But as a practical political matter the departure from Afhganistan is supposed to be a "catastrophe" that marks "paid" to Biden's administration already, and the suicide bombing last week which claimed the lives of 13 Americans as well as 100 or so Afghanis was supposed to be the final nail in Biden's political coffin.BREAKING: A Taliban spokesman says a U.S. airstrike targeted a suicide bomber in a vehicle who wanted to strike the Kabul airport. https://t.co/lQ43llXfLF
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 29, 2021
But this story, and the airstrike with the "ninja bomb," and even this:
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 29, 2021Don't strike me as "damage control" at all. I don't, as I say, rejoice in the violence and deaths; but I recognize the political value of these actions, as well as the practical ones for the nation and the Afghanis and Americans still trying to leave Kabul. It's also interesting we will have so much functional intelligence, given how much of that intelligence seemed so worthless just a few weeks ago.
Maybe the Republicans and critics of Biden calling for his impeachment, resignation, removal....are thinking Trump is still in office.
Trump diminished the expectations of the Presidency. Biden is restoring that office. It's always the Democrats who bring the knife to the gun fight. I'm beginning to think the Republicans don't even have as much as a rubber knife.
The AP article gives little to no reason to hope for much except continued war in Afghanistan. I doubt the Taliban is going to subdue the whole of the country any more than any other supposed central government will, it's going to be war lords and violence just as it always has been. That country is no country, it's the badlands, too many factions, too many clans and tribes and too many gangsters wanting to rule. What this shows is that combining the period of Allied support of the "central government" and the previous Soviet attempt didn't basically change much of anything except give a lot of people a vain hope that they could live in a Western style when they couldn't there. The Taliban shooting of the folk singer is especially ominous. I can't imagine them doing much of that without engendering violent opposition to their violence.
ReplyDeleteJoe Biden's recommendation to get out more than a decade ago not being taken by Obama is the real tragedy. A decade of futility, deaths, etc. for what would have been anyway.
It's striking to me how much geography creates culture. Japan is an island country, like England; and both are, in their history, isolated from the continents near them (the English make this a mark of pride still. The Scots have always been less insistent on keeping apart from the Continent). Switzerland began national life as cantons declaring their independence from the Holy Roman Empire (if I have that snatch of history right), a rebellion that took in more cantons as the idea progressed. LIke Afghanistan, Switzerland is mountainous; those barriers create separation even within a few miles, and now Switzerland is 26 (?) cantons, working together but as a whole, still fiercely independent.
DeleteAfghanistan never got to the point of joining forces against a common enemy and then agreeing on a central government in which all participate. At least, that's what I see (my knowledge of history of Afghanistan is poorer than my knowledge of Switzerland's history). Again, the mountains, the separation of peoples, leads to a lack of interest, even acceptance, of a central government. That was certainly true for Kipling's time; I see no evidence it hasn't always been true, and won't always be true. I don't think anyone can rule it.