We're not #1!

[got tonkaed]

to be fair, i think ive seen him make an effort at doing a similar thing a few times. Of course hes just blowing smoke now, because unless in the last 5 posts you guys started talking about economic policy, its probably not the time or the place.

[Napoleon Ier]

Snorri, the idea that I should "contribute to the discussion" presupposes that there already existed a debate of two or more perspectives held by individuals presenting arguments through connected series of coherent and rational sentences aiming to establish a definite proposition.

What I saw was you and your little Internationale of friends floundering helplessly in a torrent of factual and synthetic rational argument, with you responding with nonsensical and base clutching at straws to frustrate your opposition, culminating in this bizarre tangential rant about the US armed forces.

So now, either just drop this whole charade of pre-existing 'discussion', and try to sensibly build an actual one, or bow out gracefully, and stop raising all our blood pressures with your garbage.

Well I don't deny that my rant had nothing to do with the discussion. I wasn't all that interested in discussing what the taliban did or did not do. I just hate all that stupid shit about soldiers earning respect for going somewhere and being blown to bits.

Just saying that the other side is irriational like you always do doesn't give your position any credibility. You always go on about us being "communists" even though I can't find a single position of mine which supports communism, and you never offer any rational argument for your position. You never bother to respond to people with somethign vaguely related to their point, but just go on spouting about "communism" and "pot-smoker" and "liberals" like a very bad impression of Hannity.

Smoke and mirrors to distract us from your good old fashioned ass-whupping on the question of the Taleban. And you know it.

[Snorri1234]

Smoke and mirrors to distract us from your good old fashioned ass-whupping on the question of the Taleban. And you know it.

What on earth are you talking about? Where the hell did I say anything much about the taliban?

And who is throwing up the smoke and mirrors? You haven't done anything but that since you came here.

[Napoleon Ier]

Smoke and mirrors to distract us from your good old fashioned ass-whupping on the question of the Taleban. And you know it.

What on earth are you talking about? Where the hell did I say anything much about the taliban?

And who is throwing up the smoke and mirrors? You haven't done anything but that since you came here.

Don't get cute with me.

We all saw that "stfu ambrose cos teh americanz is teh evul nd stoopid n00bs cos they gave $$$ 2 teh talybanz in lyke teh sovyet time lolz!!!11!!!11!ONE!!limx--->0[sin(x)/x]!1!" garbage you posted a few pages back.

[spurgistan]

I don't think it's un-American to wonder how the great American experiment got this far removed from the ideals we were founded on. We were supposed to be #1 in these things, and I don't think that's typical jingoism, we were the only modern nation that was settled as a republic, unless I'm being an idiot (sure, a republic where 40% or so of the population belonged to somebody else, but that's a different story) We enjoy many freedoms, and we have opportunities that 80% of the world's population goes to sleep dreaming about (part of the problem) but still, I would say the only lack of patriotism is not to see what we could do better, how we could clothe our homeless, use the freedoms we were promised in the constitution, give every child a decent education, etc. etc. That is an avowed lack of faith in the ideals that we were founded on.

[Snorri1234]

Smoke and mirrors to distract us from your good old fashioned ass-whupping on the question of the Taleban. And you know it.

What on earth are you talking about? Where the hell did I say anything much about the taliban?

And who is throwing up the smoke and mirrors? You haven't done anything but that since you came here.

Don't get cute with me.

We all saw that "stfu ambrose cos teh americanz is teh evul nd stoopid n00bs cos they gave $$$ 2 teh talybanz in lyke teh sovyet time lolz!!!11!!!11!ONE!!limx--->0[sin(x)/x]!1!" garbage you posted a few pages back.

Bullshit. Ambrose claimed "teh americanz" didn't give the taliban (in whatever guise they were at the time) money, which they obviously did. Just because they weren't at that time what they would become doesn't mean they didn't support them. The US-government has supported lots of regimes in whatever combat they fought, everybody knows that.

[Napoleon Ier]

Let's think through this. The Americans managed to fund an organization that didn't even exist when they were supposed to have done so in order to fight the very real Communism, and therefore they are a) evil and b) stupid.

Snorri, I appreciate your enthusiasm for quantum mechanics, but para-military organizations tend neither to exhibit wave-particle duality nor quantum entanglement properties.

[OnlyAmbrose]

Smoke and mirrors to distract us from your good old fashioned ass-whupping on the question of the Taleban. And you know it.

What on earth are you talking about? Where the hell did I say anything much about the taliban?

And who is throwing up the smoke and mirrors? You haven't done anything but that since you came here.

Don't get cute with me.

We all saw that "stfu ambrose cos teh americanz is teh evul nd stoopid n00bs cos they gave $$$ 2 teh talybanz in lyke teh sovyet time lolz!!!11!!!11!ONE!!limx--->0[sin(x)/x]!1!" garbage you posted a few pages back.

Bullshit. Ambrose claimed "teh americanz" didn't give the taliban (in whatever guise they were at the time) money, which they obviously did. Just because they weren't at that time what they would become doesn't mean they didn't support them. The US-government has supported lots of regimes in whatever combat they fought, everybody knows that.

mpjh made the following claim: that the Taliban (ie the regime which ruled Afghanistan from '94 til we kicked them out) was funded and put in place by the US. That is patently untrue.

We DID fund mujihideen movements during the Soviet occupation which included several "taliban," or student, groups.

The point is once again that to suggest the US created the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan is misleading.

He also made another claim. That the Taliban was good for Afghanistan. To prove this point he cited the ceasing of the opium trade in 2000. Not only was that catastrophic for the Afghan people since the Taliban did not give any further infrastructure to support the people once their main source of income was destroyed, but it was very convenient for the Taliban because it caused their stockpiles to skyrocket in value. They were clearly indifferent to the "moral" implications of opium as long as it wasnt being used by Muslims. Furthermore, after pledging never to let the crop grow on Afghanistan again, they are now using it to fund their resistence, which supports the previous point. I provided several sources to that effect, which were deemed "propaganda."

Apparently out of other things to say, mpjh went on to call the men and women of the US armed forces idiots and incompetent, and you proceeded to rant on that topic.

[OnlyAmbrose]

I'm not a revolutionary, I am saying that anyone who joins the military trusting the government to send you on justified missions is an idiot.

And I say that anyone who trusts the government to give them quality healthcare is an idiot, but you don't see me saying so quite so rudely.

[Napoleon Ier]

Zzzzzzing!

[Snorri1234]

mpjh made the following claim: that the Taliban (ie the regime which ruled Afghanistan from '94 til we kicked them out) was funded and put in place by the US. That is patently untrue.

We DID fund mujihideen movements during the Soviet occupation which included several "taliban," or student, groups.

The point is once again that to suggest the US created the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan is misleading.

Without the US funding they would never have risen to power. Or at least they would've had far more difficulty.

Now, ofcourse the US couldn't have known what the consequences were. Hell, they fund those kind of groups all the time. Just because they funded them doesn't make them bad. But you cannot deny that they did fund them before they came into power. That the reason they aqquired that power was because of the weapons and funding from the US.


The US and nearly all other governments do that all the time, they fund regimes for their own purposes and sometimes those work out great and other times they don't. I don't think the US predicted that a part of the the groups they were funding would rise up and take over a country and use oppressive ways to keep control, but that doesn't matter.

Apparently out of other things to say, mpjh went on to call the men and women of the US armed forces idiots and incompetent, and you proceeded to rant on that topic.

And I love ranting. However, the US armed forces are not incompetent, just idiots. And I am not saying that it's only the US-forces that are idiots. Every single soldier who enlists out of his own free will to help a cause which is not needed is an idiot.

[Snorri1234]

I'm not a revolutionary, I am saying that anyone who joins the military trusting the government to send you on justified missions is an idiot.

And I say that anyone who trusts the government to give them quality healthcare is an idiot, but you don't see me saying so quite so rudely.

And yet I still receive quality healthcare.

[Napoleon Ier]

mpjh made the following claim: that the Taliban (ie the regime which ruled Afghanistan from '94 til we kicked them out) was funded and put in place by the US. That is patently untrue.

We DID fund mujihideen movements during the Soviet occupation which included several "taliban," or student, groups.

The point is once again that to suggest the US created the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan is misleading.

Without the US funding they would never have risen to power. Or at least they would've had far more difficulty.

Now, ofcourse the US couldn't have known what the consequences were. Hell, they fund those kind of groups all the time. Just because they funded them doesn't make them bad. But you cannot deny that they did fund them before they came into power. That the reason they aqquired that power was because of the weapons and funding from the US.

The US and nearly all other governments do that all the time, they fund regimes for their own purposes and sometimes those work out great and other times they don't. I don't think the US predicted that a part of the the groups they were funding would rise up and take over a country and use oppressive ways to keep control, but that doesn't matter.

Well, in the light of the fact that the USSR subsequently collapsed, you're bloody right it doesn't. Notice though how different this claim is from the original borderline conspiracionist claim that US deliberately aided the rise to prominence of the Taliban.

Apparently out of other things to say, mpjh went on to call the men and women of the US armed forces idiots and incompetent, and you proceeded to rant on that topic.

And I love ranting. However, the US armed forces are not incompetent, just idiots. And I am not saying that it's only the US-forces that are idiots. Every single soldier who enlists out of his own free will to help a cause which is not needed is an idiot.

What, a cause like defense of the Homeland? Yeah, cheers.

[mpjh]

Well, well, well, the psyc-warfare guys are out in full force.

I said that we supported the Taliban because we did. The Taliban were the chief clients of the Pakistani state, and from that one source alone we funded the Taliban through the Pakistani secret service.

I said that the leadership of the military in Afghanistan were idiots because they could not meet their military objective of controlling the countryside. I used the example of the Taliban stopping the opium growing to give an example of how to demonstrate control. Our military leaders in Afghanistan are incompetent for sure, and idiots out of general cussedness.

We are losing in Afghanistan because we are incompetent in the field, in the HQ, in the Pentagon, and we have a complete fool for president.

[Napoleon Ier]

I'm not a revolutionary, I am saying that anyone who joins the military trusting the government to send you on justified missions is an idiot.

And I say that anyone who trusts the government to give them quality healthcare is an idiot, but you don't see me saying so quite so rudely.

And yet I still receive quality healthcare.

Komissar sez, k?

[Snorri1234]

Well, in the light of the fact that the USSR subsequently collapsed, you're bloody right it doesn't. Notice though how different this claim is from the original borderline conspiracionist claim that US deliberately aided the rise to prominence of the Taliban.

Oh please, like this made so much of a difference to the collapse of the USSR.

Apparently out of other things to say, mpjh went on to call the men and women of the US armed forces idiots and incompetent, and you proceeded to rant on that topic.

And I love ranting. However, the US armed forces are not incompetent, just idiots. And I am not saying that it's only the US-forces that are idiots. Every single soldier who enlists out of his own free will to help a cause which is not needed is an idiot.

What, a cause like defense of the Homeland? Yeah, cheers.

Ah, must have missed the part where killign a bunch of Iraqis helps out the homeland. Well, other than ensuring oil is still cheap enough. (For the rich oil-owners anyways.)

[Napoleon Ier]

I said that we supported the Taliban because we did.

Despite the fact they'd have to exhibit quantum properties for this to even be possible, isn't this a bit of an ipsedixit?

[mpjh]

Well if you want proof. We did not surround the last remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and destroy them at Tora Bora because the Pakistanis said they would handle it. They handled it by letting those criminals into Pakistan where they sit fat and happy today, including Al Qaeda. If that ain't support I don't know what is.

Oh, you say that wasn't support that was a mistake. A mistake, really? The Pakistani have been our "staunch" ally all through the several wars in Afghanistan, and we have known all along that their chief asset in Afghanistan was the Taliban and their precursors. We fund the Pakistani, they fund the Taliban, they protect Al Qaeda, our troops die.

We are idots.

[Napoleon Ier]

Oh, so the difference between a) providing money and guns to someone during the 80s to fight the Soviets, and b) failing to completely annihilate a political group after having waged an extensive military campaign against them due to tactical misunderstandings, is in fact so small that it's semantically accurate to call both these scenarios "support"?

I also, again, fail to see exactly how not completely destroying the Taliban in 2001 qualifies as having a causal relationship with their rise to power in 1994, short of the Taliban being reducible one big fook off photon at CERN.

[mpjh]

It is called "blow back." It is the unintended consequence of getting into bed with terrorists to defeat the Soviet Union, and then acting surprised when those very same terrorists use the very same tactics to get us out of their country.

[Napoleon Ier]

It is called "blow back." It is the unintended consequence of getting into bed with terrorists to defeat the Soviet Union, and then acting surprised when those very same terrorists use the very same tactics to get us out of their country.

And the causal relationship the battle at Tora Bora bears to this...?

[mpjh]

read the post

[Snorri1234]

Oh, so the difference between a) providing money and guns to someone during the 80s to fight the Soviets, and b) failing to completely annihilate a political group after having waged an extensive military campaign against them due to tactical misunderstandings, is in fact so small that it's semantically accurate to call both these scenarios "support"?

You're right, they aren't really the same.

But it does prove mpjh's point that the military is incompetent. Shit, why would anyone trust Pakistan to help? Either the military is very incompetent or they did it on purpose. I am more tempted to go with the first option, but the second one is not out of the question.

You're faced with the options of the government being stupid or the government being evil.

[Napoleon Ier]

Yeah but, no. You do understand that the expression "blow back" doesn't work in in terms of having temporal symmetry, right?

[mpjh]

I understand it fine. My post is clear.