The Oasis for
Rational Conservatives
Monday, February 23, 2026
Earlier this month (August 2021), under the auspices of the Freedom Research Foundation that I founded in 1984 and of which he is now Executive Director, Brandon spent two weeks in Kabul, and Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. There was no awareness among all the officials and warlords he met of an immediate American abandonment of their country.
This is going to be a seriously consequential HFR and hopefully optimistic. And okay, I’ll tell my favorite story about Captain Wheeler in Helmand at the end, but no fair peeking…
Wokeness is the real Pandemic infecting America. What’s needed is a vaccine for Wokeness. What could that be?
It would have to be a psychiatric vaccine for the Woke brain, as wokeness is a psychiatric mental illness. So we start with famed Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, MD.
Born 1931, Grof is 90 now, and for many years traveled frequently to the US. On one occasion at a conference, a scientist friend of mine spoke with him at length. It was in the early 90s, and they discussed the liberation of over 40 years of Communist dictatorship imposed upon Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union – a peaceful non-violent overthrow called The Velvet Revolution.
“What is unknown in the West,” Grof told my friend, “is that it was a psychiatric revolution.”
Now we know where Baghdad Bob has been hiding — in the White House.
President Biden looked and sounded Monday as foolish as the Saddam Hussein mouthpiece who declared Iraqi victory even as American troops seized Baghdad.
The Iraqi stooge became the stuff of late-night comedy a generation ago. Biden has doomed himself to be the master of disaster for a new generation.
After years of missteps and overreach, the US under Donald Trump had finally reached an acceptable outcome in Afghanistan. Now this fake president has thrown it away to America’s complete humiliation and the horror of millions of Afghans.
Although the White House had intended to keep Biden under wraps for as long as possible, the demand that he say something — anything — about the unfolding debacle in Afghanistan forced him to leave Camp David for a 20-minute statement, after which he refused to take any questions.
The important part of what he said boils down to one sentence: we had to leave, and everything that went wrong was Trump's or the Afghans' fault.
Biden is a craven coward, a feckless fool, a dismal dummy, and a man who will soon have more blood on his hands than a thousand Lady Macbeths.
Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There are reports there may be three times that. There’s no easy way to get them out.
As Taliban forces consolidate their control of Kabul, the nature of the new regime remains somewhat veiled. One thing, however, is clear: The Taliban hold the lives of thousands of U.S. citizens—and the future of the Biden administration—in their hands.
Mr. Biden vowed that his Afghan withdrawal would not lead to a Saigon moment. That ship has sailed, but Saigon 1975 is far from the worst-case scenario for Afghanistan today. With thousands of unprotected U.S. citizens scattered across the country, Mr. Biden should worry about a repeat of Tehran in 1979 – on steroids.
The American-nurtured Afghan military of the last 20 years that had suffered thousands of prior casualties evaporated in a few hours in the encirclement of Kabul.
Enlistees apparently calculated that their own meager chances with the premodern Taliban were still better than fighting as a dependency of the postmodern United States—despite its deterrent embassy pride flags, powerful diversity training programs, and indomitable new Afghan University gender studies majors.
Forces more powerful than the Taliban, in places far more strategic, will now leverage a cognitively challenged American president, an ideologically driven but predictably incompetent administration, a woke Pentagon, and politically weaponized intelligence communities.
During his speech Monday (8/16) Joe Biden angrily blamed everyone else for the collapse in Afghanistan, including his predecessor, President Donald Trump, saying that he had to comply with the deal Trump had worked out.
That despite the fact that the Taliban had breached the agreement post-Trump and despite the fact that Biden himself had tossed aside so many other deals that Trump had worked out.
It turns out that this is what he wanted all along. This is not Joe Biden Incompetent – this is Joe Biden Evil.
Ph.D.s - not the uneducated - have the highest Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Virus vaccine hesitancy:
Study Finds The Most Highly-Educated Americans Are Also The Most Vaccine-Hesitant
What the mandated "Health" Pass system is doing to France:
Perhaps you doubt that the above could happen here. Think again; othering the unvaxxed will be a major 'Crat tactic leading up to Nov. 2022 and 2024:
Shocking & Dehumanizing Discrimination Against The Unvaxx'd Is About To Make Life Very Difficult
Totally predictable:
Taliban Immediately Moves To Confiscate Firearms From Civilians
Is the Afghanistan rout merely Xiden incompetence or is Beijing Biden following orders?
High in the Himalayas of India in the remote moonscape of Tibetan Ladakh is the gompa (Tibetan monastery) of Lamayuru. It is older than Tibetan Buddhism, for it was originally a gompa for the lama monks of Bön, the ancient animist religion of Tibet. I took my son Brandon here on an expedition through Tibetan India in 1993. Brandon had his 10th birthday here. Behind him is the enormous statue of blue-eyed Sakyamuni Buddha in the central prayer hall.
Brandon has never forgotten Lamayuru as anyone who has been here never does. We’ll be here again next summer – and Brandon will be leading the expedition. (Glimpses of our breathtaking world #151 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
And his father too. I started taking my son Brandon on expeditions with me at age five. Here we are in the Serengeti during the Great Migration. He saw three lion kills happen yards away, a baby born in a Masai hut – he’s never forgotten his first great adventure to this day, over 30 years later.
I encourage you in every way to take your children, grandchildren, nephews or nieces on an exploration of one of our planet’s many wondrous places when they are young. It will be formational for them, a founding experience of awe for what a magically extraordinary world they are privileged to live in. And your seeing it through their eyes will be a shot of youth elixir in your veins. It will be a life-memorable bonding experience for you both. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #92 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Princess Iparhan, granddaughter of the ruler of the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar, was so famous for her beauty and the intoxicating natural aroma of her body that the Manchu Emperor far to the east called for her. She was 22, the year was 1756. The Emperor became completely infatuated with her, making Iparhan his Imperial Noble Consort, loving her deeply until her death 33 years later in 1789.
In mourning, the Emperor kept his promise to her that her body would be returned to Kashgar and buried in the mausoleum of Apak Hoja, built in 1640 by her Apaki family. And there she rests today. Everyone in Kashgar and beyond, however, knows the mausoleum as The Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine.
It’s a wonderfully romantic legend, and even though there are several conflicting versions, let’s hope this one is true. Regardless, a visit to this peaceful shrine is certainly memorable. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #54 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
On the south coast of Australia’s island state of Tasmania, there is a huge sea cave the aboriginal Tasmanians called The Mouth of Hell for the shrieking and moaning the waves and wind made emitting from it. Boatsmen prefer to enter it to this day protected by a cross on their fishing boat’s bow.
The wild beauty and mystery of Tasmania is absolutely extraordinary. At 35,000 square miles, it is the size of Maine with a population of less than half a million. Towns like Hobart and Launceston are charming, but the magic is in the uninhabited wilderness that makes up much of the island as a hiker’s paradise. That and a momentous coastline almost beyond belief.
If you’re ever in Oz, especially Melbourne, don’t miss the chance to explore Tasmania. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #150 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
That would be Tristan da Cunha in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Some 260 Tristanians live here, all British citizens as the island is a UK Territory, in the island’s only community of Edinburgh-of-the-Seven-Seas. There’s no way to fly here – you have to take a boat for at least a week from Cape Town (and then a week back).
Tristanians are among the world’s most special people. Since the island was first settled in 1810, there has never been a single murder, abortion, or divorce among them. They are at peace with themselves, unfailingly cheerful, hospitable, and contented. If you are lucky enough to reach here, you may not want to ever leave. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #42 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
