President Joe Biden making a point during Afghanistan Address
The Graveyard of Empires
Too many US politicians, of both parties, (yes a little bothsiderism there) and generals were/are so wilfully blind and incapable of observing and logically processing reality, incapable of learning from history, it’s pathetic. The world may have ignored the abject disaster decade the right-next-door Soviets spent in the land that has NEVER been succesfully subdued/ruled by anyone, even Alexander The Great, but you know damn well that our military honchos always watched intently, year after year of ever futile Soviet, then US, fighting [for] goat herders and poppy farmers who have no concept of government, and no desire to be governed, and, importantly, no desire to fight for themselves for any reason.
Stationary or not, they are by generational nature nomads who have very little sense of “culture, community, unity, nationallity, or even much sense of common purpose.” They’ve always existed at the subsistence level of living. Even their tribal identities are relics that have little practical meaning.
I, for one, have always advocated leaving EVERY indigenous people to themselves and let’s just stop fucking with them! They simply do NOT see the world the same as we do, and who the fuck are we to decide we need to “save them from themselves?” That has never ended well.
WE HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER THAT THEY WANT. Eh, well, most anyone will accept a phone, but how long do you think the cell towers we built for them will function? How much good will it have done to build hospitals there when the Taliban view western medicine as demonic? And we already know what they think of schools.
These people should ALWAYS have been left alone to live three thousand years in the past— which is exactly how most of them live, cell phones held by a relative few in cities notwithstanding. And now, the Taliban will forcefully revert them to ten thousand years in the past, with breathtaking speed and brutality… and the billions we spent to arm the Afghan army has been turned over wholesale to the Taliban to use on the people it was supposed to protect.
But remember: of the Taliban forces doing this to the Afghan people, many— maybe/probably the majority— of them come from their own Afghan population, their own young men. Their own brothers will bomb their own sisters’ schools and their own fathers’ hospitals. The apostate womens’ own brothers and fathers will stone them to death for going to school.
Taliban equate favorably with US Domiionist Christians (like Coney Barrett’s cult), who, if they could have the same kind of absolute power in their communities that the Taliban does in Afghanistan, would would be just as brutal and authoritarian, just as bloody and cruel. As we’ve seen over and over throughout history: the more religious fervor a ‘cause’ is saturated in, the more bloody and cruel it will be, absolutely— not saying non-sectarian despots aren’t just as cruel, just that the religious ones always cloak their cruelty and homicidal/genocidal fervor in lamb-of-peace, we’re here to save you from yourselves because God is on OUR SIDE, AND HE HATES YOUR SIDE, type nomenclature.
All those years ago, Congresswoman Barbara Lee recognized this pattern and bravely stood up to the deafening drumbeat of pro-war gaslighting-- again, on both sides. I remember her solitary stand, and I remember applauding her out loud in front of my TV. I remember yelling at Bush and the rest they should ask Putin what he thinks about the wisdom of invading Afghanistan. I remember yelling at my TV, “Pick up a goddamn history book, W, you fucking moron!”
The day of that vote, we already knew— and I mean the public-who-paid-attention knew— that the highjackers came from S.A., and that Al Qeida trained in several countries, not just Afghanistan. Attacking any one of those countries would do little to nothing to halt their agenda. And attacking Afghanistan AND Iraq did not stop Al Qeida, but would destabilize the region even more than it already was. What broke Al Qeida was quality intelligence work, cutting off their funding and arms supply lines (and tons of other factors), no war needed— and Obama killing Bin Laden didn’t hurt, either.
The simple fact is: There is no stopping the Taliban in Afghanistan, by any nation of any persuasion, because the Taliban IS OF THE PEOPLE, whether we like to acknowledge that or not. When we see Afghan women in schools or yoga classes talking about their fear of what the Taliban will do to them, THEY are the outliers, the tiny, miniscule minority in Afghanistan, and if you gathered every one of those “resistant” women together in one place and asked their husbands and families if they support them being independent women able to hold jobs and get college degrees…. I feel certain that at least 90% of the husbands and parents would say no, they do not support women being independent and able to go wherever they want and do whatever they want. That is apostasy, to empower women, because to empower women is to demean men, in their thinking.
Anyway, I just watched President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan address, and i have to keep saying how impressed this Bernie guy is with this New and Improved, far more progressive and firmly decisive Joe Biden. He obliterated every goddamn rightwing talking point in no uncertain terms. Now, we have to just counter all the goddamn asshole MSM reporters’ spin. Joe eliminated several yakking points they have already been using, by reminding them that the Loser made this deal, which includes the timeline. He reminded them of the history of the land, and even of the Soviet catastrophe, where they took half the time to figure it out than we needed.
For instance: I watched his address on NBC, and when it was done, Lester Holt started off with positive takeaways and turned it over to NBCs Whitehouse reporter Kelly O’Donnell, who, right from the goddamn outset started with a lie. After watching the address along with everyone else, she said to Holt, paraphrasing as accurately as I can remember, “He did not address why the evacuation started so late and got so chaotic...” Biden GODDAMN SURE DID address that, specifically, toward the end of the address, O’Donnell! Are you deaf or just stupid, or is your attention span that of a goldfish?
Biden very clearly addressed why they waited to evacuate. He said that the Afghan President asked him NOT TO EVACUATE LAST MONTH OR SO because it would (he thought) cause panic and chaos and the perception of running away, which would embolden the Taliban. President Biden respected his wishes, obviously before the coward cut and ran.
But that is the shitty bottom of the barrell quality reporting that we have to live with here in America. I told my husband that that short clip of those Afghans scrambling and hanging onto that plane will play non-stop over and over ad nauseam for the next week, or as long as the MSM can wring out even a little bit of negative Joe Biden sap from this meme.
Today, they allowed/gave airtime to a general and a couple of others on to defend Biden and explain the decisions, but I’m willing to bet money that after today, ALL YOU WILL HEAR AND SEE WILL BE RETHUGS TRASHING BIDEN WITH THAT RUNWAY CLIP ON LOOP for, oh, say, the next week. It will be at least 90% rethugs on every talking head show, with no dems on to counter them and the Chuck Toads WILL FAIL to remind ANYONE that the Orange Shitgibbon made this deal, and they WILL FAIL to challenge ANY of the rethugs when they lie and mischaracterize and put every single bit of blame on Biden for EVERYTHING. Count on it.
