It’s A Dangerous World
Not that reminders were needed, but just in case: It's a dangerous world out there.
The weekend brought a barrage of headlines which, when considered together, checked quite a few boxes on the list marked "ongoing threats."
Social media was understandably fascinated by the minuscule chance that a piece of a Chinese rocket might crash into someone's living room, but a hodgepodge of more serious stories managed to outcompete "uncontrolled space debris re-entry" for a spot above the digital fold.
Crypto will not last. Charlie Munger was the first to say it out loud. It is the new pirates gold and you can bury it in plain sight.
It’s an impossible war. If you sent in a million troops the Taliban would just melt away into Pakistan and attack where and when they wanted to. The US can’t declare war against a group with nothing to defend. How do you declare victory? In a way it would be a lot easier to attack them if they did take over Afghanistan and make it their headquarters-country-capital.
I’m not sure that’s true. We say “the talibans” but, apparently, the talibans are really just the Pashtuns by a different name.
From Wiki : “The Taliban’s ideology has been described as combining an “innovative” form of sharia Islamic law based on Deobandi fundamentalism and the militant Islamism combined with Pashtun social and cultural norms known as Pashtunwali, as most Taliban are Pashtun tribesmen”.
I bet the Pashtuns have traditional tribal areas and could be held at knife point if we had the mercilessness/bloodthirstiness required. To be clear, I’m pretty glad we don’t. Pashtuns/Talibans, even AQ did not represent a threat to our interests worthy of threatening genocide.
Remember folks, we effectively set up the Taliban and supported it with money and weapons for years to get them to kick the Russians out of Afghanistan. (If you missed this check out Tom Hanks in the true story “Charlie Wilson’s War”). Well it worked, the Russians left and the Taliban essentially took over the country. No nation-building as we hoped, just tyranny. So we replaced the Russians, like 20+ years ago and we have basically lost any control we might have had and will be leaving, most likely leaving the Taliban and any allied warlords in charge, again.
true dat.
Also might wanna add that after the Soviets left Afghanistan Charlie Wilson asked for a couple million $ (granted, back then more money than today, but still) for rebuilding hospitals, schools etc destroyed by the war. Congress’ reply was “Nah. Too expensive”.
In hindsight, that might just have been one of the single worst decisions in the last 4 decades.
Even after we pull out, the taliban will struggle to control the many ethnic rivalries. There will be more such bombings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Afghanistan
Likely only payable in BTC as with most ransomware attacks. Though given the target I would assume it is actually unpayable and simply a plausible deniability cover for say a Russian cyber attack. We put the spurs to them and Putin has shown he is done trying to placate the US. Hitting our infrastructure would be the perfect way to say “… and the horse you rode in on.”
The question becomes one of… what level of attack constitutes an act of war?
Why did we ever think ‘fixing’ Afghanistan would work. We’ve been trying to fix racism in this country since the 1600’s and still haven’t done it. Maybe the global ‘fixer’ should take a couple of steps back until it perfects its skills at home. And then there is Vietnam, which didn’t get fixed until the US left.
Too right, mate. And a lot of the Viet Nam “fix” was thanks to Nike and its commercial cousins.
Mitch McConnell … “I worry about the future of Afghan women and girls, and that we will end up in a situation much like we found ourselves in before.”
F#-!ng scumbag hypocrite. Wasn’t he in power when the US Army was bribing tribal elders with Viagra pills?
1) Yes, Mitch is a hypocrite; sadly he just won reelection by a landslide.
2) US never should have went to war with Afghanistan, a complete waste of trillions of dollars that has left the US much weaker financially and much less respected internationally. The US 2000 Presidential Election where the majority vote winner lost will forever haunt America and efforts for global democracy…