Orwell on the Half Shell: RW on Bergdahl proves you don't need a totalitarian state to create a totalitarian mindset
http://t.co/IDGTrWKx1k
— billmon (@billmon1) June 4, 2014
Dave Weigel has the backstory:
The undisputed winner of Twitter today is Matt Binder, a producer at Majority FM who has spend untold minutes/hours digging up tweets from conservatives who called for Bowe Bergdahl to be freed … until he was, and they turned on him…
The feed is full of such things, and Adam Weinstein has already curated some highlights…
The Dangerman
The most amazing part of the story is how fast Bergdahl was swiftboated (“he caused people to die looking for him!”)…
…except that accusation is probably bullshit per the NYT.
ETA: I can’t help but suspect that some of these soldiers making these accusations are, like Paula Corbin Jones, being well compensated.
MoeLarryAndJesus
This July 4th Jesus H. Christ will return, and there will be footage of Himself shaking hands with Obama, and every last RWNJ in America will call for a second crucifixion.
lamh36
I’m literally disgusted by the whole situation. I can’t even begin to express how much anger I have.
it’s just disgusting. between the RWNJ and the “regular” press and the platoon interviews I’m just ugh.
again, why are these soldiers going to reporters instead of waiting to state their case against Bergdahl in military court. It’s unseemly to me. Why are they so hard-pressed to malign the character of this guy before an investigation? The ease with which the few I’ve seen have run to the press speaks of an effort to hang ‘em before he’s even tried.
I think it a crying shame. Call it swift boating or whatever, but it’s just as easy to tell reporters, no comment rather than sure I”ll come on tv
Suffern ACE
Yep. They’re deleting messages calling for prayers for his safe return, as if they can steal them back from god. And hoping that no one will notice that calling for summary executions of our own soldiers is insane.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@MoeLarryAndJesus: I saw a dude with a Repent! sign today. Not a common thing in Madison.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): as if there’s enough time left for that. The city could start confessing Tomorrow and it wouldn’t be finished by the rapture.
rikyrah
Maddow is reporting that the teen mother school-Catherine Ferguson is finally closing in Detroit. The charter firm hired to run it, ran it into the ground, and a school that as recently as four years ago sent 90% of its students to college is CLOSING. Nobody ever answered the question as to HOW THE HELL a school graduating 90% of its students gets on anybody’s CLOSURE LIST!’ So, they closed a WORKING PUBLIC SCHOOL, and turned it over to the scam known as Charter Schools. To the scam of a for profit company that didn’t dedicate 30 years of their lives serving those young women.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@efgoldman:
First as tragedy, then as farce.
Ash Can
I liked the schmuck from National Racists Online who tweeted earlier today that Obama had made Bergdahl the single most hated soldier in American history. No, I’m not making this up.
The Dangerman
@lamh36:
I wish I could come up with an answer other than “$$$” but I haven’t so far. Parroting someone above, the Teahadi Noise Machine is nothing if not well funded.
Sayne
@lamh36: Look man I find it upsetting as you, but unfortunately this kind of bullshit should surprise precisely no one who has been paying attention for the last 6 years (hell the last 20 years or even more).
Cassidy
@Ash Can: I don’t know. Benedict Arnold went out of his way to get a good deal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Some people earlier were comparing this to the Schiavo mess. I just saw Saxby Chambliss making a medical diagnosis on Bergdhal based on the video. He wasn’t sick, probably just drugged. At least Bill Frist actually had a medical degree.
and of course, Saxby Chambliss is the draft dodger who with the help of Karl Rove made a campaign ad that morphed Max Cleland into Saddam Hussein.
jl
@Ash Can:
” Obama had made Bergdahl the single most hated soldier in American history. No, I’m not making this up. ”
Bergdahl should hate Obama too, for making the GOPers and teabaggers defame him. That’s the ticket.
If it turns out that Bergdahl did nothing wrong and maybe deserves a medal, he should denounce Obama and refuse to accept it. Yeeaahhh… that’s the ticket. yeah.
it’s really gotten that level. If Lovitz has gone full teabagger (not sure whether he has on anything but the big bad taxman angle), maybe he can do some of his old schtick on it.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@The Dangerman: For the soldiers, I offer two possibilities. First, the the theory that Cassidy mentioned in a thread below that something hinky happened and the soldiers cooked up a story to cover it up. If this is the case, they are taking advantage of the opportunity to get their story out there. Second, they convinced themselves that it was all Bergdahl’s fault as a rationalization for the danger they had experience following his capture and are venting. Either, both, or neither of these theories may be true.
Ash Can
@efgoldman: Hell, they’re not even trying to hide it.
Kay
@Suffern ACE:
I’m using that :)
scav
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): or, they recognize which side of the train has more gravy on it.
different-church-lady
@Sayne: Surprise? Hell, I’m delighted. The wingnuts are going to play this hand into political bankruptcy.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I believe the vet Cole linked to the other day, who said that all the varying stories are the result of the gossipy grape vine that occurs in all closed groups, including troops in the field. And no one has any clue who even knows what they are talking about, what is rumor, what is eye witness, who is BSing to get attention, who is griping, who is CYAing, etc.
Edit: and, yes, as scav said, who is being entrepreneurial about it.
Jay S
@The Dangerman: If the servicemen have convinced themselves (or were convinced) that Bergdahl deserted and was not going to be tried they might see themselves as whistle blowers.
It doesn’t have to be $$$.
Ash Can
@jl: Like I’ve said before, the quickest way to turn the right wing’s man of the hour, Andrew Tahmooressi, into a drug runner, ATF gun runner, and Iranian sleeper agent would be for Obama to arrange for his release and return.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@jl: I think that is a valid explanation of the variety of stories out there in general. The guy from his platoon who have come forward have offered remarkably similar yet detail free stories; I don’t find them persuasive.
max
That’s what I was bitchin’ about yesterday. Billmon’s good one is:
As the old people who fought the Nazis
age outget old and die, the R’s started a slow-motion Nazification, kicked off by 9/11, and spearheaded by the Trotskyite *tactics* of the vanguard of the corporate elite, the neo-conservatives. (‘clash of civilizations’, WWIV, etc.)They scream Hitler at everybody because that’s what they’re identifying with, just like they scream racist at everybody while trying to resurrect Jim Crow.
max
[‘I guess that’s fusion conservatism in a nutshell.’]
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
You don’t suppose … someone … is … paying them money or anything?
Kay
@rikyrah:
I’m surprised. They don’t like her in public ed advocacy circles because they say she doesn’t report on school closings/privatization which they attribute to her (alleged!) friendship with Corey Booker. I don’t watch her enough to know if she does or not.
hueyplong
1. These soldiers coming forward, does anyone know what (if anything) they were saying back when GOP types were praying for Bergdahl’s return and ripping Obama for not getting it done?
2. With this ability to have so many people do a 180 on a dime, you almost have to be relieved that they’ve invested such talent and ability on something so transparently illogical and dishonest. With luck it will be regarded as Schiavo 2.0, as several here are hoping. The election following Schiavo 1.0 went fairly well.
lamh36
on a lighter note and cause I’m trying to deflate from my disgusted state over this mess, just a reminder…
my birthday is in November. So go ahead and just buy me this Wonder Woman mug now…thank you! pic.twitter.com/lh6AOEsBjSsBjS
jl
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I will defer to vets here if they find things hinky about any of the specific stories or groups of vets, since they understand how things work in that arena.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@hueyplong:
They had signed nondisclosure agreements that pretty much expired once Bergdahl was released.
The Republic of Stupidity
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
And then they will demand Christ be impeached…
Comrade Dread
What the president needs to do is continue to say publicly and loudly that he has become convinced that Reaganomics was right, that Marxism and Socialism is evil, and he will do all he can to ensure that the rich pay not one more dime in taxes.
My God, think of the Socialist utopia we’d have within the span of a week.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@jl: My sense of hinkiness does not come from my experience as a vet but rather from my experience as a lawyer. Stories that are too much the same sound rehearsed.
BruceFromOhio
It’s the wanting, not the having. Bergdahl is a collectible that only has value as long as its unattainable. See also, Benghazi.
@Comrade Dread: Exactly. Cleeks Law keeps the wanting fresh, in an endless supply.
jl
And thanks to AL for providing another list documenting an historic event in the annals of bad faith. Makes sense that lists would appear so fast. i don’t think it has ever been possible to observe such vicious, mindless and transparent thuggish partisan hypocrisy before so completely and with such care.
Will be interesting to see whether the corporate media confronts the celebs like McCain, Palin and North with their stunts. if they do, expect a tsunami of mini filibusters and ‘Shut up!, he explained’ soon on your TV news information product.
lamh36
rikyrah
@Kay:
She doesn’t, Kay.
But, this came under the auspices of the Emergency Manager Act in Michigan. But, no, she didn’t cover the 55 schools closed in Chicago at all.
The Republic of Stupidity
@efgoldman: ya know… you’d think that… cognitive dissonance ‘n all… and yet they babble on and on and on without any obvious ill effects… I’m guessing they’ve all had their senses of irony surgically removed…
Tractarian
NEWS FLASH:
NFL decides to use Arabic numerals for the upcoming 50th Super Bowl.
Arabic.
Might as well just declare Sharia law now and get it over with, Obama.
beltane
@Tractarian: Arabic numerals will henceforth be known as American numerals or Freedom numerals.
BruceFromOhio
@jl:
No fucking way, not going to occur. The zookeepers make money from monkey eyeballs on these trainwrecks, if anything it will be the opposite. “News” hasn’t been informative for almost a decade, it’s too easy to snag the benjamins from the entertainment factor.
Tire irons and anthrax, man, until the formulae get recalibrated.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@beltane: That Freedom thing sounds kind of French to me .
SatanicPanic
You’d think after Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch the media would take Republican claims about soldiers with a grain of salt
jl
@Tractarian: That is a sad choice, ’50’ or ‘L”. Both are dull, and say ‘middling’ 50 says ‘gittin’ old, dammitall’. And L belongs on a t-shirt at Walmart or Target.
Edit: checking up on those roman numerals right now.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@SatanicPanic: Why? Why would you think that?
BruceFromOhio
@SatanicPanic: Who?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: Whenever she discusses Booker without mentioning their apparently close and longterm friendship, I cringe. But then she does stuff like point out what a complete tool McCain is– and his media lickspittles are , as she did tonight, and I’m willing to overlook that blip
Redshift
@SiubhanDuinne: Many (don’t know if it’s all) of the interviews are “being arranged by Republican political operatives.”
Despite the efforts of our media to redefine “swiftboating” to mean saying anything bad about an opposing politician, this is actual swiftboating. Whether or not the soldiers believe their stories.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@jl: SUPERBOWL L (no, it’s not a typo). It doesn’t work for the tee-shirts.
SatanicPanic
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I haven’t learned anything in the last 14 years?
Kay
@rikyrah:
I know she was on emergency manager and that would go to EAA (education achievement authority) which is the state-takeover schools. Detroit Democrats did a FOIA and got thousands of emails on it. It’s bizarre. The whole thing is run by two people from Kansas City and a foundation in California. You can’t make this stuff up, I swear. I saw the new(ish) Detroit Mayor very quietly got himself off the board of the EAA. Uh, oh. Not good!
Soonergrunt
ACTIVE SHOOTER IN MONCTON, CANADA
3 RCMP officers dead, 2 wounded
Shooter still on the loose.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/manhunt-new-brunswick-after-least-2-shot
Redkitten isn’t there, but she has family and friends near there. Please keep her in your thoughts.
some guy
today my sister shared with me and my siblings via Gmail /pdf the condolence note Barack and Michelle sent to her upon hearing about the death of our Mom. almost as poignant as the Thank You note hand written in cursive my Mom sent to a friend , who having waked with us and attended funereal services on Saturday 10 years later found it and shared this carefully penned missive on FB today (who the fuck still hand writes Thank You notes for dinner parties????) just to make me smile. .
we love people.
Ollie North is paid to hate people.
Orwell weeps, indeed-y
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Perhaps they have learned to salt the Republicans’ claims before eating them up. Maybe salt hides the taste of bullshit.
jl
@Tractarian: Aww, dammitall. The NFL should have gone with XXXXX.
That looks like something on a little brown jug of deadly W by God V moonshine. Which could lead into a product tie-in, I guess.
I think the NFL has lost its marketing touch.
FlipYrWhig
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Aw, I was looking forward to Super Bowl L. The first one-“digit” Superb Owl in 40 years, and last for 50 more.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
SUPERBOWL?
Whatever. They are in a tough spot. Take a moment to weep for the NFL marketing team.
FlipYrWhig: Have to wait for ten years for LX, first next cool one. With I think a tie in to cars.
trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
Who?” and “Who?”
–The Republicans
Mike R
If the Hastings’ article in Rolling Stone is true, the unit was led very poorly. During my time had the pleasure of serving with a piss poor leadership cadre, sorry have had a little or maybe a lot of Rum, it is pirate night on the ranch, got caught up as a Jr NCO, corporal to be exact. Finally pitched a fit about the BS. Challenged the judgement and leadership skills of the lifers. The Platoon commander and Platoon Sargent ended up not being able to re enlist. However while in the tropical paradise of Southeast Asia guess who had to eat a shit sandwich. The point being when everything sucks it is hard to be honest about what is going on around you. Can’t blame his comrades for casting about for someone to blame. Can blame the RWNJs, what slimy pieces of garbage.
So the members of his platoon, company needed someone to blame. He apparently gave them an easy target. Have wanted to say this and so I shall. He maybe a shit bird and an idiot, but he is our idiot and we don’t leave our guys behind shit bird or not. Bringing him home is the right thing. If he deserves punishment then our guys will judge not our adversary, we take care of our own and settle things among ourselves and who in the world would leave a fellow soldier, marine, sailor or airman, okay maybe an airman they always have their hands in their pockets, with the enemy. And piss on the bastards who have no mercy and could abandon a fellow soldier or marine no matter how squirrely they are.
trollhattan
@jl:
Pretty sure “L” is a gurrrrlz fashion magazine. Could be an interesting marketing task ahead.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Soonergrunt: I have friends that live near there.
If anyone’s interested, here’s the loser’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/justin.bourque.5682
He’s a total gun nut.
Clearly he’s making a great contribution to eliminating gun control in Canada.
What an asshole.
pseudonymous in nc
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
My sense of hinkiness comes from my experience of people, which is less grounded in a paid profession, but seems to work well enough.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Mike R:
QFT. You aren’t the first person around here to say this, but it is worthy of repetition.
Original Lee
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: (Trigger warning)
What a lot of this Teahadi bluster is reminding me of, besides Terri Schiavo, is of the coverage of a rape story. If the rape victim is the “right” kind of victim, then the coverage is all about catching the evil criminal who did it, until the star athlete is fingered as the perpetrator. Then the coverage is all about how the rape victim didn’t do it right, was provocative or slutty or was trying to ruin the life of this fine young man.
So Bergdahl apparently didn’t get captured correctly and was exchanged for the wrong people and OMG learned some of the language after five years in capitivity and so on. Just makes me mad and sick.
piratedan
simply not surprised, this is the same media game plan employed before…. Fast and Furious, Shirley Sherrod, IRS, ACA, NSA, Benghazi etc etc etc….
win the media cycle, let the facts come out, pretend they don’t matter… accuse the President… Reince Preibus and repeat.
The media is complicit in their cahooting because it would be irresponsible not to speculate and they’re not concerned with facts but they are concerned with ratings.
Obama cannot be credited with ANYTHING and the revisionist history that they’ll hope to enact will be awesome to behold.
Ash Can
And another thing, dammit. I was in junior high and high school from the late 60s through the early 70s. Like many of my classmates, I obtained and wore a POW bracelet. Each bracelet had the name of a different soldier and (IIRC) the date he was captured.
Now, I hated the Viet Nam War, as well as Nixon and all his fucking criminal henchmen, who, as far as I was concerned, were just prolonging the war. And I cast a jaundiced eye on soldiers such as the ones at My Lai who were shown to at least possibly be involved in obvious war crimes. But I also knew that the overwhelming majority of soldiers fighting in Viet Nam were just poor-schmoe regular guys who didn’t want to be there but knew they’d be in trouble if they didn’t go, and who also felt an obligation to shoulder some of the burden. It wasn’t their fault that Nixon and his buddies were schmucks.
And when Nixon and said schmucks finally worked out an agreement in 1973 to stop fighting and get the fuck out of there, I didn’t dump on them and suddenly start pining for the war just because it was them who ended it. That would have been complete brain-dead lunacy. My reaction was, “FINALLY these assholes did something right.” And when all the prisoners were exchanged — yes, right wingers, that actually happens with POWs in real life; what do you think happens when a war ends, all the prisoners are shut down and their batteries are taken out and they get put in some warehouse in New Mexico somewhere? — word went out that the POWs were coming home and the POW bracelets could be returned, because they were to be forwarded to the respective soldiers. There were news stories at the time of the former POWs saying self-effacing things to the effect that they didn’t feel they were heroes, they just hung in there the best they could. I included a little note with the bracelet I sent back saying, “Please tell Private So-and-so that he may not think of himself as a hero, but anyone who goes through what he has is a hero in my book.” And I got a nice little note back from him expressing gratitude that folks back in the States had supported them and hadn’t given up on them.
Never in a million fucking years would it have occurred to me or anyone I knew to suddenly turn on these guys simply because it was that shitheel Nixon who brought them home. Never in a million fucking years would I have thought to look down on their families, who everybody knew were being put through the fucking wringer. And never in a million years would it have occurred to me to lose my shit at Nixon for ending the war. Sure, I was ready to put my boot up his ass, but it was for not doing what he did sooner, for fuck’s sake.
And having gone through all that during my young, impressionable years, all I can do as I look at these fucking right-wing shitheels dumping on Sgt. Bergdahl — and his parents and neighbors — is feel like puking.
I’m going to go have another shot and a beer before I throw this fucking computer off the front porch onto the sidewalk.
trollhattan
Heh, Wonkette has the Stupidest Man on the Internet by the raisins:
http://wonkette.com/550737/figures-stupidest-man-on-internet-disgusted-that-obama-would-abandon-bergdahl-rescue-bergdahl
Culture of Truth
The media reaction to this has been interesting. On the one hand, they are, of course, required to parrot any right wing-nut theory, and of course any anti-Obama smear; but at the same time you sense of a bit of discomfort in smearing a recently released soldier, and over the utter blatant hypocrisy on display by Republicans It’s got their heads spinning.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I think what they want to avoid is people saying the letter. Super Bowl-el. Kids might have too much fun with that, especially if the game is a stinker.
beltane
@trollhattan: I love the commentariat over at Wonkette. They are so uncivil.
Cacti
@Culture of Truth:
Then you have shit bags like Jake Tapper (liked by some here for some inexplicable reason) trying to spin this as the usual “both sides do it” twaddle.
No Jake, one side is launching a coordinated defamation campaign against this guy as of 2-days ago, the other side is saying why don’t we wait for the facts first.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
@Suffern ACE:
Super Bowl XL was marred by extensively bad officiating. Officiating that was so bad that the officials apologized years later.
The Seahawks got jobbed out a SB win.
Suffern ACE
@Kay: what I find funny, is I bet the actual, prayers were ever made anyway. Just called for, but never made. It’s one of the comical aspects of hypocritical Christianity. It has to be soooo public. Matthew Ch. 6 is all over that kind of hypocrisy. When they try to delete their formerly prayerful tweets and blogs, they really are getting themselves in a heap of otherworldly trouble, but then they’re more concerned with what their fellow nutters think than with what god might think anyway. Very religious that.
Plantsmantx
@Kay:
If her friendship with him is alleged, then she’s alleging it. She always refers to him as her good friend.
Elizabelle
David Letterman just closed his show with the Afghan Whigs.
Incendiary.
Catch it later, West Coasters.
mclaren
Obligatory link to Naomi Wolf’s classic article “Fascist America, in Ten Easy Steps,” The Guardian, 24 April 2007.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mike R:
More to the point, you don’t have fucked up wars in fucked up countries without people getting fucked up.
Personally, I don’t give a fuck what he did. Americans should be giving a shit that they’re still sending people out to shoot at Afghans in 2014.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: It’s all, every bit of it, about hating the ni*CLANG*. It’s all these pathetic maggots have.
Villago Delenda Est
@RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: They took no chances of that happening back in February of this year. 14 seconds in, they scared a safety. It was all downhill for the Broncos from that moment.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Another one – if I remember right, part of Berghdal’s disillusionment that’s alleged to have made him go AWOL was about fucked up behavior from U.S. troops towards the locals. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of Berghdal’s fellow soldiers had taken it personally that he’d talk about that – especially if it was true – and thus decide that he was a deserter and the U.S. media should be told.
Matt McIrvin
@Cacti: The sad thing is, if there’s an investigation and it turns out Bergdahl really was a deserter, that’ll be treated as if the right-wingnut party line that Obama should have let him rot on the basis of Fox News’s retroactive say-so and his dad’s beard was somehow vindicated.
nellcote
@Cacti:
The very night Bergdahl was released Tapper was trolling twitter looking for soldiers to disparage him.
nellcote
@Chris:
Including running over a local child in an armored vehicle and joking about it. There may be some CYA going on.
Chris
@nellcote:
That’s what really pisses me off about all the assholes saying “dude, it’s awful that we’re honoring a deserter when there are real heroes to be honored!” Really? Real heroes like who? The people in his unit who ran over a little girl and then chuckled about it over drinks?
(There is, after all, as much evidence tp support that as there is to support the “deserter” accusation, and the “deserter” crowd tend to be the same ones who think war criminals should get a free pass).
Dave
@pseudonymous in nc:This. It’s all fucked up people do, see, and marinate in fuckedupedness. And kids die because they cross the road or frightened someone. I came maybe half a pound of trigger pressure from murdering, and it would have been murder, two young Afghan males in a field because they were watching us and I was in a bad head space. Hell they may have actually been involved in attacks on us or not but standing in a field that you are working in watching a patrol go by shouldn’t be a death sentence ya know? So yes war is fucked up and does fucked up things. If Berghdal did lose it in an unusual way well that happens and isn’t helped if you are ostracized by the group. And I don’t know but would absolutely believe there was a toxic command climate there. They aren’t that unusual. And well it’s war people die for shitty reasons because they were a foot to the left, because a chopper pilot misjudges something just stupid reasons… It’s shit that has been turned into entertainment and a morality play by those with no core.
another Holocene human
@rikyrah: I weep for our country.
Tgis is the price is lowered top marginal rates, low lt call gains rates and ineffective estate taxes. The end of so much we hold dear and the misery so many of our ancestors sought these shores to escape.
Paul in KY
@Ash Can: I guess Benedict Arnold can rest easy now.
Paul in KY
@lamh36: Mentioned this in another thread: VoodooFest will be on 31 Oct – 2 Nov at City Park. Tics go on sale on 27 June. I’ll be there again. Had a great time last year.
Paul in KY
@jl: Great Idea! They can still change it to that.
gorram
@Kay: She did report positively on that charter, because the emergency manager in Detroit was otherwise going to close it. That’s not a glowing review of privatization, so much as saying the school should be kept open and functional. If she’s reporting on how it was destroyed by those that bought it, then that underscores the fact that to the extent that she praised anything, it was the school remaining open and successful.
I wouldn’t say that she doesn’t have her corporatist moments, but this really isn’t one of them.
mclaren
@Dave:
Afghanistan and Iraq are a lot worse than just the typical fuckupedness of war, because in Afghanistan (and previously in Iraq) you’re not fighting a traditional war — you’re occupying the country and trying to do some insane bullshit like “counterinsurgency” or “winning hearts and minds” or whatever-the-fuck that idiocy gets called in 2014.
It amounts to throwing a bunch of 20-year-old kids who don’t speak the language and don’t know the culture into a totally different completely alien society, and then demanding that those 20-year-old kids somehow figure out who is an insurgent and who is a harmless villager, even though there is absolutely no difference between the two in the way they look or talk or act, until the insurgent sets off an IED under your humvee.
In a traditional war, the enemy wears a fucking uniform. The enemy digs in with foxholes. The enemy attacks in formation.
In this so-called “war” which isn’t a war at all, the enemy wears no uniform and is most likely the barber cutting your hair. There is no fucking way on earth to avoid massive atrocities and friendly fire chaos and fratricide and collatoral damage when you’re fighting this kind of fourth-generation war where the “enemy” is the kid who shines your shoes inside the green zone.
The solution? Get the hell out. Nobody ever wins these kinds of occupations. Just get the hell out of Afghanistan and declare victory.