So here's my 2 cents regarding the issue of Islam: it's not as homogeneous as it may seem at first glance. There are different groups, each has their own interpretation of the religion, much like the different Christian denominations. Some of these groups have even been hostile to each other, not entirely unlike the infighting between Protestants and Catholics, for example.
While it's true that there's a lot of negative things about Islam tout court, I think it's equally true that, for example, Muslim scholars from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance made important contributions to science. Just think of the words "algebra", "alcohol" and "algorithm", among others. All of these words originated in the writings of Muslim scholars. They were later translated from Arabic to Latin, and that's how they became known throughout Europe.
The upshot is that Islam is as complex as any other religion, we shouldn't be in a hurry to characterize it by means of sweeping generalizations. There's nuances to this, as is the case with any complex issue.
A basic rundown of the timeline and reasoning of the last 4 US Presidents that got us here is this:
George W. Bush- 9/11 happens, the Taliban is allowing Bin Laden to roam around their country. Original mission as presented to the American public is the kill Bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives. This never happens under Bush. The Taliban offers to give up Bin Laden at a certain point if Americans will agree to withdraw, and Rumsfeld dismisses them out of hand, as the neo-con goal of the Bush Administration quickly shifts from dishing out justice for 9/11 to perpetual nation building in the Middle East. Bin Laden escapes Tora Bora and the Bush Administration decides to focus all their attention on invading yet ANOTHER country with even less to do with the attack on America.
Barack Obama- Obama runs on getting out of Iraq, not getting out of Afghanistan. He essentially achieves the former, but never really considers doing the later, possibly because abandoning both of the fields in the so-called "War on Terror" is politically untenable domestically. A combination of the sunk cost fallacy and the public still generally viewing Afghanistan as the "good war" between the two. While he exits the bigger disaster, he actually surges in Afghanistan.
Donald Trump- Makes large claims about leaving the theater in Afghanistan, and he and Pompeo make a deal with the Taliban to free 5000 of their men and iron out the framework Biden was left to work with. However, he never follows through despite a large amount of bluster, likely because he wasn't interested in accepting the responsibility, because that's not something he does. The planned meetings with the Taliban in America on 9/11 are mercifully nixed.
Joe Biden- Decides early on that unlike the Trump Administration ripping up the Iran deal, he is going to honor the agreement made by the previous Administration. While the speed at which the Taliban would retake the country is GROSSLY underestimated, Biden puts all his chips in the table and shows no equivocation once the process starts, despite massive domestic pressure from the media and members of both parties.
It seems to me we had three options. We violate the agreement with the Taliban and stay with at or near our current troop level, putting every one of those troops at grave risk. We do a troop surge to continue to prop up the puppet government in place in Kabul, keeping the real power in the hands of corrupt warlords (many of whom are objectively WORSE than the Taliban). Or we do what happened over the weekend. Which was messy, tragic, and inevitable. What other alternatives were there??
There was no dignity to be had here, only humiliation. People comparing this to US troops fleeing Saigon seem to be implying, simply by the way of bringing it up, that the thing we SHOULD have done in 1975 is.......stay in Vietnam longer. Which is absolutely insane. The lesson of Vietnam should not have been "avoid pictures that make the US look bad". It should have been "don't try to nation build in parts of the world you don't even REMOTELY understand".
So here's my 2 cents regarding the issue of Islam: it's not as homogeneous as it may seem at first glance. There are different groups, each has their own interpretation of the religion, much like the different Christian denominations. Some of these groups have even been hostile to each other, not entirely unlike the infighting between Protestants and Catholics, for example.
While it's true that there's a lot of negative things about Islam tout court, I think it's equally true that, for example, Muslim scholars from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance made important contributions to science. Just think of the words "algebra", "alcohol" and "algorithm", among others. All of these words originated in the writings of Muslim scholars. They were later translated from Arabic to Latin, and that's how they became known throughout Europe.
The upshot is that Islam is as complex as any other religion, we shouldn't be in a hurry to characterize it by means of sweeping generalizations. There's nuances to this, as is the case with any complex issue.
I'm not at all trying to generalize about Islam, FWIW. Its adherents are the majority religion in countries stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Obviously there's lots of variety in there. What is true though, is that in Afghanistan a very conservative take on the religion dominates.
In fact, the Pew study I linked reveals how much of an outlier Afghans are when contrasted with other Muslim countries.
So here's my 2 cents regarding the issue of Islam: it's not as homogeneous as it may seem at first glance. There are different groups, each has their own interpretation of the religion, much like the different Christian denominations. Some of these groups have even been hostile to each other, not entirely unlike the infighting between Protestants and Catholics, for example.
While it's true that there's a lot of negative things about Islam tout court, I think it's equally true that, for example, Muslim scholars from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance made important contributions to science. Just think of the words "algebra", "alcohol" and "algorithm", among others. All of these words originated in the writings of Muslim scholars. They were later translated from Arabic to Latin, and that's how they became known throughout Europe.
The upshot is that Islam is as complex as any other religion, we shouldn't be in a hurry to characterize it by means of sweeping generalizations. There's nuances to this, as is the case with any complex issue.
I'm not at all trying to generalize about Islam, FWIW. Its adherents are the majority religion in countries stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Obviously there's lots of variety in there. What is true though, is that in Afghanistan a very conservative take on the religion dominates.
In fact, the Pew study I linked reveals how much of an outlier Afghans are when contrasted with other Muslim countries.
It seems to me one of the main reasons this was never going to work is we just assumed there was a national identity that could be appealed to, in the sense that people in the US would understand it, and there isn't one, aside from the Taliban being the people with the most will to dominate this particular piece of the Earth. Almost all sense of collective identity comes from religion, not borders on a map.
This is going to sound crazy, but Rambo 3 is very insightful regarding the issue of Afghanistan. In that movie, the Afghans are portrayed in a very positive way, to the point of being unrealistic. But it's interesting nonetheless, since it sheds some light on how the general perception of that country has been changing since the late 80's up until today.
This is going to sound crazy, but Rambo 3 is very insightful regarding the issue of Afghanistan. In that movie, the Afghans are portrayed in a very positive way, to the point of being unrealistic. But it's interesting nonetheless, since it sheds some light on how the general perception of that country has been changing since the late 80's up until today.
Rambo 3 was released in 1988, just prior to Bush Senior becoming president and in the heyday of seeing the USSR as the 'evil empire'. Given that, it's not surprising that Afghanistan would be seen in a heroic light at that time - the USSR entanglement there was one of the influences that ultimately led to its dissolution.
It's impossible to overstate how horrendous, hubristic, and outright immoral US foreign policy in the Middle East has been starting with the installation of the Shah in 1953. And everything eventually comes back around as blowback. We're frankly lucky only a single major terrorist attack has been pulled off in response.
It's impossible to overstate how horrendous, hubristic, and outright immoral US foreign policy in the Middle East has been starting with the installation of the Shah in 1953. And everything eventually comes back around as blowback. We're frankly lucky only a single major terrorist attack has been pulled off in response.
I'm currently reading a book called "Microeconomics Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide", just because I like textbooks and this is something that I need to brush up on. The book itself tries to speak in a non-political or neutral language, but it has some curious examples, like this quote:
"(...) For example, the Middle East has a comparative advantage in producing crude oil, whereas the United States has a comparative advantage in growing wheat. If the United States consumed only the crude oil it could produce domestically, there would be much less crude oil consumed in the United States. While environmentalists might consider this desirable, the reduction in crude oil would cause dramatic impacts on the U.S. economy (...)"
And this of course made me think something along these lines: if you can simply take the oil by force, instead of buying it, wouldn't this mean that it's more economical to do so?
It's impossible to overstate how horrendous, hubristic, and outright immoral US foreign policy in the Middle East has been starting with the installation of the Shah in 1953. And everything eventually comes back around as blowback. We're frankly lucky only a single major terrorist attack has been pulled off in response.
I'm currently reading a book called "Microeconomics Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide", just because I like textbooks and this is something that I need to brush up on. The book itself tries to speak in a non-political or neutral language, but it has some curious examples, like this quote:
"(...) For example, the Middle East has a comparative advantage in producing crude oil, whereas the United States has a comparative advantage in growing wheat. If the United States consumed only the crude oil it could produce domestically, there would be much less crude oil consumed in the United States. While environmentalists might consider this desirable, the reduction in crude oil would cause dramatic impacts on the U.S. economy (...)"
And this of course made me think something along these lines: if you can simply take the oil by force, instead of buying it, wouldn't this mean that it's more economical to do so?
Since the estimated cost of the adventures in Iraq and and Afghanistan by 2050 (with interest) is 6 trillion dollars, I would have to know how much we spend on crude oil.
Since the estimated cost of the adventures in Iraq and and Afghanistan by 2050 (with interest) is 6 trillion dollars, I would have to know how much we spend on crude oil.
No idea, the book doesn't specify that, so I'd have to look it up somewhere else. But the book does seem to imply that the USA gets oil from the Middle East in exchange for wheat.
Since the estimated cost of the adventures in Iraq and and Afghanistan by 2050 (with interest) is 6 trillion dollars, I would have to know how much we spend on crude oil.
No idea, the book doesn't specify that, so I'd have to look it up somewhere else. But the book does seem to imply that the USA gets oil from the Middle East in exchange for wheat.
I'd be skeptical of this book then, if those are the claims it's making. US consumption of oil is almost entirely from its own domestic production or imports from other countries in the Americas. Why spend more more resources shipping it from Saudi Arabia when Canada or Colombia are right next door?
Oil also isn't traded for other resources like in Civilization. It's just sold on the open market. As are agricultural products like wheat. Generally speaking anyways, there are some exceptions. But the US government doesn't control, not directly anyways, where oil is coming from. Private corporations are making the deals that control the flow of the resource in and out of the country.
Some quick data on the subject from the US government. As you can see the US imports almost as much oil as it exports (9.14 v 8.47). Canada alone is nearly half of all imports.
The interest the US has in Mideast oil isn't about the US possessing that oil for its own use. The chief foreign consumer of Mideast oil are EU countries. It's more about ensuring the consistent extraction of that oil. Because if that's effected, that effects global oil prices worldwide, which has cascading consequences for the global economy.
the US imports almost as much oil as it exports (9.14 v 8.47). Canada alone is nearly half of all imports.
This is something I never understood. Not just in the case of oil, but in regards to any goods in general. For example, if you look up the statistics for cars or industrial machines, the situation is more or less similar: they get exported and imported.
But why? I don't get it. Why would you export and import equal amounts of oil, for example? Let's say (simplifying this for the sake of argument) that you produce 100 barrels. You export 50 of them, and then you import another 50. Why would anyone do this, if you end up with the same amount that you originally had?
I'm not questioning the statistics, it's just that I don't understand what's going on : P
As I said, that's a product of private companies controlling the movement of these assets. Yes, it makes no sense for the US to import oil only to then export it. It makes perfect sense for Exxon or whoever to do so.
the US imports almost as much oil as it exports (9.14 v 8.47). Canada alone is nearly half of all imports.
This is something I never understood. Not just in the case of oil, but in regards to any goods in general. For example, if you look up the statistics for cars or industrial machines, the situation is more or less similar: they get exported and imported.
But why? I don't get it. Why would you export and import equal amounts of oil, for example? Let's say (simplifying this for the sake of argument) that you produce 100 barrels. You export 50 of them, and then you import another 50. Why would anyone do this, if you end up with the same amount that you originally had?
I'm not questioning the statistics, it's just that I don't understand what's going on : P
A barrel of Arabian crude is not exactly the same as a barrel of Canadian, or US crude. Oil is used to make many different products and some sources are better suited for some applications. Also, countries might import crude so they can refine it and sell the refined products at more of a premium.
I can't get passed the fact that the guy's name is actually "Bowser". Makes me think of the villain from Mario Bros. I'll have to read the article later, after my dumb sense of humor dissipates.
If anybody's really bored, here's a link that shows just some of the differences between crude oil from different sources. On the list it only shows API (density) and sulfur content, but there a bunch more qualities that make some oil sources much easier to refine and transport. I've heard that Saudi oil is kind of the gold standard in that regard.
Defund the police was never about completely cutting police budgets so that crime rose. It was about spending the money more efficiently to prevent crime instead of responding to it.
It was giving less military grade equipment like flash grenades being thrown into children’s cribs.
Within the last 24 hours, I've had to come to grips with the fact that the recriminations of Biden by George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton and Ari Fleischer are being amplified by different aspects of the media. If they could safely pull Cheney out of his bacta tank on Mustafar, he'd be among them as well. This is honestly my nightmare, politically. That these neo-con ghouls have been completely rehabilitated. The people BY FAR the most responsible being treated as sage, outside observers. One of the biggest problems in this country is the populace's lack of long-term memory, and the media that indulges it and, in fact, makes it 10x worse.
I dont think it really registered just how easy it would be to pick apart Biden's withdrawal. The truth is, you can simultaneously be for the idea of troops leaving, and see the scenes at the Kabul Airport and think that this was all done very poorly. Since we live in a hyperpartisan society, it's essentially a requirement for those who dislike Biden to find a way to dislike him doing this.
So they harp on the nature of the US leaving.
It's too soon to have a really good idea of where this ends up, but his polls have tightened considerably. Perhaps the only saving grace for Biden and Democrats is that the Midterms are still a while away, and that this will likely not be an issue at the forefront of anyone's mind come November of next year.
Trump isnt a political savant - and his circle arent either - but even he's threading this needle pretty easily. The quotes I've seen from his interview tonight with Hannity seem like they're basically "Wars in the middle-east are bad, but Biden's withdrawal is a humiliation". It speaks to American exceptionalism while supporting the popular opinion (held by most Americans) that we shouldnt be in wars abroad.
Everyone became an expert on military withdrawal in the last 48 hours. We've bungled every other part of this, why would the end be orderly?? Americans need to take a hard dose of medicine and watch. This is what your hyper-militarism and complete detachment from the foreign policy decisions of your government gets you.
Not for nothing, but it seems within 24 hours of the initial media freak-out, the airbase is in our control with the Taliban's blessing flying people out 24/7 until everyone is gone. You'd think the Taliban was running around Kabal displaying the heads of decapitated diplomats. As far as I know, the only deaths associated with the past 48 hours are some guys who thought it would be a swell idea to cling to the wheels a plane that was taking off. Even if you thought there was a 90% chance the Taliban was going to kill you, there is 100% chance you're gonna die when you lose your grip on a plane that is thousands of feet in the air.
The only issue is the visa status of Afghani citizens who helped the US possibly facing reprisal. And since FOX was already going full "don't you dare think you're letting those people into our backyard" by 8pm last night, good luck getting a consensus on changing our policies on that. In fact, I'm fairly certain the reason more wasn't done on that front in the first place is because the Biden White House is more terrified of THAT narrative taking hold in right-wing media than anything else. Which is stupid, because they were going to trot it out regardless.
Americans don't care about much of anything that isn't feed to them through a screen or a speaker. Already tonight (in my anecdotal scrolling) half the Afghanistan discussion has been replaced with Greg Abbott testing positive for COVID-19 and red states running out of ICU beds. Assuming no catastrophes, this issue will be exactly where it was in the minds of Americans in 2004 by Sunday. Which is to say "not even on the radar".
Frankly, if 30-40% of the public change their mind about military occupation over this, they never had much of a position to begin with. There are Democrats still clinging to the "good war" narrative at this late date, despite the curtain being pulled back completely, and Republicans who went full anti-interventionist for four years morphing overnight back into Bush-era neo-cons.
I don't think leadership in this case is defined by logistical problems and a bad intelligence estimate about a situation that was already going to be horrible. It's DESPITE those things happening, and (no hyperbole) 100% of the American media (right, left and center) one step away from calling for your head, you stick to your guns and do the over-arching right thing anyway. Shit, Bush got away with taking Biden's current defiant posture for 6 years while constantly doing the WRONG thing.
Just thought I'd link this article detailing a drop in Biden's approval rating due to the recent tragedies in Afghanistan.
It piqued my interest because, if I've learned anything about using polls for research and writing papers, usually disapproval takes time to "stew" (if that makes any sense). Approval is much more likely to spike after a given event, most notably seen with Bush after 9/11 and Reagan after his assassination attempt. Growing disapproval typically comes much more gradually. The last time we really saw a stark dip in approval after a given event may have been Watergate, as crazy as that may seem (I believe Carter suffered a pretty substantial drop directly after Operation Eagle Claw, as well).
Now, I would be willing to say that I think some of this is due to a degree of sensationalism, people understandably being caught up in the media frenzy of this all. But, I think I'd also be insane to say that any sort of complete rebound could be reasonably expected.
Regardless of who you might think is ultimately responsible for this (and there are certainly many discussions to be had about that topic), as far as the court of public opinion goes, it looks like this one is going to sting, at least for a while.
Yeah, unfortunately Biden is not shaking this off easily. His administration is looking naive at best, incompetent at worst. I'd tend to believe naive, only because I think the left is pretty naive about human nature at times anyway. You didn't have to be Nostradamus to see this coming. I had my suspicions that this could turn into a debacle, but I've been following Foreign Affairs for almost two decades now. The writers of that magazine are largely Beltway types that are paid analysts, advisors, etc...
Just thought I'd link this article detailing a drop in Biden's approval rating due to the recent tragedies in Afghanistan.
It piqued my interest because, if I've learned anything about using polls for research and writing papers, usually disapproval takes time to "stew" (if that makes any sense). Approval is much more likely to spike after a given event, most notably seen with Bush after 9/11 and Reagan after his assassination attempt. Growing disapproval typically comes much more gradually. The last time we really saw a stark dip in approval after a given event may have been Watergate, as crazy as that may seem (I believe Carter suffered a pretty substantial drop directly after Operation Eagle Claw, as well).
Now, I would be willing to say that I think some of this is due to a degree of sensationalism, people understandably being caught up in the media frenzy of this all. But, I think I'd also be insane to say that any sort of complete rebound could be reasonably expected.
Regardless of who you might think is ultimately responsible for this (and there are certainly many discussions to be had about that topic), as far as the court of public opinion goes, it looks like this one is going to sting, at least for a while.
So - this is interesting. I think it's worth considering that the general elasticity of approval rating has decreased as the US has become more partisan and polarized. For example, Trump had an extremely (extremely) steady approval/disapproval rating for most of his term. He saw some pretty significant dips (relative to the steadiness) when the GOP tried to repeal the ACA. Given the steadiness of his ratings before (and after) that point, I would argue that even a 3 point drop might be akin to a president in a less polarized environment losing 5 or 7 points over the course of a week.
Anyways, that's just my opinion. I dont have any political research to back it up.
More than anything - while lots of people were predicting this wouldnt hurt Biden - it's frankly enough to hurt him simply that the news media covering it has been universally bad. No one should underestimate the effect of every single major new media source running front page stories about how bad this all is for him. It can be self perpetuating.
I've seen more than a few arguments that even traditional center-left and leftist news media is piling on Biden simply because they want to show that they can be tough on non GOP presidents, and Biden hasnt really given them an opportunity before now. One baked in advantage that Trump tended to have was that conservative media rarely (if ever) really went after him. So the Fox News only viewers rarely saw the negative press cycle (I believe they did it this way because they perceived every other network was running 24/7 negative cycles on Trump, and sought to counterbalance it, true or not).
This is a really complicated issue. It's difficult for me to articulate a coherent opinion on this. On the one hand, I believe that Biden made the right call in pulling away the US armed forces from Afghanistan. I don't care if this is perceived as a defeat, or a humiliation, or a weakness: at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do, and someone had to do it.
On the other hand, I believe that there's legitimate cause for concern regarding the issue of the Taliban seizing power and controlling the country. To be perfectly clear, I don't think that Islamophobia is warranted, that attitude only makes things worse. This does not mean that we shouldn't oppose the Taliban: we should. Their attitude towards women is especially disturbing. I don't think that the women of Afghanistan are too thrilled to have the Taliban back in power. In other words, we should oppose the Taliban because they're oppressive, not because they're Muslims.
So - this is interesting. I think it's worth considering that the general elasticity of approval rating has decreased as the US has become more partisan and polarized. For example, Trump had an extremely (extremely) steady approval/disapproval rating for most of his term. He saw some pretty significant dips (relative to the steadiness) when the GOP tried to repeal the ACA. Given the steadiness of his ratings before (and after) that point, I would argue that even a 3 point drop might be akin to a president in a less polarized environment losing 5 or 7 points over the course of a week.
Anyways, that's just my opinion. I dont have any political research to back it up.
More than anything - while lots of people were predicting this wouldnt hurt Biden - it's frankly enough to hurt him simply that the news media covering it has been universally bad. No one should underestimate the effect of every single major new media source running front page stories about how bad this all is for him. It can be self perpetuating.
I've seen more than a few arguments that even traditional center-left and leftist news media is piling on Biden simply because they want to show that they can be tough on non GOP presidents, and Biden hasnt really given them an opportunity before now. One baked in advantage that Trump tended to have was that conservative media rarely (if ever) really went after him. So the Fox News only viewers rarely saw the negative press cycle (I believe they did it this way because they perceived every other network was running 24/7 negative cycles on Trump, and sought to counterbalance it, true or not).
Certainly some points of merit there, as well. Heck, even with the seven point drop, Biden's current 46% is pretty much in line with the ratings we've seen from recent presidents.
I think the most interesting thing about what the media has done is that it's really put a focus on handling, or mishandling, of this from the administration. I know with the people I've spoken to, the frustration from all of this doesn't even come from the decision to withdraw or even the fallout that came from said withdrawal. They're mad about about the fact that the President didn't say anything for almost two days, showed up to speak for 15 minutes, then immediately dipped without taking a single question. There is certainly a perception of hypocrisy ("the buck stops with me", only to then basically immediately blame the previous administration, Afghan government and basically anyone else he could), again, at least among the people I've spoken to.
That's what I think the media has magnified. It's not really a surprise that they've done so, either. Media outlets are like vultures, waiting for the next easy feast lying dead in the road.
Of my own personal opinion, I've said for awhile, even before he entered office, that Biden appeared that he was going to be a very "inaccessible" President. Now, that's not to make any statement of my own opinions of the man or his administration, but the reality is it's been pretty obvious that he's not one for taking questions or long press conferences. I think the immediate retreat after the speech on Monday was perhaps the most affront example of that the country has seen thus far, with the President walking away as a group of reporters shouted questions at him, right after a militaristic disaster following 20 years of our involvement, desperate for him to even acknowledge them. That's what I think the media has pounced on.
Comments
While it's true that there's a lot of negative things about Islam tout court, I think it's equally true that, for example, Muslim scholars from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance made important contributions to science. Just think of the words "algebra", "alcohol" and "algorithm", among others. All of these words originated in the writings of Muslim scholars. They were later translated from Arabic to Latin, and that's how they became known throughout Europe.
The upshot is that Islam is as complex as any other religion, we shouldn't be in a hurry to characterize it by means of sweeping generalizations. There's nuances to this, as is the case with any complex issue.
George W. Bush- 9/11 happens, the Taliban is allowing Bin Laden to roam around their country. Original mission as presented to the American public is the kill Bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives. This never happens under Bush. The Taliban offers to give up Bin Laden at a certain point if Americans will agree to withdraw, and Rumsfeld dismisses them out of hand, as the neo-con goal of the Bush Administration quickly shifts from dishing out justice for 9/11 to perpetual nation building in the Middle East. Bin Laden escapes Tora Bora and the Bush Administration decides to focus all their attention on invading yet ANOTHER country with even less to do with the attack on America.
Barack Obama- Obama runs on getting out of Iraq, not getting out of Afghanistan. He essentially achieves the former, but never really considers doing the later, possibly because abandoning both of the fields in the so-called "War on Terror" is politically untenable domestically. A combination of the sunk cost fallacy and the public still generally viewing Afghanistan as the "good war" between the two. While he exits the bigger disaster, he actually surges in Afghanistan.
Donald Trump- Makes large claims about leaving the theater in Afghanistan, and he and Pompeo make a deal with the Taliban to free 5000 of their men and iron out the framework Biden was left to work with. However, he never follows through despite a large amount of bluster, likely because he wasn't interested in accepting the responsibility, because that's not something he does. The planned meetings with the Taliban in America on 9/11 are mercifully nixed.
Joe Biden- Decides early on that unlike the Trump Administration ripping up the Iran deal, he is going to honor the agreement made by the previous Administration. While the speed at which the Taliban would retake the country is GROSSLY underestimated, Biden puts all his chips in the table and shows no equivocation once the process starts, despite massive domestic pressure from the media and members of both parties.
It seems to me we had three options. We violate the agreement with the Taliban and stay with at or near our current troop level, putting every one of those troops at grave risk. We do a troop surge to continue to prop up the puppet government in place in Kabul, keeping the real power in the hands of corrupt warlords (many of whom are objectively WORSE than the Taliban). Or we do what happened over the weekend. Which was messy, tragic, and inevitable. What other alternatives were there??
There was no dignity to be had here, only humiliation. People comparing this to US troops fleeing Saigon seem to be implying, simply by the way of bringing it up, that the thing we SHOULD have done in 1975 is.......stay in Vietnam longer. Which is absolutely insane. The lesson of Vietnam should not have been "avoid pictures that make the US look bad". It should have been "don't try to nation build in parts of the world you don't even REMOTELY understand".
I'm not at all trying to generalize about Islam, FWIW. Its adherents are the majority religion in countries stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Obviously there's lots of variety in there. What is true though, is that in Afghanistan a very conservative take on the religion dominates.
In fact, the Pew study I linked reveals how much of an outlier Afghans are when contrasted with other Muslim countries.
It seems to me one of the main reasons this was never going to work is we just assumed there was a national identity that could be appealed to, in the sense that people in the US would understand it, and there isn't one, aside from the Taliban being the people with the most will to dominate this particular piece of the Earth. Almost all sense of collective identity comes from religion, not borders on a map.
Rambo 3 was released in 1988, just prior to Bush Senior becoming president and in the heyday of seeing the USSR as the 'evil empire'. Given that, it's not surprising that Afghanistan would be seen in a heroic light at that time - the USSR entanglement there was one of the influences that ultimately led to its dissolution.
I'm currently reading a book called "Microeconomics Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide", just because I like textbooks and this is something that I need to brush up on. The book itself tries to speak in a non-political or neutral language, but it has some curious examples, like this quote:
"(...) For example, the Middle East has a comparative advantage in producing crude oil, whereas the United States has a comparative advantage in growing wheat. If the United States consumed only the crude oil it could produce domestically, there would be much less crude oil consumed in the United States. While environmentalists might consider this desirable, the reduction in crude oil would cause dramatic impacts on the U.S. economy (...)"
And this of course made me think something along these lines: if you can simply take the oil by force, instead of buying it, wouldn't this mean that it's more economical to do so?
Since the estimated cost of the adventures in Iraq and and Afghanistan by 2050 (with interest) is 6 trillion dollars, I would have to know how much we spend on crude oil.
No idea, the book doesn't specify that, so I'd have to look it up somewhere else. But the book does seem to imply that the USA gets oil from the Middle East in exchange for wheat.
I'd be skeptical of this book then, if those are the claims it's making. US consumption of oil is almost entirely from its own domestic production or imports from other countries in the Americas. Why spend more more resources shipping it from Saudi Arabia when Canada or Colombia are right next door?
Oil also isn't traded for other resources like in Civilization. It's just sold on the open market. As are agricultural products like wheat. Generally speaking anyways, there are some exceptions. But the US government doesn't control, not directly anyways, where oil is coming from. Private corporations are making the deals that control the flow of the resource in and out of the country.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6
Some quick data on the subject from the US government. As you can see the US imports almost as much oil as it exports (9.14 v 8.47). Canada alone is nearly half of all imports.
The interest the US has in Mideast oil isn't about the US possessing that oil for its own use. The chief foreign consumer of Mideast oil are EU countries. It's more about ensuring the consistent extraction of that oil. Because if that's effected, that effects global oil prices worldwide, which has cascading consequences for the global economy.
This is something I never understood. Not just in the case of oil, but in regards to any goods in general. For example, if you look up the statistics for cars or industrial machines, the situation is more or less similar: they get exported and imported.
But why? I don't get it. Why would you export and import equal amounts of oil, for example? Let's say (simplifying this for the sake of argument) that you produce 100 barrels. You export 50 of them, and then you import another 50. Why would anyone do this, if you end up with the same amount that you originally had?
I'm not questioning the statistics, it's just that I don't understand what's going on : P
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/murders-surge-democrats-find-new-message-fund-police-2021-08-17/
A barrel of Arabian crude is not exactly the same as a barrel of Canadian, or US crude. Oil is used to make many different products and some sources are better suited for some applications. Also, countries might import crude so they can refine it and sell the refined products at more of a premium.
I can't get passed the fact that the guy's name is actually "Bowser". Makes me think of the villain from Mario Bros. I'll have to read the article later, after my dumb sense of humor dissipates.
https://www.ranken-energy.com/index.php/products-made-from-petroleum/
https://www.mckinseyenergyinsights.com/resources/refinery-reference-desk/crude-grades/
Click on 'Qualities' for a more exhaustive list of the different traits refiners look for when they're choosing their crude oil source.
So, in theory, if the demand for balloons increases (in Halloween or some other holiday), the demand for oil would increase as well.
Defund the police was never about completely cutting police budgets so that crime rose. It was about spending the money more efficiently to prevent crime instead of responding to it.
It was giving less military grade equipment like flash grenades being thrown into children’s cribs.
Very little of the oil is used for plastics, so probably balloons would just get more expensive...
So they harp on the nature of the US leaving.
It's too soon to have a really good idea of where this ends up, but his polls have tightened considerably. Perhaps the only saving grace for Biden and Democrats is that the Midterms are still a while away, and that this will likely not be an issue at the forefront of anyone's mind come November of next year.
Trump isnt a political savant - and his circle arent either - but even he's threading this needle pretty easily. The quotes I've seen from his interview tonight with Hannity seem like they're basically "Wars in the middle-east are bad, but Biden's withdrawal is a humiliation". It speaks to American exceptionalism while supporting the popular opinion (held by most Americans) that we shouldnt be in wars abroad.
Not for nothing, but it seems within 24 hours of the initial media freak-out, the airbase is in our control with the Taliban's blessing flying people out 24/7 until everyone is gone. You'd think the Taliban was running around Kabal displaying the heads of decapitated diplomats. As far as I know, the only deaths associated with the past 48 hours are some guys who thought it would be a swell idea to cling to the wheels a plane that was taking off. Even if you thought there was a 90% chance the Taliban was going to kill you, there is 100% chance you're gonna die when you lose your grip on a plane that is thousands of feet in the air.
The only issue is the visa status of Afghani citizens who helped the US possibly facing reprisal. And since FOX was already going full "don't you dare think you're letting those people into our backyard" by 8pm last night, good luck getting a consensus on changing our policies on that. In fact, I'm fairly certain the reason more wasn't done on that front in the first place is because the Biden White House is more terrified of THAT narrative taking hold in right-wing media than anything else. Which is stupid, because they were going to trot it out regardless.
Americans don't care about much of anything that isn't feed to them through a screen or a speaker. Already tonight (in my anecdotal scrolling) half the Afghanistan discussion has been replaced with Greg Abbott testing positive for COVID-19 and red states running out of ICU beds. Assuming no catastrophes, this issue will be exactly where it was in the minds of Americans in 2004 by Sunday. Which is to say "not even on the radar".
Frankly, if 30-40% of the public change their mind about military occupation over this, they never had much of a position to begin with. There are Democrats still clinging to the "good war" narrative at this late date, despite the curtain being pulled back completely, and Republicans who went full anti-interventionist for four years morphing overnight back into Bush-era neo-cons.
I don't think leadership in this case is defined by logistical problems and a bad intelligence estimate about a situation that was already going to be horrible. It's DESPITE those things happening, and (no hyperbole) 100% of the American media (right, left and center) one step away from calling for your head, you stick to your guns and do the over-arching right thing anyway. Shit, Bush got away with taking Biden's current defiant posture for 6 years while constantly doing the WRONG thing.
Just thought I'd link this article detailing a drop in Biden's approval rating due to the recent tragedies in Afghanistan.
It piqued my interest because, if I've learned anything about using polls for research and writing papers, usually disapproval takes time to "stew" (if that makes any sense). Approval is much more likely to spike after a given event, most notably seen with Bush after 9/11 and Reagan after his assassination attempt. Growing disapproval typically comes much more gradually. The last time we really saw a stark dip in approval after a given event may have been Watergate, as crazy as that may seem (I believe Carter suffered a pretty substantial drop directly after Operation Eagle Claw, as well).
Now, I would be willing to say that I think some of this is due to a degree of sensationalism, people understandably being caught up in the media frenzy of this all. But, I think I'd also be insane to say that any sort of complete rebound could be reasonably expected.
Regardless of who you might think is ultimately responsible for this (and there are certainly many discussions to be had about that topic), as far as the court of public opinion goes, it looks like this one is going to sting, at least for a while.
The police haven't been defunded though. They STILL have historically high budgets. This really just shows how useless they are in preventing crime.
So - this is interesting. I think it's worth considering that the general elasticity of approval rating has decreased as the US has become more partisan and polarized. For example, Trump had an extremely (extremely) steady approval/disapproval rating for most of his term. He saw some pretty significant dips (relative to the steadiness) when the GOP tried to repeal the ACA. Given the steadiness of his ratings before (and after) that point, I would argue that even a 3 point drop might be akin to a president in a less polarized environment losing 5 or 7 points over the course of a week.
Anyways, that's just my opinion. I dont have any political research to back it up.
More than anything - while lots of people were predicting this wouldnt hurt Biden - it's frankly enough to hurt him simply that the news media covering it has been universally bad. No one should underestimate the effect of every single major new media source running front page stories about how bad this all is for him. It can be self perpetuating.
I've seen more than a few arguments that even traditional center-left and leftist news media is piling on Biden simply because they want to show that they can be tough on non GOP presidents, and Biden hasnt really given them an opportunity before now. One baked in advantage that Trump tended to have was that conservative media rarely (if ever) really went after him. So the Fox News only viewers rarely saw the negative press cycle (I believe they did it this way because they perceived every other network was running 24/7 negative cycles on Trump, and sought to counterbalance it, true or not).
On the other hand, I believe that there's legitimate cause for concern regarding the issue of the Taliban seizing power and controlling the country. To be perfectly clear, I don't think that Islamophobia is warranted, that attitude only makes things worse. This does not mean that we shouldn't oppose the Taliban: we should. Their attitude towards women is especially disturbing. I don't think that the women of Afghanistan are too thrilled to have the Taliban back in power. In other words, we should oppose the Taliban because they're oppressive, not because they're Muslims.
Certainly some points of merit there, as well. Heck, even with the seven point drop, Biden's current 46% is pretty much in line with the ratings we've seen from recent presidents.
I think the most interesting thing about what the media has done is that it's really put a focus on handling, or mishandling, of this from the administration. I know with the people I've spoken to, the frustration from all of this doesn't even come from the decision to withdraw or even the fallout that came from said withdrawal. They're mad about about the fact that the President didn't say anything for almost two days, showed up to speak for 15 minutes, then immediately dipped without taking a single question. There is certainly a perception of hypocrisy ("the buck stops with me", only to then basically immediately blame the previous administration, Afghan government and basically anyone else he could), again, at least among the people I've spoken to.
That's what I think the media has magnified. It's not really a surprise that they've done so, either. Media outlets are like vultures, waiting for the next easy feast lying dead in the road.
Of my own personal opinion, I've said for awhile, even before he entered office, that Biden appeared that he was going to be a very "inaccessible" President. Now, that's not to make any statement of my own opinions of the man or his administration, but the reality is it's been pretty obvious that he's not one for taking questions or long press conferences. I think the immediate retreat after the speech on Monday was perhaps the most affront example of that the country has seen thus far, with the President walking away as a group of reporters shouted questions at him, right after a militaristic disaster following 20 years of our involvement, desperate for him to even acknowledge them. That's what I think the media has pounced on.