Thursday blend: the shitshow continues

Happy Thursday.

I'll start out with the satire this time.

Republican Politicians Vow To Get Real Mad And Stuff Following Afghanistan Crisis [note to the Bee staff: this isn't satire] 

 

Brian Williams Tearfully Recounts Clinging To Outside Of Airplane To Escape Kabul

 

Psaki: 'A Record 331 Million Americans Have Not Been Abandoned In Afghanistan'

 

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The Afghanistan failure

Psaki refuses to discuss leaked Biden call with Ghani that shows he knew Afghan army was collapsing

Politifact-style fact check: Pants on fire! Biden knew the Afghan army would probably collapse, but he could not have possibly known how fast it would've collapsed.

In other words, the leaked phone call pretty clearly demonstrates Biden knew the Afghan army was in poor shape, but requested Ghani to lie about that if necessary. The evidence increasingly points to a royal fuckup of epic proportions, largely thanks to our increasingly worthless political, military, and intelligence "elite."

 

Biden Administration Erased Afghan Weapons Reports From Federal Websites:

According to an admission obtained from the State Department, Biden officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of official reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training provided to the Afghan security forces since 2001.

The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles.

Reports further quantified 208 aircraft and helicopters; 75,000 war vehicles – including 22 Humvees, 50,000 tactical vehicles and nearly 1,000 mine resistant vehicles; and 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns, and 25,000 grenade launchers.

The justification for all this scrubbing? Possible "security risk." The article then deftly points out one of the administration's recent genius 4-D chess moves:

It’s worth noting that the Biden administration already put these partners at risk when officials provided lists of Afghan nationals to the Taliban in a misguided attempt to clear them for evacuation. 

Nobody has been fired for any of this yet.

 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says "we all have pain and anger" after 20-year war in Afghanistan.

"We all have pain and anger when we see what has unfolded over the last 20 years and the last 20 days, that creates pain and anger," Milley said. "I'm a professional soldier, I'm going to contain my pain and anger and execute my mission."

YOU'RE STILL TALKING, WHY ARE YOU NOT FIRED? Your mission should be to shut the fuck up and retire, preferably in Antarctica. 20 goddamn years and the Taliban are still in control, the country is ripe for brewing terrorism. Get the fuck out already.

That reminds me of a video I watched recently--sometimes the Youtube algorithm is helpful. Generals need to be fired. Frequently:

 

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SpaceX says Amazon is trying to delay Starlink because it can't compete

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Wealth inequality may not be as bad as we are told. Lately, few things seem to be as bad as we are told, except when the government is in charge--then it's worse.

 

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In other news, cryptocurrency is continuing to rise (I wish I could buy much more):

 

 

Thursday blend: ugh

Happy Thursday. The news isn't great today, so I'll throw in some lighter stuff. 

 

The WaPo is doing damage control for Biden: The Biden administration has given 9 justifications for the slow evacuation of Afghan allies.

The CIA doesn't like Biden making them look bad. I trust the CIA about as much as I trust Biden. You helped elect him. Own it.

 

Covid is forever. As school starts again, more stories about kids spreading it and getting long Covid. I still think mandating masks for kids is wrong, and home, online and alternative schooling should be made much easier.

 

T-Mobile was hacked. 48.6 million people had data stolen

:Some of the data accessed did include customers’ first and last names, date of birth, SSN, and driver’s license/ID information for a subset of current and former postpay customers and prospective T-Mobile customers." 

Luckily, according to the US mobile carrier, the file stolen during the incident did not contain phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords, or financial information belonging to current or prospective T-Mobile customers.

Luckily, you only had your identity stolen.

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Why everyone should attend college:

What's this about free frozen yogurt? I was ripped off.

Incredible: This Man Is 100% Ideologically Consistent And Also He Doesn't Have Any Friends: 

"Yeah, I have devoted my life to the study of political philosophy," said Anders to reporters. "I read a lot of books, so I guess you could say I really know what I'm talking about. I have never changed my mind on anything, ever. I refuse to be labelled by one political party. I'm too smart for that. My worldview defies labels due to it being so right all the time. And when you're always right, you never have to change your mind on anything."

There is something to be said for being consisent, and at the very least trying not to be a blind partisan hypocrite. But friends are nice too.

 

For many introverts, the pandemic was a blip on the radar, with a few positive side effects (like people bothering you less). I wish I could play games and surf the web all year, but if I could, I probably would:

click to enlarge

"Nothing so concentrates the senses as austerity..."

Just wanted to share that, which is from Glenn Reynold's senior military acquaintance, who has a few things to say about Afghanistan. Here's a little, but read the whole thing:

Unreformed, DoD is an inscrutable labyrinth which invites fraud, waste, and abuse. The excess attracts unscrupulous camp followers. Amazon did not choose Crystal City to locate its new headquarters because of low rents and ease of transportation access for its 25,000 employees. It chose the Arlington, Virginia neighborhood because it is two blocks from the Pentagon. That building controls the distribution of three-quarters of a trillion dollars every year. Most of it is wasted. The excess is apparent in the scores of class-A high rises housing defense contractors just blocks from the Pentagon.

Much of what is written feels so disturbingly similar to Vietnam.

Leaving Afghanistan

We should've left long ago. I'd say after about 6 (probably fewer) or so years of, ahem, occupying--or whatever word you want to use to indicate a sustained military presence in a foreign land--Afghanistan, most Americans wanted our troops to come home. 

Let's be honest with ourselves, we go to war with the intelligence services, generals and politicians we have, not the ones we want. Leaving Afghanistan would have always been messy, whether we left in 2001 or a few months ago.

Maybe Biden screwed up, I mean it'd be hard for a man that age to not screw something up. I don't think Trump would've fared better, but I know Trump's response would've differed, for good or ill.

This will probably come back to bite us, someday. "This" being staying way too long and leaving so hastily, with an intelligence service that couldn't see it coming after 20 years there. The whole situation oozes with complacency.

When the right-wing blames Biden, I'm not very swayed (even though the image above is rather cogent). But when they point at military and intelligence engaged in political and social activism while failing terribly in Afghanistan, it's rather persuasive. People need to be fired, and military and intelligence reforms are overdue.