{"id":313935,"date":"2026-03-09T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=313935"},"modified":"2026-03-05T10:02:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T10:02:27","slug":"usas-abyss-of-uselessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/03\/usas-abyss-of-uselessness\/","title":{"rendered":"USA&#8217;s Abyss of Uselessness"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>The \u2018<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/source.colostate.edu\/madeleine-albright-saw-us-as-an-indispensable-nation-and-nato-expansion-eastward-as-essential\/#:~:text=Her%20trenchant%20belief%20that%20America,1998%20and%20Serbia%20in%201999.\" >indispensable nation<\/a>\u2018 marches on, toward a sinkhole of crashed empires, killing and maiming along the way. How many deaths? Wrong question&#8211;irrelevant.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/taliban-empire-cartoon.png\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-313936\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/taliban-empire-cartoon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"397\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/taliban-empire-cartoon.png 998w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/taliban-empire-cartoon-300x298.png 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/taliban-empire-cartoon-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/taliban-empire-cartoon-768x762.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/dilip.png\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-260713\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/dilip.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"96\" height=\"96\" \/><\/a> \u00a0Dilip Simeon<\/em><em>: My blogs are non-commercial. I believe strongly in the power of ideas; and am opposed to ideological tyranny and the control of the mind by dictators or totalitarian movements of any doctrinal inclination whatsoever. My blogging has been devoted to fostering an informed and non-polemical debate in India and globally, about the crucial concerns of our time. Here\u2019s a thought that I consider profound: <\/em>\u2018It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow human beings.\u2019<em> (M. K. Gandhi). The title, <\/em>After the Truth Shower<em>, is from <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/dsimian.wordpress.com\/2022\/08\/16\/my-friend\/\" ><em>a poem I wrote<\/em><\/a><em> for a friend.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/dsimian.com\/2026\/03\/04\/americas-abyss-of-uselessness\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 dsimian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u2018indispensable nation\u2018 marches on, toward a sinkhole of crashed empires, killing and maiming along the way. How many deaths? Wrong question&#8211;irrelevant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":151695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[93,112,484,2200,95,2686,492,481],"class_list":["post-313935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-for-thought","tag-afghanistan","tag-pentagon","tag-taliban","tag-us-empire","tag-us-military","tag-war-of-terror","tag-war-on-terror","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313937,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313935\/revisions\/313937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}