Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Pariah]

I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to offer helpful insight into the Afghanistan situation. I'm not a political scientist; I'm an actual scientist. But I can't help but ask, if only to myself, a few bothersome questions:

1. When we (as a nation) went into Afghanistan in 2001, what was the mission objective? Was it ever clearly defined?
2. What were the stated victory conditions for the mission? How were we to know when we were done?
3. What was the exit strategy? How did we plan to get out of Afghanistan?

There are other questions I have, though they seem perhaps less earnest. (How long did we really think this was going to take? Why didn't we leave after Bin Laden was killed? Why did we think we could win after the Soviets flopped in Afghanistan? Where did all the money go? Was no one aware that getting involved in a land war in Asia is one of the classic blunders?) But the three above are the real issues. Does anyone know the answers?

[TrickstaPriest]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/sacklers-say-they-wont-pay-4-5b-settlement-if-judge-rejects-immunity-deal/

 

Did you know that if you have enough billions of dollars, you can try and negotiate a deal to make your family immune to prosecution for the rest of your natural lives?

 

This is one of those little "completely destroys the foundation of law" things...

[Lord Liaden]

3 hours ago, Pariah said:

I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to offer helpful insight into the Afghanistan situation. I'm not a political scientist; I'm an actual scientist. But I can't help but ask, if only to myself, a few bothersome questions:

1. When we (as a nation) went into Afghanistan in 2001, what was the mission objective? Was it ever clearly defined?
2. What were the stated victory conditions for the mission? How were we to know when we were done?
3. What was the exit strategy? How did we plan to get out of Afghanistan?

There are other questions I have, though they seem perhaps less earnest. (How long did we really think this was going to take? Why didn't we leave after Bin Laden was killed? Why did we think we could win after the Soviets flopped in Afghanistan? Where did all the money go? Was no one aware that getting involved in a land war in Asia is one of the classic blunders?) But the three above are the real issues. Does anyone know the answers?

 

I've seen a number of discussions of these points over the years. As I understand it:

 

1) The initial stated mission objective was to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven from which to operate against the US.

 

2) That mission was actually accomplished very quickly and efficiently, from a military standpoint.

 

3) This is where it gets messy. The administration of G.W. Bush intended to leave Afghanistan shortly after the successful completion of the invasion. G.W. Bush apparently believed democracy would flourish anywhere it was allowed and encouraged to, and that once a new government was installed the Afghan people would rally around them, and the US could wash its hands of the situation. This thinking appeared to guide Bush's subsequent invasion of Iraq.

[TrickstaPriest]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/abigail-disney-rich-protect-dynastic-wealth-propublica-tax/619212/

[DShomshak]

Why did the Afghan military fold so quickly? This article claims it's because many soldiers hadn't been paid in months... but the Taliban had plenty of money to hand over their weapons and walk away. Or even if soldiers wanted to fight, their commanders were bribed to surrender.

 

• Afghanistan’s military collapse: Illicit deals and mass ...

  www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/...

  KABUL — The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid...

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

20 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/abigail-disney-rich-protect-dynastic-wealth-propublica-tax/619212/

Thank you: Useful research material for the mindset of my billionaire supervillains, especially the ones who control my setting's HYDRA/VIPER analogue.

 

Dean Shomshak

[tkdguy]

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Why did the Afghan military fold so quickly? This article claims it's because many soldiers hadn't been paid in months... but the Taliban had plenty of money to hand over their weapons and walk away. Or even if soldiers wanted to fight, their commanders were bribed to surrender.

 

• Afghanistan’s military collapse: Illicit deals and mass ...

  www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/...

  KABUL — The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid...

Dean Shomshak

 

I figured it had to be an inside job on some level.

[Lord Liaden]

I heard comments from a defense contractor that the Afghan army had been trained, but only in a supporting capacity to American forces. They were used to relying on American electronic intelligence gathering and surveillance, and American air support, neither of which they have any longer.

[Cygnia]

No drop boxes, curbs on mail voting: Ohio GOP lawmakers propose a stricter voting bill

[Ragitsu]

Why complicate a simple matter? Arms manufacturers were making a profit; that is the key reason why we wasted all those lives and all that time.

 

In any case, we can either play world police while indirectly raising the next generation of terrorists or we can get our shit together at home (e.g., strengthen public education, fix civil infrastructure, institute socialized healthcare, retool the immigration process, lead the way in green energy, decouple the military-industrial complex from the economy, et cetera). Our budget isn't infinite...nor is our manpower. Some people - however - want their Schrodinger's Cake.

[TrickstaPriest]

1 hour ago, Ragitsu said:

we can get our shit together at home (e.g., strengthen public education, fix civil infrastructure, institute socialized healthcare, retool the immigration process, lead the way in green energy, decouple the military-industrial complex from the economy, et cetera). Our budget isn't infinite...nor is our manpower Some people - however - want their Schrodinger's Cake

 

Technically speaking they don't want any of those things.  What they want is to distract people with anything possible while they loot every part of the government and American society possible.

[Starlord]

Trump booed at Alabama rally after telling supporters to get vaccinated

[wcw43921]

I learned a new term today--"Hospital Pass"

[Pariah]

Attention Democrats:

 

All you have to do, literally all you have to do to keep Trump and his cronies out of Congress and/or the White House for the next 2-4 years is not screw anything up as badly as the COVID-19 fiasco. Any measure of competence will do, no matter how limited.

 

*sees Afghanistan situation*

 

Never ******* mind.

[Cygnia]

Yeah, NO

 

Matthew Dowd Defends Biden on Afghanistan Withdrawal, Says Media Coverage ‘Way Over the Top’

 

Quote

Dowd, who was chief strategist for George W. Bush’s re-election campaign (a few years later he said he lost confidence in the president), said, “George W. Bush is the one who should be lambasted the most in this coverage… The original sin of the problem we’re seeing unfolding and everything that’s happened in 20 years is at his doorstep. ”

He continued criticizing the media coverage by saying, “The voices they’re putting on the air are all the voices that got it wrong from day one. All of the voices they’re having on the air criticizing — most of them — criticizing Joe Biden are all the ones that got it wrong for the last 20 years. Leon Panetta, George W. Bush — he hasn’t been on the air but people around him — all of them got it wrong, so why would we listen to them related to the pullout?”

 

[archer]

9 hours ago, Starlord said:

Trump booed at Alabama rally after telling supporters to get vaccinated

 

"How dare my supporters listen to what I've been saying!"

[tkdguy]

I'm conflicted on the Afghanistan issue. I supported withdrawing the troops, but I of course feel that it could have been better handled. Now if the Afghan government and military were willing to surrender without a fight, then our whole presence there was a lost cause to begin with. However, there are a lot of civilians who are going to suffer under the Taliban, and that fact is not something to be taken lightly.

 

Maybe we shouldn't have pulled out too soon. But would staying another year have made a difference in the long run?

[Ragitsu]

10 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

would staying another year have made a difference in the long run?

 

Nope. The problems of Afghanistan are never going to be solved by the mere presence of United States armed forces.

[archer]

20 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

 

Maybe we shouldn't have pulled out too soon. But would staying another year have made a difference in the long run?

 

What are you spending the year doing?

 

If you were to spend the next year doing what we've been doing the past year, which was pretty much nothing, then waiting another year wouldn't have accomplished a thing other than letting a large number of people continue living for another year.

 

On the other hand, if we spent the next year arranging permanent places of refuge internationally for women and girls who wanted to get out...

 

Arranging for teachers and journalists to get out...

 

And above all, arranging for the translators (and their families) who've been helping our military, journalists, and charities to be able to function in the country to get out (as our government had promised to do for them), in that case, another year could have made a tremendous difference over the long run.

 

Right now, the 500 members of the Afghan military who are still working with us inside the Kabul airport haven't even been guaranteed a seat on one of the evacuation flights, much less all of the people who are stranded at various places outside the airport gates, inside Kabul, and across the country.

 

Heck, forget about another year. What if that effort had been made just from inauguration day through today, how many thousands or hundreds of thousands would we not be worrying about right now?

[Lord Liaden]

To be fair to Joe Biden, Trump's announced deadline was in May 2021. Biden extended it to August. Even that was a stretch, because he was under tremendous political pressure both domestic and foreign, to make it happen. His plate was also full with COVID vaccination, the virus relief funds, and the infrastructure package.

 

That said, this evacuation should have been conducted sooner and more efficiently. The experts anticipated these problems since Trump's announcement. That should be laid at Biden's doorstep. But the situation was always going to be awful, the best he could have done would be to make it less awful.

 

What I'm more concerned about is how the right-wing media are framing the situation, that "our side" could have done better, it would never have happened if we were in charge, it's like Vietnam where we would have won if "they" allowed it, etc. I'm concerned the public-relations ground work is being laid for America to return militarily to Afghanistan under a future administration. Probably in more of a token capacity, but again putting American lives at risk and generating international bad blood to score political points at home.

[archer]

Afghanistan, Again, Becomes a Cradle for Jihadism—and Al Qaeda

 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/afghanistan-again-becomes-a-cradle-for-jihadism-and-al-qaeda

 

The article lays out the continuing presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan including statements from Bush, Obama, Trump, and as recently as Biden last Friday that it's been defeated and is no longer there.

 

And, on Friday, Joe Biden told the nation, “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with Al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did.” All four Presidents have been proved painfully wrong.

[unclevlad]

Afghanistan IS the Kobiyashi Maru.

 

Could it have been handled better?  Probably, yeah.  But it was never going to work out.

[archer]

14 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Afghanistan IS the Kobiyashi Maru.

 

Could it have been handled better?  Probably, yeah.  But it was never going to work out.

 

There's a marked difference between "some innocents dying" and someone made choices so that the result would be that "some innocents died" plus "your friends died" plus "the guy who saved your life, repeatedly, died".

 

The first is a tragedy. The second is a very, very personalized tragedy.

 

====

 

Also note there's a difference between "personal" and "personalized". "Personal" is that it means something to you.

 

"Personalized" is that someone intentionally did this so that it means something to you.

 

Innocents die in the Kobiyashi Maru, it's a test of character.

 

Failing the Kobiyashi Maru so spectacularly that you personalize the tragedy for the cadets under your command and vigorously defending your very flawed decisions without apparently learning anything from them would be an unforgivable flaw in a command candidate.

 

Finding that unforgivable flaw before you make the mistake of giving that person command is the apparent reason, in-universe, that test is given toward the end of the cadet's command training rather than at the beginning

 

====

 

Unfortunately we don't live in Star Trek. And Trump's host of flaws outweighs Biden's, even at this point, by several orders of magnitude.

[archer]

A man accused of helping to coordinate a self-styled militia’s incursion into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was released Monday to home confinement after arguing his wife would keep him from falling back into extremist views.

 

“She has no tolerance for that kind of talk,” federal public defender Angie Halim said.

 

Only after a federal judge agreed to release Joseph Hackett did a prosecutor mention that his wife, Deena, hosted a political podcast. While the prosecutor did not describe the show’s content, a Deena Hackett co-hosted two episodes of a podcast called “A&D’s Patriot Battle Cry (Rub THAT In!!)” in which she described her husband as a “political prisoner” who was “trying to preserve … this country.” The podcast also includes references to far-right conspiracy theories.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oath-keeper-wins-release-from-jail-after-lawyer-says-he-is-no-longer-radicalized/ar-AANEl7k

 

 

That's a novel legal defense for the Trumpsters to try....

[DShomshak]

21 hours ago, Pariah said:

Attention Democrats:

 

All you have to do, literally all you have to do to keep Trump and his cronies out of Congress and/or the White House for the next 2-4 years is not screw anything up as badly as the COVID-19 fiasco. Any measure of competence will do, no matter how limited.

 

*sees Afghanistan situation*

 

Never ******* mind.

• History Professors Consider How The Afghanistan War ... - npr.org

  www.npr.org/2021/08/22/1030154266/history...

  Heard on All Things Considered Audio will be available later today. NPR's Michel Martin discusses what the war in Afghanistan will mean in U.S. history with historian Kathleen Belew, retired U.S....

   

  Relevant here: As two of the professors note, Americans have very short political memories. Unless there are new attacks from Afghanistan, the scenes of Kabul airport will likely soon be forgotten. From a crass political perspective, Biden can still turn this into a win if he keeps repeating that We Are Out, the Forever War Is Over -- no matter what happens to the Afghan people.

  Dean Shomshak