Trump’s U-turn on Afghanistan, sending more troops into America’s longest running war, not only broke a campaign promise, it also threw a hand grenade into relations with Pakistan, which could provoke a blowback. He quite rightly called Pakistan out for playing to both sides by supporting NATO and at the same time harbouring Taliban terrorists. But he also asked for India’s help, which according to commentators would put the wind up Pakistan, whose greatest fear is India with whom it has already waged three wars. An Indo-US-Afghan pact would put Indian troops on two sides of Pakistan’s borders, which could well spark another conflict between the two nuclear nations.
Taking the USA/Afghan war first: It started on 7 October 2001 at 4.25pm on an Air Grand Trine of Sun trine Uranus trine Moon Saturn, formed into a Kite by the war-like Saturn Moon opposition Pluto. And an opportunistic Jupiter opposition Mars.
The Vietnam War also started in 1965 with a Pluto opposition Saturn and finished ignominiously when tr Saturn had moved to square Pluto, with tr Neptune undermining the central planets by square.
There’s a relatively similar set of aspects to the Afghan war chart with tr Neptune square Moon Saturn and Pluto in 2017/18 and the Saturn Pluto conjunction in 2019. Nothing that looks like spectacular success.
Relocating Trump’s chart to Kabul does put his Jupiter on the midheaven, so there’s a degree of hope. But it also puts his Pluto and Mars in the 8th which looks very trapped.
The story going around is that in order to persuade him, HR McMaster showed him a photograph of mini-skirted girls in Kabul in the 1970s, when Afghanistan was moving towards a liberal and westernised lifestyle; with an attempt at an elected parliament, freedom of speech, a largely secular legal system and political parties. That was all wiped away as the country descended into the horror of the Soviet invasion, then the Bush/Blair fiasco, with the Mujahideen and then Taliban taking advantage of the chaos.
The more likely reason for his change of heart is someone floated Afghanistan’s mineral wealth under his nose – gold, silver, platinum, iron ore, uranium, zinc, tantalum, bauxite, coal, copper, natural gas and lithium for batteries – though experts say that extracting it is a pipe dream, given the lack of paved roads and rail links needed, pervasive corruption and a messy bureaucracy, never mind the insurgencies.
Since Trump’s Jupiter natally is in his financial 2nd house that might make sense of the glint in his eye when he considers Kabul.
The Afghanistan country chart, 19 August 1919 12 am Kabul, was given a jolt by this August’s Leo Eclipse conjunct its Leo Sun opposition Uranus square Taurus Moon opposition North Node. It will soldier on with some events of explosive insecurity early September to early October this year, and again in early 2018. With some relief and luck in 2019; but it’ll be the mid 2020s before there is any significant shift. Relations with the USA look to be slogging on in a discouraged fashion in 2018/19 with increasing divergence. So 2019 may well be an exit point for the USA, as costs in money and lives mount up.
Relations between the USA and Pakistan are sagging badly in 2017/18 with tr Neptune opposition the composite Jupiter Saturn; upset in 2018 with tr Uranus square the composite Sun, and more so in 2019 as tr Uranus opposes the composite Pluto and is conjunct the composite Moon. So tensions will escalate.
The India/Pakistan chart will be aggravated around late December this year and across 2018; more so in 2019/2020 with feelings running very high as tr Pluto opposes the composite Moon.
The theory is that Pakistan’s fall-back is an alliance with China but that relationship looks under even more serious stress in 2019/2020 and isn’t exactly supportive before then. China is already in a border dispute with India (see post July 7 2017) – so the whole situation could turn exceptionally messy.
There is so much going on right now with The US. Koreas in the brick of The War. Russians preparing for biggest War Games in decades in Northwest, and ready to exploit Arctic Region mineral and oil reserves that are more readily available with melting ice cap. Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey with Houston flooded, which is a large, humanitarian disaster, and oil production incapacitated, which could lead to economic downturn.
It’s not going to be easy for The US in the next couple of years. The 2021 Presidentia Inauguration Chart makes the 2017 one look like pre-school.
The scary thing is, if Trump is removed you’ve got religious nutcase Pence ready to step in, and like Marjorie mentioned above, sometimes sweeping away one problem can give way to another. The tv series, The Hand Maid’s Tale (I’m too scared to watch it), just feels me with horror that this could actually happen; about an extreme fundamental right-wing religious order stepping in with dark age views of women, minorities, and religion. Before the Trump admin, I thought that could never happen, but afterward, and hearing some of their deeply misogynistic/homophobic/racist ideologies, it chills my blood. Pence sounds worse than Trump. Trump is dumb and dangerous. Pence is calculated and dangerous. It’s ironic that they look down on Muslim extreme right-wing fundamentalists who dictate how men, women, and minority groups should live, happily removing their human rights if need be, and YET these very men are trying to replicate it all in a Western fashion at home.
Yet, the psychology behind all this mayhem is fascinating. Taking into account Ken Wilber’s integral theory; I can see much of today’s problems are down to an ethnocentric viewpoint (the ‘us’ identity) but there is a strong number of people who have evolved already into the world centric stage, the ‘all of us’ identity (perhaps why the digital age exploded during this phase to connect us). This is why we see this massive divide, especially in the USA. Humanity appears to be evolving for the betterment (yes, even when evil things are happening around us) and science shows we are more connected than we realize and yet, egocentric (me identity) Trump, and his ethnocentric ilk and supporters are making those with a world centric view (or dare I say, snowflakes and libtards as they intelligently call us) feel they are being dragged back 300 years. I wish they would just get on board because humanity will evolve completely into the world centric view (albeit at different stages over the world) whether they like it or not or whether we get hijacked by tin pot tyrants along the way. You can see in some parts of the Middle East having some societal evolution happening right now, even if it does look like where we were 100 years ago, it IS evolving. I faintly recall some Charles Darwin quote about sympathetic dissonance or some such, which meant he predicted that humanity would start to evolve outward from this almost tribal, enclosed identity and embrace others as part of a whole family because that is what makes us stronger as a species – and we are already seeing this happening now in pockets of society across the globe. I wonder what the Trump and Pence of their day will do when humanity, as Wilber predicts, will evolve from the world centric phase into the sentient focused Global Mind because we won’t all be at that level at the same time?
Marjorie, if the astrology has always fit the historical patterns previously then surely a much calmer and creative phase is waiting in a few years time? In the meantime, we must all pull up our big girl/boy undies and deal with it. When is Pluto in Aquarius and what happened the last time it was around?
For those who accused Hilary Clinton and Obama of war meddling, I think Trump is quickly proving he’s even better at the game than the pair of them put together and even worse, he has quite an intense bloodthirst for it. The USA just keep proving just how monumental (and the biggest) a war foot print they have over the globe, with us Brits not too far behind. I just wish it would stop. And we all wonder how we woke up into a world of terrorism that has its origins in the Middle East and Afghanistan? Thanks, dear leaders, while you sod off into your privileged life of luxury and protection, we the dirty, great unwashed are left to pick up the pieces.
It’s sickening to see the kind of people who are leading us; the kind of people who pay their poignant last respects for Big Ben as it chimes for the last time in years – yet, couldn’t bother their precious selves to show such respects for the Grenfell victims. French President Macron proving he’s giving Marie Antoinette a run for her money in the hubris department as his makeup and beauty bill has already reached £24k since he took office 3mths ago/His Presidential portrait at a cost of £3.1 million/Acting like royalty as he holds court at the palace of Versailles. Even, Francoise Holland had a £10k per month hairdressing bill; ironic considering he hardly had any! And now, the fear of having Trump lord his fat self around pretending he’s Bruce Willis in the Die Hard series proclaiming what a hero he is and how he can save us all; which is chilling many of the residents of planet earth by such statements as we seem to be sitting precariously on the brink of WW3 due to him. What is happening?! We all seem to be stuck in a spin cycle that is showing no signs of stopping yet.
Marjorie; is there anything in the astrology that is showing similar patterns for the disturbing arrogance of the elite like the French Revolution and the growing unrest of the public towards such hated figures, which will bring a downfall that befell King Louis XVI and his missus, Marie Antoinette? I feel we are stuck in a bottle neck which is demanding an immediate change if we are to move forward. Sorry for the long ramble.
Sadly we’ve just had it. Uranus opposition Pluto oversaw the French revolution and we’ve almost finished the Uranus Pluto square. Mind you the French Revolution ended up with the dictatorship of gotta-go-to-war Napoleon on the far side, although he was more liberally inclined than the old monarchy. The Russian revolution heralded in Stalin and totalitarianism, so sweeping away the past doesn’t always lead to better. Just keep praying for Pluto in Aquarius, though maybe just maybe Pluto in Capricorn might actually produce the justice and culture which flowered in previous periods once Uranus and then pesky Saturn are out of the way by 2020.
Perhaps there is too much inertia to overcome quickly with the changes needed. I see more discontent within the GOP. Perhaps a coup?
“The president was found unconscious today, slumped over his Big Mac and fries. Was it a case of a Big Mac Attack?”
Constraints exist but what will it take for those constraints to become active? And , how long will it take to become active?
That already happened. They took over by outing Bannon (see how Trump hasn’t even tweeted on what a good man he was after the ouster). This would have happened, according to some sources, on August 7th. So, yes, a Lunar Eclipse event heralding “The Big One”.