It seems like a polar exploration to place the first foot in this space.
What to say in the quickening of fear, aggression and war?
Self absorption doesn’t cut it and brown shoes don’t make it.
Frank Zappa bit it at 47 and Bob Marley, too. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was also a member of the 47 Club.
Then we have Hendrix and Morrison and Joplin in the 27 club.
All the good ones die young.
It starts and ends somewhere.
Not trying to start anything.
Dualismo es duda
I think the key (the missing part, the necessary part) in dualism is balance. There is an imbalance in everything due to their insane activities. I just read somewhere 70% of all birds on earth are food chickens.
Nature has a way of rebalancing things, sometimes abruptly, some times slowly.
And Caitlyn Johnstone is still reminding us that they are more afraid of us than we are of them. As we have less and less to lose over time, they have more and more to lose.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the “Chinese balloon” is nothing more than an errant weather balloon, especially on a weekend with a significant and unusual dip in the jet stream. Hence, it’s path as well. I could be wrong, of course,
What’s significant here is what they are calling the balloon, what they are naming the balloon. They wanted us to fear a balloon. Looking closely, their fear of us is very real.
Let’s be clear. We have lived in cities for many, many thousands of years, so many centuries that living in cities can be seen as an evolutionary adaptation. Yet some maintain the opposite, that we are not adapted to close living in cities, that human nature is adapted to the small tribal hunter-gatherer societies we imagine once existed or still exist somewhere as well as deep inside each of us. City-living through that lens is an aberration which we have never adapted to and is unnatural, vile and evil.
Let’s understand, both can be true depending on the individual. Neither is wrong in all cases; neither is right. The dualism that pervades so many of these viewpoints is sometimes quite absurd, in part because we are habitually denying the reality in front of us.
Billions of people live in cities and enjoy it. They don’t want to live anywhere else or in any other way. Those who feel otherwise are a distinct and I suspect shrinking minority.
I’m one of them. I’m not at all adapted to living in cities — I tried, I really tried, but I’m just not adapted to city living. So it is with many of those broken down cowboys and rebels out here in the wilderness.
Good people, most of them, but not “city people”.
We tend to think that we have the answers. We may think that way, like most people who abjure city living, but that’s false. We don’t have the answers, not even in many cases for ourselves. But some of us, at least, can think about it almost rationally.
I believe the pitting of the 99 percent against one another has entered a new phase. The sophistication has exponentially grown with the tools to Achieve this. The same tools used in landing Brexit and the election of the orange fool have been used increasingly by those that would benefit from the rabble at each others throats. Clearly pitting one against another on trivial and non trivial matters has been a problem for thousands of years but it has never been possible to apply it on such a minute scale. Made possible of course with the advent of personal devices It is really just getting started. The situation with housing and housing policy in much of the world is a perfect example how going forward the generational interests are being weaponized to benefit the financial masters.
Thanks Bruce.
I stand corrected.
36 for Marley, though?
Maybe. I haven’t Wikipediaed it. I thought in his 40’s
You ever hear the story about the CIA employing one of their whacky schemes to place a poison tack in the sole of a pair of gift boots, which activated and led to brain cancer and his death?
I once read an account that had some plausibility.
Frank Zappa made it to 53? Hmm. Interesting factoid that he eschewed drugs but copiously consumed cigarettes and coffee.
Not that it matters.
Trivia lacks weight
There’s much to be said about 1% pitting us 99% against each other. Tim Pool once did, until he got bought out by the 1% and now helps them pit us against each other. But they can’t turn all of us into 1%ers now can they?
It gets tricky. I’ve tried reasoning with the ‘other’ half of the mob that it’s concentrations of power that’s our enemy, and not some made up astroturfed other team which doesn’t really exist in reality. But they seem to need to believe in and follow behind some concentration of power as if their own religion depends on it.
This is a subject that I have not written about in over 10 years. The subject is really not of any use anymore. It is now just some entertaining trivia.
On June 8th 1967 the Israeli Air Force attacked the US naval ship USS Liberty. The Israelis claimed it was an accident. An investigation done at the time by the US Navy also chalked the the incident as an accident.
But that asssessment of an accident was never shared by the crew of the USS Liberty. Then many years later an Israeli pilot is claimed to have publically said that he told his supiriors that they were attacking a US vessel and his supiriors told him to continue the attack. Find your own sources on that I am not in the mood to look up sources that I read decades ago.
In addition to that it is reported that upon his death bed the US Naval officer that was the head of the investigation said that he was ordered to conclude that the attack was an accident. President Johnson was also reported as saying that he did not want to embarrass the Israelis. Again find you own sources. These details have all been out for a very long time.
What I add to the discussion which I alone am responsible for, which is something that never gets discussed anyways, so, big farting deal, is to me the most logical reason that the Israeli Air Force deliberately attacked the USS Liberty. There have been 3 or 4 common motives given for this attack. But my explination for the attack is unique.
I maintain that there is no way in hell that the Israeli Air Force, of course acting on behalf of the Israeli government would have deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, which the unbaised evidence overwhelming indicates that it did, unless it had gotten an order to do so from the US government.
Now one issue that I would like to address is would the US government oder an attack on one of its own vessels ever under any circumstances. Well it is certianly a matter opinion when it comes to who a person can and can not trust in this world. But I would point to the evidence that people at high levels in the US government knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor in advance. That is a widely believed though not unanimously believed assertion about this event.
So lets just say that a person niether agrees or disagrees with the Idea that such a command could have been given to the Israelis. When next has to answer what the motive was. As I said there are 3 or 4 suggetions floating around. I seem to recall it one of them having something to do with the Israelis trying to cover up a war crime in which they are alledged to have massacred Egyptian prisoners. Another one that i seem to recall is that the attack was supposed to have been blamed on the Egyptians to bring the US in to the war.
I myself do not think that any of the explinations that were given before mine ring true.
My explination is that this attack laid the cornerstone for the myth of the invincibility of the American Israeli caucus. This myth that Israel is a tail that wags the US dog took off at that time. This myth allows the US to blame Israel for things that the US wants to get done but does not want to be connected with. It turned Israel in to a lighting rod for US policy in the Middle East.
Of course that attack on the USS Liberty was only the cornerstone of the deception that Israel is an independent country with vast influence in the United States. The smoke and mirrors concerning Israel has never stopped in the last 60 years. The very idea that Israel has an independent nuclear deterrence is completely laughable. The Israelis could never launch a nuclear weapon with out the approval of the US Pentagon even if their lives depended up on it.
Of course discussing this subject is completely taboo in Confederate Circles which is now days almost all of US society, and much of western Europe as well. In Arab and Iranian Muslim circles this outlook is taken as obviously self evident. It might be taken as self evident in Iranian Secular circles as well. But not relevent anymore as too dwell on the subject would hinder Iran from becoming a NATO ally.
Truth has been banned. Obedience has been crowned as the soverign of western society.
Stuck in and witnessing what I call, the Deep State, California, nothing would surprise. It has likely the least State and Federal representation per capita in the US, the state legislature being even less per capita than the Federal: There’ve been only 80 Assembly members since 1854, and 40 Senators since 1862. Biden seems to carry around a Gavin Newsom, Governor of Californi a nefarious playbook in his back pocket.
Those not living in California, suggesting someone living there should contact their State or Federal Legislator must be joking; every single time I’ve done it, I’ve witnessed it to be a permanently scarring experience, particularly regarding matters pertaining to the well being of those with no large lobbies. Those living in California suggesting that, have either not lived here long enough, or, are possibly not to be trusted at all.
When did our American Institutions become dominated by dickheads? I can not say for sure. One can work backwards with quite a number of important events. The most recent is the assassination of President Kennedy. Then there was the implimintation of the National Security State during the Truman Administration. Then there was the implimentation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. But I think that the domination by dickheads goes all the back to the end of reconstruction when federal troops were pulled out of the south.
Of course there were plenty of dickheads in American Institutions ever since 1610 not to mention during the war of independence. The American Revolution given birth to by Thomas Paine was hijacked. But it was no doubt the inventions of the steam engine, leading to steam ships and trains, and of the telegraph that gave officers in the Union Army their new goal. After the consolidation of the continent their new goal would be to conquer the world. Of course they understood that such a goal would not be a one generation enterprise. It would be a challenging but doable go because of the new technological inventions. Orders could now be transmitted across great distances almost instantly. Reinforcements and supplies could be reliably sent to any corner of the empire.
This spirit came to possess America’s military institutions. Any suggestion that the American military leaders are not succeeding does not have the whole picture at its disposal.
Of nit pickers will say where is your documentaation for these assertions. The answer is of course there is none. These are not the types of things that get written down and eventually released to the public. But one can deduce them by indirect means.
For example the way that the US and the UK fought WW2. Any idiot who has a minimal amount of strategic thought ability can clearly see that if the UK and US really wanted to win WW2 in the shortest amount of time they would have occupied Sweden rather than North Africa when they did. This allows us to easily conclude that the allied strategy was far more driven to secure their own colonies and to make sure that there was no power vacuum that would have allowed the communists to come to power in France, Italy or Greece before the allies could take control of those countries.
Why can we easily conclude that. Because in terms of ending the war quickly occupying Sweden from a cost risk benefit perspective would have been a so much better thing to do. It would have robbed the Germans of a large source of iron ore. And it would have placed the allied forces in a position to invade Germany with needing to go through France and through the Westwall Germany’s version of the Maginot LIne. After landing in Germany allied forces would have been only a few hours drive from Berlin with no mountainous terrain to hold them up. Not only that it would have stretched the German forces much thinner to counteract an invasion.
BUT WAIT, WHAT ABOUT SWEDISH NEUTRALITY!!
That question would have stumped my until I was in my 20s. I learned at that time if the benefits were high enough the western allies did not give a shit about neutrality. It was then that Iearned that they occupied Iran during the war. Iran was a neutral country at that time, not a colony. But of course when I learned at that Iran was occupied during the war I did not make any connections to the rest of the war at all. It would take another 20 or 30 years before I started understanding the consequences of what these actions pointed to.
That is they point to the fact that the western allies were not really fighting against the Germans. They were trying to better position themselves in the conflict they saw would happen after the conflict with Germany was over. That is the conflict with the USSR and the communists movements in all countries, especially China.
This backwards look in time that I posted above was brought about by the realization that this is the 15 anniversary of other events that are unknown to all but a few. I might shed some light on those events in the near future.
It was a bit over 15 years ago that I sent out 4 letters to high ranking military officers in Alaska that I did not know. I sent these letters at the request of (at that time) LTC Fern O. Sumpter. At that time she was the commander of the US Army Garrison of Schinnen Netherlands which supported the US personnel of the NATO HQ in Brunnsum Netherlands and a NATO Airbase just across the border in Gemany which housed (houses) an AWACS squadron. Of course I was not supposed to reveal in my letters at whose request I was sending these letters. But I did so with out telling LTC Sumpter that I had did so. I did draft the letter alone and I did sign my name to it so that there could be no doubt about where I stood on the matter that was being addressed. But I thought adding the detail about who put me up to it would cause sparks to fly across the Atlantic.
I know longer remember in any detail what I wrote in those letters. But the gist of it was, to those to who the letters were addressed, should stop acting like Confederate military officers and start acting like Union officers.
Well I was quite surprised when 2 weeks after I sent the letters one of the four officers committed suicide. I no longer remember his name. But I am sure someone who does a google search can find it. Well considering that it would take a week for mail to go from the Schinnen APO to the Netherlands I figured that one week after my letter would (could) have arrived he shot himself. I wondered if the the letter that I sent had anything to do with his decision to off himself.
Of course something that I have to add is that I can not say for sure that any of those letters arrived to their destination. But if they did and my letter played a part in his decision to leave his employer in the very abrupt manner that he did I feel no remorse for my role what so ever. I wished that he would have made a longer term commitment to turning on his employer. But the fact that he chose no longer to support them is in my mind at least a tie. My record of victories over my opponents may stand at 0 at this point. But they can not say that I did not achieve at least one tie.
Even if my letter had absolutely nothing to do with his decision to commit suicide fate awards me with at least a tie based upon the timing of events.
OK in the grand scheme of things my activities have had no effect on the course of world events what so ever. But as we are now in a world situation officially without hope I can hope that some people’s loves will be made just a tad bit less miserable because they have been entertained by this story, for a few moments at least.
15 years ago hope was on life support. Hope expired 9 or 10 years ago. Though it appeared to have arisen 4 years ago for a short time only to have been shown to be a false hope.
I only recently discovered this site. Years ago I would have taken the time to read the entire achives after finding such a site. I no longer have tge patience or interest in doing such a thing. The archives of this site have added a whole decade compared to when I would have done such a thing.
The reason that I mention this is that I want to through out a question that has perhaps been discussed on this blog before.
The question that I wish to through out is, was there a real (primary) reason that the US had troops in Afghanistan for 20 years?
That the US military presence in Iran was about fighting terrorism being exported from Afghanistan never seemed to make sense to me because training for modern terrorism can take place inside of a bedroom closet anywhere on earth. It never seemed to be about defeating an insurgency that was trying to prevent the US from exporting democracy to Afghanistan because the tacitcs were not appropriate for such a goal. The US military knows darn good and well how to defeat an insurgency when it wants to. It has defeated plenty of left wing insurgencies. The French defeated a full blown Islamic insurgency in Algeria. US allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt have kept Islamic groups that the US does not condone out of power for decades.
This history of US involvement in opprssion leaves me sceptical of the orthodox version of history that the Taliban outlasted the US in Afghanistan.
But if the orthodox history is wrong, was the US military there only to make money for defence contractors? Was it there just to keep people in the military busy solving created problems in a nation half way around the world so that they would not have any time to think about problems in their own country? Did it initially have something to do with regime change in Iran which then became superseeded by a plan for regime change in Russia?
I would be interested in hearing if anyone has any unorthodox opiions about this episode in history.
Just for a bit of clarification. I do not believe that the any of the World Trade Centre Buildings were brought down on Sept. 11th 2001 by explosives placed inside of the buildings. But I do believe that the confederate George Bush, the head of the CIA, the head of the FBI, the head of the NSA, and at least 5 Generals (Admirals) knew in advance what was going to happen.
It happened such a long time ago that I no longer remember why I believe that. I have a short memory.
I accidently placed my question on the wrong open thread. I wonder if it should be moved to a more current open thread.
Another thing I found odd about the Afghan narrative. The US backed forces were often portrayed as lazy, corrupt, and drug addicted. This is the nation that threw the Russians out of Afghanistan.
So we are supposed to believe that only lazy, corrupt and drug addicted Afghans would come and join the Americans while all of the motivated, uncorruptable, and sober Afghans went to work for the Taliban. If this is so, why was it so?
mago
It seems like a polar exploration to place the first foot in this space.
What to say in the quickening of fear, aggression and war?
Self absorption doesn’t cut it and brown shoes don’t make it.
Frank Zappa bit it at 47 and Bob Marley, too. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was also a member of the 47 Club.
Then we have Hendrix and Morrison and Joplin in the 27 club.
All the good ones die young.
It starts and ends somewhere.
Not trying to start anything.
Dualismo es duda
Trinity
Well said, Mago.
I think the key (the missing part, the necessary part) in dualism is balance. There is an imbalance in everything due to their insane activities. I just read somewhere 70% of all birds on earth are food chickens.
Nature has a way of rebalancing things, sometimes abruptly, some times slowly.
And Caitlyn Johnstone is still reminding us that they are more afraid of us than we are of them. As we have less and less to lose over time, they have more and more to lose.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the “Chinese balloon” is nothing more than an errant weather balloon, especially on a weekend with a significant and unusual dip in the jet stream. Hence, it’s path as well. I could be wrong, of course,
What’s significant here is what they are calling the balloon, what they are naming the balloon. They wanted us to fear a balloon. Looking closely, their fear of us is very real.
Ché Pasa
Let’s be clear. We have lived in cities for many, many thousands of years, so many centuries that living in cities can be seen as an evolutionary adaptation. Yet some maintain the opposite, that we are not adapted to close living in cities, that human nature is adapted to the small tribal hunter-gatherer societies we imagine once existed or still exist somewhere as well as deep inside each of us. City-living through that lens is an aberration which we have never adapted to and is unnatural, vile and evil.
Let’s understand, both can be true depending on the individual. Neither is wrong in all cases; neither is right. The dualism that pervades so many of these viewpoints is sometimes quite absurd, in part because we are habitually denying the reality in front of us.
Billions of people live in cities and enjoy it. They don’t want to live anywhere else or in any other way. Those who feel otherwise are a distinct and I suspect shrinking minority.
I’m one of them. I’m not at all adapted to living in cities — I tried, I really tried, but I’m just not adapted to city living. So it is with many of those broken down cowboys and rebels out here in the wilderness.
Good people, most of them, but not “city people”.
We tend to think that we have the answers. We may think that way, like most people who abjure city living, but that’s false. We don’t have the answers, not even in many cases for ourselves. But some of us, at least, can think about it almost rationally.
bruce wilder
Rinpoche was 48, Zappa not quite 53, and Marley, 36.
Joe
I believe the pitting of the 99 percent against one another has entered a new phase. The sophistication has exponentially grown with the tools to Achieve this. The same tools used in landing Brexit and the election of the orange fool have been used increasingly by those that would benefit from the rabble at each others throats. Clearly pitting one against another on trivial and non trivial matters has been a problem for thousands of years but it has never been possible to apply it on such a minute scale. Made possible of course with the advent of personal devices It is really just getting started. The situation with housing and housing policy in much of the world is a perfect example how going forward the generational interests are being weaponized to benefit the financial masters.
mago
Thanks Bruce.
I stand corrected.
36 for Marley, though?
Maybe. I haven’t Wikipediaed it. I thought in his 40’s
You ever hear the story about the CIA employing one of their whacky schemes to place a poison tack in the sole of a pair of gift boots, which activated and led to brain cancer and his death?
I once read an account that had some plausibility.
Frank Zappa made it to 53? Hmm. Interesting factoid that he eschewed drugs but copiously consumed cigarettes and coffee.
Not that it matters.
Trivia lacks weight
mago
Bruce Wilder.
Boulder
Naropa
I think I got it.
But maybe not.
Growing older.
StewartM
One patient’s fight against United Healthcare:
https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis?utm_source=pocket-newtab
This shows how inadequate the ACA was about providing people real healthcare.
Willy
There’s much to be said about 1% pitting us 99% against each other. Tim Pool once did, until he got bought out by the 1% and now helps them pit us against each other. But they can’t turn all of us into 1%ers now can they?
It gets tricky. I’ve tried reasoning with the ‘other’ half of the mob that it’s concentrations of power that’s our enemy, and not some made up astroturfed other team which doesn’t really exist in reality. But they seem to need to believe in and follow behind some concentration of power as if their own religion depends on it.
Curt Kastens
This is a subject that I have not written about in over 10 years. The subject is really not of any use anymore. It is now just some entertaining trivia.
On June 8th 1967 the Israeli Air Force attacked the US naval ship USS Liberty. The Israelis claimed it was an accident. An investigation done at the time by the US Navy also chalked the the incident as an accident.
But that asssessment of an accident was never shared by the crew of the USS Liberty. Then many years later an Israeli pilot is claimed to have publically said that he told his supiriors that they were attacking a US vessel and his supiriors told him to continue the attack. Find your own sources on that I am not in the mood to look up sources that I read decades ago.
In addition to that it is reported that upon his death bed the US Naval officer that was the head of the investigation said that he was ordered to conclude that the attack was an accident. President Johnson was also reported as saying that he did not want to embarrass the Israelis. Again find you own sources. These details have all been out for a very long time.
What I add to the discussion which I alone am responsible for, which is something that never gets discussed anyways, so, big farting deal, is to me the most logical reason that the Israeli Air Force deliberately attacked the USS Liberty. There have been 3 or 4 common motives given for this attack. But my explination for the attack is unique.
I maintain that there is no way in hell that the Israeli Air Force, of course acting on behalf of the Israeli government would have deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, which the unbaised evidence overwhelming indicates that it did, unless it had gotten an order to do so from the US government.
Now one issue that I would like to address is would the US government oder an attack on one of its own vessels ever under any circumstances. Well it is certianly a matter opinion when it comes to who a person can and can not trust in this world. But I would point to the evidence that people at high levels in the US government knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor in advance. That is a widely believed though not unanimously believed assertion about this event.
So lets just say that a person niether agrees or disagrees with the Idea that such a command could have been given to the Israelis. When next has to answer what the motive was. As I said there are 3 or 4 suggetions floating around. I seem to recall it one of them having something to do with the Israelis trying to cover up a war crime in which they are alledged to have massacred Egyptian prisoners. Another one that i seem to recall is that the attack was supposed to have been blamed on the Egyptians to bring the US in to the war.
I myself do not think that any of the explinations that were given before mine ring true.
My explination is that this attack laid the cornerstone for the myth of the invincibility of the American Israeli caucus. This myth that Israel is a tail that wags the US dog took off at that time. This myth allows the US to blame Israel for things that the US wants to get done but does not want to be connected with. It turned Israel in to a lighting rod for US policy in the Middle East.
Of course that attack on the USS Liberty was only the cornerstone of the deception that Israel is an independent country with vast influence in the United States. The smoke and mirrors concerning Israel has never stopped in the last 60 years. The very idea that Israel has an independent nuclear deterrence is completely laughable. The Israelis could never launch a nuclear weapon with out the approval of the US Pentagon even if their lives depended up on it.
Of course discussing this subject is completely taboo in Confederate Circles which is now days almost all of US society, and much of western Europe as well. In Arab and Iranian Muslim circles this outlook is taken as obviously self evident. It might be taken as self evident in Iranian Secular circles as well. But not relevent anymore as too dwell on the subject would hinder Iran from becoming a NATO ally.
Truth has been banned. Obedience has been crowned as the soverign of western society.
multitude of poors
Curt Kastens,
Stuck in and witnessing what I call, the Deep State, California, nothing would surprise. It has likely the least State and Federal representation per capita in the US, the state legislature being even less per capita than the Federal: There’ve been only 80 Assembly members since 1854, and 40 Senators since 1862. Biden seems to carry around a Gavin Newsom, Governor of Californi a nefarious playbook in his back pocket.
Those not living in California, suggesting someone living there should contact their State or Federal Legislator must be joking; every single time I’ve done it, I’ve witnessed it to be a permanently scarring experience, particularly regarding matters pertaining to the well being of those with no large lobbies. Those living in California suggesting that, have either not lived here long enough, or, are possibly not to be trusted at all.
gotta really run….
Curt Kastens
When did our American Institutions become dominated by dickheads? I can not say for sure. One can work backwards with quite a number of important events. The most recent is the assassination of President Kennedy. Then there was the implimintation of the National Security State during the Truman Administration. Then there was the implimentation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. But I think that the domination by dickheads goes all the back to the end of reconstruction when federal troops were pulled out of the south.
Of course there were plenty of dickheads in American Institutions ever since 1610 not to mention during the war of independence. The American Revolution given birth to by Thomas Paine was hijacked. But it was no doubt the inventions of the steam engine, leading to steam ships and trains, and of the telegraph that gave officers in the Union Army their new goal. After the consolidation of the continent their new goal would be to conquer the world. Of course they understood that such a goal would not be a one generation enterprise. It would be a challenging but doable go because of the new technological inventions. Orders could now be transmitted across great distances almost instantly. Reinforcements and supplies could be reliably sent to any corner of the empire.
This spirit came to possess America’s military institutions. Any suggestion that the American military leaders are not succeeding does not have the whole picture at its disposal.
Of nit pickers will say where is your documentaation for these assertions. The answer is of course there is none. These are not the types of things that get written down and eventually released to the public. But one can deduce them by indirect means.
For example the way that the US and the UK fought WW2. Any idiot who has a minimal amount of strategic thought ability can clearly see that if the UK and US really wanted to win WW2 in the shortest amount of time they would have occupied Sweden rather than North Africa when they did. This allows us to easily conclude that the allied strategy was far more driven to secure their own colonies and to make sure that there was no power vacuum that would have allowed the communists to come to power in France, Italy or Greece before the allies could take control of those countries.
Why can we easily conclude that. Because in terms of ending the war quickly occupying Sweden from a cost risk benefit perspective would have been a so much better thing to do. It would have robbed the Germans of a large source of iron ore. And it would have placed the allied forces in a position to invade Germany with needing to go through France and through the Westwall Germany’s version of the Maginot LIne. After landing in Germany allied forces would have been only a few hours drive from Berlin with no mountainous terrain to hold them up. Not only that it would have stretched the German forces much thinner to counteract an invasion.
BUT WAIT, WHAT ABOUT SWEDISH NEUTRALITY!!
That question would have stumped my until I was in my 20s. I learned at that time if the benefits were high enough the western allies did not give a shit about neutrality. It was then that Iearned that they occupied Iran during the war. Iran was a neutral country at that time, not a colony. But of course when I learned at that Iran was occupied during the war I did not make any connections to the rest of the war at all. It would take another 20 or 30 years before I started understanding the consequences of what these actions pointed to.
That is they point to the fact that the western allies were not really fighting against the Germans. They were trying to better position themselves in the conflict they saw would happen after the conflict with Germany was over. That is the conflict with the USSR and the communists movements in all countries, especially China.
Curt Kastens
This backwards look in time that I posted above was brought about by the realization that this is the 15 anniversary of other events that are unknown to all but a few. I might shed some light on those events in the near future.
Curt Kastens
It was a bit over 15 years ago that I sent out 4 letters to high ranking military officers in Alaska that I did not know. I sent these letters at the request of (at that time) LTC Fern O. Sumpter. At that time she was the commander of the US Army Garrison of Schinnen Netherlands which supported the US personnel of the NATO HQ in Brunnsum Netherlands and a NATO Airbase just across the border in Gemany which housed (houses) an AWACS squadron. Of course I was not supposed to reveal in my letters at whose request I was sending these letters. But I did so with out telling LTC Sumpter that I had did so. I did draft the letter alone and I did sign my name to it so that there could be no doubt about where I stood on the matter that was being addressed. But I thought adding the detail about who put me up to it would cause sparks to fly across the Atlantic.
I know longer remember in any detail what I wrote in those letters. But the gist of it was, to those to who the letters were addressed, should stop acting like Confederate military officers and start acting like Union officers.
Well I was quite surprised when 2 weeks after I sent the letters one of the four officers committed suicide. I no longer remember his name. But I am sure someone who does a google search can find it. Well considering that it would take a week for mail to go from the Schinnen APO to the Netherlands I figured that one week after my letter would (could) have arrived he shot himself. I wondered if the the letter that I sent had anything to do with his decision to off himself.
Of course something that I have to add is that I can not say for sure that any of those letters arrived to their destination. But if they did and my letter played a part in his decision to leave his employer in the very abrupt manner that he did I feel no remorse for my role what so ever. I wished that he would have made a longer term commitment to turning on his employer. But the fact that he chose no longer to support them is in my mind at least a tie. My record of victories over my opponents may stand at 0 at this point. But they can not say that I did not achieve at least one tie.
Even if my letter had absolutely nothing to do with his decision to commit suicide fate awards me with at least a tie based upon the timing of events.
OK in the grand scheme of things my activities have had no effect on the course of world events what so ever. But as we are now in a world situation officially without hope I can hope that some people’s loves will be made just a tad bit less miserable because they have been entertained by this story, for a few moments at least.
Curt Kastens
15 years ago hope was on life support. Hope expired 9 or 10 years ago. Though it appeared to have arisen 4 years ago for a short time only to have been shown to be a false hope.
Curt Kastens
I only recently discovered this site. Years ago I would have taken the time to read the entire achives after finding such a site. I no longer have tge patience or interest in doing such a thing. The archives of this site have added a whole decade compared to when I would have done such a thing.
The reason that I mention this is that I want to through out a question that has perhaps been discussed on this blog before.
The question that I wish to through out is, was there a real (primary) reason that the US had troops in Afghanistan for 20 years?
That the US military presence in Iran was about fighting terrorism being exported from Afghanistan never seemed to make sense to me because training for modern terrorism can take place inside of a bedroom closet anywhere on earth. It never seemed to be about defeating an insurgency that was trying to prevent the US from exporting democracy to Afghanistan because the tacitcs were not appropriate for such a goal. The US military knows darn good and well how to defeat an insurgency when it wants to. It has defeated plenty of left wing insurgencies. The French defeated a full blown Islamic insurgency in Algeria. US allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt have kept Islamic groups that the US does not condone out of power for decades.
This history of US involvement in opprssion leaves me sceptical of the orthodox version of history that the Taliban outlasted the US in Afghanistan.
But if the orthodox history is wrong, was the US military there only to make money for defence contractors? Was it there just to keep people in the military busy solving created problems in a nation half way around the world so that they would not have any time to think about problems in their own country? Did it initially have something to do with regime change in Iran which then became superseeded by a plan for regime change in Russia?
I would be interested in hearing if anyone has any unorthodox opiions about this episode in history.
Curt Kastens
Just for a bit of clarification. I do not believe that the any of the World Trade Centre Buildings were brought down on Sept. 11th 2001 by explosives placed inside of the buildings. But I do believe that the confederate George Bush, the head of the CIA, the head of the FBI, the head of the NSA, and at least 5 Generals (Admirals) knew in advance what was going to happen.
It happened such a long time ago that I no longer remember why I believe that. I have a short memory.
Curt Kastens
I accidently placed my question on the wrong open thread. I wonder if it should be moved to a more current open thread.
Another thing I found odd about the Afghan narrative. The US backed forces were often portrayed as lazy, corrupt, and drug addicted. This is the nation that threw the Russians out of Afghanistan.
So we are supposed to believe that only lazy, corrupt and drug addicted Afghans would come and join the Americans while all of the motivated, uncorruptable, and sober Afghans went to work for the Taliban. If this is so, why was it so?