Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 40

On Writing. Other writers.

Alan Moore is many things. Creator of such comics as Watchmen ,[1] he's a legend. So this interview only adds to that. That he's given up on comics and thinks that older people going to see movie versions of stories made for 12yos is a symbol of cultural decay so strong as to defy reasoning (and a reason why he left comics, I suppose, that and it was aimed at middle class middle aged people instead of the young)
Comics and Trump eating from the same trough?

a denial of reality and an urge for simplistic and sensational solutions.

Sounds smart. Also, will have to read his novel and check out his show. 
[1] Well, perhaps I'm not the best judge of this. I didn't care too much for the graphic novel, but I loved the TV show. That being said, I'm not the biggest fan of the graphic novel or comic genre and didn't even care for Sandman all that much. 


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But the right is always worse.

Looks like Roe v Wade is off the table again. Gotta give it to the right, when they wanna crush something, they do it, even in some Stalin-era sounding "shadow docket". Ofc people are worried. As usual, the right isn't about saving lives, but control over women (hence why they usually make sure IVF is exempt from this rule) and making sure they have another way to bludgeon those they don't care for. Read Just Mercy to see how every miscarriage, every still born will be used to attack people (minorities, poors who aren't liked etc etc). Again, this is mainly about destroying women's health (also helps with the control part). And also note how those on the right crying crocodile tears for Afghan women aren't saying shit now. 
A truly dark day. Though maybe if Texan women Lysistrata this they can crush these evil idiots. 
As you know, I'm pretty certain we're slow marching ourselves to Neo feudalism. With the right you get it right into the veins, while moderate dems are spineless and give them the assist (such as not packing the court and so forth). 
Still, hearing shit like this, where we can actually help stop the pandemic and the next variant (or lower the probability). Instead, even though we've pulled out of one money laundering scheme, we can't seem to think in terms of ac dual improving of our reality. 
And this is Biden. 100x better than anyone on the GOP. 
Then, for our anthroprocene, we have firenadoes:



on one side of the country and flooding (that has killed many already) on the other. 




Note, that my prophecy still stands (and the likes of Cuomo, who sucked money out of the city to help a handful of people upstate should be noted as a culprit, though there are others in that city as well): that NYC will not survive, or will barely survive a direct hit from a real hurricane. I was there for Sandy and in my solid brick building in the bronx (for a tropical storm that missed us) shook so hard I was certain a stronger storm would take it out. And many other buildings would be taken out by the winds or the tornadoes, 🌪  nevermind the flooding. 
I do hope we can take climate change seriously, but the right is more powerful than we think. I'm wondering now, when we'll actually see real eco terrorists. I mean, there will be one level of them (on the right, much of the terrorism does come from effect of climate change, but instead of acknowledging the real causes, they blame the powerless and attack them), but I mean, people who actually start to say, well my fam died because of these people. And act on that. Surprised we haven't seen it yet. Could it be most people are too dumb to blame the ones responsible, especially if they're powerful? Hard to say. Covid will, as always, be the trial run. 
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Libs Still Being POSs

In most lib circles (LGM etc) Assange is some evil person. Now, I know the right thinks of him as such, but mainly because they're fascists at heart. But that the libs have fallen for propaganda about the man. And they have not even stopped to think about it because, without evidence, they think he helped Trump win. Riiiight. 
To that end read this interview (original here) that exposes the crimes of the UK, US, & Sweden. The propaganda was clear and present [1] from the start and I called it a long time ago. Something seemed fishy. But of course, libs immediately saw our all too trustworthy (and maybe saw the Swedish stamp and thought those socialists are good right?) CIA etc and decided to believe them:

And Assange becomes the focus of attention instead, and we start talking about whether Assange is skateboarding in the embassy or whether he is feeding his cat correctly. Suddenly, we all know that he is a rapist, a hacker, a spy and a narcissist. But the abuses and war crimes he uncovered fade into the darkness. I also lost my focus, despite my professional experience, which should have led me to be more vigilant.

Remember those rape allegations? Probably picked so that the libs would crumble with their "believe all of them" mantra:

Why would a person be subject to nine years of a preliminary investigation for rape without charges ever having been filed?

Is that unusual?
I have never seen a comparable case. Anyone can trigger a preliminary investigation against anyone else by simply going to the police and accusing the other person of a crime. The Swedish authorities, though, were never interested in testimony from Assange. They intentionally left him in limbo. Just imagine being accused of rape for nine-and-a-half years by an entire state apparatus and by the media without ever being given the chance to defend yourself because no charges had ever been filed.

Which is commendable until you're talking about state actors ffs. So no charges were filed and anyone on the internet who said this was shouted down and even called a rape apologist. 
Not that it was even a charge of rape, that actually came later. But do you expect our journalists to do the work?

Allow me to start at the beginning. I speak fluent Swedish and was thus able to read all of the original documents. I could hardly believe my eyes: According to the testimony of the woman in question, a rape had never even taken place at all. And not only that: The woman’s testimony was later changed by the Stockholm police without her involvement in order to somehow make it sound like a possible rape. I have all the documents in my possession, the emails, the text messages.

The case is truly nuts. 

«The woman’s testimony was later changed by the police» – how exactly?
On Aug. 20, 2010, a woman named S. W. entered a Stockholm police station together with a second woman named A. A. The first woman, S. W. said she had had consensual sex with Julian Assange, but he had not been wearing a condom. She said she was now concerned that she could be infected with HIV and wanted to know if she could force Assange to take an HIV test. She said she was really worried. The police wrote down her statement and immediately informed public prosecutors. Even before questioning could be completed, S. W. was informed that Assange would be arrested on suspicion of rape. S. W. was shocked and refused to continue with questioning. While still in the police station, she wrote a text message to a friend saying that she didn’t want to incriminate Assange, that she just wanted him to take an HIV test, but the police were apparently interested in «getting their hands on him.»

What does that mean?
S.W. never accused Julian Assange of rape. She declined to participate in further questioning and went home. Nevertheless, two hours later, a headline appeared on the front page of Expressen, a Swedish tabloid, saying that Julian Assange was suspected of having committed two rapes.

Two rapes?
Yes, because there was the second woman, A. A. She didn’t want to press charges either; she had merely accompanied S. W. to the police station. She wasn’t even questioned that day. She later said that Assange had sexually harassed her. I can’t say, of course, whether that is true or not. I can only point to the order of events: A woman walks into a police station. She doesn’t want to file a complaint but wants to demand an HIV test. The police then decide that this could be a case of rape and a matter for public prosecutors. The woman refuses to go along with that version of events and then goes home and writes a friend that it wasn’t her intention, but the police want to «get their hands on» Assange. Two hours later, the case is in the newspaper. As we know today, public prosecutors leaked it to the press – and they did so without even inviting Assange to make a statement. And the second woman, who had allegedly been raped according to the Aug. 20 headline, was only questioned on Aug. 21.

What did the second woman say when she was questioned?
She said that she had made her apartment available to Assange, who was in Sweden for a conference. A small, one-room apartment. When Assange was in the apartment, she came home earlier than planned, but told him it was no problem and that the two of them could sleep in the same bed. That night, they had consensual sex, with a condom. But she said that during sex, Assange had intentionally broken the condom. If that is true, then it is, of course, a sexual offense – so-called «stealthing». But the woman also said that she only later noticed that the condom was broken. That is a contradiction that should absolutely have been clarified. If I don’t notice it, then I cannot know if the other intentionally broke it. Not a single trace of DNA from Assange or A. A. could be detected in the condom that was submitted as evidence.

How did the two women know each other?
They didn’t really know each other. A. A., who was hosting Assange and was serving as his press secretary, had met S. W. at an event where S. W. was wearing a pink cashmere sweater. She apparently knew from Assange that he was interested in a sexual encounter with S. W., because one evening, she received a text message from an acquaintance saying that he knew Assange was staying with her and that he, the acquaintance, would like to contact Assange. A. A. answered: Assange is apparently sleeping at the moment with the “cashmere girl.” The next morning, S. W. spoke with A. A. on the phone and said that she, too, had slept with Assange and was now concerned about having become infected with HIV. This concern was apparently a real one, because S.W. even went to a clinic for consultation. A. A. then suggested: Let’s go to the police – they can force Assange to get an HIV test. The two women, though, didn’t go to the closest police station, but to one quite far away where a friend of A. A.’s works as a policewoman – who then questioned S. W., initially in the presence of A. A., which isn’t proper practice. Up to this point, though, the only problem was at most a lack of professionalism. The willful malevolence of the authorities only became apparent when they immediately disseminated the suspicion of rape via the tabloid press, and did so without questioning A. A. and in contradiction to the statement given by S. W. It also violated a clear ban in Swedish law against releasing the names of alleged victims or perpetrators in sexual offense cases. The case now came to the attention of the chief public prosecutor in the capital city and she suspended the rape investigation some days later with the assessment that while the statements from S. W. were credible, there was no evidence that a crime had been committed.

Basically Sweden played games the entire time with Assange, just to play into the international propaganda that this guy was a crazy nutter etc etc etc. And indeed, this matters. Assange, as a journalist, will be the only one who gets jail time out of all of this. And given that we're still headed towards Neo-feudalism, this does not bode well for any of us:

 People who obtain sensitive information from their governments or companies transfer that information to Wikileaks, but the whistleblower remains anonymous. The reaction shows how great the threat is perceived to be: Four democratic countries joined forces – the U.S., Ecuador, Sweden and the UK – to leverage their power to portray one man as a monster so that he could later be burned at the stake without any outcry. The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of Western rule of law. If Julian Assange is convicted, it will be a death sentence for freedom of the press.

Read the whole thing. It's fucking dark, people. 

Speaking of war crimes by the west, the whistleblower of the Aussie crimes will be targeted by the law and has been targeted with a bomb. Well that's just swell. Also, I always say that the people at the bottom can't be blamed as much as those at the top (generals etc and other liars who got us into the war), but something like this makes me think. After all, it's clear that with the bomb attack the war is coming home and those SAS members learned nothing but impunity. Learning from their leaders? Well of course, but what does that mean for the pawns in Au who will now be attacked by them (how racist are they, when compared to our soldiers etc). Not an easy discussion to have, tbf. 
[1] This really makes me doubt Zeynep when it comes to geopolitics now. She seems good on things like covid, but the other stuff shows she, like Elliot Ackerman that veteran writer (hey get paid how you need to, I suppose), is either too embedded with the elites in foreign policy or.. well, like Ackerman, I think you know what I mean. She has a whole bit on attacked WL. Now, I'm sure they make mistakes, but given that she has nothing positive to say, I'm guessing she knows how to rise in the ranks or is so embedded with those people she has been morphed into them (same with most veteran writers I know, unfortunately). Note how she also has little to say about US foreign policy and only points to China [2]. This is a courtier, like many others.

[2] and again, some of it, like China, is not false, it's just interesting what she chooses to focus on. (like this work on when we or China knew about the disease is good).
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A little more on Afghanistan

Glad ol' Joe held on despite the screeching hawks. Now, to hear the right scream about refugees. I do hope the veterans (like Ackerman) who shot down Biden for not doing enough for them will stick up for them in the face of the right, but I'm guessing we won't see that as much. There's a whole complex set of relationships between that kind of vet and the right, but it is a symbiotic relationship. Same with the elites (and thus the vets with voices in elite circles). 
That being said, reading this, I'm truly wondering how far fucking off our intel was. Literally, did Biden, (like Bush re 9/11) miss a talking point or was this stuff never sent to him. And if Taliban was on WhatsApp how the fuck were they not being listened in on at all times? That one Atlantic article made it seem like every word was heard. Or maybe they knew which channels were being listened to and which were not. 
Like holy shit there needs to be a full on investigation on this matter. And now. These aren't some great power state actors who can throw decent shade. This is simply a handful of tribal fighters, ISI backing notwithstanding. Well a full investigation on the entire 20 years. 
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Woke Capitalism.

At the height of the greatest protest movement (ignored, it would seem, by most in power, and disparaged by the right) this country has ever seen, we had a whole bunch of corporations claim to be for BLM and made some hand waving gestures towards being pro-BLM, whatever. [1] Most people, like me, saw it for the cynical ploy that it was. Let's see them push their support behind reforming the police and helping alleviate poverty, then we'll talk. 
But plenty on the right (again, the most dangerous/evil group of people in the world) used this as some sort of "woe is me" moment where they claim that all the corporations are against them. Now, I'm not ignoring the value of people actually accepting the idea of BLM (whereas in 2014 people saw it as some terrorist group,  now more have accepted it... actually doing something, well, yeah, that's something else), but it was never more than skin deep, tbf. 
So, when I get an email from some reader here who claims that wok capitalism is... well against them. You know that I'm going to dismiss the shit out of it. First, why are right wingers even coming to this website? You want to hear me talk shit to you? All right, that's it. I'll always be amazed that the way the right screams like children. 
So yeah, don't send me shit about woke capitalism because the right, already prevalent throughout social media are angry because of one single man and horse dewormers have been banned (I'm all for everyone on the right taking horse dewormer and not getting vaxxed, tbf). 
[1] And in case you have to be reminded that corporate power rarely does anything worthwhile. That though they seem to have some disgust for the trump-style, they are, but all for most of his policies and tax giveaways (read: the murder of our planet and especially the poors). So Biden, I don't like the guy, but Biden, he has some decent fucking proposals and the corporations, they're not pressing the GOP {a}
    {a}Once, again, I've repeated this Chomsky truism, but it's worth saying. That in the GOP and our right wing in general, we have the most evil most destructive organization in all of human history. Again, they're looking at civilization ending climate change and not even doing piecemeal half-assed policy but denying it completely and trying to run towards it. Wanting the apocalypse? Probably that plays a part. But not even the Nazis said they wanted to end the world. And now, given how moderate dems are acting, we'll have to add them to this list of shitbags. But here's what I'm talking about. I'm sure all of the companies on this list have had the BLM sticker put up, but are actively pushing against anything that will actually help. Woke Capitalism my ass. 


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Old Salt Here.

With a slight retraction. Some of you wrote and said that I was taking the official line hook line and sinker. Yeah, well I suppose even an old salt like me falls for the the old "slightly made up" narrative that lives in our MSM. 

So I find this little piece, hidden away that you won't see elsewhere. Suicide bombers hit the checkpoint and I assumed it was so crowded that all the afghans killed (170?) were as a result of the blast as well. Hell, all headlines never seemed to say much else. Instead, you get this bit of info where most of the Afghanis killed were killed by coalition soldiers shooting after the fact (turks and US from the sounds of it[1]). Again, most killed were by us. Could it have been fear? Maybe. Most likely that "fuck them all" energy that exists in many hearts of the troops (note, I'm the type who thinks that those at the bottom should get minimal blame while those up top, generals and the contractors getting 💰 get the most). [2]
But if you read the headlines, nothing on that. 
Then the drone attack I mentioned. Again, I did say if the facts backed the official account. They don't. 

To the Ahmadis and their neighbours, claims that the attack had targeted a potential ISKL car bomber is infuriating.“We are all Afghan, we know what a car laden with explosives would do if it was struck from the sky,” said Abdol Matin, a neighbour who grew up with the Ahmadi children and saw the boys as brothers. Like so many others gathered in the Ahmadi residence, Abdol Matin does not buy Washington’s claim that they had conducted a precise strike on an enemy target.

btw, these people seem as innocent as possible. Like, they wanted to come here (so I suppose that the right wingers out there will cheer this on):

Zemarai’s other brother, Romal, who was also away at the time of the attack, had worked as a driver at the Ministry of Water and Energy. The men’s time with the government and affiliation with foreign forces had earned the family a Special Immigrant Visa offered by the US.

“They worked for private companies. They served in the military. They were part of the government, what would make anyone think they’re terrorists,” said Aimal.

So now, people see why being called a terrorist after being wrongfully targeted can get to them:

“All the media outlets repeated Joe Biden’s statement that the targets were Daesh without questioning it,” he said referring to the Arabic name for the ISIL armed group.

Feroz says that from the start of the US invasion through to its final days, Washington and its allies have been trying to “convince the Afghan people that these aerial attacks are only killing terrorists but now, in Kabul, we are seeing their true costs.”

tbf, I'm guessing our military wants to prolong this war. What better way than to target random people to get them to retaliate? Meanwhile on the main stream comment threads, everyone thinks it was a bomb that was hit that killed the kids and family and some are even bringing up that propagandistic movie, Eye in the Sky (which I wrote about here) as, "wow just like real life". 
No one bringing what this article does:

Despite officials' claims that the drone assassination program is highly precise and targeted at militants, U.S. strikes have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians in recent years. According to documents leaked by former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale—who was sentenced to nearly four years in prison last month—nearly 90% of the people killed during one five-month period of a U.S. drone operation in Afghanistan were not the intended targets.

90%. So our vaunted intel etc, bullied our POTUS to launch another attack. An addict who just wants one more hit. And like the previous 20 years, we did it all wrong again. But give them more money cause they'll get it right sooner or later. 
So my apologies to all of you. 
[1] Absolute random aside, but I've heard Vietnam vets say the war there got really dirty when Turkish troops came in and started some crazy abuses (and the Vietcong started to reciprocate). Not that I entirely believe that we were angels before that, or that we weren't already teaching that logic (or the French hadn't either). Just an anecdotal point. 
[2] Interestingly enough, there are plenty of issues to discuss when it comes to Afghanistan and the idea of war, but this piece shares some of my points. 
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Will We See the Blob Shush Up?

I'm actually not sure when the word "the blob" came to represent what was formerly known as the "deep state" and when that term took over. I'm guessing when trump and the right started using Deep state for any bureaucracy that they didn't like, even those doing good. 
Still, after the tragic deaths last week, I do want to say a few things. First, you know I'm in the fuck these warmongers camp. But shit like this does annoy tf out of me. 

Yeah, civilian deaths suck, they really do. And I'm the first to call out anyone trying to cry crocodile tears over them (did you see me even give Obama a break over his shit?), but this shit of screaming about any without more evidence is a bit much. This was, from what I can see, the hit on a carbomb, most likely set out to hit even more civilians. Here, it's likely that the bomb itself did the killing. Bad? Yeah, but there's a lot worse shit out there, and this ain't it. In fact, this is something one can understand (unless you come up with more evidence showing otherwise). 

 Second, we will probably end up working with the Taliban, assuming they show they can actually hold ground in Afghanistan. And it might be that to target ISIS that's what's needed. 
Third, I kinda hope that's enough for the crazies who want forever war. Because otherwise, the alternative is them having us fuel a civil war just so they can watch Afghanistan burn and say, well, look at that. Maybe toast their marshmallows on it. Sick fucks, certainly, but I do hope we don't go that route. Afghanistan needs to be able to feed its people (drought ongoing, poverty endemic, and frozen assets means we have the switch to turn this country into ashes) and we would be wise to help hold peace talks with them and the new northern alliance so it's not a smoldering ruin.... Yeah and get the regional fucks like Pakistan (ISI) in on that.
Remember, 2.5 M refugees from Afghanistan (read this bit how Turkey is bearing the brunt on this one... I think Iran too, yeah the latter has our sanctions over their head, yet they are helping in this respect). 
Which brings me to #4 on my shitlist (no, autocorrect, not short list, and you're about to be added in a second), in that I think so little of the EU that I sometimes want Erdogan to let loose a couple million into their lands, cause fuck these spineless fucks with all the morality of an insect. They want American soldiers to die in Afghanistan and for what? To make sure they don't have more refugees, but fuck it if they'll even try to shed some blood. Well maybe Erdogan can squeeze some 💰 out of those fucks (who have drowned 1000s in the Mediterranean Sea). [1]
And, once again, Afghanistan was little more than a money laundering operation. 
But I have to give it to their (EU) journalists, for great breakdowns like this one in Der Speigel and how the Taliban infiltrated Kabul:

The next day, I met one of the Taliban’s leading military commanders for Kabul, who received me in the middle of the city in an unremarkable office building. When asked how far the Taliban had to walk to get to the lakeshore, he responded: "Not far at all." He seemed perfectly calm, a clean-shaven emissary of fear. "They’re already there, after all. They are the security guards at the restaurants, the ride operators, the cleaning staff. When the time is right, the place will be full of Taliban."

Lol, this is some fight club shit. 

Numerous witnesses in various neighborhoods of the capital following the fall of Kabul had similar stories to tell. "It started in April," says a longtime acquaintance from the western part of the city. "More and more outsiders were suddenly in the neighborhood. Some had beards, others didn’t. Some were well dressed, others wore rags. Completely different. That made them difficult to notice. But all of the locals realized: They aren’t from here." They had silently infiltrated Kabul. The outsiders also appeared in the northern and eastern parts of the city, telling those who asked that they had come to Kabul for a new job or for business reasons.

The piece shows how this war was lost from the start (not even cause of the so called pivot to Iraq [2])

I arrived in Afghanistan in the scorching hot summer of 2002, just after the U.S. Air Force had bombed a wedding party in the countryside. At least that’s what survivors said. The U.S. military spokesmen countered that gunmen onboard the U.S. aircraft had fired in self-defense after having been targeted from the ground.

That sounded so absurd that we went there ourselves, traveling unchallenged through the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan, the cradle of the Taliban. But they were no longer there. "You know," an Afghan man said one evening around a fire at a rural rest stop, "I was also with the Taliban! But they’re history now." His tone was laconic, and he didn’t sound particularly disappointed, since he could now plant poppies again, something that had been strictly forbidden under Taliban rule.

Yeah, fuck me, and that's when it was still considered a good war. Because we were the Greek Gods at the start and what else could we be used for but local spats:

In the bombed village in Uruzgan, it quickly became apparent that the story behind the wedding bombing had unfolded rather differently. The Americans hadn’t just attacked from the air, but had rolled in with a convoy of heavily armed infantrymen. It hadn’t been self-defense at all, but a planned attack. Members of a Kandahar tribe had accused allies of President Hamid Karzai of being members of the Taliban.

If you couldn’t defeat the Americans, you could apparently use them for your own purposes. It was a pattern that would repeat itself over and over again, and which would contribute to the abject failure of the intervention. The great tribal council meeting in Kabul in June 2002 "was the moment when it failed," recalls Thomas Ruttig, who was a UN official from Germany at the time, but who later co-founded the Afghanistan Analysts Network. "The moment when U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad brought back the warlords." They were the men who had destroyed the country in the earlier civil war, but who had helped the U.S. government of President George W. Bush in the fight against the Taliban.

And we set up the worst kinds of people to run that country. Couldn't have expected anything else, with or without Iraq. 

Khalilzad and others forced the tribal council to include 50 additional men on top of the elected representatives – militia leaders who had ruled with fear and aggression before the arrival of the Taliban. They were men like Mohammed "Marshal" Fahim, a Tajik leader who stood accused of perpetrating massacres and kidnappings. And Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek leader who murdered several hundred imprisoned Taliban and later had his opponents raped with bottles. Both of them would go on to serve as vice president of the country. The new holders of power remained uncompromising. They immediately set about exacting revenge on their former enemies and plundering the new government.

And man was the logic of the coalition ever fucked up. 

In the north, the German military rhapsodized at the time about the quiet in the provinces under their watch. When a new police chief was then appointed and he established a regime of horror in Kunduz, beating farmers and destroying their market stands when they didn’t pay sufficient protection money, the German troops stood by and watched from their hill overlooking the city. They were, they pointed out, only there as the "International Security Assistance Force" for the Afghanistan government. That presaged the return of the Taliban in Kunduz, with the Islamists taking control of village after village, until the Germans didn’t even dare to make forays six kilometers from their base. In September 2009, the German military called in U.S. airstrikes in Kunduz that killed 91 people who were looting fuel from two hijacked tanker trucks. The German commander thought they were insurgents.

You think that was ever going to end well? Btw, remember how Karzai stayed in Kabul though the Taliban was rolling in? Well, that corrupt fuck maybe worse than I thought. Never heard of this story before:

In the search for a solution, Washington overrode Karzai’s objections and pushed through a second vote, one that would be monitored by UN election observers. What then took place is among the darkest examples of the opportunism exhibited by the U.S. government and the UN.

At daybreak of Oct. 28, three attackers launched an assault on the UN guesthouse in Kabul, shot the guards to death, pushed their way into the courtyard and set about slaughtering the almost 30 UN employees inside. But they unexpectedly met resistance. Louis Maxwell, a former U.S. soldier and security officer, was able to hold back the attackers from a rooftop for one-and-a-half hours. No help came from the Afghan police or the army – right in the heart of Kabul. Once the three attackers set off their suicide belts, Maxwell staggered out, while four other UN employees were calling others on the outside telling them they would also emerge from hiding.

Just minutes later, they were all dead, the four shot from the front. Maxwell was hit as he was standing on the street between two Afghan soldiers. Neither of them batted an eyelash. They then dragged his body into the courtyard. Months later, internal UN investigators only managed to make progress with their inquiry thanks to a chance video of Maxwell’s murder made by a German security officer from a rooftop several buildings away. But it was all supposed to remain confidential.

In summer 2010, an FBI investigator asked to meet with me in Kabul. When I asked what would happen next, he just shook his head. There would be no further investigations. Washington, he said, didn’t want to expose Karzai. Following the attack, half of the UN staff was pulled out of the country and the second election was cancelled. Hamid Karzai got the victory he wanted.

It's a good piece, check it out and share it. 
Then this one, is from people who got in with the Taliban. Extremely highly recommended to all, for sure. Check out this origin story:

Its founder Mullah Mohammed Omar is shrouded in myth, a man who lost an eye fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Only one photograph existed of him until his death in 2013. Omar taught in a mosque near Kandahar after the collapse of the communist regime in 1992. The country had fallen into the hands of hundreds of warlords and their fighters, the mujahedeen, who were organized into dozens of different alliances that fought against each other. Those were the bloodiest years of the country’s civil war, and Afghanistan sank into anarchy. In early 1994, a local warlord kidnapped two girls, shaved their hair, and held them at his base, where they were raped. Omar called together the 30 students at his madrassa, his “Taliban” – the word Talib simply means “student.” They armed themselves with 16 rifles and went to the warlord’s house, where they freed the girls. They then hanged the warlord from the barrel of a tank’s gun.

A similar theme pops up: the corruption and outright theft of those who are with the coalition:

“In the first years after the fall of the Taliban government, no one thought war would return. We were optimistic. Everyone was tired, even our local Taliban were tired. They had returned to their families and became farmers again. They weren’t fighting against the government. At first, the Taliban also weren’t opposed to the international aid organizations that built bridges and irrigation canals in our valley. But today, almost everyone is against the government. The government brought violence to us again. They came to our valley and hunted down former Taliban. Then the foreigners came. They arrived at night with helicopters and arrested people in their homes. They arrested a lot of innocent people.

The government and the foreigners only listened to Commander Chalil. He held power here as a warlord in the 1990s and had to flee from the Taliban. Then he came back with the Americans. Chalil is not a good man – he wasn’t before and he isn’t now. He stole a lot of land. All he had to do was accuse someone of being with the Taliban and they would have to flee with their family, and Chalil got the land. In one village, he wanted to steal so much land that the residents took up arms. They wanted to defend themselves against the thief. Fifteen people died. But the government didn’t arrest the actual thief, but those who tried to protect themselves. That’s why most here are pro-Taliban. The government may have sent us aid organizations, but with Chalil they took away our land.”

Interesting breakdown of the 3 wings of the Taliban:

The Taliban tried to reorganize as early as 2002, but failed. Most Afghans rejected them, hoping for a better future with Karzai, and reported their identities to the Americans and government forces. In exile, in the vast refugee camps in Pakistan, the Taliban broke into three different factions called shura. One shura was formed in the city of Quetta, led by parts of the old Taliban elite. A second one formed in Peshawar. A third one, the most radical, emerged in Miran Shah. It was under the firm control of a clan, the Haqqani, a name that would soon be widely feared because the Haqqani family maintained the largest training camps for suicide bombers in Afghanistan. By 2015, the Haqqanis had reportedly deployed 1,160 suicide bombers, 843 of whom had “successfully” completed their missions.

Oh, and another reason why shit was doomed from the start:

The most important weapon in the Taliban’s battle against the government alliance is the Sharia courts. They also don’t always get it right, but they do pronounce law, they issue verdicts and enforce them. In contrast to government-controlled areas, where judges often take large sums of money from both parties, leaving them with the feeling that they are stuck in a morass of bribery and threats. Judges change their rulings based on favoritism, delay rulings for long periods of time and are then unable to enforce them.

Really good article here worth the complete read. And, yeah, I don't care for the Taliban, but the corruption before it cannot be ignored. And that can be a violation of human rights that we (and some peaceniks) don't take into account. Mainly cause it's not written in our international laws. 
Meanwhile, here in the states, we're getting to around 1300-1400 deaths per day. Yeah, a 9/11 every 2 days or so and our people on the right are going all out with horse dewormer, well what the fuck people? I mean, I get some of it, and I"m thinking afghan and how someone in the ANA said of the Taliban: they're wrong, but they are willing to die for it" and I wonder if these fucks are at least willing to die for the rich to say fuck you to the medical establishment etc? Will they win? Fuck, I hope not. Seriously, get vaxxed. 

[1] So even though I hate this piece, mainly cause it doesn't look at the context of the war etc etc, and I can hate on a fellow vet writer because this blaming part sounds like he's a little too into the forever wars and a little too into the blob's mindset, if you know what I mean, 😉, I still respeck him more cause that's heart causing him to try and get someone they knew out and he does not lack for bravery or skin in the game (but the "Biden's mess" part and the insinuation that we should stay forever get a resounding fuck off from me). 
[2] Though, damn the liberal types love posting that one without any analysis. Yeah I hate Bush too, but you need more evidence for that. All fingers point to this war being lost from the get go. Bad protoplasm and all (our trajectory and our allies there). 
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More complaining, then back to writing.

Actually trying to do some essays for a contest. More on that, later. But I need to say that the reaction to this:

shows how out of it everyone is. Most of the replies, on reddit, or wherever, are of the "the monster you created has turned on you." 
Once again, absolutely no context or history. This shit was here before, with britherism etc, and trump, a grifter, only ever just jumped in front of the mad carnival and led it. Maybe he boosts it and allows it to be braver than it is, but he's only playing the hits. He says anything else, and they will boo him. So it goes. 
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The Manufacturing is Working.

The screaming continues. And Biden 
Again, this isn't just the RW that's screaming like batshit insane addicts, who just had their 💰  cut off (and the dream of fighting brown hordes), but the centrists as well. 



here's a piece by an author [1], a courtier for the powerful in this country, I assume. Like many other centrists, she has her credentials not from actually critiquing our own failures, and trying to get better, but ra-rahing what the powerful (and the ones getting money from said actions, btw) in our own country. See the comment above about Venezuela, a place that dares to try to help its poor and dark masses (and where our sanctions are killing many). 
So we know this much about her (and thus, that she's shedding crocodile tears about any Afghans left there. 




But then, read this from her. An ode to attacking everyone everywhere. Baldwin summed her view up with "aching nobly to wade in the blood of savages". Actually don't read it. Like I said, it's Cheney fanfic at its worst. 
She pulls Chavez (helped poor dark people, she probably hates that) and Putin and the Taliban into the same trough. Doesn't talk about our atrocities (or the warlords in Afghanistan that we backed, the child rapists), or how we aren't liberal, or if we cared about dark women, we would do something here at home first then work with a better plan and trillions of dollars all around the world. Or how the war itself powers the illiberal here at home. No thought whatsoever put into that. 
Of course, she doesn't care. Doesn't care that it was a money laundering operation (getting bribed? I don't know. Maybe she just appreciates that the audacity of the grift. Many centrists do love people who get money and run in those circles so I can see that). Doesn't care about the other issues at hand (nevermind that liberal values vs non doesn't mean national ones etc etc). But I suppose this is all expected. 
What I don't like is plenty on the left are complaining online but no one has a call to action. This shit matters, and we need to keep the senate and POTUS focused on what matters. 
So Here's what you can do. First, tell POTUS to stick to this (think he will, we'll see how long that lasts). Then tell your senators, because apparently democrats are dumb enough to want to investigate this, so tell them to focus on what matters, here at fucking home. Again, this was nothing but a grift (here, read this breakdown, also worthwhile). 
[1] So I see the list of books she's written and though they've been highly recommended by the likes of Coates (wtf, man), IIRC, and more. All of them anti communist stuff, because, some people will never talk shit about their elites.  And, hey, I get it. This is what gets you paid, but this only reinforces my initial gut instinct that someone who only wrote bad against the perceived enemy is a propagandist. Chomsky points this out. If some USSR tool only wrote about the US crimes in the world (many) we should consider them in the same light. 
So this article of hers, only confirms that. Don't read it. It's Cheney fan fiction that might become erotica for the right sometime in the future, or now. Note what she doesn't include. That our foreign policy isn't there to help women. Has never been. And if we want that, there are many other better ways to achieve that. 
But that she has no insight, and only parrots what the grifters up top do, makes me think that I will never read her books either. I'll look for someone who has real insight into the world. 


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Still Manufacturing Consent

Like some monster in its last throes, the MSM and all those who want war are in a full on screech about how this is the end of the world. And of course, since it's been 20 years of lies, what's another year of it?
Exhibit 1:

Doesn't surprise me at all. Seems like they are doing in overdrive, shocked, shocked I tell you, that they can't bully Biden into getting back into this war. And, hell, I thought of Biden as a hawk, and maybe he'll let me down again, but he's been 💯 on this, even calling out the media as I have.. If you want to save women, and you have 20 years and 1Trillion dollars, there a million better ways to do it. 
Hell, it even seems like the centrists are seeing this obvious play to manufacture consent and are pushing back. Hopefully they push back even harder. 
And for all the faults of social media, if this was just the MSM, do you think there would be a way to clap back? 
To point out that the cable news shows are hosting people who are for the war without saying that they benefit from it? 
Yes, it seems that more and more people are seeing the whole endeavor for the corrupt one that it was. Now who they'll end up blaming, and who the elites will end up blaming (the latter seem to be sinking their teeth into Biden) will be important for our future and how we deal with the Climate Crisis upon us (oh, here's another climate crisis in the making, what do you think will happen there?). 
As for the media, all I can say is that Trump was right to treat them like POSs. No lie. 
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