I don’t expect even Trump is stupid enough to trumpet this particular endorsement – but he’s got an international fan-base!
[cbs]
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News in a phone interview, “We believe that Trump is going to win the upcoming election because he has proved himself a politician who accomplished all the major promises he had made to American people, although he might have missed some small things, but did accomplish the bigger promises, so it is possible that the U.S. people who experienced deceptions in the past will once again trust Trump for his decisive actions.”
It’s topsy-turvy land, out there. Zabihullah Mujahid was probably doing the phone interview so that he wouldn’t get targeted and blown up by a US/CIA predator drone while he was delivering those lukewarm praises.
Mujahid added, “We think the majority of the American population is tired of instability, economic failures and politicians’ lies and will trust again on Trump because Trump is decisive, could control the situation inside the country. Other politicians, including Biden, chant unrealistic slogans. Some other groups, which are smaller in size but are involved in the military business including weapons manufacturing companies’ owners and others who somehow get the benefit of war extension, they might be against Trump and support Biden, but their numbers among voters is low.”
Another senior Taliban leader told CBS News, “We hope he will win the election and wind up U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.”
I can’t even read between the blurred lines to form a picture of what’s going on with the various US military adventures around the world. It appears that periodically Trump’s nanosecond attention-span flicks to Syria, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, and he says something stupid that the military/industrial/congressional/state department apparatus cheerfully ignores. He appears to have tried to cause US withdrawal from several theaters (remember all that weird rigamarole around Idlib, when Turkish strongman Erdogan asked him to throw the Kurds under yet another bus, one more time?) but it just doesn’t happen. It appears that the commander-in-chief is just … ignored. The pentagon has taken to ignoring Trump on a regular basis including “oh no you don’t” foot-dragging regarding the money Trump tried to redirect from pentagon budgets for building his stupid border wall.
This is not a heartening situation. In a sense, I suppose it could be, because we finally have a president who is trying to withdraw troops from all over the place, but it’s not happening. I suppose it could be, because we have a defense apparatus that might ignore the deranged shitgibbon if he gives an order to launch nuclear missiles. Scary hypothesis: what if the reason we didn’t go to war with North Korea is because the commander-in-chief was quietly overruled by slightly more level heads in the pentagon? My dad used to say that the history of a time can’t be written until all the bodies are buried, but the Trump era has become the period of “government by ‘tell all'” and I would not be in the slightest bit surprised if Bob Woodward doesn’t reveal that Trump told him he ordered a strike on North Korea but it didn’t happen and, instead, they started injecting him with some kind of drug every morning. Naturally, Woodward would defend sitting on that information because he “didn’t want to interfere with the election” so he’d only mention it after Trump was starting his third term (Mich McConnell being dead, Don Jr would be senate majority leader).
I had a similar divided reality during the 2016 election, where Hillary Clinton, Israel-hawk, war-hawk, and fake progressive was up against Trump who, at that time, didn’t have any blood on his hands. I made the right decision and voted for Hillary – i.e.: I was one of the 3 million popular votes she won by – but none of that mattered. As Mario Savio said:
There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels … upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
What if you put your bodies upon the gears and levers, and they just keep grinding?
Prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban was the “duly constituted” (in Mao’s sense that power comes from the barrel of a gun) government of the country. We can all see how much sovereignty means to the US when the chips come down – but here we have a sovereign government-in-exile endorsing Trump, and the republican marketing machine is ignoring the opportunity to highlight it.
I wonder if the Biden campaign will seek ISIS’ endorsement?
Over at Mano Singham’s, he did a posting which referenced Halberstam’s brilliant book The Best and The Brightest and I immediately thought that someone needs to write a similar book about the Trump presidency, entitled The Worst and the Dumbest. The genius of books like Halberstam’s is that retro-analysis can make situations seem crystal clear that weren’t, at the time. Things were not so obvious, because the people involved still had hope that there might be a different outcome. Mano also references the fact that Kennedy was not really a brilliant negotiator who defused the Cuban Missile Crisis – he secretly traded the PGM-19 Jupiter medium-range missiles stationed in Turkey, which had been secretly installed by the Eisenhower administration [secret not from the Russians, but from the US civilian population who were placed at increased risk of nuclear war] for Soviet promises that they would remove the Cuban missiles and make it look like Kennedy was a great statesman for the next election. I wrote about the Jupiter missiles [stderr] back in 2017; you can still see the launch-pads by satellite. Eisenhower, you may recall, was the president who warned about the “military industrial complex” he had a large hand in building, as he slipped out the door to a golf-playing retirement.
CBS cites the Taliban spokesman as if “Mujahid” is his family name, when it’s actually more like a job title. A “Mujahid” is someone who is engaged in jihad/holy war. “Mujahideen” is the plural form.
… Don Jr would be senate majority leader.
I’m trying to think of a state which might elect Don Jr to the Senate, which he would not consider too beneath him to move to.
All that comes up is Florida, but we already have a full quota of stupidity and nastiness in our Senate delegation.
Pierce R. Butler@#1:
I’m trying to think of a state which might elect Don Jr to the Senate, which he would not consider too beneath him to move to.
Official residence: Mar-A-Lago
I’m reminded of when Hillary Clinton looked around for where there was a democratic seat opening up and bought a house in Chappaqua. Things like residence rules don’t apply to the rich, or even the pseudo-rich. And any state will elect Don Jr if he spends enough money.
Marcus Ranum @ # 2: Mar-A-Lago
That’s Don Jr’s deplorable daddy’s nominal home (in violation of county codes); I think Jr still officially adorns New York.
In their time, the Rockefellers, Kennedys, & Bushes have all sprayed scions across the electoral map; the latter two have each had at least one family member make it into a third-generation elected dynasty.
… any state will elect Don Jr if he spends enough money.
Does even Putin have enough money to buy Don Jr a New York seat? They know the Trumps best, and they loathe them. Jr. himself could probably afford a seat in, say, Arkansas – but I don’t think he could endure all his preppy pals calling, “Sooo-eeee!!!” every time he showed his face in their Manhattan clubs.
(Discussing Hacker’s attempt to cancel Trident…)
Sir Humphrey: Bernard, what is the purpose of our defence policy?
Bernard: To defend Britain.
Sir Humphrey: No Bernard, it is to make people believe Britain is defended.
Bernard: The Russians?
Sir Humphrey: Not the Russians, the British. The Russians know it’s not.
““We think the majority of the American population is tired of instability, economic failures and politicians’ lies and will trust again on Trump because Trump is decisive, could control the situation inside the country. Other politicians, including Biden, chant unrealistic slogans. [etc.]”
Wherever these guys are, could it be their only connection to the outside world is a small portable TV that can only receive FOX news? This endorsement aso makes me wonder if there are MAGA* hats in arabic being marketed anywhere. Maybe that’s a niche waiting to be filled. Some people might simply like them, others might like them to aggravate the regular-hat wearers.
*Make Allah Great Again?
—
Re: Pierce R. Butler (#3):
“Does even Putin have enough money to buy Don Jr a New York seat?”
Depends whether you’re looking at the old-fashioned strategy of a campaign-extravaganza that actually sways voters in your faovur or the modern approach, i.e. voter suppression, gerrymandering, cheating, lies an propaganda* and presumably actual factual voter fraud. For instance, it seems that democratic mail-in ballots are all fraudulent whereas Trump ballots are somehow fine? At least that appears to be the consensus among people Very Concerned About Mail Voting, one of whom is on that ballot.
At a guess I’d say the latter strategy is a lot more efficient in terms of money spent since you don’t need a real majority, you just need a pretend one. Incidentally, wasn’t one of the “insights” coursing through the 2016 news/election cycle (and aftermath) that Putin’s supposed influence was phenomenally cheap compared to what the US parties spent and got for their money?
*Easily confused with the classic strategy due to.. er, striking similarities
My ballot is in the mail, so it’s too late for them to change my vote. 8-)
A “Mujahid” is someone who is engaged in jihad/holy war. “Mujahideen” is the plural form.
Me no spikka da Arabic, but the Grand Pffft! sayeth:
I’m trying to think of a state which might elect Don Jr to the Senate, which he would not consider too beneath him to move to.
Come, come. What family are we talking about here? A mere Senate seat is beneath anyone bearing the exalted name of Trump. If Don Jr. ever runs for any elected office, it will be for president or nothing.
I mean, it’s my understanding that Senators are expected to do yucky work — show up to vote, write actual legislation, do other things besides making speeches. No Trump would sully his hands with anything so plebian. He’ll go straight for the job that lets him play golf and watch cable news all day, like his dad.
Wherever these guys are, could it be their only connection to the outside world is a small portable TV that can only receive FOX news?
More likely they simply understand the entirely obvious fact that Trump greatly weakens both the U.S. itself and the international community pushing for democratic norms across the world. A Trump administration, by its sheer ineffectiveness and destructiveness, directly benefits the Taliban and generally promotes authoritarianism.
It’s not clear how this particular announcement is supposed to help Trump win (I can’t imagine that there are many voters in the U.S. whose vote would be influnced by a Taliban endorsement, at least not in the direction that the Taliban is endorsing), but perhaps it’s a reminder to other Taliban-supporting potential sources of influence that they should do what they can to help Trump get elected.
He boasted about receiving the Bay of Pigs Award. Even though his own Bay of Pigs event in Venezuela was even more pathetic. “The Mujahideen are endorsing me! They are great fighters folks, they keep the commies in check!”