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Censorship is a tool, not a goal. The goal was control of Afghanistan. Go look at the map of control. The Taliban have made great gains and the US and allies ba
by babesh 5y ago
Censorship is a tool, not a goal. The goal was control of Afghanistan. Go look at the map of control. The Taliban have made great gains and the US and allies basically are giving up because they have bigger fish to fry. As noted, the censorship wasn’t about disinformation, it was and is just about power.
- dragontamer 5y agoCensorship is a tool. The goal was to prevent Daesh / ISIS from recruiting Americans into dying for their cause in Syria / Iraq. The number of US citizens flying out to die in a forsaken war on ISIS's side are miniscule to none. Believe it or not, American citizens were doing this back when the surge was happening. We successfully disrupted their information campaign and their recruitment. And ISIS / ISIL / Daesh is now fighting for relevance (albeit unsuccessfully, mainly on GETTR).
- spfzero 5y agoThey never needed American recruits. This is a sideshow. There are many millions of non-Americans in the world to recruit from, and many non-internet ways to do it.
- dragontamer 5y agoISIL didn't exist a few years ago. They only came into existence thanks to foreign recruits. Americans included of course. But there are recruits from all around the world. Disrupting that recruitment process is one of the shining examples of effective cyber warfare vs ISIL / daesh. Non-Americans use Facebook, YouTube, and other websites in large numbers. ------- ISIL is still trying to recruit from the US websites. We just censor the crap out of them so they make no progress. It's in fact, proof that censorship works in practice.
- b0tzzzzzzman 5y agoWhat are the bigger fish? Could you elaborate?
- babesh 5y agoThere are articles on the Internet that say that the US is withdrawing to focus on the great powers competition (basically China). It doesn’t have the extra resources to burn on Afghanistan and Iraq anymore. The US has also drawn down troops from Iraq.
- Retric 5y agoThe drawdown from Afghanistan started 10 years ago. The last remnants leaving are largely symbolic from a cost and manpower standpoint. US soldiers killed in Afghanistan is a reasonable proxy for number of soldiers actively engaged, 2009: 310, 2010: 496, 2011: 412, 2012: 301, 2013: 120, 2014: 2014, 2015: 22, 2016: 14, 2017: 17, 2018: 15, 2019: 22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt... Looking at just combat fatalities and the difference is even more obvious. 440 KIA in 2010 down to 11 in 2015.
- babesh 5y agoI don’t think this dismisses the cost and the strategic implications. The US/China rivalry was recognized even 10 years ago.