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

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

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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/

Who Are The ‘Trapped’ ‘Americans Living In Afghanistan’? Nobody Has Asked

America, Conservatism, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Islam, Journalism, Media, Terrorism

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Who the hell are these “Americans living in Afghanistan”? What are they doing in such inhospitable climes, in a country most of whose people hated the American presence?

I can’t find a thing on their nationalities, origins, whereabouts, and occupations, although my guess is that U.S. citizens in Afghanistan lived within army erected green zones, paid for by American taxpayers.

And what is their business in Afghanistan? The incurious moron media never ask (although watch conservatives who monitor dissident content miraculously come up with these questions following publication of this material).

Growing up in Israel, I recall many Israelis, in those days, went to Africa to help a few friendly nations learn how to … farm in the desert, something Israel had perfected. What are our citizens doing in Afghanistan? Is nobody curious?

The blowhards on Fox News have been whooping it up with partisan battle cries such as, “Hostages, Americans behind enemy lines. Teach the Taliban a lesson, Corn Pop.”

Dare I ask if these Americans are making money off military contracts, the spoils of the military-industrial-complex?

My colleague, David Vance, did some digging. He sends a likely breakdown of “Americans in Afghanistan,” via “Danger Zone Jobs, which tracks more than 300 companies with overseas contracting jobs in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries.” It reeks:

“US troops remain in Afghanistan and as many analysts pointed out, the military numbers, whatever they end up being, have typically been supported by even more private contractors. As long as troops are on the ground in Afghanistan, civilian contractors will be there with them. …The two primary sources of jobs in Afghanistan are with private contractors supporting the military and companies who subcontract to various international relief and development efforts.”

“Approximately 29,389 DoD contractors supported operations in Afghanistan during 1st quarter FY19, an increase of 16.4% from 4th quarter FY18. Local Nationals comprise 21.5% of total contractor force; 23,078 US/TCN remain to redeploy.”

The distribution of contractors in Afghanistan by mission category are:

Base Support 4,140 (14.1%)
Construction 2,113 (7.2%)
IT/Communications Support 951 (3.2%)
Logistics/Maintenance 9,271 (31.5%)
Management/Administrative 1,881 (6.4%)
Medical/Dental/Social Services 88 (0.2%)
Other 690 (2.4%)
Security 4,842 (16.5%)
Training 1,372 (4.7%)
Translator/Interpreter 2,138 (7.3%)
Transportation 1,903 (6.5%)
Total: 29,389

MORE.

*Image care of WSJ.

America Doesn’t Know Shiite From Shinola: Iran (Shia) Worries About Afghanistan Insanity (Sunni)

English, Individual Rights, Iran, Islam, John McCain, Terrorism, The West

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The title for this blog post comes from a 2014 column, “Don’t Know Shiite From Shinola,” in which I write that America is “a mulish military power which doesn’t know Shiite from Shinola.” The original expression is 100% American: “Doesn’t know shit from Shinola“:

Shinola was a brand of shoe polish previously manufactured in the USA. The alliteration of the expression ‘doesn’t know shit from Shinola’ partly explains the derivation. Also, without putting too fine a point on it, the two things named in the expression could possibly be confused. However, only one of them would be good to apply to your shoes and only particularly dim people could be expected to muddle them up.

To continue the theme of the previous blog post, “Afghanistan And Its Neighbors; China And Those Uyghurs,” you’re not considered properly American unless you’re carping about “Iran, Iran, Iran.” The John McCain version is, “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”


For merely asking, “When last did Iran commit terrorism against the US?,” Tucker Carlson was attacked viciously by Mark Levin. Carlson, however, was on the money. As I chronicled in this 2017 blog post: “Iranians Killed ZERO Americans In Terrorist Attacks In U.S. Between 1975 -2015.”

Iran is neighbor to Afghanistan, sharing a long border with it. And, “Iran … has a more tortured relationship with the Taliban. Its leaders are certainly delighted to see the Great Satan, America, abandon its bases next door.”

As always, The Economist offers informed analysis in, “Afghanistan’s neighbours are preparing for life with the Taliban”:

“Shia Muslims … view their own Islamic revolution as a modernising movement.” After all, “Women can study, work and hold office in Iran, so long as they veil.” Yes, Iranians “look askance at the Taliban’s hidebound Sunni fanaticism.”

Swamped for decades with destitute refugees and cheap heroin from Afghanistan, Iran is also worried about a new influx, particularly of Hazaras, a Shia ethnic minority that the Taliban have viciously persecuted in the past.

“With little leverage over the Taliban and no liking for the tottering government in Kabul, Iran is likely instead to lend support to local Afghan militias in the border region, which recently beat off a Taliban assault on the city of Herat.”

What do you know? When compared with the Sunni Islam (Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism), a faction of Islam with whose practitioners the West feels much more simpatico—Shia Islam (Iran’s poison of choice) is more enlightened. Yet America and Israel side with Saudi Arabia, the epitome of Sunni insanity. Go figure. And the title says it all:

America Doesn’t Know Shiite From Shinola.

Thoughts from Twitter:

We invade and then centralize:

Totally tribal: This would sound like a brand name to our idiots, but it’s how Afghans think and feel.

Our fight for democracy is not necessarily theirs.

 

*Image courtesy LinkedIn

It’s Taliban Tube, Not YouTube (And Gab’s Torba Is Truly Free)

Conservatism, COVID-19, Free Speech, Healthcare, Internet, Kids, Media, Technology, THE ELITES, The Establishment

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Intelligent people have lost trust in mainstream medicine for many reasons. Cool heads have no trouble detecting sub-intelligent “argument” for the power-play and propaganda that it is.

Put it this way: When I hear an outstanding, empathetic clinician and academic such as Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH, author of “Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection” and tens more peer-reviewed publications on COVID—and then I hear TV’s tenured medics, or the mediocre, unquestioning medics manning the clinics into which we are all herded—losing my lunch is not the only response.

The McCullough medical school of thought saves lives; the rest contribute to iatrogenic death. (Look iatrogenic up.)

Deep, abiding, irredeemable contempt springs eternal for the thought process in these mediocre medical minds and the attendant abuse of power and harm to patients.

Now, David Vance, my partner in the Hard Truth podcast, has exhorted that, “If It’s On The Mainstream Media, You Should Ignore It.” David had published these mild words on Taliban Tube, aka You Tube, and was promptly sent to the dog house for the next 2 weeks: banned.

Fuck the DemoPublican Establishment’s war to civilize the Taliban, when an exhortation to think critically about media, the mediocre medical establishment, and experimental treatment is marginalized and punished. A society of social casts is being created, says David: Those who obey blindly, and those who cling to the freedom to question.

But, he says, “The sheep are delivering us straight to the abattoir.” And the young people have, sadly, been a cohort readily inclined to accept authority and follow orders at all time.

Thankfully, Rumble has featured David’s apparently subversive common sense, “Never trust ANYTHING the lame-stream media says!”

Gab’s Andrew Torba, however, has observed, in a quibble with Dan Bongino, that Rumble is NOT free; It has Hate Speech “codes.” Likewise Parler. In fact, for me, being on Parler has been like being coffined. I like Twitter much more, even though I am shadow-banned there.

In fact, since I’m a Candace Owens critic, I strongly suspect I’m shadow-banned by Parler, owned by Mr. Owens. The feeling I get from feedback or lack thereof on Parler is Establishment Republican. There is no place on Parler for true dissidents and free thinkers.

Gab is absolutely and truly free. There, people connect and keep connecting. Parler, as I said, is like being coffined. If the GOP Establishment think making Parler hostile to people like me is good for their endeavor; think again. The numbers of thinking conservatives and paleolibertarians who hate what Ned Ryun called the “credentialed Idiocracy,” on TV and in DC—is growing.