There was a growing Muslim fundamentalist movement in Afghanistan in the 1970s which opposed the existing government which was supported by the Russians. The Russians perceived this as a threat to their empire.

The United States saw this as an opportunity to give the Russians “their Vietnam” (the words of Zbigniew Brzezinsk, our National Security Advisor). So, we began to aid the fundamentalists.

We recruited supporters for the Afghan resistance from all over the Muslim world. One of the recruits was Osama Bin Laden, an engineer from a wealthy Saudi family.

Our strategy worked: We provoked the Russians into invading Afghanistan. The Russians brutalized Afghanistan, napalming villages in the narrow valleys and killing a million Afghanis. In the late 1980s, the Russians finally pulled out after 10 years and the loss of 15,000 men. And, Osama Bin Laden learned a valuable lesson: An undeveloped nation of committed zealots could defeat a superpower. Standing armies have to win; resistance forces have only to not lose.

It is probable that Bin Laden believed that he could provoke the United States into attacking Afghanistan, and then settle into a long and protracted war aimed at draining our resources, our men, and eventually, our will.

Much to his surprise, I would imagine, not only did we fall into the trap of invading Afghanistan, we also invaded Iraq! Ten years and over $5 trillion later ( I can document these numbers, and by the way, the meter is still running at $10 billion a month plus the money we are spending in Libya and covert operations in Pakistan and elsewhere).

So, a strategy that the United States itself devised was then used against the United States. Our experience in Vietnam as well should have tempered our actions: We fought a people bent on self-determination. We dropped more bombs on North Vietnam than we did in all of WWII. We killed an estimated two million Vietnamese. We lost more than 50,000 soldiers, and devastated our national honor. And then we left. It was all for naught.

So, it seems that we don’t have a money problem because wars seem to get all the money they need, even in these perilous economic times: there is money for delivering death, but not for delivering health care and education. What is the problem?

I am tempted to say we have a “stupidity” problem. However, the men who run this country, the men Norman Mailer called “The High Holies,” are not stupid. In fact, they are “The Best and the Brightest.” How did Bin Laden outsmart them?

As crazy as Bin Laden was, he was that crafty. He understood from his experience fighting the Russians, that power is arrogant. The powerful are sure that they can use force to assert their will.

How could this happen? Is not our system designed to prevent this deviance? Our constitution has not protected us. Just as in Rome, the emperor, although he changes here every four years, has assumed more and more power. Congress no longer has to declare war, and has not since WWII. The Rule of Law has been trumped: Obama ignored the legal opinion of his own staff in funding the attack on Libya.

The political parties, in some ways, are dead. For example, the role of the party is to elect candidates, true, but the implication is that those candidates, at least, broadly, represent your ideals. And yet, if you realize the folly of our policy, you have no choice: You can vote for war, or you can vote for war. Each succeeding president has been assuming more power.

So, what is the point of a party? Obama, for example, is not only continuing the old wars, and launching new ones, but is committing other nefarious deeds as well. Although he uses the word “democracy” over and over again, 2 years ago, under his command, we overthrew the democratically elected government of Honduras because it entered into a deal with Hugo Chavez for cheap oil.

The Republicans, not to be outdone by the Democrats, are not even in the realm of the reasonable: I was in L.A. recently, visiting family, and even in the affluent areas, the mentally ill that Ronald Reagan threw out of institutions, have made their home on the sidewalks with their market baskets and sleeping bags. Now the Republicans want to cut the aid that funds much of the elder care institutions. If they succeed, the demented will join the crazy, and the streets of L.A. will look like a scene from “Dawn of the Living Dead.”

I would like to see my fellow progressives and Democrats in Lake County send a message to the state and national Democratic Party: Get rid of Obama and bring back the Rule of Law, and the Constitution and the solar panels.

Nelson Strasser lives in Kelseyville, Calif.