I would also suggest that, due to the emergency situation of the evacuation, Qatar Airlines or whatever other companies there are at the Kabul airport, need to give people the chance to evacuate without at all paying for it. I would imagine that this could somehow be funded by the United States or even the United Nations. It is, however, doubtful that something like that will happen. — thewonder

Oh you mean that the US would open it's borders to anybody wanting to come to the US from Afghanistan? Or those with visas? I think those that worked with the Westerners would be enough. Besides, if the Taleban sits idly by and lets the former enemy board planes and fly away, it would be a really positive thing that they truly want to end this conflict.

And open door solution is not a good solution.

Happened here in Europe few years ago. Not a good outcome with Brexit and all that. And I guess one or two Al Qaeda members might want to sneak in too. And once you have those one or two making a terrorist strike... who cares about the 150 000 decent, hardworking Afghans wanting to become taxpaying Americans?

Sorry, but that's how people view these things today. You can blow the terrorism threat to all sizes you want.

Anyway, I think the real issue are the Westerners now in Afghanistan: there were a lot of Americans in the country, for example.

Earlier on Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued an urgent alert warning American citizens to "shelter in place" amid reports of gunfire at the airport on the outskirts of Afghanistan's capital city. - In the coming days, "we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals."

Fortunately another potential Benghazi didn't happen. :eyes: — Shawn

Hope so. Not over yet.

I can't say that I would've made another choice. The Afghan military just simply had no will to fight. — thewonder

There might be a reason just why there wasn't any will to fight.

A military needs support, not only bullets and food, but also support from the people. Would you have a will to fight to the end and give your life for an extremely corrupt government whose leader ran away and then declared on Facebook that he did it to save lives? Well, you might think then about saving your life then too.

Besides, there are still thousands of Americans and Westerners in Afghanistan I guess. So things can get even worse from here. A true tragedy. Let's hope that evacuation goes calmly.

By total surrender, you can avoid some death, yes.

How much reprisals there will be is the question. At least Kabul will get now a fair share of looting before sharia law clamps down in earnest.

. Countries don't always deploy their military to achieve a solution. Sometimes they do it to test new weapons, train their troops, or boost their military industry. — Apollodorus

Yeah no. Their still is a political agenda. Some political agenda. What you are designing are just the perks and additional objectives.

Let's remember that just to have a peace time army as a deterrence, you need to test new weapons, train the troops and boost the military industry. The vast amount of military expenditure during the Cold War went to arms that never were used. General Curtiss LeMay didn't want his B-52s of the Strategic Air Command to be used in the Vietnam war. They were there sitting in the Continental US waiting to nuke Soviet Union, remember. But he was walked over on this one.

Training by going to war is a disastrous policy as you are then spending a lot of resources. Far better to train without your soldiers getting dead.

Nothing in that speech includes the Taleban as the main threat. — Shawn

Yes, because there WERE those talks that didn't go anywhere. Because....Americans wanted revenge.
Clearly the overthrow of the Taleban was the objective once the short negotiations were over:

On October 7th Bush stated:

On my orders, the United States military has
begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military
installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully
targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a
terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of
the Taliban regime.

More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear
and specific demands: Close terrorist training camps; hand over
leaders of the al Qaeda network; and return all foreign nationals,
including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country.
None of these demands were met. And now the Taliban will pay
a price. By destroying camps and disrupting communications,
we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new
recruits and coordinate their evil plans.

Seeking to destroy the military capability of a regime is equivalent of destroying the regime.

And this is a case closed: destroying the Taleban's rule was a priority from the first cruise missile. Then to leave the Northern Alliance in charge...the administration that basically fell this Sunday.

Actually I've made a long argument about this in the War on Terror thread.

But to recap my thoughts:

a) America has a long tradition how to deal terrorism with punitive military strikes since (at least) the 1980's.
b) The horrific death toll from the attacks made it quite unreasonable to make it a police matter like in the 1993 Twin Tower bombing. It would simply have been like the suffering and anger of the people doesn't matter.
c) Overthrowing the Taleban and installing the Northern Alliance looked to be a great idea. The rapid collapse of the Taleban then was similar what we have seen now, actually, hence this wasn't a bad thought.
d) Even if it would have been an Al Gore administration, the US would have gone in (because of a), b and c))

So you would have gone into Afghanistan. This is the tragedy. But even then all wasn't lost. Then you should have a) understood how huge and complex the issue would be, b) understand the motives and agenda of the various players and neighbors and c) be persistent.

Don't try a military solution when you need a political solution.

Again, by most measures the Afghan war was won. The goal was never to defeat the Taleban — Shawn

Sorry, but this is simply utter bullshit.

Just from the starting speech where Bush adressed the nation in 20th of September 2001:

They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.

The leadership of Al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we see Al Qaeda's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled.

The Taliban must act and act immediately.

They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.

The reasons were valid at the time. — Shawn

At the time. Yeah. That's the problem: reasons have to be valid for a bit longer. One has to anticipate what effects one's actions have.

So if a Mexican narco-group that has close ties to the Mexican government would for some insane reason make a terrorist attack in the US, that would be a valid reason to go AND OCCUPY Mexico and then start a fight "just to get the narcos"? Yep, I'm sure all Mexicans would eagerly support the US drone attacks and nightly raids by US Special Forces, even if they don't trust their own government. :shade:

Pakistan was training the mujahedeen in Afghanistan. Hasn't that been dealt with or has the Taleban made statements that they aren't in it together with Pakistan anymore?

Pakistan usually trains mujahedeen in Pakistan. Taleban and Al Qaeda aren't the same thing for starters. And do note that Pakistan has had to fight it's own Pashtun islamists too. And they are totally fed up about the War on Terror bullshit.

I'm not really following you here. If the objective was to take down Bin Laden, then that was done in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan, where the US was. — Shawn

Correct. He seemed to have slipped by paying bribes to the US allies. So why invade and occupy Afghanistan?

Interesting they didn't bomb Saudi Arabia, given that's where the hijackers were predominantly from. — Tom Storm

If you make a simple extrapolation of what happens to previous US allies in the Middle East, that will happen. First you lost Iraq in the 1950's. Then Iran in 1979. Now Afghanistan. And ties with Pakistan have been very cold for long. Remember that there was an alliance called CENTO.

How US allies end up in the Middle East: The most successful F-14 ace ever (11 air victories), Jalil Zandi, from the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force.


When Saudi Arabia has it's revolution and it all turns into one giant shit show, I guess Americans will be extremely happy bombing the then ex-Saudis. Way things are going, that fiasco could easily happen. Because who care a shit what happens in the Middle East.

To be fair, what were the operational directives of Afghanistan. — Shawn

What were they? Because the war continued on after OBL was killed. As I said earlier, it was and is the insane idea of "occupying a country, because it otherwise would possibly be a safe have for terrorists". That is the "operational directive", objective. And if you don't understand just how insane that idea is, then there you are.

Naturally the idea then was that to train "Afghans themselves fight the Taleban". Which end result we have seen: an Afghan National Army that simply couldn't get ammo or food for it's troops to fight, even if they would have wanted to fight.

In fact all the documentaries tell it so well. The only place in Afghanistan were you saw young males walking around was in Kabul. In the countryside if you notice, the villages were filled with old men, women and children. That told you what the people supported.

In another thread I said that Iraq was a victory, according to what was intended to be the outcome of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. — Shawn

And if you purpose that because Saddam was overthrown that it was a huge success,then just listen to why a certain American decision maker said that going into Iraq was a bad idea (during Desert Storm).


Yes. He obviously changed his mind. But in 1994 he was totally correct. It would be a Quagmire. So then Obama pulled the troops out and ISIS appeared. And now you are in a situation where the Iraqi leadership wants the US troops out. 2500 of them there now. Being attacked infrequently, but still. That simply isn't a huge success.

Let's say that the US has been in other parts of the world far more successful with it's foreign policy than in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Let's remember what a certain US President answered a month ago on July the 8th 2021:

"Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam?"

"None whatsoever," Biden replied. "Zero. What you had is you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable."

The British and American Zones merged in 1947 and were joined by France in 1949. The Americans had the supreme military command as well as the money, remember? :grin: — Apollodorus

Maybe you are forgetting that the Deutsche Mark was introduced in 1948? :smirk:

And you seem to have left out the inconvenient bits in the article, like US cash being funneled through the CIA to pro-unification organizations, etc. .... — Apollodorus

And the Soviets funneled to their favorite parties money too.

But that European politicians lobbied to the US to choose a certain policy towards Europe makes my point.

Afghanistan’s embattled President Ashraf Ghani fled the country Sunday as the Taliban moved further into Kabul, officials said. His countrymen and foreigners alike raced for the exit, signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

So that's that.

You are not paying attention, are you?

It was Stalin, not Putin. I was talking about the Marshall Plan and the ECSC that formed the basis of the EU. — Apollodorus

How could I, because Marshall Plan or even the ECSC isn't the EU. You wrote EU so I couldn't know you were referring to Stalin. Indeed, again a chap who was terribly worried about the state of democracy. Who wouldn't when they got over 100% of the vote (by other regions voting for him too).

Germany was controlled by US military governor McCloy who was a lawyer with close links to the Rockefellers. — Apollodorus

Again no. Of course, the other occupation regions don't matter, right?

See OSS, CIA and European Unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948-60 — Apollodorus

In fact, this article what you refer to actually makes well my point extremely well.

Do note the role which the article gives to European politicians like Coudenhove-Kalergi, Aristide Briand and Winston Churchill here for the US policy to change for European integration. Hence you have here, which the article perfectly explains, European politicians lobbying Americans to take on the idea of European integration. So the idea of Europeans being here hapless bystanders that are guided by American interests (and Wall Street) is rather biased and is the usual self-centered way of looking at things. As if the US would run the World.

For example Konrad Adenauer had been for long for European integration, well before WW2. That the "integrationist" took power happens simply because Europe had to find a different path from it's bellicose past. Especially in a situation where there was the Soviet Empire taking over Eastern Europe.

Reports of the Afghan president resigning and the Taleban's Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to replace him. (Not yet confirmed and likely this isn't the case I think.) At least the Taleban is in Kabul, that is for sure.

The possibility of diseases (viruses etc) coming from extra-terrestrial origins might be true. It is interesting. Little hard to prove that yet, I suppose.

If you find some viruses in Mars that are older and are similar to the ones here, that might be the "smoking gun". Otherwise it's difficult.

I feel so much of US foreign policy at that time was driven by the desire to avenge 9/11. — Wayfarer

Of course, but notice that this was a game play that basically they couldn't avoid.

When Libyans (or possibly Libyans) exploded a bomb in a Berlin disco that killed Americans, then Reagan bombed Libya. When Al Qaeda attacked US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, Clinton sent cruise missiles flying to Afghanistan and Sudan (and was accused of "tail wagging the dog" as there was the Lewinsky scandal there). There simply was a tradition how to respond to these kind of events.

This meant that there was also a procedure on how to react in such cases and as in 9/11 a lot of people died, not just six people as during the Twin Tower bombing of 1993, then military response would have been on every American politicians table. It would have been very difficult to do anything else. Likely only perhaps a Bernie Sanders or a Ron Paul as president could have thought out of the box and chosen something else.

And then there were a lot of mistakes done later in Afghanistan, starting from things like forgetting the tribal aspect of the country and trying to make a strong central government, creating and training the new defence force in the picture of the US army. And things like not understanding that going after "Al Qaeda" and ending up killing local people might not be the best way forward. Or thinking that when you inform that you are leaving on a specific date the government and armed forces you created yourself somehow wouldn't matter in peace talks.

I've not heard of any side in a war stopping an ongoing war and opting for a limited peace-deal when the military objectives are totally obtainable and the most realistic peace option is the total surrender of the enemy.

Mistakes like that above.

But it has 26 references, so it has to be true (science), right?

Ah, the formidable strength of open research and not having peer review (or something like that). Every alternative is researched, every stone turned!

Why not just leave them to their own devices? — baker

Simply put it, the US (and many in the West) has even a more obscure line of thinking than the famous "Domino Theory" (which was the reason for the US entangle itself in the Vietnam war) to be in Afghanistan.

Haven't you heard it?

It goes like this: if the US would withdraw from the country it has occupied, it will create a safe haven for terrorists to strike mainland US from the safety of having camps in Afghanistan.

That's it.

That is the pure insanity of this all.

And if Osama bin Laden would have stayed in Sudan when the 9/11 attacks happened, I guess you would have invaded and occupied Sudan. Because, why not?

And now the commentators would be saying how important our presence in Sudan is. And if we leave Sudan to the insurgents, then it will become a safe haven for more attacks against the West. The discussion would be now on how we failed in nation building in Sudan. And how there is a history of Sudanese resistance to Western Imperialism (remember the Mahdi and the death of Gordon of Khartoum). But no. Afghanistan was chosen because the financier of a successful terrorist strike (of whom nobody was an Afghani) was in Afghanistan. Not in Sudan anymore.

(Osama wasn't in Sudan anymore, so Americans didn't invade Sudan)

Let’s not forget the people who launched the whole debacle. — Wayfarer

As on another thread I commented, Al Gore would have done the same thing as Bush and gone into Afghanistan.

There would be no Iraq, but still.

Might have worked.

Remember Yugoslavia? That peace there has held. So the "nation building" there was successful, something that the Republican commentators are quick to forget.

(This one worked, you know)

I have a very bad feeling that's exactly what is going to happen. There is already smoke coming from the roof of the US Embassy where they're burning documents. — Wayfarer

They are destroying all artifacts with US logos and such. Anticipating that the victorious Taliban would parade them around just like with the American firearms and trucks they are doing now.

Actually, when you having air support flying from a far away country (as none of the neighboring countries have anymore US bases) and you deploy troops to secure a withdrawal (or retreat), many things can go awry. What would it take? Some long range artillery strike on the Kabul airport runways and what would you do after that? Luckily the Taliban don't have those, I assume, but who knows if someone conveniently gave them some field howitzers or rocket launchers.

Anyway, a lot of things can go wrong here. Because even if officially the Taleban has said it will leave the embassies intact, there surely is the urge to bloody the nose of the invader.

In the end Biden (and Trump) really fucked it up. That they did get the Taleban to negotiate in the first place does seem that things weren't so good for insurgents couple of years ago. But now no need to even wait for the US to go home.

Apple actually is a perfect example. If you recall, Jobs got fired and then went on to create other companies. And then got back to Apple.

The story of Apple being in trouble and then a fixer Gil Amelio as a " as a corporate rehabilitator" coming on and doing the usual layoffs and cost-cutting is telling. As if the most important thing if your losing to your competitors is to lay off people and cut costs. Luckily Jobs came back and actually saved Apple from the Amelio types and now we do have the current Apple. What the managerial-class usually lacks to understand is how the whole sector can change, that for example growth in computers and software can transform into something totally new which wasn't obvious few decades ago. The pioneers typically have a great understanding about both the little aspects and how the small detail effect the outcome and what the larger picture is and they can see where things are going. The professional managerial class cannot, has been taught in business schools that there's an "computer industry" or "aircraft industry" and treat them basically the same.

And the fact is that a committee made up career committee members simply isn't as great in innovation as genuine innovators are. The committee meetings can be done with efficiency, but that isn't what is needed when a business ought to innovate and apply new thinking.

Another very typical issue is the hostile-takeover scheme: that someone takes a huge loan and buys the stock of a corporation, then as the corporation is obviously extremely in debt due to this, sells part or all of it off to make a profit. It should be obvious that such rip-off schemes aren't good usually for either the company or the sector. Yet all this is whimsically marketed as "streamlining" and "cutting costs". And, of course, the labor unions are blamed for the "inefficiency" and losses that basically happen because of the huge debt. The absurd rhetoric is somehow accepted and many view corporate raiders as somehow having a positive effect on the private sector, something good for capitalism.

I remember in the 1970's, I think it was, a Time Magazine account of something that had happened in Afghanistan, I think an overthrow or revolution or something of the kind, which purportedly was going to result in a greater degree of civil freedoms. I remember some internal commentator saying glumly that Afghanistan had just taken a great leap forward into the 14th century. — Wayfarer

The Saur revolution cannot be said to have resulted in a greater degree of civil freedoms. Especially when it ended up with the Soviet Union having to invade the country.

As both Mazar-i-Sharif and now Jalalabad have fallen, it's now only Kabul, basically. Done deal, collapse is inevitable and rapid.

The fall of Saigon comes to mind, even if the South Vietnamese held up much longer after the withdrawal of US troops.

Let's consider a hypothetical Finland with a larger populace, military, military budget, and a history of operations within Central Asia. — thewonder

I think a very important issue is just how those operations within Central Asia played out. (Btw, in reality Finnish troops left Afghanistan just last June.)

Because if they (the operations in Central Asia) would be somehow successful, perhaps Finland got a lot of praise and those relations with Central Asian states were beneficial to the country, there could be a political view that military boots in Central Asia is important to Finland. Even the social democrats could happily participate with it. Just like a female reserve officer friend of mine who served in Afghanistan once remarked "CIMIC (Civilian Military Cooperation) is basically military intelligence with Tarja Halonen (our social democrat President at the time) will accept. It's all for a good cause, right?

And why shouldn't it be? Isn't there value in that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis aren't in power and occupying Central Europe? Isn't it good that we have K-pop and South Korean gizmos rather than reports of famine across the Korean Peninsula? Do not forget that sometimes US foreign policy has been quite beneficial to freedom.

Or let's take an aspect that actually has been discussed: the safety of Finnish citizens abroad. There are several occasion where Finns have been kidnapped by Islamic militants (in the Phillipines and in Yemen) and there has been public discussion if Finland ought to have the ability to do something, to have the ability to rescue hostages from an non-state actor in a country where there simply aren't the police or security officials to co-operate with. The Finnish defence establishment is there to defend us from Russia and international operations are a secondary issue. Yet in some countries those international operations are the major emphasis.

This is the basic way you get involved into military operations abroad, just from starting from the safety of your own citizens. To participate in international peace keeping (and peace enforcing) operation. Take for example Sweden. The slippery slope can start from there. We can surely understand just what is now going in the minds of US officials with the Afghan collapse: the fall of Saigon or what happened to the hostage crisis Tehran during the Islamic revolution there.

(Pictures that Biden does not want to be repeated. That's why the US embassy is destroying all US logos, flags etc. in order for them not to be paraded around by the Taleban and troops are sent to guard the evacuation and B-52s and AC-130 gunship are trying to keep the Taliban off from Kabul as every other major city has already fallen.)




We live in interesting times...

Here again I'm talking about legality, not what happens in practice. — Xtrix

Ok, your response above was good and I got it. We avoided here stupid misunderstandings and bickering. (We will leave that to the future issues and topics :wink: )

I have to look the links you gave. An interesting topic.

You would certainly think that, because shareholders have the power to vote in board members, that they just vote in people who share their views, and vote themselves in -- and that's true. But it's also more complicated than that, because rarely is one person or company the controlling shareholder. — Xtrix

Well, just add the fact that a huge chunk of those shareholders are institutional investors: mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds. Snd naturally other corporations. This makes it totally different to lets say that you have the board of Microsoft and there as a representative of the shareholders is Bill Gates as a representative of the shares he owns.

When companies are founded from scratch, they have a link to certain human beings: the founders. And in a new sector these are the innovators who know basically all the technology and are quite apt in all of the fields. Allan Lockheed, William E. Boeing and all founders of aircraft companies were aviators themselves basically (even if there can be the odd exception). Bill Gates and Steve Jobs could use their hands to build computers. Yet once when the corporation grows and the pioneer generation retires, then it's likely that the CEO and board members aren't at all so invested at the field where the corporation competes that they would have similar abilities. They basically are recruited from a managerial class. This transforms the corporation from being lead by founders to a high paid caste of professional leader-employees taking over the corporation. The corporations becomes dis-attached from humans as owners. Large family owned corporations are rare, even if there are those still.

This is a very strange thing to say in my opinion. If I'm not mistaken Finland would invite the UN peacekeepers along with diverting much more interest to the established UN in force. — Shawn

IF THEY WERE FINLAND, NOT THE US!!!

Remember you are talking about a small country with 5+ million people who know that their country is quite expendable. Nobody would have given a fuck if Finland would have been occupied, Finns would have been deported to Siberia and Russians moved here after WW2... just like happened with the Estonians. Who the fuck cared about the Baltic States? But having two huge oceans on each side, a puny Mexico in the south and ever so friendly Canucks in the north, and then 320 million people really changes things!

Let's have a fictional mind game: What if Americans be modern-day Canadians?

Assume that George Washington would have been sent to India and a no-nonsense British officer would have gathered up the other founding fathers and taken them for a walk in the nearby forest and nobody would have heard anything from them later, or about any constitution or any other declaration. Then the British would have given representation due to taxation and Americans would have lived happily as part of the British Empire as Canadians did.

So basically then you would have gotten your independence in 1931 and basically full independence in 1982 or something like that. Or not even that, because the British (ahem...the English) are a truly shrewd lot. If in their shrewdness (and that they likely would have understood how important Northern American is to their massive Empire), they would have made the US-Canada to be part of the UK as Scotland and Wales are. So Americans, or British-Americans would be having votes now about being independent or not and still many thinking that they are proud members of the British Empire.

In this case the "new" country of the US really might be different, because nearly all of your history would be history of the British Empire. British-Americans or North American British might feel quite differently about their role is, should they have a large army now and so on. They might easily think that all that imperialism and Superpower stuff is done by the people in London and they are themselves pacifists and nice to everybody. Like, uh, Canadians today.

The actual point I'm trying to make is that there are huge amount of different factors that influence the way politicians act and what the political discourse is like. History, the economy, the geopolitical situation, the domestic situation, even the environment (and so on) all have an effect how politicians behave.

Hence Robert Kagan can make his famous observation:

On major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus; they agree on little and understand one another even less

Have people noticed the similarity of the collapse of the Afghan government and the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the rapid conquest of the Taliban to the time when the Taliban control shattered and the Northern Alliance drove quickly into Kabul?

It's all about tribal politics. And for the tribes to change sides. Otherwise such rapid collapse is hard to understand...especially Northern Afghanistan (which is non-Pashtun) falling quickly to the Taliban, which was the region where the Northern Alliance has it's roots.

A telling signal was that Ashraf Ghani went to talk...to ancient warlords like Dostum in order to get support. Dostum is basically the example that shows everything that is wrong in Afghanistan. Dostum started in the Communist Afghan Army as a Marshal, was honored as a "Hero of Afghanistan" by President Mohammed Najibullah, then defected to the mujahideen and became a warlord, then joined the Northern Alliance and was a friend of the US, then became the vice president of Afghanistan from 2014 to 2020.

Dostum now with President Ghani:

What's NATO going to do, now?

Nothing much? — Shawn

Evacuate the embassies. Likely separately as countries, but naturally coordinating the operation.

Even if I cannot forecast the future, it's likely that Ghani's government will fall. Not much capability of getting through a siege of Kabul where there is from 4 to 6 million people.

I guess "the West" took part in getting the Taliban going - the USSR, the US, Pakistan — jorndoe

I think that the Taliban was purely a Pakistani thing to counter the anarchy after the Pro-Soviet regime of Najibullah had fallen.

Wouldn't it be strange if China stepped in? — jorndoe

Why would China step in? Isn't the example of the a) British Empire, b) Soviet Empire and c) US Empire that Afghanistan is not the place to go, if you don't want to kill your empire?

The shareholders are not the owners of corporations. — Xtrix

This doesn't make sense. I assume you mean here that the shareholders aren't in charge of corporations.

The board of directors, although elected by shareholders, have no legal obligation to do what the shareholders want, and often don’t. — Xtrix

The ordinary argument goes that as the shareholders elect the board of directors, they have the ultimate power. This is perhaps what you call "The shareholder primacy theory" or am I mistaken?

A corporation is not owned by anyone; a corporation, by law, as a legal person, owns itself. Persons, legal or otherwise, cannot be owned -- at least since we got rid of slavery. — Xtrix

I think I understand your argument.

But notice what you can do to a legal person: you can disband it. Or you can sell it and then it simply disappears from being a legal person like it had been, but a part of likely another corporation. That cannot happen with ordinary persons (since you got rid of slavery).

I guess that the point that I was making is that a majority of, let's say, Finnish politicians, I think, would have adequately responded to a similar crisis. They would become transformed in that moment so as to be extraordinary, but, in the United States, you would already have to be an extraordinary figure to have made the near unilateral decision to respond to the crisis as such. — thewonder

No, I don't think that Finnish politicians are better or would perform better than Americans or vice versa. When you start having a group of people more than 100, then simple laws of statistics start to apply. Because a group of 100 political leaders and top government officials will likely be quite similar in both countries: academic graduates, many with the highest mark and many these achievers.

Above all, put Finnish politicians in charge of US policy with US capabilities and then they will likely start thinking as their American counterparts. As I've said again and again, when you do have those seemingly unlimited capabilities of the US armed forces, you can get into all kinds of things where others simply would have to dismiss the issue because there is no capability. In a way, having limited ability and having to anticipate what others will do smartens politics by necessity. The politicians can be as smart as before, but they have limited power to yield.

Actually for Americans this is very important to understand: put into your shoes, a lot of other people would do the same as you. You can look at how for example France behaves in it's "backyard" in Africa, in it's former colonies. There it has many garrisons and it intervenes in the domestic politics of these countries, if necessary. I suspect there is a French equivalent of Noam Chomsky telling how awful the French government has been, but as I don't speak French, I don't know the author. It would be very interesting to compare US involvement in it's "backyard", in Latin America, and France in its former colonies in Africa.



The only thing where you will have really different kind of people in power is when the society isn't a democracy, but power is taken and held on by a gun. It's actually no wonder that criminal organizations end up with deranged psychopathic killers as their leaders hiding in a small cottage in the middle of nowhere, not only from the police, but also their former allies (who are still alive). When you can obtain power by killing others and everybody is basically OK with this, then that's what you will end up with.

Once political power is about using violence on your competitors, then you have different kind of people in power. Hence democracy is truly extremely important: you don't want your leaders to be homicidal psychopaths, but people who if they loose the elections, will bow out and uphold democracy.

Agreed. Bringing democracy at work, and having the workers own and run the companies themselves, is even more crucial. If we want to improve social conditions, and such massive inequality, improve the environment, stop terrible trade deals, etc., then this strikes at the heart of the matter. — Xtrix

All workers joining in the overall running of the company has it simple limits, as has been said here. An organization with over 10 000 workers has to go for some kind of representative system. And much of the problems or the deficiencies can be avoided by multiple ways. These issues are very complex.

And let's not forget that there are for example public companies, which are founded not to enrich the founder or the workers themselves, but the greater community. Interesting example is how here and in Sweden the selling of alcohol is done by a government monopoly, which has long history as also a tool of social policy.

I simply think that there's isn't a one solution to an complex issue here. Economic democracy and to take into account stakeholders can be done in very many ways. And it's usually a combination of functioning institutions, but also a competitive and efficient economy is needed too. Why? Because for a healthy state and public sector you do need a healthy economy too, which creates a major part of that prosperity.

In my personal view ideologues that are fixated nearly religiously in their ideology, be it whatever, left or right, have a major problem of viewing a complex environment from various other viewpoints. It's like putting on distinct color glasses and see the surroundings in a biased way. Problems arise because their ideology hasn't been implemented. And other ideologies don't have for these people have any point to make as they are simply wrong.

I don't think that anyone wanted for the towers to come down. — thewonder

Except the small cabal of Islamist fundamentalists who wanted for the US to get involved in wars. It was evidently clear when they declared that "killing Americans, any Americans" is a really good thing to do and then they went on with the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. And let's not forget that 9/11 was the second time they attacked the Twin Towers.

Hence Ayman al-Zawahiri (on the right) has to be very happy about present events.

I do think that it points to a certain poverty of the American situation in that it would seem to require an extraordinary person, though, in so far that we entrust public officials with the effective facilitation of the democratic process, they kind of all ought to be somehow extraordinary, in order to respond to situation adequately. — thewonder

The extraordinary, or "larger than life" politician is simply the person who can make decisions when there isn't the obvious road map to be taken or chooses the best policy that goes against normal contemporary thinking. Then this person has to truly lead, to have the ability to influence and change thinking of people. The tactic of "Replying to terrorist strikes with bombing strikes" already happened with Ghaddafi and Reagan and the LaBelle discotheque bombing and the repraisal bombings of Libya with Operation Eldorado Canyon. In fact, the tactic or strategy resembles what Israel often does as it simply has had a low-intensity war against the Palestinians and the PLO with similar strikes.

(Eldorado Canyon in 1986. That NATO members (other than the UK) did not in any way participate can be seen from the flight routes from the UK to Tripoli. But guidelines how to react to terrorist strikes are made).


Antiterrorism in the UK, Germany, France or Italy has been quite different. With them of course the terrorism has been mainly domestic.

Prior to 9/11 there was already a debate in Foreign Policy circles about "new threats" where one of them was international terrorism. Hence there was already a road map of what to do if there is a successful terrorist strike. You are correct that this made the intelligence services to be "lying in wait for an attack", just like the CDC was "lying in wait" for a pandemic to happen. And this is way more realistic than the conspiracy theories of 9/11 being an inside job. Everybody that prior to that event flew in the US remembers how lax security was on domestic flights.

You don't live here, and, so, don't quite see how the general mindset was sort of instilled. — thewonder

Just think about it.

Look at the following video below. It is the famous time when George Bush visited the Twin Towers site, ground zero, after 9/11. Notice the response when Bush says that "The people who knocked these buildings down, will hear from all of us soon". That response actually perfectly portrays the feelings then.



Now imagine if after this, then how Bush would have continued would have only been a police investigation and heightened security. No military involvement. Think about the reaction to that. How it would have been felt as Bush being totally indifferent.

Don't blame the Republicans on this. Madeleine Albright, a close member of the Gore team wrote in Foreign Policy that even if it would have been a Gore administration in 9/11, the democrats would surely would have invaded Afghanistan too. They likely wouldn't have gone to Iraq, but Afghanistan would have happened.

That's why I say that this was unavoidable. Only a larger than life politician could have followed the "respond to terrorism as a police matter" path when the US has the mightiest armed forces in the World. Above all, let's remember that Clinton had already fought against the Bin Laden group and had fired cruise missiles to some possible training camps in Afghanistan. The war on terror was actually started before 9/11.

(In response to Al Qaeda attack prior to 9/11, the Clinton administration destroyed a medical plant in Sudan in error. Oops! So the war on terror was already under way.)

I don't think that I quite believe that stock buybacks are where most of a company's profits go — thewonder

It's a huge part where the profits do go. And that is a problem, because they aren't invested. More than a half trillion dollars annually in recent years. just by the S&P 500 companies.

All can disappear in a poof in a sharp rapid market crash.

If something requires a postgraduate education to understand, particularly when it is something that is expected to be understood by most people or when it is something that most people ought to figure out, then, it has not been expressed in a clear and concise enough manner. — thewonder

Postgrad education means doing a doctoral thesis, basically coming up with totally new information.

Yet the more direct the democracy is, the more active and informed the citizen has to be. And basically the most important role of democracy is to give a safety valve and gives credible authority for the system. If the administration makes lousy mistakes, it's replaced in elections. Also it political leaders give the needed authority. I didn't vote for the leftists and social democrats or the greens, but I'm OK with them being in power. They won the election and could form an administration. So let the young women rule.

That doesn't seem to pose too much of a problem to me. I don't know, though. I don't live there. — thewonder

I guess that where you live you do have companies where the shares of the company are owned by those who work in the company. Family owned companies, even those with stock, do exist.

Many of the problems, or what people consider to be problems, are not necessarily because of companies being corporations, but many institutional deficiencies like weak judicial supervision, corruption, non-existent labour protection and weak labor unions.

Right now there's none of that -- in a capitalist-run corporation. You have no say, no input, no vote. You can complain to your manager if you want to, but good luck with that. You have no access to corporate boardrooms, no representation on the board, no vote for the board, and so absolutely no say in the major decisions of the company in which you work and produce profits for. — Xtrix

You know, Xtrix, I'm not a great fan of labour unions. I don't even belong to one (which was looked with much resentment in one academic workplace).

Yet the simple fact is that some labor presentation IS CRUCIAL. Just as labor laws are essential for the whole system to work.

I always take the example of the active military officers in the Finnish Army. Nearly all of them (well over 90%) belong to a trade union. And they truly, really truly, ARE NOT LEFTISTS. There was a huge outcry in the 1960's when an openly social democrat guy tried to get into career officer course. He wasn't let in (as military officers cannot be party members, only when they retire). The Soviet Union (and it's Finnish Communists) tried to infiltrate the Finnish Army after 1919 onward. Never had any luck, even if the Russian intelligence services are awesome otherwise. Hence being part of a labor union isn't a left / right issue. Even some libertarians understand that. Unfortunately this a major problem in the US.

Hence the labor union issue, or basically the labor movement, isn't a leftist issue. It's simply a rational issue.

Without any collective bargaining the employer and the owner can treat employees as pig shit. Not that all do that, but some surely will if they are given the opportunity.