Using the same deceitful tactics they pioneered in Vietnam, U.S. political and military officials repeatedly misled the country about the prospects for success in Afghanistan.
In my deployments to Afghanistan, the uselessness of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) was broadly known - it was an in the open secret. The ANA were buffoonish, more closely identified with Keystone Cops then as a classic military organization. Organizing them was like herding cats. Posting them on perimeter would have them watching out for about three minutes before they’d look inside to see what we were doing. And the ANP were corrupt as well, possibly more useless, if it’s possible, then the ANA. The one organization that performed were the ANSF. Those guys were serious. But so few.
Bottom line, everyone, right down to privates in the army knew that what we’re seeing now was inevitable, 10, 20, 50 or 100 years of occupation and training didn’t matter. It was and has always been a playground for up and coming generals to earn their bones and their next position. I mean, what sort of officer hasn’t commanded men in combat, right? Can’t be the next Patton if you don’t have a war.
They all knew. Miley knew for sure because he’s detestable, more so then most generals, a very small minority of which are actually dedicated to the art of war instead of self aggrandizement.
It’s all coming to head now. The Talibans super fast takeover is surprising, but not by that much. The house of cards that the elites have built are all falling down. Trump, was elected and even if you rightly claim he was a turd, his administration looks as well run as FDRs in WWII compared to eight months of Biden’s dream team of heavily credentialed morons. Didn’t Miley say that our biggest threat was climate change? Good thing that asshat had his eye on the ball, right?
COVID, Climate Change, Afghanistan, the border, have all exposed our pedigreed elites as likely the most incompetent boobs on this great earth. Dare I say we could randomly pick from the whole of the adult population regular folks that would do much better.
But you wouldn’t know it because the media is acting as the arm of government and SM ensures that the Tik Tok generation stays focused on practicing those tomorrow’s dance moves - as someone said here on Substack - LARPING their way through life.
When ole Ike Eisenhower left office he read a speech to the poker and warned us all about the power the government was about to create to fight the Soviets. He warned us then, in 1961, that there was a good chance the bureaucracy, science, and private industries would grow so powerful as to supplant civilian control of government.
I am intimately familiar with this military type - politically adroit but militarily incompetent. They rule within the military. Gaining rank is purely a game of politics. In fact, a killer instinct is not a desirable attribute - too much risk to your seniors. Saw it every day.
My dad served in Vietnam. When I enlisted in the infantry he said, “Son, why would you do that? I was a dummy and had no other options.” I replied, in the most typical young man ignorance ever displayed, “Dad, it’s different now - its the all volunteer Army…”
It was cringe-worthy to watch Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin talk about diversity and wokeness while dropping bombs on black folks in Somalia. The nitwits who rise to the top don't bother trying to cover up their own corruption. Credibility is not a requirement for promotion.
Yup....billions of dollars worth of high tech U.S.military equipment, from small arms to helicopters and even tanks are now in the hands of the Taliban and ISIS...
It is totally nuts and the greatest humiliation of the US in our history. And it is all Biden's fault.
Last week, former Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said that the Trump administration had no intention to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The February 2020 agreement with the Taliban and May 2021 deadline to leave, was just a charade in attempt to force another deal, says Miller.
That would explain why Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie did not lift a finger to discreetly evacuate masses of equipment and people during the past year, or arrange for an orderly U.S. exit from Afghanistan. They simply did not believe it would happen.
McKenzie has pulled this shit before. In January 2021, he defeated Miller in a stare-down over withdrawal of the USS Nimitz from service to SOCOM, forcing the Secretary of Defense to reverse his order. In effect, McKenzie extended a middle finger to the Trump administration. He is not much different from the warlords in Afghanistan, in that he will use all manner of devious and unethical means to protect his little fiefdom.
"That would explain why Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie did not lift a finger to discreetly evacuate masses of equipment and people during the past year, or arrange for an orderly U.S. exit from Afghanistan. They simply did not believe it would happen."--EKB
That would explain it IF you believe Christopher Miller.
But I understand Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley and their believe in the absurd Woke woowoo, And I also grasp that these buffoons despise President Trump, on top of being total idiots as far as military savy is concerned. In fact we know that the military part if the deep state have been as determined as any other aspect of the swamp has dedicated every means at their commant to destroy Trump. I do NOT believe Christopher Miller. I think his remarks are historical revisionism made for purely political reasons
The proposal that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not a valid concept in all instances. It would be naive to think so. To assume that because McKenzie and Miller were at odds in one situation isn't necessary a reason to chose between the two as to which is more politiacall motivated.
I do not see Trump as disingenuous. He is still touting his withdrawal plan both in commentary on his web site and at his rallies. I think he had every intention of pulling out of Afghanistan under the deal he had made with the Taliban.
Everything else now being said is apologia for the incredible ineptitude or perposeful malfeasance of Joe Biden, or whoever is actually running the Biden regime.
This entire Afghanistan fiasco falls conveniently in line with the larger agenda of the World Econamic Forum's 'Great Reset".
In fact EVERYTHING that the Biden regime has done has contributed to that agenda.
It occurred to me that Christopher Miller might be grandstanding for potential job openings. The bottom line: Like Obama, Trump pledged to get the United States out of Afghanistan while he was the president and did not deliver. People are ultimately defined by actions, not words.
And Trump did not drain the swamp like he promised. He did the exact opposite.
In 2017, Trump endorsed a sweeping tax legislation that reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Adding insult to injury, twenty-six Fortune 500 companies — including FedEx and Nike — have not paid federal income taxes since 2018. Of course the Congress submitted the bill, but Trump did sign it into law. He is no champion of the people, unless the people are corporations.
"ITEP's data found some of the nation's biggest companies have been avoiding federal taxes for decades, dating back to the Reagan administration. The companies, which encompass a wide variety of industries, use a range of tactics, including tax exemptions and deductions."
Indeed. I have always thought about why he set out to warn the public like he did. I think that he witnessed first hand the power of the government, science and industry during WWII. He was a witness to these entities realizing their power. It was enough to disturb him to the point of trying to shake the American public into staying vigilant.
Remember that Ike was against dropping the bomb on Japan. He saw how the politicians and the major corporations at Los Alamos were increasing their control on policy
Ike was a General, the most politicised level of the Military Industrial Complex, and then a President, the political master (C in C) of the Military. It is possible he was an honest man but there's no good reason to assume so.
"It is possible he (Ike) was an honest man but there's no good reason to assume so."--Scuzzaman
Eisenhower warned the nation abouth the "Military industrial complex" in his farewell speech. I think that is reason enough to consider him a good man.
Possibly, as I said already. It is equally possible he wasn't but wanted to be remembered that way. Much the same way his admirers want him to a good man rather than face the ugly possibility of the total corruption the political system that rules them.
Truman was the last soldier in the last battle to fire the last gun in WWI...not a fellow to leave a job unfinished. I believe he gave the OK to show Stalin.
You mean WWII, And you are saying that the atomic bombings of Japan were meant to scare the USSR.
A huge death toll and long lasting health problems just to spook the USSR for a small period of time. They had 'The Bomb' within a year anyway...
I would assert that Truman is one of the worst war criminals of all time for such and inhumane and needless act. The US knew that the Japanese were suing for peace weeks before Hiroshima.
No, they dole these little snippets out when they feel comfortable enough in their power to pretend they oppose their having it. As if. It's just another lie. Neither Ike nor Orwell were outsiders, they were insiders playing at being outsiders to maintain the fiction that outsiders are not excluded in our "liberal democracies". Same for Trump, who has convinced swathes of Republicans that they can vote their way out of Empire. Mission Accomplished.
Indeed they do. But in Ike’s case, this was his exit speech and he basically faded away. I suggest you read it. It is far to prescient and well thought out, and selfless, to have been a pure political power play. I would bet that his best play would have been to leave and say nothing negative about the newly minted powers. That would definitely have been more self serving. You can genuinely feel him saying, “well, the Soviets have the bomb now and they’re everywhere, so we don’t have a choice, but, this is what I fear could occur if we’re wrong.” And I don’t sense that Ike was attempting to portray himself an outsider at all. In fact it’s obvious he was warning us as an insider, with a view of this potential power. Not everything is about Trump. And our system off government isn’t designed to facilitate dramatic change. I have always believed that radicalism, regardless it’s color (red or blue) only serves to move the center away from it. It takes time, but the tides always change.
I am wondering what the American people expected to happen in Afghanistan with a Woke general staff running the operation for a Woke presedent that is barely aware of who he is.
What a small world we live in! One of the five terrorists that Obama traded for the traitor Beau Bergdahl (who Susan Rice praised as having "served with honor") is now one of the top Taliban rulers in Afghanistan.
Orwell was a police officer - hardly one of the political power brokers. Trump, while a wealthy businessman, found himself to be a pariah among the rich and famous. He remains a hero to most working people.
T. Boone Pickens was a billionaire who, with his 2008 "Pickens Plan" hoped to make America energy independent. There was even talk of a "Pickens Army" marching on Washington. Despite his wealth, many of us peasants admired him. That's no different than the fact the millions of Americans elected Donald Trump and that more of us voted for him again in 2020.
Well, "outsider" is a relative term. Almost by definition, you can't have real power while still being an outsider. You also don't necessarily have to be an outsider to be against Empire and the bloated military complex.
Pre-cold war, it was part of the national ethos to not keep a significant standing army in peacetime. Everyone from Washington to FDR believed standing armies were both dangerous and expensive. Now that the Cold War is long over it's time to return to that.
Eisenhower hated America's kids going over to fight yet another da*n European war....that was his heart. Every face was a Kansas farm boy.Not being sentimental...that's the truth.
Now with the Royal family staring at all of us from the grocery check out, we forget the suspicion and indifference most Americans felt for Europe and its eternal arrogant squabbles.
"Now with the Royal family staring at all of us from the grocery check out,"--Deanna Johnston Clark
This is what Deanna is speaking to, and it is indeed a huge part of the globalist plan to eventuate thier agenda for a world government based on neo-feudal tyranny by the international technocrats, now based in Davos, Switzerland,
**International barcode
The International Article Number (also known as European Article Number or EAN) is a standard describing a barcode symbology and numbering system used in global trade to identify a specific retail product type, in a specific packaging configuration, from a specific manufacturer.**
Well, I make jokes about those magazines to the cashiers and we all laugh at them. Princess Grace was our gal and Diana was, well, Diana. But these today????? You're probably right. Not subtle about it either are they? All over YT as well. European nobility is far from leaving the stage, but to whom do they report?
There’s a difference between Democrats and the left. Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl, but more bloodthirsty. Mad Madeleine Albright? She of childrens’ deaths in Iraq due to sanctions being “worth it”? The ugly racism of Geraldine Ferraro in 2008?
An ancient, mountain culture, devoutly Moslem...unabashedly illiterate with reverential and feared warlords...A fellow student, an Afghani, once said.."We can wait a hundred years...we are the land and God is good..." They waited, let the civil war subside, collected Western gold and promises...then, the invader, was ejected....there was really nothing fast...the Taliban never left...they came home.
All our wokism couldn't change their beliefs. I wasn't aware of the NGO's and the ideology we pushed on them. ...I don't agree with any of their beliefs etc...but you've got to admire them. 20 year's! That's one generation. Not sure 50 year's would've changed anything.
Savages who cut the arms and legs off a man before killing him in front of his family are not admirable. Fanatics who murder women for daring to show their faces are not admirable. The new rulers of Afghanistan are no different than mad dogs. It is sad that all the terror and heartbreak we are about to witness is due to the decision of a senile old man and the millions of idiots who voted for him.
The news? You choose to believe the news this time? Did you believe the news when they were saying Trump was elected by Russia? That Russian prostitutes peed all over him?
Wow, thanks for the input. You've confirmed our worst fears. The neoliberal elite since Carter are actually incompetents who, despite all evidence, think they are smarter and better than we are.
Sorry, not the ANSF. I meant the Afghan Special Forces - whatever that acronym is. Not the tribal “volunteers” from 2004ish timeframe, although some of them were decent fighters. They were just local warlord soldiers for hire. I’m talking about the ones that were rolling around in 2012ish. Those cats were serious.
What happened to the Northern Alliance? They were putting up a pretty good fight for a while, even before the Americans stepped in. Are they totally disbanded and disarmed now, or will they take up arms again? Or maybe the Taliban have incorporated enough non-Pashtuns into their ranks that it's no longer a clear ethnic conflict.
Thank you for the inside view, always fascinating. While the fact that the war was lost many, many years ago was clear to anybody with basic critical thinking skills, what astonished me is the level of basic military incompetence to organize an orderly retreat / evacuation. Don't they teach these things at military academies? Is there even any coordination between military and politicians? One would expect detailed plans be in place and rehearsed how to do it before the order to leave is announced? Kabul has basically 2 airports, one could have been used until last moment to evacuate military (Bagram) and other - in the city (ex. Karzai, surely soon to be renamed soon) for civilians, and then last rear-guard units to leave turn the lights off. Will anybody lose their rank for this embarrassing SNAFU the whole world saw?
Right? Think about this though… Remember back when Congress was debating the Surge Theory in Iraq? Abizaid, Sanchez, Casey all testified that a surge wouldn’t work to quell the crisis. Let’s drill down into this a bit more. They were basically saying that more good guys doesn’t matter matter when you come up against bad guys. This was a stunning reversal of basic military tenets which is that in all operations you attempt overmatch, like, 3 to 1 if possible. This basic tenet of warfare - that you don’t fight at a manpower disadvantage - is know to privates in the army. As an example, when a platoon is conducting a movement to contact drill one of the things they train is to recognize how large your opposing force is depending on what crew served weapon you are faced with (crew served meaning machine gun large enough to require a crew). When you make contact the platoon leader is supposed to listen and determine the size of that crew served weapon, because the bigger the gun the bigger the element your facing. If it isn’t a squad sized element, you break contact or call support. If it’s a squad (smaller than you by three), then you establish your base of fire and maneuver. So, this is common sense. You don’t even have to be in the military to get how this makes sense as all of that have ever been I a fist fight know that you don’t fight a guy that has friends there, and you don’t have friends there.
Enter Patraeus with his surge idea. So controversial right? Have more guys then the enemy. It was bananas… He was labeled a genius for introducing basic infantry tactics to the issues in Iraq. But back to those other generals that said a surge wouldn’t work, to make a short story long, no, these assholes don’t know how to do basic shit, unless by “basic shit” you mean master the political game to rise to power in the Pentagon. Casey, Abizaid and Sanchez couldn’t attain anymore power if they went against Rumsfeld’s deluded assumption that Iraq was going to solve it’s own thousand year Sunni vs. Shia strife.
While soldiers were dying, those fools were jockeying to maintain their own positions WELL OUTSIDE THE COMBAT ZONE.
Same thing happening now. These generals know that their bread is buttered by yapping nonsense - climate change, Jan 6th was an insurrection (and we’re ready to fight American Nazis), trans in the military, and wondering aloud about White Rage. “Oh, you wanna pull out of Afghanistan? Well, we can have a bunch of planes there and that should be that. Now, Bernie Sanders just said July was the hottest month in the history of the world (he actually said that the other day), how are we going to ensure the military is prepared for that fight - the fight for our very (political) lives…?”
More likely a small number of people will just get forced to retire, at best with their pension cut slightly (as if they had one fewer general's star on their uniform's shoulder), and then they'll cash in with a nonuniformed part of the military-industrial complex. Al can correct me if I'm wrong.
I am pretty sure you are right. In other words: system will not fundamentally change ensuring a repeat down the line. Except of course it cannot go on like this forever, the rot will sooner or later bring the whole edifice down.
when I was deploy back then I was trying to teach younger kids to mathematics and computer. the kids are willing to learn but when I try to teach the older group to just teach them computer they just don’t want to learn from us bc we who look young. I held a degree in computer and I’m not good enough. I’m not surprise the Afghan government lost the country. now we need to get the every American and the people who help us when we were there out of Afghanistan. Biden f this up.
For whatever it's worth: I wrote this poem the day after Memorial Day in 2004. It illustrates how defenders of the indefensible make a mockery of the very things they care about most.
And yes, I borrowed the title from The Police song from 1980. It’s not anti-war — It’s pro-thinking:
Glenn, one thing I would like to see before I am worm food is, what if "they" declared war and nobody showed up? In other words, nobody would sign up, volunteer to be cannon fodder for the PTB. On either side of the war.
"have all exposed our pedigreed elites as likely the most incompetent boobs on this great earth"
One could also say: As the most competent ones ... after all our government follows Wall Street, the military industrial complex, big pharma, etc who all have done well.
If we want to change anything, we first need to separate corporate power and government.
The article you link to is about Operation Mockingbird which was revealed by the Church Committee Hearings. This committee also uncovered the horrific MKUltra Progam on mind control.
Mad -- many journalists are socialists. They predominantly vote for and contribute to dems, who are led by socialists. Many of them, and many dems, are what socialists call useful idiots, who support socialists without understanding why. Most idiots can be improved with education. The US has done that poorly for a long time.
Democrats are among the most slavishly subservient to corporate and plutocratic interests that form the core of American power. Are you suggesting that corporations and the people that sit atop of the corporatist system are socialists?
Mad -- not suggesting anything. Dems are not, nor ever have been, subservient to corporate interests. Dems are currently led by socialists, who are always opposed to wealth accumulation by corporations or anyone else. Practical socialists use the wealth of others to finance their actions to acquire power. Corporate officers are focused on success of the corporation, which always requires cooperation with governments. It's just business. As with any group, some corporate officers support socialism, but they are seldom successful.
bot seems to hear a lot of noises in its head, if indeed it has a head.
Some people use 'socialists' as loosely as others use 'Nazi' or 'racist'. Dynamics are the same for all these words. Reasons for using term 'socialist' for disliked groups (including media): (1) they circulate criticisms of us that we don't want to hear, so we need to associate them with a term like 'socialist' to make them look bad; (2) they're politically closer than we are to real socialists; (3) we don't want to acknowledge possibility that some position between our position and real socialists might be right, because then we wouldn't be the only alternative to socialism's problems; (4) since they're politically a notch or more closer to socialists than we are, we feel that their position is a slippery slope toward all the worst things about real socialism; (5) there actually are real socialists to be found within the media, at least in the ranks that have less power; (6) we feel more comfortable focusing on all the above things than in limiting ourselves to talking about socialism in a stricter and more narrow sense. Again, all these things happen with 'racist' and 'Nazi' as well.
Labels are used as slurs by idiots, usually incorrectly. Most people use them simply as shorthand to describe obvious characteristics. There is not a universal definition for socialist (or nazi or racist) but labels imply characteristics. Socialists vary in enthusiasm so their tactics also vary. Those who argue about the labels are always trying to hide something, sometimes their intentions, usually their ignorance. More constructive to discuss tactics. Labels are just language.
Socialists are disliked for good reasons, not because they're different, but because they're destructive. Nazis are ridiculed because they're harmless kooks. Racists are disliked by other racists, but ignored by those who realize race is irrelevant.
Defining people primarily by their intersectional group identity is a key tenant of Marxism and socialism. The whole point of socialism is to deny the individual. Our media does this constantly - primarily using race to describe every individual human interaction. Sometimes socioeconomic stratus. They once used gender, but they can't define what exactly makes a "real woman" a "real woman" as apparently "woman" is now primarily based in a undefinable "feelings."
"The media" are corporations. Corporations are not socialist.
Capitalists are playing the pied piper to people with liberal sentiments as a mechanism of mind control. And whatever else has been included in this, Marxism/post-modernism, woke-as-fuckism, or whatever else they're clamoring about to pretend they're all that and a bag of peanuts, is all cultural shapeshifting because their relationship to the public is always and everywhere and at all times to be faking us out and tricking us into thinking whatever they need us to think that will allow them to continue to enslave the human population to their unquenchable thirst for more and more and more and more power.
It is exactly the 180 degree opposite: Marxism was (and still is) about abstracting away any differences in race, sex, gender, nationality, religion, and focusing on class - specifically relationship to means of production. Either you own them and can live off other people's work, or don't then you have to sell labor to survive. This focus allows for solidarity and unity to emerge, which scares the hell out of owner class. Therefore, the best way to keep status quo in highly unequal, diverse modern society is to inject as many as possible fissures using "identity politics", pit one subgroup against another, hand them different crumbs, put them in different ranks of "oppression" etc. Old "divide et impera" adjusted for reality of 21st century mature capitalism. Immigration is big part of this - it is social engineering on large scale to depress cost of labor on one side, while injecting strife in the working class in the other. Extra bonus: immigration erodes social safety nets over time as there is less consensus how much benefits should be extended to newcomers. This of course in aggregation means that rich can keep even more profits as there is less pressure to redistribute (well observed over last 20-30 years in western Europe and Nordic countries).
No. If Marx taught nothing else, he taught that economic relations alone is what defines people, that the superstructure of creates law, culture, and everything else.
David Watson got 30 likes (at time of this writing) so "'Media'='socialists?'" is apparently a pretty popular idea here. Am I wrong in assuming there's some logic behind that idea? Is it just a feeling people get that can't be explained?
It's not a "feeling." The entire basis of Marxism and Socialist ideology is to divide society by "groups" based on birth class and/or immutable characteristics. Socialism is founded in rejecting the truth that humans are unique individuals - thus Marxism divides people into social stratus in society and defines their entire existence by that group. The media talks in language that seeks to define people not as individuals, but as their intersectional group identity........ So I would say that the media does promote socialist ideology
I find it usually helps to try to understand those you disagree with, and in this case you haven't done that. Your sentence "The entire basis of Marxism and Socialist ideology is to divide society by "groups" based on birth class and/or immutable characteristics" indicates a complete lack of understanding of Marxism and Socialist ideology. You might want to learn a little more about what Marxism and Socialism say before criticizing them; both Marxism and Socialism are bad ideologies, but it doesn't help when you misrepresent them so thoroughly. In particular, if you'd read and understood more of Marx you would know he's not talking about immutable characteristics or birth origins.
We live in a country that locks up people for selling and using drugs. Our government is the largest arms dealer on the planet and they control all the production and sales, mostly to other governments. Corporations are too large to fail and protected from market forces like competition. And what was it Reagan said about self-government?
Market Liberalism doesn't exist in this country so let me help you explain that feeling you get and complete your logic - Americans = socialists (one form or another).
"We live in a country that locks up people for selling and using drugs" has nothing to do with socialism.
"Our government is the largest arms dealer on the planet and they control all the production and sales, mostly to other governments. Corporations are too large to fail and protected from market forces like competition." While I agree that it's fun to call corporations welfare queens, the merger of government and big business isn't socialism. It's fascism.
"Let me help you explain that feeling you get" the feeling is not mine. It's what people are speaking from when they make claims that they can't logically support, such as "media=socialist."
"Americans = socialists (one form or another)" you haven't supported this statement at all.
Don't count on it those platforms are run by and for the gov't. They are a big part of the problem and enablers of the D..C. lies and deceptions. Who do you think told them to remove DJT from their platforms? He was a braggart and self aggrandizing but was not responsible for our 20 year wars nor the deaths of American children lied to by the military. Yet Biden and the other shitbirds are all over media while Trump is isolated and shutout from even the basic ability to communicate with his followers. You think that was an accident.
The war has been a smashing success for war profiteers who made countless billions and intelligence agencies who have accrued vast new powers and kept their opium trafficking operation intact. As long as the powerful continue to benefit from our global military empire we should all expect more of the same.
Since the Biden administration has proven to be hopelessly inept (at best), our military adventurers will have their hands full fighting off China, Iran, and Russia. This week will prove to be a turning point in world history. So long, Taiwan!
They've moved onto blowing up Syria again and playing with drone bombs in North Africa....... China and Russia are giddy deciding where to go next. Taiwan, Estonia, Finland and any other "stan" country in western Asia or Eastern Europe should probably be making plans...... and they shouldn't include anything that requires input from Biden or Harris........
This is the first time I've really appreciated Biden. He has had the guts to pull us out. He's under a lot of pressure to keep troops there but he is not giving in. I was worried that he would be a hawk like Obama. He is proving me wrong.
I sent the president this email today. I hope everyone writes to him. I understand Gitmo has nice soccer fields and good food:
I watched BBC news last night.
It pains me to say this, but the entire world is questioning your ability to lead. You need a "fall guy".
This past week has been equivalent to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
Your decision to abandon Bagram Air Base and to remove the troops while thousands of Americans and our allies remained to be slaughtered by the Taliban will go down in history with Pickett's Charge.
While the Taliban was practicing war, the US military has been engaged in purging conservatives from leadership and teaching our soldiers to hate themselves and to distrust one another.
You cannot hide at Camp David forever.
The world loves a winner; but even more, people admire honesty and integrity.
Admit that terrible mistakes were made and dump General Milley.
Good luck. And I hope you are prepared to protect Taiwan - because almost everyone believes China will invade it before the year is over.
I suppose there's a big overlap between those who said "Impeaching Trump was a coup attempt!" and those who want to send the current president to Gitmo (Gitmo obviously being more anti-rule-of-law than impeachment was).
Read my comment more carefully, Mr. Rose. No one is suggesting that POTUS 46 be sent to Gitmo. I was only considering what the results of criticizing a dictator might be in 2021. Since the Democrats control both the House and the Senate, there is no hope of impeachment: there is only hope that Biden's cynical and corrupt advisors will discard General Milley in an attempt to pretend that Biden is in control.
Your reference to Gitmo seemed too bizarre when I first read it -- and then I saw that you posted almost the exact same comment in 2 different places, one version saying "The medical treatment at Gitmo is reported to be excellent." Mentioning medical treatment looked very much like the common practice of making digs against Biden's physical and/or cognitive health; that was the only plausible way that your post could make sense. And indicating that Biden's need for medical treatment could be met at Gitmo implies sending Biden to Gitmo. The practice of suggesting that one's political opponents should be in Gitmo tends to be used by some conservatives against Democrats or leftists, not vice versa (since left-of-center people are more likely to have the kind of solid principles that oppose Gitmo), so it rang true that you were indicating Biden should be sent to Gitmo.
I have, in fact, read both versions of your comment carefully, but I think your comments hardly make sense unless the line about "medical treatment" is read as referring to Biden going to Gitmo. Still, some parts of your comments are puzzling regardless, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
That's sad. You are "proud" of our president for leaving thousands of Americans to die, and our long term allies, at the hands of the Taliban..... all while this administration simply moved the troops and the bombs a bit so he could spend the last month bombing Syria and North Africa. That you cheer losing the wars in devastation, and claim weak Biden has "guts" by bombing other poor people instead, is sad. Biden has no guts, no morality, no goodness, no humanity, and no memory.....
We spent? We GAVE to corporations that became rich and richer. That was the reason to bolster american bizzes who give morons campaign money to win elections with propaganda and fill their bank accounts.
Adult boys, playing with toys, create ploys, to kill their own boys. Freud was wrong. The boy does not wish to kill his father and marry his mother. The first act of violence is that of the father against the boy. When he gives his baby boy to the shepherd to put on a mountain hillside so the wild animals can devour him. Alas for the king, the shepherd takes pity and gives the babe to another kind to raise as his son. Who will eventually unknowingly kill his father and make the Sphinx's prophecy come true.
Some of their nationals attacked us and other Saudi nationals planned and paid for the operation. That should have been enough to bring down the hammer and extract oceans of blood money, but the Saudis had a friend in the White House and that changed everything.
“al Qaeda” is in fact a tool of, funded by and equipped by western governments specifically the USA. ‘al Qaeda’ is essentially a subsidiary of CIA. See:
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen prior to and during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups that were favoured by neighbouring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Marxist-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan regime since before the Soviet intervention[citation needed]. Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken;[1] funding began with $20–$30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987.[2] Funding continued after 1989 as the mujahideen battled the forces of Mohammad Najibullah’s PDPA during the civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992).[3]
United States has made common cause with an assortment of dubious regimes around the world to wage the war on drugs. Perhaps the most shocking example was Washington’s decision in May 2001 to financially reward Afghanistan’s infamous Taliban government for its edict ordering a halt to the cultivation of opium poppies.
When the Taliban implemented a ban on opium cultivation in early 2001, U.S. officials were most complimentary. James P. Callahan, director of Asian Affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, uncritically relayed the alleged accounts of Afghan farmers that “the Taliban used a system of consensus-building” to develop and carry out the edict. That characterization was more than a little suspect because the Taliban was not known for pursuing consensus in other aspects of its rule. Columnist Robert Scheer was justifiably scathing in his criticism of the U.S. response. “That a totalitarian country can effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising,” Sheer noted, but he considered it “grotesque” for a U.S. official to describe the drug-crop crackdown in such benign terms.
Yet the Bush administration did more than praise the Taliban’s proclaimed ban of opium cultivation. In mid-May, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan in addition to the humanitarian aid the United States had long been providing to agencies assisting Afghan refugees. Given Callahan’s comment, there was little doubt that the new stipend was a reward for Kabul’s anti-drug efforts. That $43 million grant needs to be placed in context. Afghanistan’s estimated gross domestic product was a mere $2 billion. The equivalent financial impact on the U.S. economy would have required an infusion of $215 billion. In other words, $43 million was very serious money to Afghanistan’s theocratic masters.
To make matters worse, U.S. officials were naive to take the Taliban edict at face value. The much-touted crackdown on opium poppy cultivation appears to have been little more than an illusion. Despite U.S. and UN reports that the Taliban had virtually wiped out the poppy crop in 2000-2001, authorities in neighboring Tajikistan reported that the amounts coming across the border were actually increasing. In reality, the Taliban gave its order to halt cultivation merely to drive up the price of opium the regime had already stockpiled.
Even if the Taliban had tried to stem cultivation for honest reasons, U.S. cooperation with that regime should have been morally repugnant. Among other outrages, the Taliban government prohibited the education of girls, tortured and executed political critics, and required non-Muslims to wear distinctive clothing—a practice eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s requirement that Jews display the Star of David on their clothing. Yet U.S. officials deemed none of that to be a bar to cooperation with the Taliban on drug policy.
You're right. I remember vividly Afghan forces moving in. All over Wall street area. Some at Pentagon too. Hell, there were some in PA I hear.
They set up their own flight schools around the country: San Diego, Florida some place, etc. Those fucking Afghanis. Worse than Cubans - those at least close by and you would expect some snorkeling in.
The US military industrial complex "attacked" the Word Trade Center in a false flag PSYOP.
You are a smart guy David, but you have a large hole in your grasp of recent history. Why would you believe the official narrative of 9/11? It is nothing but a coverup of the US government's own malfeasance.
"Saudi Arabia, where 15 of 19 hijackers were from, should have been the main target."--Program
You assert this based on the assumption that the hijackers were actually anything more than patsies, like Lee Harvey Oswald was in the JFK Assassination.
A full accounting of the facts of 9/11 proves that the event was planned and exicuted by the national security state, that was at that time under the control of the GW Bush regime. This regime was made up of members of PNAC (Project for The New American Century).
The Project for the New American Century was a neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focused on United States foreign policy. It was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol, Dick Cheney, and Robert Kagan.
Of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten went on to serve in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses'
Written before the September 11 attacks, and during political debates of the War in Iraq, a section of Rebuilding America's Defenses entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force" became the subject of considerable controversy:
*"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."*
Journalist John Pilger pointed to this passage when he argued that the Bush administration had used the events of September 11 as an opportunity to capitalize on long-desired plans.
John Pilger reveals the American plan: a new Pearl Harbour
Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was a “catastrophic and catalysing event”
It will be the twenty year anniversary of 9/11 This September.
It is remarkable how many people here are ignorant of the real facts of that case, and accept the official narrative as gospel, regardless of how patently absurd that narrative is.
CONTROLLED DEMOLITION AND THE DEMISE OF WTC ON 9/11
The war was bogus, 9/11 was perpetrated by the national security state itself.
9/11 FALSE FLAG PSYOP
“No building exhibiting all the characteristics of controlled demolition has ever not been a controlled demolition.”~David Ray Griffin
“What is ‘Truth’? said jesting Pilate”
“History is written by the winner”
The question then is; “what did the historians of the accepted official history taught in the US win? These historians are winners in various contexts, and investigating what conflicts they were winners of, and who the losers in these conflicts were, can do a great deal of clarifying the popular myths that have become officially sanctified ‘HISTORY’.
Not clear what your point is, but if it means submitting to aggression is useful, we're fortunate it's not up to you and never will be. Wars are often necessary to stop tyranny. Tyranny is in our nature. If you surrender there is always a long line of assholes who will happily crush you. Most of us prefer not to be crushed. I pick neither if I can, or both when necessary. Choose just one and you lose everything.
"I pick neither if I can, or both when necessary" - and that's sufficient! That way you survive and stretched infinitely you're guaranteed one, on average.
They attacked us, we punished them. Self defense. Absolutely righteous. It stopped being righteous when we continued assaulting them to try to change them to be like us. That's self righteous.
Both the US government AND the US media lied for my entire adult life about Afghanistan and just about everything else. I wasn't old enough to legally buy a beer on 9/11/2001. What I find incredibly hard to understand is why anyone my age would believe these people??
All we have know for our entire adult lives is a lying MSM..... From WMD's that weren't to the insanity of pee tapes that were never remotely plausible. With Covid they don't even care if they get caught as they are telling the lies and completely destroying young kids to not actually save people from an endemic respiratory virus. Why would anyone believe ANY mainstream source? They are what Orwell tried to warn us about.
Rather than tell the truth to give women in Afghanistan a voice in the last 20 years, the MSM is more focused on covering for the military industrial complex. At the same time they convince hapless gullible people my age and younger that obliterating freedoms and women's rights is "progressive" even as all the real world outcomes from these policies are terribly regressive.
The people covering for the military industrial complex are the same ones insisting that US men should have access to little girls in all the places little girls are naked. The media and the woke seek to emulate authoritarian tyranny and push women and children in this country back into hiding.
The woke use progressive terminology to do it, but do you really expect the people who work for the MSM to be honest about the Taliban and all that comes with the Taliban, particularly for women and children? These are the exact same people who call moms like me a "transphobe" for thinking my young daughter's right to like bodied private spaces should matter more than a grown man's feelings, no matter what delusions go along with those feelings. The same media actually insists that the feelings of men are so sacred that those feelings are legally more important than the bodily safety of little girls. They want to sexualize 5 year old's in public school kindergarten. Truth about outcomes is not virtue to the US media - its an annoyance to be censored and suppressed.
Do you think these same people ACTUALLY care about what happens to poor women and children in a far away land??? They don't care what happens to little girls and women right here in the US. The media has never cared how much the military industrial complex kills innocent people....... or abandons allies to literally lose their heads...... all they care about is advancing narratives................... outcomes simply don't matter to our evil and useless media.
It has been a fact for the twenty years US forces have been stationed in Afghanistan that Afghan men would take little boys and dress them as girls then molest/rape them. In front of US military and other US personnel.
And the military and personnel were told to not intervene. Just look the other way.
Heartbreaking. The same men telling our troops to look the other way made careers looking the other way in Afghanistan so they could get enough patches on their shirts to sit in front of congress and make up bs about how "white men" are the problem. In reality entitled fools are the problem - from men who feel entitled to women's private spaces and biological identity to a military industrial complex that thinks its entitled to use taxpayer dollars to destroy real lives around the world for no other reason than those in charge on their own personal quest for money and power.
Oh, they're not "useless" media. They're useful if you want to cover up heaps of war crimes for profit and just keep your country fighting each other. Think MK Ultra on acid.
The Washington Post, which I think is safe to categorize as a mainstream media outlet, did an extensive article about the inspector general report on Afghanistan. It should have been a bombshell report that caused the people of the US to be in the streets. It plainly stated that every element of the Federal government involved in the war in Afghanistan, lied about it, it prospects, and the unspeakable crime of using war as a means to funnel money to many places within the government and its contractors. It’s even worse but I won’t go on.
So this is absolutely nothing new. What it shows is the shameful apathy of the American people, the total lack of principles of both government and the people, and the downright rogue state of the military, intel, and contractors involved.
Not only not surprised. Apathy. And worse: the decision every single day and election to say “yes this is corrupt, yes it’s evil, but the government as it is - is giving me some kind of special favor, etc. so I will keep giving the same people money and vote for them.
Furthermore- Americans would rather be able to say “my team won” and keep the current parties in power then to change it.
Do you think it's an accident that the news keeps people at each others' throats all the time and bombholes the most vile bloody puke?
The people in the US have been the subjects of a campaign to disorient and panic them. Stressors applied to keep people freaking out and manageable.
Would you still feel the same way if you knew that the pentagon and CIA were running the same type of operation we've seen them boast about all across the globe, removing governments and supplanting power wherever big-ticket resources exist?
That it's on your porch now isn't enough to make you say, "They're the bad guys."?
Do You think everyone who was complicit in this are victims? I don’t. The American people know and have known about these wars for two decades. The American people continue to provide their blind obedience to these two parties. The continue to support unconstitutional policies if it fits their own views of the moment. They continue to allow the ends to justify the means.
At what point are people responsible for their own government?
Hell even a guy like Chomsky has repeatedly suggested you have to go in and vote for the lesser of two evils. No. You do not. You can devote your own time and resources to dismantling this utterly corrupt government.
This Lead Inspector General (Lead IG) report to the United States Congress on Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) is the 24th quarterly report detailing the overseas contingency operation. The report summarizes significant events involving OFS and describes completed, ongoing, and planned Lead IG and partner agency oversight work. This report covers the period from January 1, 2021, through March 31, 2021.
Upon taking office, the Biden Administration announced a review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. This review ultimately informed the President’s decision to begin withdrawing all U.S. forces from Afghanistan on May 1 and completing the withdrawal by September. This new timeline resulted in the United States delaying the original withdrawal deadline of May 1, which was part of the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in February 2020.
The Taliban increased its attacks against Afghan government forces this quarter while continuing to avoid targeting U.S. and coalition troops. The Taliban initiated 37 percent more attacks this quarter than during the same period in 2020. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Taliban maintained close ties with al-Qaeda and was very likely preparing for large-scale offensives against population centers and Afghan government installations. This quarter also saw dozens of targeted killings of Afghan civilians, including government officials, teachers, journalists, medical workers, and religious scholars. Although the Taliban denied that it was attacking civilians, U.S. and Afghan officials accused the Taliban of using targeted assassinations to destabilize the population and discredit the Afghan government.
Peace talks between the Afghan Islamic Republic and Taliban negotiating teams failed to make any significant progress this quarter. Increased insurgent violence across the country and unmet Taliban demands for prisoner releases and the removal of international sanctions prevented the two sides from finalizing an agenda. In February 2020, the Taliban had committed to begin these peace talks in March, but negotiations did not convene until September, and basic procedural rules were not agreed to until December. As of the end of this quarter, the two sides had not finalized an agenda.
The DoD continued to conduct most of its efforts to train, advise, and assist the Afghan security forces virtually this quarter due to the coronavirus-2019 pandemic. The DoD said it was planning ways to provide "over-the-horizon" support to the Afghan forces after the withdrawal is completed.
1. The Afghanistan Papers merely confirmed what anyone even sort of paying attention already knew.
2. For at least ten years now, I have been saying to anyone that would listen that the puppet regime in Kabul would survive no more than ten minutes after the last American airplane left Kabul.
This was obviously wrong, and I apologize if my words misled anyone. The puppet regime didn't even last long enough for the last America airplane to leave.
3. As the United States prioritizes the evacuation of military dogs over the evacuation of people from Kabul, American allies should note carefully: the United States cares more about its dogs than it cares about you. (speaking as a cat myself, this set or priorities makes perfect sense, but you humans ought to be aware just where you rank on the totem pole here....)
Within weeks the military complex will cook up a new situation that requires military engagement
And roughly 50-60% of Americans, barely a few weeks removed from leaving the last conflict will believe the government is being genuine and telling the truth.
Thing is, they know and understand how gullible people are for this.
News for all of you progressives: they also know how easy it is for you to go for “programs” of every kind. And you do. And they create them. And they’re a disaster. And then they do it again. And then you go for that too.
Same goes for every aspect of everything the government does. Rational solution is to strictly limit anything it does.
Nope! Even after a lesson like this people just keep thinking government is good and will solve problems. It’s an incurable cycle until that mentality ends.
Gullibility is one factor; blind loyalty to a political party is another.
Many years ago, someone who worked at a major television news network said that there was a sign in the hallway saying "Never overestimate the intelligence of your audience."
"It will be a Russian cyber attack that cripples the energy grid or the food distribution system,"--ejsmith
I will posit that it will more likely be cyber attack by the Biden regime that cripples the energy grid or the food distribution system, as the opening salvo in their 'DOMESTIC WAR ON TERRORISM'.
No transgender or women of color in that picture. What is wrong with these Taliban people? Can we send a diversity, equity and inclusion expert to have a chat with them?
We should send over every diversity, equity, and inclusion expert to Afghanistan today. They could stay after the new 7,000 troops have left and explain to the Taliban how things are done in the USA.
I count 21 comments by Phil and russian_bot, complaining about MY "off Topic" commentary. Just two posts above this one. I consider that extraordinary hypocrisy.
But perhaps they have just eaten too many corndogs.
The post 9/11 paradigm. The world before 9/11, and the world after 9/11 is clearly delineated.
This was actually a topic of great interest shortly after the event. Only those of us of a certain age and maturity in 2001 recall this. I was 54 years old then, my memory of the event is vivid. I knew when I saw the towers fall on TV that everything had changed at that moment.
It is strange how similar to the Martinez story mine is. I too had to dig out an old portable TV ( the kind with the old rabbit ear antanna) out from a closset.
"U.S. political and military officials repeatedly misled the country about the prospects for success"
For success as defined in their war marketing campaigns, sure. But as above, the marketing slogans were never the real reasons, and the marketing campaign objectives were never the real objectives.
For success as defined by the architects of the wars, the destruction of Afghanistan for fun and profit was much MUCH more successful that Vietnam; it lasted longer and it transferred far more funds to the politically connected pillars of empire; the congress, the "security intelligence" services, the military suppliers, the generals (politicians in uniform), and the contractors (mercenaries).
As Orwell observed (or advised, if you're of that bent); the war isn't meant to be won, it's meant to be continuous. The USA has been in a continuous state of war for nearly a century. For the previous century it was about 50% war, 50% peace, iirc. A warm-up period, if you like.
And that's only counting military conflicts. Throwing in clandestine conflicts and socio-political conflicts like the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and the War on Crime (and not forgetting the new but equally obviously intended to be forever war, the War on Flu) it's probably closer to 300% or 400% war. The history of the American Empire is like a 24 hour cable tv war channel; it's all war, all the time.
"Truth is the first casualty of war" might well be a trite truism; it is also a true one. The truth casualties start long before the conflict goes kinetic and continue long after. So, our political rulers are not trying to:
-rebuild (or save) Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, or anywhere else
-eliminate poverty
-end (or even reduce) crime
-stop drug abuse/dependency/trafficking etc
-save us from the Wu Flu.
None of those claims are true, they are all marketing campaigns for massive upward transfers of wealth.
Mr. Orwell understood that the general public wouldn't tolerate 20 years of war with the same enemy. People want to see progress. Now that Afghanistan is winding down, the key is to find a new enemy as quickly as possible.
So while I agree that Afghanistan was a fiasco, I believe the United States could make a real difference in Somalia. If Mr. Biden were on the ball, he would announce the war with Somalia before the last helicopter leaves Afghanistan.
Obama could end our "forever wars" by throwing a "forever party" and inviting all the leading politicians instead of celebrities. Let them party on Martha's Vineyard until they all die of old age (or COVID-19, whichever comes first).
I just watched a Sopranos episode on this topic — Tony was banged up after surviving a hit attempt so he beats up a young strapping mafioso in front of the crew, on obviously manufactured pretenses, to show he’s still the boss. Given the parallels between govt and organized crime, wouldn’t surprise me at all to see some sort of similar reaction on a large scale.
At some point, the Somalians will object to having bombs dropped on them. Then, under the Geneva Conventions, the US would be justified to respond by declaring war.
Well, the U.S. declared that any male of military age whom we bomb is, by (our) definition, an enemy combatant, thereby justifying the bombing. With official policies like that, satire becomes pointless.
Why would the public need to knw uncle Joe has spent the last month bombing Syria and Somalia? The woke media is into narrative and they haven't made one up for those attacks just yet.........
The only thing missed in this article is the fact that the US Government funded and armed Islamic militants in Afghanistan during the Cold War, based on the idea that "the enemy of our enemy is our friend" and the fact that the militants despised the Soviet Union and their atheism.
Yea, that was Ronnie Reagan's line when he met the Mujahideen leaders in the white House. Our first President to lose it to senility. Same enemy both times now.
All true. But add the fact that on Oct 2, 1919 Wilson suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. After that Edith Wilson, by many accounts, became the shadow President.
Funding the Enemy: How US Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban
With the vague intention of winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, the US government has mismanaged billions of development and logistics dollars, bolstered the drug trade, and dumped untold millions into Taliban hands. That is the sobering message of this scathing critique of our war effort in Afghanistan. According to this book, America has already lost the war. While conducting extensive research and fieldwork in Afghanistan's war zones, a drumbeat of off-the-record and offhand remarks pointed the author to one conclusion: "We blew it." The sentiment was even blazoned across a US military fortification, as the author saw at Forward Operating Base Mehtar Lam in insurgency-wracked Laghman Province: "I glanced over at a concrete blast barrier while waiting for a helicopter," Wissing says. "Someone had spray-painted in jagged letters: 'The GAME. You Lost It.'" The author's vivid narrative takes the reader down to ground level in frontline Afghanistan. It draws on the voices of hundreds of combat soldiers, ordinary Afghans, private contractors, aid workers, international consultants, and government officials. From these contacts it became glaringly clear, as the author details, that American taxpayer dollars have been flowing into Taliban coffers, courtesy of scandalously mismanaged US development and counterinsurgency programs, with calamitous military and social consequences.This is the first book to detail the toxic embrace of American policymakers and careerists, Afghan kleptocrats, and the opportunistic Taliban. The result? US taxpayers have been footing the bill for both sides of a disastrous Afghanistan war.
I saw the text books that the US in fact designed as well as published. They were in fact radicalizing propaganda for school children. They showed how to use modern weapons. How to become a martyr for Allah...suicide vests, etc.
That is some game...the so-called 'Great Game' ala Rudyard Kipling (Kim)
Like the Britsh Empire created their own enemies, The US impirialsits (Anglofile networks) extended the techniques of the 'Great Game' -- Now exemplified by Samual Huntington and Zbigniew Brzezinski...the long used technique of the creation of the 'controled enemy'.
Antony Sutton details the American version in his book, the THE BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY.
So yes, the American people and civilians across the world lost again as tge game played out in Afghanistan. The winners again are the Globalists, not America, not the Republic.
Hindsight is great. At the time they were illiterate goat herders, not a threat to anyone. Like all weapons, the problem don't arise from the weapon but what you do with it afterward. We built them up, used them successfully on the Russians, then discarded them like hunter biden. The US has the capability to do a lot of good in the world, but we usually blow it.
Still not too late to fix them. Trump was on track. We should keep in mind they seriously outnumber us. China should, too. It will get a lot uglier if we let it fester.
Edison was asked why he had so many failures, he said they weren't failures, just finding things that don't work. Eventually he got them right. We didn't do 20 years of fixing, just 20 years of oppression and corrupt bribery. That doesnt work for anyone. It can be done right. Maybe someday it will be. Not today, apparently. That's okay, too.
It would seem there would be more subtle and effective ways to evidence our beliefs and values, but then again the recent "Hunger Games" intern at the White House seems to argue against that thought. https://www.instagram.com/p/CSXDyecgpMA/?hl=en
In retrospect it seems that trusting the military industrial complex to bring peace, democracy, love and joy to the rest of the world (by bombing it) was a mistake. Who knew. The uniparty keeps making that mistake because its a profitable to corporations.
I guess it's the CCP's turn to see who can successfully occupy Afghanistan now. Good luck!
I remember, with perfect clarity, being pilloried at work for being the lone voice of opposition to this and the Iraq nonsense. One coworker, a woman whose boy had recently joined the Army, even called me a "traitor". When I asked her why I was a traitor she said, "you're hoping my son will die just to prove you're right". You can't make this shit up.
But forget all that stuff, and let's keep our eyes on the prize here, kids, and remember the most important thing: Halliburton, Blackwater, et al, made a lot of money.
I don't know what's more frightening: the duplicity and incompetence of the White House or the duplicity and incompetence of the military and intelligence complex.
They both make me livid. I very much wanted us out of this war, but you'd think these "brilliant" folks could figure out a way to withdraw without creating Saigon, the Sequel. Why wasn't the withdrawal organized to protect the rear while systematically evacuating civilians then military units in an orderly manner? And why did we withdraw without destroying war material and bases as we went, instead of providing the Taliban with billions of dollars in equipment? Doesn't seem like rocket science to me. A lot of very high paid heads need to roll.
Exactly. Should have taken out the embassy staff and translators etc first, then removed the military equipment and destroyed bases second and then taken out troops last. They did the exact opposite.
And the Afghan army trained for 20 years didn’t even put up a fight and instead joined the taliban lmfao.
The Taliban, like others, can figure out that there's a simple process for encouraging American commanders and leaders to become overconfident. Overconfidence is a common tendency for Americans in these situations and the Taliban were able to exploit it. When the Taliban out-generals the American military, it shows we will need to rethink how we develop generals; our current ones can't manage anything properly, including a retreat.
Remember that military swears to obey lawful orders of their superiors. Milly knows how to do it right but has orders not to. His choice is do as ordered, or quit, or mutiny. Following orders pays better. He works for Austin and Joe. As Joe said this week, the buck, and the blame, stops with him. The important question is whether we'll enforce that. Probably not, and he knows it. Flip the congress next year and we might hold him accountable.
The intelligence community were surprisingly right on this--they just got the timing wrong. The model for advancement should have been ISIS. When the Taliban realized they faced weak or no opposition--they just kept driving.
At what point do Americans accept responding for their own government?
We can all point at to all these corrupt and bad politicians, and some will point to the cronies in the private sector with whom they form a coalition, the the fact remains: the majority of Americans are either complicit or at a minimum apathetic
Americans can certainly be faulted for apathy. But voter responsibility for debacles such as this one is offset, at least in part, by the lies told them by politicians and buerocrats, backed up by a sycophant media.
In my deployments to Afghanistan, the uselessness of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) was broadly known - it was an in the open secret. The ANA were buffoonish, more closely identified with Keystone Cops then as a classic military organization. Organizing them was like herding cats. Posting them on perimeter would have them watching out for about three minutes before they’d look inside to see what we were doing. And the ANP were corrupt as well, possibly more useless, if it’s possible, then the ANA. The one organization that performed were the ANSF. Those guys were serious. But so few.
Bottom line, everyone, right down to privates in the army knew that what we’re seeing now was inevitable, 10, 20, 50 or 100 years of occupation and training didn’t matter. It was and has always been a playground for up and coming generals to earn their bones and their next position. I mean, what sort of officer hasn’t commanded men in combat, right? Can’t be the next Patton if you don’t have a war.
They all knew. Miley knew for sure because he’s detestable, more so then most generals, a very small minority of which are actually dedicated to the art of war instead of self aggrandizement.
It’s all coming to head now. The Talibans super fast takeover is surprising, but not by that much. The house of cards that the elites have built are all falling down. Trump, was elected and even if you rightly claim he was a turd, his administration looks as well run as FDRs in WWII compared to eight months of Biden’s dream team of heavily credentialed morons. Didn’t Miley say that our biggest threat was climate change? Good thing that asshat had his eye on the ball, right?
COVID, Climate Change, Afghanistan, the border, have all exposed our pedigreed elites as likely the most incompetent boobs on this great earth. Dare I say we could randomly pick from the whole of the adult population regular folks that would do much better.
But you wouldn’t know it because the media is acting as the arm of government and SM ensures that the Tik Tok generation stays focused on practicing those tomorrow’s dance moves - as someone said here on Substack - LARPING their way through life.
When ole Ike Eisenhower left office he read a speech to the poker and warned us all about the power the government was about to create to fight the Soviets. He warned us then, in 1961, that there was a good chance the bureaucracy, science, and private industries would grow so powerful as to supplant civilian control of government.
Indeed, Ike. Indeed.
Milley is too busy yelling about white rage and being woke. He ain’t got time for Afghanistan nonsense.
Just imagine how such a person can climb up to be the top person of the military.
I am intimately familiar with this military type - politically adroit but militarily incompetent. They rule within the military. Gaining rank is purely a game of politics. In fact, a killer instinct is not a desirable attribute - too much risk to your seniors. Saw it every day.
Taliban Enjoys Deep Belly Laugh Over Diversity Training Materials Left Behind By U.S. Military
https://babylonbee.com/news/taliban-enjoys-good-belly-laugh-over-diversity-training-materials-left-behind-by-us-military
Someone pointed out that these generals have to get confirmation votes from the congress to be given promotions. So they are all political.
My dad served in Vietnam. When I enlisted in the infantry he said, “Son, why would you do that? I was a dummy and had no other options.” I replied, in the most typical young man ignorance ever displayed, “Dad, it’s different now - its the all volunteer Army…”
Ha! Good times.
I knew an ex-serviceman from the US. he referred to The Oentagon as The Fumble Fort,
In Canada, our National Defence HQ is located on the Rideau River, hence our description as Fantasyland on the Rideau.
It was cringe-worthy to watch Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin talk about diversity and wokeness while dropping bombs on black folks in Somalia. The nitwits who rise to the top don't bother trying to cover up their own corruption. Credibility is not a requirement for promotion.
Better to have citizen soldiers? Rewind to 1776...
When you fought to the last slave?
WTF is that supposed to mean Needham? Wazoomann was referring to the citzen militias of the Revolutionary War that began in in 1776.
\\][//
Similar citizen militias became the KKK after the civil war.
:-) Now, now, one thing at a time.
Because it is also an open secret that the generals are but glorified politicians.
Yup....billions of dollars worth of high tech U.S.military equipment, from small arms to helicopters and even tanks are now in the hands of the Taliban and ISIS...
It is totally nuts and the greatest humiliation of the US in our history. And it is all Biden's fault.
\\][//
Last week, former Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said that the Trump administration had no intention to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The February 2020 agreement with the Taliban and May 2021 deadline to leave, was just a charade in attempt to force another deal, says Miller.
https://nypost.com/2021/08/19/ex-trump-official-taliban-deal-was-a-play-never-intended-to-pull-troops/
That would explain why Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie did not lift a finger to discreetly evacuate masses of equipment and people during the past year, or arrange for an orderly U.S. exit from Afghanistan. They simply did not believe it would happen.
McKenzie has pulled this shit before. In January 2021, he defeated Miller in a stare-down over withdrawal of the USS Nimitz from service to SOCOM, forcing the Secretary of Defense to reverse his order. In effect, McKenzie extended a middle finger to the Trump administration. He is not much different from the warlords in Afghanistan, in that he will use all manner of devious and unethical means to protect his little fiefdom.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/15/centcom-chief-mckenzie-iran-crisis-power/
"That would explain why Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie did not lift a finger to discreetly evacuate masses of equipment and people during the past year, or arrange for an orderly U.S. exit from Afghanistan. They simply did not believe it would happen."--EKB
That would explain it IF you believe Christopher Miller.
But I understand Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley and their believe in the absurd Woke woowoo, And I also grasp that these buffoons despise President Trump, on top of being total idiots as far as military savy is concerned. In fact we know that the military part if the deep state have been as determined as any other aspect of the swamp has dedicated every means at their commant to destroy Trump. I do NOT believe Christopher Miller. I think his remarks are historical revisionism made for purely political reasons
The proposal that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not a valid concept in all instances. It would be naive to think so. To assume that because McKenzie and Miller were at odds in one situation isn't necessary a reason to chose between the two as to which is more politiacall motivated.
I do not see Trump as disingenuous. He is still touting his withdrawal plan both in commentary on his web site and at his rallies. I think he had every intention of pulling out of Afghanistan under the deal he had made with the Taliban.
Everything else now being said is apologia for the incredible ineptitude or perposeful malfeasance of Joe Biden, or whoever is actually running the Biden regime.
This entire Afghanistan fiasco falls conveniently in line with the larger agenda of the World Econamic Forum's 'Great Reset".
In fact EVERYTHING that the Biden regime has done has contributed to that agenda.
See:
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/26/the-great-reset-h-g-wells-dystopian-vision-comes-alive/
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It occurred to me that Christopher Miller might be grandstanding for potential job openings. The bottom line: Like Obama, Trump pledged to get the United States out of Afghanistan while he was the president and did not deliver. People are ultimately defined by actions, not words.
And Trump did not drain the swamp like he promised. He did the exact opposite.
https://www.propublica.org/article/what-we-found-in-trump-administration-drained-swamp-hundreds-of-ex-lobbyists-and-washington-dc-insiders
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-says-hes-draining-the-swamp-as-he-fills-cabinet-with-ex-lobbyists/
In 2017, Trump endorsed a sweeping tax legislation that reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Adding insult to injury, twenty-six Fortune 500 companies — including FedEx and Nike — have not paid federal income taxes since 2018. Of course the Congress submitted the bill, but Trump did sign it into law. He is no champion of the people, unless the people are corporations.
https://www.businessinsider.com/nike-fedex-companies-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-report-2021-4?op=1
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-increase-corporate-taxes-trump-biden/
CBS News ... Seriously EKB?
"ITEP's data found some of the nation's biggest companies have been avoiding federal taxes for decades, dating back to the Reagan administration. The companies, which encompass a wide variety of industries, use a range of tactics, including tax exemptions and deductions."
And so now this is Trumps fault?
Thanks for the animal crackers.
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Funny he didn't mention how very white the Afghan leaders looked.
The Afghan people have a greatly varied genepool having been invaded by so many empires throughout its history.
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I learned that from the Michael Palin travels....what an amazing country.
Ike, a Republican, was more left leaning about war than any Democrat has been. Maybe from a little thing known as experience?
Indeed. I have always thought about why he set out to warn the public like he did. I think that he witnessed first hand the power of the government, science and industry during WWII. He was a witness to these entities realizing their power. It was enough to disturb him to the point of trying to shake the American public into staying vigilant.
Remember that Ike was against dropping the bomb on Japan. He saw how the politicians and the major corporations at Los Alamos were increasing their control on policy
Ike was a General, the most politicised level of the Military Industrial Complex, and then a President, the political master (C in C) of the Military. It is possible he was an honest man but there's no good reason to assume so.
"It is possible he (Ike) was an honest man but there's no good reason to assume so."--Scuzzaman
Eisenhower warned the nation abouth the "Military industrial complex" in his farewell speech. I think that is reason enough to consider him a good man.
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Possibly, as I said already. It is equally possible he wasn't but wanted to be remembered that way. Much the same way his admirers want him to a good man rather than face the ugly possibility of the total corruption the political system that rules them.
It's not even clear whether Truman was for it as it's claimed he might have been forced to postdate his "OK".
Leslie Groves' interviews are particularly revealing as to how hellbent he was on proving his work was not in vain: https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/
Truman was the last soldier in the last battle to fire the last gun in WWI...not a fellow to leave a job unfinished. I believe he gave the OK to show Stalin.
You mean WWII, And you are saying that the atomic bombings of Japan were meant to scare the USSR.
A huge death toll and long lasting health problems just to spook the USSR for a small period of time. They had 'The Bomb' within a year anyway...
I would assert that Truman is one of the worst war criminals of all time for such and inhumane and needless act. The US knew that the Japanese were suing for peace weeks before Hiroshima.
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No, they dole these little snippets out when they feel comfortable enough in their power to pretend they oppose their having it. As if. It's just another lie. Neither Ike nor Orwell were outsiders, they were insiders playing at being outsiders to maintain the fiction that outsiders are not excluded in our "liberal democracies". Same for Trump, who has convinced swathes of Republicans that they can vote their way out of Empire. Mission Accomplished.
Indeed they do. But in Ike’s case, this was his exit speech and he basically faded away. I suggest you read it. It is far to prescient and well thought out, and selfless, to have been a pure political power play. I would bet that his best play would have been to leave and say nothing negative about the newly minted powers. That would definitely have been more self serving. You can genuinely feel him saying, “well, the Soviets have the bomb now and they’re everywhere, so we don’t have a choice, but, this is what I fear could occur if we’re wrong.” And I don’t sense that Ike was attempting to portray himself an outsider at all. In fact it’s obvious he was warning us as an insider, with a view of this potential power. Not everything is about Trump. And our system off government isn’t designed to facilitate dramatic change. I have always believed that radicalism, regardless it’s color (red or blue) only serves to move the center away from it. It takes time, but the tides always change.
I am wondering what the American people expected to happen in Afghanistan with a Woke general staff running the operation for a Woke presedent that is barely aware of who he is.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Trump.
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What a small world we live in! One of the five terrorists that Obama traded for the traitor Beau Bergdahl (who Susan Rice praised as having "served with honor") is now one of the top Taliban rulers in Afghanistan.
Me too, but honestly, he's also "in on it". There's no balm in Gilead.....
Time will tell.
Orwell was a police officer - hardly one of the political power brokers. Trump, while a wealthy businessman, found himself to be a pariah among the rich and famous. He remains a hero to most working people.
Right, a billionaire man of the people. Ponies and rainbows, too. FFS
T. Boone Pickens was a billionaire who, with his 2008 "Pickens Plan" hoped to make America energy independent. There was even talk of a "Pickens Army" marching on Washington. Despite his wealth, many of us peasants admired him. That's no different than the fact the millions of Americans elected Donald Trump and that more of us voted for him again in 2020.
Well, "outsider" is a relative term. Almost by definition, you can't have real power while still being an outsider. You also don't necessarily have to be an outsider to be against Empire and the bloated military complex.
Pre-cold war, it was part of the national ethos to not keep a significant standing army in peacetime. Everyone from Washington to FDR believed standing armies were both dangerous and expensive. Now that the Cold War is long over it's time to return to that.
Eisenhower hated America's kids going over to fight yet another da*n European war....that was his heart. Every face was a Kansas farm boy.Not being sentimental...that's the truth.
Now with the Royal family staring at all of us from the grocery check out, we forget the suspicion and indifference most Americans felt for Europe and its eternal arrogant squabbles.
"Now with the Royal family staring at all of us from the grocery check out,"--Deanna Johnston Clark
This is what Deanna is speaking to, and it is indeed a huge part of the globalist plan to eventuate thier agenda for a world government based on neo-feudal tyranny by the international technocrats, now based in Davos, Switzerland,
**International barcode
The International Article Number (also known as European Article Number or EAN) is a standard describing a barcode symbology and numbering system used in global trade to identify a specific retail product type, in a specific packaging configuration, from a specific manufacturer.**
See:
https://thedissedent.page/2021/08/21/a-new-world-order-built-on-the-ashes-of-war/
And:
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/26/the-great-reset-h-g-wells-dystopian-vision-comes-alive/
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Well, I make jokes about those magazines to the cashiers and we all laugh at them. Princess Grace was our gal and Diana was, well, Diana. But these today????? You're probably right. Not subtle about it either are they? All over YT as well. European nobility is far from leaving the stage, but to whom do they report?
What is "left-leaning about war"? Please don't tell me you think it means "anti-war".
There’s a difference between Democrats and the left. Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl, but more bloodthirsty. Mad Madeleine Albright? She of childrens’ deaths in Iraq due to sanctions being “worth it”? The ugly racism of Geraldine Ferraro in 2008?
An ancient, mountain culture, devoutly Moslem...unabashedly illiterate with reverential and feared warlords...A fellow student, an Afghani, once said.."We can wait a hundred years...we are the land and God is good..." They waited, let the civil war subside, collected Western gold and promises...then, the invader, was ejected....there was really nothing fast...the Taliban never left...they came home.
All our wokism couldn't change their beliefs. I wasn't aware of the NGO's and the ideology we pushed on them. ...I don't agree with any of their beliefs etc...but you've got to admire them. 20 year's! That's one generation. Not sure 50 year's would've changed anything.
Savages who cut the arms and legs off a man before killing him in front of his family are not admirable. Fanatics who murder women for daring to show their faces are not admirable. The new rulers of Afghanistan are no different than mad dogs. It is sad that all the terror and heartbreak we are about to witness is due to the decision of a senile old man and the millions of idiots who voted for him.
Why didn't Trump nuke them, Charles? Surely the ones you describe were alive back then weren't they?
When Trump was president, these atrocities were not happening. Haven't you been watching the news this week?
The news? You choose to believe the news this time? Did you believe the news when they were saying Trump was elected by Russia? That Russian prostitutes peed all over him?
How do you choose when to believe what, Charles?
Well if "engagement" of your readers is a goal you knocked it out of the park Glen Well done!
Thank you for your service. Best comment I've read.
Wow, thanks for the input. You've confirmed our worst fears. The neoliberal elite since Carter are actually incompetents who, despite all evidence, think they are smarter and better than we are.
Sorry, not the ANSF. I meant the Afghan Special Forces - whatever that acronym is. Not the tribal “volunteers” from 2004ish timeframe, although some of them were decent fighters. They were just local warlord soldiers for hire. I’m talking about the ones that were rolling around in 2012ish. Those cats were serious.
What happened to the Northern Alliance? They were putting up a pretty good fight for a while, even before the Americans stepped in. Are they totally disbanded and disarmed now, or will they take up arms again? Or maybe the Taliban have incorporated enough non-Pashtuns into their ranks that it's no longer a clear ethnic conflict.
The Taliban were not going to cut any deal with Dostum or Noor, so they ran like hell, leaving their followers behind.
The Taliban had disagreements with Ismail Khan in the past, but they respected each other. He joined the Taliban.
Thank you for the inside view, always fascinating. While the fact that the war was lost many, many years ago was clear to anybody with basic critical thinking skills, what astonished me is the level of basic military incompetence to organize an orderly retreat / evacuation. Don't they teach these things at military academies? Is there even any coordination between military and politicians? One would expect detailed plans be in place and rehearsed how to do it before the order to leave is announced? Kabul has basically 2 airports, one could have been used until last moment to evacuate military (Bagram) and other - in the city (ex. Karzai, surely soon to be renamed soon) for civilians, and then last rear-guard units to leave turn the lights off. Will anybody lose their rank for this embarrassing SNAFU the whole world saw?
Right? Think about this though… Remember back when Congress was debating the Surge Theory in Iraq? Abizaid, Sanchez, Casey all testified that a surge wouldn’t work to quell the crisis. Let’s drill down into this a bit more. They were basically saying that more good guys doesn’t matter matter when you come up against bad guys. This was a stunning reversal of basic military tenets which is that in all operations you attempt overmatch, like, 3 to 1 if possible. This basic tenet of warfare - that you don’t fight at a manpower disadvantage - is know to privates in the army. As an example, when a platoon is conducting a movement to contact drill one of the things they train is to recognize how large your opposing force is depending on what crew served weapon you are faced with (crew served meaning machine gun large enough to require a crew). When you make contact the platoon leader is supposed to listen and determine the size of that crew served weapon, because the bigger the gun the bigger the element your facing. If it isn’t a squad sized element, you break contact or call support. If it’s a squad (smaller than you by three), then you establish your base of fire and maneuver. So, this is common sense. You don’t even have to be in the military to get how this makes sense as all of that have ever been I a fist fight know that you don’t fight a guy that has friends there, and you don’t have friends there.
Enter Patraeus with his surge idea. So controversial right? Have more guys then the enemy. It was bananas… He was labeled a genius for introducing basic infantry tactics to the issues in Iraq. But back to those other generals that said a surge wouldn’t work, to make a short story long, no, these assholes don’t know how to do basic shit, unless by “basic shit” you mean master the political game to rise to power in the Pentagon. Casey, Abizaid and Sanchez couldn’t attain anymore power if they went against Rumsfeld’s deluded assumption that Iraq was going to solve it’s own thousand year Sunni vs. Shia strife.
While soldiers were dying, those fools were jockeying to maintain their own positions WELL OUTSIDE THE COMBAT ZONE.
Same thing happening now. These generals know that their bread is buttered by yapping nonsense - climate change, Jan 6th was an insurrection (and we’re ready to fight American Nazis), trans in the military, and wondering aloud about White Rage. “Oh, you wanna pull out of Afghanistan? Well, we can have a bunch of planes there and that should be that. Now, Bernie Sanders just said July was the hottest month in the history of the world (he actually said that the other day), how are we going to ensure the military is prepared for that fight - the fight for our very (political) lives…?”
More likely a small number of people will just get forced to retire, at best with their pension cut slightly (as if they had one fewer general's star on their uniform's shoulder), and then they'll cash in with a nonuniformed part of the military-industrial complex. Al can correct me if I'm wrong.
I am pretty sure you are right. In other words: system will not fundamentally change ensuring a repeat down the line. Except of course it cannot go on like this forever, the rot will sooner or later bring the whole edifice down.
I'm a cynic, I guess. This was all planned years ago and there's no SNAFU.
when I was deploy back then I was trying to teach younger kids to mathematics and computer. the kids are willing to learn but when I try to teach the older group to just teach them computer they just don’t want to learn from us bc we who look young. I held a degree in computer and I’m not good enough. I’m not surprise the Afghan government lost the country. now we need to get the every American and the people who help us when we were there out of Afghanistan. Biden f this up.
For whatever it's worth: I wrote this poem the day after Memorial Day in 2004. It illustrates how defenders of the indefensible make a mockery of the very things they care about most.
And yes, I borrowed the title from The Police song from 1980. It’s not anti-war — It’s pro-thinking:
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Sorry souls above the earth
Lacking courage to question
Hiding behind mask so Divine
Curiosity devoid absent of reason
Trouncing thy neighbor always in season
Squanderers of truth servants of the lie
Look the other way while we ask why
Sing your songs heaping praises
Lumping Lord and leaders
Undiscerning two-faces
Save your prayers I’m six feet below
Might be alive
Without your refusal to know
Let's give it up for some Johnny Cash and Veterans Day: https://youtu.be/RzH0mNw3gVk
Well I used to hang out down at the VFW hall
And stare at the photographs up on the wall
Of the neighborhood boys that died in the wars we've been through
And the hand-lettered sign that said remember Jimmy McGrew
Well Jimmy went to Nam back in 1965
But there's a lot of men here that think Jimmy McGrew's still alive
Though they carved his name on a stone in Washington DC
His brother said that stone don't prove a thing to me
Jesus -- this editor is even worse than YouTube. Even after 3 tries, I couldn't get the spacing right.
Good reminder....
Glenn, one thing I would like to see before I am worm food is, what if "they" declared war and nobody showed up? In other words, nobody would sign up, volunteer to be cannon fodder for the PTB. On either side of the war.
"have all exposed our pedigreed elites as likely the most incompetent boobs on this great earth"
One could also say: As the most competent ones ... after all our government follows Wall Street, the military industrial complex, big pharma, etc who all have done well.
If we want to change anything, we first need to separate corporate power and government.
They obeyed their orders very competently as I see it.
Thank you for your service, your sacrifices, and your comment.
Well said
Thank you.
Maybe Twitter and Facebook will now block Biden, the Military and Biden’s Administration for disinformation and lying to the American People.
Rule of Thumb: If the MSM calls something "disinformation" then you can count on it being fact.
Or, let's put it this way: it threatens them, so they have to suppress it. Good old Soviet style censorship and doublethink.
Soviet? https://theamericanchronicle.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-cia-controls-news-media.html
Yes indeed Needleham,
The article you link to is about Operation Mockingbird which was revealed by the Church Committee Hearings. This committee also uncovered the horrific MKUltra Progam on mind control.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?409117-1/church-committee-hearings-fbi-intelligence-activities
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Media don't cancel for lying, only for disagreeing. Lying is not wrong for socialists, it's a fundamental tactic of their program.
Are you suggesting "Media"="socialists?"
Mad -- many journalists are socialists. They predominantly vote for and contribute to dems, who are led by socialists. Many of them, and many dems, are what socialists call useful idiots, who support socialists without understanding why. Most idiots can be improved with education. The US has done that poorly for a long time.
Democrats are among the most slavishly subservient to corporate and plutocratic interests that form the core of American power. Are you suggesting that corporations and the people that sit atop of the corporatist system are socialists?
I can hear gears grinding in Watson's head as he's struggling to find the clutch.
Mad -- not suggesting anything. Dems are not, nor ever have been, subservient to corporate interests. Dems are currently led by socialists, who are always opposed to wealth accumulation by corporations or anyone else. Practical socialists use the wealth of others to finance their actions to acquire power. Corporate officers are focused on success of the corporation, which always requires cooperation with governments. It's just business. As with any group, some corporate officers support socialism, but they are seldom successful.
bot seems to hear a lot of noises in its head, if indeed it has a head.
“ Dems are not, nor ever have been, subservient to corporate interests.”
Are you spaced?
You're making the forum nervous, Watson. They're taking you way too seriously.
Remind us of your ingenious way of supporting your political party, the Democratic if I remember correctly.
You and I truly live in different universes.
David,
What do you do for a living? What expertise do you have?
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David,
What do you do for a living? What expertise do you have?
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yes
What media? And what makes them socialists?
Some people use 'socialists' as loosely as others use 'Nazi' or 'racist'. Dynamics are the same for all these words. Reasons for using term 'socialist' for disliked groups (including media): (1) they circulate criticisms of us that we don't want to hear, so we need to associate them with a term like 'socialist' to make them look bad; (2) they're politically closer than we are to real socialists; (3) we don't want to acknowledge possibility that some position between our position and real socialists might be right, because then we wouldn't be the only alternative to socialism's problems; (4) since they're politically a notch or more closer to socialists than we are, we feel that their position is a slippery slope toward all the worst things about real socialism; (5) there actually are real socialists to be found within the media, at least in the ranks that have less power; (6) we feel more comfortable focusing on all the above things than in limiting ourselves to talking about socialism in a stricter and more narrow sense. Again, all these things happen with 'racist' and 'Nazi' as well.
Labels are used as slurs by idiots, usually incorrectly. Most people use them simply as shorthand to describe obvious characteristics. There is not a universal definition for socialist (or nazi or racist) but labels imply characteristics. Socialists vary in enthusiasm so their tactics also vary. Those who argue about the labels are always trying to hide something, sometimes their intentions, usually their ignorance. More constructive to discuss tactics. Labels are just language.
Socialists are disliked for good reasons, not because they're different, but because they're destructive. Nazis are ridiculed because they're harmless kooks. Racists are disliked by other racists, but ignored by those who realize race is irrelevant.
Rose,
Did you make that all up out of wholecloth yourself? Or can you cite some sources for these concepts?
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Defining people primarily by their intersectional group identity is a key tenant of Marxism and socialism. The whole point of socialism is to deny the individual. Our media does this constantly - primarily using race to describe every individual human interaction. Sometimes socioeconomic stratus. They once used gender, but they can't define what exactly makes a "real woman" a "real woman" as apparently "woman" is now primarily based in a undefinable "feelings."
"The media" are corporations. Corporations are not socialist.
Capitalists are playing the pied piper to people with liberal sentiments as a mechanism of mind control. And whatever else has been included in this, Marxism/post-modernism, woke-as-fuckism, or whatever else they're clamoring about to pretend they're all that and a bag of peanuts, is all cultural shapeshifting because their relationship to the public is always and everywhere and at all times to be faking us out and tricking us into thinking whatever they need us to think that will allow them to continue to enslave the human population to their unquenchable thirst for more and more and more and more power.
Looks like they got to you too.
It is exactly the 180 degree opposite: Marxism was (and still is) about abstracting away any differences in race, sex, gender, nationality, religion, and focusing on class - specifically relationship to means of production. Either you own them and can live off other people's work, or don't then you have to sell labor to survive. This focus allows for solidarity and unity to emerge, which scares the hell out of owner class. Therefore, the best way to keep status quo in highly unequal, diverse modern society is to inject as many as possible fissures using "identity politics", pit one subgroup against another, hand them different crumbs, put them in different ranks of "oppression" etc. Old "divide et impera" adjusted for reality of 21st century mature capitalism. Immigration is big part of this - it is social engineering on large scale to depress cost of labor on one side, while injecting strife in the working class in the other. Extra bonus: immigration erodes social safety nets over time as there is less consensus how much benefits should be extended to newcomers. This of course in aggregation means that rich can keep even more profits as there is less pressure to redistribute (well observed over last 20-30 years in western Europe and Nordic countries).
No. If Marx taught nothing else, he taught that economic relations alone is what defines people, that the superstructure of creates law, culture, and everything else.
The mainstream media, the Mockingbird Press. It is 'socialist', ÜberLiberal Corporatist propaganda. It is Neo-Marxist (ala CCP).
A long and complex discussion in itself
Perhaps this history lesson can bring you up to speed:
THE GREAT RESET: H.G. WELLS’ DYSTOPIAN VISION COMES ALIVE
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/26/the-great-reset-h-g-wells-dystopian-vision-comes-alive/
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I'm not doing your research project for you. Do you have anything relevant to say?
David Watson got 30 likes (at time of this writing) so "'Media'='socialists?'" is apparently a pretty popular idea here. Am I wrong in assuming there's some logic behind that idea? Is it just a feeling people get that can't be explained?
It's not a "feeling." The entire basis of Marxism and Socialist ideology is to divide society by "groups" based on birth class and/or immutable characteristics. Socialism is founded in rejecting the truth that humans are unique individuals - thus Marxism divides people into social stratus in society and defines their entire existence by that group. The media talks in language that seeks to define people not as individuals, but as their intersectional group identity........ So I would say that the media does promote socialist ideology
What?
I find it usually helps to try to understand those you disagree with, and in this case you haven't done that. Your sentence "The entire basis of Marxism and Socialist ideology is to divide society by "groups" based on birth class and/or immutable characteristics" indicates a complete lack of understanding of Marxism and Socialist ideology. You might want to learn a little more about what Marxism and Socialism say before criticizing them; both Marxism and Socialism are bad ideologies, but it doesn't help when you misrepresent them so thoroughly. In particular, if you'd read and understood more of Marx you would know he's not talking about immutable characteristics or birth origins.
Anyone?
Let's try this again Mr. Cactus....
THE GREAT RESET: H.G. WELLS’ DYSTOPIAN VISION COMES ALIVE
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/26/the-great-reset-h-g-wells-dystopian-vision-comes-alive/
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We live in a country that locks up people for selling and using drugs. Our government is the largest arms dealer on the planet and they control all the production and sales, mostly to other governments. Corporations are too large to fail and protected from market forces like competition. And what was it Reagan said about self-government?
Market Liberalism doesn't exist in this country so let me help you explain that feeling you get and complete your logic - Americans = socialists (one form or another).
"We live in a country that locks up people for selling and using drugs" has nothing to do with socialism.
"Our government is the largest arms dealer on the planet and they control all the production and sales, mostly to other governments. Corporations are too large to fail and protected from market forces like competition." While I agree that it's fun to call corporations welfare queens, the merger of government and big business isn't socialism. It's fascism.
"Let me help you explain that feeling you get" the feeling is not mine. It's what people are speaking from when they make claims that they can't logically support, such as "media=socialist."
"Americans = socialists (one form or another)" you haven't supported this statement at all.
Mr. Cactus,
Mr. Watson is speaking to the progeny of Fabian Socialism.
This history should be able to sort this out for you:
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/26/the-great-reset-h-g-wells-dystopian-vision-comes-alive/
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Again, the onus is on you to support your claims. It's not our job to do it for you.
Wally, perhaps you can cite some, "actual facts and political theory."
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David,
What do you do for a living? What expertise do you have?
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Don't count on it those platforms are run by and for the gov't. They are a big part of the problem and enablers of the D..C. lies and deceptions. Who do you think told them to remove DJT from their platforms? He was a braggart and self aggrandizing but was not responsible for our 20 year wars nor the deaths of American children lied to by the military. Yet Biden and the other shitbirds are all over media while Trump is isolated and shutout from even the basic ability to communicate with his followers. You think that was an accident.
Long as you are careful to lie only in a conventional and establishment-approved way, it's all good.
Going along to get along.
The war has been a smashing success for war profiteers who made countless billions and intelligence agencies who have accrued vast new powers and kept their opium trafficking operation intact. As long as the powerful continue to benefit from our global military empire we should all expect more of the same.
It is really hard not to be too cynical here...impossible even.
Finster's Second Law: No matter how cynical you think you are, the people who run things are way more cynical than that.
No matter how cynical you are, when it comes to government you cannot keep up.
If only the phenomenon were limited to government.
Can you elaborate on all Finster's Laws? The Second Law sounds very accurate!
Finster's First Law: There is no such thing as low. There is only context.
The long form is that laws are for little people. Policy is for people who matter.
Finster's Second Law you know.
Finster's Third Law: legalism breeds lawyers.
"law" not "low". Hard for my paws to type on a keyboard.
I love you.
Cause lack opposable thumbs, it's really the only thing keeping you from taking over the world! At least that's what mine tell me 🙃
Uh hmmm.
Since the Biden administration has proven to be hopelessly inept (at best), our military adventurers will have their hands full fighting off China, Iran, and Russia. This week will prove to be a turning point in world history. So long, Taiwan!
They've moved onto blowing up Syria again and playing with drone bombs in North Africa....... China and Russia are giddy deciding where to go next. Taiwan, Estonia, Finland and any other "stan" country in western Asia or Eastern Europe should probably be making plans...... and they shouldn't include anything that requires input from Biden or Harris........
This is the first time I've really appreciated Biden. He has had the guts to pull us out. He's under a lot of pressure to keep troops there but he is not giving in. I was worried that he would be a hawk like Obama. He is proving me wrong.
I sent the president this email today. I hope everyone writes to him. I understand Gitmo has nice soccer fields and good food:
I watched BBC news last night.
It pains me to say this, but the entire world is questioning your ability to lead. You need a "fall guy".
This past week has been equivalent to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
Your decision to abandon Bagram Air Base and to remove the troops while thousands of Americans and our allies remained to be slaughtered by the Taliban will go down in history with Pickett's Charge.
While the Taliban was practicing war, the US military has been engaged in purging conservatives from leadership and teaching our soldiers to hate themselves and to distrust one another.
You cannot hide at Camp David forever.
The world loves a winner; but even more, people admire honesty and integrity.
Admit that terrible mistakes were made and dump General Milley.
Good luck. And I hope you are prepared to protect Taiwan - because almost everyone believes China will invade it before the year is over.
I have written and I appreciate you doing the same. Your comment is true and heartbreaking.
I suppose there's a big overlap between those who said "Impeaching Trump was a coup attempt!" and those who want to send the current president to Gitmo (Gitmo obviously being more anti-rule-of-law than impeachment was).
Read my comment more carefully, Mr. Rose. No one is suggesting that POTUS 46 be sent to Gitmo. I was only considering what the results of criticizing a dictator might be in 2021. Since the Democrats control both the House and the Senate, there is no hope of impeachment: there is only hope that Biden's cynical and corrupt advisors will discard General Milley in an attempt to pretend that Biden is in control.
Your reference to Gitmo seemed too bizarre when I first read it -- and then I saw that you posted almost the exact same comment in 2 different places, one version saying "The medical treatment at Gitmo is reported to be excellent." Mentioning medical treatment looked very much like the common practice of making digs against Biden's physical and/or cognitive health; that was the only plausible way that your post could make sense. And indicating that Biden's need for medical treatment could be met at Gitmo implies sending Biden to Gitmo. The practice of suggesting that one's political opponents should be in Gitmo tends to be used by some conservatives against Democrats or leftists, not vice versa (since left-of-center people are more likely to have the kind of solid principles that oppose Gitmo), so it rang true that you were indicating Biden should be sent to Gitmo.
I have, in fact, read both versions of your comment carefully, but I think your comments hardly make sense unless the line about "medical treatment" is read as referring to Biden going to Gitmo. Still, some parts of your comments are puzzling regardless, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
That's sad. You are "proud" of our president for leaving thousands of Americans to die, and our long term allies, at the hands of the Taliban..... all while this administration simply moved the troops and the bombs a bit so he could spend the last month bombing Syria and North Africa. That you cheer losing the wars in devastation, and claim weak Biden has "guts" by bombing other poor people instead, is sad. Biden has no guts, no morality, no goodness, no humanity, and no memory.....
All those things are true about Biden. But he is not in charge. He is just rying to read scripts given to him.
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Don't forget it's millions and millions in mineral resources.
What is?
It would have to be tens of trillions to think that was the rationale for being in Afghanistan. We spent trillions of dollars.
We spent? We GAVE to corporations that became rich and richer. That was the reason to bolster american bizzes who give morons campaign money to win elections with propaganda and fill their bank accounts.
Yeah I’m aware of wberr the money is going I think we all here but thanks Captain obvious.
Spent, gave, expend. Whatever. We pissed away many $trillions. It’s obvious we didn’t go to Afgahn forever war for its “natural resources”
Adult boys, playing with toys, create ploys, to kill their own boys. Freud was wrong. The boy does not wish to kill his father and marry his mother. The first act of violence is that of the father against the boy. When he gives his baby boy to the shepherd to put on a mountain hillside so the wild animals can devour him. Alas for the king, the shepherd takes pity and gives the babe to another kind to raise as his son. Who will eventually unknowingly kill his father and make the Sphinx's prophecy come true.
Something tells me that you were a supporter of this war your entire life and you obviously didn't learn anything.
The war was righteous. We won the war back in 2001-02. Then we tried to "fix" them. We screwed that up badly.
The war was a distraction. Saudi Arabia, where 15 of 19 hijackers were from, should have been the main target.
Saudi Arabia didn't attack us. They had a lot of gripes against bin laden too, which is why he was holed up in Afghanistan.
Not Saudi Arabia just some Saudi people. Not the State.
Some of their nationals attacked us and other Saudi nationals planned and paid for the operation. That should have been enough to bring down the hammer and extract oceans of blood money, but the Saudis had a friend in the White House and that changed everything.
Al Qaeda a Subsidiary of Western Intelligence
“al Qaeda” is in fact a tool of, funded by and equipped by western governments specifically the USA. ‘al Qaeda’ is essentially a subsidiary of CIA. See:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881
http://www.sott.net/article/282900-Former-Al-Qaeda-commander-ISIS-and-Al-Qaeda-are-completely-controlled-by-CIA-and-other-Western-intelligence-agencies
http://www.globalresearch.ca/grisly-peshawar-slaughter-who-created-taliban-who-still-funds-them/5420182
. . . . . .
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen prior to and during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups that were favoured by neighbouring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Marxist-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan regime since before the Soviet intervention[citation needed]. Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken;[1] funding began with $20–$30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987.[2] Funding continued after 1989 as the mujahideen battled the forces of Mohammad Najibullah’s PDPA during the civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992).[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
. . . . . . .
How Washington Funded the Taliban
by Ted Galen Carpenter – CATO Institute
United States has made common cause with an assortment of dubious regimes around the world to wage the war on drugs. Perhaps the most shocking example was Washington’s decision in May 2001 to financially reward Afghanistan’s infamous Taliban government for its edict ordering a halt to the cultivation of opium poppies.
When the Taliban implemented a ban on opium cultivation in early 2001, U.S. officials were most complimentary. James P. Callahan, director of Asian Affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, uncritically relayed the alleged accounts of Afghan farmers that “the Taliban used a system of consensus-building” to develop and carry out the edict. That characterization was more than a little suspect because the Taliban was not known for pursuing consensus in other aspects of its rule. Columnist Robert Scheer was justifiably scathing in his criticism of the U.S. response. “That a totalitarian country can effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising,” Sheer noted, but he considered it “grotesque” for a U.S. official to describe the drug-crop crackdown in such benign terms.
Yet the Bush administration did more than praise the Taliban’s proclaimed ban of opium cultivation. In mid-May, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan in addition to the humanitarian aid the United States had long been providing to agencies assisting Afghan refugees. Given Callahan’s comment, there was little doubt that the new stipend was a reward for Kabul’s anti-drug efforts. That $43 million grant needs to be placed in context. Afghanistan’s estimated gross domestic product was a mere $2 billion. The equivalent financial impact on the U.S. economy would have required an infusion of $215 billion. In other words, $43 million was very serious money to Afghanistan’s theocratic masters.
To make matters worse, U.S. officials were naive to take the Taliban edict at face value. The much-touted crackdown on opium poppy cultivation appears to have been little more than an illusion. Despite U.S. and UN reports that the Taliban had virtually wiped out the poppy crop in 2000-2001, authorities in neighboring Tajikistan reported that the amounts coming across the border were actually increasing. In reality, the Taliban gave its order to halt cultivation merely to drive up the price of opium the regime had already stockpiled.
Even if the Taliban had tried to stem cultivation for honest reasons, U.S. cooperation with that regime should have been morally repugnant. Among other outrages, the Taliban government prohibited the education of girls, tortured and executed political critics, and required non-Muslims to wear distinctive clothing—a practice eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s requirement that Jews display the Star of David on their clothing. Yet U.S. officials deemed none of that to be a bar to cooperation with the Taliban on drug policy.
http://www.cato.org/commentary/how-washington-funded-taliban
Also see:
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/21/osama-bin-laden-patsy-9-11/
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You're right. I remember vividly Afghan forces moving in. All over Wall street area. Some at Pentagon too. Hell, there were some in PA I hear.
They set up their own flight schools around the country: San Diego, Florida some place, etc. Those fucking Afghanis. Worse than Cubans - those at least close by and you would expect some snorkeling in.
"Saudi Arabia didn't attack us."--Mr. Watson
The US military industrial complex "attacked" the Word Trade Center in a false flag PSYOP.
You are a smart guy David, but you have a large hole in your grasp of recent history. Why would you believe the official narrative of 9/11? It is nothing but a coverup of the US government's own malfeasance.
Reas this link:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/911-false-flag-psyop/
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And blow up all that oil we were improting to drive our cars to McDonalds, KFC etc etc etc
US could have taken over their oil. I'm sure the Saudis would have surrendered in two seconds, like the Afghanistan army now.
"Saudi Arabia, where 15 of 19 hijackers were from, should have been the main target."--Program
You assert this based on the assumption that the hijackers were actually anything more than patsies, like Lee Harvey Oswald was in the JFK Assassination.
A full accounting of the facts of 9/11 proves that the event was planned and exicuted by the national security state, that was at that time under the control of the GW Bush regime. This regime was made up of members of PNAC (Project for The New American Century).
The Project for the New American Century was a neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focused on United States foreign policy. It was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol, Dick Cheney, and Robert Kagan.
Of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten went on to serve in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses'
Written before the September 11 attacks, and during political debates of the War in Iraq, a section of Rebuilding America's Defenses entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force" became the subject of considerable controversy:
*"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."*
Journalist John Pilger pointed to this passage when he argued that the Bush administration had used the events of September 11 as an opportunity to capitalize on long-desired plans.
John Pilger reveals the American plan: a new Pearl Harbour
Two years ago a project set up by the men who now surround George W Bush said what America needed was a “catastrophic and catalysing event”
https://www.newstatesman.com/node/192545
https://thedissedent.page/2021/08/17/9-11-false-flag-psyop/
ProgramThyself writes "Saudi Arabia is a more straightforward, valuable, and justified conquest than Afghanistan."
Your level of evil is matched by your ignorance. Evidently you haven't heard of Saudi Arabia's well-known deal with Pakistan for a nuclear deterrent.
It will be the twenty year anniversary of 9/11 This September.
It is remarkable how many people here are ignorant of the real facts of that case, and accept the official narrative as gospel, regardless of how patently absurd that narrative is.
CONTROLLED DEMOLITION AND THE DEMISE OF WTC ON 9/11
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/controlled-demolition-and-the-demise-of-wtc-on-911/
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I dif to begger Programy,
The war was bogus, 9/11 was perpetrated by the national security state itself.
9/11 FALSE FLAG PSYOP
“No building exhibiting all the characteristics of controlled demolition has ever not been a controlled demolition.”~David Ray Griffin
“What is ‘Truth’? said jesting Pilate”
“History is written by the winner”
The question then is; “what did the historians of the accepted official history taught in the US win? These historians are winners in various contexts, and investigating what conflicts they were winners of, and who the losers in these conflicts were, can do a great deal of clarifying the popular myths that have become officially sanctified ‘HISTORY’.
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/911-false-flag-psyop/
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War. Righteous.
Pick one.
Not clear what your point is, but if it means submitting to aggression is useful, we're fortunate it's not up to you and never will be. Wars are often necessary to stop tyranny. Tyranny is in our nature. If you surrender there is always a long line of assholes who will happily crush you. Most of us prefer not to be crushed. I pick neither if I can, or both when necessary. Choose just one and you lose everything.
"I pick neither if I can, or both when necessary" - and that's sufficient! That way you survive and stretched infinitely you're guaranteed one, on average.
My point, dumbass, is there's never been a righteous war in all of human history.
"The war was righteous"? How do you figure that David?
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They attacked us, we punished them. Self defense. Absolutely righteous. It stopped being righteous when we continued assaulting them to try to change them to be like us. That's self righteous.
Who attacked us David? The Talaban?
They never attacked the United States.
The nation the US attacked in 2001 --02 was Afganistan
The pretext was that it was hiding Osama bin Laden and al /Qaeda followers.
But they had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11...other than as patsies -- just like Oswald was a patsy in the JKF assassination.
It is far from "self righteous." to institute a war of aggression based on false pretext.
The attacks on the World Trade Center were a false flag PSYOP.
It far beyond the time for believing the official narrative on 9/11
9/11 FALSE FLAG PSYOP
“No building exhibiting all the characteristics of controlled demolition has ever not been a controlled demolition.”~David Ray Griffin
“What is ‘Truth’? said jesting Pilate”
“History is written by the winner” The question then is; “what did the historians of the accepted official history taught in the US win?
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/911-false-flag-psyop/
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"will have their hands full fighting off China, Iran, and Russia" - yeah, I saw those reeling with Trump at the helm - that guy was tough!
Yes they may even provoke them to nuke us, missle us, whateever. They willd estroy everything rather than give up their control. Get ready.
Big tiawan business men have all their factories on Mainland Chaniese soil. They sold out long ago.
Who else has factories on mainland China?
Question is WHO DOESN'T HAVE FACTORIES IN CHINA.
So long everybody then, per the military strategist up top.
yes
Ike was right: beware the military industrial complex. Unfortunately we, as a society, never seem to learn. Such a waste of OUR money, and lives.
everything that the government spends money on is set up the same way.
Right on Stanislav
Both the US government AND the US media lied for my entire adult life about Afghanistan and just about everything else. I wasn't old enough to legally buy a beer on 9/11/2001. What I find incredibly hard to understand is why anyone my age would believe these people??
All we have know for our entire adult lives is a lying MSM..... From WMD's that weren't to the insanity of pee tapes that were never remotely plausible. With Covid they don't even care if they get caught as they are telling the lies and completely destroying young kids to not actually save people from an endemic respiratory virus. Why would anyone believe ANY mainstream source? They are what Orwell tried to warn us about.
Rather than tell the truth to give women in Afghanistan a voice in the last 20 years, the MSM is more focused on covering for the military industrial complex. At the same time they convince hapless gullible people my age and younger that obliterating freedoms and women's rights is "progressive" even as all the real world outcomes from these policies are terribly regressive.
The people covering for the military industrial complex are the same ones insisting that US men should have access to little girls in all the places little girls are naked. The media and the woke seek to emulate authoritarian tyranny and push women and children in this country back into hiding.
The woke use progressive terminology to do it, but do you really expect the people who work for the MSM to be honest about the Taliban and all that comes with the Taliban, particularly for women and children? These are the exact same people who call moms like me a "transphobe" for thinking my young daughter's right to like bodied private spaces should matter more than a grown man's feelings, no matter what delusions go along with those feelings. The same media actually insists that the feelings of men are so sacred that those feelings are legally more important than the bodily safety of little girls. They want to sexualize 5 year old's in public school kindergarten. Truth about outcomes is not virtue to the US media - its an annoyance to be censored and suppressed.
Do you think these same people ACTUALLY care about what happens to poor women and children in a far away land??? They don't care what happens to little girls and women right here in the US. The media has never cared how much the military industrial complex kills innocent people....... or abandons allies to literally lose their heads...... all they care about is advancing narratives................... outcomes simply don't matter to our evil and useless media.
It has been a fact for the twenty years US forces have been stationed in Afghanistan that Afghan men would take little boys and dress them as girls then molest/rape them. In front of US military and other US personnel.
And the military and personnel were told to not intervene. Just look the other way.
Heartbreaking. The same men telling our troops to look the other way made careers looking the other way in Afghanistan so they could get enough patches on their shirts to sit in front of congress and make up bs about how "white men" are the problem. In reality entitled fools are the problem - from men who feel entitled to women's private spaces and biological identity to a military industrial complex that thinks its entitled to use taxpayer dollars to destroy real lives around the world for no other reason than those in charge on their own personal quest for money and power.
Oh, they're not "useless" media. They're useful if you want to cover up heaps of war crimes for profit and just keep your country fighting each other. Think MK Ultra on acid.
Sadly true
Heh, I should have said, "on their own supply of acid."
The Washington Post, which I think is safe to categorize as a mainstream media outlet, did an extensive article about the inspector general report on Afghanistan. It should have been a bombshell report that caused the people of the US to be in the streets. It plainly stated that every element of the Federal government involved in the war in Afghanistan, lied about it, it prospects, and the unspeakable crime of using war as a means to funnel money to many places within the government and its contractors. It’s even worse but I won’t go on.
So this is absolutely nothing new. What it shows is the shameful apathy of the American people, the total lack of principles of both government and the people, and the downright rogue state of the military, intel, and contractors involved.
What is sad is that we are not surprised by the lying. We expect it. Anyone paying a modicum of attention could have predicted this outcome.
Not only not surprised. Apathy. And worse: the decision every single day and election to say “yes this is corrupt, yes it’s evil, but the government as it is - is giving me some kind of special favor, etc. so I will keep giving the same people money and vote for them.
Furthermore- Americans would rather be able to say “my team won” and keep the current parties in power then to change it.
Many Americans, maybe most, but not all.
What if they had an election and nobody came?
What if U.S. voters refused to vote for either major party? I know it won't happen, but it would be fascinating if it did. Either:
1. Politicians would be terrified to know that they can no longer gull voters.
2. The vote would be ignored, proving that it's all just a show.
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
--Emma Goldman
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...because they were doing something better?
Be still, my heart.
Absolutely
So you blame the victims for it?
Do you think it's an accident that the news keeps people at each others' throats all the time and bombholes the most vile bloody puke?
The people in the US have been the subjects of a campaign to disorient and panic them. Stressors applied to keep people freaking out and manageable.
Would you still feel the same way if you knew that the pentagon and CIA were running the same type of operation we've seen them boast about all across the globe, removing governments and supplanting power wherever big-ticket resources exist?
That it's on your porch now isn't enough to make you say, "They're the bad guys."?
Do You think everyone who was complicit in this are victims? I don’t. The American people know and have known about these wars for two decades. The American people continue to provide their blind obedience to these two parties. The continue to support unconstitutional policies if it fits their own views of the moment. They continue to allow the ends to justify the means.
At what point are people responsible for their own government?
Hell even a guy like Chomsky has repeatedly suggested you have to go in and vote for the lesser of two evils. No. You do not. You can devote your own time and resources to dismantling this utterly corrupt government.
Stressors applied to keep people freaking out and manageable.--Scott
Yes, it is a low intensity 'Strategy of Tension', and it is constant.
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'
Is that really what the IG report said? I don't think so.
Publicly Released: May 18, 2021
This Lead Inspector General (Lead IG) report to the United States Congress on Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) is the 24th quarterly report detailing the overseas contingency operation. The report summarizes significant events involving OFS and describes completed, ongoing, and planned Lead IG and partner agency oversight work. This report covers the period from January 1, 2021, through March 31, 2021.
Upon taking office, the Biden Administration announced a review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. This review ultimately informed the President’s decision to begin withdrawing all U.S. forces from Afghanistan on May 1 and completing the withdrawal by September. This new timeline resulted in the United States delaying the original withdrawal deadline of May 1, which was part of the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in February 2020.
The Taliban increased its attacks against Afghan government forces this quarter while continuing to avoid targeting U.S. and coalition troops. The Taliban initiated 37 percent more attacks this quarter than during the same period in 2020. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Taliban maintained close ties with al-Qaeda and was very likely preparing for large-scale offensives against population centers and Afghan government installations. This quarter also saw dozens of targeted killings of Afghan civilians, including government officials, teachers, journalists, medical workers, and religious scholars. Although the Taliban denied that it was attacking civilians, U.S. and Afghan officials accused the Taliban of using targeted assassinations to destabilize the population and discredit the Afghan government.
Peace talks between the Afghan Islamic Republic and Taliban negotiating teams failed to make any significant progress this quarter. Increased insurgent violence across the country and unmet Taliban demands for prisoner releases and the removal of international sanctions prevented the two sides from finalizing an agenda. In February 2020, the Taliban had committed to begin these peace talks in March, but negotiations did not convene until September, and basic procedural rules were not agreed to until December. As of the end of this quarter, the two sides had not finalized an agenda.
The DoD continued to conduct most of its efforts to train, advise, and assist the Afghan security forces virtually this quarter due to the coronavirus-2019 pandemic. The DoD said it was planning ways to provide "over-the-horizon" support to the Afghan forces after the withdrawal is completed.
1. The Afghanistan Papers merely confirmed what anyone even sort of paying attention already knew.
2. For at least ten years now, I have been saying to anyone that would listen that the puppet regime in Kabul would survive no more than ten minutes after the last American airplane left Kabul.
This was obviously wrong, and I apologize if my words misled anyone. The puppet regime didn't even last long enough for the last America airplane to leave.
3. As the United States prioritizes the evacuation of military dogs over the evacuation of people from Kabul, American allies should note carefully: the United States cares more about its dogs than it cares about you. (speaking as a cat myself, this set or priorities makes perfect sense, but you humans ought to be aware just where you rank on the totem pole here....)
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/afghanistan-we-never-learn
Within weeks the military complex will cook up a new situation that requires military engagement
And roughly 50-60% of Americans, barely a few weeks removed from leaving the last conflict will believe the government is being genuine and telling the truth.
Thing is, they know and understand how gullible people are for this.
News for all of you progressives: they also know how easy it is for you to go for “programs” of every kind. And you do. And they create them. And they’re a disaster. And then they do it again. And then you go for that too.
Same goes for every aspect of everything the government does. Rational solution is to strictly limit anything it does.
Nope! Even after a lesson like this people just keep thinking government is good and will solve problems. It’s an incurable cycle until that mentality ends.
"Domestic War on Terror."
Watch.
Sigh. Yeah. It’s already started.
Gullibility is one factor; blind loyalty to a political party is another.
Many years ago, someone who worked at a major television news network said that there was a sign in the hallway saying "Never overestimate the intelligence of your audience."
They have already sent 6000 US troops and UK has sent too. Wonder if they will bring them back?
Yes in about 20 years
Pretty sure right now their war is on us.
Yep, any or all of the above. Covid has already been used to completely reshape society based on mostly lies
"It will be a Russian cyber attack that cripples the energy grid or the food distribution system,"--ejsmith
I will posit that it will more likely be cyber attack by the Biden regime that cripples the energy grid or the food distribution system, as the opening salvo in their 'DOMESTIC WAR ON TERRORISM'.
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No transgender or women of color in that picture. What is wrong with these Taliban people? Can we send a diversity, equity and inclusion expert to have a chat with them?
We should send over every diversity, equity, and inclusion expert to Afghanistan today. They could stay after the new 7,000 troops have left and explain to the Taliban how things are done in the USA.
I count 21 comments by Phil and russian_bot, complaining about MY "off Topic" commentary. Just two posts above this one. I consider that extraordinary hypocrisy.
But perhaps they have just eaten too many corndogs.
Lol
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https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/we-are-no-longer-a-serious-people
So much winning in this article it is hard to pick out the money quotes.
Thank you for that link Finster, truly a fantastic article!
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The post 9/11 paradigm. The world before 9/11, and the world after 9/11 is clearly delineated.
This was actually a topic of great interest shortly after the event. Only those of us of a certain age and maturity in 2001 recall this. I was 54 years old then, my memory of the event is vivid. I knew when I saw the towers fall on TV that everything had changed at that moment.
It is strange how similar to the Martinez story mine is. I too had to dig out an old portable TV ( the kind with the old rabbit ear antanna) out from a closset.
The artcle totally resonates for me.
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Also no one is social distancing or wearing masks. They are putting my grandma's lives in danger.
"U.S. political and military officials repeatedly misled the country about the prospects for success"
For success as defined in their war marketing campaigns, sure. But as above, the marketing slogans were never the real reasons, and the marketing campaign objectives were never the real objectives.
For success as defined by the architects of the wars, the destruction of Afghanistan for fun and profit was much MUCH more successful that Vietnam; it lasted longer and it transferred far more funds to the politically connected pillars of empire; the congress, the "security intelligence" services, the military suppliers, the generals (politicians in uniform), and the contractors (mercenaries).
As Orwell observed (or advised, if you're of that bent); the war isn't meant to be won, it's meant to be continuous. The USA has been in a continuous state of war for nearly a century. For the previous century it was about 50% war, 50% peace, iirc. A warm-up period, if you like.
And that's only counting military conflicts. Throwing in clandestine conflicts and socio-political conflicts like the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and the War on Crime (and not forgetting the new but equally obviously intended to be forever war, the War on Flu) it's probably closer to 300% or 400% war. The history of the American Empire is like a 24 hour cable tv war channel; it's all war, all the time.
"Truth is the first casualty of war" might well be a trite truism; it is also a true one. The truth casualties start long before the conflict goes kinetic and continue long after. So, our political rulers are not trying to:
-rebuild (or save) Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, or anywhere else
-eliminate poverty
-end (or even reduce) crime
-stop drug abuse/dependency/trafficking etc
-save us from the Wu Flu.
None of those claims are true, they are all marketing campaigns for massive upward transfers of wealth.
Mr. Orwell understood that the general public wouldn't tolerate 20 years of war with the same enemy. People want to see progress. Now that Afghanistan is winding down, the key is to find a new enemy as quickly as possible.
So while I agree that Afghanistan was a fiasco, I believe the United States could make a real difference in Somalia. If Mr. Biden were on the ball, he would announce the war with Somalia before the last helicopter leaves Afghanistan.
What worries me is that the United States will pick a fight with someone, just to show that they are still dangerous.
Obama could end our "forever wars" by throwing a "forever party" and inviting all the leading politicians instead of celebrities. Let them party on Martha's Vineyard until they all die of old age (or COVID-19, whichever comes first).
I just watched a Sopranos episode on this topic — Tony was banged up after surviving a hit attempt so he beats up a young strapping mafioso in front of the crew, on obviously manufactured pretenses, to show he’s still the boss. Given the parallels between govt and organized crime, wouldn’t surprise me at all to see some sort of similar reaction on a large scale.
"Domestic War on Terror."
I lack the wit for such drollery. Well played, sir.
I'm sure you know that the war on Somalia has already begun, so extra points for that subtle twist (or was that twisted subtlety?).
At some point, the Somalians will object to having bombs dropped on them. Then, under the Geneva Conventions, the US would be justified to respond by declaring war.
Well, the U.S. declared that any male of military age whom we bomb is, by (our) definition, an enemy combatant, thereby justifying the bombing. With official policies like that, satire becomes pointless.
Funny, I haven't seen any MSM reports of Somalis objecting.
Why would the public need to knw uncle Joe has spent the last month bombing Syria and Somalia? The woke media is into narrative and they haven't made one up for those attacks just yet.........
So far, the majority realizes it is for their own good. But give it enough time and some hotheads will start to object.
Ah yes, we are there to promote majority rule.
Somalis aren't objecting because Biden picked the first female black/indian/asian VP ever! Progress!
Somalia? Are you high? You can't make money breaking shit there.
Nah, the big bucks are right here in our own backyard.
No joke.
A CH-47 airlifting personnel from the Kabul Embassy today costs way more than a CH-47 airlifting personnel from the Saigon Embassy in 1975.
Amazing how the American public never tires of taking it up the ass by the U.S. Government and its corporate sponsors.
To be fair, it's as American as apple pie and baseball.
The only thing missed in this article is the fact that the US Government funded and armed Islamic militants in Afghanistan during the Cold War, based on the idea that "the enemy of our enemy is our friend" and the fact that the militants despised the Soviet Union and their atheism.
Wrong. They weren't "Islamic militants" they were "freedom fighters, not unlike America's founding fathers."
Huge difference.
</sarcasm>
Yea, that was Ronnie Reagan's line when he met the Mujahideen leaders in the white House. Our first President to lose it to senility. Same enemy both times now.
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Unless you count Woodrow Wilson. Perhaps not senility, but definitely non composite mentis.
Yo Jeff,
Woodrow Wilson was duplicitous and evil, on top of the fact that he wasn't very smart. His actions were purposeful and calculated.
And he was a racist son-of-a-bitch.
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All true. But add the fact that on Oct 2, 1919 Wilson suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. After that Edith Wilson, by many accounts, became the shadow President.
Colonel. Edward House was the shadow President, even while Wilson was cognizant.
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The US even designed and printed books for the radicalization of te Taliban
The Taliban indoctrinates kids with jihadist textbooks paid for by the U.S.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08/the-taliban-indoctrinates-kids-with-jihadist-textbooks-paid-for-by-the-u-s/
Funding the Enemy: How US Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban
With the vague intention of winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, the US government has mismanaged billions of development and logistics dollars, bolstered the drug trade, and dumped untold millions into Taliban hands. That is the sobering message of this scathing critique of our war effort in Afghanistan. According to this book, America has already lost the war. While conducting extensive research and fieldwork in Afghanistan's war zones, a drumbeat of off-the-record and offhand remarks pointed the author to one conclusion: "We blew it." The sentiment was even blazoned across a US military fortification, as the author saw at Forward Operating Base Mehtar Lam in insurgency-wracked Laghman Province: "I glanced over at a concrete blast barrier while waiting for a helicopter," Wissing says. "Someone had spray-painted in jagged letters: 'The GAME. You Lost It.'" The author's vivid narrative takes the reader down to ground level in frontline Afghanistan. It draws on the voices of hundreds of combat soldiers, ordinary Afghans, private contractors, aid workers, international consultants, and government officials. From these contacts it became glaringly clear, as the author details, that American taxpayer dollars have been flowing into Taliban coffers, courtesy of scandalously mismanaged US development and counterinsurgency programs, with calamitous military and social consequences.This is the first book to detail the toxic embrace of American policymakers and careerists, Afghan kleptocrats, and the opportunistic Taliban. The result? US taxpayers have been footing the bill for both sides of a disastrous Afghanistan war.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00887PH5K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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Eh, they are just talking about the game.
Which you just lost, too.
I saw the text books that the US in fact designed as well as published. They were in fact radicalizing propaganda for school children. They showed how to use modern weapons. How to become a martyr for Allah...suicide vests, etc.
That is some game...the so-called 'Great Game' ala Rudyard Kipling (Kim)
Like the Britsh Empire created their own enemies, The US impirialsits (Anglofile networks) extended the techniques of the 'Great Game' -- Now exemplified by Samual Huntington and Zbigniew Brzezinski...the long used technique of the creation of the 'controled enemy'.
Antony Sutton details the American version in his book, the THE BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY.
So yes, the American people and civilians across the world lost again as tge game played out in Afghanistan. The winners again are the Globalists, not America, not the Republic.
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Yes, the chickens may be coming home to roost.
I think the cows and the hogs have joined them.
It’s like some kind of animal farm!
Those hogs are the contractors at the trough.
These "chickens" have been here the whole time.
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Hindsight is great. At the time they were illiterate goat herders, not a threat to anyone. Like all weapons, the problem don't arise from the weapon but what you do with it afterward. We built them up, used them successfully on the Russians, then discarded them like hunter biden. The US has the capability to do a lot of good in the world, but we usually blow it.
Still not too late to fix them. Trump was on track. We should keep in mind they seriously outnumber us. China should, too. It will get a lot uglier if we let it fester.
"Still not too late to fix them."
Nope. You are wrong. Twenty years of fixing led to this--another twenty would have an identical result.
Edison was asked why he had so many failures, he said they weren't failures, just finding things that don't work. Eventually he got them right. We didn't do 20 years of fixing, just 20 years of oppression and corrupt bribery. That doesnt work for anyone. It can be done right. Maybe someday it will be. Not today, apparently. That's okay, too.
From wokeist rainbow and BLM Inc. flags flying over the US Embassy to this in a matter of weeks. Breathtakingly nonsensical.
Yeah can you believe the Pride flag flying over the Embassy in Kabul? I mean WTF?!?
Someday soon, an Islamist might jam that very flag up Obama's ass.
It would seem there would be more subtle and effective ways to evidence our beliefs and values, but then again the recent "Hunger Games" intern at the White House seems to argue against that thought. https://www.instagram.com/p/CSXDyecgpMA/?hl=en
In retrospect it seems that trusting the military industrial complex to bring peace, democracy, love and joy to the rest of the world (by bombing it) was a mistake. Who knew. The uniparty keeps making that mistake because its a profitable to corporations.
So Biden was relying on Gen. Mark Miley - there's your explanation right there.
I guess it's the CCP's turn to see who can successfully occupy Afghanistan now. Good luck!
I remember, with perfect clarity, being pilloried at work for being the lone voice of opposition to this and the Iraq nonsense. One coworker, a woman whose boy had recently joined the Army, even called me a "traitor". When I asked her why I was a traitor she said, "you're hoping my son will die just to prove you're right". You can't make this shit up.
But forget all that stuff, and let's keep our eyes on the prize here, kids, and remember the most important thing: Halliburton, Blackwater, et al, made a lot of money.
A toast: TO OUR FAILING EMPIRE!
Bear in mind that Afghanistan has a border with China. On the other hand, the CCP doesn't like Muslims.
For the CCP is not about what you like. It’s about what you can get.
In a way I hope the CCP does go in. AFG has a way of bleeding the lifeblood out of occupiers.
I don't know what's more frightening: the duplicity and incompetence of the White House or the duplicity and incompetence of the military and intelligence complex.
They both make me livid. I very much wanted us out of this war, but you'd think these "brilliant" folks could figure out a way to withdraw without creating Saigon, the Sequel. Why wasn't the withdrawal organized to protect the rear while systematically evacuating civilians then military units in an orderly manner? And why did we withdraw without destroying war material and bases as we went, instead of providing the Taliban with billions of dollars in equipment? Doesn't seem like rocket science to me. A lot of very high paid heads need to roll.
Why?
Careful, citizen. Being upset about this is dangerously close to sedition.
By the way, have you gotten a COVID test recently? Can't be too careful!
Exactly. Should have taken out the embassy staff and translators etc first, then removed the military equipment and destroyed bases second and then taken out troops last. They did the exact opposite.
And the Afghan army trained for 20 years didn’t even put up a fight and instead joined the taliban lmfao.
The Taliban, like others, can figure out that there's a simple process for encouraging American commanders and leaders to become overconfident. Overconfidence is a common tendency for Americans in these situations and the Taliban were able to exploit it. When the Taliban out-generals the American military, it shows we will need to rethink how we develop generals; our current ones can't manage anything properly, including a retreat.
Remember that military swears to obey lawful orders of their superiors. Milly knows how to do it right but has orders not to. His choice is do as ordered, or quit, or mutiny. Following orders pays better. He works for Austin and Joe. As Joe said this week, the buck, and the blame, stops with him. The important question is whether we'll enforce that. Probably not, and he knows it. Flip the congress next year and we might hold him accountable.
And as Gen Jack Keane said, you don't do this during the fighting season (summer), you do this in the winter when they've scattered. Totally moronic.
Even CNN's Jake Tapper figured it out and is criticizing how incompetently they did this whole thing and are now sending 6000 troops back in lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBE9OqILRrk
The intelligence community were surprisingly right on this--they just got the timing wrong. The model for advancement should have been ISIS. When the Taliban realized they faced weak or no opposition--they just kept driving.
At what point do Americans accept responding for their own government?
We can all point at to all these corrupt and bad politicians, and some will point to the cronies in the private sector with whom they form a coalition, the the fact remains: the majority of Americans are either complicit or at a minimum apathetic
Accept *responsibility*
Americans can certainly be faulted for apathy. But voter responsibility for debacles such as this one is offset, at least in part, by the lies told them by politicians and buerocrats, backed up by a sycophant media.