The Afghanistan tragedy unfolds in real time

Buggering out real soon

American soldier on a Chinook helicopter over Kabul last Sunday

The New York Times writes:

The United States and its NATO allies spent decades building Kandahar Airfield into a wartime city, filled with tents, operations centers, barracks, basketball courts, ammunition storage sites, aircraft hangars and at least one post office.

Once the base is stripped of everything deemed sensitive by its American and NATO landlords, its skeleton will be handed over to the Afghan security forces.

And the message will be clear: They are on their own in the fight against the Taliban.

The scenes over the weekend were almost as if a multitrillion-dollar war machine had morphed into a garage sale.

On the other side of the base that morning, an Afghan transport aircraft arrived from Kabul. It was loaded with mortar shells, small-arms cartridges and 250-pound bombs to supply Afghan troops under frequent attack by the Taliban in the countryside.

The American withdrawal, almost quiet, and with a veneer of orderliness, belies the desperate circumstances just beyond the base’s wall.

The NYT goes on to report that Maj. Mohammed Bashir Zahid, in charge of a small Afghan air command center at the Kandahar airbase, was desperately trying to get air support for Afghan security forces on the ground and in nearby outposts under attack by Taliban fighters. The American presence in the area around Kandahar never cleared out Taliban resistance. Never. 

Maj. Zahid, center, desperately calling for help

The Taliban is coming for him and, if he has one, his family

US aircraft from the carrier USS Eisenhower are now bombing US military equipment on the Kandahar airbase. The Afghan military desperately needs that equipment but the US is destroying tens or hundreds or millions of dollars worth of US military equipment. The NYT makes the reason clear: “Americans most likely destroyed the vehicles to prevent them from being sold off, given the rampant corruption in much of the ranks.” 

Once again, rampant corruption helps destroy civil society, common decency, honesty and any hope for any form of real democracy. Centuries ago, Machiavelli warned the Prince not to be too corrupt and not rape too many peasant women. The men in Afghanistan either didn't read The Prince, or they know the warning doesn't matter because they believe they are beyond reach of a vengeful, powerless, deceived populace.

A commentator at CNN wrote this a few days ago:

The lies American officers told were necessary ways of pretending the country they were handing to the next rotation of troops was better off than when they found it. “Turning the corner” and “winning hearts and minds” each summer and year being the "most important yet" to “turn the tide.”

The lies the British -- the largest NATO ally there -- told were smaller, perhaps pettier, in the extremely violent and sparsely populated desert of Helmand they tried to control. Always said to be underfunded compared to their allies, always courageous, always carrying on and always maintaining their plan was working, even when it clearly was not. In the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, I was once told I could not see the frontlines until I had met the area's commander. He was in Dubai for a few days, I was told, so I would have to wait until then. I saw him five minutes later at the neighboring urinal. The deceit was often as clumsy as it was unnecessary.

The Taliban was an insurgency the West enjoyed painting as an implacable monster that could not be dealt with, until, of course, it had to deal with the group in order to leave. Rural poverty, decades of violence and loss and an inexplicable foreign presence dictating how to live help explain why the Taliban persist and grow. It took the West years to realize these Taliban would be in Afghanistan regardless of what it did, no matter how many were killed in combat.

For America, the final truth of this war is that for outsiders with limited patience, understanding and resources, any occupation is by definition unwinnable.

Yet for Afghans it goes on. Without American airpower holding back Taliban advances, the truths will be more violent, unpalatably bitter and lead to more lies, as a new chapter in decades of violence churns and swirls.

Questions: Is it unfair or counterproductive for me, America or democracy in general to be this brutally honest, assuming the information relied on is at least reasonably accurately reflects the real situation? What is an objective basis for hope, something I very much want to see but cannot? What am I not seeing? (I want to see it) Am I racist? 

America is unlikely to reach herd immunity

The New York Times writes:

Widely circulating coronavirus variants and persistent hesitancy about vaccines will keep the goal out of reach.

Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

The NYT goes on to point out that the level of infections, hospitalization and deaths will depend on (i) how many people are willing to get vaccinated and (ii) how nasty new virus variants will be. 

Millions of Americans are refusing to get vaccinated. Some point to the lack of long-term safety data, a legitimate concern, but one that decreases the longer the vaccines have been in use and safety data accumulates. Some don't believe the vaccines work, which is blithering nonsense. Some are anti-vaxx conspiracy theory crackpots. For various reasons, some listen to liars who attack COVID vaccines as causing deaths, ineffective, immoral and/or an attack on their freedom. And, now that herd immunity is not likely to be possible, some will get discouraged, just give up and take their chances that the vaccinated rest of us will protect them.

Some context helps.

• All states require vaccination against diseases such as polio, tetanus and measles, but most with opt-out exceptions for personal or religious reasons 
• An employer may be able require employees to get vaccinated against COVID under most circumstances, but that's uncertain because the vaccines now are under an emergency use authorization instead of a normal use authorization
• A person with HIV is criminally liable for prosecution if they transmit the virus to their partner without informing the partner of their HIV status; usually intentional or knowing failure to disclose is the criminal offense
• As of now, over half of adult Americans (>165 million) have received at least one vaccine shot and so far benefits continue to outweigh side effect risks
• Current data shows the vaccines are effective by significantly reducing the rate of new infections by at least 90% in populations where there is data
• Experts believe that at least 80 percent of people need to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity, but about 30 percent of the US population is still reluctant or refuses to be vaccinated

It is a fact that some people who intentionally choose to not get vaccinated will infect other people, some of whom will die. 

What, should society do to protect itself? Nothing, because vaccination is a matter of personal choice or personal liberty? Criminalize or fine non-vaccination when it causes infection or death, assuming an infection or death is linked to an unvaccinated person? Let infected people or their estates sue the unvaccinated person? Why should COVID be treated any different than HIV, polio, tetanus or measles? Is refusal to be vaccinated morally justifiable on the grounds of personal freedom, religious belief or anything else? Should there be a tax penalty for refusal to get vaccinated so that the US can recover at least some of the cost that unvaccinated people will inevitably cause?

Republicans ramp up voter intimidation

Non-intimidating Republican patriots ensuring clean voting at the 

polls by limiting fraudulent democratic and minority votes

Apparently, it is not enough to just pass laws restricting and suppressing voting by democrats and minorities. Republican lawmakers are also passing laws that protect voter intimidation in urban areas with high levels of democratic and minority votes. The New York Times writes:

HOUSTON — The red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods.

“This is where the fraud is occurring,” a county Republican official said falsely in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he was trying to recruit people from his area “to have the confidence and courage” to act as poll watchers in the circled areas in upcoming elections.

A question at the bottom corner of the slide indicated just how many poll watchers the party wanted to mobilize: “Can we build a 10K Election Integrity Brigade?”

As Republican lawmakers in major battleground states seek to make voting harder and more confusing through a web of new election laws, they are simultaneously making a concerted legislative push to grant more autonomy and access to partisan poll watchers — citizens trained by a campaign or a party and authorized by local election officials to observe the electoral process.

Republicans have offered little evidence to justify a need for poll watchers to have expanded access and autonomy. .... they have grounded their reasoning in arguments that their voters want more secure elections. That desire was born in large part out of Mr. Trump’s repeated lies about last year’s presidential contest, which included complaints about insufficient poll watcher access.

The NYT points out that republicans are working on 40 such laws in 20 states. The laws generally make it almost impossible for poll workers to throw intimidating poll observers out. That leaves republican goon free to intimidate voters in minority and liberal precincts. Republicans do not plan to observe polls in conservative White precincts because those people are all law abiding patriots and no poll watching is needed.

A proposed Texas law allows partisan goons to photograph and video-record voters receiving assistance. Maybe one option is for voters whose privacy is being intruded on by republican thugs videoing them is to overtly show proper respect, for example, like this:

As one can imagine, the video-recording measure is alarming to some folks. That intrusion on privacy could result in identification of a voter in a video posted on social media. Even worse, that could allow videos to be used by partisan propaganda outlets like Fox News to spread lies and slanders as they normally do. Maybe the formal slander industry itself could get involved to help make the democratic or minority voter's life as miserable as possible. That will teach people a well-deserved lesson for asking for help in voting.

Questions: Is this more evidence of how anti-democratic, fascist and mendacious the republican party is? Or, are these laws merely honest, patriotic attempts to protect against profoundly corrupt, fraudulent voting by democrats and minorities in corrupt, violent, communist urban areas? Or, are non-republican voters now well informed enough to not be intimidated by thuggish republican attempts to keep the opposition from voting, making this just a dust bunny in a teapot or whatever metaphor fits better?

Carville says Democrats have 'wokeness' problem: 'We all know it'

Democratic strategist James Carville says that Democrats have a "wokeness" problem and "we all know it," adding the party needs to talk about racial issues using the language of everyday Americans.

Speaking with Vox in an interview published Tuesday, Carville said that Democrats often discuss racial issues using language that is alienating to some of the communities they are trying to reach.

"Wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it. It’s hard to talk to anybody today — and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party — who doesn’t say this. But they don’t want to say it out loud," Carville said.

Carville, who served as former President Clinton's chief strategist for his 1992 presidential campaign, said in the interview, "You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like 'Latinx' that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like 'communities of color.' I don’t know anyone who speaks like that. I don’t know anyone who lives in a 'community of color.' I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in ... neighborhoods."

Carville explained that Democrats also can't shy away from talking about racial issues but said that the party needs "to do it without using jargon-y language" that he called "unrecognizable to most people — including most Black people, by the way."

"This 'too cool for school' shit doesn’t work, and we have to stop it," Carville added.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/550679-carville-says-democrats-have-wokeness-problem-we-all-know-it

QUESTION:

Does Carville have a point or is he over-analyzing, or just plain full of it?

Effects of illegal acts by protestors

George Floyd protestors

Really? By any means necessary?

Let's hope not

Parts of the far left have gone so far in the political circle that they are now all but indistinguishable from the far right. ....  When there are people who espouse [major crimes including murder and bombings] .... then we are dealing with people who are merely hiding psychosis behind a political mask. The masses of people recoil in horror and say, "Our way is bad and we were willing to let it change, but certainly not for this murderous madness--no matter how bad things are now, they are better than that." So they begin to turn back. They regress into acceptance of a coming massive repression in the name of "law and order." -- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, 1971

Most illegal acts in otherwise lawful protests are either attacks on other people or property destruction. The latter is not as serious as physical assault of a person. The law generally does not treat the two as equivalent, with assault or attack on a person generally being a more serious infraction. If the amount of property damage is too high, the crime can elevate from a misdemeanor to a felony. The laws vary from state to state.

Breaking a window in a protest arguably is a form of speech. It is illegal speech, but speech nonetheless. It's sort of like flag burning. That is protected speech, but arguably stupid, inarticulate, usually counter productive speech. A question one can ask is exactly what does the act of breaking a window convey? Say there's a peaceful, legal protest with hundreds of people protesting unwarranted-unacceptable police use of force, but a few bored local hooligans join in for kicks. The most common crime perpetrators in such protests actually are bored local hooligans. There's some empirical data indicating that most of the lawbreaking is not by Antifa or leftist radicals, but instead is by by bored locals, usually young men.

So, the bored hooligans throw some rocks and break windows causing about $10,000 in damage. What social value was in what those perpetrators did? What they did was (1) tarnish, undermine and discredit both the cause and the peaceful protestors themselves, and (2) provide ammunition for propagandists who then gleefully go on to smear the entire protest movement against unwarranted police acts and in the process convince millions of Americans that all the protestors are violent criminal socialists. That's what the illegal act (speech) of some bored hooligans have actually done in the real world since George Floyd was murdered.

But do the analysis differently. Change the hypothetical (which I believe is the actual dominant reality) to one where a few of the peaceful protestors lose control and break windows causing about $10,000 in damage. What was the social value of that lawbreaking? Specifically, what did their speech or behavior do? It did even more damage than what the hooligans did in the first hypothetical. Some of the lawbreakers actually were peaceful protestors until they lost control of their emotions and behaviors. That kernel of truth adds to the power of the propaganda that smears all the protestors as violent criminal socialists who propagandists excitedly portray as major threats to law and order everywhere.

In response to the massive threat the violent criminal socialists are portrayed as being, republicans in 35 states are writing or have passed laws making lawbreaking in otherwise legal protests more serious offenses. In at least one state, a law protects a person in a car who runs down and kills protestors illegally blocking a street.[1] That's right -- under the right circumstances you can use your car to kill protestors who are blocking a street. (it's an honor culture mentality thing that's akin to stand your ground laws that protect a killer who was merely standing their ground and felt threatened by someone) That is part of the authoritarian propaganda-fueled backlash that breaking windows, committing arson and looting during otherwise peaceful protests is unleashing on American society.

That's why one can argue that all lawbreaking by anyone should be prosecuted in all otherwise peaceful legal protests.

Peaceful legal protests. That raises another question. What about illegal protests? What then? Well, if a protest is illegal from the get go, all the people can be smeared as violent criminal socialists and exuberantly portrayed as major threats to law and order. What if the states pass laws that simply neuter protesting by requiring the protests to occur in places and times that render the protest less effective? Then what?

Questions: Does what Saul Alinsky wrote in 1971 about far left radicalism apply at least somewhat to how street protests about police brutality are being treated in 2020 and 2021? Although breaking windows and looting stores are not the same crimes as assassinations and bombings, are there parallels in how society is reacting, e.g., by passing laws that clamp down on street protest illegality in the name of law and order?

Footnote: 

1. Vox writes: 

The most recent example of such a law came Wednesday, when Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a new law that effectively allows drivers to hit people with a car in a specific set of circumstances.

Under the new law, an Oklahoma driver will no longer be liable for striking — or even killing — a person if the driver is “fleeing from a riot ... under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death.”

That raises questions. What is a riot? Someone breaking windows in an otherwise peaceful protest? What is a reasonable belief? For example, a Proud Boy wants to kill some George Floyd protesters, so he drives gently into a crowd and some protesters bang on his car with their fists because he is being an asshole. So he then responds by hitting the accelerator and mows a bunch of 'em down, killing two people and grievously injuring three. Later he claims he had a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect himself from serious injury or death, he walks free and goes on to regale his Proud Boy friends with what good clean fun he had at the protest.

So many questions. So much social animosity and hate. So many far right haters willing to kill. But what about far left haters? Can they gently drive into a crowd at a rally for the ex-president and do the same God-awful thing?

Opinion Poll

Question 1: On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is lowest and 10 is highest, overall, how do you rate President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office?

Question 2: What issues are most important to you?

Question 3: What issues are least important to you?

Question 4: What hasn’t happened yet that you’d like to see happen?

 

Thanks for posting and recommending.