According to the Commander of the United States CENTRAL COMMAND, the nation’s longest war ended at 1600, or rather 1559 EST. For those who follow ordinary clocks, that is 3:59. For people without power, like Refuge Farm was today, it is still this morning.

But General McKenzie says 1559 local was the moment that the last of three military aircraft left Afghani airspace. Done.

There are a few loose ends, of course. The term of art is “military mission complete.” Everything from here on is “Diplomatic.”

A couple notes at this poignant operational moment. First, the Writer’s Section saw a video over the weekend and reported the words that went with it, which were that the caskets of slain military members were not met on return. In fact, the President and his senior leaders greeted the caskets of those service people killed over the weekend.

The split in the US Government is also playing out, and identification of the players may be useful as this matter transitions to a new phase. As General McKenzie noted, this is a State Department-managed situation from here out. Sources have told us there is a faction of the Executive Branch- State and CIA- which have interests in larger policy matters. To disseminate their positions, they have an established relationship with media, notably The Washington Post and New York Times.

The Pentagon has its own intelligence organization- the Defense Intelligence Agency- but not the media front-runners. They are currently using the web organization “Politico.” The stress lines in communications will be evident in further noteworthy items.

I was in the Northern Arabian Sea in 1979, and one of my shipmates had an analytic project on Soviet long-range aviation operations during the Embassy hostage situation in Tehran. He announced one morning that there was a lot of activity, but it did not seem to relate to Iran. He thought they might be going into Afghanistan. At Christmas of 1979, they did. I followed their war for nearly a decade with amazement at the horrors that regularly occurred.

When I heard we were going in after 9/11 I had mixed feelings. I still do.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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