[ExI] libertarian ideas ATTN: HENRY

[William Flynn Wallace]

Has the United States done anything anywhere in the Middle East that worked
out right?  What, in fact, were our motives?  Try to be the world's
policeman?  Make tribal societies democratic?  Having Israel as an ally has
made our name mud, but I think that's the right thing to do.  One for us.

Directly or indirectly our country has killed many thousands of Middle
Easterners.  Let's just get out  and stay out.  I know the military wants
to go somewhere and kill people with new tech.  Otherwise why are we
spending hundreds of millions on weapons?

Did we not learn anything from history in Afghanistan?  Nobody other than
homegrown folks will do there.  We should stay and fight for people who
don't want us there?  For people who won't fight their own fights?  Biden
will lose popularity because of Taliban massacres but he did the right
thing.

Did the Taliban do anything really different to protestors than we did at
Kent State?  Hardly comparable you say?  How is that?

We need to lay back and think about where we want to go - and it's not
overseas!!  We accuse other countries of things we do ourselves.  I. e. we
are hypocrites.  Moral prigs.  Self-righteous thugs.  As China and Russia
repeatedly say.

As a wild and crazy idea, why don't we concentrate on helping other
countries, the way China is doing in Africa.  Tell me why not?  Good people
share things, and we have a lot to share with third world countries.

bill

On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 1:34 PM BillK via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 22 Aug 2021 at 18:55, spike jones via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> > I am surprised this kind of discussion continues considering the
> horrifying events which unfolded last week.
> >
> > The Taliban army, said to consist of less than 50k fighters, managed to
> defeat a government-backed army over 5 times its size, after the
> Afghanistan president skipped town.  An army operates on commands from
> above.  If the commander in chief gets outta Dodge, the army stands down,
> for lack of orders.
> >
> > Well OK then.  An army must have orders.  But a militia does not.  It is
> a volunteer civilian army.
> >
> > So… a city of nearly 5 million civilians was taken over by an army of
> less than 50k fighters, ratio about 100 to 1.  Afghanistan doesn’t have a
> militia, as America does, and its citizens do not have the recognized right
> to bear arms as Americans do.  So… those who worked with Americans, and in
> some cases American citizens, sit there, unarmed and completely helpless as
> the nation’s army stands down for lack of orders, waiting for the Taliban
> to come, identify them and murder them.
> >
> > What if… Afghanistan had recognized the right of citizens to bear arms?
> And what if… the government there saw to it that the citizenry had
> dangerous weapons, plenty of ammo and were trained in their use?  The
> Taliban would have come into Kabul to meet an enormous armed civilian
> militia.  Never mind a gun behind every bush: Afghanistan doesn’t have
> enough bushes to cover all the guns the murderous savages would be facing.
> >
> > spike
>  _______________________________________________
>
>
> Spike,
> I don't think the US population has been very well informed about the
> true situation in Afghanistan.
> The US were the invaders in that country. The Middle East is tribal,
> they don't have the same civilisation that the US does. The Afghan
> population
> all have relatives in the Taliban. They have seen US drones killing
> civilians throughout the country. They were just taking the US
> resources and money and waiting until the US got fed up and left.
> The Taliban is now wearing US uniforms, carrying US weapons, driving
> US military vehicles and living in US barracks.
>
> One (of many) articles with an alternative view is here:
> <https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-us-government-lied-for-two-decades>
>
> The U.S. Government Lied For Two Decades About Afghanistan
> Using the same deceitful tactics they pioneered in Vietnam, U.S.
> political and military officials repeatedly misled the country about
> the prospects for success in Afghanistan.
>
> Glenn Greenwald  Aug 16, 2021
> Quote:
> The former soldier, whose job was to work in training programs for the
> Afghan police and also participated in training briefings for the
> Afghan military, described in detail why the program to train Afghan
> security forces was such an obvious failure and even a farce. “I don’t
> think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed
> for funneling money and wasting or losing equipment,” he said. In sum,
> “as far as the US military presence there — I just viewed it as a big
> money funneling operation”: an endless money pit for U.S. security
> contractors and Afghan warlords, all of whom knew that no real
> progress was being made, just sucking up as much U.S. taxpayer money
> as they could before the inevitable withdrawal and takeover by the
> Taliban.
> -----------------
>
> BillK
>
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>
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