As U.S. forces beat a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, defeated after 20 years by the primitive Taliban, who clung to their guns and their faith, America’s invincibility as the “world’s only superpower” might be disputed.
Joe Biden told Americans, when speaking about his gun-control agenda, that to move against the government one would need F-15s and perhaps nuclear weapons. The Taliban lack those, although they have acquired a treasure trove of advanced weapons left behind by Americans.
Against Americans, the U.S. government might not deploy F-15s, nukes, bombers, or killer drones, but it has other means of compulsion, backed up by SWAT teams with assault weapons: prisons, ruinous fines, deprivation of licenses and permits, withholding of benefits on which one has become dependent, no-fly lists, or freezing one’s financial assets.
In the “war” against COVID-19, the government is showing its willingness to deploy all of these against anyone who might interfere with its strategy: lockdowns and mandatory warp-speed vaccine.
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