We all hate losing, but we need to keep some kind of realistic perspective on the stakes and the game.
For example, if you want to play chess with me, I’m aware that I’m not great and never have been, but I can hold my own well enough so that losing definitely stings.
But, when you beat me, I do not stand around trying to scam a draw, or throw the table over, or call in airstrikes on your position. That’s how US leadership (“the most important nation in the world”) (“the leader of the free world”) does things. It’s sickening, and pathetic, especially because it usually means a few Americans die, while a whole lot of someone else lives under the shadow of US bombers and drones, occasionally having a group of friends blown to powder with high explosive, and having to dig their mangled bodies out of dust, shattered concrete, and sort out what part belongs to whom. That’s how the US “loses” – it makes sure that the other side has suffered so horribly that they won’t dare gloat or even whisper, “we won.” Let’s call it an honorable draw, shall we?
I’m referring, of course, to the War In Afghanistan. A war which the US continues to insist is to keep Afghanistan from becoming a center of terrorism. That’s absurd; the real center of terrorism is Langley, Virginia. The terrorists who launched 9/11 were mostly Saudis (awkwarrrrrd!) you know, the guys the US is supporting in a terroristic war against Yemen. Nobody dares breathe the words, “are we the baddies?”
Well, duh.
What is really scary about the whole “withdraw from Afghanistan” thing is that, in US attempts to stabilize some kind of power-base in Afghanistan, the US military has resorted not only to its usual strategy of building fortresses in the middle of nowhere from which it can launch “search and destroy” missions to raise its “body count” (a strategy that worked badly in Vietnam) it has tried to prop up local warlords politicians by having US marines guard their opium poppies against other local politicians taliban. The US actually rejected attempts to negotiate a withdrawal decades ago (“we don’t negotiate with terrorists”) (which must have made the taliban scratch their heads in perplexity) followed by secret negotiations with … the taliban.
Taliban, by the way, is not an organization, it’s a political stance. It’s like saying “the war on evangelicals” – immediately, we must ask which evangelicals? There are taliban that are willing to negotiate and there are taliban who aren’t. The ones who aren’t are often the ones whose kid sister we blew up 8 or 9 years ago and they want to see America humbled for that. I would. I do. I actually do. I want to see America crawl out of Afghanistan like we did out of Vietnam, and have a long contemplative period in which we look at the political processes that got us there, and reform them. It’s not going to happen, I know.
Several presidents have supposedly tried to withdraw. Obama, allegedly, tried to get the pentagon to listen up and reduce the troop count to, oh… zero? The pentagon responded that it needed twice the then current troop level. That’s like going to your dad and saying, “I’m selling my car. Can you give me $5000?” What, huh? Obama, well, I don’t know what was in that guy’s mind but basically he decided he really didn’t give a shit about Afghanistan or Guantanamo or any of that and besides there was Libya and Syria and Yemen and it’s all so complicated and he never wanted to burn any political capital taking on the republicans. Obama, a smart and amoral politician, did not take it to the republicans and settled for hunkering down while they jeered at him. I don’t know why he chose to self-disempower, but he was directly responsible for the rise of Donald Trump, to some degree, because he couldn’t stand up to the racist trolling he was subjected to. I always wondered about that: here was a man who could have had a press conference every day about why birtherism was wrong and racist and he just … took it. Well, the same strategy for Afghanistan, it seems. Trump, the would-be-autocrat and loose wheel of history, arbitrarily announced withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan and was completely ignored by the pentagon. “No, we’re guarding the oil. Sorry. Txt me later.” Biden inherited a mess that his brilliant buddy Obama helped brew.
Because it’s a bipartisan mess, neither side wants to hammer the other over its involvement in a massive crime under international law. Oddly it was the Trump administration, with its relentless attacks against international law, itself by sanctioning the International Criminal Court, that paid the most respect to international law: it gave it the finger, instead of just pretending it applied only to Russia and China. This was satisfactory to congress, which had written a blank check, “Go make war on people. Fuck ’em up.” after 9/11. The idea of an open-ended “authorization for the use of military force” is an unconstitutional farce – but that’s what congress had to do, in order to drop the hot potato that was its responsibility to regulate the executive branch’s war-making powers. History will portray congress as a bunch of moral cripples (because they are) for just voting more and more money for bombs, without even trying a bit of “oooo please don’t do that.”
The executive branch has realized that it’s going to do whatever it wants and the pentagon has realized that it’s not even answerable to the executive branch or congress anymore. [If I were emperor of the US, I would order withdrawal and cessation of all activity, or I’d put the pentagon budget at $0 for the rest of my rule] All of this is the background for Biden’s new announcement that the US is withdrawing from Afghanistan, at a date that is different from the one the Trump administration negotiated, because piss on them. I do not for the life of me understand why they chose Sept 11 – the symbology of that is horrific. They’re implying that the whole bloody mess is justified by 9/11? Well, it’s not. If the US had responded immediately by dropping the 101st Airborne on Tora Bora, literally covering it with American bodies holding shovels, and dug Bin Laden out, then left – some people would have still cheered. But Americans are cowards and don’t fight wars the way they did in World War 1 and 2, anymore. Ask yourself what Eisenhower (a certifiably horrible human being) would have done after 9/11 and you’ll see what I mean.
But against the backdrop of the Mother of All Bombs (make the rubble bounce) and massive civilian casualties, the Biden administration is preparing to orchestrate a pretend withdrawal. That’s right.
[nyt]
WASHINGTON — American troops are set to leave Afghanistan no later than Sept. 11, but the Pentagon, American spy agencies and Western allies are refining plans to deploy a less visible but still potent force in the region to prevent the country from again becoming a terrorist base.
Drawing on the hard lessons from President Barack Obama’s decision a decade ago to withdraw American troops from Iraq — allowing the rise of the Islamic State three years later — the Pentagon is discussing with allies where to reposition forces, possibly to neighboring Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, according to United States officials.
Attack planes aboard aircraft carriers and long-range bombers flying from land bases along the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and even in the United States could strike insurgent fighters spotted by armed surveillance drones.
See? They’re still invaded; it’s just that the US won’t be flying its airstrikes from bases inside Afghanistan – they’ll just violate Afghanistan’s sovereignty wherever and however they feel like it. And they’ll spend a fucktonne of money paying other nearby governments for bases, thereby spawning new enemies and spreading military gear all over the area.
What they are really saying is that they’re going to base the entire middle east suppression project somewhere else than the secret bases in Syria and Iraq, which exist because something something Kurdish zone but we don’t support Kurdish nationalism so fuck them but we’re keeping our base here.
Congress will turn its head and cough.
Buncha sore losers. Just throw in the towel, already, and declare a “victory of sorts because it’s not as bad as Vietnam”
One of the collective nightmares that the US is cringing from is the helicopters fleeing the rooftop of the embassy in Saigon; an image burned into the souls of American cowards, everywhere. It’s a powerful symbol of how we cut and ran when our asses were kicked in the Tet Offensive, and it symbolizes – by not showing it – the carnage that ensued in Indochina as its politics re-aligned after our meddling. Add another 2 million dead to the 2 million we killed directly. Americans know – and have always known that that day is coming in Afghanistan. So to the taliban; they are negotiating from the position of the winner. But putting it off doesn’t make it better. What’s going to happen? Well, our political satraps in Afghanistan are going to move to New York City with the millions that they managed to loot, and they will have pretty nice lives, and their kids will become Americans. The problem is that mostly, our political satraps there are some of the shittiest people that we could find – a whole bunch of Manuel Noriegas and Diems, etc. They’ll fit right into the American melting pot; it’s OK as long as they have money.
hey
President Obama wasn’t all that liberal. Just sayin’.
As to why to hunker down instead of speaking out? He was the first African-American president. He had and still has a duty to not-get-assassinated. We see and have seen how our justice system is sympathetic to the racists, murderers, and the authoritarians. Comey deliberately meant to be a lapdog, he just wasn’t very good at it because he apparently never saw one of those yippy purse-dogs in his life and thought he deserved some dignity. It is still true that Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have clean water. It is still true that none of the insurgents 6th January have been hung by the neck until dead.
Badtux has a more realistic appraisal of Vietnam, that I found really interesting.
https://snarkypenguin.wordpress.com/2021/02/07/no-the-united-states-could-not-have-won-the-vietnam-war/
It parallels some of your thoughts on the afghan “leadership”.
There are cruise missile liberals haunting various less cynical sites who insist the problem with Vietnam is we did not kill enough people.
Why should the insurgents be hung? They are just unhappy True Americans doing what Marcus said should be done in his (hopefully under the influence of narcotics) nihilism post from a few days ago.
The past tense of the form of execution is ‘hanged’.
Ach. My bad.
In related news…the Town of Placeville, CA, which was known as “Hangtown” during the good ol’ Gold Rush days…has removed the Noose from its official town symbol.
Speak for yourself. I’ve never loved losing, but it’s almost always been a valued learning experience. I took up squash fairly late (age 24), but sought out players who could kick my ass (they probably ended up dreading seeing me approach) so that I could learn the game.
A huge culture shock for me was seeing the response of Americans when pro basketball players were first allowed to take part in international tournaments. They were thrilled at the prospect of hammering teams with far less talent/income. Humiliating the opposition seems to be something Americans really relish (see also the reactions of American players in their 13-0 demolition of Thailand in the 2019 Women’s World Cup).
what would a win for the US in Afghanistan even look like? (other than large contracts with defence contractors). At least the USSR had a land boarder, the US is trying to control a landlocked country on the other side of the world
So why is baseball so popular in the U.S.? It’s basically a game of losing. The best teams lose about a third of their games. A really great hitter is one who can average over three hits per ten at-bats.
One reason I’m a baseball fan is because I think it’s as close as we in the West have come to patience. (Go, Cards!)
@bmiller #6, that’s Placerville.
Sounds like the NYT is as accurate as ever /sarc
For another interesting point of view on what the USA may be up to in the area see A “win-win” for US, Turkey in Hindu Kush . Afghanistan seems incidental.
My only excuse was I was very, very foggy from the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday. It knocked me down a bit. All OK now.
Plus, I am a terrible typist at the best of times.
@4, on occasion I feel like your comments lack perspective, positive alternatives. We are already living in a world where predatory behavior is far too common. I guess I’m frustrated by your lack of a positive alternative. If you don’t give me one, well. Those insurgents are gonna insurge. What are you going to do about it? Keep on keeping on? Well if your present life is pretty good, that’s certainly a reasonable behavior, even if your comfortable life is built upon the abuse of others.
I get somewhat irritated at blogging communities in general, believing that every thought expressed should be well-sourced or a perfect solution. Sometimes I like just hearing people play around with thoughts and providing my own feedback.
Just a thought.
@13. I shouldn’t have singled one person out, who is generally quite pleasant from what limited experience I have. I guess my frustration hit a tipping point this morning.
Well…in reality I am NOT arguing the point I expressed in 4. I was actually continuing my annoyed response to our host’s “nihilism” post from a couple of days ago. Based on his philosophy, the insurgents CAN logically be argued to have been engaged in something legitimate. Now, do I believe MARCUS really believes that? That he supported the clownish events of January 6. Of course not. In most respects, Marcus is a good lefty? I certainly do not support their attempted putsch.
Sadly, I do share his nihilism a little bit. Which may explain my own annoyance at Marcus. I don’t have easy answers.
And, I actually think he makes a lot of interesting other points in this post. I guess my only answer is to keep arguing, to keep voting, to keep supporting people who are not totally corrupt. Is that enough, or, as I fear, is the United States too far gone at this point. If I had grandkids, I would urge them to learn Mandarin. :)
Debate is good. Whether we agree or not is irrelevant, as long as we remain engaged in the process, ( and remain civil as well ). keep thinking, keep speaking out; it’s the only way to keep democracy alive.
@16, yeah, I feel you.
I have to keep reminding myself. In these communities I engage in, we do keep criticizing each other, and we generally take it in stride. Compare that to behavior observed on the right-side of politics.
I’m still very worried about the question: What are we going to DO about it?
Sam N@#19:
I’m still very worried about the question: What are we going to DO about it?
My observation is that generally the situation is constructed so that change is virtually impossible. I know that sounds horrible, but that’s really what I think is going on.
Look, for example, at the attempt to unionize at Amazon.com warehouses. A lot of people poured a lot of effort into trying to do something that I’d say was obviously good. I’d say that anyone who wanted to try to make the world better could have joined that effort. Of course, it was easily and ruthlessly smacked down by Amazon. There are so many examples of situations where it’s just one “gotcha” after another and if you caught me in the right mood I’d argue it is probably unethical to encourage people to just slam themselves into a wall over and over.
The system of social control we all grow up within has been evolving for thousands of years and its current state is the most integrated and vicious. We exist under the ruthless invisible steel hand of capitalism, and the velvet opiate-soaked glove of consumer culture. Radicals and revolutionaries would tell you (as I have) that the only way the system can be changed is by being more ruthless, and more violent (if such a thing is possible) (the system makes us live under an umbrella of constant nuclear threat) so I don’t even see revolution as an option. And, as I have pointed out as a constant thread in my postings, revolutions don’t work either because we only seem to know how to re-instantiate the political cultures we were indoctrinated within, and nihilists have that first-mover advantage.
It may be that “don’t rock the boat, all you can do is re-decorate it a bit” is the only thing we can do.
bmiller@#15:
I was actually continuing my annoyed response to our host’s “nihilism” post from a couple of days ago. Based on his philosophy, the insurgents CAN logically be argued to have been engaged in something legitimate. Now, do I believe MARCUS really believes that? That he supported the clownish events of January 6. Of course not. In most respects, Marcus is a good lefty? I certainly do not support their attempted putsch.
I support the overthrow and disempowerment of the current regime, which means that – sort of – I support some of the ideals of some of the insurgents. But I don’t think they have a clue what they were really doing, and had been manipulated into serving the most corrupt arm of the system.
If we had a bunch of “true revolutionaries” who were trying to invade the capitol and set up a guillotine for the reactionary wing of the government, with a plan (however vague) to write a new constitution that re-balanced the gerrymander in the senate – I’d approve and I’d probably cheer. But it wouldn’t work. The system is arranged so that it’s self-healing and every attempt to drag it strongly one way or another results in a counter-action. Literally, it’s what “reactionary” means.
I don’t think “lefties” should abhor the nihilism of violence. Or, we can be abhorring of it, but it’s probably the only tool we have left. After all, the establishment has demonstrated that it is willing to engage in “over the top” levels of violence when it is threatened even slightly. I would not put it past any of the current nuclear powers to use their weapons like Samson did, to pull down the temple on his own head.
@20, yeah. I get it. At the end of my career as a neuroscientist, I understood how to win. I even implemented it. You talk to someone already in the system that distributes the funding, you pretend your ideas are their ideas, and immediately are funded.
I didn’t want to play that game. I was taught that the world should have been egalitarian and meritocratic. I was disabused of those notions. I walked away.
There’s not much wilderness left.
Sam N@#23:
There’s not much wilderness left.
Not for about 40,000 years, right? There has been someone or other asserting ownership over everything. Or, if not ownership, control that amounts to more or less the same thing. [There has been a lot of talk about how the Indigenous Peoples of North America didn’t feel that land was “owned” but that’s just because they had so much of it. When you get to the east coast tribes, there were wars fought over territory all the time; it was tribes instead of modern nations but their imagination of borders was similar.]
Sam N@#22:
I was taught that the world should have been egalitarian and meritocratic
What if “equality” and “merit” are lies told by the powerful, to keep the weak in line? It sounds suspiciously like some of the lies that christianity and other slave-religions [to steal Nietzsche’s term] tell – you know “if you’re a good boy and let people shit on you here in this life, you’ll get a Lexus and a halo and a Stratocaster in the next.”
Equality is a philosophical ideal we can work ourselves toward by assuming that others are similar to us and have similar agendas and therefore we can make sense of them. Meritocracy is suspiciously like a system for justifying inequality, to me. I like the idea of meritocracy but that’s because I was heavily propagandized to be part of a system in which meritocracy is one of the covers for oligarchy.
bmiller@#16:
If I had grandkids, I would urge them to learn Mandarin. :)
Mandarin and how to program CNC.
Rob Grigjanis@#7:
A huge culture shock for me was seeing the response of Americans when pro basketball players were first allowed to take part in international tournaments. They were thrilled at the prospect of hammering teams with far less talent/income. Humiliating the opposition seems to be something Americans really relish (see also the reactions of American players in their 13-0 demolition of Thailand in the 2019 Women’s World Cup).
You’d think that a country that specializes in dropping high explosive on defenseless targets would have a better sense of fair play?
‘Joking’ aside – that was utterly disgusting and, like you, I was horrified by American’s lack of shame.
Ha. I have a blog now. I have no idea how to wield it yet: https://loscaminos561045572.wordpress.com/
Feel free to stop on by. I am presently incompetent, but I’ll slowly figure it out.
Marcus @21. Can’t disagree with what you say here. I am probably (probably???) being snarky and pedantic. My only complaint is your writings have destroyed any vestiges of nationalism I once held. And as someone who has never been a strong participant in group rah rah, that was not a lot but still. :)
And I don’t mean to say that I find the CCP system appealing in any way. While “majoritarian” rule can be efficient, as a nonconformist I am sure I would be up against the wall. At least China punishes its mogul miscreants, I will give them that!
bmiller@#29:
At least China punishes its mogul miscreants, I will give them that!
Only the losers. The winners do the punishing, whether they are right or wrong.
My only complaint is your writings have destroyed any vestiges of nationalism I once held.
What you’re getting is the distillation of decades of skeptical thought. I don’t know if it’s worth anything but – I started off doubting religion and wound up doubting politics, nationalism, religion, economics, psychology, morality, and a bunch of other stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m being unfair, either, which sucks. I wasn’t kidding about “anti-social” in the literal sense: finding civilization to be a scam is a problem for those of us who still wish to live within it.
“finding civilization to be a scam is a problem for those of us who still wish to live within it.”
’tis a tragedy indeed! :) One reason among many for having a mediocre career is I have trouble taking the shibboleths of my profession seriously. :) (Plus I am, to quote the inimitable Onslow, bone idle, maybe? Nah. :) )