Yeah, how about no?
8/11/12 12:52![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
underlankers.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/faheem-younus/give-afghanistan-schools-today-or-dont-blame-islam-tomorrow_b_2059098.html
This article has at its core one noble sentiment, namely that the USA, having broken Afghanistan further than it was already broken by a civil war that had lasted 20 years and counting in 2001 has a responsibility for the mess there now. It then goes on to argue that this should mean the USA should dedicate itself to nation-building, i.e. imperialism for those too squeamish and cowardly to use the proper word that actually belongs to this concept. The problem with this is that both the UK and Russia in varying forms, two societies nobody can accuse of cowardice or cutting and running also tried this. That the country's now in its 33rd year of a civil war indicates that the attempts before this one were utter, complete failures.
Now granted, whenever the US military in all its esteemed wisdom settles down somewhere, it only leaves if it's literally hurled out of there like the Hulk on Loki. This is a rather annoying pattern of US power politics that is less dodgy when there's no ongoing war in a particular region and the trade component of those bases at least ensures that it's not costing the USA necessarily as much as a sustained war in Central Asia would. We've waged this war for over 11 years and the lump sum of our efforts is that the Afghans have gone from wanting to blow up the Bamiyan Buddhas by themselves to using China's help in order that another pair are likely to be blown up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/15/mining-threatens-afghanistan-buddhist-treasures
If after 12 years of wasting money on a war that started for one reason but now straggles on for the sheer inertia of war and the US military's twin inabilities to ever leave a place it arrives in and necessity to justify its perpetual stays, that's all we've managed to do, I would say that perhaps we'd best just quit while we're ahead and not have a repetition of Saigon when it turns out that the Taliban, now aided by ten years of war against us and once more consisting of 50% or more Pakistani Army regulars take over Afghanistan again and the Karzai regime's feckless and incapable of sustaining itself.
Enough is enough. The USA should just quit this war before it hurts itself and Afghanistan worse than what's already going on.
This article has at its core one noble sentiment, namely that the USA, having broken Afghanistan further than it was already broken by a civil war that had lasted 20 years and counting in 2001 has a responsibility for the mess there now. It then goes on to argue that this should mean the USA should dedicate itself to nation-building, i.e. imperialism for those too squeamish and cowardly to use the proper word that actually belongs to this concept. The problem with this is that both the UK and Russia in varying forms, two societies nobody can accuse of cowardice or cutting and running also tried this. That the country's now in its 33rd year of a civil war indicates that the attempts before this one were utter, complete failures.
Now granted, whenever the US military in all its esteemed wisdom settles down somewhere, it only leaves if it's literally hurled out of there like the Hulk on Loki. This is a rather annoying pattern of US power politics that is less dodgy when there's no ongoing war in a particular region and the trade component of those bases at least ensures that it's not costing the USA necessarily as much as a sustained war in Central Asia would. We've waged this war for over 11 years and the lump sum of our efforts is that the Afghans have gone from wanting to blow up the Bamiyan Buddhas by themselves to using China's help in order that another pair are likely to be blown up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/15/mining-threatens-afghanistan-buddhist-treasures
If after 12 years of wasting money on a war that started for one reason but now straggles on for the sheer inertia of war and the US military's twin inabilities to ever leave a place it arrives in and necessity to justify its perpetual stays, that's all we've managed to do, I would say that perhaps we'd best just quit while we're ahead and not have a repetition of Saigon when it turns out that the Taliban, now aided by ten years of war against us and once more consisting of 50% or more Pakistani Army regulars take over Afghanistan again and the Karzai regime's feckless and incapable of sustaining itself.
Enough is enough. The USA should just quit this war before it hurts itself and Afghanistan worse than what's already going on.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 20:44 (UTC)At the end of the day, we still have problems like this looming over us.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 21:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:03 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:13 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:20 (UTC)Is that what the Romans were doing?
The Nazis?
The Japanese Imperial Army?
The Russians?
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:28 (UTC)Godwin's Law = Fail. Nazi Imperialism is that special type of brutality embodied by a select few with the only difference being shinier toys than Tamerlane or Zhang Xianzhong enjoyed.
Which Imperial Japan? The one of Hideyoshi? Which phase of the Japanese Empire are we talking about, and how do we differentiate the Rape of Nanking from say, the British burning down an entire African state because one missionary got his fee fees hurt?
Which Russia? Kiev? Master Great Novgorod? The Grand Duchy of Moscow? The Greater Rurikid Empire? Romanov Russia? The Provisional Government? The Soviet Union? Post-Soviet Russia?
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:33 (UTC)Yes, you studied history. But with ideas like "nation building" = "imperialism", one has to wonder what good it did.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:40 (UTC)Which Romans did you mean when you were referring to the Romans? As you're not Sophia Sadek I doubt you were referring to the Papal States.
Which Russia were you referring to, as any number of them all fit into that category and depending on what games you play with words you can make a case for every single iteration. After all, even Stalin faced a guy whose literal goal was to kill everyone human he disliked east of a certain river. Misery without limits and alive >>>>> going up in smoke.
My argument is that nation-building doesn't do any good and it's a waste of time and money. I'm glad you agree with me.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:00 (UTC)And you can pick whichever groups you'd like from the ones that practiced imperialism. And please don't discount the Nazis because they were Nazis.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:46 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:58 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 01:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 03:33 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 01:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 03:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 12:35 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 13:44 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:35 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:46 (UTC)A special kind of DQ.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:58 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 00:42 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 01:50 (UTC)Nobody's denying the Nazis had a twisted morality based on how many ethnic groups they eradicated before breakfast. I'm just noting that their morality began and ended with how many ethnic groups they eradicated before breakfast. People hell-bent on ignoring this to fap to hating Commies, OTOH, tend to hate pointing that out as thought makes Stalin less of a monster to note Hitler was in fact the world's greatest omnicidal maniac.
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 02:32 (UTC)Esoteric: from the greek term esōterikos meaning "inner circle".
In the english language the word esoteric is most commonly used to describe either obscurity or something intended for or understood by only an initiated few.
Which in my opinion describes something like 99% of you posts and comments on this forum.
PS:
Thanks for making my point for me.
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 02:41 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 02:49 (UTC)You're conflating one man with a movement and vice versa.
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 12:36 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 01:48 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 21:56 (UTC)But the other part of me is just a little too much of a naive idealist to be comfortable with that.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:01 (UTC)Then there's the part where you can't really accuse the average person there of being such a savage.
(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:44 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 23:49 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 00:22 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 01:54 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 03:07 (UTC)and treat all other would-be allies like Quislings that they are. The end goal after all is not to conquer the country but to destroy their culture and replace it with one more compatible with our own.
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 12:34 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 13:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 14:28 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 18:54 (UTC)Kind of like using the term "Kinetic Operations" in place of "Military Intervention" or "Bomb all the brown people!"
(no subject)
Date: 12/11/12 00:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/11/12 19:16 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/11/12 22:16 (UTC)My argument is also not so much 'let them live in savagery and medieval backwardness' as 'Well, if there is a cure to this, we can't it, so let's cut our losses and let things go to Hell. We did it once, we can do it again. And next time they bushwhack us, we just assassinate people with Hellfire missiles instead of repeating the cycle a third time.'
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 00:39 (UTC)No, savagery makes people savages.
The fact that they have not just lapsed into savagery but lost all knowledge of or desire for any other way of life.
And while you may see some kind of distinction between let's cut our losses and let things go to Hell. and 'let them live in savagery and medieval backwardness', I do not.
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 01:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 02:06 (UTC)You left them out!
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 02:09 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 03:03 (UTC)Though I suppose it would depend on the specific groups of Germans, Rus, Yanks, and Mexicans you had in mind.
(no subject)
Date: 9/11/12 12:34 (UTC)