Remember Vietnam, the place we had to go to to fight them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here, became a place open to US corporations to outsource production, all so US consumers could buy more for less, and no one seemed to either notice or mind.
While at an anti war protest many years ago, I mentioned to someone there that I was a Vietnam vet and saying the Vietnamese won, as they should have, and he said to me, "No, they didn't win, Nike did." Smedley Butler said it nearly 90 years ago, "war is a racket", and somehow, people don't seem to notice that those who benefit the most, do not participate at all. Of course, with the draft eliminated and no new taxes (indeed, tax cuts from Repubs) to fund the wars, most people are content to go shopping, as we were told to do nearly 20 years ago.
In 1934, a colossal claim reached the American news media: There had been a plot to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in favor of a fascist government. Supposedly in the works since 1933, the claims of the conspiracy came from a very conspicuous and reliable source: Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most decorated war heroes of his time. Even more unbelievable were his claims of who was involved in the plot – respected names like Robert Sterling Clark, Grayson M.P. Murphy, and Prescott Bush. While news media at the time mocked Butler’s story, recently discovered archives have revealed the truth behind Major General Butler’s claims.... hat tip to Arcadia Publishing.
We don’t have to wait 20 years this time though. The corruption is moving along at digital speed nowadays. Maybe it’s the lack of ideology involved. We couldn’t set up shop immediately after Vietnam because of the multipolar Cold War. But today, in Afghanistan, there are no such considerations.
In fact, the only considerations Uncle Scam needed from the Taliban prior to pulling out were as follows... The ability to operate a gas pipeline across Afghanistan without interference. The 1998 O.G. Taliban were dead against it, but this isn’t your daddy’s Taliban. Today, the Taliban are far more politically and economically savvy. And they are allowing the energy pipeline in exchange for breathing space. Access for multinationals operating in Afghanistan was consideration number two. With this ensured, companies operating there during occupation can continue use looting... I mean... continue developing... Afghanistan’s natural resources like those oh so yummy rare earth minerals and lithium. A promise to keep thwarting China’s development plans for Silk Road 2.0/ the belt and road initiative as the previous puppet gubmint did for his favorite uncle Scam.
There was nothing on our list of demands and assurances for withdrawal about ensuring women’s rights. Minority rights. The rights of people who don’t want to party like it’s 999 AD, and they are living in a pan-Islamic, fundamentalist caliphate. You know, all the things the marketing campaign for this atrocity said we were fighting for. Freedom and Democracy, equality under an impartial, codified legal system. An end to honor killings and other barbaric rituals. Nope, just some pipelines, a F.U. to China and a spot at the money trough for the rapacious multinationals to keep gorging.
But did we expect? After all, Uncle Scam plays nice with Fraudi Arabia, so surely he can turn a blind eye to the Human rights abuses perpetrated by some tin pot Taliban warlord. How different could it be, ignoring the worst excesses of another ‘moderate regime and nominal ally’ in the region? We do that 10 times before eating breakfast in the land of the thief and the home of the slave.
Be on the lookout for that soon. A new wave of conditioning as the reporting on Afghanistan continues to dwindle over the coming year. Conditioning us hoi polloi to regard the guys who bombed the towers as a moderate regime and regional ally. That might be the hard sell for the suit dummies running the nexus between the media and foreign policy apparatus. But the narrative managers will find a way, no matter how twisted the mental gymnastics and doublespeak becomes.
So true. It is impossible to overestimate the sheer evil and venality that courses through our duopoly and the corporate world they represent, and who for some inexplicable reason, Americans keep voting for, thinking that this time the (D) or (R) will make some fundamental difference. Perhaps Madeleine Albright's words as Secretary of State, who, as a grandmother, thought "it was worth it" to kill half a million Iraqi children during our bipartisan embargo of Iraq after Gulf War I, might be an indication as to their true nature.
I am so sorry for your family's loss, it's at such times we find the true value of both them and our friends.
Death in any war is a tragedy, but death in a pointless war, based on lies, with no ultimate accountability for anyone, results in anger, rage and finally, a loss of respect for the institutions that govern us, and that leads to some form of societal collapse.
Ultimately, there is a cost for everything, especially when the payment is delayed.
I'm happy for the Vietnamese, but their economy, like that of the PRC, is a mix of private and state.
In an earlier post, I commented that a couple weeks ago, for no particular reason, I looked at a Google maps of the A Shau valley, the site of my last operation in Vietnam in late summer 1968, which at that time was nothing but mountains with triple canopy forest and a floor that was elephant grass, that is where we hadn't bombed it, with bomb crater inside of bomb crater, the only man made object being a deserted Special Forces camp.
Looking at it today, seeing villages, hotels, restaurants, markets, even a guided tour to Hamburger Hill, the place where a couple years after my time there, the 101st suffered horrible casualties taking that hill, only to then leave it and to once again be NVA controlled, I was certain there was some mistake, so I zoomed out, going eastward, and sure enough, there were the familiar foothills, the Perfume river, Hue and finally the ocean.
What was in my brain, just as what has been in the brains of our political and military elite regarding these disastrous wars, has all been an illusion, one of American exceptionalism, and a world view we had better reject.
The difference between those beliefs was quite different, however; mine was one based on a youthful memory and quite harmless; theirs has led to vast human suffering and waste of money and resources, with absolutely no accountability at all, nor will there ever be.
No, I won't go back, and while I know they tend to like Americans, they should hate me, and that is a fact I cannot forget.
This is l-o-n-g, but interesting to think about. It tends to put things in perspective.
Mark Simone
The List Of 120 Years Of Climate Scares By Scientists
By Mark Simone
Oct 9, 2019
Scientists seeking funding and journalists seeking an audience agree: panic sells.
“Global cooling is going to kills us all!” “No, wait: global warming is going to kill us all!”
Here's the list - an amazing chronology of the last 120 years of scare-mongering on climate
1895 - Geologists Think theWorld May Be Frozen Up Again – New York Times, February 1895
1902 - “Disappearing Glaciers…deteriorating slowly, with a persistency that means their final annihilation…scientific fact…surely disappearing.” – Los Angeles Times
1912 - Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age – New York Times, October 1912
1923 - “Scientist says Arctic ice will wipe out Canada” – Professor Gregory of Yale University, American representative to the Pan-Pacific Science Congress, – Chicago Tribune
1923 - “The discoveries of changes in the sun’s heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age” – Washington Post
1924 - MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age – New York Times, Sept 18, 1924
1929 - “Most geologists think the world is growing warmer, and that it will continue to get warmer” – Los Angeles Times, in Is another ice age coming?
1932 - “If these things be true, it is evident, therefore that we must be just teetering on an ice age” – The Atlantic magazine, This Cold, Cold World
1933 - America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise – New York Times, March 27th, 1933
1933 – “…wide-spread and persistent tendency toward warmer weather…Is our climate changing?” – Federal Weather Bureau “Monthly Weather Review.”
1938 - Global warming, caused by man heating the planet with carbon dioxide, “is likely to prove beneficial to mankind in several ways, besides the provision of heat and power.”– Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
1938 - “Experts puzzle over 20 year mercury rise…Chicago is in the front rank of thousands of cities thuout the world which have been affected by a mysterious trend toward warmer climate in the last two decades” – Chicago Tribune
1939 - “Gaffers who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right… weather men have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer” – Washington Post
1952 - “…we have learned that the world has been getting warmer in the last half century” – New York Times, August 10th, 1962
1954 - “…winters are getting milder, summers drier. Glaciers are receding, deserts growing” – U.S. News and World Report
1954 - Climate – the Heat May Be Off – Fortune Magazine
1959 - “Arctic Findings in Particular Support Theory of Rising Global Temperatures” – New York Times
1969 - “…the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two” – New York Times, February 20th, 1969
1969 – “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000″ — Paul Ehrlich (while he now predicts doom from global warming, this quote only gets honorable mention, as he was talking about his crazy fear of overpopulation)
1970 - “…get a good grip on your long johns, cold weather haters – the worst may be yet to come…there’s no relief in sight” – Washington Post
1974 - Global cooling for the past forty years – Time Magazine
1974 - “Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age” –Washington Post
1974 - “As for the present cooling trend a number of leading climatologists have concluded that it is very bad news indeed” – Fortune magazine, who won a Science Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics for its analysis of the danger
1974 - “…the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure…mass deaths by starvation, and probably anarchy and violence” – New York Times
Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age
1975 - Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable – New York Times, May 21st, 1975
1975 - “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind” Nigel Calder, editor, New Scientist magazine, in an article in International Wildlife Magazine
1976 - “Even U.S. farms may be hit by cooling trend” – U.S. News and World Report
1981 - Global Warming – “of an almost unprecedented magnitude” – New York Times
1988 - I would like to draw three main conclusions. Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements. Number two, the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect. And number three, our computer climate simulations indicate that thegreenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to effect the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves. – Jim Hansen, June 1988 testimony before Congress, see His later quote andHis superior’s objection for context
1989 -“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.” – Stephen Schneider, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,Discover magazine, October 1989
1990 - “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing – in terms of economic policy and environmental policy” – Senator Timothy Wirth
1993 - “Global climate change may alter temperature and rainfall patterns, many scientists fear, with uncertain consequences for agriculture.” – U.S. News and World Report
1998 - No matter if the science [of global warming] is all phony . . . climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” —Christine Stewart, Canadian Minister of the Environment, Calgary Herald, 1998
2001 - “Scientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible.” – Time Magazine, Monday, Apr. 09, 2001
2003 - Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as “synfuels,” shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration” – Jim Hansen, NASA Global Warming activist, Can we defuse The Global Warming Time Bomb?, 2003
2006 - “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” — Al Gore, Grist magazine, May 2006
2006 – “It is not a debate over whether the earth has been warming over the past century. The earth is always warming or cooling, at least a few tenths of a degree…” —Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT
2006 – “What we have fundamentally forgotten is simple primary school science. Climate always changes. It is always…warming or cooling, it’s never stable. And if it were stable, it would actually be interesting scientifically because it would be the first time for four and a half billion years.” —Philip Stott, emeritus professor of bio-geography at the University of London
2006 - “Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media peddled a coming ice age. From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years.” –Senator James Inhofe, Monday, September 25, 2006
2007- “I gave a talk recently (on fallacies of global warming) and three members of the Canadian government, the environmental cabinet, came up afterwards and said, ‘We agree with you, but it’s not worth our jobs to say anything.’ So what’s being created is a huge industry with billions of dollars of government money and people’s jobs dependent on it.” – Dr. Tim Ball, Coast-to-Coast, Feb 6, 2007
2008 – “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress” – Dr. John S. Theon, retired Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program atNASA, see above for Hansen quotes
I worked in the Arctic over a period of some 50 years, mostly on the Arctic Ocean. The fact the ice is essentially gone in that time probably doesn't mean anything to you. Same with the glaciers all over Alaska; so much ice is gone there is hydrostatic rebounding taking place, so much so it's ahead of the rising sea levels. But... Never mind. Enjoy! Live large! Yee-Haw!
The NSIDC states today, “As of August 17, sea ice extent stood at 5.77 million square kilometers (2.23 million square miles), tracking above the last six years, as well as 2011, 2012, and 2007 (Figure 1a).”
No one is debating whether or not there is serious melting at the polar ice-caps. The discussions turn around what is responsible for that and to what extent, mass human behavior could EVER have been significant in preventing or reversing it. I think THAT's the evidence-based argument(s) " 'climate-change' 'deniers'" (LOL!) would like to have.
Yeah, "the 'climate' may be in the process of serious change." Now: What can _we_ do about it and why should _we_ believe those claims?
How about being an independent experiencer ! Come on out to Californina, grab a big chair, and park yer bunz right in the MIDDLE of one, maybe three of the largest fires that the State has ever seen. And if you are afraid you might miss out, no sweat ! These Super Fires have been happening bigger and hotter EVERY YEAR ! Don't forget to bring your own water, bcuz these Western States are ALL having in the middle of a LOOOONG drought. Then when you pull up your chair, whip out your list, and sneeringly read it to everybody going by. YES, going by. They are under evacuation orders like they get now EVERY year ! It is scheduled to come *every year, even hotter, and scientists actually SAY (yes, they have a fucking list TOO) that they can now show *proof that these Western Fires ARE caused by climate change !
Unless I missed it, you don't even CLAIM to be a scientist, but the Western States ARE seeing a HUGE influx of Climate Nay-Sayers RIGHT NOW, *hired by No-Kidding EXXON ! Do your boots smell like Crude ? If NOT, we can GET you a job with the Oil Boyz right here in NEW MEXICO ! They are thicker than flies right now, and VERY rude to people who do NOT swallow their bullshit hook, line and sinker !
Oh, yeah ! Bring your cutsey list. If you are not already ON Big Oil's payroll, that snide and snarky list will show *initiative when we go to get you that job !
That's cuz the clowns won't clear cut the old growth. Fire is not unnatural, it's the cycle. You probably know that, though. However, it does suck for us short-lived humans who want to frolick in the forest and lament when it burns, or for those who their condo with a woodsy view, but seeds sprout in the rich, fire-charged loam and the forest grows back. For those city types who don't know, it's called 'Nature'.
Who said there is no climate change? My statement is that it is not caused by mankind's activities. Climate cycles have occurred for millions of years. They are caused by planetary forces, including the sun. Local weather events (pollution, fires, cloud seedings) can be caused by man. Weather and climate are two different things. Weather is localized; climate is planetary.
It is interesting how most people here rely on either facts or logically stated beliefs, but liberals on here almost always resort to insults, name-calling, personal attacks, etc. Your post is quite an illustrative example.
For the record, the list obviously isn't mine; the author is listed at the top. I'm old enough to have lived through several decades of climate claims that did not materialize. I also worked for 10 years for the EPA, so I'm not unfamiliar with environmental issues.
Forest and fire experts have pointed out that during the past several years, California has not been creating fire breaks. Apparently, they have failed to cut out old growth like they used to. They feel that is contributing to the fires. The drought is real and has been caused by planetary forces, obviously. There is nothing that you or anyone else could do to change that. The latest prediction by climate scientists now is that we are going into a mini ice age because we are in a grand solar minimum (we're getting less warmth from the sun--something having to do with its position relative to the earth.
The only difference between this year's fires and those of 100 years ago is that now we have millions of video cameras capturing and disseminating the flames in real time.
Global warming is happening. We have passed a tipping point. Crops failed from heat. 118 on the edge of the arctic ocean in Siberia. 121 in Canada. Those are Death Valley temperatures. The next thing is famine.
The problem is that the "Green New Deal" is pure malarkey. It is impossible. The only way forward is nuclear power, and 5 times what we use today.
You are totally correct, Brian, yes. And the recent PROOF all over the world, has the Oil Companies is a panic of propaganda attempting to bring people *back into the foolish fold of the Climate Change deniers. As I say, here in New Mexico I am meeting strangers in the grocery store, the rural mail boxes, etc. sidling right up and beginning conversations with "Gee, notice how local Big Oil is paying for all of our schools?" They are not pleased when you observe the FACT that New Mexico Schools are *proven to be among the WORST in the Country. Maybe not as bad as Mississippi, but running a *close second to them !
So, when I see this bogus list under an online handle that is recently new here, I hear echoes of these Oil Company shills inundating New Mexico right now.
Must have really been horrible living through the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period then. No wait. Those were enriching days for humanity. NVM.
Hanson had the A/C disabled for his infamous testimony in 1988. PBS of all places still has the story on their website. Gotta scare the masses out of their cash! lol
Well, that was fun. It's interesting that in 1938, the warming climate was regarded as a good thing (which retrospectively over human history and pre-history is probably fairly realistic -- as a species we do better in warmer climates).
Why exactly was that relevant to a piece on American corruption in Afghanistan?
That is a "feature" of this horrible Substack software. The man's post was submitted *long before the comments above it. The other big problems is "message creep" ! ;-D My only defense for that, (and *it is "weak tea") is to tag my every comment with the online "handle" of the person to whom I am originally writing. This way, by the time it ends up aligned with a comment by someone whom I may never even have *read, the new commenter will know that my perhaps snide entry was *not aimed at them !
There is a serious aspect to true change in global climate that seems to be ignored. Earth’s magnetic field is what protects life on Earth from much of the dangerous rays from the Sun.
It is a measurable reality that the magnetic field is in a constant, gradual state of decay, which has nothing to do with activity on Earth. So as the decay continues more dangerous rays enter Earth’s atmosphere which affects climate.
Good point. Also, there is the fact that since the settled science crowd claims Earth is a few billion years old, the degrading magnetic field doesn't fit in with their scam. After all, how can it still exist after a few billion years?
All that matters to the indoctrinated is plant fertilizer. So much for their “green” bleating.
From NASA in 2016:
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds.
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
The problem with increased vegetation growth is...???? You do understand that plants take in CO2 and give off oxygen, do you not? More CO2 healthier plants, less CO2 ailing plants, no CO2 dead plants. And CO2 does not affect planetary climate cycles one way or the other. You've been duped by folks who want to control population, control you, and get rich.
don’t forget it was also to protect poppy fields so that perdue pharma could keep pushing oxy on it’s heavily addicted users. guess now that we have subscription based “vaccines” they don’t need to worry so much about the opiates as their main cash cow.
Trump’s Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says. Chris Miller now says talk of a full withdrawal was a “play” to convince a Taliban-led government to keep U.S. counterterrorism forces.
This same thing will happen domestically with the "infrastructure" package (if passed), just as it did with all the Covid bail-outs, the 2008 bail-outs, etc, etc. If we actually tracked government spending we could lower taxes AND do more for our country. In reality, the federal government can't even account for all it's spending. Pathetic.
The bulk of the money will go to the administration of the funds, meaning the upper level advanced degreed morons in the bureaucracy will do for infrastructure what the HMO did for healthcare. It's how it always works out.
Just look at The Big Dig, it started over 20 years ago and 'estimates say' it won't be paid off for at least another 20 years. The infrastructure package will likely just be another implentation of that, but on a national level.
They'll raise taxes or implement a new one in the next 2 years, I reckon. If not sooner than that.
Here it's already gotten terrible. If you own a car you have pay a quarterly tax just for the privilege to do so, which is really an absurd notion.
You pay to the get the car inspected, you pay to get the car registered, you pay to get your license, and then you pay a excise tax on the car after that just to have it.
In theory you'd think the money would be used to create better infrastructure (roads/public transportation), but it's not. Who knows where it goes.
It takes people to build infrastructure. That means people with shovels and jack hammers. Look at our society. Why would anyone subject themselves to back breaking labor when being unemployed may actually pay you more. Most of that money will go to the white collar administrators who will dither for years until the money dries up and then blame the tax payer for not providing enough money.
"On October 4, 2018 federal government officials accepted the recommendation of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) that the government be allowed to misstate and move funds in order to hide expenditures if it is deemed necessary for national security purposes. The new guidelines are to apply to all agencies, not just the black budget. See page 3 of the July 2018 FASAB report for a summary of the proposed recommendations and see here for more detail. See here for the final statement – Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56.
With the change in accounting guidelines, which is a full departure from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), only a few people with high level security clearances have the authority to determine what is deemed a national security issue and these same people will now be allowed to restate financial reports in order to conceal actual expenditures without any disclosure. No one but those few people would know that such modifications were made, thus making evaluation of government financial statements impossible. From this point forward, the federal government will keep two sets of books, one modified book for the public and one true book that is hidden.
The FASAB recommendation effectively institutionalizes non-transparency in federal financial reporting. While many aspects of federal finances are non-transparent now because government has failed to comply with existing financial reporting laws, at least citizens had the laws working in their favor. Now citizens have no recourse; non-transparency is going to proceed as a matter of executive branch authority and policy."
Rachel Maddow labeling anyone corrupt is really rich. She gets paid 7 million a year to shill for empire. There’s no difference between overpaid pundits like her and a corporate funded politician that justifies boondoggle after boondoggle to keep the gravy train flowing.
is it possible, and hear me out, that they're two sides of the same coin and only switch positions when the admins change to make it look like you have a choice? is it possible? I think so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lzqUe1Qfec
Yeah I get your point and I agree. When it was the Trump administration the fox guys were jingoistic lying pricks. That’s why I said the loyal opposition a parliamentary term. Now that the other guys are in charge of the administration they are suddenly honest and righteous and trustworthy.
It’s more than possible it’s pretty much a certainty
I remember reading an article a while back (hell, maybe Matt wrote it for Rolling Stone) about a phenomenon where even the cheapest purchases like a cup of coffee cost exactly $100 in Afghanistan. Why? Because the US occupiers were handing out money like candy, and the only denomination we brought over there to bribe everyone with was hundreds.
America complaining about the corruption of the Afghan people and government is like the proprietor of a crack house wondering why all his clients are addicts. Creating a strong, independent state that wouldn't collapse the second we left was antithetical to our mission. Our commitment to actual nation building and spreading democracy was about as sincere as Walter White's interest in running a carwash.
Anyone who has anything to say about our withdrawal from Afghanistan other than "thank god we're finally out" has something to sell, and it's time to stop buying.
Oh yeah? Everyone wanted out, Slick. Kudos for the on point, entertainingly presented factoids concerning the occupation, but what people quite rightfully have “anything to say about” is the way it was done. But you already know this.
'everyone' is clearly an overstatement, I know people not in the 'everyone' camp, some of whom have a greater than zero financial interest at least temporarily at risk from 'getting out'. I think 'almost everyone' is far more accurate. Just looking at the current attempts to form a counter-narrative to what 'everyone wanted' seems to demonstrate my point.
There was a coterie of neocons on CNN and MSNBC daily warning everyone that Terror had to be fought in the Middle East, Iraq, Iran etc. Some of them wrote books, saying, "orange man bad" - he will create nuclear holocaust on behalf of the Russians. He's on the payroll! He's trying to take apart NATO! Get him out while the getting is good and get someone really competent in there, like President Biden. And here we are. Can't you just picture President Biden, rallying the troops at Valley Forge? You can't? Come on man!
"Can't you just picture" that's a hard nope, Honestly I'm absolutely stunned he pulled the plug - we have to listen for the sucking sound when it pops up next, at least the part that does actually stop/move. No doubt this type of crap is going to continue: https://theintercept.com/2020/12/18/afghanistan-cia-militia-01-strike-force/
What's the deal with the the back-up deflection from the point? What's in it for you guys to ignore and deflect the the fact that the most well funded, sophisticated military known to man obviously and intentionally left up to 40k Americans and billions in state of the art equipment to a known enemy when there were dozens of other ways and tons of time to plan things out for a more optimal outcome? What's with the comedy routine and the red herrings?
I'm personally thrilled. None of my friends have to be CAOs anymore.
A female MSG named Yoly is someone i'm thinking about here. Really broke her up doing that. She was a great soldier but that was not duty that worked for her.
I was attending college in Wilkes-Barre, PA when Hurricane Agnes hit in 1972. That was an election year. Virtually the entire city was flooded by the Susquehanna River. The damage was biblical. I went to work during that summer, working on cleanup crews. You were paid cash daily. I saw guys signing up for multiple crews, working one, and collecting on 3 or 4. These crooks tried to make me feel like a chump for not doing it. That was small potatoes. I saw waste everywhere. Nixon, along w/ burglarizing the Dem Headquarters, send a flood of dollars for mobile homes, repairs, cleanup, etc. I saw people get 2 or 3 mobile homes for free. They would live in one and rent out the other 2. I was raised as a libertarian. This experience galvanized that libertarianism. Waste and fraud exists systemically in all governments. That's why we need MUCH less government.
Years after Katrina on the LA interstate north of Slidell on the way to Jackson there sat a field of hundreds if not thousands of unused rotting mobile home trailers the federal government had bought and never used. They stretched as far as the eye could see. I never saw one single article written on it in several years. God knows how much wasted money that was.
I know you were kidding, but I meant it was disorganized and lots of waste that was winked at. The government just dumped money and people on it but that wasn't going to salvage the nation's impression of what went on there. The stories I heard from people coming back - a lot of them just sat in trailers waiting for direction which never came.
Don’t know. I never saw anything about it. Asbestos had been banned for years prior to that so the federal government buying hundreds or thousands of contaminated mobile homes would be a scandal. Oh, who am I kidding? That sounds exactly like something it would do.
I’m a libertarian myself except I’ve learned that you can’t fight the printing press. All the waste can always be masked. Look at the national debt. I just know that something will give eventually. Empires fall. Will the US be any different that Rome?
You're deluded - govt isn't a business. If you hand emergency services, health care, etc.to private companies costs invariably go up & quality goes down. Witness the contractor binge in Afghanistan. sure government is inefficient - a leaky bucket. But making govt work better is the point. Less govt means free(r) rein for greedy corrupt corporations - watch your wallet
Yeah, first thing we'll do is cut the trillions in social security youre living off of and hand it over to JP Morgan to manage -- just like Bush proposed and all small government types want to do. Dog food for everyone!
You wanna compare what those funds would be worth if that had been done? I'm figuring many, many trillions, with a "t", and that's with allowing JPM or Goldman free leeway to steal 20% (with half of THAT then going back to politicians). Anything would have been better than allowing those funds to just be replaced by IOUs from Congress.
This is the first piece I've read anywhere that actually tells the story. The plethora of pundits puking out their upset with wails of "we left without honor", or "you don't abandon an ally" is total bullshit.
Post WWII, the defense industry found the transition to peacetime activities less profitable; they needed Vietnam. In Iraq, no one seems interested in the fact that Halliburton, who was at the time being outed for overcharging hundreds of millions in multiple departments for totals in the dozens of billlions, moved their corporate HQ to Dubai beyond the reach of auditors. Forget that for just a moment, and question why a major defense contractor is based in Dubai...(?).
In the current tragedy, the receipt trail runs in so many directions I can't even begin to think I know where it goes. Matt outlined the fundamentals, but I know it's gotta be way worse than this. Why isn't this the story? Why is MT the only guy pointing fingers in the right locations?
These are business deals gone bad. Or maybe good, depending on which side you're on. And the story I'm seeing throughout media is complete obfuscatory bullshit.
Our current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, joined the board of Raytheon Technologies after retiring from the army. "Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest aerospace, intelligence services providers,[4] and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitalization. Raytheon Technologies (RTX) researches, develops, and manufactures advanced technology products in the aerospace and defense industry, including aircraft engines, avionics, aerostructures, cybersecurity, guided missiles, air defense systems, satellites, and drones. The company is also a large military contractor, getting a significant portion of its revenue from the U.S. government"
It's substantially more tangled than that. His entire finagling of Halliburton and it's offshoots is dumbfounding to read. Halliburton was his baby, but he built multiple layers of distance between him and it over decades, and trying to discern what all the moves were and how they were made is endless fodder for a couple generations of investigators. When they write the history of the world, he'll be in there as a Rusputin-ish type, only way worse. His fingers are all over every aspect of post WWII war machine policy. Him and Carlyle Group, which has also evaded any significant recognition for it's bankrolling bunches of it. MT is just scratching the surface of the American corruption story.
I don't think this is fair to Rasputin, but agree that Cheney who seems seldom to be questioned is at the center of much. Yes, all these entities like the Carlyle group..I thought they would go away during Obama years.
When I was in Iraq some clever soldier or contractor had sketched Cheney's face in a Halliburton port-a-potty, above the letters KBR (Kellogg Brown Root), where they inscribed "Keep Bringing Retards."
heh. We wished we had a KBR DFAC where I was. They were better than the others. We ate white frozen lettuce and other mostly inedible stuff. The only time it got better was when we made a drug deal with a local company of 4ID and traded T-rat packages for what we had. I don't know why they wanted it.
Matt, I hope you see this, I wish I posted it yesterday. You occasionally ask for topic suggestions and I think this should be considered, in a way it’s relevant to the situation discussed here. I came across this a couple of weeks ago.
If this is true, and I think it is worthy of serious consideration, it deals a stunning blow to 80 years of what would be a massive lie. Thanks!
I am not commenting on this specifically, but you do call to mind the post-war activities relating to documents that occur in the background. My focus is archives and documents. The German archives were captured and the book, _The Struggle for the Files_ examines this process and the political aspects. I am sure the fate of many captured during that period is complex. https://kathleenmccook.substack.com/p/german-archive-struggle-post-potsdam
There were roughly 500 tons of yellowcake in Iraq. How do I know? I was involved in Operation McCall removing it from Al Tuwaitha in 07-08. The former Osirak reactor that the Israelis bombed in the early 80s. I was there, we loaded the yellowcake into "pigs", big cast iron things, transported it to aircraft that took it to Diego Garcia and then it was shipped to Canada for processing into fuel rods.
Truth: most of the yellowcake dated from before the Israeli attack, when they had a serious nuclear program.
An undersecretary of defense came by about a week before Obama took office and handed out awards and coins to those who had participated. The citation said "For removing Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Program from Iraq". Someone was trying to airbrush history a bit.
No, we removed it in three batches in early 2008. I think Bush wanted it gone before Obama took office (not that he knew that was his successor when this happened in the spring of 08)
Among lots of other things. I think $39 billion is the just the verifiable amount; he blew to Dubai before any actual accounting of corporate records could be done.
If they keep the profits there, they pay no taxes. They said the move to Dubai was not for that reason, but to be more efficient being so close to the action.
This failure was so complete, the corruption so widespread, the mission so confused it is no wonder it is ending this way. If we ever needed a clearer picture of how *experts* continually screw things up, just look at twenty years of American experts in charge of the War in Afghanistan. Experts responsible for the war, but responsive only to each other made this mess.
Bingo. And yet at least half of the country are willing to hand their lives and freedoms over to another group of unelected “experts” who are still trying to protect us from an endemic virus
Climate is controlled solely and completely by planetary forces, including the sun. Climate cycles have been occurring for millions of years without any help from any living thing on this planet. We can affect the weather a little (cloud seeding, etc.), but climate not at all. The man-made climate change idea appeals to those who are terrified at the idea that they cannot control anything they want to control, and their fantasy that man can control climate is just that--a fantasy...and a delusion. It is now being used by the elites for control (as is the current "pandemic")--and nothing else.
Even worse is the fact that are present climate is much better for all life on Earth than that of 200 years ago (when CO2 emissions supposedly started to grow). Plants are much more productive with higher CO2. Cool and cold temperatures kill far more people than warm and hot temperatures, even in warm countries like Greece, or Brazil, or Thailand, .... .
OF COURSE we can contribute to controlling the climate, simply by assisting Mother Nature in HER work !
All we have to do is to STOP shoving poison petrochemical *pollution into our atmosphere ! We ALL remember the way that some of the MOST egregiously polluted cities on the planet, Beijing, L.A. etc. in literally a matter of a couple of WEEKS became crystal clear, and pollution FREE in terms of air quality.
That was the first *poplar proof that Climate Change *IS caused by man, and man burning fossil fuels *specifically ! CO2 heats the oceans. Heating causes the oceans to *expand, (thus causing sea level RISE). Heated oceans evaporate more quickly into the air at the equator, resulting in *more and *stronger hurricanes ! Stronger hurricanes result in more infrastructure damage, and, naturally, more hurricane-related *flooding. Even our less gifted thinkers can *easily grasp these simple cycles if those people are *not "sucked-in" by oil industry propaganda.
See, now *that is what I was "on about" debunking *that silliness. Humankind can and *does affect the Climate (not just the weather) via fossil fuel pollutants. ICE CORE samples, and SOIL CORE samples going back thousands of *years prove that fact. Ice and soil cores show pollution first increasing dramatically in years *nicely corresponding to the Industrial Revolution, when England (home to said Revolution) was burning the *softest, shittiest coal that could possibly be found. You know how boring actual *facts can be !
I sense the underlying message is always something like “us hoomans must be relevant. Look at the bad we did. And now we can fix it.” Saying otherwise would mean that they are specks of flotsam and jetsam. And they can’t have that, or they will need to see your manager.
The idea is that if we *stop defecating into the same air that all of us are obliged to BREATHE, the *Planet will find the appropriate point of balance and temperature necessary for sustaining life. How do we know that ?
Because she HAS been perfectly sustaining human life for about 200,000 years to date, before human geniuses began throwing giant monkey wrenches into her *mechanisms for balancing and sustaining life.
no, actually, they _do_. That's the easy part. As for the temperature range within which vertebrate life as we've known it on Earth can exist, it's very reliably known. If all you're concerned with saving is simple single-celled life-forms, then you needn't worry about Global Warming.
You might be *perfectly accurate by *now, but we (and EXXON) have been ignoring the build up of Fossil Fuel Warming since the 1970s when EXXON discovered Global Warming by placing a network of their own ships all over the globe, and then extracting data from them simultaneously. This is proven by EXXON's own files, accessed via a recent FOIA request. Then EXXON had to choose whether to *bail on fossil fuels altogether, or give birth to the granddaddy of all propaganda campaigns trying to deny Global Heating. Which route do you think they took ? 97% of World Scientists (basically those who do NOT work for EXXON ;-D, are in full agreement with the science of global heating. The only people still in denial are those who were victims of EXXON's propaganda campaign going clear back TO the Seventies.
I mean, presuming climate change was amenable to human intervention and somehow restorable to pre-industrial climate. That said, we'll never get to that point with this leadership. It's much more effective to blow smoke up people's asses year after year.
Getting in before the obligatory comments about how much all that wasted money could have been spent at home on “Medicare for all”, “climate change”, or any of the 82+ means tested welfare programs, etc etc.
How about we keep our own earnings and not give it to corrupt politicians to steal to begin with? The only way this changes is if large amounts of us stop paying taxes until the corruption ends.
I doubt the prosecutors are monitoring this, odds are they can’t return to their office because of that rascally, or is it wascally?, Chinese virus; so while they still receive their direct deposits from US, they are possibly on a cruise, sucking in massive quantities of CO2, wearing multiple mask. After all, the Federal Government hires only the best and brightest ……
The prosecutors don’t monitor. They just prosecute whoever the FBI has rounded up and the FBI is still rounding up people that were in DC on the 6th, even people that never entered the capital building or did anything but be there. I wouldn’t be surprised if the key words “don’t” “pay” and “taxes” are being monitored. After all, this week the DHS labeled as domestic terrorists anyone that dissents on the Kung Flu, election integrity and lock downs. Be careful what you think!
Actually, no. The corrupt politicians are now conjuring money out of cyberspace (one used to say "printing money", but no need to bother with paper any more) to spend and waste, and we all get to pay for the greed and corruption indirectly through inflation.
In the opening paragraph, quoting Ms. Maddow, "This was said to be symbolic of the 'fantastically corrupt elites'" We know where the fantastically corrupt elites are. In the ancient words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is Us."
Hey Rachel, Do you mean the fantastically corrupt corporate media folks--you know, the ones who were paid under the CIA's Project Mockingbird, and who still can "voluntarily" spread propaganda for the CIA if they want to? Those "fantastically corrupt elites"?? You and your buddies?? And your cohorts running the big-tech social media companies?? They are symbolic, alright.
There was an intent to not use soldiers to the maximum extent possible. The force of contractors on the ground always seemed larger to me than the soldiers. Many of them had fighting roles and amounted to mercenaries. One dude who was my battle buddy in Iraq went into Afghanistan as a contractor for 2 years fixing CSSCS satellite kits with two Sikh bodyguards carrying their ceremonial daggers (and firearms). We were getting paid outrageous amounts to go into a war zone. I know that my full-year pay in Iraq was something like $300k. Short of that, I don't know if I would have gone. Maybe for a little less. But it put a downpayment on my house when I got back.
Activating reserves and sending reservists overseas was something they were looking to avoid. They did call up National Guards, but not reservists. The Guard brigades tended not to have specialists - mostly infantry, MPs, that kind of thing. Even then, you hear stories and I knew people who did 4 or 5 tours in the first 7 years. Good NCOs and warrants were hard hit. They mostly ETSed once they figured out the game that was being played. Really hollowed out the Army.
Always amazed me how a unit at 70% strength would turn into 100% strength in the last two weeks before a deployment. Those were the people that were getting jerked around, being sent back for the umpteenth time.
Anytime. The guys where I was were Triple Canopy mercenaries - American leaders (5) and about 150 Ugandans. They were the ones manning the towers around the LSA. We had a company of 4ID attached, but there were a bunch of DOE guys there and the DOE had hired the Triple Canopy guys. Some Filipinos who did the laundry and ran the crappy DFAC rounded out things. There was also an Iraqi fire station who ran a hajji store selling smokes within the LSA. After the enemy figured out we were there maybe 3 weeks in, pretty constant incoming mortars and rockets. They didn't like us there. Air support was pretty solid - was used to waking up with some helicopters firing rockets overhead at something we couldn't see. The 4ID guys were great about patrolling. The EOD guys we had with us blew up every dwelling in close proximity with way too much explosives. As usual. We had a mortar position on a couple hundred foot high berm that dominated the local area. The EOD guys would clean out every dud within a couple hours and pass it around the TOC. Kept them busy I guess. Holding a rocket that was just fired at you is pretty cool, actually. My job was signal, making sure the dishes and the servers all worked.
Well a. thank you for your service and b. sorry I was inaccurate. I ran into a whole bunch of deployed Guard units and wondered where the reservists were. The unit I was with was kind of weird, CBRNE focused, and had, i shit you not, "Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordination Elements" or WCEs. The idea was you'd attach one of these to a JTF to handle issues related to chem, bio, nuclear, etc. Technical escort was another duty. One of our WCEs was a reservist unit which literally never was called up.
Not that anyone listened in the past or will listen in the future. Talk patriotism and it'll all happen all over again. Twice in my lifetime I have seen a rush to war. No one can stop it.
I agree with your overall assessment, but twice in your lifetime, very few *tried to stop the rush to war. That was the *point of essentially eliminating the draft. Civilians would just tell themselves, "Oh, well, they volunteered for whatever happens". The civilian on the street could *divorce him or herself from the plight(s) of the military, and just calm their own consciousness via "Volunteer Military". We both know that the literal BULK of the population of the country, on any given day in the last 20 years, were barely conscious of the fact that we even *had troops in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Ron Paul was right, and he's been right for decades. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. Al Qaeda had nothing to do with 9/11, other than being a convenient patsy. Taking out bin Laden was a matter of clearing up loose ends so he couldn't puncture the narrative. The Taliban could give two shits about how we live our lives here in the U.S.A. Anybody that doesn't have their head up their ass knows that the only reason we had ANY "Islamic" terrorism here in the "homelanduberalles" was because the regime needed scared citizens to buy into the "Muslim boogeyman behind every door BS." The only people who care that the Taliban has their country back are the asshole Neocons (ex-Communists, for those who don't know how to research) who are going to lose billions of blood money for their contractor buddies. We should have never gone there in the first place.
They also needed 9/11 to push through the Patriot (Control) Act. Does anyone REALLY believe that was created in a few weeks? That was sitting on someone's desk waiting for the right crisis to not let go to waste.
Yeah I hear you but that doesn't explain how those guys got recruited and for what ideology. They knew when they got on those planes they were not coming back. Suicide vest mentality?
Precisely ! Which was why, as you have observed, they joined Flight Schools intent upon *only learning to take off, and to fly at "wings level", but never learn how to land. Yup, each guy likely thinking "Seventy Two Virgins, STAND BY !"
I don't recall Ron Paul ever saying that Al Quaeda had nothing to do with 9/11.
I do think this is why there are so many conspiracy theories about 9/11, however. To justify the war, Bush and Chaney had to conflate the Taliban with 9.11 and later Iraq, which was all a lie. I think they spread so much BS that they lost credibility and people started to look for alternative narratives to justify what had happened.
Who knows if he was just a patsy or not. He might have been duped, or he might have wanted to be a martyr. Perhaps that "role" made him a hero back home. I don't know.
Well they certainly weren't interested in clarification. Then again, the Gulf of Tonkin incident wasn't exactly clear either. I'm still a bit fuzzy on that and whether we really weren't in Vietnamese territorial waters.
The "kicker" for that Incident, was that if we were not going to acknowledge the presence of either Russia or China in the war (that early on), the VC/NVA had nothing *resembling a Navy to be shooting @ a U.S. Naval vessel to *begin with.
Card carrying Democrat here. I stopped watching Maddow years ago. She's no better than Hannity when it comes to being devisive. Cable TV, all of it, is the worst thing to hit this country in a very long time. And who can sit through all the big Pharma commercials every 5 minutes? Not me!
Agree. She’s as awful as the rest and she annoys me with her explaining. She tells you something 10 times, like you’re too stupid to understand the first iteration. Or maybe she’s just filling time
According to the Stones, "Mother's Little Helper" was the highly popular benzodiazepine of the day, "Valium". 'Ludes are introduced to the public long after the commercial release of the cut, "Mother's Little Helper."
Right ON ! Rachel is one helluva writer, and she demonstrates a *matchless off-the-top-of-the-head vocabulary for the world of TV journalists, but the "drip, drip, drip, of her Chinese water torture-like *REDUNDANCY (repeating the SAME damned point in different words) drives *ME straight up the wall as WELL !
Step Up PrEP Up ™ for health and body - Descovy. And then there are the probiotic commercials for women pooping. "Pooping is powerful." This is the End Times ™.
Two thoughts. The first is that anyone who has lived overseas in a "developing" country knows that payoffs and kickbacks are endemic, and they are literally the only way things get done. Without a developed system of laws and civil institutions, informal arrangements arise in their place so people can conduct their lives with some level of assurance around things like personal security, access to food, jobs, etc. Well-intentioned westerners trying to "help" always struggle with this. You can't expect Swedish rules in a place like Afghanistan. It's not an excuse, it's just a reality that one deals with in a number of places.
But that leads to my second point. As Matt points out, the lack of transparency around government spending - particularly military spending - makes it rife for corruption among and between purely American parties, and there is NO excuse for that. My father was asked to chair a committee to report to Congress about how to improve military procurement. While the recommendations are technical, the gyst of the Committee's recommendations revolved around increasing transparency at all levels. That was in 1961. Seems like not much has changed.
Plus when you are a larger and richer nation, spending $80B a year in a country with a $20B total GDP just supercharges the already natural corruption. You don't build stability with all that money coming in, you undermine it.
The way they get around all that is to put up the smokescreen of "you don't support the troops", when of course, such spending has zero to do with them, indeed, such overly costly weapons systems with no accountability for cost overruns or poor performance, make it less possible to pay them what they should be paid, or treat them as they should be treated in all aspects of their lives, and even more importantly, ends up costing them their lives because of under performing in real world conditions.
Too bad that sob isn't alive to have seen this, not that it would have fazed him in the least, as the shitty MSM would give him all the air time he wanted to deny reality, something our elites are good at.
Meanwhile both Michelle Obama and Ellen De Generis are comforting W as best they can, that adorable little scamp.
"You have your 'knowns', you have your 'unknowns'; then you have your 'unknown' 'unknowns' *and your 'unknowable' 'unknowns'. Then you have your 'unknowable' 'unknowables ....." Damn ! I always used to wonder whether that whack job ever hung out with Timothy Leary. I mean, Tim was cool, but thank gawd, he was NOT in charge of the lives of troops, or even the "enemies" that troops were *aimed at !
Doncha just gotta *love Moms at home holding bake sales to pay for "up-armoring" the doors on their babies' Humvees in Iraq ? That was the source of Rummy's inane shit: "You go to war with the army that you have ....... horse pucky." Yeah. You go to war with the Army you have AFTER the Pentagon, with that UNGODLY budget, *up-armors* ALL the equipment that the Army depends upon to at least have a reasonable *shot at coming home able-bodied.
What I felt at the news of Rummy's demise was simply immense relief.
However, in this world, a guy like Rummy croaks, and his "clone(s)" immediately "pop-up" to replace him. Attempting to evade these clones is like walking up to a cauldron of boiling water and trying to push down all of the bubbles.
I am not a crook. I did not have sexual relations with that woman . . . Weapons of mass destruction. Mission accomplished. Shock and awe. The beat goes on.
Exactly! Look at Haiti -- a country which would be proud, independent, and self-sufficient (but still corrupt as hell) without the decay imported by foreign governments abetted by "do-gooder" NGOs.
And . . . military spending has been a target of opportunity since the World War 2, at least. The vast productivity of our industry makes the 'disappearing' of weapons, supplies, and cash a wartime hobby for government and military officials, and anyone else who can get in on the grab. The scope of it can be breathtaking. I highly recommend Rick Atkinson's "The Guns at Last Light" for its well-documented passages on the mass thievery of American equipment and materiel by US officers, soldiers, contractors, and of course, the locals.
I’ve lived in emerging markets. It’s incumbent upon us to break these corrupt systems. Yes, perhaps difficult for an individual to fight. But the USG? Please…..
While I understand the gist of this article I'm wondering who came up with the title "We Failed Afghanistan, Not the Other Way Around" as if the aim was ever to do something FOR Afghanistan rather than TO it. Since the U.S. had no business sticking it's hobnail boots there in the first place the title is rather presumptuous at best.
I often wonder how it all would have gone down if Bush had have taken the offer the Taliban gave him ("We'll hand over Bin Laden if you show us the proof") seriously.
Afghanistan was a 20 year money laundering project.
See, Afghanistan was not a failure. It accomplished everything it was supposed to do except for turning Pashtuns into westernized consumers.
Just wait awhile.
Remember Vietnam, the place we had to go to to fight them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here, became a place open to US corporations to outsource production, all so US consumers could buy more for less, and no one seemed to either notice or mind.
While at an anti war protest many years ago, I mentioned to someone there that I was a Vietnam vet and saying the Vietnamese won, as they should have, and he said to me, "No, they didn't win, Nike did." Smedley Butler said it nearly 90 years ago, "war is a racket", and somehow, people don't seem to notice that those who benefit the most, do not participate at all. Of course, with the draft eliminated and no new taxes (indeed, tax cuts from Repubs) to fund the wars, most people are content to go shopping, as we were told to do nearly 20 years ago.
In 1934, a colossal claim reached the American news media: There had been a plot to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in favor of a fascist government. Supposedly in the works since 1933, the claims of the conspiracy came from a very conspicuous and reliable source: Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most decorated war heroes of his time. Even more unbelievable were his claims of who was involved in the plot – respected names like Robert Sterling Clark, Grayson M.P. Murphy, and Prescott Bush. While news media at the time mocked Butler’s story, recently discovered archives have revealed the truth behind Major General Butler’s claims.... hat tip to Arcadia Publishing.
And FDR let the plotters escape with their heads and fortunes.
Imagine the world today if they had all been executed for treason and sedition?
We don’t have to wait 20 years this time though. The corruption is moving along at digital speed nowadays. Maybe it’s the lack of ideology involved. We couldn’t set up shop immediately after Vietnam because of the multipolar Cold War. But today, in Afghanistan, there are no such considerations.
In fact, the only considerations Uncle Scam needed from the Taliban prior to pulling out were as follows... The ability to operate a gas pipeline across Afghanistan without interference. The 1998 O.G. Taliban were dead against it, but this isn’t your daddy’s Taliban. Today, the Taliban are far more politically and economically savvy. And they are allowing the energy pipeline in exchange for breathing space. Access for multinationals operating in Afghanistan was consideration number two. With this ensured, companies operating there during occupation can continue use looting... I mean... continue developing... Afghanistan’s natural resources like those oh so yummy rare earth minerals and lithium. A promise to keep thwarting China’s development plans for Silk Road 2.0/ the belt and road initiative as the previous puppet gubmint did for his favorite uncle Scam.
There was nothing on our list of demands and assurances for withdrawal about ensuring women’s rights. Minority rights. The rights of people who don’t want to party like it’s 999 AD, and they are living in a pan-Islamic, fundamentalist caliphate. You know, all the things the marketing campaign for this atrocity said we were fighting for. Freedom and Democracy, equality under an impartial, codified legal system. An end to honor killings and other barbaric rituals. Nope, just some pipelines, a F.U. to China and a spot at the money trough for the rapacious multinationals to keep gorging.
But did we expect? After all, Uncle Scam plays nice with Fraudi Arabia, so surely he can turn a blind eye to the Human rights abuses perpetrated by some tin pot Taliban warlord. How different could it be, ignoring the worst excesses of another ‘moderate regime and nominal ally’ in the region? We do that 10 times before eating breakfast in the land of the thief and the home of the slave.
Be on the lookout for that soon. A new wave of conditioning as the reporting on Afghanistan continues to dwindle over the coming year. Conditioning us hoi polloi to regard the guys who bombed the towers as a moderate regime and regional ally. That might be the hard sell for the suit dummies running the nexus between the media and foreign policy apparatus. But the narrative managers will find a way, no matter how twisted the mental gymnastics and doublespeak becomes.
So true. It is impossible to overestimate the sheer evil and venality that courses through our duopoly and the corporate world they represent, and who for some inexplicable reason, Americans keep voting for, thinking that this time the (D) or (R) will make some fundamental difference. Perhaps Madeleine Albright's words as Secretary of State, who, as a grandmother, thought "it was worth it" to kill half a million Iraqi children during our bipartisan embargo of Iraq after Gulf War I, might be an indication as to their true nature.
Omg you hit the nail on the head these corrupt bastards I despise them
Thank you for your service I lost two cousins in Vietnam
I lost my brother. He came back, but his mind remained elsewhere ever since.
I am so sorry for your family's loss, it's at such times we find the true value of both them and our friends.
Death in any war is a tragedy, but death in a pointless war, based on lies, with no ultimate accountability for anyone, results in anger, rage and finally, a loss of respect for the institutions that govern us, and that leads to some form of societal collapse.
Ultimately, there is a cost for everything, especially when the payment is delayed.
I'm happy for the Vietnamese, but their economy, like that of the PRC, is a mix of private and state.
In an earlier post, I commented that a couple weeks ago, for no particular reason, I looked at a Google maps of the A Shau valley, the site of my last operation in Vietnam in late summer 1968, which at that time was nothing but mountains with triple canopy forest and a floor that was elephant grass, that is where we hadn't bombed it, with bomb crater inside of bomb crater, the only man made object being a deserted Special Forces camp.
Looking at it today, seeing villages, hotels, restaurants, markets, even a guided tour to Hamburger Hill, the place where a couple years after my time there, the 101st suffered horrible casualties taking that hill, only to then leave it and to once again be NVA controlled, I was certain there was some mistake, so I zoomed out, going eastward, and sure enough, there were the familiar foothills, the Perfume river, Hue and finally the ocean.
What was in my brain, just as what has been in the brains of our political and military elite regarding these disastrous wars, has all been an illusion, one of American exceptionalism, and a world view we had better reject.
The difference between those beliefs was quite different, however; mine was one based on a youthful memory and quite harmless; theirs has led to vast human suffering and waste of money and resources, with absolutely no accountability at all, nor will there ever be.
No, I won't go back, and while I know they tend to like Americans, they should hate me, and that is a fact I cannot forget.
Capitalism cures poverty.
@Nathan
I agree with your description, and I applaud your suggestion.
Simply know that for *many Vietnam Vets, going back can be
the *ultimate "big lift".
And "Climate Change" hysteria is 50. First it was a "New Ice Age" but that didn't work out so well.....
This is l-o-n-g, but interesting to think about. It tends to put things in perspective.
Mark Simone
The List Of 120 Years Of Climate Scares By Scientists
By Mark Simone
Oct 9, 2019
Scientists seeking funding and journalists seeking an audience agree: panic sells.
“Global cooling is going to kills us all!” “No, wait: global warming is going to kill us all!”
Here's the list - an amazing chronology of the last 120 years of scare-mongering on climate
1895 - Geologists Think theWorld May Be Frozen Up Again – New York Times, February 1895
1902 - “Disappearing Glaciers…deteriorating slowly, with a persistency that means their final annihilation…scientific fact…surely disappearing.” – Los Angeles Times
1912 - Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age – New York Times, October 1912
1923 - “Scientist says Arctic ice will wipe out Canada” – Professor Gregory of Yale University, American representative to the Pan-Pacific Science Congress, – Chicago Tribune
1923 - “The discoveries of changes in the sun’s heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age” – Washington Post
1924 - MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age – New York Times, Sept 18, 1924
1929 - “Most geologists think the world is growing warmer, and that it will continue to get warmer” – Los Angeles Times, in Is another ice age coming?
1932 - “If these things be true, it is evident, therefore that we must be just teetering on an ice age” – The Atlantic magazine, This Cold, Cold World
1933 - America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise – New York Times, March 27th, 1933
1933 – “…wide-spread and persistent tendency toward warmer weather…Is our climate changing?” – Federal Weather Bureau “Monthly Weather Review.”
1938 - Global warming, caused by man heating the planet with carbon dioxide, “is likely to prove beneficial to mankind in several ways, besides the provision of heat and power.”– Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
1938 - “Experts puzzle over 20 year mercury rise…Chicago is in the front rank of thousands of cities thuout the world which have been affected by a mysterious trend toward warmer climate in the last two decades” – Chicago Tribune
1939 - “Gaffers who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right… weather men have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer” – Washington Post
1952 - “…we have learned that the world has been getting warmer in the last half century” – New York Times, August 10th, 1962
1954 - “…winters are getting milder, summers drier. Glaciers are receding, deserts growing” – U.S. News and World Report
1954 - Climate – the Heat May Be Off – Fortune Magazine
1959 - “Arctic Findings in Particular Support Theory of Rising Global Temperatures” – New York Times
1969 - “…the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two” – New York Times, February 20th, 1969
1969 – “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000″ — Paul Ehrlich (while he now predicts doom from global warming, this quote only gets honorable mention, as he was talking about his crazy fear of overpopulation)
1970 - “…get a good grip on your long johns, cold weather haters – the worst may be yet to come…there’s no relief in sight” – Washington Post
1974 - Global cooling for the past forty years – Time Magazine
1974 - “Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age” –Washington Post
1974 - “As for the present cooling trend a number of leading climatologists have concluded that it is very bad news indeed” – Fortune magazine, who won a Science Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics for its analysis of the danger
1974 - “…the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure…mass deaths by starvation, and probably anarchy and violence” – New York Times
Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age
1975 - Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable – New York Times, May 21st, 1975
1975 - “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind” Nigel Calder, editor, New Scientist magazine, in an article in International Wildlife Magazine
1976 - “Even U.S. farms may be hit by cooling trend” – U.S. News and World Report
1981 - Global Warming – “of an almost unprecedented magnitude” – New York Times
1988 - I would like to draw three main conclusions. Number one, the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements. Number two, the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect. And number three, our computer climate simulations indicate that thegreenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to effect the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves. – Jim Hansen, June 1988 testimony before Congress, see His later quote andHis superior’s objection for context
1989 -“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.” – Stephen Schneider, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,Discover magazine, October 1989
1990 - “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing – in terms of economic policy and environmental policy” – Senator Timothy Wirth
1993 - “Global climate change may alter temperature and rainfall patterns, many scientists fear, with uncertain consequences for agriculture.” – U.S. News and World Report
1998 - No matter if the science [of global warming] is all phony . . . climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” —Christine Stewart, Canadian Minister of the Environment, Calgary Herald, 1998
2001 - “Scientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible.” – Time Magazine, Monday, Apr. 09, 2001
2003 - Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as “synfuels,” shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration” – Jim Hansen, NASA Global Warming activist, Can we defuse The Global Warming Time Bomb?, 2003
2006 - “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” — Al Gore, Grist magazine, May 2006
2006 – “It is not a debate over whether the earth has been warming over the past century. The earth is always warming or cooling, at least a few tenths of a degree…” —Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT
2006 – “What we have fundamentally forgotten is simple primary school science. Climate always changes. It is always…warming or cooling, it’s never stable. And if it were stable, it would actually be interesting scientifically because it would be the first time for four and a half billion years.” —Philip Stott, emeritus professor of bio-geography at the University of London
2006 - “Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media peddled a coming ice age. From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years.” –Senator James Inhofe, Monday, September 25, 2006
2007- “I gave a talk recently (on fallacies of global warming) and three members of the Canadian government, the environmental cabinet, came up afterwards and said, ‘We agree with you, but it’s not worth our jobs to say anything.’ So what’s being created is a huge industry with billions of dollars of government money and people’s jobs dependent on it.” – Dr. Tim Ball, Coast-to-Coast, Feb 6, 2007
2008 – “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress” – Dr. John S. Theon, retired Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program atNASA, see above for Hansen quotes
I worked in the Arctic over a period of some 50 years, mostly on the Arctic Ocean. The fact the ice is essentially gone in that time probably doesn't mean anything to you. Same with the glaciers all over Alaska; so much ice is gone there is hydrostatic rebounding taking place, so much so it's ahead of the rising sea levels. But... Never mind. Enjoy! Live large! Yee-Haw!
Like they say on Mars, "dont worry so much about climate change, worry when it stops,"
The NSIDC states today, “As of August 17, sea ice extent stood at 5.77 million square kilometers (2.23 million square miles), tracking above the last six years, as well as 2011, 2012, and 2007 (Figure 1a).”
Why are you lying?
No one is debating whether or not there is serious melting at the polar ice-caps. The discussions turn around what is responsible for that and to what extent, mass human behavior could EVER have been significant in preventing or reversing it. I think THAT's the evidence-based argument(s) " 'climate-change' 'deniers'" (LOL!) would like to have.
Yeah, "the 'climate' may be in the process of serious change." Now: What can _we_ do about it and why should _we_ believe those claims?
What's with the "Yee-Haw"? You know that weakens your argument and makes thoughtful people disregard your comment.
NOAA disagrees with you. Fluctuation, yes. Downtrend over the last 10,000 years, yes. Gone? Hardly.
@Independent Thinker
How about being an independent experiencer ! Come on out to Californina, grab a big chair, and park yer bunz right in the MIDDLE of one, maybe three of the largest fires that the State has ever seen. And if you are afraid you might miss out, no sweat ! These Super Fires have been happening bigger and hotter EVERY YEAR ! Don't forget to bring your own water, bcuz these Western States are ALL having in the middle of a LOOOONG drought. Then when you pull up your chair, whip out your list, and sneeringly read it to everybody going by. YES, going by. They are under evacuation orders like they get now EVERY year ! It is scheduled to come *every year, even hotter, and scientists actually SAY (yes, they have a fucking list TOO) that they can now show *proof that these Western Fires ARE caused by climate change !
Unless I missed it, you don't even CLAIM to be a scientist, but the Western States ARE seeing a HUGE influx of Climate Nay-Sayers RIGHT NOW, *hired by No-Kidding EXXON ! Do your boots smell like Crude ? If NOT, we can GET you a job with the Oil Boyz right here in NEW MEXICO ! They are thicker than flies right now, and VERY rude to people who do NOT swallow their bullshit hook, line and sinker !
Oh, yeah ! Bring your cutsey list. If you are not already ON Big Oil's payroll, that snide and snarky list will show *initiative when we go to get you that job !
That's cuz the clowns won't clear cut the old growth. Fire is not unnatural, it's the cycle. You probably know that, though. However, it does suck for us short-lived humans who want to frolick in the forest and lament when it burns, or for those who their condo with a woodsy view, but seeds sprout in the rich, fire-charged loam and the forest grows back. For those city types who don't know, it's called 'Nature'.
Who said there is no climate change? My statement is that it is not caused by mankind's activities. Climate cycles have occurred for millions of years. They are caused by planetary forces, including the sun. Local weather events (pollution, fires, cloud seedings) can be caused by man. Weather and climate are two different things. Weather is localized; climate is planetary.
It is interesting how most people here rely on either facts or logically stated beliefs, but liberals on here almost always resort to insults, name-calling, personal attacks, etc. Your post is quite an illustrative example.
For the record, the list obviously isn't mine; the author is listed at the top. I'm old enough to have lived through several decades of climate claims that did not materialize. I also worked for 10 years for the EPA, so I'm not unfamiliar with environmental issues.
Forest and fire experts have pointed out that during the past several years, California has not been creating fire breaks. Apparently, they have failed to cut out old growth like they used to. They feel that is contributing to the fires. The drought is real and has been caused by planetary forces, obviously. There is nothing that you or anyone else could do to change that. The latest prediction by climate scientists now is that we are going into a mini ice age because we are in a grand solar minimum (we're getting less warmth from the sun--something having to do with its position relative to the earth.
I see the Climate Jehovahs here have been offended. Almost as much as the war pigs.
The only difference between this year's fires and those of 100 years ago is that now we have millions of video cameras capturing and disseminating the flames in real time.
@Independent Thinker
p.s. What I *really appreciate about your "list", is that it comes with absolutely NO PROOF. So it has all of the strength and gravitas of a
RUMOR circulating around in a Middle School. Cool !
How is this related to Matt's article?
Cousins maybe?
Global warming is happening. We have passed a tipping point. Crops failed from heat. 118 on the edge of the arctic ocean in Siberia. 121 in Canada. Those are Death Valley temperatures. The next thing is famine.
The problem is that the "Green New Deal" is pure malarkey. It is impossible. The only way forward is nuclear power, and 5 times what we use today.
@Brian
You are totally correct, Brian, yes. And the recent PROOF all over the world, has the Oil Companies is a panic of propaganda attempting to bring people *back into the foolish fold of the Climate Change deniers. As I say, here in New Mexico I am meeting strangers in the grocery store, the rural mail boxes, etc. sidling right up and beginning conversations with "Gee, notice how local Big Oil is paying for all of our schools?" They are not pleased when you observe the FACT that New Mexico Schools are *proven to be among the WORST in the Country. Maybe not as bad as Mississippi, but running a *close second to them !
So, when I see this bogus list under an online handle that is recently new here, I hear echoes of these Oil Company shills inundating New Mexico right now.
@Brian
Yes and fish and ocean critters were killed by the THOUSANDS by overheated coastal waters in Washington State during their LAST heat wave.
Whoa. Amazing. And true.
Yeah, I can't take any doomsayer who dismisses nuclear as being seriously concerned about the problem. But so many of them can't even THINK it.
Not to be too cynical, but that fact makes it seem like they're getting some reward or other from climate catastrophism.
Must have really been horrible living through the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period then. No wait. Those were enriching days for humanity. NVM.
That is part of the story. Now where is all the reactor waste going to be stored?
I need to smoke whatever the independent thinker is smoking. Independent? Yes! Thinkers? No! QED
*JRad
Persons under discussion really DO know how to load a bowl, Yes ?
Beautiful!
Hanson had the A/C disabled for his infamous testimony in 1988. PBS of all places still has the story on their website. Gotta scare the masses out of their cash! lol
Post this shit to Breitbart.
Thank you for this, Independent Thinker. This is incredibly useful.
Well, that was fun. It's interesting that in 1938, the warming climate was regarded as a good thing (which retrospectively over human history and pre-history is probably fairly realistic -- as a species we do better in warmer climates).
Why exactly was that relevant to a piece on American corruption in Afghanistan?
Hi, DNY. Probably no relevance! I was responding to someone's comment but I don't remember whose it was. Then it took on a life of its own!
@DNY
That is a "feature" of this horrible Substack software. The man's post was submitted *long before the comments above it. The other big problems is "message creep" ! ;-D My only defense for that, (and *it is "weak tea") is to tag my every comment with the online "handle" of the person to whom I am originally writing. This way, by the time it ends up aligned with a comment by someone whom I may never even have *read, the new commenter will know that my perhaps snide entry was *not aimed at them !
There is a serious aspect to true change in global climate that seems to be ignored. Earth’s magnetic field is what protects life on Earth from much of the dangerous rays from the Sun.
It is a measurable reality that the magnetic field is in a constant, gradual state of decay, which has nothing to do with activity on Earth. So as the decay continues more dangerous rays enter Earth’s atmosphere which affects climate.
Believe it or not…
The reason you don't hear about that is because it's immune to policy decisions, so there's no money in it.
Good point. Also, there is the fact that since the settled science crowd claims Earth is a few billion years old, the degrading magnetic field doesn't fit in with their scam. After all, how can it still exist after a few billion years?
Thanks for posting. I had not heard about the magnetic field connection to climate, but it makes sense. Very interesting.
All that matters to the indoctrinated is plant fertilizer. So much for their “green” bleating.
From NASA in 2016:
Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds.
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.
An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
Dear New Green Deal folks,
The problem with increased vegetation growth is...???? You do understand that plants take in CO2 and give off oxygen, do you not? More CO2 healthier plants, less CO2 ailing plants, no CO2 dead plants. And CO2 does not affect planetary climate cycles one way or the other. You've been duped by folks who want to control population, control you, and get rich.
I've read that as well.
And then there's Kudzu
Interesting.
"Cable News Military Experts Criticizing Afghanistan Withdrawal Are on the Defense Industry Dole"
https://invidious-us.kavin.rocks/watch?v=7APO7x7A5V0
Ahhh...what a non-surprise! After the steady increase in ex (maybe) intelligence agency types showing up as "consultants" on all the MSM orgs.
@Areslent
Thanks for the URL.
don’t forget it was also to protect poppy fields so that perdue pharma could keep pushing oxy on it’s heavily addicted users. guess now that we have subscription based “vaccines” they don’t need to worry so much about the opiates as their main cash cow.
Ouch. But so true.
Lara Logan has a really good piece about Afghanistan on Fox Nation. Several things not reported in the media.
Thanks. Probably can't beat these jewels:
Roaming Charges: When the Empire of Graveyards Falls in the Graveyard of Empires
Roaming Charges: When the Empire of Graveyards Falls in the Graveyard of Empires - CounterPunch.org
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/20/roaming-charges-23/
BY Jeffrey St, Clair – Aug. 20, 2021 – IMPORTANT: This is incredibly well written !!!
US Created Al Qaeda & $2 Trillion War In Afghanistan—Aug 19 – OUTSTANDING Summary
https://youtu.be/rxHrdicNwss
The Day of the Imbeciles
https://youtu.be/n9ogGxIF_a4
Remember when Raytheon put on a Beyonce concert to promote Adam Schiff?
Truly despicable -- that human excrement is among leading Congress war-mongers and recipient of arm industry donations.
http://politicalpartytime.org/party/36073/
Congressmen Holding Concert Fundraisers Could See a Beyonce Bump | Politics | US News
Trump’s Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says - Defense One
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/08/trumps-pledge-exit-afghanistan-was-ruse-his-final-secdef-says/184660/
Trump’s Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says. Chris Miller now says talk of a full withdrawal was a “play” to convince a Taliban-led government to keep U.S. counterterrorism forces.
This same thing will happen domestically with the "infrastructure" package (if passed), just as it did with all the Covid bail-outs, the 2008 bail-outs, etc, etc. If we actually tracked government spending we could lower taxes AND do more for our country. In reality, the federal government can't even account for all it's spending. Pathetic.
The bulk of the money will go to the administration of the funds, meaning the upper level advanced degreed morons in the bureaucracy will do for infrastructure what the HMO did for healthcare. It's how it always works out.
Morons? Like the Biden village idiot Jake Sullivan?
The list is long, isn't it....
ridin that cantillon effect
Just look at The Big Dig, it started over 20 years ago and 'estimates say' it won't be paid off for at least another 20 years. The infrastructure package will likely just be another implentation of that, but on a national level.
...and with a mileage tax attached to increase the bloodletting
They'll raise taxes or implement a new one in the next 2 years, I reckon. If not sooner than that.
Here it's already gotten terrible. If you own a car you have pay a quarterly tax just for the privilege to do so, which is really an absurd notion.
You pay to the get the car inspected, you pay to get the car registered, you pay to get your license, and then you pay a excise tax on the car after that just to have it.
In theory you'd think the money would be used to create better infrastructure (roads/public transportation), but it's not. Who knows where it goes.
Catherine Fitts has been on this for years. She teamed up with an econ professor and they've discovered that trillions have been unaccounted for for years (one of many articles here: https://home.solari.com/missing-money-2021-update-with-mark-skidmore/).
No joke, there should be a huge push to rebuild infrastructure, if only for the likely future where China no longer accepts US$$.
It takes people to build infrastructure. That means people with shovels and jack hammers. Look at our society. Why would anyone subject themselves to back breaking labor when being unemployed may actually pay you more. Most of that money will go to the white collar administrators who will dither for years until the money dries up and then blame the tax payer for not providing enough money.
They would not NEED taxes. BTW, the "income tax" was supposed to be temporary.
Clearly universal income is the solution: let's all get in on the grift.
Ancient Klingon proverb: It is better to die on my feet than live on my knees.
Don't forget Jet-Setting John and his "Climate" crisis.
It's been unaccountable for decades. You couldn't hire enough accountants to reconcile the books even if it was worthwhile.
Oh, it's even "better" than that.
From Catherine Austin-Fitts [https://missingmoney.solari.com/dod-and-hud-missing-money-supporting-documentation/]
"On October 4, 2018 federal government officials accepted the recommendation of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) that the government be allowed to misstate and move funds in order to hide expenditures if it is deemed necessary for national security purposes. The new guidelines are to apply to all agencies, not just the black budget. See page 3 of the July 2018 FASAB report for a summary of the proposed recommendations and see here for more detail. See here for the final statement – Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56.
With the change in accounting guidelines, which is a full departure from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), only a few people with high level security clearances have the authority to determine what is deemed a national security issue and these same people will now be allowed to restate financial reports in order to conceal actual expenditures without any disclosure. No one but those few people would know that such modifications were made, thus making evaluation of government financial statements impossible. From this point forward, the federal government will keep two sets of books, one modified book for the public and one true book that is hidden.
The FASAB recommendation effectively institutionalizes non-transparency in federal financial reporting. While many aspects of federal finances are non-transparent now because government has failed to comply with existing financial reporting laws, at least citizens had the laws working in their favor. Now citizens have no recourse; non-transparency is going to proceed as a matter of executive branch authority and policy."
Since most audits are a sham anyway, I’m amazed some firm hasn’t stepped up to prostitute themselves and deliver an audit. Think of the fees.
Btw, how did that Pentagon audit go? :-)
I wouldn’t listen to a single thing this government or its media have to say. Why people still believe and put faith in these sectors is beyond me.
They have nothing else. If not for the state, most of us wouldn’t be here, or so they believe. The states provides. They view it as their mother.
Rachel Maddow labeling anyone corrupt is really rich. She gets paid 7 million a year to shill for empire. There’s no difference between overpaid pundits like her and a corporate funded politician that justifies boondoggle after boondoggle to keep the gravy train flowing.
I think the fox guys have turned into the loyal opposition and are much more honest
is it possible, and hear me out, that they're two sides of the same coin and only switch positions when the admins change to make it look like you have a choice? is it possible? I think so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lzqUe1Qfec
Yeah I get your point and I agree. When it was the Trump administration the fox guys were jingoistic lying pricks. That’s why I said the loyal opposition a parliamentary term. Now that the other guys are in charge of the administration they are suddenly honest and righteous and trustworthy.
It’s more than possible it’s pretty much a certainty
Shit was intentional.
These motherfuckers don't care
At least with the politician it appears to still be a democratic republic.
That might be one of the understatements of the week.
I remember reading an article a while back (hell, maybe Matt wrote it for Rolling Stone) about a phenomenon where even the cheapest purchases like a cup of coffee cost exactly $100 in Afghanistan. Why? Because the US occupiers were handing out money like candy, and the only denomination we brought over there to bribe everyone with was hundreds.
America complaining about the corruption of the Afghan people and government is like the proprietor of a crack house wondering why all his clients are addicts. Creating a strong, independent state that wouldn't collapse the second we left was antithetical to our mission. Our commitment to actual nation building and spreading democracy was about as sincere as Walter White's interest in running a carwash.
Anyone who has anything to say about our withdrawal from Afghanistan other than "thank god we're finally out" has something to sell, and it's time to stop buying.
Oh yeah? Everyone wanted out, Slick. Kudos for the on point, entertainingly presented factoids concerning the occupation, but what people quite rightfully have “anything to say about” is the way it was done. But you already know this.
'everyone' is clearly an overstatement, I know people not in the 'everyone' camp, some of whom have a greater than zero financial interest at least temporarily at risk from 'getting out'. I think 'almost everyone' is far more accurate. Just looking at the current attempts to form a counter-narrative to what 'everyone wanted' seems to demonstrate my point.
There was a coterie of neocons on CNN and MSNBC daily warning everyone that Terror had to be fought in the Middle East, Iraq, Iran etc. Some of them wrote books, saying, "orange man bad" - he will create nuclear holocaust on behalf of the Russians. He's on the payroll! He's trying to take apart NATO! Get him out while the getting is good and get someone really competent in there, like President Biden. And here we are. Can't you just picture President Biden, rallying the troops at Valley Forge? You can't? Come on man!
"Can't you just picture" that's a hard nope, Honestly I'm absolutely stunned he pulled the plug - we have to listen for the sucking sound when it pops up next, at least the part that does actually stop/move. No doubt this type of crap is going to continue: https://theintercept.com/2020/12/18/afghanistan-cia-militia-01-strike-force/
Sigh
What's the deal with the the back-up deflection from the point? What's in it for you guys to ignore and deflect the the fact that the most well funded, sophisticated military known to man obviously and intentionally left up to 40k Americans and billions in state of the art equipment to a known enemy when there were dozens of other ways and tons of time to plan things out for a more optimal outcome? What's with the comedy routine and the red herrings?
This man is a former Deputy Chief of Mission in Afghanistan: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/14/us-ambassador-kosovo-construction-contract-firm-highway
I'm personally thrilled. None of my friends have to be CAOs anymore.
A female MSG named Yoly is someone i'm thinking about here. Really broke her up doing that. She was a great soldier but that was not duty that worked for her.
I was attending college in Wilkes-Barre, PA when Hurricane Agnes hit in 1972. That was an election year. Virtually the entire city was flooded by the Susquehanna River. The damage was biblical. I went to work during that summer, working on cleanup crews. You were paid cash daily. I saw guys signing up for multiple crews, working one, and collecting on 3 or 4. These crooks tried to make me feel like a chump for not doing it. That was small potatoes. I saw waste everywhere. Nixon, along w/ burglarizing the Dem Headquarters, send a flood of dollars for mobile homes, repairs, cleanup, etc. I saw people get 2 or 3 mobile homes for free. They would live in one and rent out the other 2. I was raised as a libertarian. This experience galvanized that libertarianism. Waste and fraud exists systemically in all governments. That's why we need MUCH less government.
Years after Katrina on the LA interstate north of Slidell on the way to Jackson there sat a field of hundreds if not thousands of unused rotting mobile home trailers the federal government had bought and never used. They stretched as far as the eye could see. I never saw one single article written on it in several years. God knows how much wasted money that was.
"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown"...err New Orleans!
Katrina was a whorehouse.
My boss was sending people down to help out. I asked him if I could go, wanted to help. He said "you don't want to go there". He was right.
"Katrina was a whorehouse."
It hit New Orleans, so ya it was.
I know you were kidding, but I meant it was disorganized and lots of waste that was winked at. The government just dumped money and people on it but that wasn't going to salvage the nation's impression of what went on there. The stories I heard from people coming back - a lot of them just sat in trailers waiting for direction which never came.
Wasn't there something about them full of asbestos?
Pretty sure they were all offgassing Formadehyde and the like from the glues and crap. Add heat. Add humidity.
Ah, maybe that was it - I knew they were pretty much unfit for human habitation for one reason or another ...
Don’t know. I never saw anything about it. Asbestos had been banned for years prior to that so the federal government buying hundreds or thousands of contaminated mobile homes would be a scandal. Oh, who am I kidding? That sounds exactly like something it would do.
I’m a libertarian myself except I’ve learned that you can’t fight the printing press. All the waste can always be masked. Look at the national debt. I just know that something will give eventually. Empires fall. Will the US be any different that Rome?
No.
People won't write Iambic Pentameter plays about our leaders stabbing each other in the back for fear of being cancelled.
I saw similar waste in the US Virgin Islands after hurricane Marilyn hit in 1995.
You're deluded - govt isn't a business. If you hand emergency services, health care, etc.to private companies costs invariably go up & quality goes down. Witness the contractor binge in Afghanistan. sure government is inefficient - a leaky bucket. But making govt work better is the point. Less govt means free(r) rein for greedy corrupt corporations - watch your wallet
Save it for your grandchildren who are currently on the hook for Trillions with a "T" in government spending.
Yeah, first thing we'll do is cut the trillions in social security youre living off of and hand it over to JP Morgan to manage -- just like Bush proposed and all small government types want to do. Dog food for everyone!
That wiff of commie. Can’t miss it.
You wanna compare what those funds would be worth if that had been done? I'm figuring many, many trillions, with a "t", and that's with allowing JPM or Goldman free leeway to steal 20% (with half of THAT then going back to politicians). Anything would have been better than allowing those funds to just be replaced by IOUs from Congress.
Lol
This is the first piece I've read anywhere that actually tells the story. The plethora of pundits puking out their upset with wails of "we left without honor", or "you don't abandon an ally" is total bullshit.
Post WWII, the defense industry found the transition to peacetime activities less profitable; they needed Vietnam. In Iraq, no one seems interested in the fact that Halliburton, who was at the time being outed for overcharging hundreds of millions in multiple departments for totals in the dozens of billlions, moved their corporate HQ to Dubai beyond the reach of auditors. Forget that for just a moment, and question why a major defense contractor is based in Dubai...(?).
In the current tragedy, the receipt trail runs in so many directions I can't even begin to think I know where it goes. Matt outlined the fundamentals, but I know it's gotta be way worse than this. Why isn't this the story? Why is MT the only guy pointing fingers in the right locations?
These are business deals gone bad. Or maybe good, depending on which side you're on. And the story I'm seeing throughout media is complete obfuscatory bullshit.
Cheney was VP of Halliburton before he became VP, wasn't he?
Our current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, joined the board of Raytheon Technologies after retiring from the army. "Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest aerospace, intelligence services providers,[4] and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitalization. Raytheon Technologies (RTX) researches, develops, and manufactures advanced technology products in the aerospace and defense industry, including aircraft engines, avionics, aerostructures, cybersecurity, guided missiles, air defense systems, satellites, and drones. The company is also a large military contractor, getting a significant portion of its revenue from the U.S. government"
I think also founder Vennevar Bush and his work over the years with precursor to NSF and of course Manhattan Project. It all does connect.
Vannevar (SP).
Certainly add Raytheon to the list. Certainly.
RTX is a good buy. Pays a dividend and more importantly will never go bankrupt. It’s too big to fail.
Yeah, but then you have to deal with the morality of owning Raytheon stock. There are better ways to gamble than betting on the war machine.
At least he's an inclusive and woke monster for the machine.
It's substantially more tangled than that. His entire finagling of Halliburton and it's offshoots is dumbfounding to read. Halliburton was his baby, but he built multiple layers of distance between him and it over decades, and trying to discern what all the moves were and how they were made is endless fodder for a couple generations of investigators. When they write the history of the world, he'll be in there as a Rusputin-ish type, only way worse. His fingers are all over every aspect of post WWII war machine policy. Him and Carlyle Group, which has also evaded any significant recognition for it's bankrolling bunches of it. MT is just scratching the surface of the American corruption story.
I don't think this is fair to Rasputin, but agree that Cheney who seems seldom to be questioned is at the center of much. Yes, all these entities like the Carlyle group..I thought they would go away during Obama years.
Rasputin was a lot of things - a serial adulterer, took a lot of bribes. I don't know if the comparison is that far off.
Nuh uh... They did not go away. They're locked in tight as ever.
Yes
I hate to heart that, but is only option. This is a follow the dots everyone knew but he was bold as brass about it.
Cheney extracted $39 billion from the Iraq war for Halliburton. No wonder he lied about yellow cake uranium.
When I was in Iraq some clever soldier or contractor had sketched Cheney's face in a Halliburton port-a-potty, above the letters KBR (Kellogg Brown Root), where they inscribed "Keep Bringing Retards."
This is like a nightmare--I forgot about KBR and it is coming back, thanks for the memories.
So many truths appear on the walls of restrooms.
They were also referred to as "Kill, Bag, Replace."
heh. We wished we had a KBR DFAC where I was. They were better than the others. We ate white frozen lettuce and other mostly inedible stuff. The only time it got better was when we made a drug deal with a local company of 4ID and traded T-rat packages for what we had. I don't know why they wanted it.
Matt, I hope you see this, I wish I posted it yesterday. You occasionally ask for topic suggestions and I think this should be considered, in a way it’s relevant to the situation discussed here. I came across this a couple of weeks ago.
If this is true, and I think it is worthy of serious consideration, it deals a stunning blow to 80 years of what would be a massive lie. Thanks!
https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2021/08/01/why_rudolph_hess_was_the_last_casualty_of_ww_ii_788057.html
I am not commenting on this specifically, but you do call to mind the post-war activities relating to documents that occur in the background. My focus is archives and documents. The German archives were captured and the book, _The Struggle for the Files_ examines this process and the political aspects. I am sure the fate of many captured during that period is complex. https://kathleenmccook.substack.com/p/german-archive-struggle-post-potsdam
There were roughly 500 tons of yellowcake in Iraq. How do I know? I was involved in Operation McCall removing it from Al Tuwaitha in 07-08. The former Osirak reactor that the Israelis bombed in the early 80s. I was there, we loaded the yellowcake into "pigs", big cast iron things, transported it to aircraft that took it to Diego Garcia and then it was shipped to Canada for processing into fuel rods.
Truth: most of the yellowcake dated from before the Israeli attack, when they had a serious nuclear program.
Was it gone before the Iraq war?
An undersecretary of defense came by about a week before Obama took office and handed out awards and coins to those who had participated. The citation said "For removing Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Program from Iraq". Someone was trying to airbrush history a bit.
No, we removed it in three batches in early 2008. I think Bush wanted it gone before Obama took office (not that he knew that was his successor when this happened in the spring of 08)
But his daughter is a Senator.
Congresswoman and probably not for much longer :-)
Face palm/I knew that, but because they have only 1 she seems outsized. Tx.
Among lots of other things. I think $39 billion is the just the verifiable amount; he blew to Dubai before any actual accounting of corporate records could be done.
The termites are in deed very fat now. The house still looks fine-ish from afar. But looking closer, it is full of holes, close to collapse.
If Halliburton's HQ are in Dubai - does that mean that they can't contribute to any domestic political campaigns?
If they keep the profits there, they pay no taxes. They said the move to Dubai was not for that reason, but to be more efficient being so close to the action.
Of course.
Honestly, I have no idea. I know it's a convoluted history and organizational structure.
This failure was so complete, the corruption so widespread, the mission so confused it is no wonder it is ending this way. If we ever needed a clearer picture of how *experts* continually screw things up, just look at twenty years of American experts in charge of the War in Afghanistan. Experts responsible for the war, but responsive only to each other made this mess.
Bingo. And yet at least half of the country are willing to hand their lives and freedoms over to another group of unelected “experts” who are still trying to protect us from an endemic virus
Imagine how well our *exerts* will do with climate change...
Climate is controlled solely and completely by planetary forces, including the sun. Climate cycles have been occurring for millions of years without any help from any living thing on this planet. We can affect the weather a little (cloud seeding, etc.), but climate not at all. The man-made climate change idea appeals to those who are terrified at the idea that they cannot control anything they want to control, and their fantasy that man can control climate is just that--a fantasy...and a delusion. It is now being used by the elites for control (as is the current "pandemic")--and nothing else.
Even worse is the fact that are present climate is much better for all life on Earth than that of 200 years ago (when CO2 emissions supposedly started to grow). Plants are much more productive with higher CO2. Cool and cold temperatures kill far more people than warm and hot temperatures, even in warm countries like Greece, or Brazil, or Thailand, .... .
@IndependentThinker
OF COURSE we can contribute to controlling the climate, simply by assisting Mother Nature in HER work !
All we have to do is to STOP shoving poison petrochemical *pollution into our atmosphere ! We ALL remember the way that some of the MOST egregiously polluted cities on the planet, Beijing, L.A. etc. in literally a matter of a couple of WEEKS became crystal clear, and pollution FREE in terms of air quality.
That was the first *poplar proof that Climate Change *IS caused by man, and man burning fossil fuels *specifically ! CO2 heats the oceans. Heating causes the oceans to *expand, (thus causing sea level RISE). Heated oceans evaporate more quickly into the air at the equator, resulting in *more and *stronger hurricanes ! Stronger hurricanes result in more infrastructure damage, and, naturally, more hurricane-related *flooding. Even our less gifted thinkers can *easily grasp these simple cycles if those people are *not "sucked-in" by oil industry propaganda.
@Independent Thinker
See, now *that is what I was "on about" debunking *that silliness. Humankind can and *does affect the Climate (not just the weather) via fossil fuel pollutants. ICE CORE samples, and SOIL CORE samples going back thousands of *years prove that fact. Ice and soil cores show pollution first increasing dramatically in years *nicely corresponding to the Industrial Revolution, when England (home to said Revolution) was burning the *softest, shittiest coal that could possibly be found. You know how boring actual *facts can be !
I sense the underlying message is always something like “us hoomans must be relevant. Look at the bad we did. And now we can fix it.” Saying otherwise would mean that they are specks of flotsam and jetsam. And they can’t have that, or they will need to see your manager.
Good grief!
The idea that government even knows what the 'optimal' temperature for life on Earth is -- that's pretty shaky.
The idea that government can get AND KEEP Earth there if we give them enough money and power -- that's pure fantasy
There are some sciencey ideas that might work. Solar shades, that kind of thing. The problem is if they do too much.
@Simulation Commander
The idea is that if we *stop defecating into the same air that all of us are obliged to BREATHE, the *Planet will find the appropriate point of balance and temperature necessary for sustaining life. How do we know that ?
Because she HAS been perfectly sustaining human life for about 200,000 years to date, before human geniuses began throwing giant monkey wrenches into her *mechanisms for balancing and sustaining life.
no, actually, they _do_. That's the easy part. As for the temperature range within which vertebrate life as we've known it on Earth can exist, it's very reliably known. If all you're concerned with saving is simple single-celled life-forms, then you needn't worry about Global Warming.
SumulationCommander
You might be *perfectly accurate by *now, but we (and EXXON) have been ignoring the build up of Fossil Fuel Warming since the 1970s when EXXON discovered Global Warming by placing a network of their own ships all over the globe, and then extracting data from them simultaneously. This is proven by EXXON's own files, accessed via a recent FOIA request. Then EXXON had to choose whether to *bail on fossil fuels altogether, or give birth to the granddaddy of all propaganda campaigns trying to deny Global Heating. Which route do you think they took ? 97% of World Scientists (basically those who do NOT work for EXXON ;-D, are in full agreement with the science of global heating. The only people still in denial are those who were victims of EXXON's propaganda campaign going clear back TO the Seventies.
These Climate Jehovahs always cringe when I remind them that atmospheric plant food was 320ppm during the Dirty Thirties.
It'd a lot higher than that now .....
I mean, presuming climate change was amenable to human intervention and somehow restorable to pre-industrial climate. That said, we'll never get to that point with this leadership. It's much more effective to blow smoke up people's asses year after year.
HBI
Primo Comment ! ;-D
But the pre-industrial climate was not as good as today's climate.
Getting in before the obligatory comments about how much all that wasted money could have been spent at home on “Medicare for all”, “climate change”, or any of the 82+ means tested welfare programs, etc etc.
How about we keep our own earnings and not give it to corrupt politicians to steal to begin with? The only way this changes is if large amounts of us stop paying taxes until the corruption ends.
A bunch of corps have been following your advice for some time now ....
I wasn’t giving advice. Just making an observation.
You hear that federal prosecutors? I was not advising people to not pay their taxes.
Not to worry as long as you use the right pronouns. And for God's sake no misgendering or dead-naming.
I doubt the prosecutors are monitoring this, odds are they can’t return to their office because of that rascally, or is it wascally?, Chinese virus; so while they still receive their direct deposits from US, they are possibly on a cruise, sucking in massive quantities of CO2, wearing multiple mask. After all, the Federal Government hires only the best and brightest ……
The prosecutors don’t monitor. They just prosecute whoever the FBI has rounded up and the FBI is still rounding up people that were in DC on the 6th, even people that never entered the capital building or did anything but be there. I wouldn’t be surprised if the key words “don’t” “pay” and “taxes” are being monitored. After all, this week the DHS labeled as domestic terrorists anyone that dissents on the Kung Flu, election integrity and lock downs. Be careful what you think!
Are you using a VPN? Outside of the 5 eyes?
Haha, thanks for the chortle…
Actually, no. The corrupt politicians are now conjuring money out of cyberspace (one used to say "printing money", but no need to bother with paper any more) to spend and waste, and we all get to pay for the greed and corruption indirectly through inflation.
In the opening paragraph, quoting Ms. Maddow, "This was said to be symbolic of the 'fantastically corrupt elites'" We know where the fantastically corrupt elites are. In the ancient words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is Us."
Hey Rachel, Do you mean the fantastically corrupt corporate media folks--you know, the ones who were paid under the CIA's Project Mockingbird, and who still can "voluntarily" spread propaganda for the CIA if they want to? Those "fantastically corrupt elites"?? You and your buddies?? And your cohorts running the big-tech social media companies?? They are symbolic, alright.
The spending was the mission. YES. And it was that from the start. One big performative war.
There was an intent to not use soldiers to the maximum extent possible. The force of contractors on the ground always seemed larger to me than the soldiers. Many of them had fighting roles and amounted to mercenaries. One dude who was my battle buddy in Iraq went into Afghanistan as a contractor for 2 years fixing CSSCS satellite kits with two Sikh bodyguards carrying their ceremonial daggers (and firearms). We were getting paid outrageous amounts to go into a war zone. I know that my full-year pay in Iraq was something like $300k. Short of that, I don't know if I would have gone. Maybe for a little less. But it put a downpayment on my house when I got back.
Activating reserves and sending reservists overseas was something they were looking to avoid. They did call up National Guards, but not reservists. The Guard brigades tended not to have specialists - mostly infantry, MPs, that kind of thing. Even then, you hear stories and I knew people who did 4 or 5 tours in the first 7 years. Good NCOs and warrants were hard hit. They mostly ETSed once they figured out the game that was being played. Really hollowed out the Army.
Always amazed me how a unit at 70% strength would turn into 100% strength in the last two weeks before a deployment. Those were the people that were getting jerked around, being sent back for the umpteenth time.
Anytime. The guys where I was were Triple Canopy mercenaries - American leaders (5) and about 150 Ugandans. They were the ones manning the towers around the LSA. We had a company of 4ID attached, but there were a bunch of DOE guys there and the DOE had hired the Triple Canopy guys. Some Filipinos who did the laundry and ran the crappy DFAC rounded out things. There was also an Iraqi fire station who ran a hajji store selling smokes within the LSA. After the enemy figured out we were there maybe 3 weeks in, pretty constant incoming mortars and rockets. They didn't like us there. Air support was pretty solid - was used to waking up with some helicopters firing rockets overhead at something we couldn't see. The 4ID guys were great about patrolling. The EOD guys we had with us blew up every dwelling in close proximity with way too much explosives. As usual. We had a mortar position on a couple hundred foot high berm that dominated the local area. The EOD guys would clean out every dud within a couple hours and pass it around the TOC. Kept them busy I guess. Holding a rocket that was just fired at you is pretty cool, actually. My job was signal, making sure the dishes and the servers all worked.
Well a. thank you for your service and b. sorry I was inaccurate. I ran into a whole bunch of deployed Guard units and wondered where the reservists were. The unit I was with was kind of weird, CBRNE focused, and had, i shit you not, "Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordination Elements" or WCEs. The idea was you'd attach one of these to a JTF to handle issues related to chem, bio, nuclear, etc. Technical escort was another duty. One of our WCEs was a reservist unit which literally never was called up.
In other words, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were right.
Of all sad words
Of tongue and pen
The saddest are these
"Ron Paul was right again"
Not that anyone listened in the past or will listen in the future. Talk patriotism and it'll all happen all over again. Twice in my lifetime I have seen a rush to war. No one can stop it.
@HBI
I agree with your overall assessment, but twice in your lifetime, very few *tried to stop the rush to war. That was the *point of essentially eliminating the draft. Civilians would just tell themselves, "Oh, well, they volunteered for whatever happens". The civilian on the street could *divorce him or herself from the plight(s) of the military, and just calm their own consciousness via "Volunteer Military". We both know that the literal BULK of the population of the country, on any given day in the last 20 years, were barely conscious of the fact that we even *had troops in Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is obviously not beginning of the "chronological" order of the comments.🤔
Ron Paul was right, and he's been right for decades. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. Al Qaeda had nothing to do with 9/11, other than being a convenient patsy. Taking out bin Laden was a matter of clearing up loose ends so he couldn't puncture the narrative. The Taliban could give two shits about how we live our lives here in the U.S.A. Anybody that doesn't have their head up their ass knows that the only reason we had ANY "Islamic" terrorism here in the "homelanduberalles" was because the regime needed scared citizens to buy into the "Muslim boogeyman behind every door BS." The only people who care that the Taliban has their country back are the asshole Neocons (ex-Communists, for those who don't know how to research) who are going to lose billions of blood money for their contractor buddies. We should have never gone there in the first place.
They also needed 9/11 to push through the Patriot (Control) Act. Does anyone REALLY believe that was created in a few weeks? That was sitting on someone's desk waiting for the right crisis to not let go to waste.
I don't disagree but it raises the question where those Saudis came from. They didn't dream up 9/11 on their own.
Oh, I can think of a 3-letter agency (or two or more) who benefited from 9/11 and the Patriot Act.
Yeah I hear you but that doesn't explain how those guys got recruited and for what ideology. They knew when they got on those planes they were not coming back. Suicide vest mentality?
Hey be nice to the house of Saud. The MIC is saving using them as an enemy for a later grift. Maybe the war to end all wars even….
@RAH
Precisely ! Which was why, as you have observed, they joined Flight Schools intent upon *only learning to take off, and to fly at "wings level", but never learn how to land. Yup, each guy likely thinking "Seventy Two Virgins, STAND BY !"
Thank would be my guess, but I really don't know.
I don't recall Ron Paul ever saying that Al Quaeda had nothing to do with 9/11.
I do think this is why there are so many conspiracy theories about 9/11, however. To justify the war, Bush and Chaney had to conflate the Taliban with 9.11 and later Iraq, which was all a lie. I think they spread so much BS that they lost credibility and people started to look for alternative narratives to justify what had happened.
Even now they beat the drums for Iran.
I'm going to say this here once, I wish they'd make a goddamned nuclear weapon so we could stop hearing this crap about invading Iran.
If Bin Laden was just a patsy, why did he accept the blame? It made him persona non grata across most of the world and really cramped his style.
Bin Laden denied having anything to do with 9/11 immediately after the attacks and multiple times thereafter. DYOR.
But he owned it later.
Who knows if he was just a patsy or not. He might have been duped, or he might have wanted to be a martyr. Perhaps that "role" made him a hero back home. I don't know.
Well it's a question that deserves answering if he wasn't responsible for 9/11.
Seeing what is in this one might help a bit. But I guess American people are of such feeble mind and delicate composure that it might unnecessarily upset them: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/9-11-families-president-biden-don-t-come-our-memorial-n1276138
Well they certainly weren't interested in clarification. Then again, the Gulf of Tonkin incident wasn't exactly clear either. I'm still a bit fuzzy on that and whether we really weren't in Vietnamese territorial waters.
HBI
The "kicker" for that Incident, was that if we were not going to acknowledge the presence of either Russia or China in the war (that early on), the VC/NVA had nothing *resembling a Navy to be shooting @ a U.S. Naval vessel to *begin with.
Card carrying Democrat here. I stopped watching Maddow years ago. She's no better than Hannity when it comes to being devisive. Cable TV, all of it, is the worst thing to hit this country in a very long time. And who can sit through all the big Pharma commercials every 5 minutes? Not me!
Agree. She’s as awful as the rest and she annoys me with her explaining. She tells you something 10 times, like you’re too stupid to understand the first iteration. Or maybe she’s just filling time
First rule of television: sell soap. (Soap Operas were invented to sell soap to housewives ripped on Quaaludes aka "Quiet Interlude.")
Yeah I know. My SO can’t understand why those things are still on tv. Do you think quaaludes were ‘Mother’s Little Helper’ ? (showing my age)
Let’s not leave out our good friends, “Yellow Jackets”! 🍺
Not Quaaludes but, according to this article, a tranquilizer called Miltown.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/gizmodo.com/this-is-the-drug-in-the-rolling-stones-song-mothers-li-1693032181/amp
Waiting for Homo Superior
According to the Stones, "Mother's Little Helper" was the highly popular benzodiazepine of the day, "Valium". 'Ludes are introduced to the public long after the commercial release of the cut, "Mother's Little Helper."
I reckon so. And literally nothing has changed since the 70's, except everyone is fatter and far more Wuhan Pneumonia-exposed.
A quaalude sounds delicious right about now.
Fear not: Big Acid is now on our doorstep peddling old stuff like it's new stuff. ;-)
HBI
Fly to Amsterdam, and choose right off of the standard menu ! ;-D
@Waiting for Homo Superior
Right ON ! Rachel is one helluva writer, and she demonstrates a *matchless off-the-top-of-the-head vocabulary for the world of TV journalists, but the "drip, drip, drip, of her Chinese water torture-like *REDUNDANCY (repeating the SAME damned point in different words) drives *ME straight up the wall as WELL !
You said it better than I ever could!
Step Up PrEP Up ™ for health and body - Descovy. And then there are the probiotic commercials for women pooping. "Pooping is powerful." This is the End Times ™.
Two thoughts. The first is that anyone who has lived overseas in a "developing" country knows that payoffs and kickbacks are endemic, and they are literally the only way things get done. Without a developed system of laws and civil institutions, informal arrangements arise in their place so people can conduct their lives with some level of assurance around things like personal security, access to food, jobs, etc. Well-intentioned westerners trying to "help" always struggle with this. You can't expect Swedish rules in a place like Afghanistan. It's not an excuse, it's just a reality that one deals with in a number of places.
But that leads to my second point. As Matt points out, the lack of transparency around government spending - particularly military spending - makes it rife for corruption among and between purely American parties, and there is NO excuse for that. My father was asked to chair a committee to report to Congress about how to improve military procurement. While the recommendations are technical, the gyst of the Committee's recommendations revolved around increasing transparency at all levels. That was in 1961. Seems like not much has changed.
Plus when you are a larger and richer nation, spending $80B a year in a country with a $20B total GDP just supercharges the already natural corruption. You don't build stability with all that money coming in, you undermine it.
That's a really good point.
The way they get around all that is to put up the smokescreen of "you don't support the troops", when of course, such spending has zero to do with them, indeed, such overly costly weapons systems with no accountability for cost overruns or poor performance, make it less possible to pay them what they should be paid, or treat them as they should be treated in all aspects of their lives, and even more importantly, ends up costing them their lives because of under performing in real world conditions.
"You go to war with the army you have . . ." D. Rumsfeld. Or at least, the soldiers do.
Too bad that sob isn't alive to have seen this, not that it would have fazed him in the least, as the shitty MSM would give him all the air time he wanted to deny reality, something our elites are good at.
Meanwhile both Michelle Obama and Ellen De Generis are comforting W as best they can, that adorable little scamp.
@michael t nota
"You have your 'knowns', you have your 'unknowns'; then you have your 'unknown' 'unknowns' *and your 'unknowable' 'unknowns'. Then you have your 'unknowable' 'unknowables ....." Damn ! I always used to wonder whether that whack job ever hung out with Timothy Leary. I mean, Tim was cool, but thank gawd, he was NOT in charge of the lives of troops, or even the "enemies" that troops were *aimed at !
Doncha just gotta *love Moms at home holding bake sales to pay for "up-armoring" the doors on their babies' Humvees in Iraq ? That was the source of Rummy's inane shit: "You go to war with the army that you have ....... horse pucky." Yeah. You go to war with the Army you have AFTER the Pentagon, with that UNGODLY budget, *up-armors* ALL the equipment that the Army depends upon to at least have a reasonable *shot at coming home able-bodied.
What I felt at the news of Rummy's demise was simply immense relief.
However, in this world, a guy like Rummy croaks, and his "clone(s)" immediately "pop-up" to replace him. Attempting to evade these clones is like walking up to a cauldron of boiling water and trying to push down all of the bubbles.
I am not a crook. I did not have sexual relations with that woman . . . Weapons of mass destruction. Mission accomplished. Shock and awe. The beat goes on.
Exactly! Look at Haiti -- a country which would be proud, independent, and self-sufficient (but still corrupt as hell) without the decay imported by foreign governments abetted by "do-gooder" NGOs.
And . . . military spending has been a target of opportunity since the World War 2, at least. The vast productivity of our industry makes the 'disappearing' of weapons, supplies, and cash a wartime hobby for government and military officials, and anyone else who can get in on the grab. The scope of it can be breathtaking. I highly recommend Rick Atkinson's "The Guns at Last Light" for its well-documented passages on the mass thievery of American equipment and materiel by US officers, soldiers, contractors, and of course, the locals.
I’ve lived in emerging markets. It’s incumbent upon us to break these corrupt systems. Yes, perhaps difficult for an individual to fight. But the USG? Please…..
While I understand the gist of this article I'm wondering who came up with the title "We Failed Afghanistan, Not the Other Way Around" as if the aim was ever to do something FOR Afghanistan rather than TO it. Since the U.S. had no business sticking it's hobnail boots there in the first place the title is rather presumptuous at best.
I often wonder how it all would have gone down if Bush had have taken the offer the Taliban gave him ("We'll hand over Bin Laden if you show us the proof") seriously.
These people were looking for a war. They weren't going to stop until they got it.