The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Kirk Gallaway]

Interesting fodder for conspiracy! Notice the curious timing in sync with Fox News lambasting  Biden's speech today for hunkering down on his ending of the Afghan War, and vigorously defying elements of the MSM and the Defense establishment..

Is it really a coincidence that Glen Greenwald is in lockstep with Fox News and is now tweeting as to Biden's alleged dementia"

 

Glen Greenwald: Anyone who has paid attention to politics for any period of time has seen Biden over the years. Is anyone willing to say with a straight face that his cognitive decline and even physical impairment aren't clearly visible? Doesn't mean full-blown dementia, but we can all see it.   August 30

 

Very curious timing, why now?

[Douglas Caddy]

23 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Doug, you keep pounding home the political price Biden will pay for his blunders in Afghanistan.

I've always seen  from the links you post that you have what I have interpreted as old right wing friends that occasionally pop up in your links and newer left wing friends. It seems to me Biden is being punished because the President fled and his army collapsed. To this you would normally blame American Intelligence. Personally I've always thought these agencies are like huge elephants in the room who always ended up shooting themselves in the  foot to mix metaphors. It never impresses me as something that necessarily can carry off anything in detail, much less an all imposing "deep state", but I digress. It's the arms suppliers and the contract people who are the chief  beneficiaries..

 

The neocons hated Trump's rhetoric and then found  the reality of Biden turned out to be worse. If the neocons have no place else to go, that's a good development. But at least we're starting to ask some questions. If this does in fact ruin  Biden's presidency as you predict it is a victory for the neocons.

 

We hear these cries of "who will ever trust the U.S, militarily anymore". If that's a greater barrier to them getting involved with us. I think that's another  good thing, as well that we have should have a lot more reticence about nation building in the future.

 

 The Republicans will always have the luxury of criticizing, while on one side of their mouths they'll try to act like they realize they can't be there forever for the public and the other side, they'll never really propose how they would have pulled out any differently, or pulled out at all.   JMO

 

Kirk:

My primary interest in Biden's debacle in Afghanistan is not the political price all Democratic House and Senate candidates in 2022 and 2024 will pay for what he has done  (as the Republican congressional candidates in 1974 paid for what Nixon had done.)

My interest is the geopolitical ramifications of his actions. I was graduated in 1960 from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. My B.S. degree was in international relations. I was trained to become a foreign service officer. At the school I was the editor of the Foreign Service Courier, the student publication. I studied under the famed Professor Carroll Quigley who taught Civilization I and II. Clinton followed my graduation by enrolling in the School of Foreign Service seven years later. When he was president each year he returned to Georgetown U. to give a lecture in honor of Prof. Quigley.

I did not go into the foreign service but instead enrolled in New York University Law School where I got my J.D. degree.

In my opinion America and the free would will pay heavily in geopolitics for what Biden had done. In his speech yesterday he claimed he had ended the "Forever War." Then he went on to declare a new war, this one on terrorists who threaten America. Here is one geopolitical example of how this may backfire. The Taliban, ISIS-k and other terrorist groups that will now inhabit and control Afghanistan will proclaim that for every member of their organization that is killed by drone strike or otherwise, one of the 60,000 hostages that Biden left behind in Afghanistan will be killed along with his/her family members in retaliation. These hostages are our friends, our interpreters, our supporters and Biden's incompetent withdrawal left them behind, along with an unknown number of Americans. 

The Taliban boast that they defeated the world's greatest superpower. 

China now knows it can move against Taiwan. The terrorists now know they can move against America's homeland, maybe as proxies for China and Russia. 

Tony Blair was correct when he said that Biden's action was imbecilic.

Doug

[Douglas Caddy]

'A less-than-zero result' - Putin on U.S. Afghan campaign

 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1044003126426638&notif_id=1630510329987734&notif_t=watch_follower_video&ref=notif

[I hope this link works for forum members}

[David Andrews]

On 8/31/2021 at 11:58 AM, Kirk Gallaway said:

It seems to me Biden is being punished because the President fled and his army collapsed. To this you would normally blame American Intelligence.

 

Kirk, I'm just using this as a jumping-off point to address a couple phenomena we've seen in past US involvements and disengagements:

• As with our support of the Kuomintung in post-WWII China, the Afghan Nationalist army fell apart because its soldiers were no longer being paid to risk their lives.  In China, this has been blamed on the greed and criminal involvements of Chiang Kai-Shek's government.
• As in South Vietnam, the army had little ideological motivation to fight for a US-backed Nationalist government, and an uncertain internalization of ground war tactics training.
• Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan ahead of his army's collapse, possibly recognizing one eventuality of US withdrawal.  Upon the 1996 Taliban takeover, the Soviet-backed president Mohammed Najibullah and his brother ended up tortured, castrated and hanged from a traffic light outside the presidential palace.  Najibullah had made overtures to the UN and to factions fighting in-country, and was abducted by the Taliban from UN custody after Ahmed Shah Massoud denied him escape by way of the Kabul airport.  The resemblance to the fate of the Diem brothers is imperfect, but palpable.

Edited September 1, 2021 by David Andrews

[Dennis Berube]

Remember, if you are attempting to remove America as the world's superpower, you need to embarrass the leadership to the rest of the world amongst many other things. In my opinion, this is another page in that chapter which will continue for several years. Remember that olive oil factory the US Army recently attacked (in a drill) by accident overseas?

[Chris Barnard]

I have a rather sizeable bet with a friend that they’ll be some kind of invading force back in Afghan within 2 years (inc. UN). UK media looks like it is manufacturing consent again. 

[Chris Barnard]

i just saw this one on Twitter. There is a quote or two from Richard Holbrooke’s diary before his death, from a conversation with Joe Biden.

When I mentioned the women’s issue, Biden erupted. Almost rising from his chair, he said, “I am not sending my boy back there to risk his life on behalf of women’s rights, it just won’t work, that’s not what they’re there for.” [. . .] He said it ain’t going to happen, he said I don’t understand politics, he said we’re facing a debacle politically, he said we’re going to lose the presidency in 2012 if unemployment remains high, and Afghanistan was the other issue that could pull us down and we have to be on our way out, that we had to do what we did in Vietnam. This shocked me and I commented immediately that I thought we had a certain obligation to the people who had trusted us. He said, “xxxx that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.”

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/joe-bidens-world

[Joe Bauer]

7 hours ago, David Andrews said:

 

As soon as American money stopped flowing into their pockets, the army walked away.

The only loyalty we get from these people is what we can buy.

[Douglas Caddy]

The New Yorker magazine writer who wrote the biography of Joe Biden said on CNN today that the real number of hostages friendly to the U.S. that are still in Afghanistan is 200,000. 

Then there is this:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/taliban-show-off-captured-weapons-at-kandahar-victory-parade/ar-AANYCOi

[Kirk Gallaway]

10 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Kirk:

My primary interest in Biden's debacle in Afghanistan is not the political price all Democratic House and Senate candidates in 2022 and 2024 will pay for what he has done  (as the Republican congressional candidates in 1974 paid for what Nixon had done.)

My interest is the geopolitical ramifications of his actions. I was graduated in 1960 from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. My B.S. degree was in international relations. I was trained to become a foreign service officer. At the school I was the editor of the Foreign Service Courier, the student publication. I studied under the famed Professor Carroll Quigley who taught Civilization I and II. Clinton followed my graduation by enrolling in the School of Foreign Service seven years later. When he was president each year he returned to Georgetown U. to give a lecture in honor of Prof. Quigley.

I did not go into the foreign service but instead enrolled in New York University Law School where I got my J.D. degree.

In my opinion America and the free would will pay heavily in geopolitics for what Biden had done. In his speech yesterday he claimed he had ended the "Forever War." Then he went on to declare a new war, this one on terrorists who threaten America. Here is one geopolitical example of how this may backfire. The Taliban, ISIS-k and other terrorist groups that will now inhabit and control Afghanistan will proclaim that for every member of their organization that is killed by drone strike or otherwise, one of the 60,000 hostages that Biden left behind in Afghanistan will be killed along with his/her family members in retaliation. These hostages are our friends, our interpreters, our supporters and Biden's incompetent withdrawal left them behind, along with an unknown number of Americans. 

The Taliban boast that they defeated the world's greatest superpower. 

China now knows it can move against Taiwan. The terrorists now know they can move against America's homeland, maybe as proxies for China and Russia. 

Tony Blair was correct when he said that Biden's action was imbecilic.

Doug

I'm not sure if subsequent posts were pro staying in Afghanistan or not , but I'll try to address what Doug's saying.

 

Doug: In my opinion America and the free would will pay heavily in geopolitics for what Biden had done. In his speech yesterday he claimed he had ended the "Forever War."

Ok, so what do you propose? Are you making the argument we should stay indefinitely because after all it's only 20-30 billion a year to employ a small force of 2500 who keep things reasonably stable in at least Kabul?

Doug: In my opinion America and the free would will pay heavily in geopolitics for what Biden had done. In his speech yesterday he claimed he had ended the "Forever War." Then he went on to declare a new war, this one on terrorists who threaten America.

But that's not a new war, presumably isn't that what we say we've been doing for the last 20 years? But we  don't know the working reality of that statement. He's done the deed and how do we know he's not just trying to assure the hawks that America just won't roll over in the future. We don't know how much commitment that statement entails.

RE New Yorker article:200,000 people Doug?  So we're a lot better at making friends than I ever thought we were! So we owe it to everybody whoever co operated with us? I'm not going to trust the Taliban , but is there any point in them seeking reprisals on 200,000 people? They've got a country to run and have to understand to keep it from crumbling they are going to need some cooperation from world community.

Doug: China now knows it can move against Taiwan. The terrorists now know they can move against America's homeland, maybe as proxies for China and Russia. 

I'm not sure what you mean specifically by the Middle East terrorists moving against the U.S in our homeland as proxies, but we certainly can't be sure to be safe , from terrorist attacks based within the U.S..

China moving against Taiwan is the big one, isn't it? But of course Taiwan has the "silicon shield" . In some senses Taiwan Semi conductor has the  whole world hostage and if it was, for any reason, to stop production, the world would be shut down. So they hold some chips against a Chinese invasion.

Of course, you have an impressive resume Doug. I've won a couple of Mandarin Speech contests and was considering being an interpreter many years ago, but decided i didn't want to go that route. But it did leave me some knowledge about the Chinese culture. This could sound Pollyanneish , but they've had a long history of being invaded but not being an imperialist power. They seem to be intent on taking over the world economically using far less weapons and bombs than our history shows we have. We'll see if that's where history's trending. We largely gave them Hong Kong. But in the meantime,let's hope we'll l be hearing mostly a lot of saber rattling about them taking over some largely uninhabited South Seas Islands.

 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

From the Overnight Report from The Hill:

American and Afghan allies left behind in Afghanistan have entered a fraught and uncertain period of limbo following the definitive conclusion of U.S. military evacuations out of the country.

Advocates estimate roughly 150,000 vulnerable Afghans still remain in the country after a U.S. evacuation effort ended early Tuesday, while those who assisted the U.S. military who may now wish to leave with their families could add another 100,000. 

Many who remain have gone into hiding over fear of violent retribution by the Taliban, likely targeted for work alongside American and coalition forces that battled and killed members of the Islamic-fundamentalist group over two decades of war. 

Confusion and fear: These groups of people face overwhelming confusion and fear over how to leave the country, from practical matters of appropriate travel documents and questions over when airports will reopen and how they will function — to the uncertainty of whether the Taliban will respond to international pressure to ensure safe passage.

“The last few months have been incredibly challenging and disappointing for our clients, whose risk has increased exponentially with the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan,” Adam Bates, policy counsel with the International Refugee Assistance Project told reporters, noting that “the majority of our clients were not able to leave Afghanistan on an evacuation flight.”

Who was left behind?: Out of more than 500 clients the International Refugee Assistance Project was trying to get out of the country, only about 130 were able to make it onto flights. Just a few dozen have made it onto U.S. soil.

Rabbi Will Berkowitz, CEO of the refugee resettlement organization Jewish Family Services, said that group has 127 people on the ground in Afghanistan — 23 families that qualify for Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to the U.S. who were left behind in the evacuations.  

The organization is gaming whether people can evacuate over land routes, but is distraught over whether access to cash and communication may be cut off at any moment. They have advised the people to stay in hiding over the next few days as the situation unfolds. 

The New York-based Women for Afghan Women was unable to secure evacuation for 500 of its most vulnerable staff. This group qualified for evacuation and refugee status for their association with a U.S.-government funded organization. 

Also left in Afghanistan are an estimated 150 journalists working for the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, media outlets funded by the American government. That group numbers 500 people including their families, according to a congressional aide. 

 

[David Andrews]

14 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

I have a rather sizeable bet with a friend that they’ll be some kind of invading force back in Afghan within 2 years (inc. UN). UK media looks like it is manufacturing consent again. 

Indeed on both, and I'm betting with you.

[Jeff Carter]

The hysterical media reports from Afghanistan suggesting a quarter million persons in hiding for fear of being massacred are fairly reminiscent of hysterical media reports from the end of the Vietnam occupation. Or hysterical media reports from 1950s Vietnam - now understood as a deliberated psy-op - which saw a mass exodus of Catholic peasants to Diem’s newly declared police state. Part of the messaging here is that the absence of US/NATO occupying forces results in widespread chaos and human rights violations, when, objectively, it has instead been the presence of these occupying forces responsible for the chaos and human suffering. The Afghanis in real, rather than speculative, danger are those who were directly involved in the Phoenix-like programs run by the occupiers, but they are likely long gone. Outside of the western media bubble, the hysteria and fear-mongering is notably absent - for instance the Indian diplomat Bhadrakumar who I linked several weeks ago has now posted eleven sober non-speculative reports on Afghanistan without inflated numbers or emotive language.

re: Taiwan - it has long been recognized at the UN as Chinese territory and not an independent nation. While recent years have seen an uptick in promoting Taiwanese independence, in concert with the US “pivot to China”, most if not all concerns of an imminent PLA invasion of the island are imagined by politicians in Taiwan and their supporters in US and Australia. The PRC seem content to play the long game, but any effort to station American missiles or radars on the island will likely trigger a swift and decisive countermove. It seems the world has enough problems without new and dangerous brinksmanship.

[Douglas Caddy]

[Douglas Caddy]

17 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

I'm not sure if subsequent posts were pro staying in Afghanistan or not , but I'll try to address what Doug's saying.

 

Doug: In my opinion America and the free would will pay heavily in geopolitics for what Biden had done. In his speech yesterday he claimed he had ended the "Forever War."

Ok, so what do you propose? Are you making the argument we should stay indefinitely because after all it's only 20-30 billion a year to employ a small force of 2500 who keep things reasonably stable in at least Kabul?

Doug: In my opinion America and the free would will pay heavily in geopolitics for what Biden had done. In his speech yesterday he claimed he had ended the "Forever War." Then he went on to declare a new war, this one on terrorists who threaten America.

But that's not a new war, presumably isn't that what we say we've been doing for the last 20 years? But we  don't know the working reality of that statement. He's done the deed and how do we know he's not just trying to assure the hawks that America just won't roll over in the future. We don't know how much commitment that statement entails.

RE New Yorker article:200,000 people Doug?  So we're a lot better at making friends than I ever thought we were! So we owe it to everybody whoever co operated with us? I'm not going to trust the Taliban , but is there any point in them seeking reprisals on 200,000 people? They've got a country to run and have to understand to keep it from crumbling they are going to need some cooperation from world community.

Doug: China now knows it can move against Taiwan. The terrorists now know they can move against America's homeland, maybe as proxies for China and Russia. 

I'm not sure what you mean specifically by the Middle East terrorists moving against the U.S in our homeland as proxies, but we certainly can't be sure to be safe , from terrorist attacks based within the U.S..

China moving against Taiwan is the big one, isn't it? But of course Taiwan has the "silicon shield" . In some senses Taiwan Semi conductor has the  whole world hostage and if it was, for any reason, to stop production, the world would be shut down. So they hold some chips against a Chinese invasion.

Of course, you have an impressive resume Doug. I've won a couple of Mandarin Speech contests and was considering being an interpreter many years ago, but decided i didn't want to go that route. But it did leave me some knowledge about the Chinese culture. This could sound Pollyanneish , but they've had a long history of being invaded but not being an imperialist power. They seem to be intent on taking over the world economically using far less weapons and bombs than our history shows we have. We'll see if that's where history's trending. We largely gave them Hong Kong. But in the meantime,let's hope we'll l be hearing mostly a lot of saber rattling about them taking over some largely uninhabited South Seas Islands.

 

 

The bottom line is that virtually everyone who closely follows foreign affairs as much as domestic affairs believes Biden has committed a geopolitical error of incalculable magnitude that puts our country in mortal danger. I concur in that assessment. Every office holder who is a Democrat will suffer politically even though each one played no role in what he did. Biden's judgment in implementing policy, foreign and domestic, must now be scrutinized carefully.