I’ll report on what I see when I google. If that’s a declaration so be it.
You know you can do things other than make nebulous assertions, right? You can say “I don’t know” or “It seems to me that” or any number of other things that aren’t just “X is the case”. If you’re ignorant about US FP, and you are, you can just not declare what its overall purpose is. No one is forcing you to do something like that!
After WWII, the US government made deliberate foreign policy decisions they thought would benefit Americans and people abroad and then in some cases they didn’t. In some they did. The goal was to not harm as many civilians as possible. Civilian causalities are definitely a screw up. If you’re going to subscribe to a view that sees the US as inherently evil then you’re not going to have a realist view of the world or history.
You did a flip-flop from your earlier (correct) claim that the US was seeking power and destroying its enemies in the 20th century, unless you think WW2 happened in 2000. They used people to their own advantage consistently, and civilian casualties were not “screw ups” because they didn’t give a shit.
I’m a Marxist, I don’t think “good” and “evil” are useful terms for analyzing the world beyond analyzing ideologies containing the ideas of “good and evil”. I don’t think the US has some sort of evil magic curse that makes it only do bad, I think that it has constructed a model of warmongering and exploitation around the world that didn’t evaporate at the stroke of Y2K. It’s an imperialist state, its basic functioning is centered on looting the third world through various means, and this is informed by its legal system and class structure.
The Taliban regime doesn’t care about the people living under their rule. They care about imposing their version of Islam on everyone. This is my issue with the world view I’m seeing in the comments. If what the US government has been doing bothers you on a moral level, then what a theocratic dictatorship does to its own people should bother you greatly. The hope I have for the people of Afghanistan is that they overthrow their oppressors.
The Taliban isn’t controlled by an idea, it is controlled by people operating on motives that are usually material. Public will and diplomatic external pressure can change things based on affecting those motives, but to the US Afghanistan is a weapon or a source of income that can be clung to or discarded (as it ultimately did). No amount of domestic unrest would persuade the US to help people, because Afghanistan just isn’t important to the US, it can’t really hurt the US.
And the Taliban’s support isn’t an idea or magic “authoritarianism” either. Most of its support was from decent people who saw it as the only viable path towards opposing US colonialism, which it ultimately successfully did. Having succeeded, the Taliban will need to find new projects that the people will support or else it will lose standing (and it had been taking up such projects of development since long before the US left).
I’m doing my best to keep up with a slew of unrelated topics. I got a name of a country and I reported what I was able to find about it. Keep making a big deal out of nothing if you like.
I’ve done my best to describe my world view as consistently as possible. I think you have done the same. If something seems inconsistent or flip flopping I apologize. The US did some good things like rebuilding western Europe after WWII.
I’m a Marxist, I don’t think “good” and “evil” are useful terms for analyzing the world beyond analyzing ideologies
And yet the main take away I can get is that America is inherently evil to you. You don’t see America as people living in a democracy, but as some kind of unchangeable corporate murder machine which has no basis in reality. Your views of the Taliban are also detached from reality. The Taliban rules with an iron fist. They will cut off as many heads as they can to remain in power. They deny education to women and girls who have to study in secret. Authoritarianism is real, I highly recommend you learn about it. If you’re seriously going to uphold the Taliban as some kind of champion of the people, rather than ruthless oppressors then I don’t think we can a meaningful discussion on ethical and moral issues. You’re welcome to try, but I doubt we will find much common ground.
You know you can do things other than make nebulous assertions, right? You can say “I don’t know” or “It seems to me that” or any number of other things that aren’t just “X is the case”. If you’re ignorant about US FP, and you are, you can just not declare what its overall purpose is. No one is forcing you to do something like that!
You did a flip-flop from your earlier (correct) claim that the US was seeking power and destroying its enemies in the 20th century, unless you think WW2 happened in 2000. They used people to their own advantage consistently, and civilian casualties were not “screw ups” because they didn’t give a shit.
I’m a Marxist, I don’t think “good” and “evil” are useful terms for analyzing the world beyond analyzing ideologies containing the ideas of “good and evil”. I don’t think the US has some sort of evil magic curse that makes it only do bad, I think that it has constructed a model of warmongering and exploitation around the world that didn’t evaporate at the stroke of Y2K. It’s an imperialist state, its basic functioning is centered on looting the third world through various means, and this is informed by its legal system and class structure.
The Taliban isn’t controlled by an idea, it is controlled by people operating on motives that are usually material. Public will and diplomatic external pressure can change things based on affecting those motives, but to the US Afghanistan is a weapon or a source of income that can be clung to or discarded (as it ultimately did). No amount of domestic unrest would persuade the US to help people, because Afghanistan just isn’t important to the US, it can’t really hurt the US.
And the Taliban’s support isn’t an idea or magic “authoritarianism” either. Most of its support was from decent people who saw it as the only viable path towards opposing US colonialism, which it ultimately successfully did. Having succeeded, the Taliban will need to find new projects that the people will support or else it will lose standing (and it had been taking up such projects of development since long before the US left).
I’m doing my best to keep up with a slew of unrelated topics. I got a name of a country and I reported what I was able to find about it. Keep making a big deal out of nothing if you like.
I’ve done my best to describe my world view as consistently as possible. I think you have done the same. If something seems inconsistent or flip flopping I apologize. The US did some good things like rebuilding western Europe after WWII.
And yet the main take away I can get is that America is inherently evil to you. You don’t see America as people living in a democracy, but as some kind of unchangeable corporate murder machine which has no basis in reality. Your views of the Taliban are also detached from reality. The Taliban rules with an iron fist. They will cut off as many heads as they can to remain in power. They deny education to women and girls who have to study in secret. Authoritarianism is real, I highly recommend you learn about it. If you’re seriously going to uphold the Taliban as some kind of champion of the people, rather than ruthless oppressors then I don’t think we can a meaningful discussion on ethical and moral issues. You’re welcome to try, but I doubt we will find much common ground.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63624400
Foreign intervention is not inherently colonialism and the local authority in a country is not inherently good.