Anybody seen any life signs of Ayatollah Mike recently?
IIRC he is rumored to have been last seen in Afghanistan about a year ago.

Posted by: Lurk | Feb 11 2021 11:10 utc | 4

“My Taliban is rich”.
To rephrase the old “My tailor is rich” of Louis de Funès? Although I think the real origin is earlier.

Posted by: Stonebird | Feb 11 2021 11:59 utc | 6

That just proofs what we all already knew: Taliban are not motivated by worldly gains. [sarcasm]

Posted by: m | Feb 11 2021 12:24 utc | 8

“outlaws” are models of honor, civility and moral standards by comparison
Posted by: simplicius | Feb 11 2021 12:44 utc | 9
“To live outside the law, you must be honest, I know you always say that you agree”
— B. Dylan (“Absolutely Sweet Marie” I believe)
There is some truth in that, when you are working without a net you cannot afford any illusions.

Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 11 2021 12:54 utc | 10

… declassified unconfirmed intel… (Where is EPA? CDC?)
As we know, grass and similar plant matter is hard to digest, so many types of animals digest twice. Rabbits eat their once digested green feces and then excrete black feces. But humans, with their complex societies, can do so much more!
First, intelligence “collects” “information”, digests it once, and shits into the mouths of journalists. Journalists digest it, and shits into the mouths of a wide audience. Of those, most absorb it with mild negative symptoms. But sum literally thrive on it and create complex networks in which feces are consumed and secreted, often with elaborate rituals, panels, dinners and what not.
Experts explain that combining panels with food intake — snacks, refreshments, lunches etc — allows to mix info-feces with “un-informative foods”, thus allowing to create vast amount of info-feces. More cost effective than editing genes of bacteria and cultivating them I vats.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 11 2021 13:49 utc | 12

As a watcher for decadence, the “let them eat cake” style lack of touch with reality (deliberate) is an excellent sign of later stage decadence.
The question is then whether Hudson is right: that significant parts of the rest of the world are actively working to remove the exorbitant dollar privilege – and the attendant military monstrosity that it enables.
And if so, when.

Posted by: c1ue | Feb 11 2021 14:40 utc | 14

By Eric ZUESSE
An article by the Moon of Alabama (MoA) blogger, on February 5th, decimated the credibility of two American newspapers in just that one shot. It was aptly headlined “New York Times Editors Lie, Obfuscate Facts, To Reinforce Their False Russia Narrative”. The following commentary will presume the reader has already read it, because this is a commentary upon his commentary, which was a brilliant (though I shall also note, imperfect) analysis. So, that article should be read first, because the following builds upon it.
His central point — documented by links to sources that are vastly more credible than either of those U.S. ‘news’papers is — pertains to the vicious distortions in the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media concerning Alexei Nalvany, a Russian politician who back in 2012 got caught by Russia’s equivalent of America’s FBI having Navalny’s top aide try to persuade a person he thought to be an MI6 (UK’s CIA) agent that MI6 should annually donate tens of millions of dollars to Navalny’s organization because doing this would provide billions of dollars of benefit to UK corporations if Navalny would then succeed and become Russia’s leader. How much reporting about that videoed conversation is there in ‘news’-media such as the New York Times and Washington Post? None. Is that because American audiences wouldn’t be interested in seeing and hearing that conversation between a Russian politician’s right-hand man and a person he thought represented MI6? (After all, Navalny is all over America’s ‘news’-media these days.) Or is it instead because America’s major ‘news’-media are still propagandists for the U.S. Government, against what it — that Government by America’s billionaires — designates to be America’s ‘enemies’?
Are the New York Times and Washington Post Fraudulent?

Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 11 2021 16:38 utc | 16

Oh, an obvious flaw on the part of the American MSM – where is the article about the DPRK offered bounties to militants who received a personal order from Kim Jong-un to destroy the American troops?
I am disappointed.

Posted by: alaff | Feb 11 2021 17:12 utc | 18

Canada’s military magazine, Esprit de Corps, addressed this topic in July — Article with the headline, You don’t need to pay Afghan extremists a bounty to kill foreign occupiers
http://espritdecorps.ca/on-target-4/on-target-you-dont-need-to-pay-afghan-extremists-a-bounty-to-kill-foreign-occupiers

Posted by: Quasi Retired anonym | Feb 11 2021 17:32 utc | 20

Something tells me we’ll be waiting the entire 4 yrs. of the Biden/Harris admin. for a coherent change in the U$ foreign policies around the globe. Our multi-national corporations are far to greedy to let that happen.
Until that scenario changes, the U$ business empire will continue to occupy and “business rape” other nations.

Posted by: vetinLA | Feb 11 2021 18:45 utc | 22

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 11 2021 13:49 utc | 12
Your description of the intelligence/journalist complex reminds me of the film “The Human Centipede”.

Posted by: One Too Many | Feb 11 2021 19:46 utc | 24

@ Lurk #4
I have been wondering the same myself for over a year now. The media blackout on the “Ayatollah” Michael D’Andrea story is fascinating. The plane of the head of CIA anti-Iran ops is shot down over Ghazni, Afghanistan, on Jan 27, 2020, and aside from a few articles in Feb. and March claiming the IRGC has a “credibility issue” (suggesting perhaps that Ayatollah Mike is either spending some quality time with his family, or leading the anti-Iran ops from a secret bunker…still?) I haven’t seen or heard a word about D’Andrea. I’m guessing they didn’t find his body or enough DNA in the wreckage to determine whether or not he died on the scene, so perhaps the spooks themselves don’t know what secret bunker he has been operating from (or is being operated on in, if you will).

Posted by: HD | Feb 11 2021 20:40 utc | 26

@HD | Feb 11 2021 20:40 utc | 26
Even in the remotest parts of Afghanistan, nothing disappears, not even a corpse. In fact, a corpse has little remaining value, so a modest bounty would suffice to obtain the whereabouts of the grave or even the delivery of the remains to a convenient hand-over location. So where is he?
Did the USA arrive at the crash scene to retrieve d’Andrea alive, but in a severely dented state and is he now kept alive in a more or less vegetative state? Surely they wouldn’t take pride in presenting him like that.
Or did the Iranians beat them to it and is d’Andrea held for questioning in Iran? He sure would have a lot to explain to them.
If d’Andrea had been capable and available, you’d expect the USA to have publicly shown some amount of proof of that – probably with copious glee. But, nothing. The only response has been hysterical crybabying about the credibility of anyone reporting on the incident (check out the wikipedia talk page). It must have hurt them a lot.

Posted by: Lurk | Feb 11 2021 21:53 utc | 28

B declassifies US Bullshit!

Posted by: Wolle | Feb 11 2021 22:36 utc | 30

simplicius @9–
Thanks for your kudos and observation. And yes, I do have a male pronoun for all future pronoun references. I rarely explain anymore why I classify my home nation as an outlaw–it’s because it breaks its own and international law on a daily basis and has since 22 October 1945. Furthermore, its chief magistrate’s primary job is to enforce the laws of the land and this he’s failed to do for many decades now, likely since the office was invented in 1787, which is to say the US national government’s been corrupt since its inception; corruption entails lawbreaking thus outlawry. Yes, I do wish it were otherwise; but as an historian whose main goal is credibility, I must report what I find to be the facts of matters. And the fact of the matter is the USA is an Outlaw Nation, or Rogue Nation, so I label it as the former. As Chomsky has noted, there’s logic to the Outlaw behavior, so it’s hard to judge it as psychotic. One might also say it’s perverted or immoral, but then most outlaws are both. Some portions of humanity seek to evolve beyond the primitive outlaw stage of existence, but the collective West can’t see beyond its greed quest to the higher plane of existence awaiting it. It thus seems the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals are incapable of curing their deviances and must be disciplined by the rest of humanity if humanity is to evolve to the next, higher plane of existence. So I continue to name the USA the Outlaw US Empire to raise awareness of its actuality in hopes that others will also do so and thus uplift humanity.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 12 2021 0:17 utc | 32

About D’Andrea:
Video from the scene available last Jan ‘20 showed an aircraft on the ground with the airframe and fuselage largely intact from nose to tail and still burning, with the canopy mostly destroyed by fire. Also visible were skid marks indicating an attempt at landing or at least a very shallow glide path into the ground. The damage plainly reveals a relatively low-impact flight into terrain.
This configuration admits the possibility that the pilot-controlled operation of the aircraft was interdicted by remote technical means. Approximately two years earlier Iran had commandeered an espionage drone by remotely accessing its flight control systems and then landing it in Iran where it remained for dismantling and reverse engineering.
Isn’t it then possible that in the immediate aftermath of killing Haj Soliemanii similar means were used to force down D’Andrea’s jet. Isn’t it also possible that D’Andrea was then removed to Iran for dismantling and reverse engineering himself? Couldn’t happen to a more deserving PoS. Soleimani’s killing would have been a good reason to reveal the existence of such technical capability.
And then again, it’s a good career move for someone like D’Andrea to die publicly every so often.

Posted by: Ed | Feb 12 2021 5:17 utc | 34

Well, OK, it all makes sense: no US deaths in Afghanistan obviously means that while the Iranians, Russians and Chinese may talk big they are – as the saying goes – all short arms and deep pockets.
At least that’s how I’d try to square the circle if I were a Yankee propagandist.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Feb 12 2021 8:56 utc | 36

Stonebird @6
As you say, the origin is earlier. Funès was only repeating a very popular French saying (in English in the original) started in 1929 by the first lesson in the first book of the Assimil language method series, written by Alphonse Chérel.
Those who dressed had tailors then.

Posted by: Piero Colombo | Feb 12 2021 16:35 utc | 38