Apparently the Taliban have inherited $85bn worth of military equipment left behind by the Americans, including weapons, planes, small arms etc. They're probably better equipped now than they ever have been.
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In relative terms they were definitely better equipped and funded when they were directly armed and trained by the US in the 80s.
Not to have a go at you but this whole narrative fucking disgusts me. The people of Afghanistan are much better off with those arms in the hands of the Taliban than in the hands of drug barons, rural war lords, an extremely corrupt Western oriented elite in Kabul and of course in the hands of Americans themselves. The idea that we ought to be worried the Taliban have replaced American rule in the country when the US have dropped a recorded minimum of 90,000 bombs (including the MOAB a couple years back) there over the last 20 years is insanely revolting.
I wasn't really commenting on what this means for the people of Afghanistan compared to the previous regime, though I would have thought Afgans who want to see the back of the Taliban would have definitely preferred the Americans fucking off with their weapons rather than inadvertently heavily arming them. But who knows, maybe some stability will be welcome.
But yeah, I was coming at it from what a disaster it is from an American perspective, particularly in the context of the last 20 years.
Most of those weapons will be sold. A lot of them require too much expense to run and upkeep.
goon wrote:I wasn't really commenting on what this means for the people of Afghanistan compared to the previous regime, though I would have thought Afgans who want to see the back of the Taliban would have definitely preferred the Americans fucking off with their weapons rather than inadvertently heavily arming them. But who knows, maybe some stability will be welcome.
But yeah, I was coming at it from what a disaster it is from an American perspective, particularly in the context of the last 20 years.
I understood your point, I was probably going off at a tangent myself. Really fuck whatever the American perspective is, if we didn't know this from all their adventures and war crimes before we should know this now at least. The MIC made a killing literally off of these last twenty years, and the narrative of Afghanistan being a failed state now is only fertilising the soil for their next entering the same stage. There's literally no reason at all to think this is a failure of "US policy" (whatever that might be) when you keep that in mind, if that were the case ask yourself what would a successful outcome to their presence in the country look like?
14 days later
Norwegians, are your election results as good as they seem from afar?
Well I for one was pleased with the results, by all accounts the Social Democrats will form a government with the Socialists and the Centre party, the same constellation as in Stoltenbergs last two terms as Prime Minister. That's not exactly earth shattering news, what is earth shattering is the left-most party Rødt, for the longest time an afterthought in Norwegian politics went from a single seat in parliament to 8. While the Christian democrats, forever an anchor dragging down progress and good legislations, crashed and burned, and might not ever be a relevant political party again in this country. The interesting thing is how much influence will Rødt wield, I suspect to begin with not alot. The social democrats have the seats to form a majority government without them. I do think however if Støre's government does not deliver, Rødt can continue to steal votes from the Socialists and even the Social Democrats. Rødt has come a long way in being seen as a legitimate political party in the last decade, and this result will only help matters. Many in the labour movement who just a decade ago would have considered Rødt a joke and not have given them a second look, have gotten their head turned by some of their policies. While they are not quite ready to vote for them yet (and I'm one of those people, I voted for the Socialist left party for what it's worth), they are recognizing them as an asset to the labour movement.
Great result Jens, I'm very happy for you guys. Hopefully you're leading the way for the other Scandinavian elections.
Jens wrote:what is earth shattering is the left-most party Rødt, for the longest time an afterthought in Norwegian politics went from a single seat in parliament to 8. While the Christian democrats, forever an anchor dragging down progress and good legislations, crashed and burned, and might not ever be a relevant political party again in this country.
A similar trend is discernible in Sweden right now. Vänsterpartiet which is the equivalent of Rødt have been gaining a lot of traction lately too while the Christian Democrats in all likelihood wouldn't make the Riksdag threshold if the election were held tomorrow. Which is fantastic; I fucking hate the Christian Democrats and can't wait for them to wither away in obscurity here too. It's mostly old people who vote for them so I've secretly been hoping covid would bump off a chunk of their voters.
Unlike in Norway there's a lot of uncertainty over who'll end up profiting from their possible demise though. The Social Democrats have been doing such a lousy job over the last 6-7 years and Löfven stepping down as party leader probably won't make them any more attractive. I'm genuinely afraid we'll end up with a right-wing government where the Sweden Democrats finally gain some influence. A lot of people over here have been following the Norwegian election with great interest because of it.
You guys reckon this fits in with what is termed "pasokification" where traditional centre left parties dwindle rapidly in influence and appeal, or is subtly different?
It's subtly different I'd say but I think it belongs to the same trend, yeah. In Scandinavia the social democracy is still pretty strong; I think the Social Democrats are the biggest party in all three countries now (on paper) which hasn't been the case for a long time, but they're also weaker than they've been for a very long time in at least Sweden, which is the only country I feel comfortable speaking about. It took a long time for them to find a way to form a government after the last election, and their solution - to pull centre and form a coalition with the Centrist Party - has not been received well in either camp.
This cooperation also led to the recent crisis of government, where Vänsterpartiet (The Leftist Party) seeked a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister after he attempted to introduce the Centrist Party's proposal about deregulating marketing rents (which in a nutshell would have allowed landlords to amp up the rents at their own discretion), which was one of the compromises the Social Democrats had to make in order to get the centrists on board after the last election. Curiously, very few of the Centrist Party's voters wanted the proposal about marketing rents to go through. It was an issue created by lobbyists leaning on the party.
Aside from a very notable rise in support for the Swedish Democrats - the Swedish right-wing extremist party - we haven't had any major political waves yet though, and I think part of the reason is that we haven't had the staggering inequality that led to the crisis in Greece and the loss of faith in PASOK, for instance, or the current state in France. However there's still enough discontent over the way key political issues have been handled such as the climate, immigration, rising economic inequality, etc to make people very frustrated... Virtually all the issues that are plaguing neoliberalism at large, basically, only we've had a better social security net than most countries to help us deal with them. This has also shown during the pandemic I reckon. Even though many from the working class (as always) have suffered badly we've come out of it strongly relative to most of the world.
What's the relationship between the left leaning party in Denmark and their hostility to immigration? Is that a trend that's likely to be replicated?
a month later
So this is the left winning the Norwegian election. The right would've been even worse to be fair, but it's too bad that the biggest parties all agree that this is the way forward.
[Twitter]
There's a similar rhetoric in Sweden Quincy. Not about oil but regarding the trees. The forest industry has been the backbone of the economy for a century. They're literally saying "Yeah the climate is great and all, but only as long as we get to keep cutting down all the trees."
The Scandinavian countries seem to deal in the same lies and deceptions when it comes to green energy. We have the biggest climate footprints per capita in the world. Our governments love to boast about switching to electric cars and electric manufacturing of steel so they don't rely on fossil fuels for transport and industry, but they still want to be one of the global providers of said fossil fuels. Norway want to drill for oil, Sweden want to clearcut the entire north. We shut down brown coal mines for domestic companies and then we sell the coal abroad to Germany instead who dig it up and burn it. It's nothing but an accounting trick.
Mirth wrote:What's the relationship between the left leaning party in Denmark and their hostility to immigration? Is that a trend that's likely to be replicated?
Also, sorry Mirth, I only saw this now.
I'm not sure honestly, but I think the situation in Denmark is very deeply rooted in culture (it's why the anti-immigration sentiment transcends block politics), and it's one of the areas where I think Sweden and Denmark diverge in a fundamental way.
Klaus wrote:There's a similar rhetoric in Sweden Quincy. Not about oil but regarding the trees. The forest industry has been the backbone of the economy for a century. They're literally saying "Yeah the climate is great and all, but only as long as we get to keep cutting down all the trees."
The Scandinavian countries seem to deal in the same lies and deceptions when it comes to green energy. We have the biggest climate footprints per capita in the world. Our governments love to boast about switching to electric cars and electric manufacturing of steel so they don't rely on fossil fuels for transport and industry, but they still want to be one of the global providers of said fossil fuels. Norway want to drill for oil, Sweden want to clearcut the entire north. We shut down brown coal mines for domestic companies and then we sell the coal abroad to Germany instead who dig it up and burn it. It's nothing but an accounting trick.
When they got the leak of the representations made to the UNs climate scientists on their report you had the Australian govt and Saudi's wanting to tone down the rhetoric against coal and fossil fuels, Brazil and Argentina trying to tone down the language on meat and so on.
Had to laugh when I saw Copenhagen was describing itself as a "zero carbon city"—the wealth there is so obviously generated by extraction elsewhere—and affords the moral vanity of the city.
"I want to be in the same war as France" 
I mean. He says what he means.