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Afghanistan: the end game — 103 Comments

1. Young people in particular, but everyone in general, forgets: when 9/11 happened. going to war with the enemy was the only strategy available.

   Even defenders of Al Gore, six years later, said he’d have gone to war with Afghanistan, too.

   The complete dearth of alternatives is stunning to behold and now to remember.

   Only Bush had the fire though to do it.

   The Bojinko plot to takeover jet airlinerscand ram skyscrapers from Tokyo to Kuala Lumper to LA was only the wildest such plot linked to 9/11 – but it was discovered and put down.

2. A week or so ago the “Real Life Lore” channel on YT put out a video entitled “Why Afghanistan is Impossible to Conquer.” It’s about 15 minutes long and goes into all the whys and wherefores of the Graveyard of Empires in an interesting way.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab9zK8yT4_Y

3. Billions of dollars of US military equipment was left behind. For that reason alone, the SecDef should be forced out. Unforgivable.

4. Cornhead:

   Yes.

5. First, the Taliban of 2021 are not their fathers and grandfathers of 2001. This time around they have recruited most of the warlords whose fathers opposed them, especially Tajiks. So it is more of a nationalist than tribal movement. Whether their new coalition can hold together after its victory and avoid a reprise of the civil wars of the 1990’s remains to be seen.

   Second, the Taliban want to be part of China’s BRI/OBOR, Russia’s Eurasian project, and the SCO. They have already provided security guarantees to China for BRI/OBOR and in regards the Uyghurs. Pakistan, Iran, India, China, Russia and the various ‘stans are all cooperating and negotiating with the Taliban. Much of the negotiations are economics related, but security issues (harboring terrorists) are a large part, too.

   A side issue for Pakistan is the Pashtun tribe that overlaps the border between it and Afghanistan. The Pakistanis are concerned that the Pashtuns might attempt a partition of Pakistan and merge with Afghanistan.

   There is a separate issue between Pakistan and Iran and the Balochi tribe that overlaps that border. There is a Balochi independence movement in both Iran and Pakistan that threatens the extension of the BRI/OBOR to the Iranian and Pakistani coasts.

   The original Taliban were a horror show, and the new coalition might be, too. But there is a strong movement among their neighbors to tamp down any tendencies to extremism by essentially bribing them with the goods and services of international trade and cooperation.

   In any case, the US/NATO is out. There is no going back in for any reason.

6. But when will the Afghan high speed trains start running?

   IIRC the Taliban said you Americans have watches but we Taliban have all the time in the world, or some such thing. What works is what matters …..

7. We have, and really had, no good options other than to bomb the terrorist camps and stop their activities at least for the time being. Going forward, our option will be, if there is another terrorist attack from there aimed at our territory, to bomb them again, and get out.

   Afghanistan is probably ungovernable, and it remains to be seen if even the enormous brutality of the Chinese regime can handle it. We can hope that they are finally biting off more than they can chew.

   I hope the US has gotten all our women out first. Oh, wait, protect the women isn’t something men are supposed to do any more, is it?

8. Turning the military over to Leftists has turned out like anyone should have guessed. Sundowner told you they were getting out come Hell or high water.
   Wouldn’t have any faith the Taliban won’t go Total Islamand turn it back to the 7th century.

9. A detailed site on Afghanistan the Taliban and al Queada (yes, they are there):

   for example:

   “Afghan government on verge of collapse as Taliban capture 4 more cities”

   August 13, 2021 3:58 pm |By BILL ROGGIO & ANDREW TOBIN

   https://www.longwarjournal.org/

10. For those of you who like maps:

    https://www.longwarjournal.org/mapping-taliban-control-in-afghanistan

11. Bob has some very good points. The Chinese will not seek to govern, but to exploit the natural resources. To do that all they need do is bribe, pay the Taliban, then leave them alone.

12. It is easy to blame the generals, but I would put as much, if not more, blame on the State Department. There were reasonable plans for both Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq that would have started with keeping the Iraqi army intact (Bremer dissolved it). In Afghanistan it would have revolved around setting up the Northern Alliance as our faction in the factional wars.

13. Yes, Chuck, I believe the State Department is a primary cause for messing up both our Iraq and Afghanistan efforts.

14. I’ve said more than enough already about this in another thread. The proper reaction should be embarrassment, shame, horror, and a determination to never be so @#$^ing stupid again. Next time a bunch of Neocons or R2P Progressives, or Think of the Children Types come up with brilliant geo-strategic ideas, just hang them. Better yet, do what Norkie Kim would do: execute them with heavy mortar fire.

    And quit with the Copes, rationalizations, explanations.

    For example yes Bremer did a lot to $%^& a good start in Iraq. But the inescapable fact is that your System threw up a Bremer bang on cue to #$%^ things up. IT ALWAYS DOES THIS.

    A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations.

    Just Don’t %^&*ing ever $#*@ing do it again. That’s all.

15. Zaphod:

    You really don’t seem to like to address what really happened and why we intervened, or what else might or should have been done to solve the problem, except to ride your usual hobbyhorses.

16. The leadership, starting with Bush Jr. never fought to win because the public wouldn’t stand for what needed to be done to win, so of course we lost.

    Which meant that the Taliban returning was foreordained because they were willing to wait until America gave up and went home. Not that they won’t come for a visit at some point in the future.

17. But remember that you can’t win against the American military because they have F-35s and nukes or something.

18. Z:

    Keep pounding that sand, you and your country haven’t taken any hits or taken any risks for quite some time, unless you are actually a citizen of G.B. So thanks for sharing your vastness of vast self regard. Yes you have said quite enough on a lot; a grift that keeps grifting.

19. @Neo:

    You can post-mortem and second guess this or that all you like. What’s your plan for Purging State and the Pentagon? And that’s just for a start. Leviathan has a mind of its own and when it acts to maximize its utility function, it is most assuredly not in any sense doing the same for the American Public at large.

    My not addressing it? How complicated do you need to make stuff so you don’t need to face the truth?

    It was great to send in some Special Forces to whack some Taliban. The moment your idiotic fools of an establishment established a perimeter at Bagram and started building it into one of several fortified Cities with PXs, Panda Expresses, KFCs… God knows what other excrescences… Plus that magical $2T… that moment you had lost. Dien Bien #$%^ing Phu. Do you people never learn?

    There’s going to be 100K+ Afghan ‘Refugees’ who used to pilfer stuff on Bases when they weren’t ‘Translating’ coming soon to America. Maybe some will be Section Eighted into your idyllic very White patch of MA. Shouldn’t *you* be flogging the crap out of some hobby horses?

20. Muslim majority countries cannot the be brought into the family of responsible nations as long as the Wahhabi/Salafi sects are present. They are opposed to modernity – except for the weapons. They are patriarchal, anti-modernity, intolerant of other religions, and respect only force.

    The book, “The Pentagon’s New Map,” a globalists dream of how to create a global society by bringing the undeveloped nations (The Gap) into more developed, modern status (The Core was a blueprint for all this. On paper it sounded pretty good. What it failed to understand is that not all people are motivated by the same things that motivate people in the the developed countries. Religion and culture are stumbling blocks.

    Rebuilding Western Europe after WWII was possible because the business and cultural backgrounds were similar. Transforming Japan was more difficult , but made possible because the Japanese were allowed to maintain much of their culture, and because the Japanese had adopted many western business practices before WWII. We planned to stay in Japan as long a s necessary. And we stayed even longer. In fact we’re still there, though not in the numbers we once were.

    How to combat Islamic terrorism is the question that still remains unanswered. Trump had a plan. He went after the money sources and gave our combat forces carte blanche to deal with the enemy. It worked to some extent. How many terrorist attacks were carried out during Trump’s term? Few, very few. In fact terrorism almost became a non-issue during his term.

    What do we do if it becomes a major issue again, especially from Afghanistan? Massive bombing raids? Surgical strikes? Re-invade? Not many options and all are bad. But staying in country was a waste of blood and treasure the way it was done. Give China its chance to waste some blood and treasure. 🙂

21. Who armed the Taliban in the first place? You did. What for? To score some stupid brownie points against the Soviets.

    Who aided and abetted Bin Laden and his personal followers at first? You did. See above.

    Who looked after them later? They’re all enjoying rounds of golf at the Quetta Staff College. Who paid for their golf clubs? You did with your $2T — a chunk of which went to pay protection money to the Pakistani Military for not allowing your logistics guys to get robbed or killed going in and out.

    It’s a complicated web we weave.

    Just stop with the weaving for like a hundred years or so. Bomb anyone who attacks you.. Keep shipping lanes open with Navy. Otherwise just give up the rest of the crap FFS. You’re no good at it. And going out into the world and messing with other peoples and their countries and lying to yourselves that you’re Doing Good rots the soul. Look what it did to the British. Really.

22. @JJ:

    You’re right. Give China the chance to #$%^ up there.

    Maybe they were born and bred in the Briar Patch. Maybe not. Be entertaining to sit back and find out.

    The main thing right now for the USA is to stop $%&#ing the Tar Baby and go clean up.

23. Z:

    “You ignorant slut,” Dien bien phu was the French, chappie. Pound sand in your hidey hole.

24. The vastness of Z’s wisdom, originality, and insight is almost beyond mortal comprehension. Or not. Such a tool.

    Xi will take Hong Kong first, better run while you can. Out of Africa all over again? Easter Island is calling.

25. The rationale for Afghanistan was that it helped and harbored the terrorists that attacked us on 9-11.

    Betcha it did just like Pakistan and many other countries like say Saudi Arabia.

    Thing is, after we took out Bin Ladin in Pakistan, we had no real justification for Obama’s “Just War” continuation.

    I assert that Afghanistan was not just at the outset by Bush and had no justification under Obama, but it continued.

    Afghanistan is linked with our Iraqi War. Both are dubious on justification and continued for reasons that surpassed the original reasoning.

    Sadly, I supported both wars initially.

26. The circular firing squad is lining up to blame each other, military, state department and Khalilzad the envoy has stated as I understand it there should have been a military response for the first take over by the Taliban yet here we are. Boots on the ground in Asia was never a good idea and history from Alexander the Great to the British in the 1800’s, the Russians in the third 1/4 of the 1900’s and then our sorry selves for the last 20 years and 88 billion dollars and the Ultra Conservative Muslims are going full blast with no consequences or response from the military. The clerics and the war lords are not stupid, nor are they uneducated, they are dedicated people with strong religious reasons to fight, rape, loot, pillage and plunder in their good old traditional manner.

    My good old Methodist minister came by my work when it was announced we were going into Afghanistan and asked me to join him for a cup off coffee, it was in October 2001. When we sat down outside of Starbucks to drink our coffee this nice well spoken man in his mid 60’s looked at me and with a lot of anger said, paraphrased, ” What the hell are those fucking manics in Washington doing, they have no idea how to fight a war against Muslims in Asia. We should never put one American soldiers boots on the ground in Asia fighting a religious war, a dangerous religious war when we are not that much of a religious nation anymore with a desire to win. It will take a strong will to fight battles with lots of civilian casualties to bring the enemy to their knees and our nation lost that will years ago.” My minister was a graduate of the Citadel in he spent a number of years in the Army as a lawyer and military judge including time in Vietnam which he watched the mess we made of that. His prediction that we would spend years, spend money and lives and end up losing annoyed me at the time because I wanted us to go to war after 9-11 and fix things with the bad people. He was right and I was wrong and I am sad to see 1975 happen once more in 2021.

27. Afghanistan, where Empires go to die. First the British numerous times, then the Russians and now us.

    I think the Mongols were the last Empire to successfully subjugate Afghanistan and that was centuries ago.

28. There are going to be many Afghanistan vets who will be angered and dismayed by this. It’s not so much different than Vietnam on that count. I remember the anger and anguish I felt when we pulled out of Vietnam. All those deaths of friends and squadron mates had been for NOTHING! It was a deep-seated anger I carried for many years. Finally put it behind me with the help of a good therapist. Still, when you lay it all on the line for your country and they say, “Oh, never mind, we never meant to win anyway,” it’s a kick in the gut that’s hard to forget. I feel for those vets and the families of those killed or wounded. . God bless ’em, they did their duty and all for naught. It’s a hard truth to accept.

29. There is one thing, OBL was turned into fish food eventually.

    I think of him every week on trash day, as Wheelie Bin Laden goes to the curb.

30. By the way, my niece’s 16 year old daughter, two years younger than my oldest granddaughter, was born after my niece’s daughter’s dad was killed in Afghanistan. We gave a lot of blood and bodies over there and it was not a wise decision to put boots on the ground in Asia.

31. Michael Yon was pointing out that the Afghan war was a losing proposition years ago. He based that opinion on visits to the country, and he didn’t stay pinned away in Kabul. Looking at the map where the Taliban has taken control, it is pretty obvious that their diplomacy was far superior the ours. There are disparate factions in that area and the Taliban have managed to make deals all round. Reminds me in some way of all the diplomatic maneuvers and small wars that ended with Rome ruling over Greece.

    Waging long term war in Afghanistan never made sense logistically, the surrounding countries in the region are in a far better position culturally and geographically. Afghanistan was more westernized back in the 1970’s before the Soviet intervention, I even knew some Afghani college students at the time. One them said that he never did well in school before America because he was always scared of his father. who threatened to kill him if he didn’t do well. His father had a reputation, it wasn’t an idle threat.

32. Neo asks Zaph to add something and stop repeating himself. (Ditto from me.) Then J.J. nicely recaps the hazards of post Cold War grand strategy via
    Thomas Barnett.

    Zaph then indulges himself in another conclusory attack claiming it’s all useless!

    Except that the brute statistical facts from the end of the Cold War down to the present show that the numbers of wars and their sizes and net violent deaths in The Gap had steadily fallen, decade by decade and over half decade by half decade for thirty years. (See the UN Human Security Report. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Security_Report_2005)

    “According to the 2005 Report, the world saw a shift in global security after the end of the Cold War, with a 40% decrease in the number of armed conflicts being waged around the world since the early 1990s, and an 80% decrease of genocides between 1998 and 2001.”

    And this trend has continued. Thus, the folly and incompetence of the US that Zaph rushes to indict with futility is not, and has not, in fact been futile.

    While it has been enormously expensive, it has also bought the US financial pre-eminence in the world.

    For example, the US sells the dollar as an instrument of global trade and took of debt. There us no rival for dollarized economies — certainly not until a post but coin version 8f El Salvador gets going.

    I could go on. Therefore, Zaphod’s unrebuked rants are conclusory or mistaken. Peter Zeihan makes the strong case that they are wrong to a point (“The Accidental Superpower” etc).

    The US led world as a fire hose if security — see the Middle East Persian Gulf and four decades protecting the international oil trade, for example — have worked.

    Against all odds, Peace has grown. Deaths and wars are down. Trade and the benefits of prosperity have swelled. Global poverty has fallen at a historically never seen before clip.

    Americans should take some measure of satisfaction that despite back sliding (see Columba) and despite reversals (Afghanistan), the US has been a net force for good, aiding peace and promoting prosperity.

    However. If the failure if the CCP single party state China can be finessed — which Xi’s systemic failures will allow us to do, and if a post GWOT policy can be allowed to succeed, as it was, the international future is good (J.J. again):

    “How to combat Islamic terrorism is the question that still remains unanswered. Trump had a plan. He went after the money sources and gave our combat forces carte blanche to deal with the enemy. It worked to some extent. How many terrorist attacks were carried out during Trump’s term? Few, very few. In fact terrorism almost became a non-issue during his term.

    “What do we do if it becomes a major issue again, especially from Afghanistan?”

    Thoughts?

33. J. J. on Vietnam “Still, when you lay it all on the line for your country and they say, “Oh, never mind, we never meant to win anyway,” it’s a kick in the gut that’s hard to forget.”

    Even her among us, the Left’s lying version of Vietnam is accepted as wisdom — despite the fact that everywhere except in the academy and in the MSM, major gaping holes have virtually reversed the received view of Vietnam as a loss; of the critics as wise; and the project futile. And therefore the exercise of US power as the Fireman of the World — useless.

    Worse. It is a historically and statistically wrong. In your face WRONG.

    It was an early victory of The New Left “Hate America First” Wokism. It’s wrong on the facts now; it was wrong in the facts then.

    We never learn the Truth that the Left is wrong, Wrong, WRONG!

34. @TJ:

    Forgive my predictability.

    You have spent 75 years burning down Other People’s Villages for the express purpose of saving them.

    Stop already. Burn down your own government to save yourselves. Controlled Demolition is the way to go. Try to do a better job on yourselves than you did on Repairing the World.

    Financial Pre-eminence? You have got to be kidding. Benefits of Trade and Prosperity? Go to West Virginia or Upstate NY and stand there with a straight face and tell that to people. Perhaps you could teach them how to code. Can you ‘code’ (stupid ignorant elitist term)? I can. It’s not for everyone.

    No matter how well you have done in life, on current trajectories odds are that your genes will end up occupying rent-paying tenants of Black Rock.

    I’m pretty sure the PRC will run up against a bunch of internal contradictions and systemic failures in the fullness of time. Everybody does. Thing is, you want to have a non-failed state handy in your back pocket if/when PRC eventually blows up or goes into decline.

    The social and financial capital of two generations has been strip-mined and exported East. By your own rulers. Your schools are a joke. Your people are over-medicated fat-asses. You creep about in fear of your own Black underclass who can destroy each and any of your lives at any moment with a false accusation.

    Islamic Terrorism. Clearly the most terrible problem facing the West. Sorry. It ain’t. You’ve just wasted the last 18 years on the wrong stuff. A competent power could have thrashed them back into a semblance of good behaviour within 12 months. Ever noticed that the Muslims don’t spend much time harassing the Chinese and Russians these days? You think that’s Vlad the Impaler and Fu Manchu scheming against you or you think it might be that they’re actually the ones got their $%^& together and handle the Muzzies properly and with dispatch?

    And here you are… just been defeated in Afghanistan and already wanting to circle back to your vomit? Leave ‘em be. Bomb occasionally when necessary.

    It’s not Morning in America or much of the West. I hope that it all gets sorted out. I doubt even the Chinese want to see all of us go under. Someone has to buy all the stuff they make after all.

35. We won Tet in 1968, they were on the ropes and about done and our media dealt us the wrong cards, just more of the same, Korea, Vietnam, Middle East and not Afghanistan.

36. @TJ:

    And on Vietnam. Who ran away at the end? That’s who lost. So the other side won.

    JJ and all the other brave guys who did their duty and their best deserve all respect for what they did. They should not have been sent there, but since they were ordered to go there, respect, honour, and praise is their due.

    All the rest is Copes. You can’t claim as a Cope that the Goddamn Red Bastards beat you back home on the home front and that’s unfair. It’s a #@$%ing WAR FFS. There’s no Fair and Unfair. They figured out that your SYSTEM/SOCIETY/GOVT as constituted then (and only worse now) has a bunch of Achilles Heels and they went in there and crippled you and stabbed you in the jugular. Well golly gee, “Mommy! That Fonda Girl stole my Radio Flyer!”

    And the world keeps doing it. And will… until you learn.

    You can’t be a Liberal Democracy / Unconstitutional Cod Republic AND be the World’s Policeman. You.Just.Cannot.

37. Z forgets that facts are stubborn things. Z tells us about West Virginia from Hong Kong as if he has ever known anyone from there less even driven near there. But Z knows all; he knows more about ‘Murica than ‘Muricans. Just wait he will tell you; stupid flyover proles.

38. Get a coping saw Z, you don’t cut it.

39. Nation building is a chore, especially when the model was devised by a hugely different culture.
    The effort should have been to kill Taliban. Not to hold ground, not to have village chiefs get all mooshy with the red, white, and blue.

    Where did they get their supplies? Nobody knew? Nobody bothered to bother the source?

    But, now….Time to reread Fernandez’ The Three Conjectures.

40. @om:

    Coping Saw quip actually pretty good, Om!

41. @Richard Aubrey:

    Agree Re Fernandez.

    More scary even than his Three Conjectures is another thing he wrote about what a few cruise missiles into Manila’s electricity grid and water treatment plants would do over the following months.

    We’re all of us living our lives on the the thinnest ice — best not to go around juggling sledgehammers.

    Since US Politics is now undoubtedly Byzantine, best whack Afghan gophers hard from time to time whilst trying to avoid fighting your Battle of Manzikert for as long as possible.

    The ‘Venetian’ sack and looting already happened, sorry to say.

42. Exercise for the Reader:

    After Nuremberg, no Western nation can win a protracted fight against a determined adversary. Discuss.

43. Dan Greenfield. Don’t believe me, the CCP Shilling Anti-Semitic Troll. Believe the Jew. I do:

    http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2021/08/there-was-never-solution-in-afghanistan.html

    “A modern Afghanistan was worse than a client state. It was a Potemkin village of State Department and USAID workers funding female rock bands and American officers trying to get Afghans to act like they’re in a modern western army. All that led to was Afghans feeling insulted and trying to kill Americans.

    Afghanistan was a strange dream that Americans had. The Afghans never shared that dream. The moment we announced that we were leaving, the soldiers we had dressed up, abandoned ship. Every Afghan we had spent a fortune paying to participate in our production of a modern Afghanistan fled. The show was over, the paying crowd was leaving, and the Taliban smoothly took over everything.

    Everyone except us understood that was going to happen.

    The old Brits or Frenchmen who had lived through this same phenomenon in the fifties could have told us about it, but we wouldn’t have listened.

    And we still don’t understand.” <— Write this out 10,000 times.

44. Read the whole Greenfield article. It’s much better than anything I could come up with. There’s much more meat in it than the bit I just excerpted.

45. Astan isn’t a country. It’s a place on a map surrounded by countries. IOW, something like a lot of the world pre–Peace of Westphalia model.
    The Peace of Westphalia model has deluded a number of folks. It is not the normal order of things.
    We should have allowed the country, such as it was, to go to hell its own way since there was nothing we could do about it anyway, while killing Taliban as fast as possible including their supply sources. AK47 don’t grow on trees. We got al Baghdadi. Took a lot of intel work and an elaborate but not particularly powerful task force. Not counting F15 top cover and Navy missiles spun up just in case. But mostly intel. A couple of hours later, we got his Number Two.
    We can do this. What we can’t do is convert a dozen million Eighth Century nasties to democrat voters.
    And an earlier comment, after the Nuremburg trials, no western country can win a war. Can recover the status quo ante–see Korea and Kuwait. But not win.
    Have you noticed that, as military funerals are more elaborate and emotional, the causes for which they died are pitched overboard?

46. Afghanistan was conquered, completely, long ago, by Islam. The most enduring colonial system in the world.

47. In case a link is needed to “The Three Conjectures” here’s one.

    http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003/09/three-conjectures-pew-poll-finds-40-of.html

    Belmont Club was one of my daily goto’s back in the day.

48. Zaphod at 9:30 post is mostly spleen venting. But I’ll comment on one important point and illuminate.

    “You have spent 75 years burning down Other People’s Villages for the express purpose of saving them.

    “Stop already. Burn down your own government to save yourselves. Controlled Demolition is the way to go. Try to do a better job on yourselves than you did on Repairing the World.”

    In other words, heal thyself, physician. But prefaced by the claim that destruction begets further destruction. Or as the myopic culture blind libertarians say “Blow back! Blow back!” Blowback is forever, just as slavery is forever to the Wokey.

    Except this is objectively false. The Judeo-Christian contribution to the world is a deeply binary and reciprocal ethical view. The covenant with God in the OT became general, used to cover and guide all conduct. From the personal and civil to political ethics.

    Weaker civilizations catch on quickly, as we see throughout Meso-American post-Columbian history. The road to their respect and institutional empowerement is insisting on reciprocal obligations from the Euro-Christan hegemons. They play well now at our games

    Similarly, but at the other end of sophistication comes far Eastern civilizations like Japan and Confucian cultures.

    South Asian Hindu culture is more complex. But incorporating this ethic, too, within their traditions is what reform and innovation there is all about.

    The biggest World Problem, however, remains Islamic civilization. Islam does not bind itself to this ethic at all because the only pacification they value is on their terms entirely. (Which is why the Taliban were never serious negotiators in Afghanistan.)

    And the error binding us to it in the face of their alien rejection of it is madness and self-refuting.

    Zaph would have us judged by our standards as if it mattered to the Iraqi what we (or our military agents) did in Abu Ghraib prison still matters.

    The only Iraqi’s who do are those who’ve learned the Blame Game from guilt driven Westerner’s and exploitive Leftist Educrats.

    In short, only those indoctrinated into the coin of the moral realm of the West — which is precisely where the Muslim does not dwell.

    Islam is entirely about Muhammad’s moral and political example as the paragon for the Muslim to follow. In every realm, but especially in politics.

    And wherever expediency and hypocrisy serves the goal of unified rule through at least moral but also political conquest, the face ignores what the conscience conceals. (See “Future Jihad” and drsanity’s many archival posts on these topics.)

    The Muslim and most of all the Islamist are only opportunistic in pointing out Western hypocrisies. There ain’t nothing deep or lasting going on there.

    The same us true in Afghanistan and elsewhere where the adherents of Bin laden, Ayattolah Khomeini, and Sayyid Qutb (See https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2013/03/01/blues-for-sayyid-qutb-n144635). The poison subverting self-defense is common to the Left just as it is to the Islamist mind:

    “Even the Western world realizes that Western civilization is unable to present any healthy values for the guidance of mankind. It knows that it does not possess anything which will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence.”

    — Qutb, “Milestones”

    Is it any wonder they make common cause against Western Civilization?

49. TJ makes a point about the good intentions and some indirect benefits thereof from our efforts in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. There’s some truth to those ideas. But they are hard to find when there are so the many anti-American critiques of our efforts. And even harder to sell to people who are lefties.

    It’s also true that we have never lost militarily. On the battle field our forces are as good/better as any in the world. But to defeat the enemy in third and fourth generation warfare is a puzzle that has eluded our military tacticians thus far. IMO, it requires a ruthlessness that we are unwilling to use because of “world opinion” and our anti-American Code Pinkos and such. The Taliban are reportedly are displaying just such ruthlessness as they go door to door exacting revenge on those who collaborated\ with Americans or just those who tried to be neutral. They will not allow female equality, western education, or any practice of Islam that strays from the Salafi/Wahhabi teachings. And they will enforce that with brutality. Is it any wonder that they did not want us (dirty infidels who love dogs) in their county?

    I hope Bob Sykes hopeful outlook might pan out. He seems to have better sources than I do. But right now it seems like rose colored glasses.

    How to fight fourth generation wars? My ideas.
    1.Deny the enemy money as far as possible.
    2. Infiltrate their ranks.
    3. Develop intel operatives that think like they do.
    4. Don’t let them hide or rest. (The Taliban hiding/resting in Pakistan.)
    5. Use SpecOps to take out their leaders.
    6. Don’t field a conventional army to fight them. Use every stand off weapon, indirect force, and technology to track them, stalk them, and kill them.
    7. Never offer to negotiate anything except surrender.

50. @JJ:

    Re Bob Sykes:

    I suggest you read the Sultan Knish / Greenfield article in full.

    Greenfield states clearly that he is drawing from Israeli lessons learned on how to deal with shifting tribal alliances and waves of religious and idealogical fervor. I’m no fan of Israeli Tail often wagging US Middle Eastern Policy Dog.. but when it comes to how they operate in their own backyard allying with Bedouin, Druze, even basically Al Qaeda / IS (or whatever it is called this week) if it’s fighting Damascus Government, let alone befriending whatever other kinds of Sunni nutters so long as they are whacking Iranian Shiites this week, they are past masters. The USA has to learn to do this. The question is can it learn? And what kind of lesson would it take for it to learn once and for all?

51. @TJ:

    Slow day at Conservative Treehouse?

52. Z is swinging at TJ and missing. Focus Z, use that immense brain you are so proud of.

53. Language Warning… but this link includes some deep thoughts from your Foreign Policy and National Security Establishment:

    https://gab.com/JohnRivers/posts/106752469100959279

    Remember.. these people running your country are Features of your System. Not Bugs or Anomalies. They are the Best and Brightest selected for advancement by your society. Get over the Left/Right and Progtard / Conservatard Boomer Dichotomies. Don’t be all binary 🙂

54. Zaphod:

    Why would you think we care whether Greenfield is a Jew or not? I certainly don’t, and it neither adds nor detracts from anything he writes.

    You’re the one who sees everyone in terms of race or ethnicity, just like the CRT crowd.

    However, that excerpt you gave from Greenfield isn’t very impressive. For starters, most Americans have understood for quite some time that it was futile to nation build in Afghanistan at this point, and there hasn’t been the will to do so anyway for a long long time. Our troop presence there has been drawing down for many years. One of the reasons Trump was elected was that said he wanted to get out. So this sentence of Greenfield’s – “Everyone except us understood that was going to happen” – is not just wrong, it’s strange. Perhaps the only one who didn’t understand that was Biden himself, and maybe a few of his woke generals.

55. Pound Sand professor.

56. Wear your brain bucket. You don’t want to get acquainted with physics again.

57. US lost the case in Afghanistan after 18 years or more raises more questions that need answers.

    Its not just military power, diplomacy, aids that will make the win in Afghanistan.

    US policy maker missed many factors that driving now US for the lost its case in Afghanistan, which same will be in Iraq if already lost it.

    While US policy maker keep close eyes on China, Russia in that region/ War for years they forgot most important player on the ground that drive US to lost it war there.

    The regional small struggle/ power, we have Iran, Pakistan, and Tajiks and other US hatred groups/parties from different area and countries.

    Those countries they use there soft power to feed their beasts there to win over US. specially Mullah regime in Iran which very obvious now the paly same rule in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and may later in gulf countries.

    So now the sneak head need to be crashed by US to get things in order in many places around there.

58. TJ on August 14, 2021 at 12:05 am said:
    Sayyid Qutb ?

    Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb, known popularly as Sayyid Qutb, was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamic scholar, theorist, revolutionary, poet, and a leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s. Wikipedia

    A Mosque in Munich

    https://www.amazon.com/Mosque-Munich-Nazis-Muslim-Brotherhood/dp/0151014183

59. I have a sandwich of opinions on this. The upper bread is that I hate to see anyone go under the domination of Muslim extremism. The lower bread is that ultimately, it’s up to the Afghan people.

    In between, these mouth watering and contradictory thoughts:

    * Trump wanted out. Biden stayed with that. No argument there.
    * NBC News wailing about the impact on women’s rights. Well, they bemoaned the military all these years, and are in the vanguard of turning our males into girls, so they need to grab a weapon and do the job.
    * I’m old. I remember the cheering from many of those now in charge when Saigon fell, so they get to relive their greatest moments.
    * Don’t know about the military. They’re meddling elbow deep into Americans’ rights, per the last election and the current Chair of the Joint Chiefs and SecDef. Above all, they must be under the command of the President, even if they hate him, like Truman or Trump. So that’s the chain of command. Or it should be.

60. The Pentagon spent $88 billion dollars training the Afghan Army for 20 years.

    It collapsed in 1 month.

61. The story of _Three Cups of Tea_ goes a long way to explaining things.

    As a friend wrote: “Time and time again, it’s the corruption that defeats empires. And the Americans keep at it, they join in the corruption, they think they’re winning because they’re getting rich.”

62. The bottom line is, whether you like it or not, Zaphod is right on numerous frounts.

    How is the US supposed to be telling other countries how to take care of their house when our house is a flipping disaster ?

    And because our house is SUCH a disaster how can anyone, for a second, believe that even if we wanted to, that we could effectively police someone else’s house ?

    Better to focus on getting our house in order in ever manner, especially economically, starting with energy and when we can stand effectively on our own two feet, start thinking about what we should be saying about the rest of the world.

    Whatever or whoever was the primary architect of our fantasy in Afghanistan, the simple fact is, the people of the US never had any interest in building a nation in Afghanistan. We were spinning our wheels there and we all knew it. But it was a political football, egged on, of course, by the war mongering neo-cons left and right and the usual suspects that get paid handsomely to build new bombs whenever we drop the old ones somewhere in the world.

63. The story of _Three Cups of Tea_ goes a long way to explaining things.

    I seem to recall Mr. Mortensen’s tale was largely fabricated, that his foundation was guilty of misappropriating large sums of money, and that his co-author was humiliated to such a degree by the scandal (in which he had no part) that he committed suicide.

64. Oh, the bottom line from hindsight is always right. And when everything is correct and in order in the USA we will be ready to face the challenges of the world. And the world will wait for that to happen. Just as it did before the CCP loosed the WuFlu on the world, or on 9/10/2001 or on 12/6/1941. Or on 12/5/2021? Sounds like a plan, ostrich in the sand plan, that is.

    Tell me more about the Dread Pirate Roberts, oops, the dreaded Neocons.

65. Zaphod on August 14, 2021 at 12:49 am said:

    Language Warning… but this link includes some deep thoughts from your Foreign Policy and National Security Establishment:

    https://gab.com/JohnRivers/posts/106752469100959279

    Remember.. these people running your country are Features of your System. Not Bugs or Anomalies. They are the Best and Brightest selected for advancement by your society.”

    Interesting:

    “Jennifer Cafarella
    @JennyCafarella
    ·
    Aug 12
    It is a very dark day in Afghanistan

    Take care of yourself. It might require avoiding the news

    Even that can be excruciating, I know. We can & should bear witness. But it does not require self harm.

    Triggering PTSD symptoms or new trauma does not help Afghans

    My DMs are open
    ——————————————

    Jennifer Cafarella
    @JennyCafarella
    Replying to
    @JennyCafarella
    I’d like to share the same advice I sent our incredible ISW team.

    We’re all likely to ignore the symptoms and charge ahead. We shouldn’t.

    These recommendations are a start. They build on policies that limit the sharing of graphic imagery, which I recommend you do as well. …”

    There is only one real cure for this. And it is not aroma therapy or bath salts or “sharing emotions”.

    Instead as one part of it, we should consider re-instituting a program of special brigades and legions such as were utilized during the Civil War era.

    We could promote and form groups such as a “Transgender Justice Brigade”, and a “Lesbian Legion”, and a “You Go Gurl Attitude Division”, and a “Compassionate Conservative Regiment” and then send them out to face the Taliban or the Syrians with those special psychic resources and diversity talents which they claim to have at their command; and then see how that plays out in straight up confrontations – without the Hillbillies and the Corn Huskers to act as shock absorbers for them.

    Should be almost as entertaining as watching Portland burn to the ground.

    Nothing will cure the stupidity evinced by that tweet from Jennifer Cafarella apart from those who actually can defend themselves and others, finally refusing to enable these center-of-the-herd-dwelling neurotics any longer; and, by standing aside, letting the alien damned devour the native damned.

    Our polity, under their influence has finally become little more than a performance stage upon which dysfunctional and neurotic “gurls” of both sexes publicly act out self-soothing rituals of virtue and caring, upon the body of a dying nation.

    Not until these crazies are left to face the world without a shield, and are as a result, finally dragged through the streets by their hair, screaming and blubbering on the way to either immolation or to the life of serfdom which they have themselves enabled and primed, will this polity return to something like functionality.

    Naturally, those who want to lay down their lives for these irredeemable pieces of work, are welcome to do so. Plenty of sensitive conservatives seem to have that pathological altruism impulse too.

66. FB Sayyid Qutb?
    I haven’t read “A Mosque in Munich,” but it probably agrees with my opinions about Qutb. Qutb and Hassan al-Banna have been the most instrumental figures in re-energizing the teachings of Wahhabism in Islam since the end of WWII. Raid a jihadi camp and you will find dogeared copies of “In the Shade of the Quran” and “Milestones,” both books by Qutb that are handbooks for the present practice of Wahhabism and holy jihad.

    From the end of the Ottoman Empire until WWII, the Islamic world was on a course to become more moderate and more tolerant of other religions. This was apparent in the dress and social customs of Muslims at the time. Look at pictures of Muslim graduating lasses from the 1920s to the 1950s. Women were being educated in larger numbers and most of the graduates were dressed in the western manner. After the 1950s and the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood by al-Banna and Qutb, the pictures transition toward traditional Muslim garb and fewer women. The teachings of Qutb were taking effect throughout the Middle East.

    IMO, the present Islamic jihad against the West is the direct result of Qutb’s books, which are widely read in the Muslim world.

67. Zaphod, I read the Greenfield piece in full. He has some insights, but they are mostly what he has learned or believes he has learned from the GWOT since 9.11.

    His ideas are somewhat along the lines of mine – strategy for dealing with fourth gen warfare @ 12:16am. Unfortunately, our Pentagon seems to be more interested in equity, diversity, and social justice in the ranks. 🙁 That has been true since Obama took charge in 2008. Trump tried to change things but did not get far. Will the Afghanistan collapse force them to reevaluate? We can only hope, but I have my doubts. Perilous times.

68. “Among other things, I think the way this is playing out is a sign that the military has become confused and incompetent.”

    Incompetent in war-making, yes. But they are far more woke now than they were in WWII, and the Chairman of the Joint Staff Chiefs has read all the right books about what is wrong with white people. And our Air Force is solving the problem of putting pregnant pilots in regulation flight suits. And our State Department is devoting enormous brain power to explaining to the families being evacuated from Kabul why the CDC will not let them bring their pet dog home. And our President is off to Camp David, where he can simultaneously ignore what is happening on our southern border and avoid the American media (as if they would ask him any difficult questions about Afghanistan). Yes, when it comes to woke, we are winning the war handily.

    Do I sound angry? I am. Many good points in the discussion above, first among them being, I think, that most Americans don’t know how to deal with Islam. And are not open to learning how.

    Since I retired from the Foreign Service (1997) until now, we appear to have learned nothing and forgotten more. Alas Babylon!

69. All “Biden” has to do is pretend it’s not a disaster and call it a “huge success”.

    The corrupt media will take it from there. (Or if they can’t hide the story any more, they’ll blame Trump.)

    On the other hand, it does appear that “Biden” may in fact know what IS going on…but if so, it’s strictly off the record:
    https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/08/biden-dhs-sec-mayorkas-admits-border-crisis-is-unsustainable-in-leaked-audio/

    Would be fun to ask Psaki about this…but we already know the answer: “no comment/can’t answer that…because…taken out of context…”

70. J.J. on August 14, 2021 at 2:17 pm said:
    the direct result of Qutb’s books, which are widely read in the Muslim world.

    This is your wild guess, this is not true.

    there is very good book to read called Islamic movements in the Arab world Iran and Turkey Ahmed Musli Studies Centre

    This book gives a lot of details how those extremist “terrorists” created during decade of “Wahhabism” teachings. Arabic Text

    Btw, 4 years ago, I met diplomats was in Pakistan at that time went to visit one of those “Wahhabism” teachings school (funded by Kingdome of Saudi) tell about the horror still exist in Pakistan were Midrash in Pakistan tech boys (5-10 years old) the person who sow and he spoke about it (diplomat) he was disused and cannot stay to see more of that horror in that madrassah he left the place after 5 min??

71. Wouldn’t it be great if Taliban was allowed to gather in force/close together around Kabul … then boom … bomb the sh$t out of them!

72. F on August 14, 2021 at 3:29 pm said:

    we appear to have learned nothing and forgotten more. Alas Babylon!

    I don’t know how your connection with Babylon to Islam?

    It’s clearly you “learned nothing” with “Babylon” keep bouncing in your head when at Sunday Teaching learned as a boy with “NEBUCHADNEZZAR II, In 598/597 BCE he marched on the Kingdom of Judah in Canaan and destroyed its capital city of Jerusalem, sending the elite citizens of the city back to Babylon (a period known as the Babylonian Captivity)..

73. Dunno how wide-read Qutb is. Sure as hell have no interest in whatever actuarial tables of GIGO Art Deco gets his ‘data’ from.

    What I do know is that Qutb went to the West on scholarship and experienced a profound mental break. This bit is really hard for post-Industrial Whitey to get his head around… but it used to happen to us, too. The wrench from a rural society to an urban industrial society is TERRIBLE. Many people simply cannot take it.

    It’s not just the Dark Satanic Mills and Dickensian slums cartoon stuff — it’s the profound psychological dislocation where you lose your place in the old world you have been rooted in since time immemorial and are cast adrift in a new one. Everything is turned upside-down. The youngest son of the local Rich Peasant (let’s assume hard primogeniture — generally true or there would never be any Rich Peasants) finds himself working on the city road gang with the sons of the untouchables who scrape the shit out of his toilet back home… etc. etc… Worse than that… the girls from the village go to the city and have a far more tradable asset (between their legs) than the boys and leave them behind in the dust. Go watch late night TV in the the third world… it is full of music videos about boy meets girl in the rice field… boy and girl get on bus to make new life in the city.. girl runs off with guy with beemer and similar themes.

    Modernity and Post-modernity is like hanging people upside-down and beating them with rubber truncheons. We were born into this hell and we don’t quite get it — feels pretty normal to us now. Some of us are even minor demons who apply the beatings.

    When the rural poor get fed into the maw, they look for something, anything to hold on to. In the Muslim world… that’s the likes of Qutb and friends… and Qutb wrote from inside the head of a broken person broken by the same thing broke them.

    We laugh that Greeley broke him. But make no mistake that a few billion humiliations big and small, material and/or sexual can create a tidal wave of hatred that can swamp the West. And all this is before you throw in ubiquitous internet and tv and cheap international travel.

    We Westerners have lots of our own house cleaning to do. All we can do for the rest of the world is keep them the $%^ where they are so they can sort themselves out in situ in the fullness of time and with much shedding of blood. It’s the Human Way.

    Religion is real. Not just ‘ideology’. We don’t know this anymore. Most of us simply cannot feel or understand it. That part of us has died. What we don’t understand we had best keep far away.

74. J.J. on August 14, 2021 at 2:17 pm said:
    I agree with you about 1920-1950 times you described, but let not forgot during that time when Abdulaziz bin Muhammad Al Saud, who made selective use of Ibn ?Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings for the purpose to gain control with help with money and weapon and intelligence from Brits….

    “In the Shade of the Quran” and “Milestones,” both books by Qutb that are handbooks for the present practice of Wahhabism and holy jihad.

    I think you missed very basic point in your above statement, neither Sayyid Qutb nor Terrorists like today ISIS follow the Quran, they using the Quran for personal gain of power, same can be applied to Khomeini and his Islamic revolution and his follower Mullah today.

    The Muslim Brotherhood’s Infltration o? the WestA Review Article by Bassam Michael Madany

75. Zaphod:

    You know, you’d do well to eliminate the repetitive use of this type of statement: “This bit is really hard for post-Industrial Whitey to get his head around…” You know why? Not only does it generalize based on race, but it’s not even correct, in my opinion. I certainly have read tons – all written by “post-Industrial Whiteys,” to use your terminology – about culture shock of that type. In fact, the field of anthropology – one developed by “post-Industrial Whiteys,” for the most part – is something that studies the phenomenon.

    Much of the rest of what you wrote in that comment was, in my opinion, both correct and important to say. So if you leave out the kneejerk assumptions about what a certain racial group knows or doesn’t know, it would enhance your credibility rather than detract from it.

76. @dh:

    OK, now that I’m done with a quick listen to my favorite Verdi chorus…

    Did they teach you about the Babylonian Talmud in Sunday School? 🙂

    Nebuchadnezzar could not be reached for comment, but vibrational analysis confirmed a human sized object spinning at high RPM inside his purported grave.

77. @Neo:

    If it’s so easy for people to understand, why do post-industrial Whiteys keep making the same stupid mistakes?

    The field of anthropology post-Boas has little interest in deep and truthful insights about the Human Condition. It’s an ideological cess-pool. You might as well get your insights from the Frankfurt School… err… wait…

    And here comes the Appeal to Authority. I think can say with some authority that I’ve spent more time conversing with Taxi Drivers in diverse third world countries than you have. And with NGO Big Brains with the Answers in the same places. Let’s just say that the incomprehension is mutual. But at at a pinch I’d go with the Taxi Driver’s analysis every single time.

78. J.J.
    I would like to correct you referring to Wahhabi/Salafi sects

    Wahhabi IS NOT Islamic Sects, there are 5 main sect in Islam, Wahhabi/Salafi not included

    “The Salafi movement, also called the Salafist movement, Salafiya and Salafism, is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam…..”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement

79. Zaphod on August 14, 2021 at 7:59 pm said:

    Are you in the same gave with Nebuchadnezzar II, your vibrational analysis is due to listing to your Verdi chorus….

80. @dh:

    Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco is more of an undulation or a standing wave than a slightly unbalanced Iranian Centrifuge type wobble.

    Before doing any vibrational analysis on me, you’d best isolate yourself from any possible sources of interference :).

81. Wahhabism (Arabic: ?????????, romanized: Al-Wahh?biyyah, lit.?’Wahhabism’) is an Islamic revivalist movement and doctrine that started within Sunni
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

82. @FB:

    You want to watch out for the Wasabi sect too. They really get up my nose.

83. Zaphod
    your Verdi chorus defiantly made your ” vibrational analysis” missing the correct judgment about others

84. @FB

    I’ve read the Quran with muslims during Ramadan for 10 years running. With exception of giving the enemy in war a chance to surrender and be ruled (taliban may do this) … it’s textbook Quran/hadith on war.

85. The Hidden Roots of Wahhabism in British India
    Charles Allen
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/40209967

86. @Jack
    https://tanzil.net/#4:91

87. You care to translate for us? Muslims i read with were from Oman and read english version for my benefit.

88. Zaphod:

    You write: “If it’s so easy for people to understand, why do post-industrial Whiteys keep making the same stupid mistakes?”

    Same reason you do in making that comment. I’m sort of joking there – but I’m also somewhat serious. In other words, you just did exactly the same thing as you did before: generalizing from what is actually some people, and instead referring to an ethnic group as a unitary mass all of the same mind, and then either not paying attention to what I wrote or purposely misunderstanding (I don’t know which) and arguing about something I didn’t say. What I mean by this latter claim is that you wrote “If it’s so easy for people to understand…”, when in fact I never claimed nor did I imply that it was easy. Certainly it’s not easy for ALL people of ANY race to understand, but what I actually wrote was that I had read tons on the subject, and much of what I had read was written by anthropologists who were “post-industrial Whiteys,” in your phrase.

    In other words – to make it crystal clear – I was saying that as a racial group (and you seem to need to write about just about everything in terms of race and/or ethnicity), white people have no particular or special problem understanding such a thing, and plenty of them do understand it and have in fact studied it at some length and for quite a while. That isn’t to say that people of other races haven’t studied it or written about it; they have.

    Many of us in this country and elsewhere, who are white (or really of any race), have also either experienced the culture shock phenomenon ourselves at some level and/or have had parents or grandparents who did. And those ancestors have often told us about the experience.

    In addition, I never mentioned Boas. I was, however, an anthro minor in college, before it got to whatever PC woke place it’s probably at now, and we certainly studied the dislocation that occurs with such movements as we’re talking about in these comments, and it was very straightforward and purely descriptive (this of course was quite some time ago and I have no doubt it’s gotten much worse and more political since then).

    Nor do I assert – nor have I ever asserted – that I prefer NGOs with Big Brains over the assessments of taxi drivers here or elsewhere. Nothing I have ever written in this thread or elsewhere should make you presume that, and I don’t need to have traveled on all continents to say it.

    Lastly, I’m actually quite curious, and I don’t think you’re ever said: have you visited the US much if ever? You may indeed have met plenty of people from the US who are abroad, but that doesn’t really say all that much about people – or taxi drivers – in the US.

89. dh:

    “Alas Babylon” was a novel by Pat Frank from my high school years. Discussed the destruction of the USA in a nuclear holocaust. Not about Babylon at all. Sorry for the confusion.

90. @Neo:

    For the record I have visited the USA. Multiple business trips and an extended three month road trip vacation. I’m no Tom Wolfe but I think I’ve got a bit of a clue about who’s who and what’s what.

    For some colour, I remember being in my room on a high floor of the SF Grand Hyatt on September 11 2002 and looking down on Union Square where a bunch of bigwig police and politcians were having a ‘commemorative’ ceremony and at all the police snipers on building rooftops surrounding and thinking “These Onanists are commemorating themselves, not the Dead.” And they were. Or going for a just OK lunch at the late great stupid drug addict suicide over a tattooed whore Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles in Midtown. Or the old fallout shelter Civil Defence sign on the wall just along from the Little Church Around the Corner which almost *was* around the corner.

    It’s a bore. I have strong opinions and a pretty observant outsider’s eye. But I get around and I stay around for a while when I get there. Done a bit more than just flit in and out of places. And I think about what I see and attempt to integrate it.

    And in my quotidian existence I live in an expat enclave surrounded by American expats working in financial juggernauts… and in more usual times.. guess who’s next up in the hotel bar or at the next table at breakfast on the club floor? Not to mention the Vassar Lesbian Foreign Service Coven in the sky pool in Bangkok. Hard to get away from you all 😛

    And then we get to disagree vehemently about just about everything. Which is fine.

91. Zaphod:

    Well, I’ve lived in the US my entire life, and your observations about the US don’t indicate to me you have much of a clue about people here. I’m not saying that just to be argumentative I’ve simply been struck by how often you generalize about Americans – and with such seeming certainty – in ways that do not fit this country’s people for the most part.

92. Z:

    Such a vast intelligence (arrogance) that claims to understand the US base on a vacation and a few road trips. But then he knows the ins and outs of the CCP from Hong Kong, oh, and all of humanity as well. We are not worthy!

    What a hoot.

93. You can’t make this up. US Govt paid some Afghans in Kabul to paint a George Floyd mural.

    https://gab.com/JohnRivers/posts/106757957201082712

    On the plus side as someone else commented:

    “The Taliban demonstrates that you don’t need nukes and F15’s to defeat this sick, twisted empire run by the bugmen on the Potomac, whose main values are degeneracy, depravity, and a hatred for White America. You just need patience and will.”

    I for one look forward to the Triumph of Om’s Will.

94. Z:

    Triumph of the Will is your style Z. My father was wounded in 1944 by your blood and soil pukes.

95. Some views from the standard reading list, but with additional information on the withdrawal.
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/the-shame-of-joe-biden-2.php

    Could Joe Biden’s humiliation get worse? Yes, it could. If American bombers have to destroy American aircraft on the ground to prevent their being used by the Taliban. I am not sure whether that is happening; take this report for what it is worth:

    It seems likely that the planes are at risk of being taken by the Taliban, but less likely they can use them; apparently, they are shooting the pilots trained by the US (see D4x below).

    This has Dyer’s usual details on the military deployments, if anyone is interested.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2021/08/12/u-s-to-deploy-troops-to-evacuate-embassy-in-afghanistan-waiting-staff-to-be-relocated-for-security/

    One reason we are likely acting so quickly right now is that our ability to move via ground transportation within Afghanistan or through the corridor into Pakistan appears to be all but gone. Basically, Fortress Kabul is rapidly losing secure communication with the territory outside of it.

    Social media updates from around Afghanistan indicate the Taliban are moving into villages and executing men, demanding younger men join them, threatening those younger men’s families, and rounding up young women and girls to “force into marriage”; i.e., rape and abuse. The low-cutoff age for this is said to be 12. I saw an estimate this week that Afghan refugees fleeing on foot and seeking asylum are likely to total some 1-3 million.
    …
    It appears the somewhat garbled reporting earlier was to paper over the Pentagon briefing point that the 1,000 personnel deploying to Qatar are to process visa applications for the Afghans, but spox John Kirby would not commit on whether we are actually evacuating the Afghan allies (interpreters, etc.). This would paint a scenario in which the embassy brings bags of SIV applications to Qatar and a bunch of applications get processed, but there’s no clarity on what happens to the, you know, living, breathing Afghans.

    We can hope there’s more to it than this, but it hasn’t been clarified yet that I’ve seen.

    In re the discussion to this point, the commenters at LU have quite a bit to say.
    I don’t know if any of them are “objectively true” but they appear to have some familiarity with the situation.

    D4x (who is always worth reading) gives some background.

    This week, comment threads on Afghanistan posts show how One Big Lie graveyard of empires, has stolen Afghanistan’s real history.
    Instead, we could all learn what happens when Communists steal a nation, as happened in 1973 -1978 Afghanistan.
    …
    After the British Great Game’s three Anglo-Afghan Wars, (1839-1842) (1878-1880), and 1919, Afghanistan had peace, increasing prosperity and modernity during the reign of King Zahir Shah, 1933-1973, which ended in a coup by Communists.
    …

    OldArmyBrat59 (also quite shrewd on military matters, although not himself a veteran)

    There is actually no Afghanistan. They are sub tribes within tribes within major ethnicities and linguistic groups. There is really no Afghanistan… it doesn’t exist in their minds. They are Pashtuns of this family and tribe, or Urdus of that family and tribe. They operate in a social political context that most western Liberals do not understand and dismiss out of hand. They will fight for their tribal group as long as they see that fight in their tribal group’s interest.

    It’s a non-Western pre 16th century mentality that they both maintain and find to be their chosen mode of operation as dictated by their concept of god.

    As I explained below. Rummy had the formula.. leverage the tribal affiliations, form tribal councils and intertribal governing bodies within the bounds of those tribes long relationships, and keep a light western footprint on the situation.

    The Democrat Party and Globalist Deep State don’t know anymore about light footprints than the Afghan tribes know about operating as a nation-state.

    After Barry heavied up the presence and tried to convert the Afghan tribes into some sort of Westphalian model… BTW… the Afghan war ended in 2002. The remainder was a constabulary action, and the Oboingo regime converted that into a Globalist Liberal model. So we actually spend 19 1/2 years being the Afghan national police force, not an occupying army with a purpose and end goal in sight. In short, it was always doomed to fail.

    D4x to OAB59 – these are presumably the planes that may have to be eliminated.

    Thanks for your points about the past 20 years, especially about the idiot Rules of Engagement that failed to crush the Taliban and their heroin trade past 20 years. But, Afghans will fight, if they have air support, especially for medevac. The Afghan Air Force was DoD’s best effort: USA trained the pilots and supplied the helos and Brazil’s Embraer A29 Super Tucanos (close air-support, bombers) assembled in Jacksonville for Afghan Air Force.
    …
    But, USA also made Afghan Air Force dependent on USA contractors for all maintenance and USA for munitions.
    Biden’s DoD forgot to insure AAF sustained maintenance and re-supply.
    Plus, Taliban has targeted AAF pilots for assassination.
    Eight pilots murdered so far.

    Afghanistan had peace and prosperity during the last King, Mohammed Zahir Shah, 1933-1973. Our biggest mistake was not installing Hamid Karzai as King, while MZShah was still alive. Until his death in 2007, he lived with Karzai. In 2002, JSOC’s mission was bringing, and protecting, Karzai back – the only person every single tribe said was necessary. That’s because Karzai, chief of the Popalzai Durranis, is the hereditary successor to Afghanistan’s first King, Ahmad Shah Durrani, 1747-1772. It is possible to unite Afghan’s tribes.

    There are no ‘Urdus’. Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, a Persianized Hindi adopted by the Mughals.

    You also can not lump all Pashtuns together. Never insult a Yousefzai by saying he’s a Waziri. That blood feud is 500 years old. Both those tribes live in Pakistan. I’ve forgotten the Ghilzai jokes that still pop up in British film.

    Brits did so much damage after their Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1878-1880, by imposing, in 1893, the Durand Line border that split the Pashtuns between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Biggest border drawing malpractice in history.

    Maybe not THE biggest, but among the worst of a very bad lot in the Middle East.

    OldArmyBrat59

    That deployment is expanded to 3,000 troops, yes, but that’s a brigade sized formation. And they will need logistical support. Is that support in the brigade or is it going to be additional? My guess is that it may well be the latter.

    There were no notices of the mix of battalions so the combat capability is unknown (good we really shouldn’t know). But combat units (with the exception of the old Armored Cavalry Regiments) are not self supporting so it’s going to be interesting. Not something the folks wanting to bug out will like much, though.

    But it looks like the Taliban goofed up and didn’t wait long enough. Giap had the strategic sense to make sure that the Americans had completely removed themselves and self-destructed before beginning his final offensive.

    So… Afghanistan grinds on… The “Temporary” will do what it always does for the DoD… make rock soup… I am seeing the makings of a re-deployment and a short sharp and deadly encounter to chase off the Taliban…

    And it’ll be back to constabulary operations in perpetuity.

    rbj

    20 years and a trillion dollars for an Afghan army that won’t fight.

96. Well spoken from your Hong Kong hidely hole, from one who prefers the CCP.

    What is the lecture you speak of mister ill windy, one that blows no good?

97. File away that bit about it being cheaper and simpler to kill the pilots and their families than to attempt to infiltrate bases to destroy the planes. That’s how you fight to win.

    They don’t teach that at Harvard. And it’s not in the NYT Style Guide. So how can it be?

98. https://af.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/security-and-travel-information/

    I’m waiting for them to raise the Transphobia Threat Level to Orange.

99. You can watch the Taliban Conquest Map update here:

    https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/pavak.patel/viz/TalibanKnockingontheDoor/geo

    Hat Tip: https://www.longwarjournal.org/

100. Some background in an August 14 WSJ article.

     The Taliban conquests map graphic in the article is a snapshot of the same dynamic-update map source I cite in comment above this. Article map already noticeably out of date.

     https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistan-army-collapse-taliban-11628958253

101. This is the first I’ve heard that we are sending B-52s to destroy the equipment left behind. I suspect we are destroying it to keep it from ending up in Russian and Chinese hands more than worrying about the Taliban ever being able to use it. The Russians and Chinese want it partly for intelligence purposes, but probably more so to give/sell to warlords around the world. Those are valuable assets!

102. FB, thanks for the info. I’ll not refer to Salafi of Wahhabi as sects, but movements in the future.

     As to Qutb’s books. I haven’t read them, but my understanding of the contents from many reports I have read is that they are aimed at rekindling a strict interpretation of the Quran along the lines of Wahhab’s interpretations. Qutb had a loathing for the culture of the West derived from his experience of it while studying at Colorado Teacher’s College in Greeley, Colorado. The strict interpretation of Wahhab’s teaching leads to an intolerance of all things Western. The idea of conducting jihad against all infidels comes from the strict interpretation of the Quran as advocated by Wahhab.

     The wars over interpretations of the Bible took place over approximately 300 years. Eventually, the various Christian sects decided to quit fighting over differing interpretations and tolerate one another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion

     I expect the violence over the interpretation of the Quran and the Shia -Sunni split to continue. But we have to call it what it is: Religious war sparked by differing interpretations of a book whose authorship is seemingly known, but may be uncertain. Peace in a multi religious world depends, to a great extent, on tolerance. IMO.

     The Muslim Brotherhood (Started by al-Banna and Qutb.), which still exists in many places in the Muslim world, wanted to eject all Westerners from the Muslim Middle East by force. They met with vehement opposition because, at the time, the world was very dependent on the ME for oil. The world still needs ME crude, but the oil sheikdoms have become hooked on oil wealth. (Except Iran. They have beggared their nation for a chance to develop nuclear weapons.)They need to money to flow just as much as the West needs their crude. It’s now a shaky marriage of convenience.

     At least that’s my interpretation of the situation. YMMV

103. @J.J.
     Thank you for your thoughts and understanding.
     As of your sentence:
     I expect the violence over the interpretation of the Quran and the Shia -Sunni

     what we have, some using the religion to gain power and mixed with politics. they use the Holly book for their personal gain and easy to be followed.

     As the Shia -Sunni violence, I do not think that major today specially in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and other place were openly people predominant “Shia” raises their voices against their religious figures and leaders like Nasrallah and Sistani and other heads in fact they are now humiliated and there lies vey obvious they care about their followers while they causing the problem not just for “Shia” but all of ethnics and religious grope and believers its very clear in Iraq.

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