Afghanistan

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

One last point: all these conservative talking heads are ridiculing the programs foisted upon the Afghanis as if they were outright failures:

1) They were all pilot tested in Afghanistan, with the payoff of being applied here...i.e. they were deconstructing the male gender in Afghanistan a decade before it was introduced here.

2) They are all programs designed to conquer a people.

3) To paraphrase a poly-sci professor friend: "The public doesn't really grasp how many so-called terrorism experts we've credentialed in this country and unleashed into the world. Without an objective like in Afghanistan to BS about, they are going to set their eyes on anything and everything back home."

[Doc]

a deal with the Taliban

I think this is really key.

The Taliban wants legitimacy with business deals. It also knew it held all the cards: the Afghan gov't was a fake embezzling machine, and the Taliban could play hardball by playing the interests of all the bigger countries off each other.

We really needed people in charge ready to do what is unpalatable to many; kiss the Taliban's ass for our own self-interest with an understanding that even if we did that, we'd just as likely lose out.

Unfortunately the people that would kiss the Taliban's ass are the mostly same people that were all too happy too take the big bucks to kick the Taliban's ass. I suppose they would claim they were cutting out the middle man of the Afghan Army to supply the Taliban with weapons. Though it would still cost the same.

Kind of like Niki making it company policy that male Uygur slave laborers have a safe place at work to identify as "Black Female" slaves like Gen Milley did with the pentagon.

[Doc]

The Taliban at their news conference says they are giving a general amnesty and women will be able to work under sharia. That they want no more war. And will not allow foreign to train fighters in their country

We'll see.

[noddy]

It doesnt matter, which is a refreshing change.

whatever happens, its their country, their internal politics and their problems to fix.

its not like they are the only country with toxic gangs killing innocents in them.

at this stage, Im not sure the modern, more globally savvy version of the Taliban are worse problem for the US than the Los Zetas (or whoever is running such things now)

[noddy]

One last point: all these conservative talking heads are ridiculing the programs foisted upon the Afghanis as if they were outright failures:

1) They were all pilot tested in Afghanistan, with the payoff of being applied here...i.e. they were deconstructing the male gender in Afghanistan a decade before it was introduced here.

2) They are all programs designed to conquer a people.

3) To paraphrase a poly-sci professor friend: "The public doesn't really grasp how many so-called terrorism experts we've credentialed in this country and unleashed into the world. Without an objective like in Afghanistan to BS about, they are going to set their eyes on anything and everything back home."

I remember variaitons of this conversation on the original spengler board with DoU and co.

not only the expertise (cough) but all the technology aswell, all sorts of things you are allowed to practice with impunity in war time.

now of course, the civilian populations of the west are all terrified of each other enough to justify local deployment.

[Doc]

It doesnt matter, which is a refreshing change.

whatever happens, its their country, their internal politics and their problems to fix.

its not like they are the only country with toxic gangs killing innocents in them.

at this stage, Im not sure the modern, more globally savvy version of the Taliban are worse problem for the US than the Los Zetas (or whoever is running such things now)

There are between 15,000 and 40,000 Americans throughout Afghanistan as of today that are not at the Kabul Airport. The Biden Admin will not be keeping troops in Kabul beyond Aug 31st...

[Typhoon]

It doesnt matter, which is a refreshing change.

whatever happens, its their country, their internal politics and their problems to fix.

its not like they are the only country with toxic gangs killing innocents in them.

at this stage, Im not sure the modern, more globally savvy version of the Taliban are worse problem for the US than the Los Zetas (or whoever is running such things now)

There are between 15,000 and 40,000 Americans throughout Afghanistan as of today that are not at the Kabul Airport. The Biden Admin will not be keeping troops in Kabul beyond Aug 31st...

P5y6C-v5-j0

[Typhoon]

Taki's Mag - Sailer | Our Culture of Lying

And the United States in the 21st century has seemed exceptionally impervious (so far) to being ruined by its multitrillion-dollar mistakes such as the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration’s push for increased minority homeownership, the various Covid botches, and the racial reckoning.

On the other hand, a decisive military defeat galvanizes the attention in a way that more subtle fiascos do not, such as how it took fifteen years for social scientists to even notice that the turn-of-the-century promotion of synthetic opioids as the cure for what ails the working class was lowering their life expectancy.

So, what lessons should we have learned from the Afghanistan micro-debacle of recent days and the macro-debacle of the past nineteen years?

The causes of the latest failures are not fully clear yet, in part because we don’t know what exactly will still happen.

One prediction that I will make with a high level of confidence is that not a single US senior military official, bureaucrat, civilian foreign policy wonk, or politician, either past or present, will be held to account the Afghanistan shenanigan that lead to this debacle.

Just as no banker, bureaucrat, or politician was held to account for the shenanigans that ended in the global financial crisis of 2007.

[Nonc Hilaire]

The Fed was involved. And the lazy media used in the narrative has been exposed as CGI and recycled news.

Seems likely this was less a revolution and more of a gold heist.

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/d ... to+zero%29

[noddy]

It doesnt matter, which is a refreshing change.

whatever happens, its their country, their internal politics and their problems to fix.

its not like they are the only country with toxic gangs killing innocents in them.

at this stage, Im not sure the modern, more globally savvy version of the Taliban are worse problem for the US than the Los Zetas (or whoever is running such things now)

There are between 15,000 and 40,000 Americans throughout Afghanistan as of today that are not at the Kabul Airport. The Biden Admin will not be keeping troops in Kabul beyond Aug 31st...

surely they are mostly contractors on the millitary gravy train and more than compensated for the risks involved.

[Doc]

Taki's Mag - Sailer | Our Culture of Lying

And the United States in the 21st century has seemed exceptionally impervious (so far) to being ruined by its multitrillion-dollar mistakes such as the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration’s push for increased minority homeownership, the various Covid botches, and the racial reckoning.

On the other hand, a decisive military defeat galvanizes the attention in a way that more subtle fiascos do not, such as how it took fifteen years for social scientists to even notice that the turn-of-the-century promotion of synthetic opioids as the cure for what ails the working class was lowering their life expectancy.

So, what lessons should we have learned from the Afghanistan micro-debacle of recent days and the macro-debacle of the past nineteen years?

The causes of the latest failures are not fully clear yet, in part because we don’t know what exactly will still happen.

One prediction that I will make with a high level of confidence is that not a single US senior military official, bureaucrat, civilian foreign policy wonk, or politician, either past or present, will be held to account the Afghanistan shenanigan that lead to this debacle.

Just as no banker, bureaucrat, or politician was held to account for the shenanigans that ended in the global financial crisis of 2007.

I expect one of the biggest campaign promises for 2022 will be that the candidate will go to Washington, if elected and do something about this. Probably the doing will be to take lots of K street lobby money to look the other way while:
1) I was stopped by other members of congress so you need to elect more congress critters from my party

2) We know they are guilty of crimes but the DOJ will not prosecute them.

3) All the hard drives were erased/lost by accident

4) Then "Too much time has passed"

The only way this is ever going to change is if campaign money is stopped from crossing political boundaries.

Second the big campaign donors and lobbyists that pushed the action should be legally liable for damages in court. The penalty this time should be loss of their fortunes.

[Doc]

It doesnt matter, which is a refreshing change.

whatever happens, its their country, their internal politics and their problems to fix.

its not like they are the only country with toxic gangs killing innocents in them.

at this stage, Im not sure the modern, more globally savvy version of the Taliban are worse problem for the US than the Los Zetas (or whoever is running such things now)

There are between 15,000 and 40,000 Americans throughout Afghanistan as of today that are not at the Kabul Airport. The Biden Admin will not be keeping troops in Kabul beyond Aug 31st...

surely they are mostly contractors on the millitary gravy train and more than compensated for the risks involved.

Sure many of them, though I would have expected the contractors to get out with the troops Otherwise there are a lot of NGOs and Afghan-Americans visiting their families.

[Doc]

Rscc9FDNMx8

[Typhoon]

Epitaph.

Stubstack - Stoller | The War in Afghanistan Is What Happens When McKinsey Types Run Everything

I see the discourse on the withdrawal as a super-sized version of this Kassel’s review [of the film "War Machine"]. The ‘Blob,’ that loose network of diplomats, ex-diplomats, generals, lobbyists, defense contractors, fancy lawyers, famous journalists, and insiders see the obvious desire for withdrawal as similar to how Kassel saw the truth-telling of Hastings and the Netflix movie. They are angry and embarrassed that they can’t hide their failures anymore. Their entire sense of self was bound up in the idea of an illusion of an unbeatable all-powerful America, even when they, like General Glen “the Glanimal” McMahon were the only ones who believed it.

And their embarrassment covers up something even more dangerous. None of these tens of thousands of Ivy league encrusted PR savvy highly credentialed prestigious people actually know how to do anything useful. They can write books on leadership, or do powerpoints, or leak stories, but the hard logistics of actually using resources to achieve something important are foreign to them, masked by unlimited budgets and public relations. It is, as someone told me in 2019 about the consumer goods giant Proctor and Gamble, where “very few white-collar workers at P&G really did anything” except take credit for the work of others.

[Doc]

Leaked biden phone calls shows the disaster in Afghanistan was planned by the Biden admin Who believes the Taliban are our friends. Even turned down a request from the Afghan government for air support for their troops on July 23rd.

Biden lied People died.

"98% of Afghans want Sharia law." Not gender studies
3xhW3JlWSgM

[Doc]

Tal!ban's barbarians are living their nightmare in Afghanistan

L-96vEWAqxI

[Brecher]

It doesnt matter, which is a refreshing change.

whatever happens, its their country, their internal politics and their problems to fix.

its not like they are the only country with toxic gangs killing innocents in them.

at this stage, Im not sure the modern, more globally savvy version of the Taliban are worse problem for the US than the Los Zetas (or whoever is running such things now)

I agree. El Salvador is very dangerous, and a lot closer to the US.

A big problem that Afghanistan is having now is that the US government, for domestic political reasons, is stealing billions of dollars in Afghanistan’s foreign exchange, making starvation an even bigger risk. So, now that we’re not drone bombing their weddings anymore, we’re starving them.

W shouldn’t have let OBL escape at Tora Bora in December 2001. He wanted to keep people scared, so that he could have his war in Iraq.

US involvement in the Muslim world has been a curse.

The US has worse, more dangerous, threats closer to home. The situation in El Salvador and some other parts of Latin America, is one example.

[Brecher]

Epitaph.

Stubstack - Stoller | The War in Afghanistan Is What Happens When McKinsey Types Run Everything

I see the discourse on the withdrawal as a super-sized version of this Kassel’s review [of the film "War Machine"]. The ‘Blob,’ that loose network of diplomats, ex-diplomats, generals, lobbyists, defense contractors, fancy lawyers, famous journalists, and insiders see the obvious desire for withdrawal as similar to how Kassel saw the truth-telling of Hastings and the Netflix movie. They are angry and embarrassed that they can’t hide their failures anymore. Their entire sense of self was bound up in the idea of an illusion of an unbeatable all-powerful America, even when they, like General Glen “the Glanimal” McMahon were the only ones who believed it.

And their embarrassment covers up something even more dangerous. None of these tens of thousands of Ivy league encrusted PR savvy highly credentialed prestigious people actually know how to do anything useful. They can write books on leadership, or do powerpoints, or leak stories, but the hard logistics of actually using resources to achieve something important are foreign to them, masked by unlimited budgets and public relations. It is, as someone told me in 2019 about the consumer goods giant Proctor and Gamble, where “very few white-collar workers at P&G really did anything” except take credit for the work of others.

Matt Stoller is right.

His columns are required reading in these modern times.

[Heracleum Persicum]

https://youtu.be/FbbMt4awp6A?t=8

[Heracleum Persicum]

.


https://www.german-foreign-policy.com/e ... etail/8869


The Forgotten Humanitarian Catastrophe

[noddy]

seems to me that leaving was all we could do.

a disaster from start to finish, should never have been there, should never have stayed there, just kept on making things worse.

now its a different type of disaster - one they have control over.

Pakistan is the one who should have stepped up , all that money America has spent on them, its a joke.

[Heracleum Persicum]

seems to me that leaving was all we could do.

a disaster from start to finish, should never have been there, should never have stayed there, just kept on making things worse.

now its a different type of disaster - one they have control over.

Pakistan is the one who should have stepped up , all that money America has spent on them, its a joke.

1986 Dr. Najib a secular medical doctor, surgeon, a western style civilized Afghan, became Afghan president .. it was during Russian occupation of Afghanistan

Americans, to f*ck Russia, arranged his assassination.

If he had stayed in power, and Russians too had stayed in Afghanistan , Afghanistan would be now similar to Kazakstan and Tajikistan, a civli society .. and .. there would have been no Bin Laden, no 9/11, there would have been no "Islamic State" and no Taliban now

After the fact, after 40 yrs, am sure the Anglos see the mistake

but

Now same mistake is happening in Ukraine .. same mistake

.