Good morning everyone. So I have some thoughts (as you no doubt are unsurprised to hear!) . . .
1. The US military establishment lied and lied and lied when they talked about the combat readiness of the Afghan army. They have done so for 20 years. They even admitted that they lied a number of times when pressed. Their motive in lying was…
Good morning everyone. So I have some thoughts (as you no doubt are unsurprised to hear!) . . .
1. The US military establishment lied and lied and lied when they talked about the combat readiness of the Afghan army. They have done so for 20 years. They even admitted that they lied a number of times when pressed. Their motive in lying was to present the military trainers as competent, when they were not. If this sounds familiar to those of us who lived through the Vietnam era, well, there you go.
2. There is not a single US administration that behaved proactively in Afghanistan. There has not been a single congressional "class" that has behaved proactively in Afghanistan. Plenty of academics--from historians to economists, to anthropologists, to sociologists--have been saying over the last 40 years that the West's way of dealing with Afghanistan was going to fail and was wrongheaded from the start. But the last 20 years has also seen the dumbing down of the federal government, the glorification of ignorance and prejudice and jingoistic idiocy. So the people who actually had a clue were ignored or vilified. QED.
3. If the people of Afghanistan had cared about the pro-Western cultural institutions that western money propped up in their country--education and rights for women, a government elected through a democratic and transparent process, an economy based on capitalism--they would have embraced this idea beyond the few elites and the dedicated female teachers of girls and women. But they did not. Because Afghanistan is not a country. It is a delegation of provinces with intimate and historical ties to traditions we dismissed and ignored. We did not make them care about women and girls. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT WOMEN AND GIRLS. The hollering going on now about "how do we save the women and girls" is laughable because the people who should have been asking those questions are the ones who embraced TFG's jingoistic and autocratic foreign policy, who are determined to police women's bodies and criminalize women's bodily autonomy in the USA, who claim religious exceptionalism, who say NOTHING about the abuse of women and girls in their favorite countries, like Saudi Arabia, where al Qaeda came from. They are our Taliban: they just wear suits and talk about the "rights of the unborn," and claim that their militant death-cult brand of Christianity is the "true" one. And they are winning here in the USA: take a look at the judicial decision to ban certain abortions in TX.
3. We had the chance to do the ONE THING that would have broken the economic back of the Taliban: stop the growing of opium poppies and the opium trade--the market for which is THE WEST--and replace it with well-constructed, carefully planned alternatives that the people in the south and west of the country (where poppies are grown) could manage THEMSELVES. We did not consult with the people whose lives were at risk if they did not grow opium. We did not ask them what THEY wanted to do, what THEY wanted to grow. We just went in and behaved like the boorish mo****f***ers we are and claimed to know better. We did not.
4. Why are all media outlets losing their s*** trying to blame SOMEONE for this horror show? Because they think it will help their ratings. Because as institutions the commercial media are all idiots and ignoramuses, led by suits who like their corporate bonuses no matter their political stripes. Because the last person in the room is the one they blame. Why don't they instead do something useful, like re-animate the pages from the RNC website that praised TFG's "brilliant and groundbreaking deal" with the Taliban? Which they scrubbed as soon as the debacle occurred.
I could go on but I won't. Sorry for my rant of the day. I admit that I don't understand why anyone is surprised by any of this.
Good morning, Linda, and as usual, kudos for the wonderful rant that is right on. I am so angry at media outlets right now and I know damn well that it is ratings. As for women and girls, I was reading yesterday about what the men were saying to women before they won Kabul. It wasn't at all supportive. I could write a book about how females are treated including here. We have always been boors when "helping" others who are not of our culture and frequently don't look like us. I am reminded of Achebe's Things Fall Apart, about the colonization of Nigeria and the coming of missionaries. I was a Peace Corps teacher in Sierra Leone at an Irish Catholic boys school. The students were Catholic at school and practiced all the old ways at home. One of my fellow teachers (known as junior staff!) told me I shouldn't whistle because I would attract evil spirits. I learned a great deal there about that culture and also the overwhelming hubris of Americans and Europeans. To their credit, PC volunteers usually were not. For me, it was a life changing experience especially in terms of our foreign policy, the history of colonization, and the slave trade.
Michele, when I taught General Education World Civ courses, I assigned Things Fall Apart. It remains one of the most profoundly important works of literature I have ever read. And I agree: it should be essential reading for every yutz who ventures outside his or her little enclave.
It was one of my first introductions to literature written by Africans and I will never forget it and have a copy in our home library. Some of my other favorites are written by French speaking African poets. "The slap of the holy water" has stayed with me and then the hilarious one in hybrid English about having only one wife. I read those poems to my students in ancient and English history (world civ for frosh which matched our English dept. sequence). To start them thinking at the beginning of class, we watched The Gods Must Be Crazy which has all sort of great threads in it. (and yes, I rode in a Land Rover where we had to work the windshield wipers by hand and hold one of the doors closed.) One student said, but that's a comedy and I told him it was OK to laugh in history class. Another favorite of mine is The Poisonwood Bible because it is very accurate in terms of how missionaries and Africans see things. I did laugh. I also want to say that I am now starting my am reading your posts and love them.
Brava, Linda! As an immigrant -- and once, an Afghani neighbor -- I have been ranting for a very long time. My rants are often silent for fear of repercussions, my profound thanks to you for this appeasing and most gratifying one!
You hit it on the nose when you wrote that "Afghanistan is not a country. It is a delegation of provinces with intimate and historical traditions that we ignored." All of those countries whose names end with "Stan" differ ethnically and are somewhat alien to those over the next mountain range and that was also true within Afghanistan as you point out. Outside of Islam, little unites them except the quality of isolation from their neighbors which each has. Look at a map of Central Asia where Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikstan come together and try to figure out why they are separate countries.
“Because they think it will help their ratings. Because as institutions the commercial media are all idiots and ignoramuses, led by suits who like their corporate bonuses no matter their political stripes.” This is precisely what I have been yelling at the television for days. I keep trying to have faith that “GOOD” will prevail in all of these matters, home and abroad. But when the right wing has Fox and the “once believed real news outlets” only care about ratings and profits, is there any GOOD left??
WE read other sources, but most of the country gets any and all information from sources that do not care about the good of our country. They only care about their own pockets.
Linda, Thank you. I was winding up to a lengthy rant and you saved me the time. You are spot on. It always was about the drugs and $$$. We should have learned our lesson in Vietnam. Remember the storied "Golden Triangle"? What ever happened to that?
"We should have learned our lesson in _______________ (add country/region name here)."
That list would be very long and the lessons learned have not been the ones that lead to better/longer lives for either the people of those places or Americans.
Yes, you've hit all the necessary points in this debacle. I just posted my singular thots on legalizing heroin to take the profit out of it. Didn't go into all the details of how the very conservative mouthpieces are likely benefiting from the illegal trade profits - maybe why no one has pushed this in government. Our complicity with allowing the poppy fields to continue may have come from our own government - who knows? Organized crime is just that.
Ironically, the large population of heroin addicts in the US aided the bankrolling the Taliban war effort, as the Taliban, through the sale of morphine, tapped into the highly lucrative opium and heroin markets, some of which came to the US. The poppy trade also played a critical role in corrupting local government officials in Afghani provinces. Although it tried, US was never able to effectively disrupt the poppy trade in Afghanistan. It is highly likely that the Taliban government will remain dependent on the poppy trade as international support for Afghanistan dries up with the Taliban takeover.
Thanks for the rant. Speaking of suits and bonuses- I am waiting for an NBC employee to speak up about China and human rights (Tibet?) before we are bombarded with our next feel good, flag waving bonanza of the NBC winter olympics (from Beijing?). I won’t hold my breath (as I write on my iPad made in China). As Heather says, follow the money.
That's a good point. China is ready to put in infrastructure in Tibet to search for minerals and expand its trade. Perhaps western money put on hold won't matter that much because China will pay and pave its way through Afghanistan as they did in Tibet with "hiring" its citizens to do the ground (literally) work. It will be very interesting to watch China's engagement with provincial governments and cultural beliefs.
From your source: "Putin also spoke to Macron on Thursday, discussing Afghanistan under the Taliban's rule and the importance of ensuring the safety of civilians, the Kremlin said." What could go wrong!?
Or, holding back the former Afghanistan government money to withhold it from the Taliban will only create a thirst that makes the Chinese and Russian influence in the region just that much more powerful.
You said a mouth full with that little phrase, “ Follow The Money “ as the money seems to be the root of all the evil!!! And I ain’t the least bit religious......
The question has to be asked in all of these situations, and that is , Who is gaining what in this situation ???
We seemed to understand some of this when we went into Afghanistan. We teamed up with what we called the northern alliance, tribes from the north, who opposed the Taliban, whose stronghold was the south. But then we seemed to forget all this and tried to create a nation. We also often trap ourselves when we promote democracy and encourage new elections. All foreign aid then goes to these anointed leaders, who siphon off whatever they want, and the aid never reaches the general population. Correcting this situation would make a mockery of the new democracy we helped to create. The soldiers in the Afghan army were often not paid, when there was plenty of money floating around. This is not good for morale. Here is a question: why do the people of some divided areas (Italy, Japan) form nations, while others don’t? Afghans are firm about one thing, tho, no foreign influence. In this they have an ally, pakistan, which gave shelter to al qaeda and the taliban when things got tough. Pakistan is opposed to foreign influence in Afghanistan because it thinks that this will eventually lead to the influence of India on Afghanistan, and Pakistan, which lies between Afghanistan and India, cannot abide being “surrounded” by India.
Probably 2 days before the attack on the twin towers, the tribal chief in the north was killed, maybe assassinated. No one showed up to take his place.
A Big Thank You to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell for his SUPERB response just now to media's unfair and inappropriate blaming of President Biden for the "chaotic end" of the US war with Afghanistan. I am still cheering and clapping!!
The fact that we don’t yet know the truth of the “Saudi connection” to 9/11, indicates that we all are still very much in the dark about the games rich and powerful men play with people’s lives. “We the people, all of us, this time” really need to bear down on our quest for truth and transparency and justice and treating others as we want to be treated.
I think we know the truth of the "Saudi connection to 9/11", I just think this is another one of our governments monumental cover ups. We knew the night of 9/11 when Bush escorted his Saudi visitors out of our country under the cover of night.
Sometimes fiction provides more access to factual situations than news reporting does. The writer's imagination can open doors a journalist might miss, and get closer to the truth. There's a 2020 novel (The Opium Prince by Jasmine Aimaq) which can add a lot to understanding Afghanistan. When there's a course on what happened over the past 20 years in Afghanistan, it will be on the reading list.
Thank you for these observations. Just a note... if you watch the videos of the Afghanis trying to board the planes to escape the country, it is about 95% male. Where are the women? I noticed this from the first video and it hasn't gotten any better.
HCR's key (at least for me) - the wart on the proverbial nose which the foolhardy US apparently was unable and/or unwilling to acknowledge: "a society based in patronage networks and family relationships."
At our level - the working and middle-ish classes - we don't really understand the extent to which "patronage networks and family relationships" also operate within the ranks of the ultra-wealthy in the US and other western countries. We have been encouraged to believe that merit counts more than who you know. But is that really the case?
Good morning everyone. So I have some thoughts (as you no doubt are unsurprised to hear!) . . .
1. The US military establishment lied and lied and lied when they talked about the combat readiness of the Afghan army. They have done so for 20 years. They even admitted that they lied a number of times when pressed. Their motive in lying was to present the military trainers as competent, when they were not. If this sounds familiar to those of us who lived through the Vietnam era, well, there you go.
2. There is not a single US administration that behaved proactively in Afghanistan. There has not been a single congressional "class" that has behaved proactively in Afghanistan. Plenty of academics--from historians to economists, to anthropologists, to sociologists--have been saying over the last 40 years that the West's way of dealing with Afghanistan was going to fail and was wrongheaded from the start. But the last 20 years has also seen the dumbing down of the federal government, the glorification of ignorance and prejudice and jingoistic idiocy. So the people who actually had a clue were ignored or vilified. QED.
3. If the people of Afghanistan had cared about the pro-Western cultural institutions that western money propped up in their country--education and rights for women, a government elected through a democratic and transparent process, an economy based on capitalism--they would have embraced this idea beyond the few elites and the dedicated female teachers of girls and women. But they did not. Because Afghanistan is not a country. It is a delegation of provinces with intimate and historical ties to traditions we dismissed and ignored. We did not make them care about women and girls. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT WOMEN AND GIRLS. The hollering going on now about "how do we save the women and girls" is laughable because the people who should have been asking those questions are the ones who embraced TFG's jingoistic and autocratic foreign policy, who are determined to police women's bodies and criminalize women's bodily autonomy in the USA, who claim religious exceptionalism, who say NOTHING about the abuse of women and girls in their favorite countries, like Saudi Arabia, where al Qaeda came from. They are our Taliban: they just wear suits and talk about the "rights of the unborn," and claim that their militant death-cult brand of Christianity is the "true" one. And they are winning here in the USA: take a look at the judicial decision to ban certain abortions in TX.
3. We had the chance to do the ONE THING that would have broken the economic back of the Taliban: stop the growing of opium poppies and the opium trade--the market for which is THE WEST--and replace it with well-constructed, carefully planned alternatives that the people in the south and west of the country (where poppies are grown) could manage THEMSELVES. We did not consult with the people whose lives were at risk if they did not grow opium. We did not ask them what THEY wanted to do, what THEY wanted to grow. We just went in and behaved like the boorish mo****f***ers we are and claimed to know better. We did not.
4. Why are all media outlets losing their s*** trying to blame SOMEONE for this horror show? Because they think it will help their ratings. Because as institutions the commercial media are all idiots and ignoramuses, led by suits who like their corporate bonuses no matter their political stripes. Because the last person in the room is the one they blame. Why don't they instead do something useful, like re-animate the pages from the RNC website that praised TFG's "brilliant and groundbreaking deal" with the Taliban? Which they scrubbed as soon as the debacle occurred.
I could go on but I won't. Sorry for my rant of the day. I admit that I don't understand why anyone is surprised by any of this.
Good morning, Linda, and as usual, kudos for the wonderful rant that is right on. I am so angry at media outlets right now and I know damn well that it is ratings. As for women and girls, I was reading yesterday about what the men were saying to women before they won Kabul. It wasn't at all supportive. I could write a book about how females are treated including here. We have always been boors when "helping" others who are not of our culture and frequently don't look like us. I am reminded of Achebe's Things Fall Apart, about the colonization of Nigeria and the coming of missionaries. I was a Peace Corps teacher in Sierra Leone at an Irish Catholic boys school. The students were Catholic at school and practiced all the old ways at home. One of my fellow teachers (known as junior staff!) told me I shouldn't whistle because I would attract evil spirits. I learned a great deal there about that culture and also the overwhelming hubris of Americans and Europeans. To their credit, PC volunteers usually were not. For me, it was a life changing experience especially in terms of our foreign policy, the history of colonization, and the slave trade.
Michele, when I taught General Education World Civ courses, I assigned Things Fall Apart. It remains one of the most profoundly important works of literature I have ever read. And I agree: it should be essential reading for every yutz who ventures outside his or her little enclave.
It was one of my first introductions to literature written by Africans and I will never forget it and have a copy in our home library. Some of my other favorites are written by French speaking African poets. "The slap of the holy water" has stayed with me and then the hilarious one in hybrid English about having only one wife. I read those poems to my students in ancient and English history (world civ for frosh which matched our English dept. sequence). To start them thinking at the beginning of class, we watched The Gods Must Be Crazy which has all sort of great threads in it. (and yes, I rode in a Land Rover where we had to work the windshield wipers by hand and hold one of the doors closed.) One student said, but that's a comedy and I told him it was OK to laugh in history class. Another favorite of mine is The Poisonwood Bible because it is very accurate in terms of how missionaries and Africans see things. I did laugh. I also want to say that I am now starting my am reading your posts and love them.
The Gods Must be Crazy II Too!
Please whistle!
I learned from your rant. Thank you.
Brava, Linda! As an immigrant -- and once, an Afghani neighbor -- I have been ranting for a very long time. My rants are often silent for fear of repercussions, my profound thanks to you for this appeasing and most gratifying one!
Thanks Rowshan. I find your posts exceptionally interesting to read. You have a more personal and intimate perspective on this than I could ever have.
Awww! Thanks ever so much, Linda! You're too kind.
I enjoy your posts Rowshan. You write so gracefully.
You hit it on the nose when you wrote that "Afghanistan is not a country. It is a delegation of provinces with intimate and historical traditions that we ignored." All of those countries whose names end with "Stan" differ ethnically and are somewhat alien to those over the next mountain range and that was also true within Afghanistan as you point out. Outside of Islam, little unites them except the quality of isolation from their neighbors which each has. Look at a map of Central Asia where Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikstan come together and try to figure out why they are separate countries.
“Because they think it will help their ratings. Because as institutions the commercial media are all idiots and ignoramuses, led by suits who like their corporate bonuses no matter their political stripes.” This is precisely what I have been yelling at the television for days. I keep trying to have faith that “GOOD” will prevail in all of these matters, home and abroad. But when the right wing has Fox and the “once believed real news outlets” only care about ratings and profits, is there any GOOD left??
WE read other sources, but most of the country gets any and all information from sources that do not care about the good of our country. They only care about their own pockets.
Linda, Thank you. I was winding up to a lengthy rant and you saved me the time. You are spot on. It always was about the drugs and $$$. We should have learned our lesson in Vietnam. Remember the storied "Golden Triangle"? What ever happened to that?
"We should have learned our lesson in _______________ (add country/region name here)."
That list would be very long and the lessons learned have not been the ones that lead to better/longer lives for either the people of those places or Americans.
Once again, I say Brava to you, Linda, and thank you. Keep up the rants, save the dog.
He is def grateful I am not yelling all the time!!
Yes, you've hit all the necessary points in this debacle. I just posted my singular thots on legalizing heroin to take the profit out of it. Didn't go into all the details of how the very conservative mouthpieces are likely benefiting from the illegal trade profits - maybe why no one has pushed this in government. Our complicity with allowing the poppy fields to continue may have come from our own government - who knows? Organized crime is just that.
Ironically, the large population of heroin addicts in the US aided the bankrolling the Taliban war effort, as the Taliban, through the sale of morphine, tapped into the highly lucrative opium and heroin markets, some of which came to the US. The poppy trade also played a critical role in corrupting local government officials in Afghani provinces. Although it tried, US was never able to effectively disrupt the poppy trade in Afghanistan. It is highly likely that the Taliban government will remain dependent on the poppy trade as international support for Afghanistan dries up with the Taliban takeover.
Thanks for the rant. Speaking of suits and bonuses- I am waiting for an NBC employee to speak up about China and human rights (Tibet?) before we are bombarded with our next feel good, flag waving bonanza of the NBC winter olympics (from Beijing?). I won’t hold my breath (as I write on my iPad made in China). As Heather says, follow the money.
That's a good point. China is ready to put in infrastructure in Tibet to search for minerals and expand its trade. Perhaps western money put on hold won't matter that much because China will pay and pave its way through Afghanistan as they did in Tibet with "hiring" its citizens to do the ground (literally) work. It will be very interesting to watch China's engagement with provincial governments and cultural beliefs.
First sentence should read: China is ready to put in infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Guessing that China is not alone. https://www.reuters.com/world/russias-putin-italys-draghi-discuss-afghanistan-ria-2021-08-19/
From your source: "Putin also spoke to Macron on Thursday, discussing Afghanistan under the Taliban's rule and the importance of ensuring the safety of civilians, the Kremlin said." What could go wrong!?
Or, holding back the former Afghanistan government money to withhold it from the Taliban will only create a thirst that makes the Chinese and Russian influence in the region just that much more powerful.
You said a mouth full with that little phrase, “ Follow The Money “ as the money seems to be the root of all the evil!!! And I ain’t the least bit religious......
The question has to be asked in all of these situations, and that is , Who is gaining what in this situation ???
“Jingoistic idiocy” resonates with me this morning.. well put.
We seemed to understand some of this when we went into Afghanistan. We teamed up with what we called the northern alliance, tribes from the north, who opposed the Taliban, whose stronghold was the south. But then we seemed to forget all this and tried to create a nation. We also often trap ourselves when we promote democracy and encourage new elections. All foreign aid then goes to these anointed leaders, who siphon off whatever they want, and the aid never reaches the general population. Correcting this situation would make a mockery of the new democracy we helped to create. The soldiers in the Afghan army were often not paid, when there was plenty of money floating around. This is not good for morale. Here is a question: why do the people of some divided areas (Italy, Japan) form nations, while others don’t? Afghans are firm about one thing, tho, no foreign influence. In this they have an ally, pakistan, which gave shelter to al qaeda and the taliban when things got tough. Pakistan is opposed to foreign influence in Afghanistan because it thinks that this will eventually lead to the influence of India on Afghanistan, and Pakistan, which lies between Afghanistan and India, cannot abide being “surrounded” by India.
Probably 2 days before the attack on the twin towers, the tribal chief in the north was killed, maybe assassinated. No one showed up to take his place.
"divided areas"
- Japan?
A Big Thank You to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell for his SUPERB response just now to media's unfair and inappropriate blaming of President Biden for the "chaotic end" of the US war with Afghanistan. I am still cheering and clapping!!
Thanks for sharing, MaryPat!!
The fact that we don’t yet know the truth of the “Saudi connection” to 9/11, indicates that we all are still very much in the dark about the games rich and powerful men play with people’s lives. “We the people, all of us, this time” really need to bear down on our quest for truth and transparency and justice and treating others as we want to be treated.
“Despite being blocked by their own government, lawyers for the 9/11 relatives have found considerable evidence of a Saudi link to a plan by 19 Islamist jihadists — 15 of them Saudi citizens — to hijack four, California-bound commercial jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001.” https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2021/08/06/september-11-attacks-saudi-involvement-scrutiny-new-legislation/5490340001/
I think we know the truth of the "Saudi connection to 9/11", I just think this is another one of our governments monumental cover ups. We knew the night of 9/11 when Bush escorted his Saudi visitors out of our country under the cover of night.
Sometimes fiction provides more access to factual situations than news reporting does. The writer's imagination can open doors a journalist might miss, and get closer to the truth. There's a 2020 novel (The Opium Prince by Jasmine Aimaq) which can add a lot to understanding Afghanistan. When there's a course on what happened over the past 20 years in Afghanistan, it will be on the reading list.
Thank you for these observations. Just a note... if you watch the videos of the Afghanis trying to board the planes to escape the country, it is about 95% male. Where are the women? I noticed this from the first video and it hasn't gotten any better.
HCR's key (at least for me) - the wart on the proverbial nose which the foolhardy US apparently was unable and/or unwilling to acknowledge: "a society based in patronage networks and family relationships."
At our level - the working and middle-ish classes - we don't really understand the extent to which "patronage networks and family relationships" also operate within the ranks of the ultra-wealthy in the US and other western countries. We have been encouraged to believe that merit counts more than who you know. But is that really the case?
Aha.
If that is a rant, then keep ranting please. So much depressing common sense here.