Post AAHTbjQEOtdkXP3YXY by Clariana@spinster.xyz
(DIR) More posts by Clariana@spinster.xyz
(DIR) Post #AAGGJkJeqS3NXH7CvA by GalacticTurtle@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T20:46:27.899570Z
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So... I don't typically watch the news... but it sounds like Afganistan is going to shit very quickly. So I'm wondering what the US was working on there almost literally my whole life...? What exactly was the plan and why did we choose now to pull out of there specifically?
(DIR) Post #AAGGJksOlHqJH1Mx4S by kathleenbee@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T21:21:59.728264Z
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@GalacticTurtle I have also been wanting to read a good analysis of the whole thing. At one level it's obvious: war machine goes in, war profiteers profit. But that explanation would have kept us in Afghanistan till the end of time.So why leave *now*? Rather than at any other time?One empire after another has swept in and left with its tail between its legs (British, Russian, now American) so that part seems explicable as just "oh it's the same idea" (Eddie Izzard reference, from back when he was funny) except applied to Afghanistan, not Russia (go to 50 second mark):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmf8byuHJWwbut now what?
(DIR) Post #AAGGoBhfaHU1ABrWpU by polarisera@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T21:27:30.376965Z
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@kathleenbee @GalacticTurtle
(DIR) Post #AAGKfGvLCkzCZ5GFaS by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:10:42.330059Z
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@GalacticTurtle Afghanistan is strategically important due to its location but it has always fiercely resisted any foreign invaders. The West should have paid note when even the Red Army couldn't hold it. But no, apparently we knew better, except we didn't.
(DIR) Post #AAGKwjwAaS9HTGyhjk by GalacticTurtle@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:12:06.938655Z
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@Clariana So they wanted the taliban in control this entire time?
(DIR) Post #AAGKwkRMiT6P21ZcMS by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:13:51.885908Z
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@GalacticTurtle Did you want Trump? Or perhaps you would have preferred an enlightened but foreign dictator?
(DIR) Post #AAGLTOpS5WzjYqPQuG by GalacticTurtle@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:17:20.900255Z
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@Clariana No. XD I guess I'm confused about what their government is doing. I thought with the US leaving their own government would run the show which seems to be the ideal. But from the few headlines I've seen, it seems the government is either unwilling or unable to have the Taliban not be in control. I wouldn't compare Trump to the Taliban taking over. It would be like if Trump was instead ousted by some random domestic militia.
(DIR) Post #AAGLTPM48H5BBzfTk0 by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:19:46.427027Z
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@GalacticTurtle I think we are wrong to assume that Afghanistan is one country. It is massive it's geography is rugged and it seems to have always been divided into provinces or feifdoms.
(DIR) Post #AAGN5CxCmrzvgpd06K by Wicche@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:16:08.052161Z
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@GalacticTurtle Seems that way doesn’t it?
(DIR) Post #AAGN5DSOusx3FaDuj2 by GalacticTurtle@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:34:19.886501Z
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@Wicche Seems that way and that's what I've been trying to find out! All I know is that the US got attacked, we then went over there to say "hey, you can't do that." Oil was somehow involved. We killed a few key figures. Now we've left and headlines are making it sound like we should not have left... but then the common person says we should have minded our own business to begin with. So I'm sort of wondering if we're in a post world war I scenario where the popular opinion is that the US should only be concerned with US things.
(DIR) Post #AAGN5DyJ0GTKqX9OSG by Ismat@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:37:16.197865Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@GalacticTurtle @Wicche No, they should help build up other countries not exploit and tear them down.
(DIR) Post #AAHMfftMlffB4JcK3s by GalacticTurtle@spinster.xyz
2021-08-12T22:30:12.448918Z
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@Clariana That would certainly be interesting to look at. But they do have a president, a capital, ruling offices, and a military that seems to be more than double the size of the Taliban's total forces. So it could be that, on an ideological level, most citizens (including the military) do not like the official government and instead want the Taliban to be in charge which would explain the current scenario. Of course, with that arrangement, there are many who fill find themselves being enemies of the new ruling state. Or maybe most citizens prefer the current official government but don't have the firepower to keep it intact. I hear it really only takes a third of a population to be motivated enough pull off a massive overthrow. This is all just me thinking out loud though. I obviously know close to nothing on the subject.
(DIR) Post #AAHMfgUwVxikwrCKdE by Quellist1@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T08:47:04.284675Z
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@GalacticTurtle @Clariana it’s worth checking out a book by British historian Niall Ferguson called Colossus. Warning - even from my jaundiced post-leftist POV a lot of it reads like right wing apologia, but Ferguson is a good historian nonetheless; the book’s central thesis is that the US is an Empire in all but name, but refuses to acknowledge this at a policy level. As a result pretty much all of its military operations abroad since Korea have proven disastrous, through a lack of stomach for the long term. When an Empire takes over territory, it expects to be there for generations, centuries, all eternity……. The US doesn’t have the stomach for this at a self-image level, which creates a mismatch between its military behaviour and its foreign policy choices. Debacles like Afghanistan are the result.
(DIR) Post #AAHMfgzQgc6iTPSg9Q by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T10:07:53.824461Z
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@Quellist1 @GalacticTurtle "You break it, you own it" Gen. Colin Powell on IraqAlso, ask any South/Central American, they will tell you this.
(DIR) Post #AAHRqUPKJ5WCPFXhIm by EmmyNoether@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T09:26:27.194915Z
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@Quellist1 @GalacticTurtle @Clariana How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr is also good - central thesis that America runs a huge empire like every other “great power” before it, but is just better at doing its imperialism at arms length in an effort to generate “plausible deniability” (the Contras, various bits of South America, various bits of meddling in the Middle East and the Phillippines… the list is a very long one).I feel the same way about Ferguson - yes, he’s right wing, but his right-wingness is sufficiently overt that you can read his stuff and “correct” for bias as you go along, and underneath it is a lot of reasonably well-researched history. Of course the problem (as with all sources) is always going to be what he omits, because omissions are harder to spot unless you’re really on top of the subject matter.
(DIR) Post #AAHRqUy4DvJ88znRS4 by Quellist1@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T10:33:33.424190Z
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@EmmyNoether @Clariana @GalacticTurtle Colossus was an easy one to do that with - slavery written off in passing as "America's original sin, but anyway, moving swiftly on to stuff I actually care about....." , similar attitude to all the Latin American misadventures......Still, quite often, guys like Ferguson are an interesting corrective to the Left echo chamber that I spend most of my time in. What's most useful, I think, is that he doesn't do Pollyana-ism and so is essentially pro-American in outlook. I find that healthier than the endless context-free self flagellation that western liberals spend so much time indulging in.
(DIR) Post #AAHRqVSYOZh5fY3myG by Quellist1@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T10:38:29.444691Z
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@EmmyNoether @Clariana @GalacticTurtle Like a lot of other liberals, I was pretty horrified by the vicious had-it-coming schadenfreude of the much of the western Left after 9/11. And I'm still regularly bemused by people on the left who look (or maybe just don't look?) at all the achievements of the US over the last century, and ignore them in favour of......what, exactly? Some defunct Guevara T-shirt wet dream of revolution? A free floating Socialist City in the Sky built on technology and social systems that won't exist for centuries if ever?Maybe I'm just getting old.......🙂
(DIR) Post #AAHRqW0aM2urN5yy12 by Quellist1@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T10:42:41.722761Z
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@Clariana @EmmyNoether @GalacticTurtle I mean I make my living from inventing futures, and I'd be hideously embarrassed to have written some of the arrant shite I see coming out of the mouths of recent Leftists "thinkers" (Fully Automatic Luxury Communism, anybody???).It's no wonder the Right are making gains when this is all the Left have to offer.
(DIR) Post #AAHS1hCF690dFvlYtk by Raunchel@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T10:57:26.045553Z
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@GalacticTurtle the big issue with Afghanistan was that it was primarily seen as a war. But the fighting part is a miniscule part of what you need to end an insurgency. Behind the fighting, you have to build up a state. And in Afghanistan, that really wasn't a priority because of some very bad assumptions. And you can fight and send money all you want but if it only goes to one of the most incredibly corrupt groups in the world, you might as well just light it on fire.
(DIR) Post #AAHS9NGd4vLhlNTmoy by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T11:09:18.226178Z
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@Raunchel @GalacticTurtle To do what the Americans have done there, play around for a few decades then bugger off home, it would have been better had they hadn't invaded it in the first place. Iraq is the same.
(DIR) Post #AAHSYU5oq0qOAjOddY by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T11:13:50.499707Z
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@Quellist1 @EmmyNoether @GalacticTurtle Pronouns. That is what the left has to offer in the field of sexual politics. Individualism and fantasy that would put a libertarian and a medieval theologian to shame.
(DIR) Post #AAHTAYKHXygSJ0JVpY by GalacticTurtle@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T11:14:24.248686Z
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@Quellist1 @Clariana @EmmyNoether All very interesting! As a Star Wars fan, I’m very aware of the “America is an empire” thing. In fact, most of what I know about the American political sphere comes from Star Wars lol.It’s also interesting that in school the only thing we covered past WWII was MLK with even Malcolm X only being mentioned in passing as a terrorist.
(DIR) Post #AAHTAYnLntw5l9uj8i by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T11:20:42.327141Z
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@GalacticTurtle @Quellist1 @EmmyNoether I guess for some places, with which you have basic shared values and where there is not too much animosity against you, you can create a sphere of influence, a "soft" empire, if you will, using your technological advances and promoting your "culture". Get 'em to sign up to Microsoft and chow McDonalds.but Afghanistan, Iraq? Them's the BIG leagues and you are there for at least a century. First you have to roll over them, subject them and THEN seduce them. Half measures don't wash because they will roll you back.
(DIR) Post #AAHTbjQEOtdkXP3YXY by Clariana@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T11:25:37.957054Z
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@GalacticTurtle @EmmyNoether @Quellist1 No empire is nice, kind or wanted by the people it takes over, they are all "evil" from that POV. But I guess it can be ultimately "benign" in all the tepidness that that word transmits. As ever, Monty Python got it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djZkTnJnLR0
(DIR) Post #AAHdlbhswJmD2xf4pk by GalacticTurtle@spinster.xyz
2021-08-13T11:38:34.958983Z
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@Clariana @Raunchel During the trump era it did occur to me at some point that it felt like no one had brought up the Middle East at all for a while compared to the daily coverage of it in earlier years. So in both Iraq and Afghanistan I assumed everything was tentatively fine! If not you’d think left wing media (which I’m most exposed to) would use that as another axis to criticize Trump. Then when Syria came up it didn’t seem like America was involved at all but I’m sure most things happening in the region in general are connected somehow. Like I’ve heard our questionable relationship with both Saudi Arabia and Israel doesn’t make sense but greatly influenced various dynamics over there.I did read about the government the US supposedly helped build up in Afghanistan and it did indeed sound incredibly flimsy. Like… a few guys at an outpost covering an area the size of Rhode Island. So ten guys from the Taliban walk in, say they’ve cut off supplies, they won’t be getting paid by anyone anymore, and now they can die or just go home. The vast majority have chosen to go home. So in the article it was framed more as a government collapse than a legit takeover because the Taliban don’t even have a huge presence in most places since they’re on the move too. I can see some parallels to Vietnam but… because of the religious extremism component here I can’t see the situation “fixing itself” to meet western standards down the line. But still, I know close to nothing about any of this.