We already know that endless wars are just grifts, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't, right now, criticizing the hell out of Biden for butchering of the withdrawal.
Actually, I don't think that the blame for the botched withdrawal should fall on Biden. but on the genius generals who were responsible for all the logistical planning. Presidents don't do logistics, they delegate that stuff to others who are supposedly competent. It would not even surprise me if the generals sabotaged the withdrawal, knowing that they, personally, would not suffer any consequences. If anything, they will get promoted or retire to lucrative sinecures in the weapons industry or on cable TV news. Meanwhile, Biden takes the heat for making the right decision.
I really liked Trump because he was an unauthorized president. I thought his victory was a real feather in America’s cap : you are actually a democracy and the elite can be defeated through democracy. I think Trump’s election makes his presidency the most consequential of our lifetime. Trump himself was relatively inconsequential, he did not do much.
I really dislike Biden because he is the opposite, he is the elite establishment reasserting their will. I’ve been looking forward to him melting down with his dementia. I figure it will be humiliating for the elite, it will make plain their manipulation and cynicism.
That said I now have great respect for Biden - he ended the war in Afghanistan.
My boy Trump talks a good game but did nothing.
This could be a pivotal moment in world history. Biden stood up to the Warhawks. The silly old fool can barely put a sentence together but he showed some real moxie getting out of Afghanistan!
Note that Trump won, but as you pointed out, he was able to do nothing. Even if he had wanted to end the stupid wars, he was weak, easily distracted and easily manipulated.
Lots of truth in your post. Both Trump Derangement Syndrome and Biden Derangement Syndrome are emotional, authoritarian responses. Support the policies you believe in based on rational argument and Truth as far as it's possible to discern, then give credit (and blame) where due.
Glen Greenwald and Tucker Carlson on fox were speculating on why the withdrawal went so poorly.
They said the president makes the decision and leaves it to others to work on the execution. They were basically saying that it was immensely suspicious that the US military couldn’t secure this withdrawal properly. Both were suggesting that the deep state wanted it to look bad in order to create a rationale for going back in. Tucker on the right, Glen from the left, they both sounded like Trump - deep state. They were both very cautious to qualify those words - deep state - both explicitly rejected conspiratorial theories and cranks, yet both said it was awfully strange that the US military couldn’t handle this relatively simple task.
This would not surprise me in the least. Put it together with credible reports that most of the deaths outside the Kabul Airport were caused by U.S. and Turkish soldiers shooting from towers above the panicked crowd, and you have good reasons to question the role of the U.S. military in the entire withdrawal saga. For all we know, ISIS-K, which has been blamed for the suicide bombing, is run by the CIA. Why not? It's already well known that the CIA is pals with jihadists in Syria, some of whom have reportedly been transported to Afghanistan in UK airplanes. I try not be jump on conspiracy theories, but this one is getting riper by the day.
I know, this crossed my mind, but also, because of our recent activities in Syria, we have all these factions going unhinged too. We provoke the hell out of them
Correction: We don't just provoke the jihadists, we actively support them with arms, money and transport. Seriously, these are the same guys (or close cousins) who flew planes into buildings on 9/11. It's as plain as day that the "War on Terror," from the very beginning, has been a gigantic fraud. The purpose of the Forever Wars is to establish and strengthen U.S. hegemony over the rest of the world through regime changes and other strong-arm tactics. Things are not working out quite as planned, but that doesn't mean that the neocons will stop trying. In that sense, they're as bad a religious fundamentalists
Like some suggest, the sow the seeds of their own destruction, but then they set the world on fire with all the factions killing each other. I see not end. Humans have succeeded in creating hell on earth, and everyone is corruptible. There is lots of mischief coming from Saudi Arabia, this is for certain. I want to know is how do you make a suicide bomber accountable? You cannot really kill him again.
LMAO. Yes, I know. I was with WOMEN IN BLACK for 12 years doing vigils, US created the Taliban and Obama -- and Kissinger is a war criminal. I was an early supporter and advocate of RAWA. My 3rd party affiliation goes back to 1980 when I voted for Berry Commoner and worked on Tom Hayden's campaign. In 70s my USSR classes were all about why the USSR was no longer a threat and collapsing from with in. I was not born yesterday. Nonetheless, they can still provoke them. Provoke can mean a lot of things, YOU KNOW!
Two things. First, we'll know the American people and dissenting pundits are learning when they start treating Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Tedros Ghebreyesus, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey with the same disdain they show Wolfowitz, Bolton, Bush, Haass and Lister. How can you think our foreign policy is controlled by corporate profits and believe our public health bureaucracy is pure as the driven snow?
Second, I've come to the conclusion Biden was chosen for his potential as a scapegoat. Afghanistan is just one example. Top Dems knew it was unsustainable and it was best to get out now. They also knew it was likely to be messy. An old man with developing dementia was the perfect choice. There were also plenty of true believer interventionists who wanted withdrawal to be a demonstration of their theories as to why we should NOT withdraw from anywhere else. Thus, they knew the US had lost and wanted to make it painful so we would not end any other useless wars.
Almost makes you wonder if the botched withdrawal isn't on purpose to try and dramatically display how right and just these monstrous wars really are. Idiots and sociopaths, but mostly Machiavellian sociopaths. Here's a fun exercise for someone with more time and tolerance for watching these dirtbag pundits, score their logic and their actions on the dark triad
of personality traits and come up with a rubric to score each of these lying murdering bloviating windbags they force us to listen to (and politicians too) and get their names associated with their actual disorders.
Tim Pool had some interesting convo comparing this to the movie ARGO. And with all people, Bannon! Some now are suggesting we could be faced with the biggest hostage and POW crisis in our history, certainly bigger than the Iran hostage crisis or possibly Vietnam. It looks grim for many millions in Afghanistan right now.
Regardless if we could trust the Taliban, which everyone knows we cannot, as well as our own corrupt leaders who got us in this mess all these decades, it looks like the deal was we were to be out by MAY, 14 months from February 2020 deal Trump made with them. In meantime our country has been torn apart by Covid, toxic election polarization, riots, gangland wars, etc.
This would have required a exit strategy and massive mobilization of our great mammoth military. Sounded doable, albeit a bit daunting. I do hope Americans might learn from our past "nation building" techniques as the blowback is hell to pay for.
Since I *never* watch cable news, I was unaware that MSNBC was so enthusiastic about endless wars, but then it occurred to me that MSNBC is the de facto propaganda arm of the Democratic Party establishment, and it all made sense. My question is this: Does the network present any anti-war voices? My guess is that they are few and far between and that they face hostile questioning from their interlocutors. Someone please enlighten me.
These forever-war-mongers are institutionalized intellectual cowards, having sold their souls, unable to articulate, anything but their master's narrative. All the Middle-eastern wars are fought by the bought US Congress, so as captured US government at the command & control of just one recently foreign brutally colonized country in the Middle-east. The USA, Canada etc are just mindless puppet regimes. Dr. Gideon Polya as a Jewish Australian scientist, calculates the Middle-east 'genocidal' (UN definition includes 'removing-people-from-their-means-of-livelihood' plus state & settler murder') death toll at ~35 million people in 35 years. Mohandas Gandhi describes this phenomena of mindless soul, "I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true non-violence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness."
Gandhi is describing physical & intellectual 'bravery' on two fronts:
1) The ability to stand in livelihood solidarity working & planning with the brothers & sisters of our 'community' (Latin 'com' = 'together' + 'munus' = 'gift-or-service'). Gandhi employed the term 'Swadeshi' (Hindi 'indigenous' aka 'swa' = 'self' + 'deshi' = 'sufficiency') to describe the ACTS of creating, sharing & caring as a people. Such day-to-day sharing & caring is diametrically opposite to the soldier who having put him or her-self in the context & control of masters or even the master's 'nation' acts as a pawn in the oligarch theatre of destruction. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/relational-economy
2) The ability to DIALOGUE options in support of our common livelihood & to explore & resolve issues as the arise creatively. Gandhi employed the term 'Satyagraha' (H. 'Truth-search'), which following ancient India's indigenous 'Council Process', re-became the model for 1000s of popular Both-sided, equal-time, recorded & published dialogues. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
As Indians worked together in Mutual-aid solidarity & spoke & planned livelihood together, only then did they achieve a degree of self-sufficiency, which cause the British Empire's (5-eyes = Britain, USA, Canada, Australia & New-Zealand) extracting & exploiting authoritarian cowardly 'exogenous' (L 'other-generated') oligarchs & companies to go bankrupt in the 100s. When India altered just about 5% of Britain's foreign import & export market with India, these inefficient vulnerable hierarchal companies could no longer maintain their facade. The empire was forced to recognize India's 'Swaraj' (H. 'Self-rule') in 1947.
Gi-Joe, cowboys, soldiers, sailers, pilots, drone-guidance & Military-Industrial-Complex company pawns, bought-politicians & their masters are all just one big coward's club. As we 'indigenize' / organize our 'economy', then they will abandon their masters & re-join loving humanity. 'Do-we-know-who-we-are-?' https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/9-do-we-know-who-we-are
We already know that endless wars are just grifts, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't, right now, criticizing the hell out of Biden for butchering of the withdrawal.
Actually, I don't think that the blame for the botched withdrawal should fall on Biden. but on the genius generals who were responsible for all the logistical planning. Presidents don't do logistics, they delegate that stuff to others who are supposedly competent. It would not even surprise me if the generals sabotaged the withdrawal, knowing that they, personally, would not suffer any consequences. If anything, they will get promoted or retire to lucrative sinecures in the weapons industry or on cable TV news. Meanwhile, Biden takes the heat for making the right decision.
I really liked Trump because he was an unauthorized president. I thought his victory was a real feather in America’s cap : you are actually a democracy and the elite can be defeated through democracy. I think Trump’s election makes his presidency the most consequential of our lifetime. Trump himself was relatively inconsequential, he did not do much.
I really dislike Biden because he is the opposite, he is the elite establishment reasserting their will. I’ve been looking forward to him melting down with his dementia. I figure it will be humiliating for the elite, it will make plain their manipulation and cynicism.
That said I now have great respect for Biden - he ended the war in Afghanistan.
My boy Trump talks a good game but did nothing.
This could be a pivotal moment in world history. Biden stood up to the Warhawks. The silly old fool can barely put a sentence together but he showed some real moxie getting out of Afghanistan!
Note that Trump won, but as you pointed out, he was able to do nothing. Even if he had wanted to end the stupid wars, he was weak, easily distracted and easily manipulated.
Lots of noise and bluster but ultimately Trump was ineffectual
Lots of truth in your post. Both Trump Derangement Syndrome and Biden Derangement Syndrome are emotional, authoritarian responses. Support the policies you believe in based on rational argument and Truth as far as it's possible to discern, then give credit (and blame) where due.
Glen Greenwald and Tucker Carlson on fox were speculating on why the withdrawal went so poorly.
They said the president makes the decision and leaves it to others to work on the execution. They were basically saying that it was immensely suspicious that the US military couldn’t secure this withdrawal properly. Both were suggesting that the deep state wanted it to look bad in order to create a rationale for going back in. Tucker on the right, Glen from the left, they both sounded like Trump - deep state. They were both very cautious to qualify those words - deep state - both explicitly rejected conspiratorial theories and cranks, yet both said it was awfully strange that the US military couldn’t handle this relatively simple task.
I found it shocking.
This would not surprise me in the least. Put it together with credible reports that most of the deaths outside the Kabul Airport were caused by U.S. and Turkish soldiers shooting from towers above the panicked crowd, and you have good reasons to question the role of the U.S. military in the entire withdrawal saga. For all we know, ISIS-K, which has been blamed for the suicide bombing, is run by the CIA. Why not? It's already well known that the CIA is pals with jihadists in Syria, some of whom have reportedly been transported to Afghanistan in UK airplanes. I try not be jump on conspiracy theories, but this one is getting riper by the day.
I know, this crossed my mind, but also, because of our recent activities in Syria, we have all these factions going unhinged too. We provoke the hell out of them
Correction: We don't just provoke the jihadists, we actively support them with arms, money and transport. Seriously, these are the same guys (or close cousins) who flew planes into buildings on 9/11. It's as plain as day that the "War on Terror," from the very beginning, has been a gigantic fraud. The purpose of the Forever Wars is to establish and strengthen U.S. hegemony over the rest of the world through regime changes and other strong-arm tactics. Things are not working out quite as planned, but that doesn't mean that the neocons will stop trying. In that sense, they're as bad a religious fundamentalists
It's possible a bunch of terrorists flew planes into buildings on 9/11, but they did not cause those buildings to collapse.
Like some suggest, the sow the seeds of their own destruction, but then they set the world on fire with all the factions killing each other. I see not end. Humans have succeeded in creating hell on earth, and everyone is corruptible. There is lots of mischief coming from Saudi Arabia, this is for certain. I want to know is how do you make a suicide bomber accountable? You cannot really kill him again.
LMAO. Yes, I know. I was with WOMEN IN BLACK for 12 years doing vigils, US created the Taliban and Obama -- and Kissinger is a war criminal. I was an early supporter and advocate of RAWA. My 3rd party affiliation goes back to 1980 when I voted for Berry Commoner and worked on Tom Hayden's campaign. In 70s my USSR classes were all about why the USSR was no longer a threat and collapsing from with in. I was not born yesterday. Nonetheless, they can still provoke them. Provoke can mean a lot of things, YOU KNOW!
Wait, the generals didn't find out about Doha at the same time as the rest of us did?
Biden was supposed to be his own logistics expert, when he wasn't busy being his own intelligence analyst?
What do the generals do all day?
Our current problem is simple: war visits the wrong people.
Two things. First, we'll know the American people and dissenting pundits are learning when they start treating Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Tedros Ghebreyesus, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey with the same disdain they show Wolfowitz, Bolton, Bush, Haass and Lister. How can you think our foreign policy is controlled by corporate profits and believe our public health bureaucracy is pure as the driven snow?
Second, I've come to the conclusion Biden was chosen for his potential as a scapegoat. Afghanistan is just one example. Top Dems knew it was unsustainable and it was best to get out now. They also knew it was likely to be messy. An old man with developing dementia was the perfect choice. There were also plenty of true believer interventionists who wanted withdrawal to be a demonstration of their theories as to why we should NOT withdraw from anywhere else. Thus, they knew the US had lost and wanted to make it painful so we would not end any other useless wars.
Biden deserves Nobel Peace prize — not the swindler Obama !!
First let's wait to see if the withdrawal really sticks and if we stop droning Afghanistan.
Almost makes you wonder if the botched withdrawal isn't on purpose to try and dramatically display how right and just these monstrous wars really are. Idiots and sociopaths, but mostly Machiavellian sociopaths. Here's a fun exercise for someone with more time and tolerance for watching these dirtbag pundits, score their logic and their actions on the dark triad
of personality traits and come up with a rubric to score each of these lying murdering bloviating windbags they force us to listen to (and politicians too) and get their names associated with their actual disorders.
Tim Pool had some interesting convo comparing this to the movie ARGO. And with all people, Bannon! Some now are suggesting we could be faced with the biggest hostage and POW crisis in our history, certainly bigger than the Iran hostage crisis or possibly Vietnam. It looks grim for many millions in Afghanistan right now.
Regardless if we could trust the Taliban, which everyone knows we cannot, as well as our own corrupt leaders who got us in this mess all these decades, it looks like the deal was we were to be out by MAY, 14 months from February 2020 deal Trump made with them. In meantime our country has been torn apart by Covid, toxic election polarization, riots, gangland wars, etc.
This would have required a exit strategy and massive mobilization of our great mammoth military. Sounded doable, albeit a bit daunting. I do hope Americans might learn from our past "nation building" techniques as the blowback is hell to pay for.
A BBC Feb 2020 about Trump's efforts is important timeline information. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51692546
Since I *never* watch cable news, I was unaware that MSNBC was so enthusiastic about endless wars, but then it occurred to me that MSNBC is the de facto propaganda arm of the Democratic Party establishment, and it all made sense. My question is this: Does the network present any anti-war voices? My guess is that they are few and far between and that they face hostile questioning from their interlocutors. Someone please enlighten me.
I do not watch MSM, only Roku and independent, so I miss the pop culture mainstream trends a lot, I think
These forever-war-mongers are institutionalized intellectual cowards, having sold their souls, unable to articulate, anything but their master's narrative. All the Middle-eastern wars are fought by the bought US Congress, so as captured US government at the command & control of just one recently foreign brutally colonized country in the Middle-east. The USA, Canada etc are just mindless puppet regimes. Dr. Gideon Polya as a Jewish Australian scientist, calculates the Middle-east 'genocidal' (UN definition includes 'removing-people-from-their-means-of-livelihood' plus state & settler murder') death toll at ~35 million people in 35 years. Mohandas Gandhi describes this phenomena of mindless soul, "I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a coward. Possession of arms implies an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true non-violence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness."
Gandhi is describing physical & intellectual 'bravery' on two fronts:
1) The ability to stand in livelihood solidarity working & planning with the brothers & sisters of our 'community' (Latin 'com' = 'together' + 'munus' = 'gift-or-service'). Gandhi employed the term 'Swadeshi' (Hindi 'indigenous' aka 'swa' = 'self' + 'deshi' = 'sufficiency') to describe the ACTS of creating, sharing & caring as a people. Such day-to-day sharing & caring is diametrically opposite to the soldier who having put him or her-self in the context & control of masters or even the master's 'nation' acts as a pawn in the oligarch theatre of destruction. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/relational-economy
2) The ability to DIALOGUE options in support of our common livelihood & to explore & resolve issues as the arise creatively. Gandhi employed the term 'Satyagraha' (H. 'Truth-search'), which following ancient India's indigenous 'Council Process', re-became the model for 1000s of popular Both-sided, equal-time, recorded & published dialogues. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
As Indians worked together in Mutual-aid solidarity & spoke & planned livelihood together, only then did they achieve a degree of self-sufficiency, which cause the British Empire's (5-eyes = Britain, USA, Canada, Australia & New-Zealand) extracting & exploiting authoritarian cowardly 'exogenous' (L 'other-generated') oligarchs & companies to go bankrupt in the 100s. When India altered just about 5% of Britain's foreign import & export market with India, these inefficient vulnerable hierarchal companies could no longer maintain their facade. The empire was forced to recognize India's 'Swaraj' (H. 'Self-rule') in 1947.
Gi-Joe, cowboys, soldiers, sailers, pilots, drone-guidance & Military-Industrial-Complex company pawns, bought-politicians & their masters are all just one big coward's club. As we 'indigenize' / organize our 'economy', then they will abandon their masters & re-join loving humanity. 'Do-we-know-who-we-are-?' https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/9-do-we-know-who-we-are