freediver wrote on Aug 31^st, 2021 at 10:16pm:


Sykes/Picot, the Cold War, the clash of civilisations, colonialism ended far too soon.

Don't forget, you're down as supporting each and every one of Uncle's little post-2001 pity parties. At least the old boy has the gall to feign white man's burden.

You feign Freeeeeedom.

Winston Churchill described it best when he said, except at the times of sowing and harvesting, a continual state of feud exists. Tribe wars with tribe. The people of one valley fight those of the next. There is an Afghan joke: an angel is sent to Earth to grant a wish to one person from each country on condition that whatever they want, their neighbour gets twice of the same thing. People in most countries say we don’t mind whatever you’re giving to our neighbours as long as you give me what I wish. When it came to the Afghan, he requested the angel pluck out one of his eyes. That about sums it up.

What did the U.S. government actually do in Afghanistan and Iraq?  Only the things it really cares to or knows how to do—namely, richly to hire its favorite people to try reshaping mankind in their own image. Since WWII, whether in the name of anti-communism, anti-terrorism, democracy, or humanitarianism, it’s always the same: dismiss the substance of local quarrels; recast the local scene in terms of American elites’ concerns; find locals who agree, and form “coalition governments” that, supposedly, represent the people’s aspirations, regardless of what these might be; send in the American experts on everything from education to women’s rights, with their recipes and their billions of dollars; and treat as terrorists any locals who disagree strongly. 

Of the many reasons why this formula has always produced rejection, one is enough to explain the rest. The U.S. formula is purely administrative and even mercenary. It is without soul, wholly abstracting from traditions and affections, never mind from religion and systems of justice. Over the globe, through millennia, people have come together on a bewildering variety of bases. Seldom has mere administration served that purpose, even if competent, especially if by foreigners, and especially if in contradiction to customs.

https://americanmind.org/memo/graveyard-of-narratives/

Great article, well worth reading it all.

freediver wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2021 at 7:10pm:


Yeah, I am very sure about that. Are you sure about what you are not sure about, fd? Or are you sure about what you are not sure about me being not sure about, fd?




There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters.


It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. `No, I'll look first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked `poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked `poison,' so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.




Not what's in YOUR bottle, fd.

The South Koreans seem to have taken to democracy.

Dnarever wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2021 at 9:21pm:

So...... where's the pipeline?

Birdie num num?