaware that Crimea had been part of Russia since it was taken from the Ottomans in the 18th century and is mostly populated by ethnic Russians. Nikita Kruschev arbitrarily transferred it from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 for personal political reasons shortly after Stalin’s death. The current problem started only after the US fomented a coup d’etat, a so-called color revolution, in Ukraine in 2014. It then made sense for Putin to retake it, much like the US tried to overthrow Castro after he ousted Batista.

In any event, it’s a problem between Russia and Ukraine and none of our business. The Biden regime butting in is somewhat analogous to Russia threatening war over the US owning Puerto Rico. We don’t need a serious war with Russia over nothing.

Taiwan is similar. Historically, it’s just a secessionist Chinese province ~ or not. Perhaps it’s a government in exile. But no matter; these are meaningless legalisms. Frankly, I’m on the side of Taiwan, but it’s none of our business whether they go to war with each other. US government intervention could easily start a conflict with China. It might end with the sinking of a couple of US carrier groups, or it might evolve into World War 3.

And, of course, we’re still in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Plus Africa and God knows where else. The US is unnecessarily and stupidly whacking hornet’s nests everywhere in the world, bankrupting itself and making enemies, setting the stage for something really significant.