Open Thread 2021-69

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Afghanistan - State Department Sanctimoniously Laments About 'Lack Of Female Leaders'

The Hill is channeling  State Department 'concerns':

State Department voices concerns over all-male Taliban government

The State Department on Tuesday expressed concerns over the makeup of the new interim Afghan government announced by the Taliban, including the lack of female leaders and the past actions of some of those appointed to top posts.

A State Department spokesperson said in a statement shared with The Hill that although the Taliban “has presented this as a caretaker cabinet,” the U.S. “will judge the Taliban by its actions, not words.”

“We have made clear our expectation that the Afghan people deserve an inclusive government,” the spokesperson added.

The statement went on to note that the list of names announced by the Taliban earlier Tuesday “consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates and no women.”

Well, the 'caretaker' government surely reflects the wishlist of the Pakistani spy service ISI. Its boss had flown to Kabul to get it implemented as soon as possible.

Sure, the U.S. does not like that. But a look at the governments of certain U.S. 'allies' lets me wonder how genuine the 'concern' about a 'lack of female members' really is.

Cont. reading: Afghanistan - State Department Sanctimoniously Laments About 'Lack Of Female Leaders'

CNN 'Exclusive' Repeats MoA's Year Old Reporting - Ukraine/CIA Tried To Snatch Russian Veterans

Trust in U.S. media is at a record low:

The United States ranks last in media trust — at 29% — among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries, a report released Wednesday found. That’s worse than Poland, worse than the Philippines, worse than Peru. (Finland leads at 65%.)

One reason is that U.S. media are either not reporting important events, are misreporting them, or are very late in covering twisted plots that even a lowly blogger can get right just as they happen.

On August 7 2020 Moon of Alabama reported on a Ukrainian operation designed to lead to the arrest, in Ukraine, of soldiers who had fought on the side of Donbas during the Ukrainian war on its east:

People who had claimed to work for the Russian oil conglomerate Rosneft, but used a fake Rosneft domain for their emails, had hired Ukrainian/Russian veterans who had fought on the pro-Russian side in the civil war in the Ukraine.

The men were told that they would guard oil fields in Syria and in Venezuela. They received some money and were given tickets prepared for them for a flight from Minsk to Turkey. Those tickets were booked by an Ukrainian travel agency in Kiev which seems to have been founded solely for that purpose. But when the mercenaries arrived in Belarus they were told that the flight had been canceled. They were put into a local hotel and told to wait a few days for another flight.

The Ukrainian secret service then informed Lukashenko that a group of Russian mercenaries were in his country to launch a coup during the upcoming election. Lukashenko has publicly acknowledged that the information about the group had come from the Ukraine. Belarus arrested the men and the Ukraine immediately demand their extradition.

the original idea had been to make the plane with the former soldiers land in the Ukraine during its flight from Minsk to Turkey. The former soldiers would then have been arrested.

But some entity on the Ukrainian side - some says its president's office, others blame the CIA - sabotaged the original plan to create a ruckus in Belarus. After Russian media uncovered the whole plot Belarus released the veterans and let them go back to Russia.

On September 21 2020 Moon of Alabama flogged the New York Times over misreporting the story:

Cont. reading: CNN 'Exclusive' Repeats MoA's Year Old Reporting - Ukraine/CIA Tried To Snatch Russian Veterans

How U.S. Levant Policies Defeated Themselves

The hostility of the U.S. against the resistance axis in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon has led to conflicting aims. While the U.S. wants to isolate the 'resistance' it also wants to keep its own dominating role in Lebanon. Those aims are now in conflict. The U.S. is thus in a situation where it will have to lift sanctions against Syria to be able to politically compete with Hizbullah in Lebanon.

The U.S. had put Lebanon under an economic siege to pressure it into doing its bidding:

Following Israel’s failure to disrupt or defeat Hezbollah in the 2006 war, the victory of the Resistance Axis in the Syrian conflict, and the growing military and strategic reach of Hezbollah, the US set into motion a policy to starve out Lebanon and destabilize the country’s economy. Washington’s bag of tricks is empty, save this one last sanctions-and-siege weapon.
...
Israel wants the US to do the impossible: pressure Lebanon into disarming Hezbollah and resume talks over the disputed Mediterranean Sea border for gas extraction.
...
In the meantime, the Lebanese have lost trust in a banking system that confiscated their life’s savings almost two years ago, and a US-backed Central Bank that has contributed to the collapse of the local currency. The bankrupt Lebanese government has, in turn, eradicated most of the subsidies on gasoline needed for the functioning of hospitals, electricity, transport, and bakeries.

The country has no monetary reserves left to import oil or gasoline and to generate electricity. Power cuts are now lasting 22 hours per day. There is no functional government that could solve those problems.

Cont. reading: How U.S. Levant Policies Defeated Themselves

Why You Should Get Vaccinated But Don't Need A Third Shot

There were again a number of misleading comments about Covid-19 in yesterday's open thread. I have deleted a dozen or so of those.

It doesn't help that the media are currently back at bad reporting about the various vaccine issues.

Here are some clarifications about the current situation:

Q: Why do people who were vaccinated still get Covid-19?

A: The vaccines are not giving a 'sterilizing immunity'. They were not designed for that and never promised to do so. What the vaccines do in fairy reasonable quality is to prepare the body to fight Covid-19 early and effectively. Nearly all people who got vaccinated will be protected from a severe progression of the disease.

Q: If the vaccine does not protect me from getting Covid-19 why should I still take one?

A: SARS-CoV-2, which causes Convid-19, is a new virus and our bodies are not prepared to fight it. The vaccines, by looking like a part of the virus, are teaching the body to fight the real virus. Once that is done special cells in our bodies will remember that fight. As soon as they detect a real infection they will be ready to attack it.

Q: But would that not also happen if just get infected by SARS-CoV-2 without being vaccinated?

A: Yes it would. But the speed at which the body can fight the virus is much slower in unvaccinated people. Speed is of great importance here. Remember that the Covid-19 disease happens in two phases. The virus first attacks in the upper respiratory tract - the nose and throat. Some seven days or so later it goes down into the lungs. It then can cause a so called cytokine storm during which the body overreacts and attacks itself in multiple organs. To avoid a progression into the second phase of Covid-19 the body must fight the virus as fast as possible.

Q: But the vaccine efficiency is waning over time and they are telling us that we need a third or even a fourth shot.

A: Yes, Pfizer and Co want to sell more vaccines. But for most people a third or fourth shot will not be necessary at all. Let me explain:

Cont. reading: Why You Should Get Vaccinated But Don't Need A Third Shot

The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-068

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• Aug 30 - Ukraine Shuts Down Opposition Media - U.S. Ambassador Applauds 'Daring Act', Calls For Support
  Related:
  - Out of Afghan frying pan & into Ukrainian fire? America’s empire builders have another pawn to fuel their apocalyptic chess game - RT

• Aug 31 - The U.S. Has A Plan For What's Next in Afghanistan - It Does Not Include Peace
• Sep 3 - Why U.S. Plans For Revenge In Afghanistan May Not Succeed
  Related:
  - Kabul drone strike: The key questions about a US attack - BBC
  - Nemesis: Why the west was doomed to lose in Afghanistan - Anatol Lieven / Prospect
  - Washington has devised a way of waging war that inevitably leads to American failure - Patrick Cockburn / Independent

The Taliban are now near Rokheh.

bigger

• Sep 1 - To Counter U.S. Hostility China Moves Towards People Centered Policies
  Related:
  - Full Translation: Everyone Can Sense That a Profound Transformation is Underway! - China Digital Times
  - China's 'revolution' cost investors $3 trillion. So why aren't they running scared? - CNN
  - Soros’ Dream: To Turn China Into a Neoliberal Grabitization Opportunity - Michael Hudson / Counterpunch

• Sep 2 - On The Breeding Of Money - by Gordog

• Sep 3 - The U.S. Foreign Policy 'Establishment' Is Incredibly Dumb
  Related:
  - Welcome To Hegemonic Decline — It Ain't Pretty - Michael Tracey
  - 9/11 wasn’t the Pearl Harbor of our generation - Responsible Statecraft

---
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-068

Why U.S. Plans For Revenge In Afghanistan May Not Succeed

The U.S. does not want piece in Afghanistan. There are two reasons for that.

The first is vengefulness.

That an alleged superpower gets kicked out of a country by some local guerilla is too hard to accept. That the rush to the exit has happened in a rather humiliating way, even when caused by U.S. incompetence and not by the Taliban, only reinforces that.

The vengefulness could already be seen in last days of the U.S. occupation. The U.S. forces leaving Kabul not only destroyed military equipment but also the civilian part of the airport.

Murad Gazdiev @MuradGazdiev - 16:06 UTC · Sep 1, 2021

US troops wrecked both civilian terminals as they evacuated from Kabul airport.
All the security cameras were broken, computers destroyed, many glass panes shattered. Electrical cabling was cut, the x-ray machines were broken and even arrival/departure screens overturned Images

None of this was necessary or made any sense. Just days later the U.S. Secretary of State demanded that the Taliban reopen the airport to allow for more brain drain from the country.

Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai - 12:11 UTC · Sep 3, 2021

#Kabul airport: the #US totally destroyed the radars and tower control and begged #Qatar to fix it as soon as possible to allow foreigners, Afghan collaborators, and those with adequate visas to leave. Qatar sent a team of technicians and spare parts for the airport to function.

The U.S. continues to withhold Afghanistan's Central Bank reserves and has blocked the IMF and World Bank for releasing funds to Afghanistan. These are a revenge act against all Afghans.

The New York Times tries to (falsely) justify it with an alleged terrorist designation of the Taliban:

Cont. reading: Why U.S. Plans For Revenge In Afghanistan May Not Succeed

The U.S. Foreign Policy 'Establishment' Is Incredibly Dumb

The U.S. foreign policy 'establishment' is incredibly dumb:

With Afghan Retreat, Biden Bucks Foreign Policy Elite, New York Times, Sep. 1 2021

“The foreign policy establishment did get it wrong in Iraq, where the U.S. overreached,” said Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “We got it wrong in Libya, we got it wrong in Vietnam. But over the last 75 years, the foreign policy establishment has gotten most things right.”

What did the foreign policy 'establishment' get right?  Funny that he does not name even one issue in that category.  That's likely because there isn't one.

“My biggest concern is that the United States may now be entering an era of under-reach,” said Mr. Haass, who served in the George W. Bush administration. “History suggests there’s just as much risk in under-reaching as overreaching.”

Under-reaching = Not waging and losing illegal wars of aggression? What please is the risk with that?

Here is the real problem:

Micah Zenko @MicahZenko - 0:38 UTC · Sep 3, 2021

Foreign policy establishment generally doesn't do self-reflection. Leadership and funders don't require it, the focus is inherently future-oriented, and the predictive analysis so unfalsifiable that evaluation is impossible.

This goes beyond the establishment:

Why States Believe Foolish Ideas: Non-Self-Evaluation By States And Societies - MIT, Jan 10 2002

Organization theorists note that organizations are poor self-evaluators; I argue here that states suffer the same syndrome.

This failure to self-evaluate impedes national learning and allows misperceptions to flourish. Myths, false propaganda, and anachronistic beliefs persist in the absence of strong evaluative institutions to test ideas against logic and evidence, weeding out those that fail. As a result national learning is slow and forgetting is quick. The external environment is perceived only dimly, through a fog of myths and misperceptions.

States that misperceive their environment in this way are bound to fail to adapt to it, even when the penalties of such failure are high. Blind to the incentives they face they will respond inappropriately, even if they accept in principle the need to adapt.

This also why the U.S. is, again and again, listens to the same ever stupid people.

Micah Zenko @MicahZenko - 15:44 UTC · Aug 21, 2021

Sad how many habitually wrong and unapologetic pundits, scholars, and former officials are solicited for their foreign policy wisdom.

Not only is their zero accountability, but stubborn wrong-ness is consistently rewarded by media gatekeepers, think tanks, private sector, etc.

Every implausible US intervention or disastrous war has featured powerful cheerleading from public intellectuals and experts....often the same 3-4 dozen people.

Last point, since US has such an outsized influence on global outcomes, debates around specific FP choices cannot continue to be driven by the same habitually wrong voices. World needs better.

On The Breeding Of Money - by Gordog

bý Gordog

Some continue to delude themselves about the so-called US economy, which is nothing but a house of cards---and this meaningless, completely fabricated 'metric' of GDP. In real terms, China's economy is already bigger by half then the US. And that is being charitable.

Let us review some basic facts about how NUMBERS actually work. This is known as MATHEMATICS.

Take for instance the Ponzi Scheme. This is an ingenious bilking scam where a group of investors is promised a guaranteed rate of return. Since there is no PRODUCTIVE business of any kind that can generate any return, the only way to pay those initial investors is to draw in more investors over the next term, usually a year. The incoming investors are likewise paid their return by the next crop of investors, etc. Now it is obvious just from this description that the amount of new investors has to INCREASE each year, in order for this to stay afloat.

The mathematical underpinning of this scheme is exponential growth. This is a mathematical function where the growth of something is a function of the EXPONENT of TIME.

In simple terms: if you start with a single cell that splits in two...then those two each split in two and so on, it is obvious that the number of cells doubles at a given rate of time. In a Petri dish, such organisms will rapidly multiply in number until they have exhausted all the nutrients available...and everybody DIES!

Now let's consider a bank that is lending money at interest. Here we have a group of BORROWERS rather than investors.

If in the first year, the bank has a given number of borrowers, it will receive back not just the amount of money it has lent, but an additional amount of money in interest. This accumulation of interest will continue building in perpetuity, according to the exponential math exactly like the Ponzi Scheme or Petri dish.

This is the fundamental mathematics of both. Only they are mirror images of each other. One is drawing in lenders [investors], while the other is drawing in borrowers. From the wiki entry on exponential growth:

Cont. reading: On The Breeding Of Money - by Gordog

Open Thread 2021-67

News & views ...