Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

The bottom line is that when Biden entered office on Jan 20, he had choices to make. He could tear up Trump's agreement completely, which would have meant returning to open combat with the Taliban but with far fewer troops in country than Trump had and a much demoralized Afghan army. Or he could try to abide by the agreement and evacuate everyone (apparently 100K-200K citizens, troops, and allies) and tie up all loose ends by May 1, barely more than 3 months away. In the end he got the deadline extended to August 31 somehow (I don't know the story there). And then he fucked up the evacuation order.

I am sure that having the Trump Administration delay cooperation with the Biden transition team for weeks probably didn't help in any way.

[Dr. Strangelove]

tl;dr: it’s a fucking disaster created by Biden, but it’s not THAT big of a fucking disaster….

Shaddup. Why not concern yourself with matters more in your lane, such as whether slivo goes better with Zima or White Claw?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Kraken unleashed on Team Kraken

Federal judge sanctions Sydney Powell, Lin Wood, and all the attorneys who participated in Trump's sham Michigan lawsuit. Refers them to disbarment proceedings in every federal court in the country.

**************************************

"The attorneys who filed the instant lawsuit abused the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by proffering claims not backed by law; proffering claims not backed by evidence (but instead, speculation, conjecture, and unwarranted suspicion); proffering factual allegations and claims without engaging in the required prefiling inquiry; and dragging out these proceedings even after they acknowledged that it was too late to attain the relief sought," wrote Parker in a 110-page opinion, issued Wednesday.

The attorneys conducted no due diligence in checking the veracity of any of the affidavits, none of which showed fraud. Instead, the affidavits were full of innuendo and "seemingly sinister language" that did not deliver on the promise of election misconduct.

Parker called one affidavit a “masterclass on making conjectural leaps and bounds," stating it was worthless because "a document containing the lengthy musings of one dog-walker after encountering a 'smiling, laughing' couple delivering bags of unidentified items in no way serves as evidence that state laws were violated or that fraud occurred."

She also took aim at an affidavit filed in a separate lawsuit by Mellissa Carone, a contract employee who worked at the TCF Center in Detroit on election night. Carone's testimony before a state legislative committee alongside Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was later spoofed on Saturday Night Live.

Parker said Carone's affidavit demonstrated "no misconduct or malfeasance, and amount(ed) to no more than strained and disjointed innuendo of something sinister.”

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/25/federal-judge-sanctions-sidney-powell-kraken-team-over-election-case/5484021001/

[Dr. Strangelove]

Off topic but man, even with as much as they make, you couldn't pay me to be on a school board right now. The videos of fucking lunatics I've seen over the past week...

[Mike]

The Turks are abandoning Kabul airport. It’s rumored that their plan was to carve out influence after our departure. It seems apparent that they realize it’s a worthless cause at this point.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.barrons.com/amp/news/turkish-troops-leave-kabul-abandoning-hopes-for-airport-01629916507

[Dr. Strangelove]

Florida doctor fired from his hospital for offering to write a medical opt-out letter for any child for $50. This moron posted his offer to a Facebook group.

https://www.wctv.tv/2021/08/25/capital-regional-doctor-fired-offering-50-mask-opt-out-letters/

[Jeff Buchanan]

Henry Kissinger on Afghanistan and the withdrawal. It's pay walled. Too good for posters here to miss. Cut and pasted ........

THE TALIBAN takeover of Afghanistan focuses the immediate concern on the extrication of tens of thousands of Americans, allies and Afghans stranded all over the country. Their rescue needs to be our urgent priority. The more fundamental concern, however, is how America found itself moved to withdraw in a decision taken without much warning or consultation with allies or the people most directly involved in 20 years of sacrifice. And why the basic challenge in Afghanistan has been conceived and presented to the public as a choice between full control of Afghanistan or complete withdrawal.

An underlying issue has dogged our counterinsurgency efforts from Vietnam to Iraq for over a generation. When the United States risks the lives of its military, stakes its prestige and involves other countries, it must do so on the basis of a combination of strategic and political objectives. Strategic, to make clear the circumstances for which we fight; political, to define the governing framework to sustain the outcome both within the country concerned and internationally.

The United States has torn itself apart in its counterinsurgent efforts because of its inability to define attainable goals and to link them in a way that is sustainable by the American political process. The military objectives have been too absolute and unattainable and the political ones too abstract and elusive. The failure to link them to each other has involved America in conflicts without definable terminal points and caused us internally to dissolve unified purpose in a swamp of domestic controversies.

We entered Afghanistan amid wide public support in response to the al-Qaeda attack on America launched from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The initial military campaign prevailed with great effectiveness. The Taliban survived essentially in Pakistani sanctuaries, from which it carried out insurgency in Afghanistan with the assistance of some Pakistani authorities.

But as the Taliban was fleeing the country, we lost strategic focus. We convinced ourselves that ultimately the re-establishment of terrorist bases could only be prevented by transforming Afghanistan into a modern state with democratic institutions and a government that ruled constitutionally. Such an enterprise could have no timetable reconcilable with American political processes. In 2010, in an op-ed in response to a troop surge, I warned against a process so prolonged and obtrusive as to turn even non-jihadist Afghans against the entire effort.

For Afghanistan has never been a modern state. Statehood presupposes a sense of common obligation and centralisation of authority. Afghan soil, rich in many elements, lacks these. Building a modern democratic state in Afghanistan where the government’s writ runs uniformly throughout the country implies a timeframe of many years, indeed decades; this cuts against the geographical and ethnoreligious essence of the country. It was precisely Afghanistan’s fractiousness, inaccessibility and absence of central authority that made it an attractive base for terrorist networks in the first place.
_______________

Although a distinct Afghan entity can be dated back to the 18th century, its constituent peoples have always fiercely resisted centralisation. Political and especially military consolidation in Afghanistan has proceeded along ethnic and clan lines, in a basically feudal structure where the decisive power brokers are the organisers of clan defence forces. Typically in latent conflict with each other, these warlords unite in broad coalitions primarily when some outside force—such as the British army that invaded in 1839 and the Soviet armed forces that occupied Afghanistan in 1979—seeks to impose centralisation and coherence.

Both the calamitous British retreat from Kabul in 1842, in which only a single European escaped death or captivity, and the momentous Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 were brought about by such temporary mobilisation among the clans. The contemporary argument that the Afghan people are not willing to fight for themselves is not supported by history. They have been ferocious fighters for their clans and for tribal autonomy.

Over time, the war took on the unlimited characteristic of previous counterinsurgency campaigns in which domestic American support progressively weakened with the passage of time. The destruction of Taliban bases was essentially achieved. But nation-building in a war-torn country absorbed substantial military forces. The Taliban could be contained but not eliminated. And the introduction of unfamiliar forms of government weakened political commitment and enhanced already rife corruption.

Afghanistan thereby repeated previous patterns of American domestic controversies. What the counterinsurgency side of the debate defined as progress, the political one treated as disaster. The two groups tended to paralyse each other during successive administrations of both parties. An example is the 2009 decision to couple a surge of troops in Afghanistan with a simultaneous announcement that they would begin to withdraw in 18 months.

What had been neglected was a conceivable alternative combining achievable objectives. Counterinsurgency might have been reduced to the containment, rather than the destruction, of the Taliban. And the politico-diplomatic course might have explored one of the special aspects of the Afghan reality: that the country’s neighbours—even when adversarial with each other and occasionally to us—feel deeply threatened by Afghanistan’s terrorist potential.

Would it have been possible to co-ordinate some common counterinsurgency efforts? To be sure, India, China, Russia and Pakistan often have divergent interests. A creative diplomacy might have distilled common measures for overcoming terrorism in Afghanistan. This strategy is how Britain defended the land approaches to India across the Middle East for a century without permanent bases but permanent readiness to defend its interests, together with ad hoc regional supporters.

But this alternative was never explored. Having campaigned against the war, Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden undertook peace negotiations with the Taliban to whose extirpation we had committed ourselves, and induced allies to help, 20 years ago. These have now culminated in what amounts to unconditional American withdrawal by the Biden administration.

Describing the evolution does not eliminate the callousness and, above all, the abruptness of the withdrawal decision. America cannot escape being a key component of international order because of its capacities and historic values. It cannot avoid it by withdrawing. How to combat, limit and overcome terrorism enhanced and supported by countries with a self-magnifying and ever more sophisticated technology will remain a global challenge. It must be resisted by national strategic interests together with whatever international structure we are able to create by a commensurate diplomacy.

We must recognise that no dramatic strategic move is available in the immediate future to offset this self-inflicted setback, such as by making new formal commitments in other regions. American rashness would compound disappointment among allies, encourage adversaries, and sow confusion among observers.

The Biden administration is still in its early stages. It should have the opportunity to develop and sustain a comprehensive strategy compatible with domestic and international necessities. Democracies evolve in a conflict of

[THE_WIZARD_]

If all the stuff being left behind is so valuable from an intelligence standpoint, why didn't Trump remove any of it? He signed the withdrawal deal in Feb 2020. That gave him a full year to get anything sensitive out. Are you saying he screwed up?

Maybe once we leave Biden will hit the more valuable equipment with an air strike

You still haven't really explained how you think the Afghan army could have held out against the Taliban if we took away all their guns and equipment.

Is that a serious post???

[THE_WIZARD_]

Tehran 1979 on steroids

[Mike]

I always forget that Henry Kissinger is still alive. The dude is writing op-eds at 98?! Good for him. I hope that if I make it to 98 I’ll still be able to eat apple sauce.

[CGVT]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...ZCiFqJdcYCNeeo

Man who plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sentenced to over 6 years

Prosecutors recommended a reduced sentence for Ty Garbin, 25, saying he cooperated extensively with their investigation.

[Mike]

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul (I thought it was evacuated?) has urged Americans to avoid travel to Kabul airport and flee the gates if you’re already there due to an emerging security threat.

But hey, any American that WANTS to leave can do so. Just don’t try to do it at Kabul airport.

It could not be confirmed at press time if American officials laughed at the situation.

[lineygoblue]

Mike - Did Bagram have an airfield, or was it just a military base? I'm wondering because if it had a airfield where planes landed, it makes no sense that we gave it up so easily.

[Mike]

Bagram Air Field (BAF) is a sprawling complex about 30 miles north of Kabul. It was the base of our operations for the entire 20 years we were in Afghanistan. At one point I believe there were upwards of 20-30,000 coalition forces stationed there. It was basically turned into a full blown military base/post. We built an additional runway that could handle 747s and C-5 Globemasters. President's Bush, Obama, and Trump all traveled to Bagram on Air Force One. It was a very secure air base.

The fact that we just walked out in the middle of the night and essentially surrendered the most strategic air base in the country at a time when we planned on leaving is just crack-smoking stupid. It really defies any common sense. Just unconscionable. It would have been astronomically easier to evacuate from Bagram both in terms of getting our people there, securing the area around the airport, and housing and feeding the evacuees. Instead we have this fucking circus in Kabul.

I still can't wrap my head around how this is playing out. It is 95% a self-made disaster. Biden is abhorrent. He's senile. He can't think his way out of a wet paper sack. He is a danger to the free world. If I lived in Taiwan, I'd be developing my exit strategy NOW.

[Whitley]

If the Taliban is saying that only Americans can leave (ie none of our Afghan allies). I would say fine that's cool. Then I would announce that all our Afghan allies are now American citizens. Then I would take every single one of them (I am sure there are lists and IDs of those that worked for the US).