freediver wrote on Aug 22
nd, 2021 at 8:46am:
Frank wrote on Aug 21
st, 2021 at 1:19pm:
Ayn Marx wrote on Aug 21
st, 2021 at 1:15pm:
As much as I try to avoid posting in this retarded environment sometimes the level of staggering stupidity goads me into breaking my rule.
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Hasn’t it struck any of you the lightening success of the Taliban in taking over isn’t simply because Washington and Canberra etc were muddle heads without a logical plan?
Hasn’t it crossed any of your minds the sudden strategic success of Taliban forces hints at resources and strategic intelligence they themselves didn’t possess? Russian and Chinese spy satellites have been feeing information about US & others troop movements in real time.
Rare earth mineral resources in Afghanistan completes the picture and explains in part how Russia and China are leaving their fully staffed embassies intact.
Thinking ahead how do you imagine this will influence the way China takes over Formosa?
What 'troop movements' ?
The American and other allied troops left weeks ago!
It was in the news. That's the issue - they left and the 300,000 strong Afghan army they trained and equipped was no match to 75,000 Jihadi goatfccers in sandals.
A bit like Joe, you can't remember either?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9908309/Biden-says-NO-military-advisers-recall-told-troops-Afghanistan.html
Exactly. And the Russians made sure the Taliban were able to watch the news. Otherwise they would not have noticed. Now the Taliban will welcome the Russians with open arms so they can start mining all the natural resources in Afghanistan.
Think what it says about exporting Western liberal democracy.
In twenty years, Uncle and his friends, for all the best intentions and over two trillion dollars, could only install a corrupt, illegitimate government and an ineffective, ill-equipped army.
All the Taliban, Russia and China had to do was wait.
For all the handwringing going on now, this is the message recorded by history.
This is the writing on the wall for US global hegemony. It's the fall of Saigon on steroids. Right now, Afghanistan is being viewed as the West's last hurrah. If Putin and Xi have their way, it most certainly will be.
Imagine, only twenty years ago, pundits were calling the end of history, with Western liberal democracy triumphant. Not only had the West won the Cold War, it had established the dominant political-economic model for the entire species, forever.
Today, the most backward, oppressive regime imaginable has come out on top, and Russia is back in the game.
China, with its Party-led capitalist model, is on track to surpass US GDP by 2032.
The Western triumphalism that heralded the launch of this website, FD, is a distant memory.
I hardly think that's something to celebrate. The Anglosphere has just squandered five years with Brexit and Trump. Chunks of Europe have gone quietly feral with various far-right fringe parties seizing power or coming close. The West has splintered.
Much of this can be put down to the tactics of Murdoch and other media owners, who have exploited the new info technologies to seize political and economic power. The West was able to keep it together when there were fewer media monopolies to bribe and blackmail politicians.
Even Assange, holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy, played this game. For a while there, his stance showed promise. Of course, much of the information he released saw populations in Iraq and elsewhere lose trust in Uncle and look for alternatives. As Mao said about guerilla war, the weak shall overcome the strong.
Allah Uakbar, no?