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International Events VII- Afghan Catastrophe


DireWolfSpirit

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11 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

I hate to mention the Nazis, but…I saw a show that opined that the Nazis were trying to morph Christianity( already coopted) into a more aggressive religion! It was a spectacle, so I don’t know how factual it was.

Mmh... that doesn't sound right. The Nazi ideology is totalitarian by definition, it leaves no room to other competing systems of belief. That is why the Nazis tried to replace religion with their made up pseudo-germanic spirituality that they needed to desperately construct some kind of mythology around Germanic superiority to compete with Mussolini's Roman Empire nostalgia. The Nazis sure tried to play nice with the Church because they couldn't afford to immediately alienate their conservative allies (and church led resistance against the Euthanasia program shows that while they were fine with killing Jews, killing disabled children created some unrest). I think there is no denying that the Nazis would have inevitably done away with the Church if they came out victorious.

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11 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

Look I like to tear into the USA as much as the next man but this idea that Putin learned to be a shitbag from fucking America rather than being a former KGB agent in the Soviet Union is an example of the kind of thing that makes you sound obsessed to the point of xenophobia. It comes across sometimes like you think if the US didn't exist no-one would have done anything evil in the last 100 years. 

You misunderstood me. It’s more about PR and Marketing. How to sell oneself internationally. Something where the USSR was very bad at and China until the 1990s as well. 

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6 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

The problem with certain sections of the left is to assume the US (often coupled with capitalism) is, directly or indirectly, the source of all evil in the world, which, ironically enough, still is a form of American exceptionalism if you think about it.

There is enough evil in the world. Just a matter of power projection capability. Duarte is a crazy man but his power is limited to the Philippines. As an example. 

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Again, the last pages are pure meta discussion. Why not discuss real life action?

The drone attack immediately after the Kabul bombing left 10 people dead, 7 children. The reaction of the Pentagon: we made a mistake. 

And that’s it. No accountability, no consequences. Why the drone attack? Out of fear? Out of the feeling to have to do sth? Why? Who is accountable?

And people really wonder why the US is so hated around the world? 

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Thanks, Toth! It seems like there is a playbook running in the States, especially. My German friends have been the most vocal! They also went on field trips to the camps in school days, so no ignorant Holocaust denials from them! These are people who helped tear down the wall. 
At first, I thought Trump was as threatening as “ Triumph the Insult Dog” , but how could I take such a bozo seriously? Then he started winning, and wondered if Ted Cruz would be worse. The Trumpers do seem to have a Totalitarian religion, still being defined.( when will the second coming of Trump happen?) Yes, I think that pseudo- spirituality is forming right now. 

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31 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

Thanks, Toth! It seems like there is a playbook running in the States, especially. My German friends have been the most vocal! They also went on field trips to the camps in school days, so no ignorant Holocaust denials from them! These are people who helped tear down the wall. 
At first, I thought Trump was as threatening as “ Triumph the Insult Dog” , but how could I take such a bozo seriously? Then he started winning, and wondered if Ted Cruz would be worse. The Trumpers do seem to have a Totalitarian religion, still being defined.( when will the second coming of Trump happen?) Yes, I think that pseudo- spirituality is forming right now. 

The following was point 24 of the Nazi parties 25 point plan. Note the bit about "positive-Christianity".

According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the 25-point program "remained the party's official statement of goals, though in later years many points were ignored."[4

 

 

  1. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework.
    THE COMMON INTEREST OVER INDIVIDUAL INTEREST[13]
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2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

On this question itself, of capitalism, because it is an interesting one: well, it's the single biggest source of evil because it's the single most popular ethos and powerful force, but there's been plenty of horrible evil from other sources, they just didn't come from one single idea you can point at.

No arguments here.

In fact, I could have written something fairly similar, had I taken the time.

3 hours ago, Padraig said:

Is this because it was ever present over that 50/60 year period?  For example, if I look over the last 50-60 years, USSR lead communism sticks out dramatically but it obviously didn't survive half that period.

Let's just say I chose the 50-60 year period precisely to avoid getting dragged into a discussion about which side was worse during the Cold War... :P

3 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Also, to what point can capitalism be blamed for individual actions of players and governments is debatable in many cases, particularly in cases of kleptocracies and/or authoritarian regimes-  for example, here in Latin America, Pinochet's government love of capitalism and free market, neoliberal economics became (in)famous, but that was in part because this was very much the exception among the dictatorships and their supporters (not a coincidence than when Fernando Henrique Cardoso begun a privatization program in Brazil in the 1990's, Bolsonaro suggested he should be sent to the firing squad for treason).

Sure. In fact, I suppose you can say that in many places, the US and/or capitalism only makes an already bad situation worse.

However, the US is widely blamed for numerous atrocities committed in the Americas, with or without privatization. In many cases it was an indirect involvement, but in some cases, the CIA and/or military "advisors" got their hands quite dirty.

I'm quite surprised that someone from Brazil would see Chile as an exception to a rule. Chile may have been an extreme example in several ways (what with the intervention of the Chicago boys and all), but it exemplified quite a few things as to US influence in the Americas.

55 minutes ago, Arakan said:

You misunderstood me. It’s more about PR and Marketing. How to sell oneself internationally. Something where the USSR was very bad at and China until the 1990s as well. 

Minor quibble here, but the USSR was actually fairly good at "marketing" up to and including the 1970s. In fact, the two main reasons why the Soviet Union was a rival at all were the power of its ideology (including its PR) and its nuclear arsenal.

We tend to forget that because after the collapse of the USSR, many commentators were quick to destroy its credibility (pronouncing "socialism dead" for instance). It became important to pretend that it had always been bad at everything.
Of course, that couldn't have been the case: if the USSR was that terrible, then it wouldn't have been a rival in the first place and no "Cold War" would have been necessary. But "history is written by the victors," as the saying goes.

55 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Again, the last pages are pure meta discussion. Why not discuss real life action?

Good question.

Quite frankly, for me, this is old news. The US drone policy dates back to Obama (IIRC, some conservatives called for his impeachment because of it), and its nature hasn't exactly changed.
It's well-known that the US takes the right to kill anyone it wants anywhere on the planet with zero accountability, rejects the basics of international justice, and, generally speaking, behaves like the rogue/terrorist states that it pretends to oppose.

Thing is, everyone knows this. Gallup once asked people around the world which country they viewed as the greatest threat to world peace. The #1 answer was (and quite frankly, will be for the foreseeable future) the US. I mean, its military budget alone is enough of a clue.

I think we don't discuss this here because it's beating a dead horse. Also, most Americans here know this and condemn such actions.

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1 hour ago, Arakan said:

Again, the last pages are pure meta discussion. Why not discuss real life action?

The drone attack immediately after the Kabul bombing left 10 people dead, 7 children. The reaction of the Pentagon: we made a mistake. 

And that’s it. No accountability, no consequences. Why the drone attack? Out of fear? Out of the feeling to have to do sth? Why? Who is accountable?

And people really wonder why the US is so hated around the world? 

What, did you think there would be an apology for these ten people?  The whole point of having murder drones and the most funded and pervasive military in the world is not having to be accountable.

Was there any apology for the tens of thousands killed in Afghanistan in the last 20 years?  Vietnam?  Iraq?  

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Let's just say I chose the 50-60 year period precisely to avoid getting dragged into a discussion about which side was worse during the Cold War... :P

Fair enough.  And if you had gone with 20-30 years, people would have thrown Islamic fundamentalism at the wall. :)

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Quote

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

                                                                                                 -- Walter Benjamin

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2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

.

However, the US is widely blamed for numerous atrocities committed in the Americas, with or without privatization. In many cases it was an indirect involvement, but in some cases, the CIA and/or military "advisors" got their hands quite dirty.

I'm quite surprised that someone from Brazil would see Chile as an exception to a rule. Chile may have been an extreme example in several ways (what with the intervention of the Chicago boys and all), but it exemplified quite a few things as to US influence in the Americas.

 

 

This is actually part of the point I was making: that anti-communism doesn't equal support for capitalism, at least not in the sense people think of neo-liberal, free trade economics, or even an alliance with the US doesn't mean indisputable support from or for it.

Of course, US' history of interference is long and disastrous, but at the same time is often used in the era a crutch used by politicians to justify their own failures, as their own scary boogeyman, as much as the right uses communism. 

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1 hour ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

This is actually part of the point I was making: that anti-communism doesn't equal support for capitalism, at least not in the sense people think of neo-liberal, free trade economics, or even an alliance with the US doesn't mean indisputable support from or for it.

If you're saying what I think you're saying, that the US was willing to support regimes with mixed economies as long as they could help screw the Soviet Union, then sure.
The US and its ideology have been the major force in the world for decades. This does not mean that the US was ever all-powerful, or that its influence was limitless.

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4 hours ago, Padraig said:

Fair enough.  And if you had gone with 20-30 years, people would have thrown Islamic fundamentalism at the wall. :)

Though the evil of that has its roots further back than 50-60 years. It goes back to WWI when the allies decided to carve up the former Ottoman empire according to their interests and not the interests of the people who lived there. And then there was Israel, another solution to a problem substantially of Europe's making that was forced upon the people of the region. And of course the overthrow of a liberal secular govt in Iran, orchestrated by the USA and UK, curiously cooperating with the clergy (separation of Church and State only applies to the USA it would seem) in its designs, to bring back a corrupt and cruel Shah, fomenting the eventual Islamic revolution.

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

It goes back to WWI when the allies decided to carve up the former Ottoman empire according to their interests and not the interests of the people who lived there.

Not entirely accurate, particularly as how WWI began -- but certainly coincidal before-hand.  Especially with France's secret  Picot-Sykes treaty. Yet, even so, the war may not needed to have happened.  Except, it really seems there were so many arrangements among all the participants, whether overt or secret, it overtipped due to sheer weight of all of it, and there was no one of the weight to prevent it.  Not quite the same as inevitable, but looking quite like.  I guess.

ETA == please excuse this historian's gloss/reveal of historical matters when attempting to provide information and facts.

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It's not about how or why WWI began, it's about how it ended and how the "spoils" of war were divided up among the victors. Which was a thing of its time, all down through history "to the victor go the spoils" was an accepted fact of war which pretty much transcended cultures, but the flow on effects are what we see today. The victors enjoyed the prolonged punishment, subjugation and reparations from Germany, which we know how that ended, and the partitioning of the Ottoman empire along lines that suited the allied victors.

I guess one thing we should acknowledge the USA for is doing a 180 on that historical attitude with Japan and actually helping to uplift it and recover from the devastation of the war to help it achieve a level of global greatness and influence unachieved in any past imperialistic endeavours. Not that there was no self-interest involved, being it was right on China's doorstep and just a stone's throw from the USSR's Eastern extremities. If the USA hadn't gone in there and helped them out, China or Russia could well have gone in there and helped themselves. But that self-interest happened to be of significant benefit to Japan, unlike most self-interested behaviour from the great powers of past and present.

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10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Quite frankly, for me, this is old news. The US drone policy dates back to Obama (IIRC, some conservatives called for his impeachment because of it), and its nature hasn't exactly changed.
It's well-known that the US takes the right to kill anyone it wants anywhere on the planet with zero accountability, rejects the basics of international justice, and, generally speaking, behaves like the rogue/terrorist states that it pretends to oppose.

Thing is, everyone knows this. Gallup once asked people around the world which country they viewed as the greatest threat to world peace. The #1 answer was (and quite frankly, will be for the foreseeable future) the US. I mean, its military budget alone is enough of a clue.

I think we don't discuss this here because it's beating a dead horse. Also, most Americans here know this and condemn such actions.

I know where you are coming from but it’s not about discussing this with US posters, most of them here will condemn it yes, but discuss it anyway, give it a voice. Smalls steps but small steps bring you closer to your goal. 

Look. I am from Germany, Western Germany to be precise. And we are/were the biggest/bestest lapdogs of the US, for obvious historical reasons. For many decades criticizing the US, especially from those with a voice, was a No-Go. I mean Ramstein is still a political taboo topic. But since Trump people are seeing the US for what it is. Politicians start to get real etc. 

Its a process. But an important one as the US for their own legitimacy need the moral support of its allies and „friends“. Finally this blind German faithfulness towards the US gets cracks. One reason why we always get bashed, be it Trump or Biden. But people are finally awakening here. The Cold War is over for 30 years now. 

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13 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Though the evil of that has its roots further back than 50-60 years. 

Further back than 100 years also.  Its very difficult to find the "origin" of something.  There is always some event that preceded it.

What one can say is that ideas wax and wane.  The collapse of Communism in the USSR allowed other beliefs to become much more prominent.  And the failure of neo-liberalism more recently, has allowed nationalism to raise its head higher again.  But nationalism and Islamic fundamendalism obviously existed fo decades/centuries, if in different forms and guises.  (Not that i'm suggesting i'm an expert here).

Every system also has there good and bad points.  We can sometimes get overfocused on one side, or think that the good excuses the bad.  We can overcomplicate or oversimplify.  It is very difficult to have a real discussion about those things because people will focus on the points they most care for and ignore the rest.

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19 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Though the evil of that has its roots further back than 50-60 years. It goes back to WWI when the allies decided to carve up the former Ottoman empire according to their interests and not the interests of the people who lived there. And then there was Israel, another solution to a problem substantially of Europe's making that was forced upon the people of the region. And of course the overthrow of a liberal secular govt in Iran, orchestrated by the USA and UK, curiously cooperating with the clergy (separation of Church and State only applies to the USA it would seem) in its designs, to bring back a corrupt and cruel Shah, fomenting the eventual Islamic revolution.

People living there have their own agency, and aren't merely reacting to the actions of western countries.

Personally, I would trace the roots of that particular evil to the Grand Mosque seizure of 1979, and before that to the house of Ibn Saud's conquest of the modern Saudi Arabia in the 1920s, both of which have very little to do with the West.

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