Real progress towards peace and justice
A silver-lining from the pandemic appears to be that it's distracted the warmongers in the press, which has given President Trump more space to get our troops out of the Forever Wars.
US officials say they will reduce to 8,600 troops by July 15 and abandon five bases. By the second quarter of 2021, all foreign forces are supposed to withdraw, ending the US's longest war.
The peace agreement was between the Taliban and the U.S., not our puppet government in Kabul. But that may be changing too.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah signed a power-sharing deal on Sunday to end the months-long political crisis, a step that is expected to boost efforts to move the peace process forward.Abdullah, who had disputed the election result and declared himself president in February, appointed as the chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) that will hold talks with the Taliban armed group.
This incremental withdrawal tactic is similar to what is going on in Iraq. We've pulled out of half the bases we once operated from in Iraq, and we've agreed to talk to the Iraq government about permanent withdrawal.
The good news doesn't stop there. The U.S., Israel, and our allies are beginning to accept that Assad isn't going anywhere in Syria.
Representatives of opposing sides in Syria's war have agreed to reconvene in Geneva for stalled negotiations on the constitution, according to Geir Pedersen, the United Nations special envoy to the country.
This, unfortunately, has more limited impact, since Russia and the U.S. won't be part of these peace talks. Plus there is the issue of the proxy war going on in Libya.
While a ceasefire in Syria has reduced combat between rebels and government forces, mercenaries from the two sides are still fighting in Libya on behalf of their Russian and Turkish backers.Turkey supports some Syrian rebels and Libya's UN-recognised Government of National Accord, while Russia supports Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and Libya's eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar.
It's estimated that the number of Syrian foreign fighters supporting Haftar is around 2,000. While Turkey imported as many as 13,000 jihadist rebels from Syria to fight against Khalifa Haftar in Libya.
Comments
So, nothing at all was accomplished.
I believe we will leave Iraq.
Now that there is nothing left to fuck up.
We killed a bunch of people.
Tortured some folks.
Covered the ground with spent uranium so little deformed babies can be born.
And everyone grows a tumor by 25.
We destroyed the infrastructure,
Turned the water to mud and left a power plant that runs two hours per day.
Turned cities to rubble.
Committed as many war crimes as possible.
And bombed some oil infrastructure.
The war profiteers made a killing.
The American People paid for the whole thing, every dime, with nothing to show for it.
Except their sons coming home and blowing their brains out.
The ones that aren't already dead.
But for some reason, I can't picture the US every leaving Afghanistan.
Plus, what about the heroin. We can't just leave it there after we've spent 20 years cultivating it.
I just have the feeling that Afghanistan isn't done with us yet.
Whaddaya mean nothing at all was accomplished?
A small number of people got very rich.
That's not nothing.
It was a war crime
A war of choice when your country is not immediately threatened is a war crime. Even if Hussein had WMD it would still have been a war crime. As it turned out the other Hussein (BHO) had lots of WMD and was a clear and present and immediate threat to the world. As a war crime all of the congressional critters who voted for the AUMF are war criminals and should be tried for war crimes. How does being a member of congress give you immunity to commit war crimes? The lack of symmetry in the world when it comes to the US is staggering. Then the other Hussein used the AUMF to expand the war to seven other countries. "it's legal because ... the AUMF" Congress cannot confer international legality to an act of war. Basically we have no use for international laws, we do what we want. Implied in this is that we rule by terror and intimidation, which is obvious. Everyone supports this from both sides of the isle. What a disaster, where are the good people?
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
Meanwhile, US staying in Syria
to prevent Syrians access to their oilfields and to foment chaos within the country. The UN has not been allowed access to the US controlled Rukban concentration camp inside al-Tanf outpost so supplies aren't reaching the civilians trapped there. The only source of income is as jihadis recruits for the US military. These people are in Rukban because they had fled from ISIS controlled areas in Syria. They want to return to their homes now that their hometowns have been liberated by Assads' forces but the Americans won't allow them to leave - neither to Syria nor to Jordan.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSZxOyxL8k]
Wellll, SHIT.
I might just have to vote for Trump at this rate.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Trump is increadibly awful
He's a crook, a conman, and a war criminal.
But he's the lesser evil against Biden on 2 issues: war and trade.
In other words:
He's just like every other POFT* I've ever lived under...except he sucks at hiding it and Morgoth isn't as satisfied with him.
* = 'President-Or-Facsimile-Thereof'; feel free to use and propagate that.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Didn't Donnie try another coup in Venezuela recently?
And he's really, really itching to go to war with Iran. As long as his good buddies Netanyahu and the Saudi head-choppers egg him on. (Putin has to smack him with a rolled up newspaper. "Bad Donnie. Down, boy! Down!")
Donnie also betrayed our best allies in the region--the Kurds. Not a peep of protest for the military though. One would think the generals wouldn't take orders from a bleach drinker, but hey.
He's nothing good, just an unlikely LOTE
The Blue Team's been almost completely assimilated by all the neocons trying to sneak away from their last dumpster-fire. Trump fired Bolton a while ago, IIRC - he's the one, above all others, who I remain convinced is driven by a quaint little dream of marketing his own line of Persian-skin lampshades.
As for the generals, it would make sense that the Bush legacy's ensured a culture in which the only ones who make it to the top are those who've been selectively bred as David Betray-Us clones.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Trump and war.
He did go to war with Iran, twice.
The first time, the planes were within an hour of their Iranian targets when Trump supposedly asked the generals if the bombs about to be dropped would kill anybody. Upon hearing that when bombs detonate they tend to kill people, Trump called the planes back. I find that story preposterous, but it shows how easy it was to scratch his itch for war.
The second time, he bumped off an Iranian General who was in Iraq. The Iranians threatened to retaliate, and Trump got the itch to talk shit to Iran and promised to destroy a long list of Iranian cultural sites if they did. They did and he didn't.
It is very easy to disagree with Trump because he contradicts himself on damned near a daily basis and he is on both sides of a long list of important issues.
Those two wars have gone down the memory hole. But unless the first incident was a total pack of fake news and never happened in the first place (a real possibility in this depraved era), Trump has started two wars with Iran and chickened out both times.
Now, he might have been afraid of Iran. Or maybe he was afraid of getting JFKed. Or maybe he is a random lunatic. My own take is POTUS has been a figurehead at least since Dick Cheney assumed leadership of our empire.
Whatever it is that is itching him, he has actually scratched at it twice.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Pay attention, class.
With Trump, it seems everything boils down to HIM ...and I do mean everything. My guess is that someone showed him that his "ratings" might drop if he started bombing people. When you're (quite possibly) the most narcissistic person in the world, the fear of rejection is yuge!
Someone posted a short video clip yesterday of Joan Baez speaking with a reporter. She mentioned that she felt that what Trump wants most is for everyone to like him. In my opinion, she's not far from the truth. Back in 2016, before the election (as I recall), The Atlantic ran a bio article on Trump. At some point the article discussed Trump's narcissism and a quote was given, made by some university professor. I believe the university was an Ivy League school, but I can't remember for sure. In any event, the professor was teaching a course on personality disorders. According to the professor, for decades he had used films of Donald Trump to show his students the most extreme case of narcissism he had been able to find.
What is Peace or Justice?
To me, this more about an absence of hostilities, but when I hear terms likes “peace process”, I revert back to thinking about the Israel / Palestinian “peace process”, to which, logically, the US is never against the “peace process”, at least publicly. But behind the scenes, and legislatively, it's almost always the direct opposite of peace, and it's especially never, EVER, about “justice”.
Has Trump launched an investigation into the criminality of “America's longest war”, which, was a CRIME in and of it's self to begin with? Heck, the Taliban only wanted two things from the US before they would turn over Osama Bin Laden, 1 evidence of his involvement with 9/11, and 2. no death penalty.
But Bush chose not to provide evidence, which none has ever been given of his direct involvement, and 2 would never agree to a no death penalty. So war was already a foregone conclusion.
But Trump will damn sure claim to be bringing back our troops, which is true enough to a point, and will bode well for his re-election efforts, but just as sure as I'm sitting here, 5 bucks say's Erick Prince and what ever his company name is now days, and other “security contractors” will get lucrative “contracts” to perform security operations or coordinated “terrorist” operations when ever, and where ever globally they are needed. As with everything else in America, war is being privatized.
Plus Trump will need all those extra troops on the home front for when the social fabric of our society completely breaks down and social chaos reigns.
The “criminals” that launched this illegal war will walk free, but our veterans will be treated like shit, used as patriotic props and then forgotten as usual. All the lives of the peoples we've destroyed in the name of vengeance, is nothing short of a Crime Against Humanity.
There will be no “peace”, nor will there be “justice”, so long as profit domination is the principal motivation guiding US foreign policy.
Of course on the "flipside", the Democrats most likely will bash him for being too soft on "terrorists" and "dictator's like Assad" or "Putin" (oh my), which will likely goad him into illegally blowing somebody else up with a bunch of tomahawk missles. His coup in Venezuela failed, but he is trying to start a war with Iran and possibly China too, so who knows.
What is "Peace" or "Justice"? Since I've never really experienced either, I'm not really sure... For almost everyday of my life, the US has been at "war" with somebody. I think there was a "lull" between Ford and Cater, till we funded Osama Bin Laden and his merry band "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, to goad Russia into invading Afghanistan and bleed the USSR of "resources".
Cater's nation security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was the freaking architect of the strategy of using Islamic extremists as proxy fighters on behalf of the US around the globe. Zbigniew Brzezinski was freaking Obama's mentor!
The "conspiracy theorist" in me thinks, this shit is deeper than most of us think, and has been going on much longer than we imagine, and I hope we can comprehend that it is going to take one hell of a effort to adapt, overcome, much less conqueror.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote