Clown Car VI: Hello, Goodbye. On to 2024.

[Farm Boy]

fetch me some water

Gah, blew my response. I'm terrible posting on the phone. What I mean is I love you.

 

[Berzerker]

Farmboy, fetch me some water the party that invaded is whichever one you didn't vote for at that election!

Both parties invaded, they voted 518-1

 

[Sommerswerd]

We're still there. Who invaded is less important at this point than who gets us out of there at long last.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yes, and less important yet than how we leave it.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Both parties invaded, they voted 518-1

i guess BOTH PARTIES voted for Syria as well then. right, Right ?
Congress has responsibility for AUMF But there is a lot of blame to go around for the failures in Afghanistan.

The 2001 AUMF has been used more than 30 times to take military action in places including Afghanistan, the Philippines, Georgia, Yemen and Iraq, as well as several African nations.
It is also being used now to provide legal justification for a new war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
So the lessons are we need to...have a narrow authorization or declaration and don't make any kind of use of force so broad it can cover any action any president can take

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yes, and less important yet than how we leave it.

"How we leave it" has been the excuse for staying for 20 years. We're never going to fix Afghanistan and it was always hubris to think that we could. "Catch Bin Laden" was the excuse for going in. Bin Laden has been dead for a decade.

 

[Samson]

We're never going to fix Afghanistan

You are probably right, but mostly because you never tried as hard to fix Afghanistan as you tried to break it:

 

[Sommerswerd]

You are probably right, but mostly because you never tried as hard to fix Afghanistan as you tried to break it:

Fighter jets cost way more than bulldozers and the only way to do "reconstruction" to "fix" Afghanistan is to leave the military there to protect the reconstruction efforts.

 

[Samson]

Fighter jets cost way more than bulldozers and the only way to do "reconstruction" to "fix" Afghanistan is to leave the military there to protect the reconstruction efforts.

The military has been there for a generation, and it only takes a decade to build a high-speed rail network if the will is there. At this point it is not that it cannot be done, but that those with the power to make it happen do not want it to happen and/or are unwilling to spend money that goes to poor people rather than the military industrial complex.

 

[EnglishEdward]

... those with the power to make it happen do not want it to happen ......

You are correct in so much as the Taliban simply do not want
reconstruction to happen under a non Taliban government.

 

[Sommerswerd]

high-speed rail network

In Afghanistan?? Are you joking me or what?

We don't even have one of those in the US! How could Congress possibly approve construction of that in Afghanistan?

Putting aside the outright absurdity of proposing building a high-speed rail network in Afghanistan, a project of that size, scale and expense would require a gigantic military footprint to defend the construction, many times more expensive than the project itself... and as you say... another decade there. Hard pass

 

[Farm Boy]

No, not never. I legit figured we had 60 to do it right when we went in, and I figured we would mess it up in exactly the way we are doing. I thought we'd book about 10 ago, tho. He must have had principles.

 

[Samson]

In Afghanistan?? Are you joking me or what?

I really do not know what infrastructure Afghanistan needs. I would guess that a mass transit system that allows remote regions to contribute goods and labour to the wider economy would a primary part of that. However I chose that to make the point was that given money and will it is possible to implement major construction works well within the timescale the the occupying nations have had. Also it may not be as controversial as other infrastructure that comes to mind, such as internet and education.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I really do not know what infrastructure Afghanistan needs. I would guess that a mass transit system that allows remote regions to contribute goods and labour to the wider economy would a primary part of that. However I chose that to make the point was that given money and will it is possible to implement major construction works well within the timescale the the occupying nations have had. Also it may not be as controversial as other infrastructure that comes to mind, such as internet and education.

One point I am making is that for every $1 you spend on building, you are going to have to spend $20 on military defending what you've built. So the scenario you are positing whereby the US spends more on "fixing" than they do on military is not possible. "Fixing" requires military, and military is way more expensive than "fixing".

 

[Traitorfish]

If they are as you say they are, they're going to do exactly the same thing either way, no matter whose dress you feel compelled to classify them as hiding under.

I would tend to disagree with that: I think the ideological content of the movement is important, that it is more than costume. Not necessarily that they are going to act in a rational, goal-orientated way on the basis of that ideology, but because the ideology tells you something about the kind of people who are entering the movement, about their anxieties and assumptions. The strength of the religious framing to the Trump hardcore (I am desperately trying to avoid the term "Trump-rump") tells us that these are a markedly different sort of person than filled in the ranks of the Proud Boys or the Charlottesville protesters, that they are coming from a different cultural and social position than the much-publicised "alt-right", despite the latter having been taken by many progressives to represent the spectre of what the Trump movement would become.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

There are, and have been, a lot of young children in a lot of different countries that are getting/have gotten shot or blown up for their country at ages much younger than 18.

Indeed. And that is a shame.

 

[Lexicus]

One point I am making is that for every $1 you spend on building, you are going to have to spend $20 on military defending what you've built. So the scenario you are positing whereby the US spends more on "fixing" than they do on military is not possible. "Fixing" requires military, and military is way more expensive than "fixing".

I honestly don't know how true this is. In Iraq for example I think establishing rapport with local Sunni authorities in the western part of the country ended up being a far more cost-effective policy than trying to blow ISIS up.

What is clearly true is that actually "fixing" Afghanistan would have been several orders of magnitude more expensive than just rolling in, killing a lot of people and blowing stuff up, and then leaving.

 

[Farm Boy]

I would tend to disagree with that: I think the ideological content of the movement is important, that it is more than costume. Not necessarily that they are going to act in a rational, goal-orientated way on the basis of that ideology, but because the ideology tells you something about the kind of people who are entering the movement, about their anxieties and assumptions. The strength of the religious framing to the Trump hardcore (I am desperately trying to avoid the term "Trump-rump") tells us that these are a markedly different sort of person than filled in the ranks of the Proud Boys or the Charlottesville protesters, that they are coming from a different cultural and social position than the much-publicised "alt-right", despite the latter having been taken by many progressives to represent the spectre of what the Trump movement would become.

I think it tells you way less than that, if you look at the actual people who post Trumpy stuff and believe the election was stolen. Patriotism is a religiousish framing. The more patriotic, the less ish. I think "the narrative" is just figuring out that there are way less Proud Boys and people who like them than the terror-scrolling would sell.

 

[Berzerker]

i guess BOTH PARTIES voted for Syria as well then. right, Right ?

wrong, Wrong, Obama didn't get congressional authorization for Libya and Syria.

 

[uppi]

One point I am making is that for every $1 you spend on building, you are going to have to spend $20 on military defending what you've built. So the scenario you are positing whereby the US spends more on "fixing" than they do on military is not possible. "Fixing" requires military, and military is way more expensive than "fixing".

I don't think it is that simple. The more you spend on building, the more people are motivated to defend it themselves because they want to keep it. Someone in a nice house usually does not want to give it up for a cave in the hills. And especially building infrastructure makes defense easier. If you can reach a remote place in 3 hours rather than in 3 days, you don't need as many forces to defend everything.