Pax Americana Falling apart in Afghanistan: Is it too soon to say we told you so?

[HershOstropoler]

Well that's a legitimate position, not necessarily a biased one.

[Ming]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Well that's a legitimate position, not necessarily a biased one.

As I said... It's a waste of time having this discussion.
If you can't see for yourself by the "tone" of just his stuff in this thread (and all of his stuff has the same "tone"), then nothing I or anybody can say will change your mind. If you want to consider his stuff "objective journalism"... go ahead... Many of us won't.

[HershOstropoler]

You don't get the difference. One can 100 % disagree with US foreign policy based on an isolationist stance, on a classic liberal concept of foreign policy, or on anti-american bias.

It does not necessarily have to be correct or just objective. But the anti-american bias you instantly claim based on the "tone" is not evident.

Again, what is he writing say about Chechenya?

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Can you imagine the United States making a 5 - 10 year commitment to Afghanistan? Wait a minute, isn't that roughly the commitment they made in Vietnam?

Do I also remember the "super patriots" here laughing when Afghanistan was compared to Vietnam.....

Where are they now? MTG? Chris62? Sprayber? Zkribbler?

Nowhere to be seen...............

Ming left to carry the can.............

You will have to post something more original than this to get me to trade insults with you. Try something with a southern flavor or maybe something along the lines of rabid feminism overtones. Old trolls such as this is really bad form.

[Ming]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
But the anti-american bias you instantly claim based on the "tone" is not evident.

As I said... a waste of time talking to the blind...

[monkspider]

Perhaps you should evaluate your own biases before calling others blind, Ming.

[Arrian]

It does not necessarily have to be correct or just objective. But the anti-american bias you instantly claim based on the "tone" is not evident.

Again, what is he writing say about Chechenya?

Are you seriously saying that you read the piece AH posted and did NOT get the impression that Fisk has an axe to grind with the US? If so, I agree with Ming, you're blind.

Second, I've never seen a Fisk article on Chechnya. Maybe he's written one, but since I come across his stuff in the Guardian & Lebanon Star, it's all ME/War on Terror related. And every single article I've read of his has the exact same tone w/respect to the US. The man long ago decided that all American policy was evil (I use that word deliberately, because not only does Fisk think US policy is wrong, he goes to great linguistic effort to paint it as morally bankrupt as well), and everything he writes will start with that basic premise. If you like reading that type of thing, I suppose you enjoy William Safire's pieces on Europe.

-Arrian

[HershOstropoler]

"Are you seriously saying that you read the piece AH posted and did NOT get the impression that Fisk has an axe to grind with the US?"

I could dig up articles that are a lot more vicious about our domestic policies. Nobody suggests they are "anti-austrian".

There's a big difference in style. The NY Times for example is a slightly edited news agency, not a paper apart from the op-ed section.

"If you like reading that type of thing, I suppose you enjoy William Safire's pieces on Europe."

I kind of enjoy it because he's quite eloquent, but in contrast to Fisk he's totally and utterly clueless on facts. If he argued his case as eloquently based on facts, ok. And I would be in doubt about his anti-european bias.

[Arrian]

There's a big difference in style. The NY Times for example is a slightly edited news agency, not a paper apart from the op-ed section.

This is indeed a major stylistic difference. IMO, opinion is for the op/ed section, the rest ought to be what you would consider bland - what I consider impartial (or as close as you can get to impartial). Frankly, I get my news by checking online for Reuters/Assoc. Press stories and then hitting the opinion sections of various papers to get the different spins.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Oh, forgot about your last comment re: Safire. So what you're saying is that if an anti-European rant artist (columnist) incorporated factual backup in their rants, they cease to be anti-European?

It makes them a better journalist, to be sure. But it does nothing to change their bias. I could hate Greece, and in order to support my anti-Greece bias, I could do research on anti-semitism in Greece (ala the recent thread Pattycakes started re: Croatian PM and Vet Legion's response). I could then lace an attack on Greek policy toward Israel with said research. That would not remove my anti-Greek bias.

-Arrian

ps Paiktis, if you happen to read this, no, I have nothing against Greece.

[SlowwHand]

With apologies in advance to GP, Lonestar, and countless others.


USMC Rules For Gunfighting During War

1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.

2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.

3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.

4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.

5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)

6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a Friend with a long gun.

7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.

9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.


9.5. Use a gun that works EVERY TIME. "All skill is in vain when an Angel pisses in the flintlock of your musket."

10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.

11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.

12. Have a plan.

13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.

14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible. The visible target should be in FRONT of your gun.

15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.

16. Don't drop your guard.

17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.

18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. (In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them).

19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.

20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.

21. Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.


23. Your number one Option for Personal Security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.

24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun the caliber of which does not start with a "4."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

U.S. Navy Rules to Gunfighting During War

1. Adopt an aggressive offshore posture.



2. Send the Marines.



3. Drink Coffee.

[HershOstropoler]

"This is indeed a major stylistic difference. IMO, opinion is for the op/ed section, the rest ought to be what you would consider bland - what I consider impartial"

That would be the case if it was limited to the facts. But actually, it means transporting the lies on the issue from both (or more) sides. That may be impartial, but also utterly useless. I can get that from the news agency.

"Frankly, I get my news by checking online for Reuters/Assoc. Press stories and then hitting the opinion sections of various papers to get the different spins."

Exactly.

"So what you're saying is that if an anti-European rant artist (columnist) incorporated factual backup in their rants, they cease to be anti-European?"

No, he has established his bias. But if he bases his rants on facts, and I have no "pure" rants from him, I cannot be sure about his anti-european bias. I could do a multi-page rant against the EU's agro policy - not because I'm anti-european, but out of liberal conviction.

[Arrian]

Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Oh, that's priceless.

Roland,

Ok, I suppose. But then again, the facts Fisk threw into that article posted by AH weren't what I'd consider to be that big a deal. Poppies being grown? Yep, since we're not gonna execute people for doing it. Al-Quaeda acting up? Not a surprise, our troops are fighting them. US lost a firefight? Shocker. It happens. Backlash against education for women? Duh. These things he puts forth as proof that U.S. policy w/respect to Afganistan is failing. Given the situation in Afganistan in 2001, I'm not sure more could be hoped for at this point in time. But he's clearly convinced that it's a big failure.

I've seen "pure rants" from him before. Older stuff on Iraq that was pure speculation (assertions about what was going on inside the Bush administration - how does Mr. Fisk really know?, and explanations of what this or that US official "really meant" when he or she said XYZ).

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Some of you may be aware that in the world of weblogs "Fisk" has no become a verb meaning to dissect a particularly biased and/or idiotic opinion piece. (as in "someone ought to Fisk the latest NYT editorial)



So here goes

>>>>Don't mention the war in Afghanistan

The near collapse of peace in this savage land is a narrative erased from the mind of Americans

By Robert Fisk - 05 February 2003

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=375608

>>>>>There's one sure bet about the statement to be made to the UN Security Council today by the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell ? or by General Colin Powell as he has now been mysteriously reassigned by the American press:

LOTM: perhaps because doves like to trot out the chickenhawk smear against anyone they disagree with.

he won't be talking about Afghanistan.


LOTM: : er, no surprise, since its Iraq thats on the agenda. Hes spoken about Afgan many times and in many places.


For since the Afghan war is the "successful" role model for America's forthcoming imperial adventure across the Middle East, the near-collapse of peace

LOTM: most press reports indicate that after some problems last summer, things have settled down.



in this savage land and the steady erosion of US forces in Afghanistan ? the nightly attacks on American and other international troops,

LOTM:Almost all unsuccesful


the anarchy in the cities outside Kabul,

LOTM:there has been violence, but certainly not anarchy. Theres a reason refugees have been going back TO afgahnistan - its safer than it was.


the warlordism

:in the last few months the Karzai govt has been making progress in extending central authority, firing local officials they dont like clamping down on warlord badsha khan in paktia.

and drug trafficking and steadily increasing toll of murders

LOTM:steadily increasing? - stats please


? are unmentionables, a narrative constantly erased from the consciousness of Americans who are now sending their young men and women by the tens of thousands to stage another "success" story.

LOTM: cause it is a success story.



This article is written in President George Bush's home state of Texas, where the flags fly at half-staff for the Columbia crew, where the dispatch to the Middle East of further troops of the 108th Air Defence Artillery Brigade from Fort Bliss and the imminent deployment from Holloman Air Force Base in neighbouring New Mexico of undisclosed numbers of F-117 Nighthawk stealth bombers earned a mere 78-word down-page inside "nib" report in the local Austin newspaper.

Only in New York and Washington do the neo-conservative pundits suggest ? obscenely ? that the death of the Columbia crew may well have heightened America's resolve and "unity" to support the Bush adventure in Iraq. A few months ago, we would still have been asked to believe that the post-war "success" in Afghanistan augured well for the post-war success in Iraq.

So let's break through the curtain for a while and peer into the fastness of the land that both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair promised not to forget. Hands up those who know that al-Qa'ida has a radio station operating inside Afghanistan which calls for a holy war against America?

LOTM:One that keeps on the run (using a mobile transmitter), moving along the Pakistan border. More important does anybody LISTEN to it?? Do they care what it says?? Are they rushing to join up??




It's true. Hands up again anyone who can guess how many of the daily weapons caches discovered by US troops in the country have been brought into Afghanistan since America's "successful" war? Answer: up to 25 per cent.


LOTM: Yup, keeps coming in from PAKISTAN. And our guys keep finding the stuff and destroying it before the baddies can use it. And when they do use it theyre ineffective, And BTW, no stinger missiles, the weapon that drove the russians out.



Have any US troops retreated from their positions along the Afghan-Pakistan border? None, you may say. And you would be wrong. At least five positions, according to Pakistani sources on the other side of the frontier, only one of which has been admitted by US forces.

LOTM:Yup the Paki border is hot - cause they cant operate from WITHIN Afganistan, so they operate from their Pakistani haven. Too bad our guys were forced to retreat. It would be great if we were so succesul that we never had to retreat, even from the most exposed position. But if retreats is a sign of failure, than the taliban and al qaeeda are the losers, since they retreat all the time. Why is it that when the taliban retreat its a clever strategy, but when we do it means everything is going to hell in a handbasket??


On 11 December, US troops abandoned their military outpost at Lwara after nightly rocket attacks which destroyed several American military vehicles. Their Afghan allies were driven out only days later and al-Qa'ida fighters then stormed the US compound and burnt it to the ground.

LOTM:They burned an abandoned mini-base - big whoop. Note also the base was NOT in a populated area - taliban is unable to "swim in the civilian sea" not a good sign for a querilla movement.


It's a sign of just how seriously America's mission in Afghanistan is collapsing that the majestically conservative Wall Street Journal ? normally a beacon of imperial and Israeli policy in the Middle East and South-west Asia ? has devoted a long and intriguing article to the American retreat, though of course that's not what the paper calls it.

LOTM:maybe its just a sign that theyre a serious paper, who like to keep their readers informed. Fisk seems to think all news articles must come through an ideological filter - a hint as to his approach.


"Soldiers still confront an invisible enemy,'' is the title of Marc Kaufman's first-class investigation, a headline almost identical to one which appeared over a Fisk story a year or so after Russia's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979-80. The soldiers in my dispatch, of course, were Russian. Indeed, just as I recall the Soviet officer who told us all at Bagram air base that the "mujahedin terrorism remnants" were all that was left of the West's conspiracy against peace-loving (and Communist) Afghans, so I observed the American spokesmen ? yes, at the very same Bagram air base ? who today cheerfully assert that al-Qa'ida "remnants" are all that are left of Bin Laden's legions.

LOTM: the russians said they only saw remants,and so do the Americans, ergo their fate will be the same. Maybe. Of course the russians faced the entire afgan people - at WORST we face the Pashtuns only. And that aint happened yet. The russian position began to collapse about a year after they went in (IIRC) weve been there for 16 months - the collapse had better begin soon, or Fisk will ahve to come up with a new angle.



\
Training camps have been set up inside Afghanistan again,

LOTM:some tiny little camp in Konar province only.

not ? as the Americans think ? by the recalcitrant forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's anti-American Afghans, but by Arabs.

LOTM:So there are some AQ arabs along with Hek - so what??


The latest battle between US forces and enemy "remnants" near Spin Boldak


LOTM: again, near the Pak border - they cant operate in fganistan. And our guys whupped them bad - 18-22 baddies killed, several captured, no coalition losses.



in Kandahar provinceinvolved further Arab fighters, as my colleague Phil Reeves reported. Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami forces have been "forging ties" with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban; which is exactly what the mujahedin "terrorist remnants" did among themselves in the winter of 1980, a year after the Soviet invasion.


LOTM:yeah but they had a national coalition, including effective fighters like Massoud. Hek-Taliban-AQ is a bunch of losers.


An American killed by a newly placed landmine in Khost;


LOTM:If we had that this few casualties a month in Viet Nam there would be a lot more Americans alive now. There are fewer US casualties than we had any reason to expect, but theure not zero. This is a quagmire???



16 civilians blown up by another newly placed mine outside Kandahar;

LOTM: Yes its terribele the baddies murder civilians. But they murdered more when they were in power. And alot more afgahns died during the post-92 civil war. By afgan standards, this is peaceful, not anarchy.

grenades tossed at Americans or international troops in Kabul;

LOTM :and missing.

further reports of rape and female classroom burnings in the north of Afghanistan ?

LOTM- bad, but afgan women dont want to go back. Much more common are openings of schools for women, new roles in the govt for women, etc.


all these events are now acquiring the stale status of yesterday's war.

LOTM :they may be stale but are they happening on a large enough scale to matter??

So be sure that Colin Powell will not be boasting to the Security Council today of America's success in the intelligence war in Afghanistan.

LOTM: cause thats not the subject of his speech. Plenty stuff on this is out there, of course, but that would mean FIsk would actually have to do RESEARCH, and be a journalist.



It's one thing to claim that satellite pictures show chemicals being transported around Iraq, or that telephone intercepts prove Iraqi scientists are still at their dirty work; quite another to explain how all the "communications chatter" intercepts which the US supposedly picked up in Afghanistan proved nothing.

LOTMroved nothing about what??????


As far as Afghanistan is concerned, you can quote Basil Fawlty: "Whatever you do, don't mention the war.''
LOTM: Bush mentioned in prominently in the State of the Union, as do US officials all the time.


There, thats a "fisking" - understand now????

[lord of the mark]

BTW - keep posting more Fisk - its fun taking him down