We are no longer a serious people(thepullrequest.com)
thepullrequest.com
We are no longer a serious people
https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/we-are-no-longer-a-serious-people
65 comments
The article was published hours before those later Tweets.
The article was published 3 hours ago. AOC was tweeting 6 hours ago and retweeting others 20 hours ago.
More charitably, it's possible that the author wrote this article over a course of several days and didn't notice.
More charitably, it's possible that the author wrote this article over a course of several days and didn't notice.
Author of the piece has a lot of criticisms but no suggestions as to what anyone could have done better. Not a serious person.
I think we don’t need to have the author enumerate them. We’ve taken a lot of small-to-medium-sized wrong turns over the last 40 years or so
I think he/she is making the point that our society is not comprehensively discussing topics with all angles covered.
The progressive wing of the party in power—Bernie, AOC, the 'squad', the whole crew that normally tweets 10 times per day and has opinions on everything—goes absolutely mute when confronted by some hard, inconvenient reality outside the US liberal bubble like Cuba or Afghanistan. As the situation in Afghanistan worsened, the charismatic new face of progressive politics was…enthusing about public libraries. Yay!
AOC’s tweet:
Shout out to libraries and library workers. We love and appreciate you that’s all
These same liberals would have been tweeting about ‘leave Afghanistan immediately, we need to spend that money on school lunches’ a year ago, or tweet something about inspiring Afghan women going to school.
They would speak up when speaking up was inconsequential. Well, ok, how about now? We left, and now there is the Taliban.
It’s the same with defunding the police. Even a small pullback of policing increased crime in many US states. Let’s give homeless people tents. Well, ok, now there are entire encampments of homelessness in LA. Let’s let transgender compete in their gender-of-choice sport. Great, now we have men literally beating women unfairly.
Back to the War on Terror, we all know the answer to this problem was time sensitive, we needed to leave Iraq/Afghanistan as soon as we killed Bin Laden.
But now that we stayed 20 years in one of these countries, we have an actual responsibility. You know, like not leaving the child you just gave birth to.
Are we prepared to discuss it like that? That’s way too mature of course.
The progressive wing of the party in power—Bernie, AOC, the 'squad', the whole crew that normally tweets 10 times per day and has opinions on everything—goes absolutely mute when confronted by some hard, inconvenient reality outside the US liberal bubble like Cuba or Afghanistan. As the situation in Afghanistan worsened, the charismatic new face of progressive politics was…enthusing about public libraries. Yay!
AOC’s tweet:
Shout out to libraries and library workers. We love and appreciate you that’s all
These same liberals would have been tweeting about ‘leave Afghanistan immediately, we need to spend that money on school lunches’ a year ago, or tweet something about inspiring Afghan women going to school.
They would speak up when speaking up was inconsequential. Well, ok, how about now? We left, and now there is the Taliban.
It’s the same with defunding the police. Even a small pullback of policing increased crime in many US states. Let’s give homeless people tents. Well, ok, now there are entire encampments of homelessness in LA. Let’s let transgender compete in their gender-of-choice sport. Great, now we have men literally beating women unfairly.
Back to the War on Terror, we all know the answer to this problem was time sensitive, we needed to leave Iraq/Afghanistan as soon as we killed Bin Laden.
But now that we stayed 20 years in one of these countries, we have an actual responsibility. You know, like not leaving the child you just gave birth to.
Are we prepared to discuss it like that? That’s way too mature of course.
After 20 years, you are allowed to leave the child you gave birth to. (If you mess up too badly, the state takes the child away before that.)
Afghanistan was a mess. We didn't make it better. We weren't going to be able to fix it, even with more time.
So... why stay? To help them? It wasn't helping.
(The way we left was disgracefully incompetent, but leaving was sound.)
Afghanistan was a mess. We didn't make it better. We weren't going to be able to fix it, even with more time.
So... why stay? To help them? It wasn't helping.
(The way we left was disgracefully incompetent, but leaving was sound.)
Ah, the old "but doctor, you don't have anything better to propose replacing the tumor with" argument...
How about the opposite?
A tacit understanding that the US pullout we desired so much results in this chaos? That the chaos is unavoidable, that the Taliban were going to take over the country one way or the other when we left.
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Now we can wax poetic about the details: should the troops have stayed put? If so, how many? Clearly, the Taliban were ready to surge (and surge they did: they've overwhelmed the entirety of the Afghan forces in just a week).
That means that boots on the ground fighting would have been left to American forces yet again, a proposition that no one wants either. Its not entirely wrong for us to state: well... at least Americans aren't getting attacked right now.
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And as much as this blogpost wants to discuss "non-serious people", I tune into CSPAN and actually hear the people in power having the difficult discussions. Senators (even Republican ones) aren't blaming Biden for the collapse, they're mostly focused on the timing and the details of the pullout.
Biden was wrong to pull out the troops a few months ago (his pullout was aimed at 9/11/2021). The current situation is: Biden evacuated a bunch of troops, and then suddenly had to send them back into Kabul to secure the airport.
An understandable mistake at a high level (Biden underestimated the speed of the Afghan government's collapse)... but also absolutely fair for Republicans to criticize Biden over. I don't have any answers, but frankly, the political process is __working__. The Republicans are asking the right questions and levying the correct criticisms. Biden is responding in kind with his statements today. Politics continue, the debate continues, but of course no one cares about these details.
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In contrast, this blogpost is about how we're not serious about the issue by mostly posting bad twitter arguments. Aka: the stuff that doesn't matter.
Lets talk about the details. Lets prove that we're serious. 6000ish boots on the ground entering Kabul (as per Biden's plan). Is this too many troops? Too few troops? Will the 9/11/2021 pullout be done in time (less than a month remains).
The Taliban has not yet started their expected bloodbath. Can we trust them to honor their side of the agreement? Will they let us leave in peace? There seems to be no honor or glory in killing a bunch of retreating civilians, but I admit that I'm relatively ignorant of this Taliban (sure, the Taliban from the 90s would have started a bloodbath by now. But that Taliban is mostly dead, we killed most of those former leaders in the nearly 20 year war. I'm sure today's Taliban have different ideas than back then, and it may be important to discuss the differences)
Sure, I know they massacre and genocide people who live there (at least, back in the 90s). But surely its in _THEIR_ best interests to let all of these Afghani civilians (and US forces / NATO forces) leave in peace? The last thing they want is for US forces to "fight seriously" against them right now.
A tacit understanding that the US pullout we desired so much results in this chaos? That the chaos is unavoidable, that the Taliban were going to take over the country one way or the other when we left.
--------
Now we can wax poetic about the details: should the troops have stayed put? If so, how many? Clearly, the Taliban were ready to surge (and surge they did: they've overwhelmed the entirety of the Afghan forces in just a week).
That means that boots on the ground fighting would have been left to American forces yet again, a proposition that no one wants either. Its not entirely wrong for us to state: well... at least Americans aren't getting attacked right now.
---------
And as much as this blogpost wants to discuss "non-serious people", I tune into CSPAN and actually hear the people in power having the difficult discussions. Senators (even Republican ones) aren't blaming Biden for the collapse, they're mostly focused on the timing and the details of the pullout.
Biden was wrong to pull out the troops a few months ago (his pullout was aimed at 9/11/2021). The current situation is: Biden evacuated a bunch of troops, and then suddenly had to send them back into Kabul to secure the airport.
An understandable mistake at a high level (Biden underestimated the speed of the Afghan government's collapse)... but also absolutely fair for Republicans to criticize Biden over. I don't have any answers, but frankly, the political process is __working__. The Republicans are asking the right questions and levying the correct criticisms. Biden is responding in kind with his statements today. Politics continue, the debate continues, but of course no one cares about these details.
-------
In contrast, this blogpost is about how we're not serious about the issue by mostly posting bad twitter arguments. Aka: the stuff that doesn't matter.
Lets talk about the details. Lets prove that we're serious. 6000ish boots on the ground entering Kabul (as per Biden's plan). Is this too many troops? Too few troops? Will the 9/11/2021 pullout be done in time (less than a month remains).
The Taliban has not yet started their expected bloodbath. Can we trust them to honor their side of the agreement? Will they let us leave in peace? There seems to be no honor or glory in killing a bunch of retreating civilians, but I admit that I'm relatively ignorant of this Taliban (sure, the Taliban from the 90s would have started a bloodbath by now. But that Taliban is mostly dead, we killed most of those former leaders in the nearly 20 year war. I'm sure today's Taliban have different ideas than back then, and it may be important to discuss the differences)
Sure, I know they massacre and genocide people who live there (at least, back in the 90s). But surely its in _THEIR_ best interests to let all of these Afghani civilians (and US forces / NATO forces) leave in peace? The last thing they want is for US forces to "fight seriously" against them right now.
We spent more time talking about Afghanistan, and the consequences of a non-humanitarian pullout, and a non balanced power transfer over to the Taliban in the last three days than we have as a nation for the last ten years.
That’s why we’re not serious. Did we discuss the possibility of a Taliban government coexisting with stipulations of certain human rights protections (women’s right to work, education) as a concession for American dollars?
That’s the tough discussion. The easy discussion is ‘leave; this was a mistake’, and now ‘who fucked up the exit strategy?’. It’s not easy to maturely discuss this because ‘uh, Taliban bad’. Well Taliban is all there is now because we didn’t take the time to think seriously.
That’s why we’re not serious. Did we discuss the possibility of a Taliban government coexisting with stipulations of certain human rights protections (women’s right to work, education) as a concession for American dollars?
That’s the tough discussion. The easy discussion is ‘leave; this was a mistake’, and now ‘who fucked up the exit strategy?’. It’s not easy to maturely discuss this because ‘uh, Taliban bad’. Well Taliban is all there is now because we didn’t take the time to think seriously.
> We spent more time talking about Afghanistan, and the consequences of a non-humanitarian pullout, and a non balanced power transfer over to the Taliban in the last three days than we have as a nation for the last ten years.
Bullshit.
This discussion started last year when Donald Trump began negotiating with the Taliban for a withdrawal. The writing has been on the wall for over a year. (The wakeup call was when the USA + Taliban were having negotiations _WITHOUT_ Afghani government at the table. If you missed that detail last year then you deserve to be surprised by the situation this year)
There was discussions over whether Biden would change the plans (and that was absolutely discussed during the election). Both Trump and Biden agreed: we're pulling out, one way or the other.
That's both presidential candidates from both major political parties agreeing on this issue. That we'd leave Afghanistan this year was inevitable from an American political perspective.
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Biden's plans changed slightly from Trump's. Indeed, Trump's plans changed (Trump originally wanted to leave in January, but the generals asked for more time, and ultimately Trump left the job to Biden. Biden then gave our generals until Sept. 11, 2021, and we still have ~6000ish troops in Kabul securing the withdrawal).
So now I ask: how would you have withdrawn differently? And remember, Trump negotiated the withdrawal with the Taliban last year. I don't know the full details off the top of my head, but... the Taliban have not moved into the airport (as of yet).
I can only assume the peaceful withdrawal of US troops was part of that negotiation. The Taliban's actions so far have focused on Afgan government, and not as many attacks on US-held areas. Clearly, its diplomacy in action. We're well past due on Trump's original May-withdrawal timeline, but perhaps Biden has decided that the keeping our troops beyond Trump's original pullout negotiation date is well worth the hassle (and given the results this past week, I'm happy that our troops are providing security there right now. We need those troops to buy more time for everybody)
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> That’s why we’re not serious. Did we discuss the possibility of a Taliban government coexisting with stipulations of certain human rights protections (women’s right to work, education) as a concession for American dollars?
They don't want our dollars. They want us to leave. EDIT: They also wanted 400 of their leaders released from Prison, which Donald Trump gave them back in August 2020.
And we're leaving. And so far, they're not attacking us as we leave. (I know its a volatile situation and this could change any moment. But as of right now, we're getting what we want, and they're getting what they want). They've taken over the Kabul Green Zone. Its 100% within the Taliban's power to attack the airport if they so desired.
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Back to "seriousness":
> “My office has heard from over 100 Americans who need help getting out of Afghanistan,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told me. “We can’t fly planes or open gates, but we can at least give people information. The Biden administration needs a plan to get our fellow Americans out.”
Bam. We're serious. Senator Cotton has a list and is publicly shaming Biden into making a plan to get these 100 Americans safely back home.
In just two or three sentences, our leaders are proving themselves more "serious" than any armchair blogger sitting at home. There's work to be done and the appropriate discussions seem to be happening.
Blogposts like this one are just a distraction from what matters.
Bullshit.
This discussion started last year when Donald Trump began negotiating with the Taliban for a withdrawal. The writing has been on the wall for over a year. (The wakeup call was when the USA + Taliban were having negotiations _WITHOUT_ Afghani government at the table. If you missed that detail last year then you deserve to be surprised by the situation this year)
There was discussions over whether Biden would change the plans (and that was absolutely discussed during the election). Both Trump and Biden agreed: we're pulling out, one way or the other.
That's both presidential candidates from both major political parties agreeing on this issue. That we'd leave Afghanistan this year was inevitable from an American political perspective.
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Biden's plans changed slightly from Trump's. Indeed, Trump's plans changed (Trump originally wanted to leave in January, but the generals asked for more time, and ultimately Trump left the job to Biden. Biden then gave our generals until Sept. 11, 2021, and we still have ~6000ish troops in Kabul securing the withdrawal).
So now I ask: how would you have withdrawn differently? And remember, Trump negotiated the withdrawal with the Taliban last year. I don't know the full details off the top of my head, but... the Taliban have not moved into the airport (as of yet).
I can only assume the peaceful withdrawal of US troops was part of that negotiation. The Taliban's actions so far have focused on Afgan government, and not as many attacks on US-held areas. Clearly, its diplomacy in action. We're well past due on Trump's original May-withdrawal timeline, but perhaps Biden has decided that the keeping our troops beyond Trump's original pullout negotiation date is well worth the hassle (and given the results this past week, I'm happy that our troops are providing security there right now. We need those troops to buy more time for everybody)
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> That’s why we’re not serious. Did we discuss the possibility of a Taliban government coexisting with stipulations of certain human rights protections (women’s right to work, education) as a concession for American dollars?
They don't want our dollars. They want us to leave. EDIT: They also wanted 400 of their leaders released from Prison, which Donald Trump gave them back in August 2020.
And we're leaving. And so far, they're not attacking us as we leave. (I know its a volatile situation and this could change any moment. But as of right now, we're getting what we want, and they're getting what they want). They've taken over the Kabul Green Zone. Its 100% within the Taliban's power to attack the airport if they so desired.
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Back to "seriousness":
> “My office has heard from over 100 Americans who need help getting out of Afghanistan,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told me. “We can’t fly planes or open gates, but we can at least give people information. The Biden administration needs a plan to get our fellow Americans out.”
Bam. We're serious. Senator Cotton has a list and is publicly shaming Biden into making a plan to get these 100 Americans safely back home.
In just two or three sentences, our leaders are proving themselves more "serious" than any armchair blogger sitting at home. There's work to be done and the appropriate discussions seem to be happening.
Blogposts like this one are just a distraction from what matters.
Getting downvotes, but until corruption and deceit are basically eliminated in Afghanistan, their security forces will be overall not competent against an organized foe. How much would that cost us to stick around to achieve? They can’t even feed their soldiers much less supply them. And we were trying to set them up with a massively complicated system.
>to impose (for imposing is what we’ll have to do) something vaguely resembling a liberal order in a country
20 years later and this guy still doesn't get it...
20 years later and this guy still doesn't get it...
"you can just take some ‘me time’ and not tune into the disturbing images", seems very true.
Don't get me wrong, this is an observation and I do not endorse it. I see the same happening with climate change topics that people just avoid as if that would help - we've got the phrase "Vogel-Strauß-Prinzip" for that in German (it literally translates to "ostrich-principle", meaning to hide the head in the sand, so that you cannot see). Let me see what a proper translation might be.
Edit: "(ostrich) head-in-the-sand behavior", so literally the same
Edit 2: the irony... submission is flagged now. I bet that'll make the problem go away
Edit: "(ostrich) head-in-the-sand behavior", so literally the same
Edit 2: the irony... submission is flagged now. I bet that'll make the problem go away
In what universe was the Vietnam War “reckoned with”? Kennedy was most popular after The Bay of Pigs disaster. The entire Cold War fits the mold of what the author describes here — projecting our worldview on regional conflicts that could care less about our concerns at the time (Capitalism vs. Communism), complete with an inflated sense of trust in those we backed. Hell, in the war between Ethiopia and Somalia a bizarre series of events led to each side supporting the troops the other side had originally trained.
Has nostalgia actually reached the point where we romanticize previously accepted embarrassing failures? If you want to give off an air of sophisticated Student of History, and go on about the “Before Times,” it doesn’t help to present such an idealized view of recent history. Perhaps your 5th grade history book gave you the false impression that things were more “serious” before, but I invite you to dig a little deeper.
Has nostalgia actually reached the point where we romanticize previously accepted embarrassing failures? If you want to give off an air of sophisticated Student of History, and go on about the “Before Times,” it doesn’t help to present such an idealized view of recent history. Perhaps your 5th grade history book gave you the false impression that things were more “serious” before, but I invite you to dig a little deeper.
What an absurd article. The only thing to learn from Afghanistan is that we never should have gone there to begin with. The author paints a quite ignorant narrative about the collapse of Afghanistan’s government being somehow the fault of modern day progressivism when the reality is that all of this was started by neocons 20 years ago who had 0 interest in helping the people there and were only in it to line the pockets of defense contractors and oil companies. The mistake was already made we are just now living through the consequences of our collective delusion called the War On Terror.
The real goal in Afghanistan was achieved by a bunch of SEALs who executed Osama bin Laden. The rest of the armed forces pretty much were just wasted lives, wasted equipment and wasted money by politicians.
I hope the lesson here will be to stop fucking around where we’re not wanted. But that’s pretty much our other national motto.
I hope the lesson here will be to stop fucking around where we’re not wanted. But that’s pretty much our other national motto.
[deleted]
We gave them cellphones and modern life. Their girls were allowed into schools thanks to our troops, and their women entered US-chartered universities with the hopes and dreams of becoming productive adults.
This is all likely lost as the Taliban takes over again, but I don't think providing that dream was worthless (however fleeting it was for those people, I know we've changed their lives for the better).
This is all likely lost as the Taliban takes over again, but I don't think providing that dream was worthless (however fleeting it was for those people, I know we've changed their lives for the better).
Yeah I’m sure that the families of the tens of thousands of dead Afghan civilians are super grateful to America that they now have smartphones!
You jest, but some of the Taliban's actions have been to take those cell phones and smash them. Girls are to be illiterate, they shouldn't use phones. Even boys aren't supposed to be listening to music, and the modern cell phone gives the boys easy access to music.
Some of the first actions of the Taliban in these new government centers has been to take over the radio stations and stop playing music. Its happening already.
We gave them a society where they can enjoy music, culture, and attempt to gain literacy and education. It didn't last, but its clearly an improvement over the 90s-era Taliban. Whether the people remember that moving forward will be another question.
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We pushed too many of our values upon the Afghan citizens. We were pushing for literacy, women's rights, democracy. But they would have been satisfied with far, far less (and having fewer moral qualms would have allowed us to ally up with more of the warlords who were in fact, competent, at security. Unlike the paper-soldiers we assembled).
But I don't think any of our values are in the wrong. It may be only temporary, but I assume the citizens will remember the difference in life one way or the other.
Some of the first actions of the Taliban in these new government centers has been to take over the radio stations and stop playing music. Its happening already.
We gave them a society where they can enjoy music, culture, and attempt to gain literacy and education. It didn't last, but its clearly an improvement over the 90s-era Taliban. Whether the people remember that moving forward will be another question.
----------
We pushed too many of our values upon the Afghan citizens. We were pushing for literacy, women's rights, democracy. But they would have been satisfied with far, far less (and having fewer moral qualms would have allowed us to ally up with more of the warlords who were in fact, competent, at security. Unlike the paper-soldiers we assembled).
But I don't think any of our values are in the wrong. It may be only temporary, but I assume the citizens will remember the difference in life one way or the other.
Do you think we should have had fewer moral qualms about systemic child rape by many of the Afghan leaders?
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi?wprov=sfla1
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi?wprov=sfla1
The Taliban were able to recruit replacement officers at a far faster rate than we were. That's largely in part because the Taliban was a closer match to the local values than we were.
If we weren't willing to turn a blind eye to those sorts of things, then we needed to leave sooner. But the secret of conquest and governance is recruitment, and if leaders of that region want the "right" to exploit women and/or children (and that "right" is what allows them to get recruited at speed), then it becomes a necessity to accept that part of their culture as part of our recruitment drives.
We killed a lot of Taliban. They killed a lot of Afghani (some 60,000 Afghans on the government side died). But killing is only one side of the picture: recruitment is the other side. If you can replenish your troops and leaders faster than the enemy can kill them, you'll eventually win.
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We thought we could recruit with money, but as soon as the money stopped flowing (because we were leaving), the entire scheme collapsed. Money isn't a good recruitment tool.
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Alternatively: we chose the wrong side. Perhaps it would have been better to choose the side of the Taliban in the conflict. We went into the conflict simply choosing the "enemies of the Taliban" as our friends, without necessarily thinking about the morals associated with our new friends.
But that's the problem: on the one side is Taliban against child-prostitutes, while on the other, are the warlords who fight against the Taliban to restore child-prostitutes. If we want the warlord's help, then yes, we have to turn a blind eye to it.
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In any case, I'm well aware of the child-prostitute thing. A friend of mine had two tours to Afghanistan, and the local lords offered him some kids personally. So he's quite aware of the culture and told me of it.
If we weren't willing to turn a blind eye to those sorts of things, then we needed to leave sooner. But the secret of conquest and governance is recruitment, and if leaders of that region want the "right" to exploit women and/or children (and that "right" is what allows them to get recruited at speed), then it becomes a necessity to accept that part of their culture as part of our recruitment drives.
We killed a lot of Taliban. They killed a lot of Afghani (some 60,000 Afghans on the government side died). But killing is only one side of the picture: recruitment is the other side. If you can replenish your troops and leaders faster than the enemy can kill them, you'll eventually win.
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We thought we could recruit with money, but as soon as the money stopped flowing (because we were leaving), the entire scheme collapsed. Money isn't a good recruitment tool.
------------
Alternatively: we chose the wrong side. Perhaps it would have been better to choose the side of the Taliban in the conflict. We went into the conflict simply choosing the "enemies of the Taliban" as our friends, without necessarily thinking about the morals associated with our new friends.
But that's the problem: on the one side is Taliban against child-prostitutes, while on the other, are the warlords who fight against the Taliban to restore child-prostitutes. If we want the warlord's help, then yes, we have to turn a blind eye to it.
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In any case, I'm well aware of the child-prostitute thing. A friend of mine had two tours to Afghanistan, and the local lords offered him some kids personally. So he's quite aware of the culture and told me of it.
[deleted]
> We gave them a society where they can enjoy music, culture, and attempt to gain literacy and education. It didn't last, but its clearly an improvement over the 90s-era Taliban. Whether the people remember that moving forward will be another question.
This is an absurd fantasy that has no relation to the reality in that country.
This is an absurd fantasy that has no relation to the reality in that country.
What fantasy?
The Taliban are already issuing cell-phone bans and bans of music. Those things were allowed in the US-sponsored regime.
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2021/08/13/smartphone-bans-...
> “If single girls are found using smartphones, they are questioned over the possibility of having a relationship with a boy,” said Ansari, who declined to provide her last name out of fear of retribution. “If boys listen to songs, their memory cards are smashed by the Taliban.”
Girls having a relationship with a boy is punishable by death in the Taliban regime. Its a serious threat.
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The music-ban was a key attribute of 90s-era Taliban (among with other forms of cultural repression: they were destroying museums, libraries, and statues). When the USA invaded, we allowed them to play music again (among other rights). Literally giving the gift of music back to the people.
Unfortunately, it was temporary and the Taliban are taking back over. But there's no "fantasy" about my assessment here, that's the ground truth to what we did at a literal level.
The Taliban are already issuing cell-phone bans and bans of music. Those things were allowed in the US-sponsored regime.
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2021/08/13/smartphone-bans-...
> “If single girls are found using smartphones, they are questioned over the possibility of having a relationship with a boy,” said Ansari, who declined to provide her last name out of fear of retribution. “If boys listen to songs, their memory cards are smashed by the Taliban.”
Girls having a relationship with a boy is punishable by death in the Taliban regime. Its a serious threat.
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The music-ban was a key attribute of 90s-era Taliban (among with other forms of cultural repression: they were destroying museums, libraries, and statues). When the USA invaded, we allowed them to play music again (among other rights). Literally giving the gift of music back to the people.
Unfortunately, it was temporary and the Taliban are taking back over. But there's no "fantasy" about my assessment here, that's the ground truth to what we did at a literal level.
It's not that we left Afghanistan. It's the grossly incompetent way we left it.
There was no right way. Anyone who thinks a different outcome was possible should watch the Vice documentary “This is What Winning Looks Like”. The Taliban was going to take over no matter what we did. If we couldn’t create a stable government in 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars then it simply wasn’t possible. It was probably never possible. The only alternative was to do what Obama and Trump did which is to kick the can further down the road at the cost of more American lives and dollars. The Biden admin absolutely did the right thing and the best that can be done now is to accept refugees.
This is a side-effect of politicians as celebrities and influencers, not as serious people.
I won't win any friends by saying this, but it didn’t start with Trump, who obviously fits the bill as a celebrity parlaying his popular image into a presidency.
Obama was also more of a celebrity than a president - lapping up the fawning adoration of their “closest friends” at his 50th - who somehow didn’t include all the people that made him president, but instead Jay Z and Beyoncé.
Even regular congresspeople now seem more worried about what’s happening on Twitter and hobnobbing at fancy parties than the job of lawmaking. Someone should tell them the vast majority of their supporters are not on Twitter at all.
I won't win any friends by saying this, but it didn’t start with Trump, who obviously fits the bill as a celebrity parlaying his popular image into a presidency.
Obama was also more of a celebrity than a president - lapping up the fawning adoration of their “closest friends” at his 50th - who somehow didn’t include all the people that made him president, but instead Jay Z and Beyoncé.
Even regular congresspeople now seem more worried about what’s happening on Twitter and hobnobbing at fancy parties than the job of lawmaking. Someone should tell them the vast majority of their supporters are not on Twitter at all.
Yeah I saw Trump basically as a product of the shift of politics to a celebrity reality show, not the reason for it. This has a clear lineage going back at least to OJ.
Bill Clinton's saxophone playing was a joke in a children's show in the 90s [0], and Reagan was a governor and president [1]. I think the lineage goes back a fair bit further than OJ.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA0TS9l_nJE [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38et6ecNRO4
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA0TS9l_nJE [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38et6ecNRO4
It's the side-effect of politicians being chosen for legitimacy (identity), not competency.
> The reason for this sudden silence is that in the year 2021, the cream of American society and the flower of its finest universities, can only understand the world as projections of the country’s own domestic neuroses. Our current elites, whether in media or politics, squint at the strange peoples and languages of whatever international conflict and only see who or what they can map to their internal gallery of heroes and villains: Who’s the PoC? Who’s the Nazi?
> The reason for this sudden silence is that in the year 2021, the cream of American society and the flower of its finest universities, can only understand the world as projections of the country’s own domestic neuroses. Our current elites, whether in media or politics, squint at the strange peoples and languages of whatever international conflict and only see who or what they can map to their internal gallery of heroes and villains: Who’s the PoC? Who’s the Nazi?
goldcountry(1)
I’ll help translate, as I actually grew up inside the beltway in Washington DC.
For a certain community of sociopathic individuals often referred to as the “foreign policy establishment” the word “serious” is a synonym for “willing to insist that other people’s children go kill people in foreign countries.”
Perhaps you’re not into that idea. Perhaps you think people far away should decide things for themselves, or maybe you just think the idea of sending people from Medford or Tuscaloosa to shoot people in Kandahar is a fucking terrible idea that is certainly immoral and also has no practical chance of improving anyone’s life.
Well in that case, as anyone can see, you’re not a serious person.
QED
For a certain community of sociopathic individuals often referred to as the “foreign policy establishment” the word “serious” is a synonym for “willing to insist that other people’s children go kill people in foreign countries.”
Perhaps you’re not into that idea. Perhaps you think people far away should decide things for themselves, or maybe you just think the idea of sending people from Medford or Tuscaloosa to shoot people in Kandahar is a fucking terrible idea that is certainly immoral and also has no practical chance of improving anyone’s life.
Well in that case, as anyone can see, you’re not a serious person.
QED
I think these are two different types of "serious" under discussion.
I don't doubt your point for a moment, but I think the author is taking a more literal, traditional approach to the word. In either case, it's a useful distinction around how people align themselves (intentionally or otherwise) around these geopolitical issues.
I don't doubt your point for a moment, but I think the author is taking a more literal, traditional approach to the word. In either case, it's a useful distinction around how people align themselves (intentionally or otherwise) around these geopolitical issues.
Why is this flagged? This is a well written article.
When you see [flagged] on a submission, it means that users flagged it (this is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html). We can only guess why users flag things, but in this case, I'd guess because it's a sensational opinion piece on a divisive and often-repeated topic. I'm not seeing significant new information here (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...).
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> This is a well written article.
Judging by some other comments, I think that's probably why. It mocks a number of current orthodoxies in a coherent and sensible way. It's not so easy to dismiss, better to try and hide it.
Judging by some other comments, I think that's probably why. It mocks a number of current orthodoxies in a coherent and sensible way. It's not so easy to dismiss, better to try and hide it.
Sadly there is a large contingent of "fingers in the ears" downvoters here on HN who will move quickly to squash any coherent counter-point to the madness of current orthodoxy. Disappointing really - we would all benefit from more open discussion of pros and cons of different issues, without partisan blinkers on.
As a taxpayer and voter (but not a military person), it felt like we could have kept a 10k personnel presence on the cheap. Soldiers weren't dying.
Now the women and children will be raped and unfree, ideologically and religiously different killed, and LGBT tortured.
We shouldn't have been there, but this is a horrible outcome far worse than staying.
I find the "but they won't defend themselves" argument abhorrent and totally unsympathetic. I can't imagine if I were in their shoes.
Now the women and children will be raped and unfree, ideologically and religiously different killed, and LGBT tortured.
We shouldn't have been there, but this is a horrible outcome far worse than staying.
I find the "but they won't defend themselves" argument abhorrent and totally unsympathetic. I can't imagine if I were in their shoes.
> We shouldn't have been there, but this is a horrible outcome far worse than staying.
You mean it's going to return to what it was before the US got involved.
The US attempted to prop up the ~300,000 person Afghan national military. The majority of the people of Afghanistan clearly had no interest in defending anything or keeping anything. It folded instantly, with close to zero resistance, despite outnumbering the Taliban four to one, having control of the skies and superior weaponry. The US can't reasonably stay in Afghanistan forever to defend the 3% of the population that aligns ideologically with Western values.
The next thing the US should do is to immediately proceed to close over half of its foreign military bases and start leaving other countries as well.
> I find the "but they won't defend themselves" argument abhorrent and totally unsympathetic.
They won't fight for Western values - which the US attempted to force on them - because they overwhelmingly don't agree with or believe in Western values. They don't have a fervor for those beliefs, whereas the Taliban do have a fervor for their beliefs. It is that simple, whether you find reality abhorrent or not. The best anyone can hope for is that as many as possible of the small minority of people in Afghanistan that do want those values, are able to flee the country.
You mean it's going to return to what it was before the US got involved.
The US attempted to prop up the ~300,000 person Afghan national military. The majority of the people of Afghanistan clearly had no interest in defending anything or keeping anything. It folded instantly, with close to zero resistance, despite outnumbering the Taliban four to one, having control of the skies and superior weaponry. The US can't reasonably stay in Afghanistan forever to defend the 3% of the population that aligns ideologically with Western values.
The next thing the US should do is to immediately proceed to close over half of its foreign military bases and start leaving other countries as well.
> I find the "but they won't defend themselves" argument abhorrent and totally unsympathetic.
They won't fight for Western values - which the US attempted to force on them - because they overwhelmingly don't agree with or believe in Western values. They don't have a fervor for those beliefs, whereas the Taliban do have a fervor for their beliefs. It is that simple, whether you find reality abhorrent or not. The best anyone can hope for is that as many as possible of the small minority of people in Afghanistan that do want those values, are able to flee the country.
Polls of Afghanis at the time the US went in showed around 80% support for the US toppling the Taliban government. The Taliban has never been popular among more than a small minority of Afghans.
> The next thing the US should do is to immediately proceed to close over half of its foreign military bases and start leaving other countries as well.
That's an incredible geopolitical farce. Putin would love it.
The United States cannot become isolationist, lest it risk its economy, dollar trade, and geopolitical edge. Adversarial nations would gladly step in to fill the void, and our allies would be at a loss.
The "America is evil and incompetent" meme is atrocious.
That's an incredible geopolitical farce. Putin would love it.
The United States cannot become isolationist, lest it risk its economy, dollar trade, and geopolitical edge. Adversarial nations would gladly step in to fill the void, and our allies would be at a loss.
The "America is evil and incompetent" meme is atrocious.
Or as Colin Powell famously put it: “you break it, you bought it.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule
So you were willing to stay there forever? Or at least with some sort with some sort of open-ended commitment. How would we ever know when it was time to leave? Lots of other places in the world where bad things are happening - should we send troops to those places as well? Where does it end?
Perhaps we just start with the places we invaded? The idea that we were in Afghanistan too long seems odd given our bases in Germany, Japan, Korea, the Philippines or Cuba.
17 US troops died there in 2019. If that's what it takes to maintain a democracy, it may be worth that cost indefinitely.
What makes you believe Afghanistan was a democracy under US control?
Afghanistan's democracy was weak but improving over time.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/afghanistan/freedom-world/2...
https://freedomhouse.org/country/afghanistan/freedom-world/2...
IMO this assessment is overly optimistic, focusing too much on the outer trappings, and too little on the reality on the ground. They did have competitive politics, yes - but competition was really between various clans, and not for individual votes.
Yeah, "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make"
I mean people launch BLM over 15 or so unarmed black men killed in police encounters in a nation of 350million or so. They definitely don’t think it’s just the cost of a police force.
Ideally there should be a solution that's neither "stay there forever" nor "pull out and let the Taliban take complete control".
There really isn't. The only practical alternative was to hand it over to some other great power to occupy, but no-one is stupid enough to willingly take that hot potato.
And yes, it was occupation. One thing that the rapid collapse made clear, is that Taliban genuinely has plenty of popular support, and the US-backed government had very little. Keep in mind that ANA had three times as much manpower as the Taliban, and military equipment supplied by US - and yet it all just dissipated in less than two weeks, because, apparently, no-one was actually willing to fight.
And yes, it was occupation. One thing that the rapid collapse made clear, is that Taliban genuinely has plenty of popular support, and the US-backed government had very little. Keep in mind that ANA had three times as much manpower as the Taliban, and military equipment supplied by US - and yet it all just dissipated in less than two weeks, because, apparently, no-one was actually willing to fight.
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No. The US is so broke it's buying its own debt by the trillions of dollars via debasing its currency to keep the federal lights on (to keep social security and medicare solvent).
We can't pay our bills properly. When as a nation your central bank has to buy your own debt because nobody else can afford to buy so much garbage paper, you clearly can't afford such irresponsible foreign adventurism.
Enough is enough. Time to go home. Time to reduce military spending immediately. Time to stop playing at nation building. Time to stop pretending we can afford to be a globally deployed military superpower, as though WW3 is going on and we have to be at max defense spending.
The US couldn't afford Afghanistan 15 years ago. It most certainly can't afford it now.
We can't pay our bills properly. When as a nation your central bank has to buy your own debt because nobody else can afford to buy so much garbage paper, you clearly can't afford such irresponsible foreign adventurism.
Enough is enough. Time to go home. Time to reduce military spending immediately. Time to stop playing at nation building. Time to stop pretending we can afford to be a globally deployed military superpower, as though WW3 is going on and we have to be at max defense spending.
The US couldn't afford Afghanistan 15 years ago. It most certainly can't afford it now.
If my tax dollars paying American troops to maintain order prevented a single little girl from being violently raped at the hands of the Taliban—yeah, I'd say let's stay there forever.
I mean seriously, this argument holds no weight whatsoever. No one ever intended to stay there forever. But maybe "stay there long enough to help the government be resistant to religious zealots willing to die to subdue non-believers"? That seems like a pretty damn low-bar.
I mean seriously, this argument holds no weight whatsoever. No one ever intended to stay there forever. But maybe "stay there long enough to help the government be resistant to religious zealots willing to die to subdue non-believers"? That seems like a pretty damn low-bar.
It was hardly cheap. The logistic train necessary to sustain troops in a landlocked country without secure transportation routes was horribly expensive. In some cases it cost $100 to deliver a gallon of fuel to an outpost after accounting for all the transportation and security costs. Tactical aircraft are wearing our from overuse and we can't afford replacements. Meanwhile the military-industrial complex wants to have those 10k personnel preparing for a future conflict with China.
To me this article is the type of outrage porn typically amplified by social media / web, which is quite facile and ultimately contributes little to no value to the discourse surrounding recent events in Afghanistan.
I see a lot of buzzwords relevant to theory recent iteration of the of the culture wars, but nothing about the neocon think tanks of the early aughts (ex. Project for a New American Century) that steered US foreign policy toward misguided adventures in “nation building”, nor any mention of the military leadership that successfully kept us engaged in Afghanistan for 20 years and four different administrations.
The “sudden silence” is because there is broad agreement across the American populace that the war in Afghanistan had long passed its expiration date.
I see a lot of buzzwords relevant to theory recent iteration of the of the culture wars, but nothing about the neocon think tanks of the early aughts (ex. Project for a New American Century) that steered US foreign policy toward misguided adventures in “nation building”, nor any mention of the military leadership that successfully kept us engaged in Afghanistan for 20 years and four different administrations.
The “sudden silence” is because there is broad agreement across the American populace that the war in Afghanistan had long passed its expiration date.
This is technically a true statement, but as of this writing the most recent tweets and retweets from AOC were entirely about Afghanistan: "We have a moral obligation to the Afghan people. The U.S. role in this crisis is indisputable. We must waste no time or expense in helping refugees safely & swiftly leave Afghanistan. We must immediately welcome them to the U.S. & provide real support as they rebuild their lives."
Did you just expect that you'd provide a link to someone's Twitter and nobody would click on it to check out this "sudden silence?"