Why do I get the impression that American society is going backwards really quickly. Perhaps it was always this way.
For the record the UK is also trying to go backwards and making a decent fist of it.
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I think most of the mineral wealth of Afghanistan will go to China. They won’t play the nation building or moral card with Afghanistan, but they will be the ones who will benefit most. It will be a key part of making the next century go to China, in the geopolitical war that constantly rages.
America’s play is more war, but the circumstance and appetite for it does not appear to be there at present. Obviously another big terrorist happening could shift that, but the way I see it is that China will play a cleverer game and sweep up the rewards.
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the old men playing chess are trying to create another war so they can instill the government that will allow them access to trillions of dollars worth of natural resources. Saudi’s backing Taliban, Chinese, Russia, America all have interests.
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I’m struggling to think of another law which has only civil penalties. Very despicable tactic. Hard to see it not being overturned at some point. Samuel Alito is the Supreme Court justice responsible for hearing temporary injunctions. He is one of the two most conservative justices on the court, so no real surprise he did nothing.
I understand that. I also fully expect the blob to be working hard now to make sure the environment is such that in 2023 a willingness to go back in and take out the Taliban will be a key issue staked out by candidates of both parties in the next presidential campaign.
What I continue to not understand is the idea that getting out now as a calculated step towards getting those resources. We’ve been there 20 years already. The Taliban had already encroached and were “out of the caves”. If we just wanted to engage them in armed conflict as a pretense to being there and pilfering their resources then that could be done now.
think back to campaign promises made by an unpopular president in a self-serving attempt to get re-elected. he had 13,000 troops on the ground there in 2020 when the Doha agreement was signed (which wasn’t worth the paper it was written on). by the time Biden took office, it was 2500 troops. Biden’s mistake was a complete withdraw but the set date was already in place
What’s absolutely terrifying about it, is the fucking arsenal left behind by the US troops for the Afghan military which has now been taken over by the Taliban. it’s fucking insane what they left there. This is definitely a stage being set.
On the equipment listed, having been the logistics officer for an entire armor battalion let me say this,
The biggest read flags for me are the:
Night vision googles
Radios
Maybe the artillery pieces
I can see these being helpful for the Taliban; however,
All the vehicles won’t work for very long if ever. Military grade in the US equals lowest bidder. The M113 tracks are hilarious. Those things are from the Gulf War and they notoriously blow up ALL THE TIME.
Not trying to make light of this, but ammunition will be the hardest thing to acquire for all these NATO specific guns. The Taliban will have to find a way to get the bullets for these weapons. Those will only come from someone who is supposed to be a friend. I think that will be the most interesting thing to watch is if the Taliban can find a way to actually logsitically support themselves using US equipment.
I doubt a stage is being set honestly, again just a gut feeling, but conventional forces and rules don’t work in Afghanistan. You have to be able to fight dirty, and the US just won’t do that.
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Except for when they need independence from the British. 
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Exactly! Bunch of terrorists hiding in the woods, instead of coming out into the open field for a proper gun battle, lined up and in uniform!
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To me torturing people is fighting dirty, and we definitely did that in Iraq and elsewhere during the so-called war on terrorism.
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Don’t disagree with what you’re saying just that’s not even remotely close to what I am talking about from a tactical military standpoint. Torture isn’t fighting, it’s just inhumane.
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Fair point. I was actually looking at @cynicaloldgit’s rejoinder to your post and actually didn’t read your post until just now. Agree with you on the equipment issues. Military equipment has a definite shelf life without the logistical supply line behind it.
Look, I’m an Army vet myself. I guess we’d have to define what “fighting dirty” means. I don’t agree that conventional weapons and tactics did not work in Afghanistan. They worked fine to the extent we could occupy territory and control urban populaces. They didn’t work in that the majority of the Afghan people wanted no part of what we were trying to create there. No amount of “dirty fighting” would change that and would only further alienate that populace.
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I’m not expert on this but my understanding of Afghanistan is that it’s been left so utterly ravaged by decades and decades of fighting and proxy wars being conducted on its soil that the population are permanently in survival mode. You can’t rock up in that country, blow shit up, hand out sweets to the kiddies and expect loyalty. As soon as the taliban starts gaining ground again, people will shift their loyalty because that’s what decades of being fucked over has created.
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In the eyes of the people whose country we’re bombing, I’m pretty sure they’d consider drone strikes with “collateral damage” fighting dirty." I’m not trying to draw an equivalence between the actions of the Taliban and the US military, but you don’t need to argue they are equal to understand that there are some things you cannot convince people of through dropping bombs and killing people.
American exceptionalism was initially meant as a Soviet criticism of the US and their thinking about foreign policy…the idea that we could bend any geopolitical situation to the outcome we want because we are America and we are exceptional, and this misguided thinking causes us to get into situations we cannot win. America, never one for getting irony, heard it and adopted it in earnest, which is why we have trouble getting our head around why more war, or more America in any situation doesnt just automatically create the outcomes we want.
Spencer Ackerman is someone who speaks about this really well. He seems to be doing a media tour recently in support of his new Reign of terror book and any of those longer form podcasts are a great listen. Just one example with Chris Hayes - Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast: The War on Terror with Spencer Ackerman on Apple Podcasts
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There is that, but there is also the reality that those who planned this war did so without understanding (or caring about?) the difference between the perspective of the educated urban elites they wanted to install and the rural majority who had completely different experiences and wants. The irony of course is these people ran their entire domestic playbook by railing against the same sort of US educated urban elites who don’t understand the hard working people of their own country.
You cannot understand Afghanistan and what it needs by focusing on Kabul, and that seems to have been one of the founding errors of the Bush administration.
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From Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan; from the heady days of the British Empire to the Soviet Union; from America and NATO to what we have today.
What did we learn folks?
Stay the hell out of Afghanistan!
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It’s almost as if it wasn’t really about bringing democracy to the Middle East at all…
Incredible. What does that mean for Roe v Wade?
One viewpoint:
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Utterly disgusting.
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