Afghanistan troops withdrawal - Trump's triumph?

         

     

There have been media reports of both American and international, saying that the new American President, Joe Biden is planning to pull out all the American troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. (Note the date – 9/11)! Sounds unpleasantly familiar? Well, let bygones be bygones. Let us not dig back the tragic and cruel memories.

 Coming back to the withdrawal, it sounds, as though, Joe Biden has taken the initiative to do so, to withdraw the American troops. Actually, that is not the case. The planning and The Agreement had been done by the then, President Trump with the Taliban on February 2020. The Taliban, in turn, were not to support the already ‘defeated’ Al-Qaeda, and not to attack the America troops. The Taliban had insisted the American troops be withdrawn by May 1, 2021. Now, there is a nervous and silent hope that  no acts of violence, by the Taliban, occur when the May 1 deadline passes!

By the way, the withdrawal of the troops, is by no means, a half-finished business, like that of the Vietnam War withdrawal, when the Americans lost the war, and the then, President Nixon said they were ‘withdrawing with honor’! This time, the Americans say that Al-Qaeda had been defeated and a strong Afghanistan government had been put into place, and there is no reason for Americans troops to be in Afghanistan any more. Hope it is, exactly, that.

'Cook'-a-doodle-doo!

 

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, said Neil Armstrong, upon setting foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, in the Apollo 11 mission.

Well, there is another similar saying that I want to say here, “One small foot for a man, a thousand tasty feet for mankind!” Ha! Ha! Are you wondering what I am talking about? It’s about the service of the chickens to mankind, to us! Say what you may, but all along chickens have been satisfying the tasty buds of humans, since time immemorial! Let us give a thought to them.

Fried chicken, roasted chicken, steamed chicken, barbeque chicken, garlic chicken, lemon chicken, chicken breast, drumstick, chicken chop, grilled chicken on ginger wine chicken….. phew!... there are hundreds of names for the cooked chicken throughout the world! All the nations have their own favorite chicken recipes! Why, companies and millions, if not, billions of workers earn their living because of these chickens. In Malaysia, we are familiar with KFC, Macdonald, Mary Brown’s, Nando’s, Kenny Rogers Roasters, The Chicken Rice Shop and so on.

Whether man has landed on the moon or not, or, on other planets, for that matter, chickens have been and are always going to serve mankind. In various ways! Apart from their generous meat, their eggs, with the proteins for the human body, and their feather-dusters coming in handy on several occasions, always stand out at the fore front of our mind.

 How nice and apt, if, to appreciate the roles that chickens have been and are playing to the tummies of humans, we can have a world’s Chicken Day, when we don’t touch even a dot of chicken! Oops, and Wow! Looks like there is one ‘World Chicken Day’ on second Thursday of November, according to Wikipedia! Good! But no good! Because no one knows about it and will continue wallop chickens like nobody’s business on that day!

Have a heart for these chickens. Not the tummy...eh? Just for a day! In respect and appreciation of the self-sacrificers! Care a thought. Popularize and promote the World Chicken Day, so that, we, humans, really, appreciate their roles in human lives, and treat the chickens like kings and queens on that day!

Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Kokkara-ko-ko! (Tamil) Cock-a-doodle-doo! (English) Kuku-kookoo!(Arabic) Kikeriki! (German); in all the languages of the world you cluck and crow. And in various ways, cooked and uncooked, you serve mankind. For all that, we salute you! And thank you for allowing us to ‘Cook’-a-doodle-doo!