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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   4429 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 20, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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This is pretty clearly a Culture War item, not a Friday Fun Thread item. Leaving it up since it's already spawned a lot of discussion, but just because something is "Twitter drama" doesn't mean it doesn't belong in the Culture War thread.

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Hilarious video, reminds me slightly of this: teen insulting media after being arrested for a robbery https://twitter.com/i/status/1565960655626199040

On a serious note - this is a tiny war crime. The real crime is going to Afghanistan and staying to pointlessly fight as long as we did. Australian troops were only there to improve relations with the US. Australia has no strategic interests in Afghanistan whatsoever. Him deciding to kill a few people for fun or morale reasons is just the micro version of Australia going to Afghanistan to look good in the eyes of our big and powerful friend. And the macro version is US generals lying to the world because they were too embarrassed to admit defeat back in the late 2000s, dragging out this utter farce for another decade.

At least Roberts-Smith had some skin in the game, more than can be said for the politicians and generals who accepted all the rewards and none of the costs of that stupid war.

Him deciding to kill a few people for fun

For fun? With friends like you, this guy doesn't need enemies. He might be suing you next.

admit defeat back in the late 2000s

Give mea break. The US could have continued its presence in Afghanistan for 100 years, and the Taliban still wouldn't have been back in power. And given what they have done since they returned to power, every day US troops were there was a victory for the people who matter the most in all this, which is ordinary Afghans.

The US could have continued its presence in Afghanistan for 100 years

And would they have achieved their goal of 'nation-building' in a 100 years? They certainly couldn't manage it in 20! I point out that even in 2009 and 2010 the Taliban started retaking parts of the countryside. They were winning for the past 10 years, despite the rosy lies Coalition generals were telling us the whole time. That was why we were coming to the negotiating table - back in 2002 and 2003 we thought we were winning and refused to negotiate.

If you don't achieve your political goal and the enemy does, you have been defeated in the war. Sure, the US didn't know what it was doing, I'm not sure that they could even conceptualize what their political goal was... but it certainly wasn't achieved!

I'm not sure how you figure that "almost as many" = "stronger than before," but regardless, as you say, "If you don't achieve your political goal and the enemy does, you have been defeated in the war." Your claim was that the US was "too embarrassed to admit defeat back in the late 2000s, dragging out this utter farce for another decade." But, it is very clear that the Taliban had not achieved its political goal (i.e., returning to power) in the late 2000s, nor even in the late 2010s, and it was also clear that they were never going to achieve that goal as long as the US decided to prevent it. We are talking about a war in which US deaths in any given year never reached 500. So, clearly, the Taliban was defeated in the war, based on your criterion for defeat.

Yeah I misread 'almost as many' to be stronger than before, deleted now.

The US political goal was not merely to prevent the Taliban being in power, it was some kind of vague concept of Afghanistan being a nice, prosperous liberal country. They didn't achieve that goal, couldn't achieve that goal. Nobody really told the military what they were supposed to be doing, they were often left to do their own thing: https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1204210738773946368 https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1204437119768223744

Anyway, the fact that they were losing was known but suppressed within the US military:

https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1204173586874789889/photo/1

Now if you're losing the war before actually being defeated, it means that it looks like the enemy will win more easily than you. Admitting defeat means recognizing you aren't going to win in the future, despite what the situation might be on the ground at the moment. Napoleon was in Moscow for a time, but he was losing even as he occupied a major city of the enemy. That's why he admitted defeat and retreated. Now I sense you will say 'oh he suffered horrific casualties' but the key thing is not what casualties he was suffering but the political situation. He wasn't achieving the objective of suppressing Russia and getting them to embargo Britain. It looked difficult/impossible to achieve that objective. It was similarly difficult/impossible to turn Afghanistan into whatever it is the US wanted, which was never really made clear. That meant they had to leave, which meant the Taliban would win.

If the US goal was only to prevent the Taliban being in power, they could've won by staying for decades, as you say. But the goal was to turn it into a liberal democracy without completely breaking the bank.

I have to say that those Hanania tweets do not say what you think they do, but regardless, your claim was that that "The real crime is going to Afghanistan and staying to pointlessly fight as long as we did." As I said, "every day US troops were there was a victory for the people who matter the most in all this, which is ordinary Afghans." And, of course, keeping the Taliban out of power and supporting anti-US terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, was one of the goals. thus, it was not pointless. Now, you are saying something different: That the US did not achieve **all **of its goals. That is a very different claim than "it was pointless."

The wellbeing of Afghans?

Under the NATO-approved occupation govt, they had the institutionalized rape of young boys by the so-called Afghan military. This is one of the things the Taliban was trying to stamp out.

The documentary also contains footage of an American military advisor confronting the then-acting police chief on the abuse after a young boy is shot in the leg after trying to escape a police barracks. When the Marine suggests that the barracks be searched for children, and that any policeman found to be engaged in pedophilia be arrested and jailed, the high-ranking officer insists what occurs between the security forces and the boys is consensual, saying "[the boys] like being there and giving their asses at night". He went on to claim that this practice was historic and necessary, rhetorically asking: "If [my commanders] don't fuck the asses of those boys, what should they fuck? The pussies of their own grandmothers?"

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html

The justice system didn't work - that's one of the primary reasons people turned to the Taliban: https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1204481503838662656. Everyone in power was grossly corrupt. You had comically villainous characters like this in positions of influence: https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1204185809722589186

But I guess girls got to go to school and not have to wear the hijab for a few years, so it's all right. Some of the corruption managed to trickle down to the Afghan population.

And for this we threw at least USD 2 Trillion down the drain, along with thousands of troops! Was there nothing better we could do with that money and those lives? The opium production of Afghanistan increased enormously under our ultra-corrupt administration, so there's even more harm from our adventure. We damaged relations with Pakistan, we distracted ourselves from real foreign policy problems with this debacle. Al Qaeda simply moved elsewhere and continues on. Describing this war as 'pointless' is positively charitable!

The Hanania tweets back up both my specific points and my general argument that it was a gigantic tragicomedy. If General McNeil didn't know what he was supposed to do, how can we say that we have a better understanding of what the war was officially about?

Yes, the old govt sucks. And yet the Taliban are far worse. As they were when last they were in power Every day they were out of power was a good day for Afghans.

The Hanania tweets back up both my specific points and my general argument that it was a gigantic tragicomedy.

Whether it was a tragicomedy is not the issue we are discussing. You cited them for a very different claim.

If General McNeil didn't know what he was supposed to do, how can we say that we have a better understanding of what the war was officially about?

I don't understand what that is supposed to mean.

More comments

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I can't decide whether Roberts-Smith 'liking' a post written by one of his army buddies to provoke the attorney for the opposition was a genius or bad move

I don't know if liking that post was a genius move, but his transparent lie that he had no idea whom the tweet could possibly refer to was the opposite of genius. Jurors aren't morons, and that exchange absolutely made the lawyer's day.

As an aside, so much for the masculinity and integrity of the witness. A real man takes responsibility for his actions, including liking tweets that denigrate opposing counsel.

As an aside, so much for the masculinity and integrity of the witness.

He's Victoria Cross holder, among other things:

Demonstrating extreme devotion to duty and the most conspicuous gallantry in action in the face of a very determined and aggressive enemy and with total disregard for his own safety, Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith initiated an assault against an elevated fortification consisting of three enemy machine gun positions and superior numbers of heavily armed insurgents.

With members of his patrol pinned down by the three enemy machine gun positions, he knowingly and willingly exposed his position in order to draw fire away from his team mates and enabled them to apply fire against the enemy. Fighting at ranges as close as 20 metres, he seized the advantage and, demonstrating extreme devotion to duty and the most conspicuous gallantry and with total disregard for his own safety, Corporal Roberts-Smith stormed two enemy machine gun positions killing both machine gun teams.

His selfless actions in circumstances of great peril served to enable his patrol to break into the enemy�s defences and to regain the initiative, thereby resulting in a tactical victory against an enemy more than three times the size of the ground force.

http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbrsmith.htm

This is arguably harder to achieve than a Medal of Honor -- certainly there are fewer living holders, you can count them on one hand IIRC. (Although this is perhaps related to the Commonwealth being much less fighty than the US post-WWII)

Say what you will about his judgement, I don't think his masculinity is in question.

Well, none of this relates to the reasons that I questioned his masculinity. God knows Jordan Peterson would have a thing or two to say to him on the topic.

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The point is not that the jury won't like what he said about the lawyer. The point is that he is sitting on the stand, obviously lying. It is the lying that the jury won't like.

He didn't say it. He liked a post. I can't quite put myself in the head of an Anglo juror, but the lawyer comes off as extremely petty by even bringing it up.

Yes, my mistake, he liked it. Nevertheless he is clearly lying, which was stupid. The lawyer might look bad for bringing it up, but once the lawyer did so, he had several options, and chose the absolute worse.

Frankly his best option in that exact moment on the stand would've been to concede the point and say something along the lines of "sure, I can see now how you can relate this to yourself", and deliver it with that characteristic Aussie dryness. It would've scored him some points with those in his inner circle and would've served as a less obviously thin response. It may have led to further examination along that dimension but unless Australian law deviates further from English common-law than my impression of it, it shouldn't be something the prosecutor can really dive deep on.

Again, I don't know what the effect of the entire exchange will be. But once the lawyer broached the subject, the plaintiff* had three options.

  1. Apologize for a lapse of judgment

  2. Double down

  3. Lie, by pretending he didn't know who the tweet was referring to.

Dude chose #3, which was stupid. As a lawyer at a top tier litigation firm once told me, "Once a jury figures out you are lying, they will kick you in the nuts again and again and again."

And to repeat, the issue of whether the lawyer was wise to raise the issue is completely different from whether the plaintiff's response was smart

to many people this is going to be an entertaining insult.

I don't know how voir dire works in Australia, but in the US the defense attorneys would have worked hard to keep such people off the jury.

*This is a libel suit. The lawyer is representing a defendant.

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Now, special forces are .. special kinds of people. Aggressive guys who just won't quit despite punishing training, expected to go into the hairiest situations in small groups, typically against far more numerous opposition, without much support.

The whole idea of putting them in a box labelled "special forces" is keeping them safely away from the rest of the soldiers and the civil society. You don't want your soldiers to look up to them and your civilians to admire them.

Oh, this is the fun thread, isn't it? Is the role of a soldier a culture war topic?

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It’s a nice idea, but the closest to your idea that has happened have been states like the German and Japanese empires.

My first thought was America, where everyone has access to a quantity and quality of weapons guerrilla forces in other countries could only dream of. Interesting how you get to the other side of the libertarian-authoritarian spectrum when you include the condition that the armed populace have to be under the command of army officers.

Well, the upper crust of Israeli political class is near-universally distinguished in military service (e.g. Bibi) or, for earlier generations, has history in paramilitary/terrorist organizations (e.g. Begin, Allon, Shamir). Seems to work out okay for them.

But then again, you never know if the overall success is because or in spite of that.

What is certain is that this doesn't make them especially avoidant of conflict. Would be interested to see if @No_one endorses their approach.

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or, for earlier generations, has history in paramilitary/terrorist organizations (e.g. Begin, Allon, Shamir).

The early political class in the Soviet Union and in communist China, Yugoslavia and Albania also earned their power by fighting in a war. How did that work out? Not well for the Soviet Union, China or Albania, I would say. Not sure about Yugoslavia.

Edit: I forgot about the American Revolution. But how many of their early politicians actually fought in the war? I know George Washington did, what about the rest?

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Yeah I was going to say this sounds like the majority of Australian men I know. Proximity to modernity is one factor I think, because I know a number of Australian women who talk like that too, all of them from the bush.

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