Douglas Caddy Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 Taliban seized billion$ in American weaponry https://thehill.com/policy/defense/568493-billions-in-us-weaponry-seized-by-taliban Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 Assange on the goal in Afghanistan ... https://youtube.com/shorts/eCdBpwqgKMw?feature=share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted August 19, 2021 Share Posted August 19, 2021 National Security Archive report: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/afghanistan/2021-08-19/afghanistan-2020-20-year-war-20-documents?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b91ddb01-ce3a-41b5-a180-3eae3f834bee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Bauer Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 8 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said: Taliban seized billion$ in American weaponry https://thehill.com/policy/defense/568493-billions-in-us-weaponry-seized-by-taliban Certain companies back here at home made a fortune off the Afghan operation. Just one aspect of the trillions spent there: 76,000 vehicles? At at least $25,000 per vehicle minimum that's what ... 1.6 BILLION? Almost 5,000 Humvees? Specially equipped? At a minimum of $100,000 per that's 500 million? And the gas and maintenance cost on these? Like I said, some American companies and their majority holdings stock holders made an absolute fortune off that 20 year long campaign. And this is just vehicles? One can guess that even American ice cream companies made a killing keeping our troops stocked with it. We are militarily super rich and American society needs poor. Maybe we should declare war on ourselves and reap these lavish, money's no object riches upon ourselves. And after all those hundreds of billions, the country collapses in one day after our leaving? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W. Niederhut Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 (edited) Someone remarked today that the RNC is planning to "Benghazi" the fall of Afghanistan, but I think this Ratcliffe comment* is especially damning for Donald Trump, along with Trump's public boast this summer that Biden "couldn't stop" his (Trump's) withdrawal "process" for Afghanistan. Let's also recall that Trump and Chris Miller refused to share military intel with Biden's transition team in December and January-- part of Trump's refusal to concede that he lost the election. * Ex-Official: Trump Knew Afghan Army Would Surrender, Made Deal Anyway Former Natl. Sec. Dir. John Ratcliffe said that Trump knew that the Afghan military would fall to the Taliban within 48 hours but negotiated a deal to pull U.S. troops out of the country anyway. https://crooksandliars.com/2021/08/john-ratcliffe-taliban-trump Edited August 20, 2021 by W. Niederhut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Prutsok Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 On 8/18/2021 at 2:19 PM, Joe Bauer said: Like most average American adults, I have simple questions regards our military interventions into the Middle East starting with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pearl, etc. Bush Jr. was just a policy promoting and signing off mouthpiece and face these guys needed to carry out their agendas imo. I think they actually thought GW was just a very dumb and easily controlled dupe. Why do we have to leave tens of billions of dollars worth ( or more? ) of usable military hardware back in these countries we invade when we go? So our enemies reap the rewards? How do we allow the puppet heads and the 5% elite of these countries to siphon off most of our 100's of billions we pump into these countries while we are there? Are there payoffs to American middle men involved in these siphoning scams? No oversight for sure. Trillions spent like this. TRILLIONS! For what? What do we here back home get for all this foreign war incursion spending of our money? Heck, do you realize how many schools, hospitals, city and road and rail rebuilding programs, jobs, national health care, elderly care, child care, teen drug care, water system rebuilding projects, college financial help, electrical grid updating, even fire and police funding projects those TRILLIONS would have paid for here at home? I remember reading once of our loading C class military planes with billions of American dollars in CASH ( on pallets) to Iraq, to use to pay off Iraqi's to help us in our military agenda there. Suitcases being loaded with cash and given to Iraqi's to get them on our side? Why do we have to pay these people huge, huge money to help us? If we truly relieved them of a brutal dictator and brutal oppression, you'd think they would be begging to help us...for free! Why is it we can only get these liberated people to help us if we pay them obscene amounts of our tax payer funded monies? Simple questions. I would guess we leave the arms behind as free samples, to impress the primitives and hopefully they will become future arms customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W. Niederhut Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 Another home run today by Slate journalist William Saletan. Pompeo Is Lying About AfghanistanHe laid the groundwork for the Taliban takeover. Now he’s blaming Biden.slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/pompeo-lies-afghanistan-taliban-biden.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 Cyber Brief: U.S. Biometric Devices Captured by Taliban, According to Report https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/cyber-vault/2021-08-20/cyber-brief-us-biometric-devices-captured-taliban-according-report?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=449362bb-11e3-4e06-84ca-20a822830a75 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 21 hours ago, Joe Bauer said: Certain companies back here at home made a fortune off the Afghan operation. Just one aspect of the trillions spent there: 76,000 vehicles? At at least $25,000 per vehicle minimum that's what ... 1.6 BILLION? Almost 5,000 Humvees? Specially equipped? At a minimum of $100,000 per that's 500 million? And the gas and maintenance cost on these? Like I said, some American companies and their majority holdings stock holders made an absolute fortune off that 20 year long campaign. And this is just vehicles? One can guess that even American ice cream companies made a killing keeping our troops stocked with it. We are militarily super rich and American society needs poor. Maybe we should declare war on ourselves and reap these lavish, money's no object riches upon ourselves. And after all those hundreds of billions, the country collapses in one day after our leaving? Joe: As the Atlantic magazine proclaims, Biden will live in infamy for what he has done in Afghanistan. It is the most serious geopolitical mistake since Peal Harbor when FDR placed all those ships in one location. What Biden and his Secretary of State have done is much worse. America is in great peril that grows more deadly each day. Russia and China are licking their chops at what they are going to do to the U.S. No serious person, here or abroad, trusts Biden's judgment anymore. He has lied repeatedly. His credibility is zero. I feel sorry for the Democratic Senator and Congressman up for reelection in 2022 as he has made it virtually impossible for them to be re-elected. Americans and all those in the Free World are innocent victims of his dunderhead foreign policy. We suffer as to do the Afghans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 U.S.-made weapons seized by Taliban could lead to regional arms bazaar By PAUL MCLEARY and LEE HUDSON 08/19/2021 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/19/us-weapons-seized-taliban-506313 “In brokering the surrender of entire Afghan army divisions over the past week, the Taliban took control of billions worth of American-made weapons and equipment, including small arms, Humvees, pickup trucks, aircraft and drones. In the chaos of the moment, however, it’s unclear to U.S. officials how much equipment the Taliban has seized and how much sits unattended on bases and small combat outposts across the country. That uncertainty over the status of a massive arsenal is sparking fears of a regional arms bazaar that could be a boon to terrorist groups and insurgents. “What we are seeing now is these weapons, which have ended up in the hands of the Taliban, will probably circulate in the region for many decades to come,” said Nils Duquet, Flemish Peace Institute interim director. “At the moment, they’re very instrumental [because] if you want to control territory, you need small arms.” The images that have spread across the world over the past week of Taliban fighters posing in front of captured helicopters and light attack aircraft have allowed the group to further humiliate the former Afghan and American governments. But these images don’t concern longtime extremism watchers as much as the proliferation of guns, bullets and grenades. “I have full confidence that some of this equipment is going to end up in the hands of al Qaeda and other bad actors, it's inevitable,” said Colin Clarke, director of policy and research at The Soufan Group. “This is not going to just end with the Taliban.” Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 I think the Taliban may be getting a little nervous. There's an old adage in history; it's one thing to take a country, it's another thing to hold it. You need bureaucrats and worker bees to make the trains run on time, and they see all these Afghans fleeing the country. Who's going to be left to collect the taxes and pay the bills? Somber mood as Taliban are back at Friday prayers by Agence France-Presse August 20, 2021 https://www.rawstory.com/sombre-mood-as-taliban-are-back-at-friday-prayers/ “At mosques across the capital the overarching theme appeared to be an appeal for Afghans to give the new regime a chance: instead of fleeing the country, help rebuild it, was the message.” Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 This is a very good article: Why anti-vaxx attitudes fit so perfectly with far-right ideology across the globe by Magdi Semrau, Alternet August 21, 2021 https://www.rawstory.com/why-anti-vaxx-attitudes-fit-so-perfectly-with-far-right-ideology-across-the-globe/ “Populist movements characteristically embody the pathos of the masses in opposition to an imagined "elite." The "masses" are, typically, not representative of the public at large, but rather ethnically and culturally homogeneous. Populists are bound together by strong cultural identity and moral superiority and perceive their values as under perceived threat. The populist's opponents—including politicians, academics, scientists, ethnic and religious minorities—are not only corrupt, but actually evil. They are, quite literally, enemies of the people.” “Notice also how, in the United States, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been actively weaving the threads of populism throughout their own response to the pandemic, from anti-lockdowns, to anti-masking, to anti-vaccines. And they haven't stopped at merely casting doubt on science and inspiring rage towards public health. Trump has declared that those who doubt the vaccine do so because they believe the 2020 election was illegitimate, thus explicitly tying anti-science to political loyalty, as well as to distrust in government, and, indeed, in distrust of democracy itself. Tellingly, this distrust in science extends beyond sowing doubt about vaccines. For example, when Trump was contradicted by scientists about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, he dug deeper in his advocacy for the treatment. Now, effective anti-virals have been developed, yet far rightists continue to tout the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, some even claiming it as part of their personal treatment. Thus, as is the case with anti-vaccination, a dubious treatment has itself become a symbol of populist resistance. Hydroxychloroquine, doubted by scientists, is glorified. Vaccination, validated by scientists, is portrayed as a tool of poopoo-esque torture.” Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 What is clearly missing is whether or not Trump and his political cronies have been vaccinated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 3 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said: What is clearly missing is whether or not Trump and his political cronies have been vaccinated. Paul, That's the thing. The article points out that they all have been. It's the ultimate in political manipulation and crass hypocrisy. Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted August 21, 2021 Share Posted August 21, 2021 Thanks - I confess I didn’t read the article. It would seem very obvious that the way to counteract all this hypocrisy is never let an interview go by, never miss a chance to point this fact out. Of course the debate seems to have shifted to mask mandates. But here in SF we now have vaccine mandates too. Our choral director, who lives in Sweden, has just resigned over the vaccine mandate because he is unvaccinated. He is also not a Trumper or a woo woo new ager, but a very intelligent masterful musician. I’m personally confused about vaccine mandates. If vaccinated people can still get Covid, and still spread it, isn’t testing the better way to go? The only way to know if someone is truly safe to others is if they test negative, assuming the accuracy of the test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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