John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS

 

“Pompeo says Taliban ‘overreached’ in attack that killed American

“President pulls back from planned peace talks with Taliban at Camp David after bombing that killed 12”

 

Overreached? What does that even mean in this context?

Pompeo’s words are as meaningless as they are arrogant.

We get only lunacy upon lunacy from this White House mob.

Just to remind him, you are invaders in that country, not invited guests.

And you’ve just bragged of having killed about a thousand Taliban in the last ten days.

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Response to a comment about American war crimes in Afghanistan:

Oh, there have been many war crimes. I don’t know whether your reference is to the Jamie Doran documentary, “The Convoy of Death,” about the brutal mass murder of about 3,000 Taliban prisoners. These were prisoners for whom America had a direct responsibility.

The prisoners were packed into containers supposedly for transfer to a prison, the containers sealed and loaded onto trucks. As the men later screamed for some air in the blistering heat or water, American soldiers and troops I believe of the ghastly General Dostum, an American ally with a brutal reputation, stopped and shot into the containers until the shouting stopped.

About four days later, when the containers were opened, most of the prisoners were dead. American Special Forces troops ordered the containers brought to a spot in the desert where any living prisoners were shot, and all of the bodies were buried in mass graves.

That happened shortly after the charming Donald Rumsfeld made an angry demand in Washington about large new batches of Taliban prisoners, saying they should either be walled away forever or killed off. He clearly was taken at his word by some American troops and General Dostum’s men.

There was America’s long series of violent house entries, kicking down doors and using stun grenades, holding terrified families, women and children, at gunpoint while the house was searched and any men in it were bound and marched off as prisoners to who knows where? That happened to countless Afghan families. The men, if they survived, were headed for harsh interrogation with torture.

America’s reckless bombing killed thousands of innocent people. Many times, large groups like wedding parties, celebrating outside, were wiped out by American pilots. American soldiers wantonly shot up villages.

The Americans were bored with being stuck in that searingly hot, very unfriendly place with strange-looking people who didn’t speak their language. Very young men from places in America with no exposure to other cultures, with nothing to do much of the time, and with big guns.

The American military is often desperate for bodies and takes what it can get as recruits. That includes people who enjoy cruelty and the chance to kill others with impunity. Young men much like the members of urban street gangs who occupy large portions of American cities. There was plenty of that kind of activity in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

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Response to a comment about having to get out of Afghanistan:

Well, ultimately, yes.

But Washington cannot admit they ever made a mistake, a terrible mistake.

There was never any real reason to invade Afghanistan.

It had no hand in 9/11.

But America was thirsty for blood and revenge after 9/11, and they didn’t really care if they got the right guys or not.

There is no evidence of Taliban involvement in 9/11. None. The Taliban are concerned about their local tribal blood feuds, much like some of those legendary families in the American Ozarks fighting multi-generational feuds such as the Hatfields and McCoys.

The Taliban gave temporary refuge to Osama bin Laden – a Saudi, but, importantly, someone who rather bravely served in the American-supplied opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s – a man seen as a devout Muslim and a hero, and that’s all.

Of course, we’ve never had any proof that even Osama was guilty of anything except disliking the Saudi Royal family and America’s complicity with them. Early on, when America demanded the Taliban government extradite him, the Taliban, in accordance with international law and custom for such requests, asked for some evidence. Washington ignored them and shortly invaded.

The American invasion also ended the Taliban government’s ban on growing opium poppies, something which resulted in flooding world markets with cheap hard drugs and something we suffer from still with all the urban drug-gang shootings over sales turf and unpaid bills.

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I do think it quite possible that, in fact, no meeting with the Taliban was ever going to happen.

Just as in Syria and a couple of other situations, Trump bellows about what he’s going to do, and it all falls through or simply never happens.

Some important officials he has appointed oppose such steps.

He is just a massive pile of conflicting urges, and he makes no consistent sense ever.

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Response to a comment saying, “Remember when Jack Layton wanted to negotiate with the Taliban and everyone (including the media) started calling him Taliban Jack”:

Absolutely. Thanks for the reminder. God, I admired Jack Layton.

Brave and intelligent leaders often get attacked because there are so many people who simply do not understand them.

By the way, concerning Canada’s sad and pointless involvement in Afghanistan, an Ottawa official said in the early days that the troops were going to Afghanistan because “We owed one to the Pentagon.”

He was referring to the fact that Prime Minister Jean Chretien had turned George Bush down on sending some Canadian troops for the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Well, you do not turn America down in such matters without hearing back a lot of very unpleasant things.

The Canadian contribution to Afghanistan was something of a “peace offering.”

Some reason to join a war, right? “We owe one to the Pentagon.”

But that so characteristic of the bizarre world America has constructed with its endless wars.

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Response to a comment:

The Taliban were the official government of the country before America invaded.

They’re not outsiders or invaders, as the United States very much is.

The Taliban are just one of the basic major divisions of Afghan society, a tough, backward, desperately poor, hardscrabble society.

Thinking you could get rid of them is about the equivalent of talking about getting rid of Baptists in South Carolina.

The entire war has been a stupid, destructive, pointless waste.

But that’s just the way they do things in Washington.

Time after time. Place after place.

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Response to a comment:

That phrase you use, “world’s policeman,” does not fit America’s role in the world today. I’m not sure whether it ever did, but it sure does not fit today.

It was meant to sound benign when it was coined. Korea was called a “police action.” After all, with WWII just a few years behind, officials didn’t want to encourage public fears about a new war.

Today, American activities everywhere are aggressive. They’re about telling others what to do and how to do it. And they’re about hurting and killing those America really does not like.

America is an empire, a rather brutal global empire. Not the law-abiding society of a quiet republic looking out at a big, bad world, as it likes to imagine itself.

No one sensibly calls such behavior “policing.”

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I should have added, importantly, it is an empire in relative decline with the growth of all kinds of competitors that it didn’t have after WWII, its glory days.

Even its reserve-currency dollar, a very great privilege and advantage, is starting to come under threat. It will certainly lose its position in the future. And weaponizing it, as Trump has done with all his illegal enforcement of unreasonable sanctions, if anything, only speeds the day.

In recognition of its relative economic decline and the many competitive changes in the world, America’s establishment has entered now into a ferocious effort to reclaim its unchallenged place of, say, sixty years ago.

They talk in terms of achieving “full-spectrum dominance.” And that’s not only Trump. He’s just the ugly, noisy frontman right now. Republicans and Democrats support this crusade, or it would not happen.

No matter what their varying views on social issues, virtually every one of them supports the American empire. It is what they’ve known all their lives, their careers were built on it, and it is a matter of pride and arrogance, part of Old Glory Patriotism, a powerful secular religious force in the country.

“MAGA” is just Trump’s term for the faded and tattered notion, the “American Dream,” something which arose as a sheer accident of history after WWII when no competitors were left standing and America thrived on selling everything to everyone. It dominated world manufacturing and trade.

But that position cannot be reclaimed. It’s an illusion to think that it can, a dangerous illusion.

Trying to make it happen will yield only angry frustration and angry responses from others. And the natural forces that have been at work reducing America’s relative position are likely to be reinforced by people’s determination to resist being told what to do.

That effort is why we have all the threats and illegal sanctions everywhere. The immense pressures applied to a peaceful China, a peaceful Russia, a peaceful Iran, and others.

We are in a dangerous period, and the United States political system has managed to put genuinely frightening men in charge – angry, intemperate, and even unstable men. Trump. Bolton. Pompeo.

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Response to a comment about whether there ever even was a Trump deal with the Taliban:

See: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/to-leave-afghanistan-just-leave-afghanistan.html#comments

This is from a close observer of events, one who is more often right than wrong in his analysis of world affairs.

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ITEM IN MOON OF ALABAMA

 

“There are freshmen from Michigan and Maryland in Congress who recently made some news with comments about the Zionist lobby. Some anti-imperialists and progressives lauded them for their efforts and defended them against attacks. But these are wolfs in sheep clothing.

“Rep. Ilhan Omar: ‘The people of Syria revolted against Assad’s repressive dictatorship 8 years ago today, demanding a more just and free government. Peace loving people around the world stand in solidarity with them in this struggle!’

“Rashida Tlaib: ‘The anniversary of the uprising against the oppression in Syria was yesterday. We must recognize the struggle of those who organized and stood up against injustice. It is my hope that we can see a Syria that is truly free one day.’”

 

I like Ilhan Omar for speaking out on Palestine, just as I like Tulsi Gabbard’s efforts to understand the ugly war in Syria. I admire them both for public courage.

But, please, this is America we are talking about.

To expect anyone in American politics to come along with completely fresh and informed and honest views is just dreaming.

Just as with Bernie Sanders’ so-called socialism or, indeed, anything at all about Sanders.

He’s a distinguished-looking bag of hot air.

He showed everyone what he was made of in his confrontation with the woman who plainly stole the nomination from him, Hillary Clinton.

He’s never been a strong voice against global empire, against the secret terror of the CIA, against the vast intrusions of the NSA, or against the monstrous waste and mass killing of the Pentagon.

And then we have that thoroughbred phony, Elizabeth Warren, making precious little noises all the time about progressive matters while voting for hateful defense and security budgets and never opposing all those wars and offering us in speeches smatterings of the establishment’s poison about Iran.

I’ve said it many times. There are no liberals, genuine liberals, in the United States, at least not in any positions of authority or influence. Not one in the national government. Not one in charge of a major news source. None guiding the nation’s great institutions and foundations and education establishments.

America is about empire and the wars required to sustain it, and that is pretty much it. The rest is elaborate window dressing, theater, playacting. Empires do not get built and maintained and expanded by nice guys, and the resources constantly pouring into empire leave no room for great human or humane efforts.

Another thing I’ve said many times is that you can have either an empire or a decent country, but you cannot have both. America made its choice, long ago.

The entire atmosphere of the place, the education system, the press, the churches, the politics – all immersed and saturated in war and the drive for empire with little room for other values. It can be seen and heard and felt in a thousand details.

What could be more blatantly unfair and anti-democratic than what we see being done to Venezuela today? Yet, where are the American voices against their government’s open use of threats and terror? The politicians? The editors? The great university heads? The church leaders?

Some might claim an excuse over events in Syria because many facts about responsibility for that set of atrocities remained well hidden for a long time. Many facts remain hidden still, despite our learning a good deal here and there.

But here, in the case of Venezuela, we see daily the blunt face of fascism telling people who they should vote for, who should swear himself in as President, who should control the country’s assets, and destroying the national power grid, an act of terror which undoubtedly killed and injured many and destroyed what was in the fridges of literally millions of the most ordinary people.

Why isn’t anyone shouting at the top of their lungs?

All this done by men who say they respect democracy and human rights and expect to be respected in the world as leaders.

You know, Hitler gave one of the great speeches about peace, not long before he started a new war. It was reported by that great journalist and chronicler of Nazi Germany, William Shirer.

And, under the Nazis, Germany had some window dressings of progressivity, various socialistic measures, if you will. It even sometimes held plebiscites.