TaleWorlds News: New News Necessary for the OT Neophytes

[Nodice83]

Consider the alternative - they couldn't leave their fragile client government that would likely lose to the Taliban. Which is exactly what happened when they left, although much quicker than anyone wished to believe.
Also consider how there were significant troop withdrawals in the last years, so there were less fighting and less soldiers already. If the conflict was ruled by shady weapon manufacturers, they would have wanted a full scale war where expensive munitions are expended freely by a great number of troops, not a seasonal low intensity conflict.
My thesis is that you would have done the same if you ruled the US, because it makes sense, sometimes strategically, but more often politically.

Not to overthink this issue so much:

- If I'd rule the US (not gonna happen I wasn't born on US soil but let me dream further), then probably I'd consider it earlier. But yes, that makes sense strategically and politically only... they should have done it in 2011... As public opinion demanded. I get it was enough for Americans but those feelings reached their critical mass when? This year? Last year? Or several years ago?
- I consider your thesis/alternative equally plausible and not necessarily tightly related to the... let's call it for the sake of this discussion "money plot" . There are other equally influential entities to a president, congress, etc. Those shady weapon manufacturers are no longer shady nor Bond-style villains. Those are usually known to public, respectable, cold-hearted CEOs of corporations that sign huge contracts with the government, fund politicians, and so on. Those people know each other and their future relies on common relations.
- Biden administration wasn't prepared for this withdrawal at all so this was way too premature... Not to mention people, animals, the whole equipment left, and so on. That is very much surprising.

BOTTOM LINE: I have no doubt that the decision was mainly moral and political but contrasting this with expenses (e.g. "see how much we spent and for what...") isn't IMO the most fortunate as no politician (sane one) will ever admit publicly that 'War is good for business".

 

[Mad Vader]

The money angle is not inconsistent with rational foreign policy.
Imagine that a war is just a big government project, like a major piece of infrastructure. Also assume that most voters agree that the war is needed, just like a major railway connection.
There's a lot of taxpayer money budgeted for the project. What usually happens is that those currently in power try to give out contracts related to the project to their friends and members of their political networks. This happens every damn time there's a major project, and Western democracies only do this less blatantly than corrupt dictatorships.
This must be a law of nature and any amount of transparency and accountability written down in laws can and will be bypassed with administrative tricks.
War budgets, if anything, are more open to corruption as there's less oversight than for civilian projects, and people asking too many questions are easily branded as unpatriotic.

 

[Adorno]

On topic. Erik Prince presented the idea to privatize the war (about 3 years ago).

Here’s the blueprint for Erik Prince’s $5 billion plan to privatize the Afghanistan war

The U.S. has spent $1 trillion in Afghanistan. The Blackwater founder asks, is it time to try something new?

www.militarytimes.com

Privatizing War in Afghanistan Endangers Civilians

This month, the US war in Afghanistan turns 17. Americans born after the conflict began can now enlist in the armed forces. It’s a war in which all parties have committed war crimes and grave human rights abuses, and civilian casualties have reached new highs. But Americans and Afghans looking...

www.hrw.org

Prince said he could end the war in “six months after the program is fully ramped,” using “contracted veteran mentors” to support Afghan forces.

 

[Nodice83]

This happens every damn time there's a major project, and Western democracies only do this less blatantly than corrupt dictatorships.

As I function in what will soon become an oligarchic republic... my thoughts are: there is no way to stop or somehow put that **** on a leash. The more authoritarian the government is the more corrupted it will become.

On topic. Erik Prince presented the idea to privatize the war (about 3 years ago).

He would now need to re-invade Afghanistan to put his plan in motion...

 

[Nega-Brutus]

War budgets, if anything, are more open to corruption as there's less oversight...

Wdym by corruption here?

 

[Adorno]

Vatican inquiry exonerates Brooklyn’s DiMarzio on sex abuse charges | Crux

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced on Sept. 1 that it found allegations of sexual abuse against Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio “not to have the semblance of truth” after a year-plus-long independent investigation.

cruxnow.com

Bishop Named by Pope to Investigate Abuse Is Accused Himself (Published 2019)

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who was recently chosen to lead an inquiry into clergy abuse in Buffalo, faces an accusation of molesting an altar boy in Jersey City in the 1970s.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Nodice83]

Vatican inquiry exonerates Brooklyn’s DiMarzio on sex abuse charges | Crux

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced on Sept. 1 that it found allegations of sexual abuse against Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio “not to have the semblance of truth” after a year-plus-long independent investigation.

cruxnow.com

Bishop Named by Pope to Investigate Abuse Is Accused Himself (Published 2019)

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who was recently chosen to lead an inquiry into clergy abuse in Buffalo, faces an accusation of molesting an altar boy in Jersey City in the 1970s.

www.nytimes.com

Mother****ers.

 

[DanAngleland]

If only it was the mothers!

 

[Nodice83]

If only it was the mothers!

I read about this **** every day and wonder what other proofs this ****ed up world requires to burn this abomination of a church to the ground?

 

[Mad Vader]

If you look very closely, you can see @Terco_Viejo taking selfies.

Spoiler: La Palma at night: the floor is lava

 

[Terco_Viejo]

If you look very closely, you can see @Terco_Viejo taking selfies.

Spoiler: La Palma at night: the floor is lava

I've been here since first light this morning, it's only just dawned...

----
Joking aside , according to experts the eruption is of "low magnitude" despite the spectacular images. Unfortunately the unstoppable effects of the lava on material goods on its way to the sea are already considerable, fortunately there are (and will not be - previously evacuated) no personal losses.

I was amused to read in some other international media the (totally unfounded) hysteria that the La Palma volcano could collapse its caldera, causing a titanic landslide that would crash into the sea, causing a devastating tsunami that would hit the North American coast....

 

[Adorno]

You're a true Pliny The Elder

I've read about the seismic activity for about a week now.
Nice that they had good time to evacuate people and generally prepare.

EDIT: The volcano just keeps going. Thankfully no casualties.

Canary Islands: Airport closed as volcano intensifies

Hundreds of homes have been destroyed on the Spanish island since the eruption began.

www.bbc.com

 

[Mad Vader]

Midlife crisis causes Nazism (light blue)!
Just kidding, it's East German xenophobia that causes it.
In green (and violet), you can see Monty slowly growing out of ideological zealotry and becoming more moderate and practical instead.
(Personally, I'm just glad that Germans voted in high numbers and voted moderate parties with the populists gaining nothing. That's confidence in politics restored. Hopefully, it's a wider trend that takes us back to sobriety from the populist times.)

 

[Adorno]

It looks very much up in the air, with SPD in the lead to form a government.

 

[eddiemccandless]

This is entirely based on my personal opinion rather than facts and data, but I was always under the impression that Germany was less likely to fall for populism again as a country given the obvious past experiences and the fact that, unlike others countries I can think of, they actually took some time and effort to deal with their past and fully recognize what went wrong (reparations and all that).

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Denazification is mostly a meme, while most Germans are taught that Nazism was bad, that's as deep as it really goes. As recently as the 1990s a lot of Germans openly promoted rehabilitative myths about Nazism either to save their own face or the face of their parents and grandparents. A combination of American reluctance to fully denazify West Germany during the cold war, and the inability for many people to come to terms with the fact that many of their relatives were agents in the worst genocide in human history, has led to a terrible cocktail of a country full of people who believe they've left the past behind while basically echoing the same ideology in the present.

 

[Adorno]

There's been many cases in the military and police with people hailing (pun intended) extreme nationalist views,
and they have policies in place to try and root them out. And AfD got about 10% of the votes.
Still, Germany is a strong democracy. No reason to fear national socialism more than so many other places.
Immigration in coming years can of course shift the political landscape even more, as we've seen in recent years.

Berlin reacts to fresh allegations on extremism in military – DW – 06/13/2020

A German magazine has published claims by a whistleblower that right-wing extremism is tolerated within the country's elite fighting command. One instructor allegedly made no secret of his support for neo-Nazi ideals.

www.dw.com

Bundeswehr probes extremism within the ranks – DW – 09/29/2017

Germany's military counterintelligence service is probing 391 cases of right-wing extremism, according to the Defense Ministry. An opposition politician called far-right soldiers "ticking time bombs."

www.dw.com

 

[TimIZ]

MLPD/DKP (communists) and NPD/III. Weg (Neonazis) got less than 0,3% of the votes in my state. Combined. Can`t remember any election where the most left winged and right winged parties got so few votes in Germany.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

Damn, well that's good news. Germany has definitely had Nazi problems in the past decade. Part of the KSK was disbanded last year due to the whole unit culture being ripe with Neo-Nazism. Personally, I'm very worried about things resembling Neo-Nazism in the US, most of the right has acquired some very extreme views from the 2020 election, a large percentage are not opposed to violence, and they believe that they are saving the country from Marxism. (Where have we heard that one before?) These kinds of views are only becoming more and more popular in the US. Things might be quieter now due to no Trump, but most of this is simmering under the surface, likely ready to be unleashed next election.

 

[eddiemccandless]

It's always been there in the US. Trump did make it mainstream and made recruitment easier though. What worries me most is the Orwellian denying of reality (election fraud, vaccine conspiracy theories and what have you). You can talk to someone who disagrees with you politically, but you can't really talk to someone that's convinced that it's sunny when standing in the rain.