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"I was living like Scarface": The ludicrous costs of the war in Afghanistan revealed in new documents, testimonies

Alan Macleod
MintPress News
Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Afghan/US soldiers
© Massoud Hossaini/AP
Afghanistan National Army soldier • US Army soldier
The conflict in Afghanistan — for the U.S. at least — appears to be over. Essentially admitting defeat, American planes are beating a hasty and ignominious retreat from Kabul, with images of the withdrawal bearing a striking resemblance to those from the fall of Saigon 46 years previously.

As the Taliban complete their takeover, many Americans are wondering what it was all about. For what, and on what, did the United States spend more than $2 trillion? A newly published study from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) — a U.S. government body — lays bare the waste and corruption of the whole affair, drawing parallels with famous satires such as "Catch 22" and "M*A*S*H*." Uncompromising in its frankness, the 124-page report outlines the incompetence, venality and dark absurdity of the whole endeavor. "When you look at how much we spent and what we got for it, it's mind boggling," one senior Department of Defense administrator admitted to SIGAR in 2015.

Congress founded SIGAR in 2008 to provide neutral and objective oversight into the U.S.' handling of Afghan reconstruction programs. The new report is the latest — and perhaps most critical — of 13 yearly offerings analyzing U.S. efforts in the country.
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Stop

The bizarre refusal to apply cost-benefit analysis to COVID debates

Glenn Greenwald
greenwald.substack.com
Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
Kid and mom
© Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty Images
Gerald Josseph Trujillo Martinez watches a video on his tablet while his mother Ana Gabriela Martinez teaches a class inside their home in Matamoros, Mexico on May 25, 2021
In virtually every realm of public policy, Americans embrace policies which they know will kill people, sometimes large numbers of people. They do so not because they are psychopaths but because they are rational: they assess that those deaths that will inevitably result from the policies they support are worth it in exchange for the benefits those policies provide. This rational cost-benefit analysis, even when not expressed in such explicit or crude terms, is foundational to public policy debates — except when it comes to COVID, where it has been bizarrely declared off-limits.

The quickest and most guaranteed way to save hundreds of thousands of lives with policy changes would be to ban the use of automobiles, or severely restrict their usage to those authorized by the state on the ground of essential need (e.g., ambulances or food-delivery vehicles), or at least lower the nationwide speed limit to 25 mph. Any of those policies would immediately prevent huge numbers of human beings from dying. Each year, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC),
"1.35 million people are killed on roadways around the world," while "crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1-54."
Even with seat belts and airbags, a tragic number of life-years are lost given how many young people die or are left permanently and severely disabled by car accidents. Studies over the course of decades have demonstrated that even small reductions in speed limits save many lives, while radical reductions — supported by almost nobody — would eliminate most if not all deaths from car crashes.

Comment: Humanity is being 'defaced' and dehumanized by changes that may never self-correct. As more folks succumb to the pressures of the COVID scheme, increasing resistance may become the only option.



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Attention

Wayne Dupree: The calamity in Afghanistan is down to Biden alone. Can the US cope with three more years of his failures?

Wayne Dupree
RT
Thu, 26 Aug 2021 11:21 UTC
BidenDupree
© Dupree Booking Agency/Flickr/Gage Skidmore/KJN
Wayne Dupree and US President Joe Biden
Popular opinion had it that aging Joe Biden would be controlled by his handlers as president. But events in Afghanistan indicate that he's in charge, more's the pity - and so the US has much more chaos to look forward to.

I used to think Joe Biden was incompetent, but he is the most competent president ever...at destabilizing the world. The southern border, Ukraine, the Middle East, now Afghanistan. The question is, why does he do this? Biden has a pattern, and either he is truly incompetent, for whatever reason, or drunk on power.


Comment: Some might say both.


Why did this man run for president in the first place?

For the past eight months, I have believed that the Biden administration had handlers behind the scenes. But one thing is crystal clear at this point. Joe is calling the shots and leading this administration, and there doesn't appear to be a single intelligent, free-thinking person involved at all. Many of his senior positions were picked for diversity or as a reward for loyalty, and they have no idea how to handle such serious matters as Covid-19 and the Afghanistan withdrawal.

This is what is known as 'losing control of the narrative'.

Comment: Just like all other presidents in memorable history, Biden has never been in charge. If he is quickly phased out, the next question is: 'Can America stomach his replacement?' It is a short trip to the bottom from there.


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Arrow Down

Ukraine shuts down leading independent news site Strana as part of new crackdown on journalists, judges and opposition politicians


RT
Sat, 21 Aug 2021 10:19 UTC
Zelensky
© AFP/Stephanie Lecocq
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
One of Ukraine's most prominent news outlets has been taken offline after the country's National Security and Defense Council marked it out as a threat, thus adding the title to the growing list of banned opposition media groups.

Strana.ua, one of the country's best-known mainstream news sites, was unavailable on Friday after officials included both its parent company and its editor, Igor Guzhva, in a new tranche of restrictions. Network service providers began blocking access to its domains. However, in a statement posted online, its journalists said that they would continue to work, having relocated their content to a new web address, and slammed the decision to hit "the largest opposition publication in Ukraine with sanctions."

The Russian-language outlet has been strongly critical of the increasingly authoritarian nature of pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelensky's administration in Kiev.

Defending the decision, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council secretary, Alexey Danilov, said the move was based on "documents" held by the country's SBU security agency, the successor to the Soviet KGB. However, he refused to disclose the basis of the allegations, saying only that Guzhva, who fled to Austria in 2018 and was later granted asylum there, and organizations linked to him were being targeted because "they are engaged in illegal activities on the territory of our country."

Also facing new restrictions are a number of Russian citizens, judges and officials, and even a member of the Ukrainian national parliament, independent MP Andrey Derkach.

Comment: What could possibly be wrong with this...the 'Beacon of Democracy' endorses these actions! The bias of the few outweighs the rights of the many.

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X

Kamala Harris cancels plans to campaign for CA Dem Governor Newsom in recall election

Martin Walsh
Conservative Brief
Fri, 27 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
harris
© Evelyn Hockstein/AP
US VP Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris has canceled plans to travel to California to campaign for Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom in his recall election.

Harris canceled her plans after a terrorist attack was carried out on Thursday in Afghanistan that resulted in nearly a dozen American servicemembers being killed as well as dozens of Afghans.

Harris, a former senator from California, had planned to campaign for Newsom on Friday but will return back to Washington, D.C., after her brief trip to Asia. KTLA 5 reported:
"Newsom is facing a recall election on Sept. 14 to decide whether he will stay in office or be replaced by another candidate, with conservative talk radio host Larry Elder leading a sprawling field of potential replacements in recent polls."
Joe Biden was to meet with a bipartisan group of governors across the United States who approached the White House to help resettle Afghans fleeing the country, which was taken over by the Taliban. He was also set to have his first in-person meeting with Israel's new Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett.

Both meetings have been canceled after four U.S. Marines were killed in explosions that claimed numerous other casualties in Kabul.

Comment: With no shortage on diplomatic chaos, the State Department backpedals. To be fair, none of the US agencies involved in Afghanistan are exempt, but choice is choice and there is no upside:
See also:

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Dominoes

Moscow meddling bad, Western interference good: Ahead of next month's Russian elections hypocrisy is on full view...again

Glenn Diesen
RT
Thu, 26 Aug 2021 11:21 UTC
Russia voting
© Russia AFP/Olga Maltseva
Voting in Saint Petersburg
In recent years, the media has become obsessed with purported Russian interference in US elections. While the claims turned out to be entirely unsubstantiated, the West itself openly engages in efforts to influence votes abroad.

The difference is that when America or its allies do it, it's called "promoting democracy." Now, a campaign to undermine the legitimacy of Russia's parliamentary elections, due to be held next month, is explicitly linked to power politics. Any criticism of that approach, however, is denounced as an attack on democratic values themselves, in the wordplay used to legitimise the meddling.

Regime change

The US has a track record in this area. Washington has openly bragged about interfering in the 1996 Russian election to preserve Boris Yeltsin's hold on power and keep out the Communists once and for all. However, its playbook is different when Washington wants to kick out the incumbent government rather than keep it in. A large apparatus for social engineering is unleashed under the guise of supporting "civil society" and democracy promotion in foreign countries.
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Light Sabers

America must deal with '2 peer opponents' for first time now that Russia & China are cooperating militarily - US Strategic Command head

Jonny Tickle
RT
Fri, 27 Aug 2021 13:33 UTC
Russia china military
The close military cooperation between Russia and China is cause for great concern, and the authorities in Washington must seriously reconsider its current strategy of "containment" towards the two large Eurasian superpowers.

That's according to Admiral Charles Richard, the commander of United States Strategic Command, who spoke in an online forum discussion with the Hudson Institute.

According to Richard, the US has never before "faced two peer opponents" with nuclear weapons and high-technology systems, noting that China's rapid progression in nuclear, space, and cyber technologies means that Washington must think carefully about its next steps. In particular, Richard stated that China, unlike the US and Russia, is not constrained by treaties regarding its nuclear forces.


Comment: It may be true that China isn't constrained by any Western treaties, however it is creating a new order with Russia where it no doubt will sign up to numerous similar commitments, moreover China has shown itself to be a much more responsible and trustworthy player on the world stage than the US. Further, despite the US supposedly being constrained by numerous treaties and laws, that rarely constrains it from destabilizing world peace, and it does so by either unilaterally withdrawing or outright ignoring them, knowing that it will almost never be taken to task.


Comment: It's because of the West's impotence in the face of the might and ingenuity of Russia and China that the deep state in the US, Britain, Israel, et al, that the favoured strategy is now hybrid warfare. It's also looking increasingly like the focus of the security state is actually targeting their population at home: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Kabul Chaos Biden's Bay of Pigs?



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Rocket

War pimp Panetta says 'we'll have to go back go Afghanistan' to get ISIS now, after Kabul bombing


RT
Fri, 27 Aug 2021 17:45 UTC
panetta biden
Leon Panetta, one in a host of voices of the US national security establishment objecting to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, says Joe Biden will have to "go back in" to deliver on a pledge to avenge the deaths of troops in Kabul.

Panetta, who headed the CIA between 2009 and 2011 before moving to replace Robert Gates at the helm of the Pentagon, went on CNN to predict a forever war on terrorism in America's forceable future, including in Afghanistan.

"I understand that we're trying to get our troops out of there. But the bottom line is we can leave a battlefield, but we can't leave the war on terrorrism, which still is a threat to our security," he told the OutFront program.


The Obama-era official was commenting on President Joe Biden's promise to go after the Afghan branch of terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), which claimed credit for the Thursday bomb attacks in Kabul. The bombings claimed dozens of lives, including 13 US soldiers. Panetta said Biden was right to promise to retaliate against the people who orchestrated the bombings, and that pledge may require him to act against his withdrawal plan.
We're gonna have to go back in to get ISIS. We'll probably have to go back in, when Al-Qaeda resurrects itself - as they will with this Taliban [government].
The Taliban has been promising to deny access to Afghanistan territory under its control to international terrorist organizations, including Al-Qaeda, as the Islamist militant movement seeks international recognition of its power in the country. Taliban fighters, who were guarding the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, were among the victims of the Thursday attack.

Comment: The fact that a total non-entity like Panetta amounts to anything in this world is a testament to the selection process at work in American politics.

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Binoculars

CENTCOM commander reveals US intelligence-sharing operation with Taliban

Isaac Schorr
National Review
Thu, 26 Aug 2021 17:38 UTC
Kenneth McKenzie
© Yuri Gripas/Reuters
U.S. Marine Corps General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. briefs the media at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., March 13, 2020.
General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the United States Central Command, revealed an intelligence-sharing operation between the U.S. and Taliban on Thursday at a Department of Defense briefing, just hours after attacks at Hamid Karzai International Airport killed at least twelve U.S. service members and 60 Afghan civilians.

According to McKenzie, the Taliban and U.S. share a "common purpose" of finishing the ongoing evacuation mission by August 31.

"As long as we've kept that common purpose aligned, they've been useful to work with," said the general.

McKenzie said he didn't believe the Taliban intentionally allowed Thursday's attacks to occur, but conceded he didn't know for sure.

Nevertheless McKenzie said the U.S. has been sharing "versions of this information [regarding threats to the airport] with the Taliban so that they can actually do some searching out there for us," though he stipulated that the U.S. "cuts down" the intelligence before handing it over to the Taliban. He also said that the U.S. "thinks" attacks have already been "thwarted" by the terror group that the U.S. deposed from power in 2001. The intelligence-sharing program has been in effect since August 14, McKenzie said.


Comment: According to the Taliban, they were the ones to initially warn the Americans about the imminent attack.


Some experts have criticized the Biden administration for not expanding the perimeter around the airport and instead entrusting the Taliban to secure the area.
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Eye 1

Snowden: The all-seeing "i": Apple just declared war on your privacy

Edward Snowden
edwardsnowden.substack.com
Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
apple surveillance
"Under His Eye," she says. The right farewell. "Under His Eye," I reply, and she gives a little nod.

By now you've probably heard that Apple plans to push a new and uniquely intrusive surveillance system out to many of the more than one billion iPhones it has sold, which all run the behemoth's proprietary, take-it-or-leave-it software. This new offensive is tentatively slated to begin with the launch of iOS 15⁠ — almost certainly in mid-September⁠ — with the devices of its US user-base designated as the initial targets. We're told that other countries will be spared, but not for long.

You might have noticed that I haven't mentioned which problem it is that Apple is purporting to solve. Why? Because it doesn't matter.

Having read thousands upon thousands of remarks on this growing scandal, it has become clear to me that many understand it doesn't matter, but few if any have been willing to actually say it. Speaking candidly, if that's still allowed, that's the way it always goes when someone of institutional significance launches a campaign to defend an indefensible intrusion into our private spaces. They make a mad dash to the supposed high ground, from which they speak in low, solemn tones about their moral mission before fervently invoking the dread spectre of the Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse, warning that only a dubious amulet — or suspicious software update — can save us from the most threatening members of our species.
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