Taliban winning in Afghanistan
POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 23:18
VIEWED: 20106
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The other thing I find puzzling is his constant refrain about "struggling to remain in the middle class" like some sort of mantra.
Who is that aimed at?
And what is he trying to do?
It doesn't rattle MY cage, and I doubt it rattles yours, or anyone else's here.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The other thing I find puzzling is his constant refrain about "struggling to remain in the middle class" like some sort of mantra.
Who is that aimed at?
And what is he trying to do?
It doesn't rattle MY cage, and I doubt it rattles yours, or anyone else's here.
I have no clue who it's aimed at, although he seems to use it mostly when he's replying to me.
I think I've made it quite clear that I have no desire to ever live to the standards of any other person's perception of the status quo. And, unlike a majority of the "Middle Class", particularly those of my age and especially 10 years ago in only my very early 30's, I own my house free and clear without a single cent of debt to anybody, and I've only paid less than $125 of interest in my entire life.
I'm never worried about where my next meal is coming from, and the little free time I have these days leaves me with plenty of free entertainment off of my $20 per month internet connection.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Why our generals were more successful in World War II than in Korea, Vietnam or Iraq/Afghanistan
John Dastoli comment:
My first advice from my company commander as a second lieutenant (1997) was that in order to have a successful career you had to avoid separating yourself from the herd. You have be in step with your commander and be well liked in your peer group. They tell you the opposite in OCS, Basic Officer Course, and Infantry Officers Course. But, when you get to the unit its all about not making waves and not standing out. If an officer has all average fitness reports he/she will make it to lieutenant colonel. But, if you are outstanding and have one bad fitness report you are done. It's not about succeeding, it is about not failing. Creativity, the biggest determiner of successful executives is killed in the junior ranks. Maintenance of predetermined procedures is emphasized. This is how you end up with managers and not leaders. You have a senior leadership that knows all the paperwork but cannot understand a problem and how to solve it.
Robert Shockley comment:
As someone who drove generals and colonels around Kuwait in 2005, I can tell you this guy is on the money. The only topics were on equipment and tactics. No discussion of strategy, or how turn the tide and actually win. Everything was geared towards do your time, get as few people killed as possible and go home. Really winning the war wasn't even mentioned.
You only need to read Lt.Col Hackworth’s “About Face” to see exactly where the problem lies.
Download the book from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.ch/search.php?req=Hackworth+About+Face
https://www.amazon.com/About-Face-Odyssey-American-Warrior/dp/19821440
41/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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In other words, the military became just another corrupt bureaucracy.
Quote:
Now, coming back to our topic, in 2021 the US truly inspires nobody. Absolutely nobody. That is a sad, but undeniable fact. And that is the main reason why Kabul fell so fast: the “defenses” of Kabul were like the fists of a man with advanced osteoporosis – they lacked a crucial element: faith. No matter how good, effective or otherwise powerful those “fists” really were, or thought/pretended to be, it made no difference: one crucial element was missing and that decided it all.- The Saker
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Wrong, again, Signym. You always turn everything into a worthless abstraction that explains nothing. What happens inside the U.S. military is not bloodless and abstract. A typical American with one gun and box of ammo might shot to death a paper target or might even do something useful, such as kill a deer. Typical American Generals are acting just the same as typical Americans: thrill-seeking and stupid, but unlike typical Americans, the U.S. Government gave these patriotically thrill-seeking and revengeful Generals control of vast amounts of ammo, weapons, and soldiers. Unsurprisingly, a great deal of carnage follows, and not all of it as useful as killing a deer. For example, from the Afghanistan and yesterday:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
In other words, the military became just another corrupt bureaucracy.
Afghanistan drone strike targeted Islamic State ‘planner’ in car, US says
US says there were no known civilian casualties but community elder claims women and children among victims. “Women and children are among the victims,” said Malik Adib, though he did not have information about their identity.
There is no indication that the target of the drone was involved in Thursday’s blast, which killed around 180 people, including 13 US marines.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/28/afghanistan-drone-strike
-targeted-islamic-state-planner-in-car-us-says
Signym, you know Biden is not capable of coming up with such stupid-ass plan as a revenge killing that also murders a bunch of Afghan civilians, but American Generals did this. Those Generals are probably pretty excited and sexually pleased by the carnage. It was stupid for President Biden to allow his Generals to kill civilians for revenge against a suicide bomber who was already dead. But Biden was pleasing typical and stupid Americans who shoot at paper targets and want to kill again the already dead suicide bomber.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The White House @WhiteHouse tweeted:
Since August 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of approximately 111,900 people. Since the end of July, we have re-located approximately 117,500 people.
9:22 AM · Aug 28, 2021·The White House
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1431623172101754884
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Donald Trump called into conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt's show on Thursday. Listen to the show:
https://hughhewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/08-26hhs-trump.mp3
Hewitt asked Trump to describe his conversation with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a Taliban co-founder and deputy leader, during his 2020 negotiations with the group to remove American troops from Afghanistan.
Hewitt: What did you communicate to Baradar, Mullah Baradar, Abdul Baradar who you talked to when you spoke to him? What did you tell him?
Trump: So I set up a conversation with him, and people said oh, you shouldn't be talking. Well, I set up a conversation with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. We didn't have a nuclear war. Had I not, then Obama would have been right. We would have had a nuclear war. President Obama said to me we're going to have a nuclear war with North Korea. I said have you ever spoken to him. He said no. And I said don't you think that might be a good idea. But anyway, I know he wanted to speak to him, but he never got to speak to him, and I think the other side didn't want to talk to Obama. So what happened is I spoke to the head of the, the known head, because it's...
Hewitt: Yeah, Baradar, right? Baradar.
Trump: Yeah, but I spoke to, and sort of the known head, but nobody was sure, but now I'm sure, and I was sure then when I was speaking to him. And I knew as soon as I spoke to him. And even the introduction, I say hello, and he screamed something very tough. And I then started with him. I said, listen, before we start the longtime conversation and conversations that we're going to have, I have to say one thing, and I'll never have to say it again to you. And here's what I say. If you do anything bad to the United States of America, if you do anything bad to any of our civilians, to any American citizen, or if you do anything out of the normal, you know, they've been fighting for a thousand years, but out of the normal, because you've had your wars, and if you do anything out of the normal, but anything bad to America or any American citizens, I will hit you harder than anybody has ever been hit in world history. You will be hit harder than any country and any person has ever been hit in world history. And we will start with the exact location and the exact town, and it's right here. And I believe I repeated the name of his town. That will be the first place that we start. And I won't be able to speak to you anymore after that, and isn't that a very sad thing? But that is the story. And then he asked me one question, and I'd rather not repeat that question, because it's a very scary question. But he asked me one question, and I gave him the answer yes. And then after it was all done, I said OK, now I've said what I'm going to say. Let's have a conversation. And I said we're going to be leaving after 21 years. And when we leave, you're going to leave us alone, and we're going to leave with great dignity and great honor. And we are going to take care of this situation. We're going to take our time. We had a date of May 1, but they missed a couple of conditions. We had some very strong conditions, Hugh. But they missed a couple of conditions. I wanted to be out by May 1. I had spoken to him quite a bit before May 1, but we had a condition of May 1. But they missed conditions, and so therefore, I bombed and we hit them very hard. And then we said we will agree to those conditions. I said no, you've already agreed to them. Don't play games. We had them so good. They weren't in Kabul. You take a look at when they started taking over Afghanistan. It's when I left. When I left, that's when it started, they started going wild, because they were dealing with another president. And I never realized, and of course I realized the importance and power of the presidency, but I never realized how important the office of the president is until this happened, because when I watched what happened over the l
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Once heralded as the Day that Changed Everything in America, 9/11 proved to be Groundhog Day as far as the war was concerned. After some 2,500 American casualties, at least 240,000 Afghan deaths, and 2 trillion taxpayers’ dollars, the Taliban is back in power just in time for our 20th-anniversary observances. This turn of events may be the most damning refutation yet of the short-lived 9/11 meme that “irony is dead.” Or the second-most damning: Many of the loudest voices in the media and in Washington decrying our inept and catastrophic exit — whether liberal or conservative, Democrat, Republican, or Never-Trump Republican — are the same voices that helped grease the skids for disaster in Afghanistan by promoting a second new war in Iraq on manufactured intelligence in the months after 9/11. They have major-media platforms but no shame or accountability. Those of them still in today’s GOP should in particular spare us the crocodile tears they are shedding for Afghan women and girls: There’s not a chance in hell that evacuated Muslim families will be welcome in MAGA’s backyards.
More at https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/9-11-america-terrorism-existen
tial-threat.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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It's too generous to say we "wasted" $2.26 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan.
The reality is, military contractors got rich off of those wars. We didn't just waste that money — we funneled it to the same people whose political donations will fund more pro-war candidates.
https://mobile.twitter.com/charlesmblow/status/1427796360393265158
War is an industry. Or, as Major General Smedley Butler said back in the 1930s, a racket.
https://fas.org/man/smedley.htm
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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How the US created a disaster in Afghanistan
The US government struggled to answer exactly why the military was there.
In the very beginning, the goal was relatively clear: to capture the perpetrator of the attacks, Osama bin Laden. But almost immediately, the goals became murkier and more complicated.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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