Stephen, Over the past week, 1,241,340 American patriots, like you, have signed petitions DEMANDING Democrats put America first and BUILD THE WALL…That’s why I am launching the most important membership program ever – the OFFICIAL BUILD THE WALL MEMBERSHIP.  email from Trump asking for money for his wall.

As I write this, our government is slowly shutting down because President Trump can’t get his border wall included in the budget. It reminded me of the hour, or so, Michele and I spent looking at a long-abandoned Wall. One of the most expensive walls ever built, in fact. All along the French side of what used to be the most protected border in the world, are the remains of a series of interrelated forts, the infamous Maginot Line.  On one of our trips across that border when we were in the Rhineland last summer, we ran into a small museum in one of those old forts.

I’d read of the Maginot Line every time I read a book on World War II but I was unprepared for how competent – and competent is not quite the right word, maybe beautifully conceived and professionally built – it was. Everything was thought of, from bathrooms to fresh air, from periscopes to overlapping fields of fire. And it was, in the end, worthless. In terms of both National Resources that could have been spent much better, and the National Attention which was distracted, it was hugely expensive, and, it was worthless.  

Yesterday, on Facebook, almost every post that isn’t about cute animals is about Mattis and what a disaster his quitting is. Over at Twitter, everybody I follow thinks it is great, well, good.

A Facebook sample: Syria yesterday, Afghanistan today. No planning. No collaboration within admin. I think our fake president is an imminent threat to our safety. He is incapable of honoring his oath to protect the country.

A Twitter sample I’m confused as to why Mattis has been the recipient of so much love– he has been a willing participant in all of Trump’s insane racist bullshit and now he’s resigning because he wants to continue to carpet bomb civilians across the middle east forever.

Another Twitter sample: The hysterical reaction to the decision to withdraw troops from Syria is astonishing & shows just how attached to war some are. Lindsey Graham & others want us to continue our regime change war in Syria and to go to war with Iran. That’s why they’re so upset.

I’m with the Twitter group. We’ve been at these wars for 17 years. Does anybody really think we are going to change these countries in the next year? in the next five years? Yeah, we’re screwing the Kurds, but, realistically, whenever we leave we are going to end up screwing them. Maybe the Taliban will beat the Northern Alliance but can’t we console ourselves with the fact that we stirred up the Taliban, to fight the Northern Alliance, in the first place so they can’t be entirely evil. 

My preference is that Obama would have gotten us out in his, careful, thoughtful, way.  I know that Trump wants to get out in his usual, incompetent,  petulant, way and quite possibly he only wants to get out to get money for his stupid wall. I also want to acknowledge that this is no way to treat our friends and allies. Somebody on Facebook said that our allies will think they can’t trust us, well, as long as Trump is President, they can’t and the sooner they learn that, the better. Still, we can’t lay that entirely on Trump, after all, it was Henry Kissinger who said: “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” and it my opinion staying in an endless war in Afghanistan or Syria is not in our interest.