Not to think of others as important actors with their own agendas. — ssu

Well the Afghan people had modernizing agendas before the US decided that the opium growers and feudal landlords ought not be displaced because the US hates democracy and fucked them. And of course the said opium growers and feudal landlords had their own agendas which found common cause with the US, all too happy to accept their support in fucking over the Afghan people. So you're quite wrong.

I have a cynical view. As others have already noted, the Afghan war can be seen as a massive money-funnelling operation. — NOS4A2

I would assume that one could make an even bigger argument about that when it came to war in Iraq. You see, that was a far more of a White House chosen war than attacking Afghanistan. Let's remember that between 9/11 and the start of the war in Afghanistan was less than one month. The war in Iraq was a far more planned thing. Do note the role in that war that the former CEO of Halliburton had.



Afghanistan was a sideshow back then.

Well the Afghan people had modernizing agendas before the US decided that the opium growers and feudal landlords ought not be displaced because the US hates democracy and fucked them. So you're quite wrong. — StreetlightX

You make my point perfectly: others are either pawns or victims of the US for you. And nobody else exists, basically.

Well, those times certain neighbor of Afghanistan had in reality a lot to do with what happened in Afghanistan. And it's interesting to note that even the monarchy of Afghanistan had close ties with that neighbor.

The Afghan king with his friendly neighbors:

The Afghan king with his friendly neighbors: — ssu

Indeed. The Afghans appealed to the Soviets for help because the Americans were doing such a good job at helping the reactionary feudal opium growers who were trying to fuck over the nation - and who eventually succeeded, thanks to the US.

It's fun to watch you try and cast about and blame on every other agent but the US - but what else to expect from a bootlicking shill for power.

Fun fact: women were allowed to vote in Afghanistan before the US.

https://centralasiainstitute.org/womens-voting-rights/

Indeed. The Afghans appealed to the Soviets for help because the Americans were doing such a good job at helping the reactionary feudal opium growers who were trying to fuck over the nation - and who eventually succeeded, thanks to the US. — StreetlightX

Well, the picture is from December 1955. Some thirty years before the time of "reactionary feudal opium growers helped by Americans" and some twenty or so years before Afghanistan and Pakistan even became large opiate producers. But I assume your idea of Afghanistan and the friendliness of the "Soviet assistance" is simply ignorance of history.

It's fun to watch you try and cast about and blame on every other agent but the US — StreetlightX

Lol. Obviously you don't read what others write, which is typical for you. And then when you are out of anything to say, the ad hominems start.

Eh, @StreetlightX just wants his place in the sun among the left-wing European intelligensia. Without their mythic Goliath in the form of the United States, they would have to concern themselves with politics in their countries, thereby ultimately abandoning their favored catholicon of revolution in favor of peaceful protest and civic reform, all of which is wildly out of vogue within the far-Left. If there was a broad-based grassroots movement in the United States that stood a decent chance of changing its foreign policy, you'd hear nothing but excessive and castigating critique from them, for fear that the success of such a movement would challenge their cultural hegemony and result in a decrease in sales from the likes of semiotext(e). They have an entire industry of critique that completely relies upon their fascination with politics in the United States and generalized invocation of anti-Americanism.

Anyways, I came back to again divert this thread to the attention of the refugee crisis in Afghanistan before leaving, which I will do in the following post.

Where does the world stand on Afghan refugees?

Who is Welcoming Afghan Refugees?

The coming U.S. political fight over accepting refugees from Afghanistan

Advocates Call on Biden Admin to Move Faster on Resettling Afghan Refugees

Afghanistan Refugee Crisis Explained

It seems that there needs to be a global effort to get whomever there is that is willing to to take in as many refugees that they can. I would suggest that the international community should work together with human rights organizations, charities, and activists in order to welcome as many Afghans as we can bring to wherever it is that they will be welcome. In the United States, we will need Republican support to adequately cope with the crisis, and, so, will have to hope that the sentiment of the likes of Mitt Romney will win out over that of the sixteen Republican members of congress who voted against extending greater support to the people there in the wake of the Taliban victory.

As I have said before, I think that we should welcome the former people of the Republic of Afghanistan with open arms.

If anyone is curious about the insult that I previously levelled at @StreetlightX, it plays off of that my choice of examples is redundant to get the audience to think about the variegated set of interpretations that there are to be drawn from it. There isn't much of a difference between the 2 June Movement and Action Directe, as, though I would caution against this to a certain extent, there is a way of seeing both organizations as being a part of the same organization, the former Red Army Faction. The general gist of it is that any attempt at following all of the way through with a political campaign that does not consist in the creation of nonviolent alternatives to what communists will call "capitalism", nonviolent protest, and/or civic reform will just simply play out like German Autumn, which we ought to know by now, as the political violence to have occurred in the wake of May of 1968 in France or in response to any number of attacks on protestors by the security apparatuses of any number of nation states, depending upon who would like to frame the course of events and how, is something which already happened, all of which is to say that it is actually because of so-called "terror chic", namely that engaging in such actions is a fashionable cult phenomenon, that people, particularly within the far-Left, haven't moved beyond them by now.

@StreetlightX, whom, I am sure, like most people somehow taken by Giorgio Agamben, along with any number of anarchists, is probably not an actual terrorist, however, and is correct to have stated that this is "wildly off-topic". As I am just going to leave at this point, he will just have accept that I will have the final say in this manner and carry on otherwise. As I have put more time, effort, and thought into this than he has, he can, at least, be left with the quiet consolation in the eventual revelation that I am just simply correct.

Anyways, I will be leaving now and just wanted to say that The Philosophy Forum should support Afghan refugees and convince other people to do so as well. Let's hope that the international community will both be welcoming of them and apt in their response.

That, I guess, will have to suffice as my closing remarks.

So long, everyone!

As I have said before, I think that we should welcome the former people of the Republic of Afghanistan with open arms. — thewonder

I think that would be in the millions perhaps to the 2,6 million or so Afghan refugees. Already what can happen is that Afghanis become again the largest refugee group (now there are more Syrian and Venezuelan refugees). People can have a lot of empathy towards Afghan refugees now, but never underestimate how quickly people forget. Empathy can easily turn on it's head and turn into hostility.

Likely those that the media is concentrating on, the people who worked for the Western forces, is the realistic group that doesn't instill a debate.Their best supporters are the soldiers that worked with them.

And of course, one should hope that in the new Islamic Emirate somehow things wouldn't go even worse. Best case scenario is that we would forget the whole country in the media just like Vietnam was forgotten afterwards. The more refugees flee, the more dismal it is for the country. Last thing that the Taliban need is for all of the government and educated class to become refugees. If they would be smart, they would understand that they do need those educated people. But we shal see.

Still, if the Taliban keep their promises and Afghanistan would see peace and be now forgotten, there is one bad consequence here. Every islamic group sees this victory as a sign that they can be victorious too and every government fighting islamic rebels will assume this. Nothing creates more support for militants than actual success. Joe Biden is already promised to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, and basically in Iraq there are only 2500 soldiers. Wonder what the IS will do in Iraq. In the end you can have more violence for example in Africa, which has been the case already there.

Also, huge numbers of refugees for example in the neighboring Central Asian countries could destabilize them too.

Without their mythic Goliath in the form of the United States, they would have to concern themselves with politics in their countries, thereby ultimately abandoning their favored catholicon of revolution in favor of peaceful protest and civic reform, all of which is wildly out of vogue within the far-Left. — thewonder

Well put. And it's so nice to keep things easy. If you give an answer with "On the other hand..." you seem to be confused and weak.

StreetlightX, whom, I am sure, like most people somehow taken by Giorgio Agamben, along with any number of anarchists, is probably not an actual terrorist, however, and is correct to have stated that this is "wildly off-topic". — thewonder

As an Australian, he enjoys freedom of speech. Just like you and me.

The first thing when you don't have democracy, free speech simply dies. People simply don't talk about politics. Not even anonymously in the internet. It's creepy when someone comes to this site and says has he or she is (Mainland) and wants to talk politics. You immediately start to assume you are talking either to a troll or a Chinese security person checking the site for actual Chinese citizens.

Anyways, I will be leaving now and just wanted to say that The Philosophy Forum should support Afghan refugees and convince other people to do so as well. Let's hope that the international community will both be welcoming of them and apt in their response. — thewonder

Let's hope for the best.

So long.

As an Australian, he enjoys freedom of speech. Just like you and me. — ssu

It's a difficult point to get across as I ultimately think that @StreetlightX is pretty alright enough of a person and am emphatically against excessive counter-terror measures and spurious definitions of "terrorism". Nonetheless, however, regardless as to what nuance and clarifications there are to such theories, when Theorie Communiste speaks of "communinising [[i]sic[/i]] measures", what they do effectively turn out to be is to do something like purchase a black leather jacket on consignment, somehow find an Israeli sub-machine gun, and make an attempt at an armed robbery. They, I am sure, would never do so themselves, as I assume for them to be left-wing intellectuals who live with a certain degree of luxury, and ought to, like anyone else, be able to say or write whatever they feel like doing so, but it is kind of a problem that left-wing intellectuals generally aspire towards a somewhat mythic furthest left, as, following all of the way through, which almost no one would ever dare to, with any revolutionary, insurrectionary, or transformative political project that advocates for extreme, which is to say coercive, direct action will just result within the needless loss of civilian life, the eventual suicides of members of groups who carry out such acts, and the excessive expansion of various security apparatuses globally, and, so, out of concern for people within the far-Left, so as to retain a veritable ethic, and even in a pure consideration of an effective strategy, I think that people not only should have rejected such notions, but, also, that they should have done so some fifty years in our political past. Convincing the Left to give up on revolution is like engaging someone on a street corner prophesizing annihilationism in a debate on atheism, however, and, so, there's no real point to even going on about this.

My real kvetch with @StreetlightX is that he'll take preliminary shots at my nearest allies, the aforementioned "bleeding heart liberal" pacifists, before engaging within any debate, which is, I guess, fair enough on his part, but that people on the left are likely to do this does kind of leave me stranded without allies. There's no real talking anyone into anarcho-pacifism, anyways, though, and, so, I really ought to just follow through with my plan to become somehow a-political.

I just felt a need to clarify all of this for some reason.

As before, and finally this time, I will be taking off. Do support Afghan refugees, The Philosophy Forum. 'Til we meet again!

As this is clearly still within the domain of this thread and I am sure that you are all so dreadfully curious, you may, at this juncture, wonder, when I have no allies within the libertarian Left, and do advocate for gradualist nonviolent anarchism, as to why it is that I don't just become a left-wing liberal.

The reason for this is that I would, first, have to abandon both the teleological project of anarchism, which I define as "libertarian socialism", but, here, am willing to invoke the more common "abolition of all hierarchy", and the political praxis of civil disobedience, which, though my status as a law abiding citizen could be used to my advantage, would ultimately alienate a number of my nearest allies, particularly within the libertarian Left. I, then, wonder, in the beaten way of pragmatism, if I wouldn't someday end up as the kind of person to engage in lengthy political debates with other middle-of-the-road would be political analysts on the comments sections of New York Times articles. I will say that my doing so is both a matter of principle and praxis. Within the context of this thread, however, all of that is neither here nor there.

As I have stated before, I think we ought to support Afghan refugees. It'd seem to be the only thing that any of us can really do about any of this, anyways.

Anyways, I will be taking off now. So long!

20 years, nearly a quarter million killed including tens of thousands of civilians, lord knows how many disabled, displaced, at the price tag of $2 trillion and the Taliban retake power within three months. In 2019 it was revealed the US Officials knew the situation was "unwinnable". What would have prevented this? 20 more years? More bodies on the ground and more bodies in the ground? How much more money should we have thrown at it? What about $4 trillion? Maybe $8 trillion? Should the US have just committed to an endless imperial conquest? A July 2021 poll showed that 70% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, supported withdrawal, so the call to escalate was a political non-starter and would have been far more unpopular than withdrawal. The first best thing to have done was to not invade in the first place. The second was immediate withdrawal. Unfortunately it took 20 years to do.

Pls America kindly fuck off from the face of the Earth outside of America kthx. — StreetlightX

@StreetlightX, you really should open a new post about the follies of the US.

The evil presidents, "world police", pandemic mis/handling, war profiteering, (mad) political system, leaked (otherwise withheld/denied) wickedness, colonialist empire-building, "Big Pharma", fascist discrimination, genocidal'ish foreign policy/action, ... Plenty (sub)topics to analyze.

What do the people of Afghanistan want? Why doesn't this get discussed? I don't hear much about it.

I'm thinking the main concern is the regular Afghan, the future.
The Taliban are kind of disparate, in that what the "top" states in public don't reflect what some (tribal) Taliban guys actually do without repercussions.
What might be done in the interest of the regular Afghan? Nothing?

• The fall of Afghanistan is the result of a financial judgement (upd Aug 16, 2021)
• Afghanistan’s all-girls robotics team ‘begging’ Canada to help escape Taliban (Aug 17, 2021)

The US invasion of Afghanistan was, from the beginning, a war crime.

The parallels to Vietnam are striking. Both invasions, both war crimes, both devastating to the invaded country, and both treated by the media as "blundering efforts to do good." Not morally wrong, but "mistakes."

I hope the American population once again learns a hard lesson. With Vietnam, the claim was that we had to defend against the spread of communism. With Afghanistan, the spread of terrorism. Perhaps we'll begin to understand that there will always be pretexts for war, and always ulterior motives (particularly the resources of the countries being invaded, or the boon to defense contractors).

Reich gets it right here:

"Total stock returns for the five biggest defense contractors since September 2001:

Boeing: 974.97 percent
Raytheon: 331.49 percent
Lockheed Martin: 1,235.6 percent
General Dynamics: 625.37 percent
Northrop Grumman: 1,196.14 percent

These defense stocks outperformed the stock market overall by 58 percent during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, lining the pockets of defense executives and shareholders as hundreds of thousands perished. The only winner here was the military-industrial complex."

StreetlightX, you really should open a new post about the follies of the US. — jorndoe

Streetlight needs the new catagory, "Philosophy of Hating the US", shortly to be added as his personal comfort station. If you need/want the latest edition of his views on how piss poor and shitty the USA is, that will be the go-to toilet stall for his content.

What do they want? Just a guess...

They want a society that works for the benefit and wellbeing of its citizens

food in the markets, clean water
the absence of marauders (any stripe) prowling the streets
access to whatever cultural resources they like
an effective education system roughly K-16, or its local equivalent
a working economy (based on the usual goods and services)
an honest effective government
the ability to exercise personal executive agency

Stuff like that.

Can they have it? Given time, and an absence of violent conflict and disruptive interference from outside agents (al Qaida, Pakistan, US, USSR, China, et al) perhaps.

I hope the American population once again learns a hard lesson. — Xtrix

Anyone who expects America to 'learn a lesson' has not learnt the lesson that Americans don't learn lessons. That the US is having a redo of Vietnam is not an accident. It will take nothing less than the crumbling of US empire for this kind of thing to stop. Imperialism doesn't disappear overnight because people have a change of heart. It disappears when the money making potential dries up, and boy has the money making potential not dried up.

Or put differently: the lessons to be learnt from Afganistan are not moral. They are political and economic.

Do you have any thoughts on where the "next Vietnam/Afghanistan" will be?

there will always be pretexts for war — Xtrix

Indeed. I'm generally against war, but can't we at least start with an honest and frank cost-benefit analysis--beyond how much military suppliers will make? Congress should be a much more tight-fisted grantor of largesse to the military. Demand and get detailed explanations of how spending $5,000,000,000,000 in XYZ target country next year is going to benefit say, Des Moines, Portland, Abilene, and Ft. Lauderdale? Don't see any reasonable benefit? Then don't give them the money. Even ask them how spending 5 billion dollars is going to benefit the average person int XYZ target country? Not going to benefit them much? Then don't give them the money.

Probably some proxy war with China over in Africa or something. But considering US invasions have never been based on facts but only ever sheer opportunism it's basically impossible to say. Reasons will be fabricated from the ground up - as they were in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghaistan - and there is no predictive ability in the world that can work with that.

The US pulling out of Afghanistan:

the Biden lies — NOS4A2

What lies did Biden tell?

My real kvetch with StreetlightX is that he'll take preliminary shots at my nearest allies, the aforementioned "bleeding heart liberal" pacifists, before engaging within any debate — thewonder

The reason why left wing politics is failing in a nutshell.

For a movement which used to unite under the banner of Solidarity, most are more interested in the intellectual equivalent of trend-spotting in Vogue than actually gaining any more ground in the fight against class oppression... only the left wing version of being found wearing last years hem-line is to be the recipient of a wall of abuse. My enemy's enemy...

Last I checked the only people quibbling about labels were morons who would rather gatekeep their precious little Nouns than postmortem America's closing down of their Afghan business franchise.

Ah, fuck it. It's not worth it.

Spain and UK have growing concerns for women and girls in Afghanistan

Spain, the UK and others have signed a statement outlining their concerns for women and girls in Afghanistan. The statement said, “We are deeply worried about Afghan women and girls, their rights to education, work and freedom of movement. We call on those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan to guarantee their protection.

:up:

I wish their protection is well guaranteed.