When anti-Semitic lunatics take control of the academic asylum
Melanie Phillips(JNS) The vicious doctrine of “intersectionality,” which links different categories of “victims” together and demonizes their purported “oppressors” such as white people, men or those who believe in biological differences between men and women, also targets Zionism and the Jews.
Those who support Zionism often find themselves “canceled.” That’s because the Marxist dogma of identity politics divides people into powerful and powerless according to crude economic or political status.
Consequently, tiny, besieged Israel is viewed as a white oppressive country (even though the majority of its people are brown or even black-skinned) simply because it’s considered a Western nation, has a powerful military (albeit solely for its defense) and is supported by America. So on account of these supposed “crimes,” its supporters are targeted for vilification, too.
Andrew Pessin, a philosophy professor at Connecticut College and a Jew, experienced this in 2015 when he was falsely accused of having dehumanized the Palestinians by supporting Israel during its 2014 war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Branded a racist peddling “hate speech,” he was subjected to death threats and anti-Semitic abuse and forced to take medical leave from teaching for two years.
Now he has fashioned his experiences into a literary weapon in Nevergreen, a sparkling and savagely satirical novel about campus “cancel culture.”
The book is set in the ultimate “woke” environment of Nevergreen, a college situated on a remote island. The name alludes to an infamous event in 2017 at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.
A biology professor there, Bret Weinstein, was hounded out of his post after he objected to the college asking white students to absent themselves for a day to attend a course on race issues. Like Pessin, Weinstein was physically intimidated and not allowed to defend himself against the accusations made against him.
In Pessin’s novel, a physician generally referred to only as “J” is invited to Nevergreen to give a lecture. Although not one student hears this presentation, the rumor mill immediately accuses J of making an unspecified offensive statement that has flouted the college’s Virtue Code.
Required to confess, he is never told what he has done. Unable to leave the island on which he is stranded, he finds himself running for his life from students intent on killing him. He faces being literally canceled.
The narrative brings to life the surreal, nightmarish quality of finding oneself in an asylum where the lunatics are in control. Pessin achieves this by relentlessly following the insane circular logic of identity politics, demonstrating that it is as ludicrous as it is terrifying.
At Nevergreen, the students hate the hate that, to them, people like J represent, and so accordingly hold sessions of “hate-hate.” Yet as haters of hate, the students themselves embody what they claim to be against.
In addition to groups such as the Only Black Lives Matter Club, the White Is A Color Too Club, the Jihadi Martyrs Club and the DIT Club for Diversity, Inclusion and Tolerance, the campus also boasts an Ur-Nazi Club and affirmative action quotas for white supremacists. A tourist brochure says the college is “a real haven for the violent and racist demographic” because its “commitment to full diversity and inclusion attracts those who feel unwelcome elsewhere.”
Not only is this a comical paradox, since, of course, white supremacists are anything but inclusive. It is also a comment on liberals supposedly committed to human rights but who march shoulder to shoulder with Islamists and others committed to extinguishing these rights.
Through this sustained satire, Pessin sprays “cancel culture” with the most effective disinfectant—mockery and ridicule. Reflecting the fact that identity politics is as ludicrous and even insane as it is sinister and totalitarian, his novel channels Kafka’s The Trial, George Orwell’s 1984 and Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. As a result, it is both hilarious and deeply disturbing.
But Pessin has realized something else. Beyond the issue of Israel, identity politics is profoundly anti-Jew. Intersectional zealots don’t just target Israel because they see it as Western and therefore colonialist. They target it because it embodies Jewish power.
Like other anti-Semites, these culture warriors believe that the Jews possess infernal, demonic power that enables them secretly to control the world in their own interests. Since Israel has military power, they view Israel as intrinsically a threat to the world. To them, Jews can never be allowed to have power. They must always remain powerless.
Critical race theory, which sits at the core of intersectionality, is deeply, incontrovertibly anti-Jew. It holds that the Jews control the finances, professions and politics of the West and are therefore part of oppressive and racist “white privilege,” even if they are brown-skinned.
So Jews can never be considered victims. In Nevergreen, the deepest element of J’s fiendish predicament is that, even while people are hunting him in order to murder him on the basis of an insane lie, he can never be recognized as a victim because he is a Jew.
Notably, however, this remains unspoken. For Nevergreen makes no mention of Jews. Instead, the narrative is stuffed with coded references that can be spotted by alert readers.
The victimized protagonist is referred to at the college only as J. This is an allusion to the novel J by Howard Jacobson in which “J” stands for Jew, the word that can never be mentioned because, in Jacobson’s own satirical dystopia, the Jews have been written out of the cultural script.
In similar vein, there are references in Nevergreen to the “Episode,” about which we are told only that students went to the Middle East to help bring peace between warring factions but got slaughtered for their efforts.
We are told that Professor A.M. Alek of the Near East Languages and Literature Department had some kind of role in this “ Episode”—not surprising since his name, spelled out, happens to be the name of the ultimate enemy of the Jewish people that the Torah tells us must be both blotted out and never be forgotten.
A Nevergreen student named Ariana, who loves “hating hate with close friends,” rejoices that the college is “solidly normal” because of the absence of “those people.”
Ariana is warmly embraced by A.M. Alek after she testifies to the “pain” of being denied “the privileges that others took for themselves when it was her people who deserved them, the privileges that specific others took, cheated, stole, from her people … these Fat Cats, these backstabbers, these parasites … .”
There are many more such Jewish references which it’s fun to spot, in a grisly kind of way. Yet the striking thing is that, although this Jewish theme is so important, it is concealed in a kind of literary code.
This suggests a caution caused by the fact that that many people are actively turned off by the topic of anti-Semitism. Despite the record levels of anti-Jewish hatred and attacks on campus and elsewhere, relatively little is written about it.
For anti-Semitism is the one prejudice that dare not speak its name. Many people are deeply uncomfortable with the Jews being presented as victims.
Partly that’s because of western Holocaust guilt. Partly it’s because it exposes intersectionality for promoting bogus victimization. But mainly, it’s because so many people really don’t care for the Jewish people. The murderous hunting of J in Nevergreen suggests the unspoken desire to cancel the Jews that is now poisoning the Western cultural air.
Derangement about the Jews drives the derangement of “cancel culture.” Pessin’s novel shows how irrationality and a total disconnection from reality define both our culture wars and the anti-Semitic mind, and that these are indissolubly linked. To read this brilliant novel is to laugh—and to cry.
Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, “The Legacy.” Go to melaniephillips.substack.
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If ratings are believable and an indication of Biden's popularity and trustworthiness, he is sinking as fast as The Titanic.
Trump came along at a critical time in our political history, accomplished a great deal that needed reversing but whether he was cheated out of a second term is history and , right or wrong, the courts chose not to get involved. It would be healthy if he went quietly but that is not his style and that could have negative consequences.
Democrats were successful in putting the "bad mouth" on him and he assisted mightily in greasing their effort.
I would love nothing better than to watch this radical Democrat Party deservedly fall on it's own sword undeterred.
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The following story is brought to you courtesy of PJ Media. Click the link to visit their page and see more stories.
Biden’s approval rating has cratered to just 36% among independents in the aftermath of his disastrous handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, according to a new NPR/PBS/Marist poll released Thursday.
That number is down six points from the same survey conducted five weeks ago. The current polls also mark the lowest numbers for Biden since taking office.
The Aug. 26-31 poll of more than 1,200 adults found Biden’s overall approval is 43%, with 51% disapproving, a massive net swing of 13 points since late July, when the same poll found 49% of Americans approved of the job he was doing, and only 44% opposed.
But it’s among independents where Biden has lost significant ground, with 55% now disapproving. Specifically, more than seven in 10 independents disapprove of the president’s chaotic evacuation, with more than 60% of all Americans disapproving of the crisis. A majority of respondents also express negative views on Biden’s handling of foreign policy in general.
“That a majority of independents now disapprove of his performance is bad news for Biden and Democrats,” Domenico Montanaro, NPR’s senior political editor/correspondent, wrote. “They’re a key swing group, one Biden won in 2020 but who now think he’s off track.”
Other polls paint a rosier picture for the president, but those oversampled Democrats.
With much of America divided into partisan camps, large swings in presidential approval ratings are rare, especially on foreign policy, making the new numbers for Biden rather eye-opening.
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Anyone who thought Biden would bring normalcy is abnormal.
Our bargain for normal is failing
By Salena Zito
NORMALVILLE, Pennsylvania — Leading into Election Day last year, two of the biggest reasons people gave in interviews for voting for Joe Biden were to sense a return to normal and a little empathy for their struggles.
In short, they wanted their lives to reflect the bucolic scene this Fayette County town evoked after nearly a year of a deadly pandemic that had turned their lives upside down and took loved ones. They also said they were exhausted by then-President Donald Trump’s comportment.
So people sent a message to Washington with their vote, and Biden won.
In traditional Washington fashion, Biden has ignored that message voters sent and delivered the opposite. In less than seven months, we have found that Biden is far from that empathetic persona he has crafted over the years, and we have not returned to anything near normal.
Click here for the full story.
The new normal is a return to FUBAR and we have Obama and Biden to thank:
Fred Dibella (USMA 69) wrote the commentary below in 2015 during the Obama Administration. For 8 years Obama did a good job of culling pure warriors from the senior ranks. The interlude that Trump provided had scant time to re-populate the senior ranks. Today the Biden (Obama) Administration has continued Obama’s policies with the Flag Officer ranks, in my opinion. Anyway, Fred Dibella’s views stand today and if he had a chance to update his commentary I believe he would be even more critical in his observations.Read this and send it on if you wish. The commentary has been in the public domain for many years.M--- W----Mike,Coarse but on point and written several years ago, this has likely passed through your inbox before. If so, sorry. Thought you might enjoy reviewing it as it’s sadly STILL relevant, but with obvious unwritten afternotes which draw attention to the battle we fight to support and defend the Idea of America from those in our government who would destroy it in the name of equality.God help us help ourselves!!!Dave
Written by Lt Col Fred Dibella
Keep a PUKE bucket handy!!!!
Though this was written a few years ago it still fits. If you want to be politically correct it think the military is the correct place for social engineering you should probably delete BUT if you are interested in the warrior ethos, good readingFor two years as a senior combat trainer (observer/controller) at the National Training Center and another two as the G3 of the 1st Armored Division in Germany, I was fortunate enough to be responsible for their training as around 50 Armor and Infantry branch Lieutenant Colonels lead their battalions through the most rigorous, realistic large unit training the US Army has ever offered. I conducted the formal after action review for every battle and so was very familiar with what took place and why. If the "battles" we fought had taken place with real ammo instead of lasers, artillery simulators, and subjective mine field and air attack assessments, every single one of those battalion commanders would have lost (dead, wounded, captured or destroyed) the equivalent of at least three complete battalions worth of men and equipment over the space of just two weeks. Every single one that is except Fred Dibella.At the National Training Center, Fred's battalion soundly defeated the best "Soviet Armored Regiment" that ever strapped on tanker boots in 5 consecutive battles! And it was not even close! Lt Col Dibella understood tactical warfare and how to prepare his leaders and their men before they ever arrived on the battlefield. They came to the NTC with a mutual understanding of how every single piece of the task force affected every other piece and they understood that every leader's battle plan must support the plan of the entire task force. The manner in which Lt Col Dibella had prepared and trained his leaders and soldiers before the first shot was ever fired was the best I have ever seen. The manner in which they actually fought the NTC battles was unequaled!My entire experience with Lt Col Fred Dibella was over the course of those two weeks. But I can tell you that he knew more about how to fight and how to train his people to fight than any other battalion commander I had the opportunity to help train. So pay attention to what he writes in the article that follows.
Mac Johnson
In a 2015 memo by the Secretary of the Army to worldwide Army Commands, the Secretary dictated that ‘Commanders and soldiers will balance lactation support and readiness.’In response, COL (Ret) Fred Dibella, USMA Class of ’69 and former TAC of Company F2 at West Point wrote:
“Ok, I’ve had all I can stomach. I’m done.Scroll down and read this shit right now, if you think I’m kidding, then come back to my remarks, if you haven’t puked your guts out. (USMA ‘69 forum, feel free to permanently ban me from your rolls, but I’ve had enough.)Obama and his lackeys have now systematically laid the groundwork to accomplish what no battlefield enemy has ever done; that is, to emasculate the United States Military. I honestly don’t know how he could have done it more effectively. He’s dangerously downsized the force; he’s rooted out warriors like Stan McChrystal and Carter Ham from the General and Flag Officer ranks and installed puppets like George Casey and Martin Dempsey; he not only obliterated ‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell’; he searched long and hard to find an openly gay (and utterly unqualified) man to be Sec Army; he opened not just combat arms to women, but the absolute tips of the spear in Infantry, Armor and Artillery, and the predictable result is directives like “balance lactation support and readiness?”Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? Balance lactation support and readiness!?Sorry, I’m old school, but I THOUGHT READINESS WAS NEVER, EVER COMPROMISED… let alone for “lactation support.”Have we gone completely mad?!? Do you think for a moment that the greatest fighting force the planet has ever known is immune to emasculation? That there’s nothing that Obama can do to significantly degrade its lethality? That somehow we will magically prevail, despite all this shitHere’s the blunt truth, and if you think this flies in the face of political correctness and/or liberal theology… congratulations.The most important reason the US Military has been so dominant, so lethal, and so unbeatable over that last 200 years is that we subscribe to a Warrior Ethos. We’re not quite Sparta, but we ain’t been far behind. That is, until now. Up to now, we have recognized the blatantly obvious: That battles and wars are won by Alpha Males. And why is that? Uh… because men and women may well be equal in the eyes of God, but they damned sure ain’t identical in the laws of physics and psychology. Men are, by and large, bigger, stronger, faster, more aggressive, more violent, more ferocious, more intense, more powerful, more brutal, more belligerent, more destructive, AND THEREFORE MORE LETHAL than women.You don’t buy that? Tell you what – pick 50 men at random from anywhere and 50 women. Put ‘em in a big ring and tell ‘em to fight to the death. Have a problem immediately predicting the outcome? If you do, I can’t help you. You’re an idiot or a flaming liberal who believes that “Laura Croft, Tomb Raider” is real.Why do you think Martin Dempsey, Obama’s personal lackey in uniform, issued his famous proclamation? You know the one: “If women can’t pass the standards at Ranger school, SEAL school, and other similar training programs, then the standards will have to be justified to me”.God help me, but am I the only one who sees through that shit? I guess the Rangers at Point du Hoc weren’t good enough, huh Martin? Neither were the SEALS at Benghazi? I guess Delta’s incredible successes are not sufficient. ‘We must reassess the standards’. Total crock of shit. Scrape away the BS, and here’s the residue: We’re gonna lower the bar ‘till the women can get over it, period. Think that’ll have any effect on lethality? BTW, how’d you like to be the Ranger School Commandant who goes to Massa Dempsey’s office to ‘splain why women aint’ makin’ it? Think he might avoid that by “adjusting” things a bit?But it’s more than physicality. It’s about the laws of nature. That is, when young men and women are put together they respond to hormones rather than ‘good order and discipline’. 1976: Women are introduced to West Point. Regulations strictly prohibited fraternization among cadets. Hahahahahahaha. Written by some idiot, no doubt. They were bangin’ each other like rabbits. Trust me, I had a ringside seat. But that wouldn’t happen in a Ranger squad, or a SEAL team, right? If you said, “Right”, then you’re an idiot. The squad/team leader is messin’ around with a female and there’s no degradation to good order and discipline, right? The previous “Brotherhood” that formerly bonded warriors together won’t be affected, right?So we now have a female Commandant of Cadets at West Point. See how freaking enlightened we are? We can appoint females to the leadership roles at the nations’ premier School for Warriors. That is, the nations’ FORMER premier School for Warriors. West Point is now the tip of the Political Correctness spear. We have gay marriages at the cadet chapel, we have kindness and compassion seminars, we even have Sensitivity Officers, for crissake, on cadet staffs - right next to the Operations and Logistics Officers - to ensure that Alpha Males do not behave like Alpha Males. We dumb ‘em down now. We used to understand that good warriors were a little rough around the edges. We tolerated that, because we knew ‘em for what they were… Patton comes immediately to mind. Instead, now we intentionally extract the fangs from the sheepdogs, just about the time when the wolves from Islam are stalking the flock…Obama gave us Obamacare, which is now sinking under its own sick formula. Good thing, because the gutless Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to defund it. Obama has given us Sotomayor and Kagan, two flaming Liberals who will sit on that bench for a generation of Looney Tunes. Obama has demonstrated his racism, his socialism, his disdain for law enforcement and even his proclivity for Islam (the “peaceful” religion… what a laugh). He’s been the single most divisive and destructive POTUS in my lifetime. America, thanks to him, is at war with itself. GOP vs ‘Crats, Blacks vs Whites, Haves vs Have-nots, Women vs Men, Armed vs Unarmed, you name the category… we have two sides at war with each other.The debt is approaching $20 Trillion. That’s such a ridiculous number that even economists can’t fathom it. More than half of it generated on Obama’s personal watch. We have no national border. None. Agents have been defanged, and the illegal aliens come across at will. The problems in Arizona and Texas are ignored by Obama. Israel has gone from being our most trusted and respected ally in the Mideast to being openly discredited, condemned and insulted by him. The nuclear deal with Iran was and is a joke. Un-vetted Syrian male “refugees”… well hell, come to America! It’s all so transparent. You elect an utterly unqualified candidate with dangerous background affiliations in his past, and this is what you get: a self-inflicted wound.But it all pales, in my humble world, to his destruction of the American Military. These are the guardians of our way of life. These are the warriors. These are the “rough MEN who allow us to sleep soundly, because they stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm”. But go ahead, America: let this ideologue continue the systematic defanging of our fighting force. Let him feminize it. Let him drag it into the political correctness cesspool. Let him continue the social engineering and tinkering. Keep putting high heel shoes on male cadets, so they can “empathize”. Forget all our hard-fought lessons at Khe Sanh, the Chosin Resevoir, Bastogne, Belleau Wood, Gettysburg, and Bunker Hill. Let the idiots tell you that war is “push button” now, so anyone can be a warrior.Go ahead…Historians won’t have a difficult time analyzing this disintegration. We were just too timid to put a stop to the madness… ”Dibella
AND:
ISRA Thursday Bulletin - September 2, 2021
Executive Directors Message
Richard Pearson
The talking heads in Washington including government types, media mouthpieces and so-called experts are claiming the war in Afghanistan is over. These people have lied so much that they are believing their own lies. This war is not over. This is an ideological war and there are no time limits on ideological wars. This will only end when one side is totally crushed.
The Taliban is now the fifth or sixth most well-equipped army in the world thanks to Joe Biden. In fact, the Taliban has more attack helicopters than the country of Australia. Forbes magazine reports the Biden Administration is hiding audits of Afghan military equipment. Wednesday, it was reported that the Biden Administration has scrubbed every website and listing of what military equipment has been left in Afghanistan. I know you are totally shocked by the lack of transparency by the Biden Administration. This list has been out there but in case you didn’t see it, here it is. I am not sure if it is the complete list. Just as bad, the enemies of the United States now have all of our latest technology.
American Aircraft, Equipment & Armored Vehicles
2,000 Armored Vehicles Including Humvees and MRAPs
75,989 Total Vehicles: FMTV, M35, Ford Rangers, Ford F350, Ford Vans, Toyota Pickups, Armored Security Vehicles etc.
45 UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopters
50 MD530G Scout Attack Helicopters
ScanEagle Military Drones
30 Military Version Cessnas
4 C-130s
29 Brazilian made A-29 Super Tucano Ground Attack Aircraft
Heavy Equipment, Including Bull Dozers, Backhoes, Dump Trucks, Excavators
At least 600,000+ Small arms M16, M249 SAWs, M24 Sniper Systems, 50 Calibers, 1,394 M203 Grenade Launchers, M134 Mini Gun, 20mm Gatling Guns and Ammunition
61,000 M203 Rounds
20,040 Grenades
Howitzers
Mortars +1,000’s of Rounds
162,000 pieces of Encrypted Military Communications Gear
16,000+ Night Vision Goggles
Newest Technology Night Vision Scopes
Thermal Scopes and Thermal Mono Googles
10,000 2.75-inch Air to Ground Rockets
Reconnaissance Equipment (ISR)
Laser Aiming Units
Explosives Ordnance C-4, Semtex, Detonators, Shaped Charges, Thermite, Incendiaries, AP/API/APIT
2,520 Bombs
Administration Encrypted Cell Phones and Laptops ALL operational
Pallets with Millions of Dollars in US Currency
Millions of Rounds of Ammunition including but not limited to 20,150,600 rounds of 7.62mm and 9,000,000 rounds of 50 caliber. I am unsure of how many rounds of 556 but I have heard over 60,000,000.
Large Stockpile of Plate Carriers and Body Armor
US Military HIIDE, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment Biometrics
It has been reported that some Afghan pilots have flown 46 helicopters to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The pilots took their families with them. If they were caught by the Taliban, they would be killed.
I disagree that Joe Biden is incompetent because of his age. Joe Biden has always been incompetent his entire political career and he has been weakening America and the American values since the first moment he was elected. Those who supported him throughout his political career are equally guilty and we must hold them accountable.
Finally:
I did not write this but it parallels what I have written in my many memos:
A Note to Sane People
Critical things to think about in 2021.
I never dreamed that I would have to face the prospect of not living in the United States of America, at least not the one I have known all my life. I have never wished to live anywhere else. This is my home and I was privileged to be born here. But today I woke up and as I had my morning coffee, I realized that everything is changing for the worse. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, no matter how much I pray, something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same. I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I have known all my life--so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind!
You can't justify this insanity:
• If a guy pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
• Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
• Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.
• It was cool for Joe Biden to "blackmail" the President of Ukraine.
• Twenty is too young to drink a beer, but eighteen is old enough to vote.
• People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
• People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
• Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
• Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang member or terrorist who jumps the southern fence is welcome.
• $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.
• If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.
• If you cheat in an election nothing happens to you, but if you point out the mathematical errors of that election you are a conspiracy theorist & disdained.
• People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.
• We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan for us.
• Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.
• Criminals are caught-and-released to hurt more people, but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of their rights.
• And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us "racists"?!
Nothing makes sense anymore - no values, no morals, and no civility. People are dying of a Chinese virus, but it's racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it began in China. We are clearly living in an upside-down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong but killing unborn babies is okay!
Wake up America, the great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, it's taking on water, and is sinking fast. We Americans are drowning. Speak up while you still have breath and a voice for soon you will have neither if you don't!
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I have seldom been right on major issues, I am obstinate and I am no longer capable of clear thinking and I am controlled by those who also proved they did not know how to govern and make rational decisions because they too were arrogant:
https://carolineglick.com/the-
My tennis coach reminds me constantly "you do not come to the net to make friends". Biden is incapable of learning this.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ George Friedman's take.
I also believe we have to contemplate what it will be like living in America as China ascends both in commerce, military might and aligns with radical Islamists in order to cause us grief.
As a fading power, life in America will not be the same. As our allies pull away life in America will change.
As those who hate America continue their attacks on our culture, disrupt the our education of future generations and as more illegals flood our nation and impose their value system on us America will change and not be the same.
Most importantly of all, the impact progressive thinking is having on our military the weaker we will get. Obama ran off some of the best military minds we had because the best have alternatives and leave first.
WOE IS US.
Afghanistan and the 40-Year War
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
I have to confess that I find it difficult to hold an analytic distance on Afghanistan. I am angry – at no one in particular – that more attention has been paid to the last few days of this war than to the decades and indeed all the casualties that came before it. The deaths piled up over years, the war went nowhere, and the Americans over time lost interest. It’s as if the last 40 years of the U.S. war in Afghanistan never merited much public attention or judgment, and now there is an obsession with its final days.
That’s not a typo. Most think of this as a 20-year war. But in fact it was twice as long, involving ruthlessness and courage on all sides. To me, it began in December 1979, when I was 30 years old – which is how long ago it was. The Soviet Union invaded over a concern about which faction would govern Afghanistan. At that point, Central Asia was still part of the Soviet Union, so the Soviet Union shared a border with Afghanistan. Put simply, it wanted another satellite on its border.
The invasion took place right after Iran seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took the diplomats hostage. The U.S. was obsessed with Iran and the Persian Gulf. The Arab oil embargo was still haunting the American economy, and President Jimmy Carter was extremely sensitive to a country blocking the Gulf and affecting the coming election. It was hard to understand why the Soviets sent conventional forces into Afghanistan to control politics. The Soviets had massive covert assets in country to manage it. Unable to understand Soviet reasoning or actions, many theories emerged, each flawed in some way. One was that the invasion of Afghanistan was the first step in a move into Iran to support the communist Tudeh Party as it tried to acquire more power. The theory really didn’t fit, but it was the most frightening so it had the most weight. The United States had to act.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, was also extremely concerned about Soviet intentions. Some time earlier, the Grand Mosque in Mecca had been seized by insurgents and was eventually displaced by Saudi and Pakistani troops. There were various claims that the takeover had been underwritten by the Soviets. The Saudis likely didn’t believe this, but their nerves were frayed anyway thanks to Soviet support for Syria, Iraq and Egypt – secular regimes hostile to the Saudis. The Saudis were extremely sensitive to the Soviets’ move in Afghanistan. Pakistan was even more so.
The United States had no reasonable military option. It crafted another strategy: to support an insurgency in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Some saw it as payback for Vietnam. The problem was how to generate such a rising. Operation Cyclone, as it was known, was conceived of in three parts. The Saudis would recruit and deploy motivated jihadists to Afghanistan to raise indigenous forces and lead the struggle against the Soviets. The Saudis would also fund the operation. Pakistan’s intelligence agency would provide training facilities and instructors. The United States would oversee the operation, aid in the training and provide intelligence to the fighters.
Started under Carter but kicked into high gear after Ronald Reagan succeeded him, Operation Cyclone had a substantial budget that was able to provide the rebels with sophisticated weapons such as mines, anti-tank and anti-air systems, and communication systems. The degree to which U.S. intelligence and special operations forces were on the ground in Afghanistan is not entirely clear. It would be speculative to assume that training took place in Afghanistan, rather than shuttling people into Pakistan, and might have required U.S. trainers or inspection to judge performance.
The three nations were in effect training Islamist fundamentalists to enter Afghanistan and raise an army of mujahedeen insurgents less to control Afghanistan than to bleed the Soviets. The operation succeeded. On Feb. 15, 1989, the commander of Soviet forces and the last to leave Afghanistan turned and spat on the last piece of Afghan territory he stood on. The Russians had been exhausted by an aggressive force reasonably well armed and extremely motivated.
The Afghan fiasco was one of the factors that toppled the Soviet Union two years later. The decision to go into Afghanistan, and remain there for more than 10 years while losing men to what had first appeared to be a ragtag force of religious fanatics, weakened an already creaking regime. It is not fair to say that the U.S., Pakistan and Saudis created this force. The Afghans had been eager to fight, needing only to be given weapons and training. In retrospect, this is the story of all great powers that tried to subdue Afghanistan.
Of course, there were those who argued that the Soviets could not possibly reach the Persian Gulf through Afghanistan. There were also those who warned that the mujahedeen would have neither loyalty to nor gratitude for their three patrons. They would be aware they were being used and, once empowered, use it as an opportunity to build an Islamist Afghanistan. But the American hypersensitivity to Soviet moves, coupled with a lack of understanding of either Afghanistan or the type of Muslim wishing to fight in Afghanistan, meant that the Americans didn’t grasp what it meant to be a jihadist. In the end, some of them returned to Saudi Arabia, and others remained in Afghanistan because Saudi Arabia, which understood who these fighters were, wouldn’t let them in.
Washington never understood what it had created, and some of the popular culture of the time reflects as much. “Rambo III” was released in 1988. It showed famed veteran John Rambo, who was recruited by American operatives, entering Afghanistan and joining a mujahedeen force. In one scene, a youngster is shown downing a Soviet helicopter with a MANPAD. The kid’s joy warmed Rambo’s heart. The movie may or may not have had technical advisers who may or may not have been familiar with Afghanistan, but either way the depiction of Rambo’s relationship to jihadists was astonishing then, even more so now.
The U.S. scaled down Operation Cyclone and eventually lost interest in Afghanistan. This was the time when a civil war between various factions broke out, and the Taliban emerged as the government. But Cyclone lived on at least in spirit. After 9/11, whose anniversary we will observe next week, the U.S. sent operatives into Afghanistan to contact former allies and recruit them to locate and capture Osama bin Laden. Old friends fought together again, and the Afghans seemed to have found bin Laden, but he slipped away into Pakistan all the same. Our allies took the money that was delivered to them but, alas, weren’t successful in their mission. And so a raid to get bin Laden turned into a war whose end was unknown.
In 1989, the U.S. obsession was the Soviet Union. It was a reasonable thing to be obsessed with. Washington responded to every move it made, and vice-versa. The ability to imagine how the stinger missiles would lead to the disastrous withdrawal just experienced could not be reasonably expected. But there were points at which we could see what we had done, long after the beginning. That is hindsight. This war was launched by Carter and continued in some form or another until now. And for the American people, it was rarely thought of, and the price rarely considered, a war of 40 years, a war of death and mayhem. It was a sideshow for those of us who demand accountability, yet rarely hold ourselves accountable.
And for this reason I am angry at the anger of the past few weeks. Where were we for the past four decades? The war was not a secret, nor were its dangers and probable outcome unknown. I mourn all those killed and those who are now unable to leave Afghanistan. But the casualties of the end were a very small fraction of the casualties incurred over the decades on all sides. At some point, democracy demands that the people hold themselves accountable rather than merely those they elect. Democracy is not simply about rights. It is also about responsibility and, in this case, a 40-year war dragging on in its murderous way. I did not stir myself to speak out. I will not condemn my fellow citizens or my government for what I myself failed to do.
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