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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (479004)	9/2/2021 11:57:27 AM
From: Sam	1 Recommendation Recommended By JohnM Respond to of 541008

Why don't we need to leave Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, etc? Because three of those countries were defeated militarily and decisively defeated. Even demolished. I lived in West Berlin one semester in 1972 and there were still buildings that had not been cleared and rebuilt from the war. Their armies were decimated and their people defeated. They were cultures that were educated, however, and they accepted the mercantile culture that the US offered them in return for being docile. Germany and Japan in particular know the militaristic streak in their culture and large majorities are wary of it. They even have laws about limiting how much their militaries can be rebuilt and go to war. The US stayed for so long because of the Soviet threat in Germany--after all, Germany was split in two, they all wanted to reunite but didn't know how unification would take place. The US has stayed after unification because all they really do there is spend money and help the German economy. Why not? And they mostly stay on or near their bases anyway. As for S. Korea, it is a remnant of the Korean War. We are protecting S. Korea against the crazy communists in the North and in China. The S. Koreans too accept a mercantile culture and they have zero desire to be united under the N.K. family that is in charge in the north. These are completely different from the example of Afghanistan. 1) Regarding the humanity and morality: The New York times did an in depth study of the number of those left behind that qualified for evacuation, and that we had given assurances to, as being around 250,000, but up to a million. Biden just left them behind and said, in no uncertain terms, "it was too risky to stay and get them out." So he valued hundreds of thousands of lives as less important than the possibility of a few deaths if we stayed to make sure they got out. Biden is right. You are wrong. Trump tied his hands. But go on to your next point, which is related: So for about 5,000 troops we needed to leave in Afghanistan, we could have protected 38 million people from a life of terror, torture and death, and had a military presence in the heart of the area so dangerous to us going forward. This is absurd. You sound like the Bush admin going into Iraq when they dissed Eric Shinsecki who said we would need at least half a million troops to keep order in Iraq. And there are more people in Afghanistan than in Iraq. The Afghanis know their terrain and are trained fighters. They are known as the "graveyard" of empires for good reasons. The Taliban and their sympathizers are far from educated in Western ways and don't care about Western culture. There is no way that the US remaining in Aghanistan with 5000 troops was going to change their minds and we would have been confronted with a continuing guerilla war. US people have watched way too many Rambo films, they believe that the US has such great soldiers that they can go anywhere and defeat anyone even with 1000-1 odds against. Sure, we could destroy anyone completely. That would be adopting the Roman definition of victory as Tacitus explained it: "They made it a desert and called it peace". But that is not what most Americans want. Nor do you. Cultures have to be ready for democracy and modernization and Afghanistan is not. Heck, much of the US isn't really ready for modernization and in any case, modernization might end up leading to wholesale disaster in a hundred years due to CC. What is so great about that? You live in fantasies, Koan. Just because you share those fantasies with other people doesn't mean that they aren't absurd fantasies.

To: koan who wrote (479004)	9/2/2021 1:16:24 PM
From: Cautious_Optimist	3 Recommendations Recommended By epicure Sam Wharf Rat Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541008

And we already are getting reports of summary executions and door to door searches I am interested in seeing evidence of such summary executions by the Taliban. Actually it appears the Taliban leadership is trying to stop revenge activities. Not because they are wonderful liberal humanitarians - they want the money from the west and the banks, and trade. And the US is prepared to work with the Taliban to address common enemies. It's totally weird but former enemies becoming civil is not unheard of as with Japan and Germany after WWII. And Vietnam for that matter though it took a few years and the new Vietnam government became much more liberal after its initial failures and repression of the south. The Afghans' national army folded after the corrupt President fled. This was unexpected by everyone, probably the Taliban included. I didn't hear any of todays armchair Monday Morning QBs suggesting it was possible before the (delayed) pullout. If anyone can find such a post, it would be helpful to history's frames. The US is continuing to work for the migration out of there. Biden is anti-war, and while there are terrible images recently, no planes were shot down and there was no attack on the airport by the Taliban. Obviously ISIS still brought terror as opposed to the end of ISIS Trump gave himself credit for. The evacuations went relatively well considering the Afghan army surrendered (providing many of the weapons you see in Taliban hands.) My thoughts but I am open to evidence of genocide or (post) war crimes there.

To: koan who wrote (479004)	9/2/2021 5:12:48 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 541008

Richard Engle: @RichardEngel 2021 really ought to have a talk with @RichardEngel 2020 because those two can't seem to agree on anything. pic.twitter.com/e1Hp1NkVak — Erik Larsen (@ErikJLarsen) September 2, 2021 Wow! @RichardEngel is almost in tears because he no longer has a war in Afghanistan to cover. Dude makes me sick. — TimOthy (@TimOthy_meatO) August 30, 2021 It's disappointing to see @jaketapper and @RichardEngel becoming the spokesmen for the Military Industrial Complex. SMH. — Steve Kish (@skishman) August 31, 2021 Weird that Richard Engel isn’t outraged about the plight of women in Texas. — Janet Johnson (@JJohnsonLaw) September 1, 2021

To: koan who wrote (479004)	9/2/2021 8:32:19 PM
From: Wharf Rat	2 Recommendations Recommended By JohnM Lou Weed Respond to of 541008

"this has put our Democrats in a really bad spot come 2022" Afghanistan won't be an issue. What will be is not passing any bills. If we won't pass a hard infrastructure bill after Ida, we deserve to be beaten.

To: koan who wrote (479004)	9/3/2021 12:09:45 PM
From: JohnM	3 Recommendations Recommended By abuelita bentway Wharf Rat Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541008

As I read the heart of your argument, koan, it's based on your notion of moral grounds. We, you argue, have a moral commitment to Afghans who helped us and to Afghans who counted on our presence to preserve new liberties. Those of us supporting Biden's withdrawal simply misunderstand the moral basis. But there is a counter moral argument. Several elements: The absence of serious conflict in the past few months was heavily due to Trump's agreement with the Taliban--in return for a commitment from the US to leave in May, the Taliban would not attack US troops. So staying beyond Biden's commitment to leave at the end of August would seriously endanger any remaining US and coalition troops. The moral commitment, thus to stay in Afghan, meant troop sacrifices. Perhaps large. That would entail a commitment to stay long term. With the absence of a workable, legitimate Afghan government, US troops would have be the only guarantee. Thus, creating much more loss of life from US troops. With no end in sight. Particularly, given Dexter Filkins argument in his New Yorker piece, that Afghanistan is essentially, not accidentally, tribal. There is no basis for centrality. Nor is there likely to be. Thus would have to leave some time. And some level of chaos would ensue when done. Better to leave now than sacrifice more US military lives. As for the chaos of the exit, I think it was minimized. I'm very impressed by the ability of the American military to get as many Americans and Afghans out as they did. The only comparison that comes to mind is the one from South Vietnam. This one was extraordinarily better.