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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2946 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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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.

The ostensible freedoms Afghans had under the old government are irrelevant given how corrupt and incompetent it was. The Taliban at least have some degree of popular support and accountability. Their victory should lead to the development of a functioning political system, which opens up the possibility of reform in the future.

Quite frankly, political rights are not as important as institutionalized rape of children. Under the old regime they barely had any meaningful political rights anyway, everything was so corrupt. What is the point of voting on which brigand runs the country? And who cares if Freedom House's index of political rights falls 17 points from 27 to 10? Would you rather live in 'unfree' China or 'free' Ghana?

Furthermore, I cited two tweets showing primary sources where General McNeil says he was not given any clear strategy on what he was supposed to do. This is obviously relevant to my claim that the US did not know what its goals were. If they knew what they wanted in a specific concrete sense, somebody would have told McNeil. There would have been some kind of strategic plan to win the war. If you disagree, please explain rather than saying 'those Hanania tweets do not say what you think they do'.

The Freedom House rating includes both civil liberties and political rights, so I don't know why you are only talking about political rights. I find it a bit disingenuous.

As for General McNeil, the tweet quotes him as saying that he was given "little strategic guidance." That is a far cry from saying that he was unaware that the basic goal of the war was to support the current government, keep the Taliban out of power, etc. The idea that, because he said he got little strategic guidance, therefore "we [can't] say that we have a better understanding of what the war was officially about" is just silly.

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