Roundup
(1) On the genius decision to abandon Bagram prematurely:
Gen. Milley took up answering the question of why Bagram was abandoned after Austin acknowledged that some U.S. military aircraft have been piloted out of Bagram by the Taliban. Milley carefully said the plan was driven by Washington, designed on the ground in Afghanistan, and then briefed all the way up the chain.
Trying to decipher that, I come to the conclusion that it may mean that they were given the orders (from Biden? someone else?) and part of those orders was to draw down the military presence as soon as possible and not even add anyone temporarily for the purpose of securing the country while the leavetaking occurred, and therefore that meant one of the airports had to be closed due to lack of personnel.
Why the military would think it was almost arbitrary which airport of the two was the one that should be closed is impossible for me to understand (except the old “fool plus knave” answer). As the reporter points out, Bagram would seem better because it had two runways. It also was more easily defended militarily, and – if I understand the situation correctly from what I’ve read – if kept open and functioning for a while, then the military material there would not have to be abandoned and could be removed or destroyed before the airport was closed.
(2) Remember the 2020 election? Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it? But the wheels are still grinding, and this article explains that there were about sixteen million mailed ballots unaccounted for:
By “unaccounted for,” PILF means that EAC reports the ballots “were not returned as voted, were undeliverable, or were otherwise ‘unable to be tracked.’” Nobody knows whether someone actually tried to vote with those ballots only for the Postal Service to lose them or whether would-be voters decided not to bother or whether the ballots were mishandled by “ballot harvesters” (including well-intentioned ones) or whether some were part of a fraud scheme.
(3) Glenn Reynolds says, about Afghanistan, fire them all:
To begin with, Milley must resign or be fired. And the same for our triple-masking defense secretary, Lloyd Austin. This was a failure that happened on their watch, and it happened through bad management. We could have pulled out without nearly the level of chaos, confusion and terror. Of course, it’s not going to happen, but it should…
Likewise, the intel agencies and officers who provided the bad, er, intelligence need to go. Many others who failed, from contractors to lower-level officers and bureaucrats, need to go, too. You punish a bureaucracy by shrinking its staff and cutting its budget. That needs to happen here.
The brass and agencies will complain that it was Biden who ultimately made the call. Indeed, they are already furiously leaking to that effect to the press. Maybe they’re right. But it’s up to voters to fire the president at the ballot box.
Yes, but that can’t happen till 2024; we have no presidential recall provisions. Of course, there’s the 25th Amendment, but that’s not in the voter’s hands. Nor is impeachment and conviction, another available remedy.
Reynolds says – and I agree – that they will not be fired. Of course, they could all resign, but that won’t happen either.
(4) Biden was supposed to make our European allies love us again. It certainly isn’t happening right now. In particular, Britain is very angry at not even being told what the “plans” were:
MPs and peers from across the political spectrum, including Boris Johnson, put some blame for the Taliban’s takeover and the chaos that followed on Britain’s closest ally.Mr Biden was accused of “throwing us and everybody else to the fire” by pulling out US troops, and was called “dishonourable” for criticising Afghan forces for not having the will to fight.
Former defence chiefs who led British troops in the Middle East were among those to speak out, while there were warnings that the West’s withdrawal would embolden Russia and China.The interventions mark a deterioration in UK-US relations almost exactly 20 years after Britain joined America in invading Afghanistan to root out terrorism after the September 11 attacks.
But it was not just Mr Biden who faced criticism, with Mr Johnson and his ministers told they had overseen the worst disaster in British foreign policy for 65 years.The Prime Minister was accused of not doing enough to rally allies to support Afghanistan as the US departure became apparent, including by his predecessor, Theresa May…
“The West could not continue this US-led mission – a mission conceived and executed in support and defence of America – without American logistics, without US air power and without American might,” the Prime Minister said in a clear swipe at Washington.
MPs from all sides of the Commons were forceful in their criticism…
(5) Biden says the Taliban are “going through sort of an existential crisis about do they want to be recognized by the int’l community as being a legitimate government.” Earth to Biden: that’s not an existential crisis; it’s not even a crisis. It’s a tactical decision about how much to calibrate their public image until the US is gone and their control is firm and unimpeded.
It’s the West that’s going through a crisis, a grave one. But that’s been true for quite some time, and your election (or “election”) is a symptom of it.
EAC data. Compiled by a commission set by Congress. 16 million. Good to know. NOT.
New crisis. “Predicted Afghan Refugee Numbers Explode” is the Breitbart headline story by Neil Munro:
[WaPo]”U.S. politicians know that Americans oppose big and obvious refugee inflows, partly because the refugees push down their neighbors’ wages, force up their rents, and absorb taxpayer-funded resources, such as school slots. The Washington Post reported August 18:
The premise that refugees were popular with the American public pre-Trump is misguided, according to Celinda Lake, a pollster for the Biden campaign.
“For decades refugees have been less popular than immigrants,” Lake said. “That doesn’t mean Trump didn’t heighten anti-refugee sentiment but there’s a basic premise that refugees have always been popular and that’s very rare.” [WaPo end]
The Afghan number will balloon if the U.S. government widens the variety of people it will accept, said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
The smaller groups include the core group of military translators and their families, plus employees of government-funded groups, he said.
=====
Xi-Den motto: Crisis is Our Business. Already a half billion dollars has been committed by the Dementia Dent.
How many tens of billions more?
1.1 millions from SE Asian were resettled in the US. And 18,000 interpreters are thought to be the priority for the new que.
So, 65,000? 80,000? Let’s just round it all up to 100,000 new “Americans” as my country disappears from the 3 millions of Latin Americans already arriving, added to the 30 million Mexicans.
WHO WANTS ALL THIS CONSTANT CHANGE? NOT I. No one I know.
But the Hate America First Left loves this s#$&.
FWIW: The WH called a lid at 3:36 p.m. today– not even 4 hours ago as I type this:
“No eyes on Biden today.”
https://twitter.com/NikkiSchwab/status/1428442470996758531
futurum enim nostra austero…
Yes, by all means let’s go with:
The Biden* “election”
I’m curious as to who the U.S. citizens left in Afghanistan are. Has anyone read anything?
_____
For decades the U.K. citizens were told that the large annual influx of immigrants and refugees had little or no economic impact on wages. Then a couple years ago, a Bank of England (their Federal Reserve) governor or chief said, that yes more lower tier laborers means lower wages for those laborers. Hello!
_____
What to expect with large numbers of Afghan refugees. Don’t click if your spirits are low. Seriously.
I don’t think the Taliban give a hoot about the “international community” other than maybe Pakistan.
Trying to decipher that, I come to the conclusion that it may mean that they were given the orders (from Biden? someone else?) and part of those orders was to draw down the military presence as soon as possible and not even add anyone temporarily for the purpose of securing the country while the leavetaking occurred, and therefore that meant one of the airports had to be closed due to lack of personnel.
neo:
That’s how I read it. Biden limited the military’s options by demanding they do the job with 2,500 troops. Thus, they had to choose Bagram or the Embassy, when they shouldn’t have had to choose. We’re only the greatest military superpower in history, but the game became arbitrary bean-counting.
I suspect this sort of thing contributed to, let us say, a lack of ownership of the mission. This looks like a team effort where a lot of people shrugged and went through the motions.
Folks, you know when your computer starts getting kind of wonky and you hope you don’t get the blue screen and have to buy a new one so you close every single app down, shut that thing off and then turn it on for a reset.
That’s what we have today, will enough folks pay enough attention to realize that both parties have made a mess of this stuff, the left have done a ‘Thelma and Louise’ and driven us off the cliff this week.
Maybe there will be people in both parties who will wake up and decide that we need some real leadership, perhaps Trump, who I never liked, and still don’t like very much can help but he is an old man, about my age. We need some young smart Patriots under 50 years old, men and women to step us and make something useful out of the wreck we have now. I am too old and don’t have any idea how to do it, my prayers go out help those who can put this back together without losing our special, unique sense of personal freedom.
That will be all.
The decline and fall of the Technocratic Managerial Class: Ace’ original comments on it (and originally seen at Instapundit) here:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/395257.php
Deleted
I cannot understand why all the military equipment wasn’t blown up. I mean it would not have taken much to destroy most of it. There is a military term, CF, that certainly explains what has happened. Yes, the military leaders should all resign in disgrace, the political leaders too. Horesewhipping is too mild.
Destroyed yes. At least the aircraft. It would take about 10 minutes to turn an aircraft in to a big pile of nothing and that’s with a sledge hammer or even a tack hammer. Better, pollute the fuel so they will fly… for a while. Take out Taliban pilots.
I think they left the equipment on purpose as a gift to china and Russia so they can look it over.
Karzai airport was being guarded by the Turks.
US took it back over recently.
My gut feel is after Bagram airport was evacuated of us soldiers, the only us troops were at the embassy.
This is a total conundrum, were the Afghanistan military who were supposed to take over the airfield and were they present with enough support troops to defend the field, if not then the officer in charge should be court marshaled and spend the rest of his life in prison. Were there deals that gave payoffs to people who made decisions that go against all military good sense, if so they should be charged and put in prison. The last US personal should have been engineers who know how to do demolitions and set every aircraft, munition dump, and fuel dump on fire, what the hell was going on over there?
I think we are seeing what the ‘New Age’ think right, anti male military has become with about 20 years of neutering the warrior ethic and replacing it with a ‘don’t make any one feel bad, about anything’ ethic. This is so bad and so sad and my heart, being a Regular Army E-5 over 50 years ago bleeds.
I hope someone somewhere decides to wake up and smell the coffee and realize we are just about, really just about out of time and it is time to do the Marine Hymn verse with the ‘Shores of Tripoli’ and get our Americans out of there.
This is a total conundrum, were the Afghanistan military who were supposed to take over the airfield and were they present with enough support troops to defend the field,
OldTexan:
It’s nearly unbelievable but the plan for Bagram was to extract all the American troops, shut off the power and let the Afghanis discover the next morning that the US military had bugged-out in the middle of the night like a renter scamming the landlord.
Not surprisingly, the Afghanis lost a lot of faith in the US that morning. That was July 2. It may well have worked as a signal to all the Afghani military leaders who quietly sold out to the Taliban.
The Afghan army surrendered Bagram to the Taliban on Sunday, four days ago.
Not going to win any fans with this comment, but apart from active duty military and their US National support staff, pretty much everyone else on the ground in Afghanistan who is a US Citizen will, in the fullness of time, if returned intact to the sacred miraculous soil of their propositional nation, conceivably be taking up valuable lamp post real estate and driving up the price of non-pharmaceutical hemp. Plus think of all the carbon emissions saved by giving them an opportunity to revel in Real Diversity.
Or in simpler terms. Anyone stupid enough or ideologically driven enough to WANT to be there rather then being sent there under orders…
I know… Enough with the Immodest Proposals… Just daydreaming.
huxley,
Read your 9:54pm comment (well put) a couple times and tell me what you think is at the heart of these events. It may be Biden’s blunder on a personal level, but it isn’t a blunder on the part of the Biden administration. Those apparatchiks are getting exactly what they wanted, IMHO. This debacle strikes me as being of a part with the Iran deal.
Zaphod:
Well, that lasted about 24 hours.
Please suppress your airing of fantasies about the lynchings of people – in this case those whose only crime was to take non-military jobs in Afghanistan. If you think they’re grifting leeches, just say so. But leave the lamp posts and other such things out of it.
Those apparatchiks are getting exactly what they wanted, IMHO.
TommyJay:
My conspiracy recognition slider is pushed farther right than most people’s, but I still don’t see that.
Sure, it weakens the US but it makes Biden, the Democrats, their shadow lords and minions look lethally stupid and incompetent. Which could sink them in the midterms and bring back Trump in 2024. That can’t be good for them.
Furthermore, it destabilizes the world chaotically. For instance China and Russia could take advantage and invade Taiwan and Ukraine respectively at the same time. America’s enemies must be considering such scenarios.
Finally, the Taliban might not have been able to run the table as fast as they did. If Kabul managed to hold to the end of the month, the transition would still have been rough but on the whole acceptable.
And I’m more paranoid than Huxley.
I don’t see overarching grand conspiracies here. I see spectacular incompetence and ‘all at onces’ and I see rational actors moving to take advantage of them.
I’m sure in Beijing and Moscow there are factions of professional strategic pundits who are asking themselves if it’s all a gigantic bluff. And who would need professional strategic pundits if their Enemy was so clownish and hell-bent on self-destruction? Perish the thought!
@Neo:
OK got it. Calling them names OK. Fruitful Fantasies not OK. Deal.
huxley,
Pakistan and Iran strengthened. China and Taiwan reunited. Same for Russia and the Ukraine. U.S. power taken down 5 notches. These are dreams come true. What do you think adding $5T to the deficit is about?
But you still think that the Dems are worried about a repeat of the 2016 election? I think Trump is a good man who made a good effort, but all for naught. Sure there will be a political backlash coming, and they will crush it like the Tea Party. With a little effort they can spin it as a white nationalist movement as they jail the leaders.
If I’m right, the next political action (mostly hidden from view) will be the Dem power structure rounding up the dissident Dems and bringing them to heal.
@TommyJay:
Re your first three sentences:
In precisely what ways do these events seriously hurt the fundamental everyday life security interests of the *people* inhabiting the landmass below the 48th and above the beans?
Please be very specific. And please pay particular attention to my careful phrasing of the question.
I’m not arguing with you or trying to be very smart ass. I’m trying to pare down the problem to the point where there’s actually things which *can* be done without digging a deeper hole.
My contention is that right now must strike out a lot of extraneous boom bang stuff and laser in on home front. Kind of like a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs thing. One of the Big Lies they have pulled on you guys for so long is that they need to Invade the World / Invite the World in order to preserve your way of life at home. I’d rather be laughed at today and temporarily by the Chinese than by History for eternity for having fallen for the Big Lie.
More Afghanistan Ammo from the Kosher Samosa:
http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2021/08/while-afghanistan-fell-military-and-cia.html
TommyJay:
IMO there are too many moving parts to your scenario. E.g. the Taliban finishing off Afghanistan in a long weekend. Who could know that for sure?
Plus, who runs the conspiracy and how? Too many people in the White House and the Pentagon could get hurt (not too much, but still). Those are CYA types.
For a change I’m on the stupidity, not malice, side of Hanlon’s Razor.
Some of it comes from my sojourn as a programmer in corporations. When officers, marketing and managers went off into fantasyland about schedules, features, and more meetings, more meetings, I was not inspired to greater efforts. I kinda said, “F*** it” and did what I could to get by. Que sera, sera.
A long time ago, I worked for a defense contractor on the space program. To support our classified shuttle flights, we had possession of a number of NSA encryption systems. I got tasked with writing all the operational procedures and documents. One had section on destroying the equipment in case of “enemy attack or civil insurrection”. It listed the components to be destroyed and the priority order and method of destruction. To support said destruction, I kept in the room where the equipment was installed, a sledge hammer, flammable liquid and matches. The DoD did inspect for same. This was in the US.
@Huxley:
(TommyJay: not making any assumptions or aspersions about your background/experience here — but this exchange and Huxley’s comment has fired up the neurons.)
A. Many people have little or no direct experience of working inside large organizations and therefore lack deeper insights into their multifarious failure modes.
B. Many who do work inside large organizations succeed and survive by being uncritical (to say the least) of these failure modes.
C. Those who succeed in large organizations are the personifications of certain of these failure modes and therefore have a vested interest in not seeing. Why should they? Their personal utility function maximization heuristic is working Just Right.
Then complicate this basic scenario with Internetworked Interdependent Organisations.
To most people in A and B, the emergent behaviour will look like ‘Conspiracy or Conspiracies. Rather like Clarke’s saying about sufficiently advanced alien science looking like Magic. Most Cs don’t need to care.
It’s very rare for a Charismatic D to come along and even rarer for him to find a Convivial Bierkeller. Very rare. And then there’s the matter of *his* failure modes to consider.
Not a very crackable nut…
Thoughts on the spin(s) the grifters will segue to in the Afghan Aftermath:
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=24799
“In The Inequality of Man, the great evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane noted that fanaticism was one of the great inventions of the pre-modern world. Obsessive enthusiasm, especially for an unattainable thing like paradise, makes the fanatic a violent force of nature. We see that with the current Afghan debacle. The open borders fanatics have immediately seized on the crisis to justify importing millions of Afghans into your neighborhood. They never miss a beat.
Similarly, the same people responsible for losing yet another war for the empire are now using the Afghan mess to demand money for their China project. The logic here is that the willingness to abandon Afghanistan, as if it was the crown jewel of the empire, means China will think the US will abandon Taiwan. They may make a play for reclaiming the island nation as a result. The remedy is to give the brain trust of the military industrial complex more money for more new stuff.
The “heads we win, tails you lose” psychology of the military industrial complex is one of those signs of rot that does not get enough attention. The truth is, Afghanistan fell victim to the same disease that afflicts everything else. It quickly became a racket for rich people to skim money from Americans. Billions went to NGO’s and civilian contractors, who then used some portion of it to reward their favorite politicians back in Washington for their support of Afghanistan.”
Further on in the article, Z Man more pessimistic about PRC’s chances than I am. Too early to say. I err on side of caution.
But this is how the Chinese are thinking:
https://asiatimes.com/2021/03/china-has-its-eye-on-a-taiwan-strait-rail-link/
Saw an article in SCMP yesterday saying that they’re about to begin construction on the bit which links mainland to their Pingtan Island (nothing much there)… except that it’s 68 nautical miles from there to Hsinchu City Taiwan. TSMC has its headquarters there.
Tyranny:
https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3145677/no-sex-toys-medicines-or-spy-devices-allowed-chinas-live-streaming
Shill.
Re: Organizational failure…
@Zaphod 11:29 pm:
That’s the point I’ve been trying to make lately.
CEOs are usually strong, smart people who can intimidate when they want to. They have to be.
When an organization has a weak fool like Biden at the top, that has to seep down and do no one good.
The Afghan withdrawal is the first serious project the Biden administration has attempted. It’s not surprising it’s a disaster.
@Huxley:
No quibbles at all about the need for strong CEO leadership… in fact one might say there is a need in these troubled times for a pervasive Leadership Principle given that Elites and Institutions are in need of a proper Augean Stables Sluicing.
A certain degree of caution and reticence about the branding and execution is, however, called for. Previous attempted launch revealed some flaws in product design and marketing resulting in competitors bankrupting the business and discrediting the paradigm. Few if any KPIs were met, and seasonal conditions were not adequately taken into account.
Still… if Uniqlo were contracted to supply staff uniforms, perhaps it might just work…
It’s Mourning in Weimerica… Err… I’ll take my coat now.
“…a weak fool like Biden at the top…”
Fair enough,except that Obama(2.0) is “at the top”.
Along with his putrid and putrifying cabal of fellow travelers and dynamite experts.
Here’s (just) one of ’em:
“Report: Blinken was warned last month about collapse of Kabul
State Department cable last month warned top officials, including Secretary of State, of the potential collapse of Kabul after US withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/312093
Bagram in fact has only one runway.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bagram,+Afghanistan/@34.9449187,69.258846,3638m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x38d197fee0bb28a1:0x9ae2312130699227!8m2!3d34.9402503!4d69.2549736
Its advantage over HKIA is that it isn’t surrounded by a teeming city and it isn’t dominated by heights in easy small arms/mortar range, so it’s a lot more defensible/controllable.
In addition to the absolutely stupefying advice from State for Americans in Kabul to, first, shelter in place rather than going to the airport on what turned out to be the last feasible day to get there safely, and then arrange to make their way to HKIA on their own, add this piece of feckless stupidity.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/19/biden-admin-tells-americans-stranded-in-afghanistan-to-pay-for-their-own-flights-home/
Ever notice how Democrats are only interested in enforcing the law when it doesn’t impede their primary agendas?
How many of the Afghan refugees were asked to sign the form?
Z: “Not going to win any fans with this comment …”
Just an idle prediction but those Americans in A-Stan will be allowed to leave. “They” will decide they want it that way.
And powerful forces amongst our rivals and enemies will, when possible and convenient, refrain from actions that undermine Biden*. Because it’s in their interest to have him in power
Fred Reed (who got out of Saigon late in the day back in the day) Unloads:
https://www.unz.com/freed/despair-in-the-empire-of-graveyards/
“… American wars last a long time because no one has an incentive to end them. American casualties are low, especially now with the killing mostly done from the air against peasants with no defenses. No important American ever gets killed. American wars are all class wars, with the dying being done by blue-collar suckers from Kansas or the deep South, not by Bush II, Hillary, the other Clinton, Bolton, Bannon, Obama, Blinken, Biden, Cheney, Kamala, Trump, and the rest of those not required to fight. The US public has little idea of what goes on in its wars because the corporate media hide them. the Pentagon having learned that the media are their worst enemy, not the Taliban. It would not surprise me if one unfettered camera crew, filming the corpses and mutilated children and devastation, could force an end to such a war.
Americans are not heartless but calculatedly uninformed. Wars are also extremely profitable for those who provide the bombs, fuel, vehicles, and so on. If the US loses a war, the contracts stop, and equally if it wins. Keeping it going for decades provides a steady revenue stream. What’s not to like?
Finally, or as much as I am going to worry about, there is the 1955 Syndrome, the engrained belief that America is all powerful. This is arrogance and self-delusion. In the Pentagon you encounter a mandatory can-do attitude a belief that the US military is indomitable, the best trained, armed, and led force in this or any nearby galaxy. In one sense this is necessary: You can’t tell the Marines that they are mediocre light infantry or sailors that their aircraft are rapidly obsolescing, their ships sitting ducks in a changing military world, and that the whole military enterprise is rotted by social engineering, profiteering, and careerism.
But look around: The US has failed to intimidate North Korea, chase the Chinese out of its islands in the South China Sea, retrieve the Crimea from Russia, can’t intimidate Iran, just got run out of Afghanistan, remains mired in Iraq and Syria, failed to block Nordstream II despite a desperate effort, and couldn’t keep Turkey from buying the S-400. The Pentagon plans for the wars it wants to fight, not the wars it does fight. The most dangerous weapons of the modern world are not nukes, but the Ak-47, the RPG, and the IED. Figure it out.
And now the US comes home, leaving Afghanistan in ruins for decades. Use and discard.”
On the spectrum between knaves or fools, where do liars go?
https://web.archive.org/web/20210817084701/https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-us-government-lied-for-two-decades
@JimNorCal:
Leaving aside the American Nationals in Afghanistan for a moment:
Taliban 2.0 Leadership, too, will likely be smart enough to permit many Afghan Refugees to escape the the West. They’re not all stupid and illiterate. Some of them know very well that many of the Refugees themselves or their children or their grandchildren will form an Islamic fundamentalist Fifth Column wherever they end up. It’s Win-Win: get rid of domestic opponents and subvert the Enemy.
All the News that’s Fit to Print:
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-afghanistan-s-last-jew-refuses-to-flee-as-taliban-take-kabul-1.10129324
This is actually quite funny. My prediction is that the Taliban will keep him on and pay him a stipend as Exhibit J. That’s unless his estranged wife in Israel can bribe the Taliban to knock him off since he won’t give her a Get. One thing for sure is that he’s pretty much safe from the Get Mafia in Kabul.
“He became the country’s last Jew upon the death of Yitzhak Levi in 2005. The pair famously did not get along and in 1998 Levi wrote to the Taliban interior minister to accuse Simantov of theft of Jewish relics. Simantov retorted by telling the Taliban that Levi ran a secret brothel where he sold alcohol.
The Taliban was so annoyed by their constant fighting that they threw them in jail. But they eventually kicked them out when they continued to fight inside the prison.”
“…must resign…”
So members of a gangster administration—and military leaders who have been successfully coopted—led by a gangster party that has stolen the latest Federal elections are going to agree going to step down.
To do the right thing.
To do the decent thing.
To do the honorable thing.
Um, maybe we should think that through again.
I’ll tell you something: The “RIGHT thing”, the “HONORABLE thing”, the “DECENT thing”, the “MORAL thing” was to get Trump out of office so that the Demolition Party could get on with its globally-mandated obligation (AND RESPONSIBILITY) to destroy the country.
And if an election HAD to be stolen; if the Constitution HAS to be trampled; if the economy HAS to be obliterated; if the USAF HAS to be wounded beyond repair; if the social fabric HAS to be irreparably rent; if the cities HAVE to die; if the suburbs HAVE to be destroyed; if the COVID policy HAS to sow death, panic, confusion and despair around the country; if America’s standing in the world HAS to be shredded; if Iran HAS to be allowed to dominate the Middle East and China the world; if our (purported) allies HAVE to pound sand….then so be it.
For THAT is, after all, “RIGHT”, “HONORABLE”, “DECENT” and “MORAL”…
…and the ONLY HOPE—so say our “betters”—the world has if the world is to survive and become a “better”—yea, even “a more perfect” place….
Ah Z. that was brilliant. It reminds one of the old joke:
What is the difference between an Englishman and a Jew?
The Englishman leaves but doesn’t say “good-bye”; the Jew says “good-bye” but doesn’t leave…
(Can one even say “Englishman” any more?? Whatever. One may substitute at one’s convenience…)
View from an insider, take it for what you think it’s worth.
He does provide some interesting detail about the conditions in Afghanistan and the assessments given to both Trump and Biden; draw your own conclusions on his biases.
Author Douglas London (@douglaslondon5) retired from the CIA in 2019 after 34 years as a Senior Operations Officer, Chief of Station and CIA’s Counterterrorism Chief for South and Southwest Asia.
Conclusion: (paragraphing added)
https://www.justsecurity.org/77801/cias-former-counterterrorism-chief-for-the-region-afghanistan-not-an-intelligence-failure-something-much-worse/
What if the results are exactly what the goal was?
AF, thanks much for that much-needed assessment/corrective.
(Wonder what the fellow has to say about Brennan’s involvement from the get-go in helping to push Russiagate….)
Skip, this one’s for you:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/shock_video_lara_logan_confirms_what_we_feared_about_afghanistan.html
Comment on the utterly critical case of TSMC and what it being knocked offline would be by a guy who designs high end chip logic:
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2021/08/about-taiwans-microchip-production.html
TL;DR: You can’t just buy a new Fab off the shelf and expect it to be able to do what TSMC’s 4/5nm Fabs do. Huge amount of proprietary IP and secret sauce goes into making everything work. He estimates 5-8 years to replicate/rebuild. (Zaphod: problem in West is that idiot MBAs, Politicians, Bankers think that people are fungible and can just throw enough money at problem and a Fab will magically appear. It won’t.)
“I thought you might be interested in an assessment of the likely future acquisition of Taiwan by China from a different perspective.
I am an electrical engineer, and work in the particular niche area of designing integrated circuits. Every part I’ve worked on in the last 25 years has wound up being fabricated at TSMC. They aren’t ‘just a chip company’. They are the 800-lb gorilla in the IC industry. They make a huge fraction of the world’s chips, and have gotten to that position because they are very, very good at what they do. We haven’t used the TSMC factory because we like them, but because they are so good at what they do that they are the compelling option. They consistently deliver product on time and to specification.
When people talk about Taiwan, I occasionally hear them mention TSMC as a minor concern. From my perspective in the electronics field, China acquiring Taiwan is a minor concern, but China acquiring TSMC would be world-shattering.
Chip foundries are incredibly expensive, and it takes a bunch of highly skilled people to get one working. Not only are they expensive, but the equipment is very fickle. Fickle as in ‘the three secret factors that affect this ion implanter are the barometric pressure, the phase of the moon, and the mood of your mother-in-law.’ Without both motivated and experienced workers and equipment in good condition, there is no working fab.
If China invades Taiwan, then you can be fairly certain that some fraction of the TSMC foundries will be shut down, either by accidents on the part of the Chinese military, or action on the part of Taiwanese partisans. Drop a bomb on a fab and you might as well just build a new one from scratch.
Pretty much everything electronic that you own that has one or more chips in it fabricated at TSMC. Even if most of the ICs come out of Samsung or Hynix, there will almost always be at least one part from TSMC. If you have 99 of the 100 chips needed to make an iPad, then you can’t make an iPad. If China takes over Taiwan, then they will basically control the entire world’s supply of electronics.
Particularly for the newer fine-line processes, building a fab line involves many billions of dollars and 3-5 years of construction. Getting one running well requires hundreds of workers highly skilled in very specialized areas. Even if we had the committment and available experience, it would be years before we could have any alternatives to TSMC.
In short, my assessment is as follows. If China invades Taiwan, then:
1) In the immediate future the supply of basically everything dependent on electronics (TV’s, microwaves, automobiles, air conditioners, computers, etc.) will dry up.
2) If we are lucky and not much of TSMC is damaged, then we might start getting new electronic-dependent products in 6-12 months
3) If we are not lucky and the TSMC fabs are destroyed, then we might start getting new elecronic-dependent products in 5-8 years
4) If China has control of a functional TSMC, then:
a) they will be able to control who gets what when it comes to electronic-dependent products (which is basically everything)
b) every company that manufactures parts through TSMC will have to decide whether they want to provide the Chinese government with their intellectual properties
5) Alternative fabs will get constructed in other companies, and in 5-10 years we will start having other options than TSMC.”
Since the electronics industry logistics problems started last year, I’ve made a resolution to buy new iPhone, iPad, MacBook each generation/year. In normal times this is a ridiculous and pointless extravagance. In uncertain times we face now I want to be sure that my essential gear is as close as possible to zero-age if the big button gets pressed on TSMC and the 5-8 year rebuild-restart clock begins ticking.
Also dollars might not be dollars, so no harm to spend some while the going’s good.
My thinking is to keep this rolling and sell off the 3-year old kit.
I know someone even more paranoid who went out to buy a metal trunk to use as a Faraday Cage for his backup iDevices. Hmmm… Note to self.. although I figure would probably die of starvation or thirst or cholera if EMP took out my iPhone.
On the chance you’re wondering about the whys and wherefores of “Biden”‘s admittedly illegal eviction moratorium, know that there is a rhyme and a reason for everything in the “Biden” universe:
https://www.newsweek.com/landlords-frustrated-eviction-moratorium-sell-wealthy-investors-stem-losses-1621113
…which is why I would advise Kamala Harris against riding in a helicopter with her dear President. Or flying in the same plane, getting in the same car, crossing the street together in no-doubt earnest conversation, or chowing down together for a convivial, recreational meal—well, it couldn’t possibly be a “working” breakfast/lunch/supper/snack/nightcap, could it?…
…not that she’d listen to me, mind you. Still…prudence is called for.
And—wait for it!—Afghanis and Jews appear to be trending….
https://twitter.com/TimesofIsrael/status/1428167845024735235
After a brief hiatus, The New Zeo blog is back and filibustering to beat the band.
…Because think about it, Skip:
In one fell swoop, “Biden” has virtually eviscerated the United States Armed Forces.
And cratered morale. (What exactly do you think the average—i.e., regular—GI is thinking/feeling at the moment?)
…and they say “he” ‘s brain-addled by creeping “dementia”.
…and they say he has to do this, that and the other to “make things rights”, to “at least salvage a miserable CHOICE”, to “regain trust”.
Man, I’m sure they’re all chuckling mightily on Martha’s Vineyard…. (“Heh, ‘super-spreader event’, heh, that’s a GOOD ONE!!”
But for someone supposedly clueless, “he” IS rather cunning…
(Haven’t checked “his” trouser crease, though….)
File under: Brain-addled like a fox…
This notable article is worthy of re-posting:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/british-and-us-troops-reportedly-odds-afghanistan-uk-engages-rescue-missions
…but TRUMP!!
Skip, this one’s for you:
I read the link end to end, and it’s very chilling. The only thing it doesn’t explain is why. What is the long-term goal? What do these apparatchiks want to fundamentally transform the US into? And for what reason would they do it?
You VEEL OBEY!!!
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/64-year-old-heart-patient-removed-transplant-list-refusing-covid-vaccine
Zaphod wrote, “Since the electronics industry logistics problems started last year, I’ve made a resolution to buy new iPhone, iPad, MacBook each generation/year.”
Thanks for the advice.
This makes me believe that the Obama influence is very much in charge at the WH. He hated the Brits.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/08/20/special-relationship-biden-ghosted-johnson-over-bungled-bugout-n1471066
As if when SHTF your iPad other tools and gegaws will have any power to run them or have an economic system in which they are of any value. Unpleasant peasant times even for one such as Z.
Zaphod,
“look around: The US has failed to intimidate North Korea, chase the Chinese out of its islands in the South China Sea, retrieve the Crimea from Russia, can’t intimidate Iran, just got run out of Afghanistan, remains mired in Iraq and Syria, failed to block Nordstream II despite a desperate effort, and couldn’t keep Turkey from buying the S-400. The Pentagon plans for the wars it wants to fight, not the wars it does fight.”
That’s a semi-accurate assessment from one angle. That’s because it’s not the ability America lacks to accomplish satisfactory results in all of those areas. What’s lacking is the will i.e. political consensus… to act effectively.
Generals do not always plan for the last war or the one they’d like to fight. Political considerations from on high and the particular quality of the conflicts they have to fight are the major factors in their plans. The threat that aircraft carriers and nuclear subs pose to China, Russia and Iran are obvious but pose little to no threat to distributed terrorist networks like al Qaeda.
The consequence of the CCP gaining control over TSMC is gravely concerning. Not because we can’t live without the latest widget but because America is a consumption consumer economy. If non-ideological people were in charge, it might well have potential benefits but with the left’s dominance it could be a large part of a “perfect storm”.
IMO there are too many moving parts to your scenario. E.g. the Taliban finishing off Afghanistan in a long weekend. Who could know that for sure?
Plus, who runs the conspiracy and how? — huxley
Richard Grenell is saying the the draw down of the Bagram base began on July 1. So it wasn’t a weekend or a week long collapse. According to Adam Smith-D on the House Armed Services committee the State Dept. has been in control of the major planning of all this, at least in the earlier phases. State is supposed to work hand in glove with the CIA, NGA, NSA, and ODNI; and the Oval Office. Of course, they may not.
It takes a lot of careful and detailed planning to build something great. It doesn’t take much planning and organizational skill to wreck something from within.
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Let’s take one smaller topic. Petroleum. Biden immediately stops the Keystone pipeline. Then Biden gives the all-clear for the Nordstream pipeline, with the excuse that it is 90% finished anyway. But you can’t flow fuel until it is 100% complete. Then Biden goes begging to OPEC to increase supply because gas prices are high. Does he hate wokester Trudeau? (No.)
The above example can be chalked up to various snafus or political pressures, except there are many other similar examples.
Larry Kudlow calls it Biden’s “America Last” policy. I think it is worse than that. It is the “Hate America First” policy.
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Zaphod, As to my first three sentences, those were a direct response to huxley. And you answered them yourself, while contradicting yourself (by my reading). Yes, TSMC is a big deal. I don’t think losing Ukraine would be as big of an impact from a self-interested standpoint.
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I read that U.S. citizens in Afghanistan are being charged $2,000 for the flight out of country. Are these people the true believers in the old Wolfowitz neocon dream and/or war profiteers? Is the Biden admin. effectively telling them, screw off? Three or four thousand flown out, but only three or four hundred U.S. citizens out of 10 to 20 thousand.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/the_afghanistan_debacle_is_exactly_what_the_left_wanted.html
Glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks it all went to plan
So it wasn’t a weekend or a week long collapse.
TommyJay:
Note I said “the Taliban finishing off Afghanistan in a long weekend. Who could know that for sure?” The point being that the US would have been in a much better position with an extra two weeks to extract civilians and possibly respond to the Taliban.
So if the apparatchiks depended on the Taliban to take Kabul last weekend, that was a bad plan.
As to “America Last,” sure something like that is happening and it’s been happening for decades. My point is limited to the argument that the hyper-snafu in Afghanistan is some unspecified villainous cabal’s conspiracy.
Another premature evacuation and Iraq war (2.0), which precipitated the progress of ISIS, accompanied by a transcontinental (“world”) war. One step forward, two steps backward.
because America is a consumption consumer economy.
All economies incorporate consumption. That’s the whole point of productive activity.