Documents Show U.S. Officials Misled Public on Afghanistan War
Documents show US leaders misled public on progress in Afghanistan War: report
Senior U.S. officials knowingly lied to the public about their progress throughout the 18-year war in Afghanistan, consistently painting a rosier picture of the state of the war than they knew to be true, according to a cache of documents obtained by the Washington Post.
In private interviews conducted by a watchdog that span the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations—which the Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request—U.S. officials frequently acknowledged a lack of understanding, strategy and progress in a war they regularly described publicly as being on the cusp of success.
“After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan,” retired Navy SEAL Jeffrey Eggers, a White House staffer in the Bush and Obama administrations, said in a private interview.
Interviewees also describe a deliberate disinformation campaign meant to spin discouraging statistics as evidence the U.S. was prevailing in the war.
“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, an Army colonel and senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, said in an interview.
“Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone,” he added.
In 2015, Ret. Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as a top advisor on the war during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers, “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” according to the Post.
Lute went on to lament the deaths of U.S. military personnel that he blamed on bureaucratic entanglements between the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress.
Also at CNN.
The Afghanistan Papers - A Secret History of the War
A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
[...]In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:44PM (1 child)
The solution is to raise taxes so they get even more money to lie to us about! https://constitution.solari.com/fasab-statement-56-understanding-new-government-financial-accounting-loopholes/ [solari.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday December 09 2019, @11:04PM
Oh, sure... just ignore the man behind the curtain, he's just a lobbyist minion for your MIC overlords.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Monday December 09 2019, @08:54PM (28 children)
Is anyone really surprised? I'm not, that's for sure.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday December 09 2019, @09:02PM (17 children)
Yeah, did anyone think the war was going well? Who was misled?
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 09 2019, @10:21PM (15 children)
There's a war -> people will be misled, otherwise it's not really a war.
A war in a country with little commerce or free exchange of information with the rest of the world? Check. Increased likelihood of misinformation.
A war on the other side of the planet? Check. Increased likelihood of misinformation.
A war in an underdeveloped country with a history of embarrassing so called superpower armies? Check. Increased likelihood of misinformation, particularly over-estimates of tactical and strategic effectiveness.
A war in a country where "our boys" aren't likely to become friendly with the locals (particularly young women) due to local social/cultural reasons, cutting off flow of sympathetic information via those channels? Check. Increased likelihood of misinformation and reduced reporting of civilian casualties, collateral damage estimates.
A war with a relatively small number of invading troops on the ground, witnessing things firsthand? Check. Deployment numbers are below 10,000 since 2015 [militarytimes.com], far less than Vietnam [americanwarlibrary.com].
A war started as a domestic political statement of revenge/retaliation? Check. Increased likelihood of misinformation, particularly damage done to the enemy, body counts, high profile target neutralization, etc.
A war which funnels large profits to private firms which self-report effectiveness justifying further operations and funding? Check. Virtual guarantee of misinformation.
A war funded by narcotics production and trafficking [theguardian.com] that nobody wants to publicize? Check.
You could say the Afghan war has it all, particularly when it comes to incentives for misinformation. At least the US casualty count is lower than Vietnam, I suppose that's a sort of progress.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday December 09 2019, @10:39PM (12 children)
What the hell does that even mean? Being misled is a general fact of life and is not specific to war. It's a war because we sent people over there in uniform to kill.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:30AM (1 child)
Look at a WWII newsreel. Compare it with history.
There are lots of other examples. Viet Nam was unusual in that large numbers of people had "some reasonable idea" of what was going on, but they sure didn't get that from the government. Since then the army has developed "embedded" reporters, who are only allowed to see what the army wants them to see.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @01:54AM
> Viet Nam was unusual
Gulf of Tonkin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:56AM
Sun Tzu's Art of War: "All warfare is based on deception."
Arguably, it isn't unusually deceptive, but there are definitely elements of deception in play when it comes to modern warfare particularly. The public gets deceived about war quite deliberately, for 2 main reasons:
1. Whatever CNN knows, the enemy knows. So the US military, with the help of the more subservient members of the press, routinely hides troop deployments, unit capabilities, planned movements, etc from the general public to keep their enemies guessing. This is good military strategy.
2. If the US public knew what the military was doing, there's real fear in the Pentagon that they'd demand that their elected representatives put a stop to it. This was basically the result of the Vietnam War and the belief that persists in military circles that the US would have won had they not been stabbed in the back by those traitorous anti-war hippie types. It's why, for instance, when this video [youtube.com] was published, the military, legislature, and executive branch of the US government all immediately cooperated in efforts to try to shut down the website that had published it and arrested and tortured one of the people responsible for leaking it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:28AM
There's a simple truth in war. The stronger side wants to go to war, the weaker side does not want to go to war. Yet there's a problem. In modern times the populations of the stronger sides generally do not want to go to war. So what to do? The US is quite dependent on war both to keep the military industrial complex churning out jobs and economic growth, and also to sustain the petrodollar which serves a similar function in practice. Enter, lies.
You'll find our entry into war is precipitated on lies because the countries we invade make sure not to give us a genuine casus belli. Iraq is an obvious example since it's been long enough that most people understand all of our evidence was fake, yet not far enough out of memory that things like Gulf of Tonkin. But take Syria as well. Think about Assad allegedly gassing his own people for one moment. Let's start, with the assumption, that he's the most evil person on Earth. It still doesn't make any sense.
The US had literally announced their intention to withdraw from the war and the status quo was leading to his complete and absolute victory. And blowing people up with conventional weapons is in most cases not only more effective, but seen as perfectly kosher. Yet in spite of all of this he decides to do the one and only possible thing that might help drive further western involvement, possibly compromising everything? This makes just no sense at all. You don't need to have the recent whistle-blowers to know we were, to put us in the most positive light, indulging one of the most brain-dead false flag efforts from rebel forces. You literally cannot create any sort of motivation there beyond, "I'd like to give a reason for the US to come and kill me and destroy my country."
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:03PM (7 children)
Afghanistan is particularly bad. No Western power has ever invaded that place and came back victorious: the British were wiped out (16,000 went in, only a handful returned [fineartamerica.com]), the Russians slunk back home in defeat, and the US ain't doing so well either. The saying "God preserve me from the fangs of the cobra, the jaws of the tiger, and the wrath of the Afghans" isn't just empty words, it means you don't start a war in that place, no matter who you think you are.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Tuesday December 10 2019, @01:44PM (5 children)
Oh, well. The US did get bin Laden, and I'm sure they caused the Taliban plenty of pain. Those things should have been enough to declare victory and go home, having reinforced the notion that attacks from foreign soil will not be tolerated. The US can reserve the right to bomb the shit out of Afghanistan whenever they want, because Afghanistan attacked the US and no peace was ever made.
For that message, it would have helped to also make Saudi Arabia feel the consequences, but the US hasn't had a President who would do that. I wonder what the Saudi's leverage really is.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Tuesday December 10 2019, @01:53PM (3 children)
Problem is that that's a completely empty threat, I've usually heard similar expressed as "bomb them back into the stone age", but most of Afghanistan already is in the stone age. There's literally nothing you can do to threaten them because they're already in whatever bad shape you're threatening to put them in.
I agree with your comment that the sensible thing to do would have been to go in, thrash the Taliban, and then declare victory and leave. There's not much else you can achieve by staying.
Oil and the fact that they support whatever the US wants to do in the region. As long as they keep having/doing both of those, they're free to do whatever else they want. Oh, except attack Israel, which they've shown no sign of doing, since they know what side their... um, pita isn't buttered on. OK, gotta work on those analogies.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:05PM (1 child)
But a war with Saudi Arabia would be popular, and their oil is not really needed in the US. Obeisance to the Saudis goes beyond what the known facts suggest.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:48AM
Obeisance to the Saudis goes beyond what the known facts suggest.
Serving at the pleasure of Her Majesty the Queen. She rings that little bell...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:46AM
I gained a lot of respect for George Bush Sr. when he pulled out of Iraq so quickly.
Insert Barbara joke here about W.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:13PM
... via a small and fairly simple operation in neighboring Pakistan. Either the US had lousy intel about where bin Laden was, or they had a completely failed operation to capture him and he escaped to Pakistan, most likely because they were distracted by trying to take over the entire country rather than concentrating their forces on their objective.
Then why did the US blow up 2 countries that had far less to do with 9/11 than Saudi Arabia did?
My impression from those who actually pretend to believe the justifications for those wars is that they wanted to blow something up in revenge, and didn't much care what that thing was or who was going to be killed in the process. Like when they were blowing up Saddam Hussein's palaces, and there were people disbelieving that Saddam Hussein wasn't inside, and I'm thinking "Of course he's not, that would be as dumb as leaving the US president inside the White House during a global nuclear war, which you don't do if you can help it. You killed the janitors and a few low-ranking military people who probably just wanted a decent-paying job, congratulations."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday December 10 2019, @09:47PM
Not at all. You're coming from the POV that the reason for the US going to war is to "win" same.
That's not the case. The reason for our going to war is to fluff the military-industrial complex. WW2 notably excepted, although it worked out that way anyhow.
Certainly the US powers-that-be use agitprop, demonization and claims that they are attempting to win to keep the gullible population in line, which works fine for extended periods of time, but no, that's not even close to the reality of the thing.
The US oligarchy is perfectly happy to have gone to war in Afghanistan. It wasn't an accident by any means, and none of the latter gave then, or gives now, the south end of a northbound horse, if said war could be "won." All they care about is money. And power. Both of which the prosecution of wars produce in copious, bloody amounts.
But our oligarchs are unhappy that the population is beginning to figure it out. They knew it would happen eventually, just as it did with Vietnam... but they're still not happy about it.
You can look forward to a new and (moderately) different US very-expensive-war-on-someone soon, of course.
--
I am so glad I don't have to hunt for food.
I don't even know where spaghetti lives.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:56AM (1 child)
"The United States has approximately 14,000 troops in Afghanistan" https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-afghanistan/ July 8, 2019
Whose misinformation should we believe?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:00AM
Doesn't surprise me - the article I linked stopped in 2016, why wouldn't we ramp the troops back up with the kind of leadership we installed at home in 2017. Good for business, good for political influence, an extra 5000 troops deployed (how many amputated limbs is that?) probably got the big man a tiny bit of bargaining power one day.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday December 09 2019, @11:13PM
Came here to say this, instead I settled for modding you up.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 09 2019, @09:20PM (6 children)
I've figured for a long time that the Taliban will take over ten minutes after we've left. At most, we've weakened them, marginally. They still have more than enough power to topple any puppets we leave behind. We should have learned something from the USSR getting their asses kicked in Afghanistan. For that matter, we should have learned something from Vietnam.
What I haven't really figured out is, why things have gone so comparatively well for us in Iraq? Is it that the Afghans are more of a homogenous people than the Iraqis? With fewer factions, the Afghans probably have a stronger base than Hussein ever had.
(Score: 5, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday December 09 2019, @10:03PM
There appear to be several parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Both have (or had) a corrupt, unpopular government propped up by an outside power which has no chance of holding on once the outside power leaves. I wonder if we will see scenes like this [wikipedia.org] when the US forces do finally leave Kabul?
Things have not gone well in Iraq. Once the US forces leave there the corrupt, unpopular puppet will also fall, but I have no idea what will replace them. Civil war probably.
The Iraq government [theguardian.com] is murdering protesters at the moment, which is an indication of how flimsy their hold on power is.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:54AM (3 children)
Not sure I'd call what's happening in Iraq going comparatively well. I mean it is in the most technical sense, in that it's less awful than what's happening in Afghanistan. But Iraq remains far more unstable and dangerous than it ever was before we invaded. And Iraq is growing increasingly closer to the China-Russia pact. There were even indications that Iraq was planning on starting to trade their oil in the Yuan back a couple of years ago, though that seems to have stalled.
However, yeah - I think that the reason it's gone less awful is probably because of the heterogeneity. In Iraq you have large masses of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. All three, in general, view themselves as mutually incompatible with the others. In my opinion Iraq did not [relatively] prosper in spite of an iron fist dictator, but because of an iron fist dictator. Saddam was relatively liberal in terms of granting freedoms to each group, but was completely brutal against any actions of disorder. And that's probably the only way to really sustain power in Iraq. The Shia:Sunni split is about 2:1 with Kurds making up about 20% overall. They're primarily Sunni but unified more by ethnicity than religion. For instance Saddam (who is Sunni) had cracked down hard on them. In Afghanistan, by contrast, there's about a 9:1 Sunni:Shia split. Lots of factions, but those factions are just groups seeking power - not groups that view themselves as mutually incompatible.
Playing the factions against each other is going to be a lot easier in Iraq. Disconcertingly, we seem to be headed the same way. Imagine if we started to see foreign backed "protests" in the US. Even if it was known that they were being puppeted to undermine US stability, you'd undoubtedly see large chunks of the country (aligned with whatever ideology they were espousing) support them nonetheless. Myopic politicians turning people against each other to try to stabilize their power in the short-run is the exact thing destabilizing the nation in the long-run. I suppose they figure by the time it reaches a critical point they'll be dead and gone.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:11PM (2 children)
Another thing is that the Iraqis are relatively unified and had, before the US dismantled it, a reasonably functioning country (water, power, trade, education, etc). Not saying their leadership was any good, but shit mostly worked. The Afghans OTOH have a failed state and a centuries-long history of viciously fighting anything that turns up, or each other if there's no-one else around. I have no idea what it would take to sort that mess out, the one thing that's worked in the short term is having an all-powerful strongman who doesn't tolerate opposition running things (Russia, the Taliban, the US, ...). However, that approach only lasts until the strongman gets overthrown.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rich on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:34PM (1 child)
Have a look a at YT for "afghanistan 1960s" or "...70s". Looks like contemporary socialist seaside ...ahem... misery to me. Roughly how Bulgarian holiday resorts of the time would have looked.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:08AM
They have had brief periods of (relative) stability, but it's always been transient. Remember the story of the Bactrian gold, held in a vault with individual keys held by seven people (some reports say five) whose identities weren't recorded and designed to collapse and be buried if attempts were made to blow it open. That's not something you install in a place where you expect stability and the rule of law to hold.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:51AM
I think "we" (being the U.S. based military-industrial-complex at-large) did. Afghanistan is a virtual unending smorgasbord of opportunities: volume orders for materiel, high risk-higher pay private contracting, even R&D. Spin it right and you can live fat off the US taxpayers for decades.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by mhajicek on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:21AM
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
It is a surprise to most people. No, really - if the average person had understood this as well as you do, the initial cries for the invasion of Afghanistan would have been laughed out of Washington and all of the politicians that voted for the war would have lost their reelection bid.
I'll be honest - admittedly from an Anonymous Coward position - it took me the better part of a decade to realize the whole thing was a waste of time and hideously evil. Most of the Afghan people that have died since 2001 are civilians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:51PM
Nobody realizes these things early in their life. If they do, they probably are equally naive (on the other side of a horseshoe) and see conspiracies in everything - only by dumb luck actually getting some things accurately. It's only with age and experience that one starts to see the bullshit in a genuine and impartial fashion. And some people never reach the point. But for those that do - it's probably the reason that people trend conservative as they age. You start to see the world isn't the place idealize in your youth, nor could it be created with youthful innocence for the exact reasons we see today - one person's idea of utopia invariably results in a dystopia for some other group. And the way those conflicts are resolved isn't by sitting around singing kumbaya.
This is perhaps the one good thing about a declining fertility rate. An aging population means an aging voter base and an aged voter base is more difficult to exploit than a young, naive, and idealistic voter base. The only downside is go 20 years and your 'aged' voter base has turned into a geriatric voter base which will probably be just as easy to exploit as the young and dumb.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @09:08PM (17 children)
In the 1960/70s, the government lied to us about the war but we got to watch hippy chicks dancing naked on TV. In the 2000/10s, the government lied to us about the war and we get to watch Greta Thunberg whining on TV. It ain't fair.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @09:17PM (14 children)
Time to throw trump out on his petard.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @10:41PM (11 children)
Does the person who upvoted this know what a petard is? It was supposed to get a downvote but I guess anything expressing anti trump sentiment gets upvoted on this site now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @11:26PM (1 child)
You are the sole reason for your own disappointment. Does it surprise you?
Oh, yes.
"Welcome, kids. Today will learn about troll-modding" (large grin)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:36AM
It is basically stealing to upvote someone who gets paid for a downvote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @11:34PM (1 child)
what will (OBL) Obama Bin Lacking do...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:07AM
I don't know! What do you think he might do? More importantly, why does it matter? You do realize that we had a change in administration all the way back in January of 2017, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:03AM (5 children)
Yes, do you?
Do you know what "hoisting" is?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:13AM (4 children)
Petard is a behind, or buttocks, a deryaire.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:18AM (1 child)
No, a "petard" is a small explosive device. The phrase "hoist with his own petard [wikipedia.org]" refers to somebody being blown up by the bomb they'd intended to kill others with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:34PM
More generally it's karmic justice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:35PM (1 child)
https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Petard_(Age_of_Empires_II) [fandom.com]
I will admit this game is the reason that I looked up what a petard actually is.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:38PM
Gotta love those Aztec petards.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:33PM
Well, I'm not exactly sure what the problem you're expressing is.
Didn't upvote, but yeah I'm in favor of upvoting anyone expressing anti-Trump sentiment at this point, for the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Any sentence beginning, "Time to throw Trump out..." likely gets an upvote.
Aside from that, "throwing out on a petard" is not that much of a stretch of "being hoisted" on one. Lateral, rather than vertical, movement.
Trump gets blown out of office by revealing his corruption (an inability for him to distinguish between the political process and the diplomatic one, conflating both), by pretending his political investgation was investigating criminal corruption.
As such, Ukraine certainly is Trump's petard by which he could be hoisted or thrown on. One might suggest that Trump's spouting off, "Bring the troops home!" which will precipitate a situation where a further troop surge will be needed in Afghanistan (we've been down this road before, folks!) is likewise.
So... what precisely was your problem again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @11:25PM (1 child)
It was a turdball before T. Can't really pin this one on him. (I'm not commenting on other possible turdballs.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:46AM
Trump has been working behind the scenes with Putin for decades to embroil the US in pointless wars. All republicans are basically put in puppets now: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/07/20/the-entire-republican-party-is-becoming-a-russian-asset/ [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @11:10PM
Thanks God for that! The alternative would have been watching yo-mamma-so-fat porn on TV nowadays.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:58AM
What's the name/number of that rule? Since maybe 2009, any type of porn you can possibly imagine is available on the internet - usually for free.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by fustakrakich on Monday December 09 2019, @09:28PM (10 children)
The reason for going there in the first place was to reopen the opium pipelines the Taliban so effectively cut off [bbc.co.uk]. In that regard, the war was a trivial matter and very successful.
Yep, it's an opium war, just like the old days. You can put all that righteous indignation over the Bin Laden BS to rest. Funny how everybody rags on about Iraq and gives this one a complete pass.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 09 2019, @10:45PM (2 children)
Tell me you're not one of them "jet fuel can't melt steel" folks.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday December 09 2019, @11:09PM
What makes you think that? It's not even relevant to the intrigue.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:42AM
Ah, so you're a bootlicker. Not surprised, but you spend an awful lot of time trying to convince everyone you're anything but. Now to see what conusions you draw from this comment. Of course making predictions or even announcing I'm curious skews the experiment. Likely just reduced you to some flippant trollmark.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday December 09 2019, @11:14PM (6 children)
Bin Laden worked on US during previous Afghan war, but after certain events in middle east he thought that US betrayed him. And hence the Twin Towers attack.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday December 09 2019, @11:22PM (5 children)
Yeah, there's a title foreword for one of the Rambo III praising the "Brave Muhajadeen." [imgur.com] It was of course later changed.
But what happened here is that the (((Neocons))) made us go to war in Afghanistan because it was the only way it would be palatable to the Americans to segue-way into the also-disastrous Iraq war. Of course non-Jewish Americans also profited obscenely from both wars, and Dubya got to take out the man who tried to kill daddy. Now we're bankrupt and people are walking all over the place with missing limbs.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday December 09 2019, @11:35PM
Presumably they corrected the spelling [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @01:32AM (2 children)
Getting the drunken rants out before the big holiday huh?
Smart move, you're family is probably debating whether to even invite you this year.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:12AM (1 child)
My guess is that his family hasn't invited him in a number of years. Hence the reason he treats all of us to his garbage year round!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:15AM
HA! You Shiksas can suck my fucking cock. Durham is after you fucks on the federal level, and I am after you fucks on the street level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:21PM
Dick Cheney is Jewish? News to me. The entire point of invading Iraq was to funnel money to Halliburton. Nothing more, nothing less.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @10:19PM (2 children)
Haven't heard that in a long time. Last I heard was Trump's plan to finally surrender Afghanistan back to the Taliban, but negotiations are currently stalled for social justice reasons that we are just too weak to enforce.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @10:25PM (1 child)
We get it, Vovochka.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @11:27PM
Is that a translation of "Covfefe"?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 09 2019, @10:43PM (1 child)
That's how the military, and all government for that matter, works at every level. Nobody wants to tell their bosses that it's not going to be on time but will be overbudget.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday December 09 2019, @11:15PM
FTFY
In other countries, the govts needs to be pressured by the (US) MIC (via US govt [foreignpolicy.com]) to "contribute" more to the waste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Monday December 09 2019, @11:04PM (30 children)
Wouldn't it be amazing if the least developed nation of the world manages to destroy both empires...
Not much new here though if one considers our Roman legacy.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday December 09 2019, @11:19PM (25 children)
Mind you: it will be the actions of the empires themselves, not that least developed nation, that destroyed the empires.
Afghanistan didn't actually invade much less conquered any of the two empires.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday December 09 2019, @11:23PM (24 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday December 09 2019, @11:34PM (23 children)
First: if that happens, it would be the third empire to try their claws on Afghanistan. So far, the USSR and US did it.
Second: NK is not an empire
Third: I don't think China needs convincing; without realizing, they may be on the path to it with the "road" component of their "Belt and road" initiative. Perhaps they manage to do it without a military invasion, but that's surely not for China to decide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday December 09 2019, @11:45PM (21 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:10AM (7 children)
You have a distorted view on the meaning of what happened in Ukraine.
What Russia did there:
1. made sure that their only point of presence in the Mediterranean basin (the Odessa port) is securely theirs
2. made clear they want the "no man's land" between them and NATO. As it was promised back in the early '90-ies [nationalinterest.org]. The same but on a smaller scale happened with the Transnistria war [wikipedia.org], resulting in the Republic of Moldova materializing the western limit of the no-mans-land at the 1991-1992 time.
Oh, really? Are yor sure indeed you can read the way China is playing the game [orfonline.org]?
Looking into the history of China's influence, one may note a quite interesting peculiarity: China wanted influence over people, not land.
Sure, occasionally, territorial expansions occurred - may they have been actually a mean rather than an end in itself? After all, that Eastern Russia territory has been mostly empty and hard to defend for centuries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:07AM (1 child)
And don't forget about the ethnic component of Russia taking over Crimea.
When the far-right (*actual* Nazis) rose to power in Ukraine, and declared that there would be a purge of Russians from Ukraine, the people in Crimea (who majority identify as Russian), preemptively rose up. They asked Russia to intervene.
Ukraine is a strange place. Speaking Russian in the wrong area will get you punched in the face. Speaking Ukrainian in the wrong place will get you punched in the face.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:18AM
Well, even if Putin was prepared to go to whatever lengths required, that have made the Russia's job way easier.
As also easier is the job of causing enough troubles in Eastern Ukraine to preempt the NATO expansion there, but without the full cost of an outright occupation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:12AM (3 children)
1. Crimea's naval base is Sevastopol, and it's a Black Sea port. To get to Mediterranean you have to go by Turkey.
1.1. Odessa is also a Black Sea port, and it is Ukrainian [thedailybeast.com] (Crimeans count their blessings.)
1.2. Russia has Mediterranean bases, but they are in Syria.
2. There is no "no man's land" between Baltic states (NATO) and Russia.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:14AM (2 children)
Sure, all the good ports on the Black Sea are Ukrainian. Except... isn't the past tense the de-facto applicable here? Like in "were Ukrainian", I mean.
Since the Black Sea is the best for Russia when it comes to building and getting new ships into the Mediterranean Sea, you would expect them to let them go without a challenge?
Any surprise that Russia chose to treat a downed fighter [wikipedia.org] and one diplomat assassinated [wikipedia.org] with lenience?
Do you wonder how come the Russian sell S400 missiles to Turkey (causing impotent expression of frustrations from some US politipricks with a delusion of grandeur?) [aljazeera.com], with Turkey pissing off and warning they will look for alternatives to the embargoed F35 [voanews.com]?
They don't build news ships in Syria, though, do they? I mean, the way they are building them in Crimea [wikipedia.org].
Ummmm... let's not discount Belarus [wikipedia.org], shall we? Do you remember them, the "Europe's last dictatorship"? Those guys that can take care if their 'other Baltic' neighbors become unruly towards Putin?
Not that the risk is high, Germany itself can't afford to wean from the Russian dino-farts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:50AM (1 child)
Well, that's not exactly correct :-) a map might help.
Shipbuilding is mostly done in the North. The facilities in Crimea are old and limited [morvesti.ru] in comparison. They are a money pit.
Very few people know for a fact how this or that political decision is made. However in 1936 Turkey accepted an obligation [wikipedia.org] to permit, in peace time, passage of all ships that belong to Black Sea countries.
That's why I said "Baltic states", not "Poland" :-) Latvia and Estonia have common border with Russia's mainland, and Lithuania shares the border with Kaliningrad exclave.
The chance of Baltic neighbors deciding to become unruly is nil.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:11AM
I'm happy to stand corrected provided the correction comes with more precise details.
Is any military spending something else than a money pit? (grin)
Now, the real question is: how fast they can be set to 'produce' good enough warships if push comes to shove?
You make it sound that Putin shouldn't worry about them and their relation with NATO.
In such a case, the initial «There is no "no man's land" between Baltic states (NATO) and Russia.» started to sound like an exercise in pedantry, does it not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:21PM
"made sure that their only point of presence in the Mediterranean basin (the Odessa port) is securely theirs"
They did not take Odessa, they took Crimea. It is not theirs. It does not belong to them. this is just propaganda trying to re-word "they invaded because they want that port".
They took Crimea, on the black sea- the same body of water they own the ENTIRE EASTERN SHORE OF.
None of this is in the Mediterranean. No matter what port they have, they have to go through the Straight of Hormuz at Istanbul to get to the Med.
This is all about oil and gas- making it cheaper by pipelining as close to the straight as they can(and if they take enough, all they way across in to Romania where they can join existing pipelines), to reduce shipping costs to sell it to Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:59AM (1 child)
Consider that China has their own northern lands barely used. Eastern Russia is very inhospitable place. Permafrost, long winters, short summers. No roads. Even from the military point of view your army cannot advance through 1,000 miles of tayga. Yes, there are probably unexplored mineral resources under all that snow and ice; but finding them is an extremely difficult task, and Chinese are not used to Siberian cold.
There is a more likely scenario, which is already in progress. China and Russia become one. On one hand, there is not enough Russians (170 million?) to work all the land. The merger is the only way to realize this advantage. On the other hand, China sits on a mountain of USD, and it would be the best investment for them. The Russians will be also OK with this, as they are sick and tired of the current establishment. In this respect China will get rid of corruption very cheaply (a .223 is $0.50 in small quantity; that is already a small price to pay to get rid of someone who steals millions.)
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:03AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:19AM (9 children)
Russia showed how to do it with Ukraine? Have a massive ethnic majority who then appeal to you to intervene after a nation is internally collapsing in no small part due to provocations likely driven by 'foreign' (read: US) intelligence agencies? Not sure that's viable, though I will grant there are a lot of Chinese in Vladivostok.
A better parallel here is WW2. Germany was positioned in between the Soviets to their east and 'Europe' to their west. Hitler chose to go two fronts at once, and got annihilated by the Soviets. Had he instead aligned with the Soviets they very well could have easily steam-rolled all of Europe with America to follow. The one problem here is that the Soviets probably would not have been willing to ally with the Germans.
In modern times China is in a similar situation. They have Russia to their 'east' (these directions are metaphorical), and the US bloc to their 'west'. And Russia has shown themselves to be outright enthusiastic about allying with the Chinese. And this has already created an incredibly powerful union. There is absolutely 0 reason China would compromise this union in any way, shape, or form. This is made even more true given the current state of China. China is developing hyper-rapidly. They don't need to do anything other than doing exactly what they're already doing to become, by far, the most powerful nation on the planet. It's often a poor idea to speak in absolutes but here I think there is literally no chance China would ever choose to make an enemy out of a key ally standing right next door to them. It's like suggesting the US might decide to claim Canada because reasons. Makes no sense.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 10 2019, @09:31PM (8 children)
Why didn't this appeal show up before armed Russians were on the street corners of the Crimea?
Except, of course, if it was to their advantage to do so. I wouldn't trust China further than I could throw it. And I can't throw them very far.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:43AM (3 children)
They did, long before. Read about the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution [wikipedia.org] which set the stage for all of this.
Essentially Ukraine has two very different groups within it. Ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians. The two groups don't tend to get along well in no small part because of WW2. Russians took horrific casualties defeating Nazi Germany. Ukraine took the opportunity to align themselves and collaborate with the Nazis. Crimea is primarily ethnically Russian. The democratically elected leader of Ukraine before the protests was Yanukovych. Yanukovych chose to start turning away from the EU and aligning Ukraine more with Russia. Following this event there were "protests" which many Ukrainians saw as an illegal foreign supported coup. The protests were ultimately successful and they put Turchynov in power and attempted to imprison the former president. Turchynov was the leader of the People's Front - a far right [ethnic Ukrainian] nationalist movement.
Needless to say the coup had basically 0 support from the ethnic Russian regions in Ukraine, among them Crimea. So these regions now began protesting against the coup and leadership. This, in turn, led to the leadership of these regions declaring their intention to break off and join Russia following a referendum. This was mostly a formality because there was basically complete support for joining Russia (as later confirmed by Western pollsters including e.g. Gallup). And so Russia moved unmarked forces into the area to ensure the results of the referendum would be respected.
As an aside, this is also why notions of "racism" in the US are so idiotic. Ukrainians and Russians are, on the surface, identical. They also speak nearly the same language - the languages are quite different but similar enough to ensure mutual that speakers of one or the other could converse with a speaker of the other, if they tried. They are effectively the same people, but the amount of animosity between them dwarfs any form of racism in the US. Skin color is a very distracting red herring that prevents us from ever tackling the real problem, which is cultural clashes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:01PM (2 children)
You do realize that there are Russians and Ukrainians in the US? And they don't so conflict in the US. The conflicts are driven by national interests not ethnicity.
One doesn't resolve culture clashes by rationalizing tyranny.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:33PM (1 child)
There was no "invasion" at any point in Crimea. Just to clarify, there were two big issues in Ukraine. In February after the coup, violent separatist movements broke out in eastern Ukraine around the Donbass region on the Russian border. This region has nothing to do with Crimea and is an entirely different issue. Around August Russia started providing direct (though unmarked) material support to the separatists. That conflict continues to this day, and Donbass is still a part of Ukraine. Crimea is an entirely different region in the south that's basically an island - they're connected to Ukraine through a tiny natural land bridge. What Russian presence there was positioned to ensure the referendum was able to be carried out without Ukraine simply stopping it by force of arms. Perhaps you might argue that was their right since Ukraine was their territory but on the other hand, would you not say that people have a right to self determination? If 80% of California wanted to secede and create their own little country, should they not be able to? As always, I am not asking rhetorical questions. I see that there are arguments for both sides, but I think people have more a right to decide their own destiny than a government has to "claim" them by self granted rights.
As for the polls, everybody knew the referendum was going to pass by a landslide so there wasn't much point in participating if you didn't want the annexation. Nonparticipation could also be used to try to undermine the polls later (as we did). Regardless, the results stated by Russia have now been verified numerous times by various western agencies. This [forbes.com] article gives an overview of some of those polls. Gallup found 82.8% of all Crimeans stated that the decision to secede reflected the will of the people. 73.9% said it would make life better for them and their family, 5.5% said no.
They also cover a German poll which found similar results. But they also asked an interesting question. They polled Crimeans on their perception of the honesty of the Ukranian media. 1% said they provide entirely truthful information, 4% said it was more often truthful than deceitful. Guess who's media representation of what happened in Crimea corresponds strongly with the Ukranian version? Russia has become the bogeyman since 2016 so it's easy to forget how regularly our media colludes when it comes to spreading propaganda for war, or otherwise furthering our geopolitical ends.
---
The ethnic conflicts are caused because the Russians don't like what the Ukrainians are doing and the Ukrainians don't like what the Russians are doing. That was the point. Same issue in the US. There's no issue with e.g. blacks because they're black, the issue is a people that make up 13% of the population being responsible for the majority [fbi.gov] of murders with similar over-representation in many other forms of crime, particularly violent ones. That's a huge problem, probably attributable in no small part to 'hood culture' (in which I grew up). But you can't even critique this because doing so is labeled racism when it has nothing to do with race beyond the fact that e.g. blacks are disproportionately driven to these cultures. Ukraine and Russia will probably, sooner or later, sort out their issues - but that's only because they can actually focus on their issues instead of both sides just declaring the other racist.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:31PM
February 28, 2014 [ibtimes.com].
That was written within a week of the invasion of which I spoke. When you're that wrong right out of the gate there's no point to writing any more. As to the referendum, who authorized it? Wikipedia alleges it was by the legislature of Crimea, but that was under Russian control [theguardian.com] at the time:
[...]
What new lies shall we hear from you next?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:03AM (3 children)
And on China, I think I made it clear that I fully agree with you. What you said applies to most every nation on this planet. Things like NATO are not done out of the goodness of our heart. It gives the US immense political control of Europe because of the dependency relationship it creates. This is why, for instance, when the US wants to go invade some Mideastern country European nations not only shut their mouth, but even send some token forces along to create an optical 'coalition'. This also gives context to the timing of Germany/France talking about creating an EU Military. It was probably just a bluff, but was a direct response to Trump demanding greater compensation for NATO support. An EU military would make NATO redundant, which would substantially undermine US influence in Europe.
Ultimately I think people don't really appreciate how thin a line we walk in terms of the current world order because since it has persisted in, more or less, its current form (sans the relatively peaceful collapse of some communist nations) since 1945 and the advent of nuclear weapons. Most people who can ever remember the world radically changing, as it did for the entirety of its history past - are now mostly dead. But the death of living memory does not change the nature of mankind. If not for nukes we'd have long since have engaged in WW3.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:36PM (2 children)
An EU military wouldn't have the non-EU members of NATO. NATO still has a reason for existing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:43PM (1 child)
You don't need the biggest military possible. You just need a large enough military to ensure your own sovereignty in a conventional (read: non-nuclear) war. An EU military would provide that, making NATO redundant.
And again I agree with you on China. All an ally is is a person who you gain more from aligning yourself with than from opposing. Imagine Canada decided to start pegging their oil only in the Yuan, and directly aligning themselves with Chinese interests. Within a month there'd be 'protests' on their streets with 'democracy and freedom' being brought to them in short order. We ally with them because it's beneficial. They ally with us because it's beneficial. The same is true of China and Russia, and will be for the foreseeable future.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:14PM
Exactly. You're also forgetting the primary lesson of the EU, the more entanglements with other countries, the less likely those other countries are going to war with you. Hence, the dual purpose of NATO - the more military allies you have, the more likely that you can ensure your own sovereignty in a war, and the less likely those allies are going to be at war with you instead.
Because? It's worth noting that countries in the past which supposedly were so treated, did a lot more than merely adopt use of some other currency. Rampant theft of oil infrastructure, invasions of US allies, or paramilitary attacks on US allies, are common attributes.
How allied are China and Russia anyway? Is it more allied than the economic entanglements that China has with the US? Prior to the present tariff mess, US trade was more than an order of magnitude larger than Russia's trade with China.
There's just so many problems with these narratives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:34PM
Wrong my friend. China has already engaged in military operations in Afganistan. China blames Afganistan for its terrorism problem, to solve which it began rounding up its Muslim population.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:41PM
You are forgetting about the UK before this.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:05AM (3 children)
Little powers do not destroy big powers, big powers destroy themselves.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday December 11 2019, @05:58PM (2 children)
Stanisław Lem has a good book about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible [wikipedia.org]
Anyway, I believe there is a deep law of nature that kills great powers. Othervise there would be just one great power for a long time already.
Similary, interest does not compound over a longer run.
Which makes me think strategic development should not rely on both.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 11 2019, @06:30PM (1 child)
It may be a difficult to escape "fractal feature" of life: living things die, virtually always have on scales large and small.
It's part of the system that brought us to where we are.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday December 12 2019, @12:51AM
It perhaps depends on the type of "living thing". Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote the best book on the subject.
“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.”
I agree with Taleb that humanity should chose its institutions based on this principle.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:09AM
on the news? Yeah so that pretty much explains everything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @03:46PM
"Things are fine in Afghanistan. Things are fine in Afghanistan. WE NEED A TROOP SURGE!!!! WE NEEEEEEED A SURGE!!!!!!! Okay... surge over... embargo lifted."
"The Afghanis are learning how to self-police. The Afghanis are learning how to self-police. THEY'RE NOT READY YET!!!! THEY'RE NOT REAAAADY YET!!!!!!!"
"We're doing good. We're doing good. NO, we can't bring them all home yet."
Like Vietnam: No definable victory conditions set. No true way to judge success.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:28PM
'self licking ice cream cone' sounds a lot like blowing themselves, except gettting rich doing it, on the back of the taxpayer and a global heroin trade, and wiping their ass on the flag.
No wonder they didn't want to argue with michael hastings.
Idk its almost like american foreign policy is controlled by people who aren't americans...
https://archive.ph/cVZBQ [archive.ph]
https://archive.is/5II5U [archive.is]
https://archive.is/Nn3S5 [archive.is]
https://archive.is/ZinJT [archive.is]
https://archive.is/ouvhg [archive.is]
https://archive.is/N15xT [archive.is]
https://archive.is/EoIML [archive.is]
'We need to help israel invade this terroritory and control afganistan so we can control the heroin trade, or they cut off the money spigot, so we need to completely destroy journalism and culture in our own country' - pentagon high command
bonus
https://archive.is/kJKap [archive.is]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday December 11 2019, @05:30AM
Be aware that the "Liberal" media knowingly and shamelessly spread those lies for 18 years. The Post and the Times and CNN and all the other mass media outlets were just as big a part of the scheme as the government. All contrary viewpoints were tagged as conspiracy theories.
I don't suppose we'll ever see such documents on 9/11 itself, but there's no reason to believe the "official" conspiracy theory that's currently still in vogue.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..