The Daily Mail is extracting a tidbit from an WaPo article titled "'It’s a hard problem’: Inside Trump’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan":
One of the ways McMaster tried to persuade Trump to recommit to the effort was by convincing him that Afghanistan was not a hopeless place. He presented Trump with a black-and-white snapshot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul, to show him that Western norms had existed there before and could return.Second-highest-rated comment at The Daily Mail: "Gee - maybe if someone sends him pictures of short-skirted nurses in Sweden, we'll get single-payer health care..."
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182 comments:
Those were the days when Kabul was an oasis in a desert of primitive villages. I doubt there is any prospect of return but I know Afghan nurses in the US.
Other things that have changed since the 70s: The definition of mini.
I don't know that we should be sending more troops to Afghanistan. But I feel better knowing that McMaster is working to convince Trump, rather than Trump doing it while McMaster tries to talk him out of it.
a 1972 black-and-white photo of 3 Afghan women in mini skirts
Well, it's not a slut walk, and there is an appalling correlation between sex: female, and gender: women in mini skirts.
we'll get single-payer health care...
Democrats don't believe in democratic systems, and they oppose affordable and available health care.
Well, that's not necessarily true. Establishing a monopoly will control costs, but with cascading effects in other areas of the domestic and global economy. The belief in spontaneous conception (e.g. Pro-Choice) has clear and progressive consequences.
This reminds me of the dramatic moment when Obama took a walk in the Rose Garden and was persuaded to walk back his red line. Sometimes I wonder if we deliberately vote for drama queens who are simpletons in some ways. Or is it the media portraying it that way? Obama never denied the schmaltz. Will Trump?
Pictures of hip ME chicks have been a conserv meme on the internet for years. Just because the wapo is new to them doesn't mean Trump hadn't seen them before. McMaster showed him legs and he decided to protect Afghanistan? Yeah, right.
I googled miniskirts in Iran and there are a lot of those also.
"Gee - maybe if someone sends him pictures of short-skirted nurses in Sweden, we'll get single-payer health care..." Gee, maybe if someone sends him pictures of the banlieues he'd double down on the Muslim ban.
It is worth the time to seek out pictures of Kabul during that time and seeing the very sophisticated men and women living very westernized lives. They might have kept their lives but they lost that way of life.
I have two questions I would love to ask Mr. President (or Mr. Obama):
1) What are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?
2) How do we know when we're done?
To be fair: Did he show any other images or arguments to show the place wasn't hopeless?
Client of mine works and travels in Canada extensively.
He knows a lot of Canadians as friends and as employees who live and work there.
One of his old friends from Canada called him a few years back. He was distraught because he just found out he had prostate cancer. In the Canadian system, they couldn't tell him how aggressive the cancer was until they operated, and they could not operate on him for SIX MONTHS. (how would you like to know you have cancer, but you cannot do a damn thing about it because the government tells you to wait - some of you oh-so-caring lefties?)
My client, who is an American, asked him if he was familiar with the Mayo Clinic. Long story short. His friend ended up at Mayo for surgery ONE WEEK after making contact with them. They told him if he had waited 6 months, he'd be dead.
Talk to people who deal with illness under a "single payer" system. They hate it.
"Single payer" (liar-speak for tax payer funded "un-free" health care) is great, so long as you never age and you remain perfectly healthy. Pray you don't ever need anything from the bureaucrats.
Before organized crime imposed a religion.
Wipe out organized crime, is the plan.
Of course there are minorities in Afghanistan, just as in Egypt or (at least in the past) Iraq, that would like to be Westernized with full civil rights. The problem is that they are a minority in a premodern society (not even a state in the political sense) still organized around tribes and clans: https://goo.gl/q18ekk
If the history of Western Europe is any guide, it will take generations, maybe centuries, to change the situation. Maybe there's a shortcut around but it is hard to imagine what it is.
I think returning western norms to Afghanistan is a long way off, regardless of how the military conflict turns out. The environment has changed dramatically since then.
You also have to question whether "Western Norms" were ever very well entrenched. Much that I have read indicates that a narrow urban elite may have adopted some of these norms, or at least the external trappings. The heady days of the Arab Spring, when American media was pushing the idea that some mid level Google type had transformed Egypt, was also filled with photos of beautiful young women in westernish dress riding the streets of Cairo in convertibles.
This was not too long before the rape-a-thon pushback.
I started out with some confidence in McMaster based on the excellent book he wrote about politics, the military and Viet Nam. That confidence has been diminishing ever since.
Who's still leaking?
I suspect that image is an anomaly, that Afghanistan wasn't ever really that "westernized" to begin with. I don't believe that Afghanistan is salvageable to a point where scenes like that would be wide spread, in the near term (within a decade) anyway, no matter what we do.
Maybe a statue based on the photo of these women walking together can be put up in a park in Kabul.
Call it "Women walking to Engineering class"
Put a wide enough open space perimeter around it.
Blogger Jack Wayne said...
I googled miniskirts in Iran and there are a lot of those also.
There is a very good James Clavell novel about Iran called, called "Whirlwind." It takes place over a week and chronicles the move from miniskirts to chadors.
Clavell's novel are very well researched. One scene in the novel has a TWA stewardess as a prisoner in a harem in Iran.
One of my crew guys was dating a TWA stew when that novel came out. I asked her about it and she told me she had known stewardesses who had vanished in Egypt. They were told never to go shopping alone there. She flew to Egypt one a week or two.
I am Canadian and one of my good friends is a high school teacher. For five or six years while Canada was involved in Afghan mission, she would invite two Canadian soldiers once a year to tell her class what they were doing in Afghan and why it was important.
Some student would always ask what the best and worst things they did/saw in Afghan, and while one soldier was giving anodyne answer to class, the other soldier would tell my teacher friend that worst thing in Afghan was that pederasty between men and boys was common and it deeply disturbed most of the foreign soldiers. Every year my friend had soldiers visit her class, one of them would mention pedophilia to my friend privately, she is convinced there are many traumatized soldiers because of nasty things they were forced to watch and do nothing about.
Women may have been wearing mini skirts in 1970s Kabul but the men are still stuck in barbaric Sparta culture.
If you were truly westernized, or even just wanted to try -- why would you stay in Afghanistan?
Maybe in 1972 you kind of had to, but that's no longer the case. The remainers are self-selecting the society they want to live in.
Afghani Shirelles singingly question, “will the U.S. still love us, tomorrow?”
That generation didn't appreciate that casino building pleasure-dome businesses take time to trickle down to such far away places, since we can’t quite establish dominance (presence yes, dominance, no) yet in Xanadu.
Silly Afghani chicks with material girl motivations.
The leaker must be pretty high up. Maybe the son or daughter.
so dumb. first leak that if true really makes trump dumb. probably not true. also makes mcmaster look dumb. we are led by idiots. there is no hope for the taliban. so dumb
1) What are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?
2) How do we know when we're done?
1) Kill all the pedophiles.
2) When our soldiers come home complaining they didn't get to kill anyone.
Paul Ryan appeared to advocate a form of single payer at his CNN town hall last night. His idea for high risks pools is to reduce premiums by taking the expensive treatments out of the health insurance system. Is that where we are going, single payer for catastrophic care?
While it may be fun to mock Trump. He is making an informed choice. The PEOPLE of Afghanistan are not a lost cause and with our help, may be able to regain their freedom.
The photos are shocking in that it shows how FAST a country can turn from freedom to oppression.
From happy free women walking without fear, enjoying a stroll down the streets of a modern developed city.....to.....covered from head to toe, in fear of retaliation for not adhering to the strict oppressive rules. Cowering like rats scurrying from one place to another lest they attract attention that may end their lives.
This descent from the light to the dark can happen so very fast. Just look at the speed in which the left is destroying OUR history, destroying statues, oppressing anyone who dissents. Using fear, physical violence, threats of harm, threats of losing your livelihood and even our life. All fascist tactics. Government placing more and more restrictions on what we can do, eat, buy, how we can work and how we are allowed to live.
Drip drip drip drip drip .....until we are drowned.
Fast!! So fast that if you aren't paying attention, all we will have are some interesting photos to remind us of those days when we were free. Our children and grandchildren will ask, how could we let this happen?
His idea for high risks pools is to reduce premiums by taking the expensive treatments out of the health insurance system.
That has been my preferred plan all along. The government ensures no one goes broke from getting cancer. Insurance companies fix your broken bones. You pay for your own annual doctor visits and flu shots out of pocket.
The Dems will go along because they will plan on just growing what's in the government risk pool year after year. They will see it as a step toward single payer. But the rest of the country will get to see how the insurance markets work when they offer insurance, rather than an all-providing healthcare plan.
And people would gain more control over their healthcare spending in the near term.
It amazes me to hear advocates for single payer health care here in the US. Government ran health care already exists in places like the Veterans Administration, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the active duty military. None of those are examples of high-quality, cost effective health care programs. ObamaCare is a disaster. Yet, their solution is to let the government control all of health care. That's some high octane magical thinking. Show me examples of US government controlled health care programs that provide high quality care in a cost effective manner. Medicare? Medicaid? It is to laugh.
The only real problem with Afghanistan is the Afghans. So, it wouldn't be that hard to fix the place, if we were serious about it. But we're not.
We could partition Afghanistan, set up jurisdictional laboratories, perhaps under a federal umbrella, and leave people to their own devices.
Kite Runner made you feel a strong empathy for the Kabul population. But the Muslims have systematically ruined the rest of the Place.
Dust Bunny Queen said...This descent from the light to the dark can happen so very fast. Just look at the speed in which the left is destroying OUR history, destroying statues, oppressing anyone who dissents. Using fear, physical violence, threats of harm, threats of losing your livelihood and even our life. All fascist tactics. Government placing more and more restrictions on what we can do, eat, buy, how we can work and how we are allowed to live.
Drip drip drip drip drip .....until we are drowned
Spot on. Wake up!! What do you all think the left is doing to us??
Ditto on everything Dust Bunny Queen said.
McMaster needs to go. Immediately. He and so many have Muslims figured wrong. They are committed to their faith and aren't going to be persuaded by money and freedom. Remember how much was offered for information leading to the capture of bin Laden? And no one--NO one--went for it. Frankly, I admire them for not yielding to the lure of the almighty dollar.
One of his old friends from Canada called him a few years back. He was distraught because he just found out he had prostate cancer. In the Canadian system, they couldn't tell him how aggressive the cancer was until they operated, and they could not operate on him for SIX MONTHS. (how would you like to know you have cancer, but you cannot do a damn thing about it because the government tells you to wait - some of you oh-so-caring lefties?)
...
Canadian here. It's worse than you can imagine. Personally, I went to the Mayo in Phoenix the last time I needed something. I have a friend of modest means with a motorcycle injury to his knee. He's wearing a brace. His MRI is six months away, and surgery six months beyond that. Horror stories everywhere and it's going to get worse, not better.
Afghanistan is a victim of our war against the Soviet Union. Today, we are sacrificing nations and people in our war against Russia. Then there is Libya, which seems to have been about the oil.
The gulf funded madras have had a huge impact on Islam in Pakistan and Afghanistan...
Second-highest-rated comment at The Daily Mail: "Gee - maybe if someone sends him pictures of short-skirted nurses in Sweden, we'll get single-payer health care..."
Why? Sweden doesn't have single-payer health care. Maybe mini-skirted nurses in Canada...
Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse has an interesting take.
sodal ye:
The American medical system is a leader in quality and availability, but what about the pricing? There is evidence that the medical product is overpriced, which is presumably why Democrats want to force a monopoly finance scheme, and Republicans want to restore capitalism to correct market distortions.
traditionalguy said...
"Kite Runner made you feel a strong empathy for the Kabul population. But the Muslims have systematically ruined the rest of the Place."
I don't think they were all that systematic about it. Except in the sense that Islam is, precisely, a system for ruining places.
sodal ye reports: In the Canadian system, they couldn't tell him how aggressive the cancer was until they operated, and they could not operate on him for SIX MONTHS. (how would you like to know you have cancer, but you cannot do a damn thing about it because the government tells you to wait - some of you oh-so-caring lefties?)
Yes. I had a Canadian friend who found a lump in her breast and it was three months before she could get a biopsy scheduled so she had it done in Seattle on her own dime. Fortunately, she had the funds to do so. I have had several Canadian friends and not one likes the system. As much as they pay in taxes, they don't complain about them, just the poor service.
"Gee - maybe if someone sends him pictures of short-skirted nurses in Sweden, we'll get single-payer health care..."
I think the writer has that backwards. The logical parallel would be that we send troops to Sweden to chase the Muzzies out, so the Swedish blondes feel safe in miniskirts again. Ain't gonna happen. Another place being ruined by Islam.
"It is worth the time to seek out pictures of Kabul during that time and seeing the very sophisticated men and women living very westernized lives. They might have kept their lives but they lost that way of life."
They mostly fled, IIRC. The first ones out when the place was destabilized by the Soviets.
The collapse of Afghanistan was a Soviet operation meant to capitalize on the US Vietnam retreat, one of several such. It boomeranged on them.
I'm sure Russia was laughing up her sleeve after they finally extricated themselves from the Afghan debacle and watched us jump right in. Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Second-highest-rated comment at The Daily Mail: "Gee - maybe if someone sends him pictures of short-skirted nurses in Sweden, we'll get single-payer health care..." They must not have read about all of the rapes in Sweden by those nice Muslim refugees...I bet women there are afraid to wear their mini skirts....http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3481882/Women-warned-not-night-Swedish-town-multiple-sex-attacks-foreigners.html
This is fake news. The truth is that Trump committed to a lasting U.S. troop presence after remembering how attractive Miss Afghanistan was in his final beauty pageant.
"They told him if he had waited 6 months, he'd be dead."
One wonders, to what extent, this is the unspoken objective.
In the latest single payer news, The NHS is trying to recruit failing students to be GPs.
That'll show those doubters.
Plans to make it easier for failing trainee doctors and overseas medics to become family doctors are being drawn up by health officials, amid desperate shortages of GPs.
The Government has pledged to increase the number of GPs by 5,000 by 2020, amid soaring waiting lists and record vacancies for doctors.
But now officials are drawing up plans which could allow trainee medics to become a GP even if they have to take their exams six times, and are considering relaxing checks on doctors who trained abroad.
The measures come as figures show that the number of full-time GPs has fallen by more than 1,250 since rescue plans were launched last year.
Last years news was the number of new doctors fleeing the NHS for Canada and Australia.
n.n said...Then there is Libya, which seems to have been about the oil.
People tend to forget that the Libya debacle was at the behest of the UK and France who are dependent on Libya's "sweet crude." All that glitters may not be black gold, however, as Libya's biggest oil field has been shut down as tensions between the country's warring political factions increase.
odal ye said...
Canadian here. It's worse than you can imagine. Personally, I went to the Mayo in Phoenix the last time I needed something. I have a friend of modest means with a motorcycle injury to his knee. He's wearing a brace. His MRI is six months away, and surgery six months beyond that. Horror stories everywhere and it's going to get worse, not better.
8/22/17, 1:27 PM
Sorry but you are lying! You must be. We have been told repeatedly by Democrats, liberals, the media, etc. that single payer in other countries is GREAT. Nothing better! That you folks love it and we are stupid, backward hicks for resisting. So the only thing that I can conclude is that you sir are lying and are doing so to trick us American rubes. HOW DARE YOU! /sarc
Also, there are no death panels...
Afghanistan is a victim of a Soviet invasion, which utterly destroyed the culture shown in the picture.
Much as Cookie denies it, the Soviets were a slave hunting empire that had bo more intention of stopping there than Hitler did in Poland.
Hockey players get same day MRIs, BTW.
And what was the source for this juicy bit if news?
Action words! Setting the tone and accomplishing the goal in the first two brief paragraphs in the Post article:
frustrated
fuming
windowless
lashed out
gnawed
bedeviled
groused
threatened
flirted
impossible!!!!
Ok.Ok. I get it.
Hillary sure took a lot of credit for Libya, just as Sydney Blumenthal advised her to do in leaked emails.
"We came! We saw! He died! [Chortle]" -HRC
Official Sweden tells its citizens that they are the ones who need to assimilate: A culture, simply given up for nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPapAfGtLo
Nothing will make health care cheaper than making a yuuge tranche of the workforce Federal employees with concomitant salaries, benefits, and pensions.
I was in Afghanistan in early 1974. Kandahar was the worst shithole imaginable. No other place in Asia that I've ever visited ---and I've been to many---was as filthy and backward. I saw my first burkahs there, something I never experienced in Iran, chadors allowing at least uncovered faces.
I didn't see any miniskirts in Kabul, not one. Any Western women there always wore long to-the-ground skirts and otherwise covered up.
Individual exceptions aside, it is a primitive and benighted country, filled with pederasts, thieves and terrorists. We should have got out a long time ago. Some people aren't worth protecting, let alone dying for.
odal ye said...Canadian here. It's worse than you can imagine. Personally, I went to the Mayo in Phoenix the last time I needed something. I have a friend of modest means with a motorcycle injury to his knee. He's wearing a brace. His MRI is six months away, and surgery six months beyond that. Horror stories everywhere and it's going to get worse, not better.
Years ago I read a piece by a Canadian orthopedic surgeon who complained it was impossible to deliver the necessary care to his patients because surgeons aren't allotted enough time in the OR to do a typical orthopedic procedure. There are fewer MRI scanners in the whole of Canada than there are in St. Louis.
Friends who took the magic bus to India in the 70's all loved Afghanistan and its peoples. The monarchy and the People's Democratic Party were the rulers during much of the decade, along with the Shah in Iran. the Russians were almost ready for their failed experiment in nation building. A different time........
I am fascinated with videos and pictures of Iran when the Shah was in power. It was fabulous!
I loved Argo. So sad. Iran used to be cool.
Afghanistan was set up with marginal (i.e. delegated) American backing as a kill zone for Soviets. Not unlike what likely happened in Charlottesville. It enjoyed a measure of success in both instances.
how attractive Miss Afghanistan was
From lust to love to conception, feminine wiles make the world go around. Well, the human world, anyway.
That picture is a casus belli for invading American Universities.
wendybar said...Just look at the speed in which the left is destroying OUR history, destroying statues, oppressing anyone who dissents.
Columbus Circle monument could be next statue to go
I could swear I saw that same picture used once as depicting Iran.
I've said this repeatedly, and will do so once more. The problem isn't Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Syria..., nor was the problem bin Laden, Sadam Heissein, or any other character, the problem is Islam. Until Islam is contained within certain countries, the "war" will never end. Islam has no fear of the West. They pay attention, and notice that most Western countries, have more beta men, than men who are willing to fight and kill them. They see Western civilization slowly surrendering. Unwilling to fight back. You cannot prove me wrong. None of you can.
Sukie & Wendybar:
If anyone wants to see how civilized and safe and non-violent the Americas were before Columbus arrived, watch the movie Apoctylypto by Mel Gibson. It was just the most delightful place.
AllenS- you are preaching to the choir my man.
did no one hear him say that we are NOT nation building anymore?
CWJ
"They told him if he had waited 6 months, he'd be dead."
One wonders, to what extent, this is the unspoken objective.
For the common good.
"If anyone wants to see how civilized and safe and non-violent the Americas were before Columbus arrived, "
Book reference - "Man Corn", Christy Turner
Not on Kindle though.
primitive and benighted country, filled with pederasts, thieves and terrorists
Behold the devastation wrought by the mini-skirt.
[Apocalypto] by Mel Gibson.
Best chase seen evar!
At least we're not named The United States of Vespucci.
Blogger Todd said...
Sorry but you are lying! You must be. We have been told repeatedly by Democrats, liberals, the media, etc. that single payer in other countries is GREAT. Nothing better! That you folks love it and we are stupid, backward hicks for resisting. So the only thing that I can conclude is that you sir are lying and are doing so to trick us American rubes. HOW DARE YOU! /sarc
....
It's catching on here that if you can't afford to go to the US, flying to Malaysia, for example, is a sensible and affordable alternative.
There's a drop-in clinic less than a mile from me. Drop-ins are where the majority of people go with routine ailments, since there's a years long wait to find a family doctor, if you ever do. A vanishing species. The wait probably averages two to three hours. Which is substantially less than if you had a serious issue and had to go to emergency at a hospital. If you went to emergency with a broken arm, you'd wait a minimum of a week for it be set. Only catastrophic situations are dealt with promptly.
You guys think you have bloated government in the US. That's hilarious. It's a slick well oiled machine compared to the monster we all toil to support up here.
AJ Lynch said...If anyone wants to see how civilized and safe and non-violent the Americas were before Columbus arrived, watch the movie Apoctylypto by Mel Gibson. It was just the most delightful place.
I've read that North America is more heavily forested today than before the white man arrived because the Indians cleared so much old-growth forest in order to defend their encampments. I'm reminded of the history of the poor Seminoles who apparently were such bad warriors that they were constantly being displaced. Originally a northeastern tribe, they finally fled to the swamps of Florida figuring no one would bother them there. And no one did.
Snark is not a political agenda, nor is it the path to victory.
Let's pray the hard left never figure this out.
Iran used to be cool, indeed.
"best chase scene ever".
I forgot about that Ferdinande! I have to watch that movie again.
"Did no one hear him say that we are NOT nation building anymore?"
I constantly asked the same question about Obama and his military adventurism in Libya and Syria. Guess what Unknown? You guys didn't care!
Why is this different?
The Seminoles are an undefeated, sovereign tribe. Lousy warriors? Dunno, wise leaders? Seems like it to me.
8/22/17, 1:27 PM
Blogger n.n said...
"Afghanistan is a victim of our war against the Soviet Union. Today, we are sacrificing nations and people in our war against Russia. Then there is Libya, which seems to have been about the oil."
You are kidding me, right???
It's OUR war against the SOVIETS???
Like they didn't start it and exist only for it for 80 years?
We saved the Soviets from annihilation by Hitler and then they turned around and promised to wipe us off the face of the Earth.
Libya was about everything but oil. Arab spring, Muslim Brotherhood, refugees to remake Europe. Obama and Clinton idiocy.
The hard left becomes dumber every day.
tim in vermont said...
The Seminoles are an undefeated, sovereign tribe.
They won't be after they visit Tuscaloosa.
When Khrushchev said "We will Barry you!" nobody paid attention.
Kate said...
Pictures of hip ME chicks have been a conserv meme on the internet for years. Just because the wapo is new to them doesn't mean Trump hadn't seen them before. McMaster showed him legs and he decided to protect Afghanistan? Yeah, right.
8/22/17, 12:05 PM
Yep. The democrat party media still pushing ridiculous fantasies of anonymous sources.
n.n said...
sodal ye:
The American medical system is a leader in quality and availability, but what about the pricing? There is evidence that the medical product is overpriced, which is presumably why Democrats want to force a monopoly finance scheme, and Republicans want to restore capitalism to correct market distortions.
As my engineering friend says about building fighters: "Fast, good, cheap. Pick two."
Apocalypto has a terrific scene where a priest stands atop a pyramid, scaring the crap out of the crowd below by pointing at an approaching eclipse and claiming the gods have bad things in store from them, unless...
The Mexican guy--a local and not an actor---who played the priest watched old films of Mussolini working up crowds to get a feel for the part.
He succeeds entirely.
I agree: it's a great film. But very un-PC, given that it shows the Mayans mercilessly oppressing and enslaving other tribes.
Pres. Trump's first substantive mistake.
And it's a big one.
Fernandinande said...
primitive and benighted country, filled with pederasts, thieves and terrorists
Behold the devastation wrought by the mini-skirt.
*************
IIRC there was just a tiny window opened on western values for a short while, which was immediately slammed shut. Those three women were probably from wealthy families with Western education. The last King went to Italy for his exile.
As for hippy travelers loving Afghanistan, the Afghans mostly didn't love them back. I got stoned by Baluchis within minutes of crossing the border. They called us "kooch aloo", which means "Potato Head". I saw a guy being horsewhipped across his bare back in Kandahar, and watched as some locals "negotiated" which of their human-drawn carts would yield on a narrow street: they simply shouted at each other and tried to knock their opponents' kufi caps off and into the open sewers on both sides.
Delightful people.
Panama has been remarkably peaceful and incredibly prosperous since the U.S. removed Manuel Noriega by force in 1989.
sodal ye said...
If you went to emergency with a broken arm, you'd wait a minimum of a week for it be set. Only catastrophic situations are dealt with promptly.
8/22/17, 2:32 PM
OMG!
sodal ye said...
You guys think you have bloated government in the US. That's hilarious. It's a slick well oiled machine compared to the monster we all toil to support up here.
8/22/17, 2:32 PM
Reminds me of the time [at a prior software company] that we decided that our software development and management process was so screwed up that we needed to "fix it" and hired a group of Microsoft consultants to review our process (not my idea) and suggest improvements to help make our process better. After too much fees money and time, the report was done. During the exit briefing the guys said that they wished their development process was as rigorous as ours. They did not recommend we change anything. True story and we really did think we were a mess and figured that Microsoft HAD to have a better way. You never know...
Good point Gahrie, since Nixon put Noriega in power and Reagan put the mujaheddin in power, we need to correct our colossal fuckups because the situations are 100% identical and the outcomes will be exactly the same.
Perhaps McMaster showed him a CNN article.
I can't get a link to work but searching for "Afghanistan's untold story: Stability, tourists, miniskirts" should work. The date is the key.
tim in vermont said...The Seminoles are an undefeated, sovereign tribe. Lousy warriors? Dunno, wise leaders? Seems like it to me.
I was being overly simplistic. The Seminoles were an ethnogenetic tribe formed from remnants of other tribes that had been driven south. Undefeated though? The Seminole wars devastated the tribe as the majority died either in battle or from starvation and disease and ultimately relocation to Oklahoma. After the Third Seminole War, the bulk of the survivors agreed to go to Oklahoma. A small handful refused and retreated to the Everglades where they finally were left alone.
sodal ye states: If you went to emergency with a broken arm, you'd wait a minimum of a week for it be set. Only catastrophic situations are dealt with promptly.
I had to wait a week here, too. It was supposed to be done within three days [they have to wait for swelling to subside before they cast it].
Amazing how Howard can overlook a Soviet armored invasion and land the blame on Reagan. I guess that he was supposed to pick their leaders for them after the Soviets were driven out!
The real crime was driving out the commies.
Looks like McMaster is the true master of persuasion. Maybe he got lessons from Scott Adams.
I wonder who was to blame for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, probably Nixon.
That picture story looks faker than a faking fakir.
Some other blog from a few years ago with the same picture, attributed to Iran.
Best thing on Twitter today:
Trump = PINO = President In Name Only
Second best thing on Twitter today:
#TrumpResign is trending at #3
Keep hope alive!
Bob- I knew I saw that picture before and it was not Afghanistan.
Darrell had the funniest comment thus far.
Tim In Vermont is a wise man.
I don't know much about McMaster.
I do know Trump is nobody's fool.
As all this Trump rhetoric becomes action, our enemies will take heed.
Imbedded lawyers and reporters are a thing of the past.
Commanders, up close and personal, on the field, will be calling the shots, in every way.
We're paying for the lion's share of medical/pharma innovation. Does anyone want that to stop?
"WAR IS HELL".
Wow, Howard (3:33)
One of the more interesting things about this statement is how it denies the Afghans any agency of their own, in your determination to blame Reagan.
The Soviets withdrew in 1989. Najibullah remained in power until 1992. It was by no means a foregone conclusion who would end up on top after the subsequent four years of fighting. The Taliban were firmly in power, and the Northern Alliance more or less holed up in their never-conquered valley, by 1996.
It's one thing criticize Reagan for supporting the mujaheddin. He didn't start that policy, but he sure did continue and double down. Or for working so much through Pakistan, and giving them so much latitude, that we did support some of the nastier elements who would later become the Taliban. Or for more or less abandoning the place after the Soviets withdrew, and letting it fall into the anarchy from which the Taliban emerged.
But to write "Reagan put the mujaheddin in power" is simplistic hackery.
There's no reason to believe he's not every bit as gullible and persuadable as he expects the American public to be.
I have had several Canadian friends and not one likes the system.
Your
friends
are not normal in their opinions of this so-called "consumer service."
Inga,
I suggest you stock up on the anxiolytics and SSRIs. You are likely to be devastated when Trump wins in 2020. He is already a clear improvement on Obama, the one we cannot speak ill of ... lest we be called racist.
In any case, Hillary will never be POTUS.
I feel your pain, but I won't bite your lip.
Patrick Henry was right! said...Libya was about everything but oil.
Sure it was. The governments of GB and France were concerned only with protecting Libyan citizens. That's why they lobbied so hard for the UN resolution authorizing the no-fly zone and all means necessary to protect civilians. Cameron said he couldn't stand aside while a dictator murdered his own people. Sarkozy talked about "universal conscience" (now, does that sound like the France we know and love??). We might believe such motives from Britain, but France?
GB was quite keen to exploit Libyan energy reserves but had no client-patron relationship with Gaddafi. BP was struggling to recoup after the Gulf of Mexico disaster and badly needed to kick-start production in Libya per the terms of a previous deal. The government was under heavy criticism for the release of the Lockerbie bomber by Scotland (it was following that release that the Libyan/BP deal was finalized). French energy companies also were chomping at the bit to get at those reserves and France already was a major importer of Libyan energy. Further, France became a major arms supplier to Tripoli once the embargo was lifted but in 2010, Gaddafi entered into negotiations with Italy for a billion dollar arms deal. And at the time, Sarkozy badly needed a political bounce. It was economic self-interest that motivated GB and France, not altruism.
Oh Oh Ritmo woke up.
TTR's first link is to a left-wing advocacy site from 2009.
The second link is more recent and decidedly more ambivalent, lots of bobbing and weaving and personal opinion.
"42% of Canadians think the current system works well, compared with just 25% of Americans
50% of Canadians say some fundamental changes are needed. In the US, it's 48%"
Wow! Ringing endorsement!
Oh Oh Ritmo woke up.
Time to hide under your bed.
Don't worry. Nursemaid will wake you up when it's time to get into your pajamas and go to sleep in the big people's bed. Around 8 o'clock or so.
How did GB trick Obama into throwing Libya into chaos?
I guess the 58% of Canadians who don't say the system works well are out of touch with the majority!
Tim in vermont: Perhaps you forgot the US sending stinger missiles to Afghani islamists and their arab jihadi abu's, then later being Paki ISI's butt-boy in the establishment of the Taliban. Your Disneyland version of US History is precious.
What are you saying, tim. It's not better enough?
Needs to be much more better than America to be really better.
75% more satisfied just doesn't cut it. They should find a system with only 25% satisfaction, instead.
Does Michael K actually work during the day, when he's supposedly reading these posts and commenting?
Some job you must have, K. Everyone wants to see a semi-retired foot surgeon who's busy checking and posting on the same old internet commentary site in between the two or three patients he's managed to get the owners of the practice to send his way.
Best Trump joke of the day (so far):
Trump has ordered an immediate investigation to find out on who were the real bad guys in WW2.
JPS: Making arrogant claims of agency is easy sitting in the middle of North America with the world at your fingertips brought to you by ambitious industrious genocidal ass-kickers long dead. Hey, but your hands are kitchen clean. Contrast our unlimited American privilege with Afghani's living in an at best fourth-rate third world country with mostly dark-age tribes in barren rocks getting squeezed between the two greatest superpowers in the history of the planet. Agency... that's cute.
Your sense of scale and empathy is downright Christian.
"Gee - maybe if someone sends him pictures of short-skirted nurses in Sweden, we'll get single-payer health care..."
Swedish blondes in short skirts will have Trump thinking, "Grab 'em by the pussy."
Check yourself Ritmo, that's elder abuse. Next thing you know, Doc Mike will declare his immediate departure before his next 25 posts on just "one more thing"
When you try to undermine a comment section, it's best to get a few different personalities going. An easy way is to use several computers, or just several browsers on one computer, or several different logins on one computer.
That way, you can appear to be like a litter of puppies mixed with kittens, tumbling all over each other. If you post rapidly enough, nobody will bother checking on the crap your fellow pup or kitty wrote a few lines above the current one.
gadfly: Trump's fingers are too short to grab shield-maiden pussy. Also, he only goes for vulnerable mail-order-bride types, not Au pairs.
OH, NO!!! The snowflake Bob Ellison is melting in his Safe Space.
tim in vermont said...How did GB trick Obama into throwing Libya into chaos?
Obama, to his credit, was a reluctant warrior in this deal but GB and France couldn't pull it off without us. It was the Weird Sisters who ultimately got to Obama. Why they were persuaded is anybody's guess. Obama was really pissed at Cameron and Sarkozy after the fact when they abandoned their promised nation building. What a mess. Everything over there is a mess. Maybe someday we'll stop getting into these messes over there (energy independence will certainly help). But not today, I guess.
Also, create at least two personae who disagree with you.
I know you're mustard, but what am I?
Relish!
No, Ketchup!
That lends credibility when you refute them. Top men swear by this technique.
But to write "Reagan put the mujaheddin in power" is simplistic hackery.
Besides, both sides were mujahideen!
Inga, TTR, and Howard.
Yet further evidence to support the observation that liberals think snark is an adequate replacement for ideas. Think I'm wrong? Two words-- Al Franken.
"Also, create at least two personae who disagree with you."
It's hard to tell with the lefty sock puppets.
From the article.....
President Trump was frustrated and fuming. Again and again, in the windowless Situation Room at the White House, he lashed out at his national security team over the Afghanistan war, and the paucity of appealing options gnawed at him.
Frustrated....fuming....lashed out...gnawed.
How in the world could they know this? They don't, but it does let their readers feel that Trump is having a bad day, and that is the point of the article.
If you're really, deeply into this thing, you can maybe thwart even the NSA. There are ways of hiding your IP address. Hiding your writing style is more difficult. You could study great impressionists, but they mostly work orally. Larry the Cable Guy could probably teach you how to impersonate a Southerner, but he might not know how to write like F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Google is onto us with AI and transmogrifying language analysis. They'll figure out that I'm actually an IRS agent somewhere in the PacWest region, tracking down unhinged squirrels. I write that freely because I know the jig was up years ago. I'm done. It's up to you folks to discover the truth.
"Also, create at least two personae who disagree with you."
It has occurred to me that some of these personae might have been created by Althouse, as part of some weird psych experiment. But which ones ? Then again, Textual Analysis might show that the blogger we know as 'Ann Althouse' is actually the work of a committee.
Commonwealth Fund Survey 2016--How Canada Compares
--Canada continues to perform below the international average for timely access to patient care.
--Canadians report few financial barriers for medical services covered under the Canada Health Act, but they are more likely than those in other countries to skip filling a prescription or visiting a dentist because of the cost.
--Once they do get in for a visit, Canadians are generally happy with the medical care they receive from their regular doctor or place of care. However, their overall views about their health care system are less positive.
--Same- or next-day appointments are difficult to get in Canada.
--Access to after-hours care continues to be below average in Canada.
--Communication with doctors not as easy in Canada
And so forth.
Ghost Wars or Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, is a book written by Steve Coll, published in 2004 by Penguin Press,[1] won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.[2]
The book provides an in-depth account of Central Intelligence Agency activity in Afghanistan from the time of the Soviet Invasion to the aftermath of attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Particularly taken note of by Coll is the interplay between the CIA and its counterpart in Pakistan, Inter-Services Intelligence, which utilized CIA and Saudi Arabian funding to build militant Mujahideen training camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in an effort to create radicalized, militant fighters sourced from many Arab countries to attack the Soviet occupation. Invariably, as Coll shows, this decision would have long-lasting effects on the region.
Althouse is much too intelligent to have created such stupid personae. She could at least have gone for a blog version of Moriarty.
There are pros and cons to our staying or leaving Afghanistan. If we leave the big loser will not be us, but the women we leave behind. It will be catastrophic for them. I wonder why feminists have never uttered a word of support for our presence there.......I've read that there are over a half million slaves on Mauretania. These slaves are black, but they have the bad luck to be enslaved by brown owners. Their plight has never gathered much sympathy or attention among the blacks here.......If you're oppressed by a white bourgeois straight man, you're a primo victim and the heavens cry for your suffering. Other victims can be attended to later.
Or Irene Adler perhaps.
Howard, your precious Soviets had invited themselves in using Tanks. The Soviets had enslaved half of Europe and were on the march. Why do you still consider them to have been the legitimate government of Afghanistan?
Use of "butt boy" shows you know you're losing.
She could at least have gone for a blog version of Moriarty.
She did. It's Laslo.
Well Capt. Slothrop, snark is much less pathetic than paranoia.
Tim in Vermont: I happen to hold the US to a higher standard than the USSR. You seem to accept US Fuck-Ups because, the Soviets are bad and stupid too. I imagine you right wing wide-stance toe tappers find "butt-boy" offensive. Sorry.
TTR, read your BBC link, which is almost a decade newer and not from an ax grinding advocacy group.
48% in 'favour' of fundamental change, admittedly 2% better than the US of A.
Haha, you are so fucking transparent Howard, and more desperate by the minute. You used butt boy as a pejorative, and I hold the US to a high standard too. We should oppose marching armies of slave seejers when the cross borders.
Yet further evidence to support the observation that liberals think snark is an adequate replacement for ideas.
Snark is just humor. It doesn't replace the ideas - just makes them spicier!
Think I'm wrong? Two words-- Al Franken.
One of the few people in the Senate who's actually doing anything. No surprise. Most of Congress is a joke, anyway. So he has a successful pre-congressional career and a successful career in the Congress. About the only one in there he can't work with is Ted Cruz - but neither can anyone. I'm thankful to Franken for uncovering the quiet inner workings of that body. And for revealing what the problem really is with most Republicans; they're uptight.
He breaks the ice and gets things done.
In case you forgot, the Soviets destroyed democracy in Afghanistan.
48% in 'favour' of fundamental change, admittedly 2% better than the US of A.
So what? Healthcare's always changing so it makes sense to want fundamental change in how it's delivered most of the time. The difference is, they live with a responsive government that's not in hock to billionaires so it's simply easier to get things done. And none of that changes the more meaningful metric - about 70% more satisfied with their system than we are with ours. (42% vs. 25%). The only case you've got is if you want to believe that lower satisfaction = a better system.
But as an American you apparently just prefer the one in which you get to be lazy and less engaged, apparently. No government works well under those conditions.
Go to the dictionary and look up fundamental, close synonym: radical.
Yeesh!
"Inter-Services Intelligence, which utilized CIA and Saudi Arabian funding to build militant Mujahideen training camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in an effort to create radicalized, militant fighters sourced from many Arab countries to attack the Soviet occupation."
Much better is the inside story from the ISI itself - "The Bear Trap", Mohammed Yousaf
Not on Kindle, but there was once an online version.
The Arabs were not well regarded as to their utility as per the ISI. A very interesting work re the outlook of the ISI.
Tim in Vermont: Go ahead and send your kids and grandkids to play world police to be killed or dismembered in some third world shithole, I'll decline, thank you.
In case you forgot, the US destroyed democracy in most of Central America and the Caribbean, Argentina, Chile, Syria, Iran, Lebanon. Making the world a safe space for United Fruit, Alcoa Aluminum, Standard Oil, Du Pont, etc.
buwaya: Thanks, it's available via pdf.
Indirectly, yes.
>Afghanistan is a victim of a Soviet invasion, which utterly destroyed the culture shown in the picture.
My understanding of Afghan History:
1. 1975 - US left Vietnam
2. 1978 - Student led revolution in Afghanistan.
3. 1979 - Soviets came in because Communists were losing power. Usual uprisings that doomed so many central governments. Heavy backing of rebel forces by US, Pakistan, and Gulf States.
4. 1989 - Soviets Withdrew
4. 1992 - Communist government falls after Soviet support ends. Shades of Vietnam.
5. Civil war after that, till the US came in.
6. 2001 US overthrows government.
Communists theory is all about equality for males and females.
I know I left out some major dates, such as when the US boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
TTM
Odd that you bring up working hours. You seem to clock in to Althouse after you clock out at work! Around 5. 9 to 5 for you? LOL
Howard said...
I happen to hold the US to a higher standard than the USSR.
Why would you say that? What makes us so special to you? Have you done anything in your life to make us so special? What was it, I'm curious.
R . TTR
Blogger Gahrie said...
Panama has been remarkably peaceful and incredibly prosperous since the U.S. removed Manuel Noriega by force in 1989.
Yes, and they have done very well operating and expanding the canal as well. Panama could be a nice place to relocate if things really go bad here. There is a very nice, modern Johns Hopkins-affiliated hospital there, all the staff are US or European trained. And the current leadership has very strong American ties. Both the current president and the minister for the canal are Georgia Tech engineering graduates.
During which hours were you allowed to learn the alphabet, Michael?
Or are you going senile, also?
I like the idea of a guy who condescends to the idea of having a day job, yet fails to know the alphabet.
Whatever point he was trying to prove just fell into a black hole of irony and self-parody.
Blogger AllenS said...Howard said...I happen to hold the US to a higher standard than the USSR.
Why would you say that? Because the world recognizes the fact that the US is the Beacon of Hope for the world because of free market economics, civil rights, democratic control of government, civilian control of military
What makes us so special to you? common sense, iconoclastic attitudes, off-roading, hunting and fishing, homebrew ________(fill in the blank, eg, hotrods, fishing lures, computers, Alaskan saw mills, etc.)
Have you done anything in your life to make us so special? What was it, I'm curious. Raised good kids and grandkids, doing my job well by serving my community and my clients at the same time, volunteering, being a good friend, helping neighbors, contributing to charity, mentoring young people, hassling assholes on blogs...
Howard said...
Well Capt. Slothrop, snark is much less pathetic than paranoia.
I'm afraid you're wrong.
I find that photo a pretty convincing argument that there is both opportunity and hope for a place few of us remember was once civilized. It's actually the best single argument I've heard (seen) since the G.W. Bush days.
Q. Why did President Trump make a decision to expand the unpopular war in Afghanistan which will anger large parts of his base, which will win him no friends among the Democrats or in the media, which entails great risk and will make him responsible for any American deaths which follow, and which goes against his often stated basic instincts for avoiding foreign interventions?
A. Because he thinks that decision is in America's best interests.
After eight years of seeing every major Presidential decision guided by personal and political motivations it is refreshing to have an American patriot in the White House.
After eight years of seeing every major Presidential decision guided by personal and political motivations it is refreshing to have an American patriot in the White House.
YES! Because if it involves violence abroad or expanding empire then that is the surest definition of PATRIOTISM!
Keeping 20 million Americans from dying or going bankrupt or deleveraging a bubble economy in hostage to billionaire speculation are some of the most unpatriotic things you can do, apparently.
Bag of Water: That same photo-trope was trotted out in in October 2001 along with Hamid Karzai in his hat made from aborted sheep fetuses to convince us that a return to normalcy in A-Stan was just around the corner..
Rabel: Because the endless war on terror is fought by volunteer's from Trump districts, no one cares about the added 4K troopers he proposes. This has no downside for Trump if it fails because it has already failed. If there is any success, including a negotiated peace with the Taliban, Trump takes 100% of the credit. He's a speculator who likes low risk, high reward projects. I thought "you people" liked him because he was a business opportunist??
I figured that the "American patriot" line would draw some spittle. I hope no one engages in any self-harm. Cutting, OD's and such.
… the US destroyed democracy in most of Central America and the Caribbean, Argentina, Chile, Syria, Iran, Lebanon. Making the world a safe space for United Fruit, Alcoa Aluminum, Standard Oil, Du Pont, etc.
Cliché Lefty boilerplate. Right out of the Marxist handbook of anti-capitalist bullshit. There’s always someone who’ll show up and hotly declare that the USA is the cause of all the world’s problems, both past and present. All that’s missing is a Nazi comparison.
Cliché Lefty boilerplate. Right out of the Marxist handbook of anti-capitalist bullshit. There’s always someone who’ll show up and hotly declare that the USA is the cause of all the world’s problems, both past and present. All that’s missing is a Nazi comparison.
It's true we could have let these countries develop their own economies based on their domestic know-how. Uh-huh. Instead we chose to exploit the people and their resources by helping to bring them out of the stone age.
I thought "you people" liked him because he was a business opportunist??
The commentor is mistaken. There are a multitude of the reasons to like Trump – one of them being that Trump is the exact opposite of the commentor.
Personally, I started really liking Trump a lot when I saw Trump do this.
"Bag of Water: That same photo-trope was trotted out in in October 2001"
Like I said, best argument since Bush. All the more recent ones have been less convincing.
Regardless of the reason for going to war, once embarked, the mistake was not deciding to win it. I'd rather not fight it, or fight it hard and win, but we only decided to fight, not win. Nobody is in favor of that.
TTR
You get overtime? LOL
Ritmo is not paid to post. But I'm pretty sure that some of his work is used in the training manuals of those who are.
They couldn't afford him anyway.
TTR
Time and a half? Are you required to take breaks and lunch?
Rabel
No, that commenter has a job. He clocks out around 5PM eastern and hits the keyboard thereafter. Office worker.
grackle shills Cliche standard history not told by Rush Limbaugh. I learned about the Banana Wars and the over-throwing of Latin American countries for United Fruit, etc. from those famous lefty Marxist anti-capitalist Marine Corps Drill Instructors.
bag-O: Yeah, like I said here or elsewhere, having Mattis and Tillerson taking the lead is more promising than the other clowns who worked for Dub and Zero
Howard: You are really Inga, right? Transgender Inga?
The lefties are full of sock puppets. You can't keep track.
We could fight another "clean" war. Force a refugee crisis and leave the rest behind. I wonder if the press and social complex would cooperate in recycling this narrative.
Watching the mainslime media and left commenters try to quickly evolve a hostile-to-Trump narrative about Afghanistan without involving Obama (who failed to end the war) is like watching little kids play cards for the first time. A lot of excitement, a lot of time spent fumbling with cards, the hand on display for anyone who cares to look, tears and rage among the losers. But you know the little kids will grow up someday. The left?
"I find that photo a pretty convincing argument that there is both opportunity and hope for a place few of us remember was once civilized. It's actually the best single argument I've heard (seen) since the G.W. Bush days."
Beruit was once the Paris of the Middle East. We need to extricate ourselves from Afghanistan as soon as possible. A quote from an acquaintance:
"We started fighting in Afghanistan when I was in the eighth grade. My younger brother fought there, and now, as a result, has a host of problems to deal with. I am thirty years old now. When will this ever stop?"
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