Easter 2026 (Part 3: The Fall Of the Roman Empire (sorry American/Western Empire!) by Alfred N.Muggins

5/4/26
   Alfred had spent the last few Easters getting more and more concerned about the problems assailing the sane, responsible, normal, peaceful, sensible world. 2020 had been the fear of Covid/Coronavirus sweeping through the older parts of the population and others unlucky enough to become its victims. That was soon replaced by the horror of a public execution of a black petty criminal on the streets of Minneapolis by a Policeman, vested with public authority. As it turned out it became a sign of the times to come five years later, when real ethnic cleansing began even in multiracial America under the direction of Trumpenstein and his strange regime, using Trump's pardoned capitol rioters and recruited militants and wannabes in the new expanded militarised ICE.
   For a time things seemed to settle down, as the virus was brought under more control by vaccinations and weakening strains. And as antagonisms over statues and heritage gradually balanced and argued themselves out. A grumpy and reckless President threw tantrums when he lost an election he thought had been fixed in advance. He exhorted his willing hardcore followers to fight against the democratic legal judgement of the election, sending them to the heart of American Democracy, the Capitol, to invade its halls and intimidate the Constitutional State into giving back the Election. The Constitutional State stayed true to its rules, and refused to be subverted. Vice President Pence and Capitol Police stayed strong, and by 20th of January 2021 a new President, the amenable and friendly Joe Biden took his rightful place in the Pantheon of Presidents, a forgiving shepherd who merely wished to heal the wounds of division with the slow practicality of compromise and gradual economic improvement. He sought not to punish too harshly, but to persuade with patient improvement.

3/5/26
      But Biden and his administration were rather soft. They imagined that patience and compromise would be enough to encourage opponents to be constructive, to persuade voters that they did not need to vote for extreme politicians or populists. Progress, economic and social, would nonetheless be made. Surely the voters would see how sensible was the path which they took? Surely they had learned from the failures of Trump's earlier government, and from the violence of spite which had sought to overturn a legitimate election result of November 2020? Rioters were charged and imprisoned, but the ringleader was allowed to stand again for future elections despite his incitement of constitutional and law and order crimes.
       Alfred and all the woolly liberals of the world breathed a huge sigh of relief. Trump's first presidency hadn't been a total disaster. The world, and America had hardly fallen apart. They had survived, despite the increased casualties from Covid. Now a more adult, less pantomime leader was back in power, and surely America would not make the same mistake a second time. But Alfred and his woolly caring friends had sighed with relief too soon. A gradual sequence of disasters for the Western World and its caretaking of the whole world began to unfold in vicious stages, unravelling the cloak of security and the principles of progress, international fairness and harmony. In retrospect this had already begun to happen much earlier, but the recent shocks to the world order seemed more threatening and destructive than before. After 2001 Republican George W.Bush had responded to the 2001 World Trade Twin Towers disaster with combative zeal, not only chasing Public Enemy Number 1 Osama Bin Laden around in Afghanistan and knocking the Taliban out of power there, but also blaming the not really (at all!) responsible nasty dictator Saddam Hussein for being a threatening muslim power. Unfinished business was to be finished! By 2003 a small coalition of allies (Britain and Australia (?)) had been collected to clean up Iraq and ostensibly bring democracy to it (and to destroy the weapons of mass destruction they convinced the world (or at least themselves) were there. The quick war (as in Afghanistan!) went splendidly, and ordinary citizens of Baghdad were soon toppling Saddam's statues down and celebrating his removal. But then it took quite a while to dawn on everyone, but the 'occupying ' soldiers soon became targets for Al Qaeda or for Shiite militias, in a developing civil war between Iraqi factions. It took quite a while to see what was really wrong with the supposed temporary occupation. The whole Iraqi Army, and even the civil service had basically been laid off, and the Baathist State was not to be trusted. Instead of handing over power to Iraqi institutions, those institutions were ignored and made unemployed. It became evident gradually that the Americans actually had no practical plans for a handover of power to Iraqis, and unemployed soldiers or civil servants would be tempted to join sides in unfolding factional/sectional conflicts. American corporations wanted access to Iraqi oil, but there was no patriotic replacement government in waiting. Alfred and many others were sadly disillusioned by American mismanagement or lack of understanding and plans. The rebuilders of World War II, who had successfully allowed both Germany and Japan to soon flourish after their wartime shame and defeat, seemed incapable of bringing such wisdom to poor old Iraq. Perhaps even Afghanistan was suffering from something similar, although Afghans were surely supposed to be in charge, and continued intervention was supposed to be guaranteed by international peacekeepers from NATO. Oh well, eventually, slowly Iraq did seem to put itself back together. 
   And then came Syria, another authoritarian State falling apart, needing help and positive direction.
Oh yes the western world was really not that clever, or so strong. They were it seemed at the mercy of Putin's Russia and its ally Iran, who sought to prop up a not so good regime, which had been unable to keep its own population happy or loyal. The weak and indecisive West stepped back and let the authoritarians and the sectional factions sought themselves out in civil wars. Where was the West's moral and military leadership? They stepped back without a plan for Syria, but it wasn't really their fault. Cowed by the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences perhaps they were being wise to leave Syria to the agents of chaos, and regional rivals.
11/5/26
     Alfred and his likeminded woolly liberal compatriots thought hopefully that everything in the modern world was finally settling down, and there would be peace and gradual reconciliation the world over. Nice guy Biden had actually won over the pompous populist Trump in 2020, despite that bit of unconstitutional nastiness at the Capitol in January 2021. The extremists were tamed. Biden would lead with rational positivity, by example. The western, and the eastern, nations were finally getting the nasty coronavirus outbreak under control with the useful miraculous vaccines, which modern science was able to come up with after a few harrowing months. The mutating strains were becoming naturally easier to spread, but far less dangerous to most. It looked as if science and modern civilisation were able to develop and safeguard, as they should. The normal economies were bouncing back after the hiatus of Covid. Everything was actually becoming deceptively hunky dory. The Tory Party in Britain managed to keep tearing itself apart with internal accusations and the revelations of hypocrisy in high places, but that didn't bother Alfred. He was familiar with the familiar stories of politicians coming and going and sticking knives (rhetorical knives) in each other's backs (with a little help from the ever stirring media!) Try as he might Alfred just could not bring himself to dislike jovial, apologetic, and distinctly/typically British Boris, despite him being a Tory Toff! 
   But the illusion of calm and tranquility having returned to the western/modern world was soon shattered by the sudden shockwaves of news that Afghanistan, that prize ripped out of the hands of the conservative (radical?) Taliban in 2001/2, and sponsored/protected by western peacekeepers to keep the Taliban at bay, was about to Fall! The US Presidents had been trying to extract their peacekeeping/protection forces for years now, but had struggled, with European soldiers alongside, to defeat the Taliban, who embedded themselves by fear and assassinations amongst the population. The President, who wished to be seen as a peacemaker, as well as as a no nonsense tough guy leader, Donald Trumplestiltskin, had 'negotiated' directly with Taliban for US and foreign withdrawal in the later months of his 2017 - 21 Presidency, (without letting his Afghan 'allies' have their say). This had given the Taliban the confidence to go for the final push, without adhering to Trump's weak plan. Incoming President Biden found Afghanistan falling from western 'control' as Trump's plan was well advanced, and rather than break arrangements and try to resist the Fall he advanced panicked preparations to withdraw even earlier than planned. European allies had no choice but to get out clumsily. Afghan 'allies' had no choice but to try to escape, some of them even hanging onto the underbellies of western aeroplanes as they took off, or to bravely coexist with the incoming regime. Thankyou Donald! It was a good example of the shape of Western power dismantling to come as Donald was to later return to the Presidency and dismantle western/American power even further/faster. 20 years of US and western intervention and state support unplugged and left behind. How many American/ Western weapons and how much equipment was left behind for the Taliban to pick up, as the Americans hastened to leave? It seemed the Western 'Empire' was being given up, just like Ancient Rome before it. Alfred belatedly wondered whether this too had been done on the orders of Trump's blackmail master Putin too? As the jigsaw pieces of America's dissolution (and the West's) came together later, Alfred imagined that this might have been part of it too!?