Category Archives: Military

NEW COLUMN: Afghanistan: Bringing The Military-Industrial-Complex Home

America, Asia, China, Foreign Policy, Iran, Military, War

NEW COLUMN: “Bringing The Military-Industrial Complex Home,” or “State Department Still Doesn’t Know Shiite From Shinola,” is on WND.COM, the Unz Review and The New American (“War Is the Health of the State — and the Statists“).

Excerpt:

Realpolitik: What Modest Foreign Policy Looks Like

Similarly, you are not a good pack animal unless you worry about “the Uyghurs, the Uyghurs. China is oppressing the Uyghurs. Our values, our values.”

Uyghurs are also China’s biggest headache, now that America is no longer mired in Afghanistan. What the dummies on the idiot’s lantern fail to tell you—although analysts at The Economist do—“Uyghurs count among thousands of foreign jihadists active in Afghanistan, mostly enlisted in Taliban ranks.”

So, as the skittish media hounds and politicians, stateside, gnash teeth and beat on breast over Afghanistan, less hysterical countries, abutting Afghanistan, are acting calmly in their national interest, to ensure that Jihad and heroin don’t spill over their borders.

Unlike Lara Kissinger Logan of Fox News, who “thinks” America could have won a war that other superpowers have lost—the Chinese and the Iranians are hip to what just happened. This was “probably one of the best conceived and planned guerrilla campaigns ever,” says Mike Martin, a former British army officer in Helmand province, now at King’s College London. “The Taliban went into every district and flipped all the local militias by doing deals along tribal lines.”

In negotiations with the Taliban, Beijing has thus realistically demanded that Afghanistan not become “a base for ethnic Uyghur separatists.” For their part, “Taliban leaders have pledged to leave Chinese interests in Afghanistan alone and not to harbor any anti-China extremist groups.”

Like Beijing, Tehran, too, is busying itself with realpolitik….

… In all, after Afghanistan, we can all agree that American foreign policy is an angels-and-demons Disney production—starring the prototypical evil dictators killing their noble people, until the US rides to the rescue—and that the producers at Foggy Bottom don’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing. …

… READ ON. “Bringing The Military-Industrial Complex Home,” or “State Department Still Doesn’t Know Shiite From Shinola,” is on WND.COM, the Unz Review and The New American (“War Is the Health of the State — and the Statists“).

WATCH: Afghanistan: Bringing the Military-Industrial-Complex Home

America, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Media, Middle East, Military, Terrorism, War

NEW ON VIDEO: “Afghanistan: Bringing the Military-Industrial-Complex Home

“Who exactly are those “trapped” Americans living, up until now, in Afghanistan? The military-industrial-complex! David and ilana break it down on Hard Truth.

To paraphrase Randolph Bourne, war is the health of the State—and the statists. As the skittish media hounds and the politicians, stateside, gnash teeth and beat on breast over Afghanistan, HARD Truth also examines how less hysterical countries abutting Afghanistan are acting calmly in their national interest.

LISTEN on the go by downloading the Hard Truth podcast: https://hardtruthwithdavidvanceandilanamercer.podbean.com/e/afghanistan-bringing-the-military-industrial-complex-home/

UPDATED (8/23): Afghanistan And Its Neighbors; China And Those Uyghurs

America, China, Foreign Policy, Globalism, Individual Rights, Islam, Jihad, Military, Neoconservatism, Propaganda

“The Uyghurs, the Uyghurs; China is oppressing the Uyghurs. Our values, our values; being an American means you must fret about the Uyghurs. You hear me, hillbilly? In fact, you can’t be an American unless you worry about the Uyghurs.” (Watch me!)

That’s the bobble heads on TV. As dumb as fuck, bereft of any deep, historical or geopolitical insights—they mouth shallow talking points, extracted from Wokipedia.

These TV twits and twats are used to telling their receptive, equally “knowledgeable” audiences that China has “thrown a million Uyghurs into prison camps.”

True (not that it’s any of our business).

What the dummies on the idiot’s lantern don’t tell you is that, “Uyghurs count among thousands of foreign jihadists active in Afghanistan, mostly enlisted in Taliban ranks.”

I’m not saying China is justified in interning a Jihad-prone population living in its midst, but neither are the overlords of the West (see “Our Overlords Who Art in D.C (2010)”, if you want to know how “overlords” drifted into such popular use) justified in jailing January 6 protesters  without due process, allowing the banning of innocent, law-abiding citizens from the banking establishments, threatening those who defend their homes with incarceration, on and on.

And it is about American dissidents that I care.

While menstrual America frets over “the images, the images, oh the images (“the children, the children)” coming out of Afghanistan; the grown-ups (or the men) in the region, whose countries abut Afghanistan, have gotten together to ensure that Jihad doesn’t spill over into their countries. It’s called acting in the national interest.

Excellent analysis in “Afghanistan’s neighbours are preparing for life with the Taliban: Regional powers are not looking forward to it. But they cannot agree on what to do about it.

UPDATE (8/23): “What Beijing has offered the Taliban so far is an open hand and a hint of legitimacy. In late July, China invited some Taliban leaders to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing. It was a significantly public gesture to demonstrate goodwill toward the insurgent group. In exchange, Taliban leaders pledged to leave Chinese interests in Afghanistan alone and not to harbor any anti-China extremist groups.” (NPR)

Sounds like China has a modest foreign policy. Striking not a military blow, but an agreement. If only…

*Images courtesy The Economist

UPDATED (8/22): The Empire’s Pilot And His Cargo

America, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Journalism, Military, Terrorism

The image you see here shows “inside a U.S. Air Force C-17 plane that left Kabul for Qatar on Aug. 15 (Courtesy of Defense One).”

Media “reporting” on Afghanistan is not reporting, but, rather, an unremitting gush, in an effort to create a state of heightened sentimentality, sentiments of the right kind, of course. That involves a constant reference to the “American retreat from Saigon, Vietnam, in 1975.” Truly repulsive.

I see a special commendation in the future of the Empire’s Pilot, who made a decision to airlift more Afghanis—not Americans, mind you—than his C-17 (“workhorses of the airlift are four-engine Boeing C-17A Globemaster jets which combine excellent cargo capacity, long range and short-takeoff and landing capability“) would ordinarily carry.

The pilots initially thought 800 passengers were on board, according to an apparent audio clip from the flight, in a plane that can carry up to 164,900 pounds. “How many people are on your jet,” an unidentified person asks the flight. “800 people on your jet? Holy cow.”

“Make no mistake,” slobbers Forbes, “lifting six times more people than an aircraft is designed to seat is a heroic achievement of logistics, skill and sheer grit.”

Not that these inept journalists ask for an accounting—but reading between the lines, it is my impression that very few Americans—in the mere hundreds—have been airlifted to safety. I guess Americans are not quite as pushy.

Besides, while funded by Americans, the US military’s allegiances are global and humanitarian. Our soldiers are trained to be “a global force for good.” In 2009, that indeed was “the U.S. Navy’s recruiting slogan,” for a while.

The slogan was ditched then, but it is perfectly apropos now, since recruits are inculcated with a thoroughly cosmopolitan, even anti-American, sensibility.

By the sounds of it, very few Americans are on these flights.

Via US News:

A defense official said about 5,700 people, including about 250 Americans, were flown out of Kabul aboard 16 C-17 transport planes, guarded by a temporary U.S. military deployment that’s building to 6,000 troops. On each of the previous two days, about 2,000 people were airlifted.
Biden said 169 Americans had been brought to the airport from beyond its perimeter, but he provided no details.

UPDATE (8/22):

MORE PLEASE: Young, military age men: