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The same people who lied about how tough the Russians were, lied about how well the ANA was going to withstand the Taliban, There's a difference between "lying

The same people who lied about how tough the Russians were, lied about how well the ANA was going to withstand the Taliban, There's a difference between "lying" about things, and being simply deluded or deeply misunderstanding them. Of course they lied about WMD. But they didn't "lie" about those other two situations. Whether you like it or not, there's a major distinction at play here. lost the last 5 decades of wars It's true that they lost the 3 major wars (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan). But they didn't lose all of their pet wars in this time period. The Gulf War (I betcha forgot that one!) was a very, very major conflict that they won unambiguously. So already, you're completely out to lunch, right there. But there were numerous second-order conflicts that they won also during this time period. This most significant was the proxy war against the USSR in Afghanistan (effectively the "First Afghan War" from the US perspective) which was unambiguously won, also. Which BTW had some pretty huge consequences (though it seems you've forgotten about those, as well). And several second-order conflicts in addition (Panama, Yugoslavia, Kosovo) that were effectively won also, even if others (Syria, Libya) were not. I know, I know - like Reagan said, "facts are boring things". What's my point, you ask? Let's get right to it. What if they’re just full of shit? Of course they're full of shit. But what's vastly more important point is -- if you can't be even ballpark correct about the stuff above -- or (as seems to be more likely the case) you plainly don't care -- then what does that make you full of? If it's all just word salad to you -- if the basic factual accuracy of stuff like this just doesn't really matter to you; as long as you can smoosh the various bullet points together somehow, and sculpt them in your into whatever broad, sweeping, hypermoralistic narrative that your worldview seems to hinge on -- then not only are you no different, really, from "them" and all of their big, fat stinking lies. Effectively, you're on the same team.

analognoise 2y ago
Sorry, meant 5 decades of losses, not 5 wars. You’re right we won one! And screwed up that area so badly we got ISIS. You wrote a big long post to say I lied as bad as the warmongers and liars, and totally left out my other points. Essentially built an entire argument on a keyboard slip and called me a liar on the same magnitude to distract - without mentioning anything about the legalized torture, secret laws, and secret courts! Cool trick, but it probably won’t work here - we’ve read the manual about subverting and redirecting online discourse.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  It wasn't a trick, and I'm not subverting or redirecting anything. Meanwhile, yours wasn't merely a keyboard slip. The point, simply, is that your encapsulation of the last 5 decades was very myopic. Don't mean to condescend, but it does seem that in terms of basic global history you're still playing catch-up, as it were. The concern (as I attempted to articulate) wasn't so much that you were "lying", but that (going by your statements) you do seem to have a rather blasé attitude about the truth, and/or to have simply missed out on a lot of the major event chronology of the last 50 years. Which suggests that you're much more interested in your moral narratives than in what actually happened, or why. The irony here is that we probably agree about 70 percent in terms of which side is "bad" and who is to "blame". It's just that that other 30 percent is, unfortunately, complex and intermixed. If it helps, I hereby mention "legalized torture, secret laws, and secret courts". In turn, if you like, you can "mention" the ethnic cleansings in Srebrenica, Prijedor, Foča, Zvornik, Doboj Bosanski Šamac and Bijeljina -- and what, precisely, you think the morally compromised Western powers should have done about this general state of affairs at the time. That is, if these events ping your awareness at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnian_War#/media/File:Branjevo_Military_Farm_Grave_Exhumation.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnia...

analognoise 2y ago

Sorry, meant 5 decades of losses, not 5 wars. You’re right we won one! And screwed up that area so badly we got ISIS. You wrote a big long post to say I lied as bad as the warmongers and liars, and totally left out my other points. Essentially built an entire argument on a keyboard slip and called me a liar on the same magnitude to distract - without mentioning anything about the legalized torture, secret laws, and secret courts! Cool trick, but it probably won’t work here - we’ve read the manual about subverting and redirecting online discourse.

aguaviva 2y ago
It wasn't a trick, and I'm not subverting or redirecting anything. Meanwhile, yours wasn't merely a keyboard slip. The point, simply, is that your encapsulation of the last 5 decades was very myopic. Don't mean to condescend, but it does seem that in terms of basic global history you're still playing catch-up, as it were. The concern (as I attempted to articulate) wasn't so much that you were "lying", but that (going by your statements) you do seem to have a rather blasé attitude about the truth, and/or to have simply missed out on a lot of the major event chronology of the last 50 years. Which suggests that you're much more interested in your moral narratives than in what actually happened, or why. The irony here is that we probably agree about 70 percent in terms of which side is "bad" and who is to "blame". It's just that that other 30 percent is, unfortunately, complex and intermixed. If it helps, I hereby mention "legalized torture, secret laws, and secret courts". In turn, if you like, you can "mention" the ethnic cleansings in Srebrenica, Prijedor, Foča, Zvornik, Doboj Bosanski Šamac and Bijeljina -- and what, precisely, you think the morally compromised Western powers should have done about this general state of affairs at the time. That is, if these events ping your awareness at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnian_War#/media/File:Branjevo_Military_Farm_Grave_Exhumation.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnia...