Fox News’ Tucker Carlson appears in thrall to Lara Logan’s political observations—to her “philosophical” meditations, too. Although treated as a Delphic oracle of sorts; Logan is no Roger Scruton.

You might have heard Logan claim, recently and repetitively, that everything in the world is simple. “Everything is simple,” she keeps intoning in her appearances on Fox News.

Applied to the fiasco in Afghanistan, Logan’s Theory of Simple is that, considering that America is omnipotent, whatever occurs under its watch is always and everywhere planned and preventable.

Ridiculous and wrong, yet Tucker, whom we all love to bits, giggles in delight.

“They want you to believe Afghanistan is complicated,” lectured Logan. “Because if you complicate it, it is a tactic in information warfare called ‘ambiguity increasing.’”

“So now we’re talking about all the corruption and this and that,” she further vaporized. “But at its heart, every single thing in the world… always comes down to one or two things …”

Logan likely recently discovered Occam’s Razor and is promiscuously applying this principle to anything and everything, with little evidence or geopolitical and historic understanding in support of her Theory of Simple.

Occam’s Razor posits that, “the simplest explanation is preferable to one that is more complex,” provided “simple” is “based on as much evidence as possible.”

A nifty principle—and certainly not a philosophy—Occam’s Razor was not meant to apply to everything under the sun.

Misapplied by Logan, why? Primarily because Logan’s explanation for America’s defeat in Afghanistan—that the United States threw the game—is hardly the simplest explanation, despite her assertion to the contrary.

The simplest explanation to the US defeat in Afghanistan, based on as much information as is possible to gather, is that, wait for this: America was defeated fair and square. As this columnist had argued, the US was outsmarted and outmaneuvered, in a mission impossible in the first place.

Unlike Logan, who is convinced America could have won a war other superpowers had lost, Mike Martin, a former British army officer in Helmand province, now at King’s College, London, had this to say about the ragtag enemy:

This was “probably one of the best conceived and planned guerrilla campaigns ever. The Taliban went into every district and flipped all the local militias by doing deals along tribal lines.”

What do you know? The Economist did not ask Logan for her “analysis” of “why America failed in Afghanistan.” Instead, the august magazine called on Henry Kissinger, a stateman with a sinewy intelligence, for his analysis.

Kissinger said what this writer had written in columns like, “‘Just War’ For Dummies (2003), “Afghanistan: A War Obama Can Call His Own” (2008) “To Pee Or Not To Pee is Not the Question” (2012), “Grunts, Get In Touch With Your Inner-Muslim” (2012), and others.

Tribal Afghanistan is thoroughly decentralized, always has been. Our indisputably brave soldiers had been ordered to, at once, woo and war against a primitive Pashtun population that disdained the central government we were dead set on strengthening. (“Afghanistan: A War Obama Can Call His Own,” 2008)

Since Baksheesh (bribery) is in the political bone marrow of Afghanistan; American money and profligate spending habits only fed this proclivity for pelf and strengthened feudal fiefdoms and warlords.

And Afghans simply have more of an affinity for the Taliban than for the Wilsonians who were attempting to westernize them. Those we collaborated with are currently being called “our allies.” But it was not uncommon to hear of an Afghan policeman or soldier leading our men into an ambush, or opening fire on his American “colleagues,” during a joint operation.

Now, all we hear from Logan and the neocon Rambo Rescuers of Fox News is of the urgency of bringing these “Afghan allies” to America.

Back in the day, it was curiously observed that the Afghani soldiers “fighting” alongside our men frequently suffered few casualties; Americans invariably paid the price. In 2009, I quoted Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose close friend died in one of those attacks by an “ally.” He said: “You don’t trust anybody here.”

Now we consider them trustworthy—even eligible to take up residence in our neighborhoods.

Wrote Jim Sauer, a “retired Marine Corps Sergeant Major and combat veteran with over thirty years of service” (2009), about our Afghan allies:

…the bulk of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) are not fighters, nor are they ‘true believers.’ They are simply cowards – frauds – corrupt to the core by any standard and apostates to their own faith. They are slovenly, drug-addicted, dimwitted, and totally unreliable at any level… They thrive on their petty powers and refuse to shoulder any burden or responsibility. Does this sound too harsh? Not for the Marines and Soldiers who have been killed by the treachery of ANA and ANP.

The Taliban does not speak for the small sector of Afghans groomed by America during the occupation. Widely supported by most Afghanis, however, the Taliban tried to tell us that, “the presence of infidels in a Muslim country is a … sin,” and that they would not tolerate the “accursed Western invasion, which [was] forcing itself upon us in the name of democracy.”

They didn’t.

The authentic Kissinger (Henry, not Lara) agrees, speaking about the occupation as “a process so prolonged and obtrusive as to turn even non-jihadist Afghans against the entire effort. Afghanistan,” writes the elder stateman, “has never been a modern state. Statehood presupposes a sense of common obligation and centralization of authority. Afghan soil, rich in many elements, lacks these.”

Islam. Occupation. Tribalism. Traditionalism. Baksheesh in the blood. Only simpletons think failure in Afghanistan was simple.

**

NEW. WATCH: “With Friends Like Gen. Mark Benedict Milley, America Doesn’t Need Enemies”:

©2021 ILANA MERCER
WND, September 16
Townhall.com, September 16
American Greatness, September 18
Unz Review, September 16
CNSNews.com  September 17
The New American, September 20

The post No, Lara Logan, Only Simpletons Think Afghanistan Is Simple appeared first on ILANA MERCER.

With the American media as master of ceremonies, pundits and politicians—all partners in the neocon-neoliberal joint venture in Afghanistan—are barking mad over the images coming out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, and the reality these optics portend.

Naturally, media “reporting” from Afghanistan is nothing but an unremitting sentimental gush, aimed at creating a state of heightened emotions.

“The children; the children; the translators; the translators. Americans held hostage behind enemy lines. ‘Teach the Taliban a lesson, Corn Pop,’” demanded a “macho” personality at Fox News. The same litany runs on a continuous loop.

Forbes reporters dissolved into puddles of tears at the sight of U.S. Air Force pilots bringing in plane loads of young, strong, military-aged men, unfreighted by women and children.

On August 20, about 5,700 people had been flown out of Kabul. Only 169 were American. “Make no mistake,” slobbered Forbes, “lifting six times more people than an aircraft is designed to seat is a heroic achievement of logistics, skill and sheer grit.”

I see a medal of commendation in the future of the Empire’s Pilot, who commandeered a U.S. Air Force C-17 to airlift 800 Afghani passengers from Kabul to Qatar.

War: The Health Of The State —And The Statists

So, who exactly are those “trapped” Americans living in Afghanistan?

What are they doing in such inhospitable climes, in a country most of whose inhabitants hated the American presence? And what is their business in Afghanistan? The incurious moron media have never asked.

My guess is that U.S. citizens in Afghanistan have hitherto lived within Army-erected green zones, paid for by American taxpayers.

My guess is that these Americans are mostly military contractors, an extension of the military-industrial-complex—also the ultimate state, make-work scheme.

A likely breakdown of our “Americans in Afghanistan” comes via Danger Zone Jobs, “which tracks more than 300 companies with overseas contracting jobs in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries.”

Most “jobs” for Americans in a place like Afghanistan revolve around the military, “the two primary sources of jobs [being] with private contractors supporting the military and companies who subcontract to various international relief and development efforts.” In other words, the NGO racket.

By Danger Zone Jobs’ accounting, “Approximately 29,389 DoD contractors supported operations in Afghanistan during the 1st quarter of 2019.” There you have it. To paraphrase Randolph Bourne, war is the health of the State and the statists.

Still, you are not a good American unless you fret about Afghani translators (who, in turn, complain on-camera endlessly, and as loudly as CNN’s Dana Bash, about American dereliction).

Realpolitik: What Modest Foreign Policy Looks Like

Similarly, you are not a good pack animal unless you worry about “the Uyghurs, the Uyghurs. China is oppressing the Uyghurs. Our values, our values.”

Uyghurs are also China’s biggest headache, now that America is no longer mired in Afghanistan. What the dummies on the idiot’s lantern fail to tell you—although analysts at The Economist do—“Uyghurs count among thousands of foreign jihadists active in Afghanistan, mostly enlisted in Taliban ranks.”

So, as the skittish media hounds and politicians, stateside, gnash teeth and beat on breast over Afghanistan, less hysterical countries, abutting Afghanistan, are acting calmly in their national interest, to ensure that Jihad and heroin don’t spill over their borders.

Unlike Lara Kissinger Logan of Fox News, who “thinks” America could have won a war that other superpowers have lost—the Chinese and the Iranians are hip to what just happened. This was “probably one of the best conceived and planned guerrilla campaigns ever,” says Mike Martin, a former British army officer in Helmand province, now at King’s College London. “The Taliban went into every district and flipped all the local militias by doing deals along tribal lines.”

In negotiations with the Taliban, Beijing has thus realistically demanded that Afghanistan not become “a base for ethnic Uyghur separatists.” For their part, “Taliban leaders have pledged to leave Chinese interests in Afghanistan alone and not to harbor any anti-China extremist groups.”

Like Beijing, Tehran, too, is busying itself with realpolitik. While Iran is “delighted to see the Great Satan, America, abandon its bases next door,” it worries about cheap heroin flooding in from Afghanistan, as well as the persecution of the tiny Shia minority of Afghanistan.

There is another matter that vexes the Shia of Iran, but is of no concern to the State Department, which generally “doesn’t know Shiite from Shinola” (The phrase is, “Doesn’t know sh-t from Shinola.”)

Don’t Know Shiite From Shinola

“Shia Muslims … view their own Islamic revolution as a modernizing movement,” explains the Economist. After all, “Women can study, work and hold office in Iran, so long as they veil.”

Consequently, Iranians “look askance at the Taliban’s hidebound Sunni fanaticism.” Shia Iran worries about the Sunni insanity, and rightly so.

That’s yet another aspect of foreign policy that good Americans are not permitted to question. For merely asking, “When last did Iran commit terrorism against the US?,” Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was attacked viciously by rival personality Mark Levin. Carlson, however, was on the money. As I chronicled in 2017: “Iranians killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks in the US between 1975 -2015.”

What do you know? When compared with Sunni Islam (for example, Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism), a faction of Islam with whose practitioners the West feels much more simpatico—Shia Islam (Iran’s poison of choice) is more enlightened. Yet America and Israel side with Saudi Arabia, the epitome of Sunni insanity. Go figure.

After Afghanistan, we can all agree that American foreign policy is an angels-and-demons Disney production—starring the prototypical evil dictators killing their noble people, until the US rides to the rescue—and that the producers at Foggy Bottom don’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing.

WATCH:

©2021 ILANA MERCER
WND, August 26
Unz Review, August 26
CNSNews.com  August 30
The New American, August 27
Quarterly Review, August 29

The post Afghanistan: Bringing The Military-Industrial-Complex Home appeared first on ILANA MERCER.

Yes, we know it was chaos, but then again there was no good way to leave that dusty hellhole—or “shithole,” as the much-missed Donald Trump would have put it.

Joe Biden was right in his “Remarks on Afghanistan“: “… if Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that one year — one more year, five more years, or 20 more years of U.S. military boots on the ground would’ve made any difference.”

Tempting as it may be for right-thinking conservatives and paleolibertarians, in particular, to use the inevitable collapse of the charade in Afghanistan against Biden—honesty demands that we avoid it.

TV Republicans, no doubt, will join the shrill CNN and MSNBC females and their houseboys, who love nothing more than to export the American Nanny State, in bashing Biden for his decisive withdrawal. The president said, “I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

Falling into the Republican line of partisan, tit-for-tat retorts is wrong. The man made the right choice—as opposed to Barack Obama’s. Indeed, Afghanistan was a war Obama had embraced .

Beware especially the military men, who will flood Fox New with the sunk-cost fallacy. As explained in this 2014 column, “GOP Should Grow A Brain, Join The Peace Train“:

“Military movers and shakers are heavily vested in the sunk-cost fallacy—the irrational notion that more resources must be committed forthwith … so as to ‘redeem’ the original misguided commitment of men, money and materiel to the mission.”

To that end, repeated ad nauseam is the refrain about our “brave men and women of the military,” whose sacrifice for [Afghani] “freedoms” will be squandered unless more such sacrifices are made.

The Skeptic’s Dictionary dispels this illogic: “To continue to invest in a hopeless project is irrational. Such behavior may be a pathetic attempt to delay having to face the consequences of one’s poor judgment. The irrationality is a way to save face, to appear to be knowledgeable, when in fact one is acting like an idiot.”

Besides, it’s time the military heed its paymasters, The American People, a majority of whom don’t want to send U.S. soldiers back into Afghanistan.

The best thing about Joe Biden’s decisive departure from Afghanistan was that he angered the girls and the “girly boys” of the networks as much as he infuriated the jingoists at Fox News and the globalist the world over.

How good is that?!

As always, David Vance and myself do get serious, and dish out hard, immutable truths, via podcast and video, so listen up or watch!

LISTEN: “Biden Decamps From Dark Ages Afghanistan, Infuriates Dems, GOPers And Globalists: BRAVO!”

https://hardtruthwithdavidvanceandilanamercer.podbean.com/e/biden-decamps-from-dark-ages-afghanistan-infuriates-dems-gopers-and-globalists-bravo/

WATCH: “Biden Decamps From Dark Ages Afghanistan, Infuriates Dems, GOPers And Globalists: BRAVO!”

©2021 ILANA MERCER
WND, August 19
Unz Review, August 19
Quarterly Review, August 21

*Image courtesy The Economist

The post Biden Decamps From Dark Ages Afghanistan, Infuriates Dems, GOPers And Globalists: BRAVO! appeared first on ILANA MERCER.

©By ILANA MERCER
WorldNetDaliy.com & Taki’s Magazine
October 30, 2009

The post Old Blights (Afghanistan) And New (Barack) appeared first on ILANA MERCER.

Holding out hope for that elusive humble foreign policy is proving futile. Barack Obama had promised originally to exit Iraq within 16 months of taking office. Now he is wobbling about that war, and has indicated he might “refine” his policy. Or, rather, renege on his campaign commitments.

Obama’s liberal acolytes—and some libertarians still hankering after that humble foreign policy—will soon discover that the troops he withdraws from Iraq will not be heading home; 9000 soldiers will be packed off to Afghanistan to join the 36,000 American fighting in that theater.

You see, Obama wants to maintain a meaty presence in Afghanistan. He may even be conjuring up new monsters and new missions. This is because Obama needs a “good” war. Electability in fin de siècle America hinges on projecting strength around the world—an American leader has to aspire to protect borders and people not his own. In other words, Obama needs a war he can call his own.

In Afghanistan, Obama has found such a war.

By promising to broaden the scope of operations in Afghanistan, Obama has found a “good” war to make him look the part. By staking out Afghanistan as his preferred theater of war—and pledging an uptick in operations against the Taliban—Obama achieves two things: He can cleave to the Iraq policy that excited his base. While winding down one war, he can ratchet up another, thereby demonstrating his commander-in-chief credentials.

The polls tell Obama that Americans want out of Iraq. And more Americans want to leave immediately than want to stay to “stabilize” the situation. Americans have learned this much from Iraq: Democracy has not sprung Athena-like from her father’s head. Surge, smurge; this form of government will not take hold in Iraq, not in our lifetime. And no matter how long we linger. Although they are hardly enthusiastic about the prospects of an interminable conflict there, voters are more ambivalent about Afghanistan.

If a presidential hopeful needed to buttress his commander in chief bona fides, as Obama apparently does, Afghanistan would be the place to do it. The initial mission in Afghanistan was, after all, a just one. Going after al-Qaida in Afghanistan at the time was the right thing to do and was a legitimate act of retaliation and defense accommodated within Just War teachings. Al-Qaida was responsible for the murder of 3,000 Americans. The Taliban succored al-Qaida and its leader bin Laden. The President had told the hosting Taliban to surrender bin Laden and his gang. The Taliban refused. America invaded. So far so good.

But that initial mission mutated miraculously, and now we are doing in Afghanistan what we’re doing in Iraq: nation building. Nations building is Democrat for spreading democracy. Spreading democracy is Republican for nation building. These interchangeable concepts stand for an open-ended military presence with all the pitfalls that attach to Iraq.

Americans are currently training the Afghan army. As in Iraq, it’ll take years if not decades before the training wheels can be removed. The men of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions have made magnificent progress in pushing the Taliban back. But the gains are short-lived. The Taliban invariably regroup. Their stake in that country is simply greater than ours. Always will be. Then there are the costs and the casualties. When Special Forces target the Taliban, they frequently infringe on tribal territory instead. Civilians die. Tribal elders are enraged, and rightly so.

Nation building in that country also entails policing a corruption-riddled police force. Afghani officers of the law are “uniformed thieves.” They run the opium trade by which the impoverished Afghani farmers survive. Somewhere on the food chain sit the drug traffickers. We mediate between them and other crime bosses, or war lords, as they are known. When we supply impoverished farmers with basic supplies, the Taliban first fleece these long-suffering folks and then punish them for collaborating with the Americans. By swooping down to save the locals from the Taliban we cripple them with kindness and deepen their dependency.

Another of the contradictions of occupation: The Pashtun population we patronize happens to disdain the central government we hope to strengthen. So it goes: We help local groups we believe to be patriotic, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate. Pakistan anyone?

So, as Obama sets forth strategically to ingratiate the conflict in Afghanistan on his constituents—all in order to flaunt his fitness for the office—remember: This war too must end.

©2008 By ILANA MERCER
WorldNetDaily.com
July 18

*Screen pic courtesy here.

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There’s a reason the American Constitution emphasizes “the right of trial by jury.” The justice system’s mandate is to unveil the truth. This can only be done in a court of law, and in accordance with due process. The plea bargain is nothing more than a negotiated deal which subverts the very goal of the justice system: In the process of hammering out an agreement that pacifies both prosecution and defense, truth usually falls by the way. As the predominant method of adjudication in the United States, the plea bargain taints the system.

The outcome of the wheeling and dealing in the case of John Walker Lindh, aka Suleyman al-Faris, aka Abdul Hamid, was that the American Taliban agreed to plead guilty only to supplying services to the Taliban, as well as to carrying an explosive during the commission of a felony, both in violation of the United States Code. The plea is peanuts compared to the original indictment.

There’s no doubt that closing such a high-profile case without having to present a jury or judge with evidence and witnesses, and, in turn, without allowing the defendant to present his case, is a sweet victory for any politically ambitious prosecutor. No surprise then that U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty counted the deal as a triumph against terrorism.

For his part, Lindh’s defense attorney bizarrely claimed for himself the feat of having his client certified as a “court approved, non-terrorist.” Both advocates are capitalizing on the perks of the plea bargain. Defense attorney and prosecutor alike can pencil in a victory on their scorecards. This, in the absence of the arduous search for truth and without any regard for the original indictments.

The overwhelming power of the state compared to the limited resources and power of the accused means that ordinarily the accused is the compromised party in a plea. This truism is hard to sustain in the Lindh case, if one endeavors to come to grips with the facts of the case.

Suffice it to say that Johnny Walker Lindh’s Islamic conversion was nowhere near as harmonious as that of Yusuf Islam. The lyricist formerly known as Cat Stevens confines himself to composing “A’s For Allah” devotional singalongs.

Understandably, the family of CIA agent Johnny Michael Spann is piqued. According to the Criminal Complaint, Spann conducted the interviews at the Qala-i Janghi compound near Mazar-e Sharif, in Afghanistan. Lindh was among the Taliban and al-Qaida men captured and brought there by Northern Alliance forces. “Some of the brothers were very tense,” Lindh related to journalist Robert Young Pelton. “We’re going to die either way,” they reasoned. According to Lindh, “the brothers” decided to aim for the virgin-strewn heavens.

To Lindh and “the brothers” at Mazar-e Sharif dying in the course of an uprising meant martyrdom. For Mike Spann it meant murder. The CIA officer was consequently beaten and shot.

Lindh belonged to the Arab section of Ansar, which was a sort of foreign legion affiliated to the Taliban army. It was also part of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida group. Lindh confessed to having trained at the al-Qaida-run al Farooq base, where, aside from having a brief audience with OBL, he also practiced terrorism warfare. When rumors about bin Laden’s sending “50 people to carry out 20 suicide operations” against the U.S and Israel reached a crescendo in the camp, Lindh cowered. He failed to warn anyone back home.

By his own earlier account, Lindh appeared to be in on the Mazar-e Sharif uprising plot. As one of the prisoners interviewed by Spann, Lindh refused to answer any of Mr. Spann’s questions, much less did he offer him a “Hey man, watch out, and may Allah be with you.”

Is Lindh guilty of conspiring to murder Mike Spann? Lindh certainly failed to warn the victim. Because of the Bush administration’s criminal negligence of the intelligence, a message from Lindh warning about the impending September 11 terrorist attacks would have been to no avail. Had he, however, done that meager thing and warned Mike Spann, Lindh would have discharged his moral duty. As it stands now, this pattern of moral rot has been rendered legally legless.

The questions, nonetheless, linger. In his Statement to the Court, Lindh correctly points out that the U.S. hadn’t always proscribed fighting alongside what were once the Mujahideen. On the contrary, the U.S. supported the Taliban’s predecessors in their fight to repel the Soviets. Yet another effect of this plea bargain is to further hush the irreconcilable implications of U.S. meddlesome foreign policy.

Still, the facts indicate that, in the process of negotiating into being a crime that was palatable to all parties, Lindh was let off lightly.

©By ILANA MERCER
WorldNetDaily.com
October 9, 2002

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