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Thu, 30 Sep 2021
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Did America just lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?

Preston Byrne
prestonbyrne.com
Sun, 15 Aug 2021 10:21 UTC
taliban social media whatsapp

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan and sought to use the messaging service to help it govern.
In the middle of a conflict, good analysis is hard to come by. Because adversaries do not telegraph their plans to one another, plans depend greatly on the fact patterns surrounding their execution, and no human mind can possibly observe, much less comprehend, the movements of all players on the battlefield, the course of a war, no matter how meticulously planned and no matter how eminently credentialed the planners, frequently defies the plan.

This phenomenon is known as the "Fog of War," a phrase which originated with Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in his magnum opus, On War:
War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.
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Eye 1

Like the Berlin Wall or the Twin Towers: footage of fleeing Afghans abandoned by US marks the end of an era for American supremacy

Fyodor Lukyanov
RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 14:01 UTC
Afghanistan plane
© Twitter
US President Joe Biden's speech on his country's withdrawal from Afghanistan is a turning point in American foreign policy. As the last troops pull out, leaving a shattered nation behind, Washington seems to have few regrets.

"I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the United States," Biden explained. In essence, he was arguing that his three predecessors didn't have the guts to make the right decision, taking a swipe not only at Donald Trump, whom he mentioned my name, but also at George W. Bush and even his former boss, Barack Obama.

According to the president, the US was never in the business of nation-building in Afghanistan. Its objectives, he claims, were more immediate: to boost security and eliminate those who were responsible for the terrorist attacks on America. Apparently, these objectives have been reached. Questionable as that might be, the claim Washington had no nation-building ambitions is simply not true. However, the fact Biden is now fiercely denying the premise on which his country entered Afghanistan 20 years ago says a lot.

America's 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was an operation that sent a clear message: the US was prepared to transform the world by force. That attitude didn't start with George W. Bush or even Bill Clinton. This idea was first voiced by the American president who claimed victory in the Cold War: George H.W. Bush. Operation Desert Storm, in 1991, became the first sign of the "new world order," but the Soviet Union was still in existence at the time, and the intervention resulted in pushing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, not in a regime change in Iraq.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

A hell of our own making - reflections on the road to Kabul

Edward Snowden
edwardsnowden.substack.com
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Person falling
© Unknown
Person falling from jet plane taking off from airport in Kabul, Afghanistan
The last week has been hard for me, and yet I can only imagine what this week has felt like, and what the future will bring, for the people — the peoples — of Afghanistan.

Nearly 20 years after it was launched in the wake of 9/11, the long war in Afghanistan, one of the great cruelties of my generation, has unexpectedly reached its expectedly tragic conclusion.

NYT headline
© New York Times
I am certainly not sad to see it go, but it's difficult to avoid a profound sense of regret at the error of it all. When I recently spoke with Daniel Ellsberg, he pointed out that neither of us is entirely a pacifist. Dan and I agree, and are on-record agreeing, that certain wars are wrong, but if one can conceive of a "just" war — or at least a less-injust war — there are wrong ways to fight it, and particularly wrong ways to finish it. There are also, come to think of it, wrong ways to begin wars too — namely refusing to declare them.

The war in Afghanistan was not one of those wars — it was not justifiable. It was, is, and forever will be wrong, which means leaving is the right decision.

Comment: Unmasking delusions offers a hard but necessary road to awareness and understanding. To bring a nation to this juncture requires leadership with this goal foremost in importance. Few there are who comprehend this challenge and even fewer who will choose to embark.

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Burka

Stephen Colbert likening Capitol Hill protesters to Taliban is not just a dumb joke, but demonization of fellow Americans

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 17:23 UTC
taliban
© REUTERS/Stringer; REUTERS/Stephanie Keith
Taliban fighters in Kabul (left) and January 6 riot at the US Capitol (right)
Comedian Stephen Colbert comparing the Taliban to January 6 Capitol rioters may seem silly and dumb, but when he's joined by a chorus of Democrat activists, it becomes clear they're really saying the quiet part out loud.

"Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a civil war in Afghanistan? We've got our own on Capitol Hill," Colbert said during his show on Monday night, showing the photos of the January riot that Democrats like him insist was an "insurrection" against Our Democracy.


While the line got a laugh from the studio audience in New York, it was not really a joke - but a way to amplify the talking points put forth by Washington. After a weekend of watching in stunned silence as the US-backed Afghan government collapsed even before Western troops, diplomats and NGO staff could leave the country - resulting in harrowing images of stampedes at the Kabul airport - President Joe Biden returned to DC on Monday and tried to change the narrative.

Instead of addressing the downfall and the way it caught the US unprepared, Biden talked about the merits of leaving - a straw man issue, since the overwhelming majority of Americans actually agree. The ones that don't are the neocon hawks like Bill Kristol, the Cheney-Kinzinger 'Republicans' and the Lincoln Project types, all of whom backed Biden in 2020.

Taking credit for ending the war and arguing US troops shouldn't be fighting a civil war in Afghanistan, Biden left without taking questions from the media. His mission was accomplished: he had served up a new narrative to fill the void created by the Taliban's reality bomb.

That certainly appears to be the context for the first half of Colbert's "joke." As for the second, it caught the attention of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who warned back in January that Washington was itching to turn the powers of the national security state against domestic political opponents.

Comment: Fanatical ideological group that wants to control all aspects of personal life according to said ideology. Sounds like a certain group of people in the U.S., but it sure ain't the the Jan. 6 "insurrectionists." Colbert would do better to look towards the "austere scholars" of social justice.

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Network

As America's attempt to Westernise Afghanistan by force fails, Kabul may now find its place in Russian & Chinese-dominated Eurasia

Glenn Diesen
RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 19:05 UTC
US Army soldiers
© Joe Raedle/Getty Images
FILE PHOTO: US Army soldiers from the 10th Mountain and the 101st Airborne units disembark from a Chinook helicopter March 11, 2002.
Even the Taliban must be surprised at the immense speed of its victory in Afghanistan. The collapse of the US-backed government affects more than just daily life in Kabul, however, causing political echoes across the continent.

One of the last bastions of Euro-Atlantic influence in the Eurasian heartland has collapsed. As the US and its allies absorb the consequences of their defeat in Afghanistan, the major powers on the continent, such as Russia, China and Iran, will attempt to reorient the country towards a solution consistent with the Greater Eurasian Partnership.

A long way from Washington

Comment: Far from Afghanistan 'scrambling for solutions' over the US' withdrawal, Russia's Embassy, and apparently an overwhelming number of Afghans, who welcomed the Taliban over the increasingly corrupt Kabul government, see the country, as it is now, as being 'safer than before': And for more of the real story on the Afghan withdrawal, check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: The Great (End)Game - Closing the Afghan War, Opening the 'Covid War'?



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Stock Down

"Major food shortages in the UK": Business owner warns of 'profound supply disruption' as 50 Nando's restaurants close

Gregor Young
The National
Wed, 18 Aug 2021 10:02 UTC
nando's

Nando's was founded in South Africa and now runs more than 400 sites across the UK
NANDO'S restaurants across the UK have been forced to close amid a lack of food and a shortage of deliveries.

The chicken chain, known for its Portuguese-inspired Peri-Peri flavours despite having been founded in South Africa, said the problems were a result of "disruption" across the UK supply chain.

On social media, the company described the supply issues as a "bit of a 'mare" and asked customers to remain patient.

It also said that it would be sending 70 of its staff to help to sort the supply issues more rapidly.

Comment: Last year brutal, rolling, lockdowns caused vast amounts of produce of all kinds to be dumped and left to rot because it couldn't be harvested, processed, delivered, and it couldn't be sold because various food outlets were locked down. This man-made and totally avoidable food supply catastrophe also meant that preserved foods were not processed and stored, and farmers were left with huge losses, causing many to go out of business, or at least to drastically cut back this year. In addition, there's years worth of crop failures and animal culls, and more recently port closures and various other transport issues due to continued lockdowns, but also cyberattack and extreme weather phenomena.

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Attention

I'll likely only see my family on a screen from now on, because I don't want the Covid jab. What happened to 'my body, my choice'?

Eva Bartlett
RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 14:34 UTC
Justin Trudeau
© Alberto Pezzali / POOL / AFP
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, wearing a face covering due to Covid-19, reacts after landing at Cornwall Airport Newquay, near Newquay, Cornwall, on June 10, 2021.
Like many people around the world, as of mid-2021, I have had to come to terms with the sordid likelihood that the only way I will ever see my family again is online.

My country, Canada, has chosen to implement increasingly draconian and frankly unscientific policies in the name of 'protecting' people. What Canadian authorities are really doing is ensuring an uptake of the experimental jabs. Don't want to take them? No worries, but you're not welcome in Canada.

Recently, my RT colleague, Rachel Marsden, described her anguish at being forced to turn away from her country and family because Canada has decided it is the 'science police' and has decided which 'science' matters.

She wrote, "I committed the apparent violation of trying to re-enter my own country with proof of naturally acquired Covid-19 antibodies made by my own immune system post-recovery rather than those generated by the manmade Covid-19 vaccine about which much is still to be learned." She noted that even her doctor had advised her against vaccination. But, for Canada, that is apparently irrelevant.
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Bad Guys

The only truth about US disastrous Afghanistan war is that it was all based on lies

Scott Ritter
RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 19:48 UTC
Taliban fighter
© REUTERS TV/via REUTERS
A Taliban fighter runs towards crowd outside Kabul airport, Kabul, Afghanistan August 16, 2021, in this still image taken from a video
The stunning victory of the Taliban over the US-backed Afghan government raises more questions than it answers as to how this happened. In the search for answers, however, don't ask the generals who fought the war - they all lied.

Let me begin with full disclosure - I have never set foot in Afghanistan. I have zero skin equity in this current debacle. I have lost very close friends to the conflict that tore that country apart these past 20 years, and I do mourn their loss. What I lack in on-the-ground warfighting resume entries, however, is somewhat compensated by a more intellectually based approach toward the conflict in Afghanistan.

As a historian, I have studied the tribes of Afghanistan, especially their penchant for conflict against ruling authority which deviates from what they expect from their leaders. My specialty was (and is) the Basmachi resistance to Soviet authority in the 1920s and 1930s. More specifically, my studies focused on those elements of Basmachi which settled in Kabul and northern Afghanistan, and who helped overthrow an Afghan King and later were defeated by a Pashtun tribal army.
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Tornado1

Cascading natural disasters: Following devastating flooding, F2 tornado touches down in Grossheide, Germany


RT
Tue, 17 Aug 2021 19:48 UTC
The storm left a path of devastation in Großheide, Aurich district.
© Jörn Hüneke
The storm left a path of devastation in Großheide, Aurich district.
A severe storm, complete with a tornado, has hit a small town in northern Germany, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake and making several homes completely uninhabitable, according to local authorities.

The foul weather hit the town of Grossheide in Germany's northwestern Lower Saxony state on Monday evening. The powerful storm ripped roofs from houses, overturned vehicles and uprooted trees, as some terrified locals filmed a funnel cloud raging over nearby fields.

Footage published on social media showed a huge grey whirlwind swirling over a grove not far from Grossheide and forcing people to seek shelter in their homes. Some said they have never seen anything like it in the area before.

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Cupcake Pink

America's narrative failure in Afghanistan is worse than its military one - Now the entire world knows the emperor has no clothes

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Mon, 16 Aug 2021 19:35 UTC
do better Biden
© REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
Demonstrators outside the White House in Washington, as the Taliban took over Kabul, August 15, 2021
Afghanistan may not be the actual 'graveyard of empires,' but it looks set to bury at least the American one, by imploding the major narratives on which it has rested: invincibility, inevitability, prosperity and competence.

It has to be an irony above all ironies that the same man who, back in 1992, celebrated the demise of the Soviet "puppet regime" in Kabul ended up leading a US puppet regime there. Except, whereas Dr. Najibullah ruled for three years after the last Soviet soldier crossed the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan, Ashraf Ghani resigned and fled even before the last American boot left Afghan soil - reportedly forgetting bags of cash on the tarmac, no less.

What made the sudden and total collapse of the Afghan National Army (ANA) so devastating, however, is the explicit insistence of US leadership - from President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley - as late as two weeks ago, that it would never happen.

Comment: The US has for a rather long time been engaged in the practice of 'reality creation'. The problem is, reality exists outside the propaganda and lies, and it demands to be seen whether we want to see it or not. We will undoubtedly continue to see devastating reality bombs dropping down all over the planet during these very interesting times.

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