Looking Ahead

by 1:18 pm. It has 108 Comments.

The little town downriver from us scared the shit out of me about an hour ago by blasting an air raid siren I never knew existed until today. I only heard it faintly because of the distance, but it was alarming, as it was designed to be.

I’m speculating it was sounded at a noon observance of the 9/11 attacks? Here’s my personal observance of 9/11, and I think it will be the last one I ever share here or anywhere else.

Our daughter was three years old on 9/11/2001. Now she’s 21, and the war that started that day is still going on.

Our nephew was 18 years old on 9/11/2001. Today he’s 36, the father of two small children, and an officer in the US Army serving in Afghanistan. (He’s also done tours in Iraq, including leading foot patrols through Baghdad during the most dangerous period for US service members.)

Last week, Trump apparently mistook diplomats engaged for months/years in peace negotiations for an annoyingly balky reality show production crew and stepped in to personally speed things up for a glitzy Sweeps Week finish. Because he is and always has been an epic fuck-up, Trump fucked that up too, so now the war in Afghanistan will continue for at least another 14 months.

Enough of this fucking bullshit.

Sometimes I wonder how much “Never Forget” gets in the way of “Get the Fuck Out.” Fascist shit-birds like Rudy Giuliani, Karl Rove and Donald Trump will hump the 9/11 attacks until their wizened scrotums pass into dust because they (correctly) perceive it as a path to power.

Their role in extending our national trauma for power and profit has been obvious since the beginning. Joe Biden, God bless him, called Giuliani out on it more than a decade ago.

But even our good politicians feel obligated to issue solemn statements and speak in hushed tones every September 11. Here’s what I wonder: Does fixating on that horrendous day all these years later perpetuate its power and contribute to its potential to cause even more suffering?

I honestly don’t know, but personally, I’m done with “Never Forget,” at least in the prescribed way that the dishonest tragedy-humpers wallow in on this day every year.

Instead, I’ll look ahead and work toward a future where my daughter can consciously live in a country that isn’t “at war” (accursed phrase!) for the first time in her life, and my nephew can come home to his wife and children.

Open thread.





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From Russia with Schadenfreude

by 11:11 am. It has 183 Comments.

I’m old enough to remember the ghastly Ronald Reagan presidency, though I was too young to give a shit about politics in those days. One thing I do remember was how Reagan praised the heroic “freedom fighters” of Afghanistan with gooey lumps of quavering jingoism and piety that were likely fresh from the pen of a then-youthful Peggy Noonan.

This was when the US helped bleed out the USSR by supplying arms and support to religious fanatics in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden, who eventually drove the Soviets out after massive casualties. Then came the blow-back.

And now, as the US marks more than a decade and a half of post-9/11 futility in Afghanistan, it appears the boot is on the other foot. From The Post:

A senior U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence on the issue, said the Russians have increased their supply of equipment and small arms to the Taliban over the past 18 months. The official said the Russians have been sending weapons, including medium and heavy machine guns, to the Taliban under the guise that the materiel would be used to fight the Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan. Instead, the official said, the weapons were showing up in some of Afghanistan’s southern provinces, including Helmand and Kandahar — both areas with little Islamic State presence.

Interesting that the Russians felt emboldened to increase their support to the Taliban over the past 18 months.

The US currently maintains nothing like the force the Soviets once had in Afghanistan; there are fewer than 10K troops there now. The Post article notes that US officials describe the current situation as a “stalemate,” but it’s mostly Afghans in the meat grinder instead of Americans.

If we’re a hollowed out, debt-ridden, exhausted empire, that’s mostly thanks to George W. Bush’s dumbfuckery, not Putin or Trump’s. But the article also notes DefSec Mattis is still deciding whether to ask Trump for more troops.

Maybe the Russian arms are a not-so-subtle signal to Trump to get the US out of Afghanistan so Russia can bring that country more fully under its influence, not as a communist state this time but as a territory to be exploited by the transglobal gangster state Putin rules.

Such a move would have to be a personal triumph for Putin in his revanche project, and he can make his wishes known to his lackey Trump in person next month when they meet, possibly in Vienna.

Personally, I wish the US had declared victory and left Afghanistan the day after the SEALs offed bin Laden, if not sooner. I’d rather they reallocated military spending to resettle refugees and provide assistance to Afghanistan as part of a global economic development effort instead of pouring it down the warlord rat hole. But no one asked me.

Anyhoo, it’ll be interesting to see which strings Putin pulls in Central Asia. He must be the most self-satisfied autocrat on earth right about now.





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The Boltoning Continues (Memo To Self: Start Digging That Shelter)

by 12:07 pm. It has 126 Comments.

Not even through his second day on the job and John Bolton is making real progress in his effort to fully crazify the US  national security apparatus:

[Homeland Security advisor] Tom Bossert was an ideal Trump administration official – a man with the résumé of an Establishment Republican, and the capacity for sycophancy of a Trump crony.

…In a West Wing beset by chaos and dysfunction, Bossert was regarded as one of the few competent aides still standing.

And John Bolton just got him fired. As Homeland Security adviser, Bossert would have been a subordinate of the incoming, mustachioed White House national security adviser; and Bolton would prefer to assemble his own team. [links in the original]

Official portrait of that new band of all-stars:

This is really Adam and Cheryl’s turf, of course, so I won’t foist my amateur analysis on the jackals; I hope they’ll weigh in on Bolton early and often.  But I will go so far as to say that so far the new National Security Advisor is behaving exactly as advertised: he’s the boss from hell, and no independent minds or voices will be allowed anywhere near power.  It’s all mustache all the time.  Given his wretched record as anything but a bureaucratic infighter, the US — and the world — should be damn nervous.

Open thread.

Image: Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, Fools have the most fun, 1661


You Call That a Cat? THIS is a Cat…(With a Depressing Postscript)

by 5:56 pm. It has 251 Comments.

Tikka has been in fine form lately, so I thought I’d share the force of his personality on a blog that can always use some more afternoon thread.

Here he is recently, showing some signs of mental wear and tear:

Tikka does not like strangers. And by strangers he means just about everyone who isn’t me.  He’ll tolerate my son and spouse, but after that?  We’ve had a lot of relatives staying over the last month or so, my wife’s sister for one, who is very much a cat person, and my own sister, likewise — she’s a pillar volunteer at the local pet shelter and all that good stuff.

My S-I-L has learned not to engage Tikka, and in his turn he now merely growls when she passes, and only very rarely whacks her as she goes.  My sister knows Tikka hates her, but can’t resist making eye contact. The result is increasing cat madness.  Those two bipedal monsters have both returned home now, and my fair feline is calming down quite a bit.  Hence this, taken about an hour ago:

A Cat In Full — and don’t you ever doubt it.

And now to some heavier material.  I’m very much looking to the next posts in Cheryl’s series on gender and national security (first one here). As we wait for those, you might want to check out this by Andrew Bacevich [corrected link], a professor at B. U. (and a retired U.S.A. Lt. Col.) focusing on national security.

A taste:

What makes a Harvey Weinstein moment? The now-disgraced Hollywood mogul is hardly the first powerful man to stand accused of having abused women. The Harveys who preceded Harvey himself are legion, their prominence matching or exceeding his own and the misdeeds with which they were charged at least as reprehensible.

…As far as male sexual hijinks are concerned, we might compare Weinstein’s epic fall from grace to the stock market crash of 1929: one week it’s the anything-goes Roaring Twenties, the next we’re smack dab in a Great Depression.

…All of this serves as a reminder that, on some matters at least, the American people retain an admirable capacity for outrage. We can distinguish between the tolerable and the intolerable. And we can demand accountability of powerful individuals and institutions.

…

[But] compare their culpability to that of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or promoted this country’s various military misadventures of the present century.  Those wars have, of course, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will ultimately cost American taxpayers many trillions of dollars.  Nor have those costly military efforts eliminated “terrorism,” as President George W. Bush promised back when today’s G.I.s were still in diapers.

…war has become a habit to which the United States is addicted.  Except for the terminally distracted, most of us know that.  We also know — we cannot not know — that, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. forces have been unable to accomplish their assigned mission, despite more than 16 years of fighting in the former and more than a decade in the latter…

Bacevich isn’t quite talking about what Cheryl’s begun to lay out.  But it seems to me that the two may be striking some of the same notes.  Anyway, I am as I have long been astonished, angered, and deeply saddened by the way so many of our leaders — lately but not always mostly Republicans — have been so profligate with other people’s kids.

 

The old Lie.

Damn — that’s a downer ending for a cat post.  Sorry. The times are what the times contain.





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War Pigheadedness

by 10:58 am. It has 136 Comments.

“Any forces that would impose their will on other nations will certainly face defeat.”

I just read President Carrot top’s speech from last night, and the usual suspects are, predictably, participating in the usual “presidential pivot” mutual masturbation society after party:

Ugh. To the speech. What the fuck does this mean:

But to prosecute this war, we will learn from history. As a result of our comprehensive review, American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically in the following ways.

A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin or end military options.

We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities. Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out.

I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.

Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power — diplomatic, economic, and military — toward a successful outcome. Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen.

Did I miss Bush and Obama announcing our attacks from a podium or something? And learning from history? How in the fuck is sending in a paltry force of 4k troops and expecting anything different learning from history. A refresher- Bush’s “surge” in Iraq was about 20k troops, but it may have amounted to more in theater briefly because they also extended the tour for folks already there. Trump is sending 4k more.

And just what does 4k troops mean?

Basically, nothing. Whenever you hear of troop numbers, you need to understand that sending 4,000 more soldiers somewhere does not mean you are sending 4,000 more trigger pullers. The vast majority of these 4,000 soldiers will be logo toads dealing with supply and logistics and maintenance and signals and what not. This probably amounts to about 800 actual combat troops being sent there. That’s basically a batallion. They’ll be able to do what- build another firebase? And you can’t have all of them on patrol at once, because soldiers need sleep and rest, they need to pull security, etc.

Again, I have not been in the military for almost twenty years, so I am not an expert and my numbers may be wrong, but from where I sit, this isn’t a fucking plan. It’s a blood sacrifice.

If the most abrasive, arrogant, and imperious President we have ever known thinks all he can get is political support for 4k more troops, it’s game over, man. I heard McMaster pushed for 50k more troops and was rejected, and that wouldn’t have been enough.

This is bullshit. After sixteen years, the American people have moved on. We have lost the will to fight in Afghanistan, as we should have. It’s just a waste of blood and money. All we are doing now is feeding the war pig. Stop sending Americans off to slaughter for no reason. Bring home the troops now.





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