[The Biden adminstration’s foreign policy is surprising in many ways. I’ve been thinking it out. The posts summarized here set up a background for development of that foreign policy. In later posts, I’ll look at specifics relating to various countries.]
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Asia and Europe the past two weeks, rebuilding relationships with allies. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin accompanied him to Asia. He and Jake Sullivan also met with their Chinese counterparts in Asia last week, with rhetorical fireworks.
The administration faces five big foreign policy challenges:
- The relationship with China
- The relationship with Russia
- Dealing with Trump’s promise of withdrawal from Afghanistan by May 1
- Rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear agreement with Iran
- North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs
Afghanistan is the most time-urgent, and it looks like the administration is leaning toward delaying the deadline.
Rejoining the JCPOA also has a time-dependent aspect. Iran threatened to end cooperation with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, but Director General Raphael Rossi persuaded Iran to extend cooperation for three months, one of which has passed. Additionally, Iran has a presidential election coming up on June 18.
The other three are less time-urgent but not standing still.
None, however, can be adequately addressed without America’s allies. Donald Trump made no secret of his contempt for NATO and the European Union and picked fights with Japan and South Korea. Mending those relationships is essential to dealing with the challenges, and that is what Blinken has been doing the past two weeks.
The administration is setting expectations and positioning for negotiations. American policies must be developed in place of the previous administration’s whim-driven actions. Although many of the Biden appointees were in the Obama administration, four hard years have passed, and the world situation has changed, along with perceptions of the United States by other countries.
There was no foreign policy under Trump. There were several centers of activity – Secretaries of State, National Security Advisors, trade and arms control officials, and, of course, Trump himself. The players changed rapidly, as did positions that might have been called policy if they had been more connected. Positions were often at odds both between players and over time.
Biden’s appointees have been preparing to start anew since the campaign. Full development of policies had to wait until they could learn the status of America’s relations with the rest of the world. Trump made that as slow and difficult as possible during the transition. Blinken has said that Iran and North Korea policy are under review. Conferring with allies would be a part of that review.
Not everything revolves around the United States and its actions. Russia has experienced sporadic protests; its neighbor Belarus is in an almost continuous state of protest over a stolen election; its economy is going nowhere. China is trying to expand its influence while presenting a hostile face in diplomacy. North Korea continues its secrecy on Covid-19 (no cases in the Hermit Kingdom, they say) and pours its resources into developing missiles and nuclear weapons. Iran has an election coming up in June and is engaged in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
The administration needs to define its priorities in the context of the “foreign policy for Americans” that they have put forth. Past practices, like threats of war for the defense industry and actions taken to please special interest groups like limiting relations with Cuba, could be said to be foreign policy for Americans, but Biden’s people have a larger view.
As bad as the continuing effects of Trump actions may be, changing them does not make sense until a clear plan is in place with buy-in from relevant parties. Improvisation is what brought us to where we are.
Photo: Bloomberg
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
Old School
This is also true in a lot of other areas, but the longer government stays in the hands of Democrats, the better off we’ll be.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT, but here’s some Greenwald deliciousness that is too good not to share:
MisterForkbeard
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Okay, let’s question it: Woman was part of a violent mob, tried to break in through a door where a small amount of armed guards were protecting Members of Congress. She did it against repeated warnings and was admittedly trying to overthrow the results of an election.
There. Questioning done, that’s justified.
sdhays
I haven’t seen them in the news recently, but Iran was hammered by COVID early on and has struggled since. I wonder if the US could start engaging in some vaccine diplomacy there, or if the relationship is just too poisoned at this stage to even bring it up.
More broadly, vaccine diplomacy is sorely lacking at the moment, for understandable reasons. I hope that part of the benefit of getting Americans inoculated earlier means we can turn a firehose on other countries sooner as well.
Captain C
@MisterForkbeard: But she was going after Democrats, the Only Real Enemy. Therefore she should have been allowed to do whatever she wanted, unopposed.
There, did I do that right? Can I haz newsletter and Brazilian McMansion?
Roger Moore
@Captain C:
No. You said the quiet part out loud. You have to hide the “it was OK because she was going after The True Enemy” behind a haze of verbiage.
Peale
@sdhays: I think our first order of business has to be Mexico and the Caribbean. There’s going to be a boatload of resistance like there always is to “foreign aide” and for a lot of the Right wing, Mexico might as well be an expansionist power located on our border that needs to be defeated. But it is in our interest that we don’t have Mexico collapse due to COVID.
Roger Moore
@sdhays:
I think you would have to be very careful about that. The basic idea is good, but you don’t want it to look like we’re trying to use the vaccines as a form of bribery or blackmail. Instead, I think you would need to hand the vaccines over at the beginning as a gesture of good faith.
WhatsMyNym
@sdhays: Vaccine diplomacy will be more likely to happen after the J&J vaccine is available in quantity. End of April?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Captain C:
You neglected to add “…and don’t forget to subscribe to my Substack, because my engagement numbers are plummeting for some reason that I don’t believe are related to my being an obviously dishonest, insufferable white supremacy authoritarian-adjacent douchebag….”
piratedan
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: have to admit how GG finds a way to strip away all essential context for how he phrases his “just asking questions” is pretty impressive. Anyone who is unaware of his history and reading that take at face value could pause.
Thankfully, on this here blog we know he’s one of the most prevalent “bad faith” actors out there and the fact that he continues to get so much attention still bothers me. I truly believe that its a microcosm of our issues with the press as a whole, bad faith folks continue to get soapboxes and continue to get their bad faith “talking points” brought up for discussion. No matter how many times you display their duplicity for all to see.
Going to have to start keeping a list of folks in the press who do this shit so I can keep my outrage meter in check :-)
Barbara
@sdhays: Yeah, the term “vaccine nationalism” is really starting to get on my nerves. I want the rest of the world to be vaccinated, I really do, but getting the vaccine to other countries — especially in the developing world — requires more than just exporting products. Imagine a news item about the U.S. exporting vaccines to some country that lacks the infrastructure to deploy them in a way that might seem fair to us. “You’re giving “our” vaccine to wealthy people in country X and my grandma still isn’t vaccinated!” Or, “they ended up throwing half of it away!” In other words, for us to really help, we will have to use many of the same people trying to get the U.S. vaccinated to work with other health agencies or the UN to help deploy and effective distribution strategy in other countries, beginning, I hope, with Mexico and the rest of Latin America. I am just tuning this stuff out for now.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@piratedan:
Taibbi, Stoller, Dayen, Tracey, both Bruenigs, etc…..
Brachiator
@sdhays:
The US is involved in vaccine diplomacy. Mainly in the Americas for now. Canada and Mexico. The US is also backing WHO efforts to get the vaccine to other countries.
At one point, Iran claimed that they had things under control in getting access to the vaccine. Maybe through Russia or China.
piratedan
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: and Ken Vogel and the mean girl squad that are stalking HRC and now EW… and damn near everything from Politico…
sdhays
@Roger Moore: That was what I had in mind – a way of sort apologizing for the last three years and as a gesture of good faith. I believe they have some Sputnik V from Russia and I’m sure the Chinese are pushing their vaccines as well, but there are questions about both.
Russians certainly don’t seem to have a lot of faith in Sputnik V, justified or not.
dmsilev
Breaking news: Infrastructure Week Is A Go!
For reals, not as a joke this time.
Jay
The Biden Administration also has to dig deep into Jared’s “pay for plays” in the Middle East.
dmsilev
@WhatsMyNym: Well, we apparently have a few tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine stockpiled that won’t be usable here for at least four weeks (since they haven’t yet submitted their FDA application). A few million of those doses are what we “lent” to Mexico and Canada, and I think it would be entirely reasonable to send out more to countries that are deploying the AZ right now.
sdhays
@Brachiator: I brought up Iran because it was mentioned in the post, but I absolutely didn’t mean Iran exclusively. There’s a pretty clear line to our own benefit to help our neighbors as fast as possible as well.
The situation in Mexico is tragic.
CaseyL
The problem with repositioning the US as a reliable partner again is the GQP and the electorate.
I realize W’s reputation has been rehabilitated a lot, in comparison with T*, but W was a major disaster – until T*, he was in the running as a man who had done more damage than any President before him. Single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, causing a huge wave of refugees to Syria which then destabilized Syria, and so on. That is what the world remembers about W. Then we unleased T* on the world.
So the US electorate has an established habit of following up relative sane and honest Administrations with batshit crazy and corrupt ones. Other countries might not care all that much about the corruption – particularly the countries where corruption is a normal way of doing business – but they do notice the batshit crazy that upends other countries and regions on a whim.
Me, I’m amazed the rest of the world is willing to give the US yet another chance. If our hair-for-brains electorate elects another GQP President in 2024 – or any time in the next 20 years, to be honest – I doubt they’ll do so again.
lowtechcyclist
This is going to be harder, this go-around, than it was for Obama. Back in 2009, it certainly appeared that our allies figured GWB was a one-off. Now they know he wasn’t, and that the next GQP President is likely to be even worse than TFG was. They must be wondering just how they can deal with a superpower whose entire personality will undergo a massive change every 4-8 years. And countries like Iran have to be wondering the same thing too.
I wish Tony Blinken all the luck in the world in dealing with that. I can’t imagine being in his shoes
ETA: Looks like CaseyL covered this ground too, and especially in more detail about what a disaster Shrub was.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
This expresses my fear too: WRT international relations Trump broke the mold as he broke many, many relationships (while forging relationships with any autocrat who would shine his loafers). How can we be trusted to not rinse and repeat every four to eight years?
WhatsMyNym
@dmsilev:
that’s only enough 25 million folks and we may be counting on that for May. The Biden administration has said already that 7 million doses are available for releasing to other countries.
jonas
@Jay: Yeah, there was enough hinky shit there to occupy several Congressional committee investigations, if not the DOJ, Commerce Dept., and FBI, for a good long while…
opiejeanne
@sdhays: I read yesterday that Russia is exporting their vaccine and importing vaccine from the west for use at home.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
This is not just a US problem. The only countries which never change their foreign policy are dictatorships.
The continuing divergence between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy may add to confusion, but I don’t see an answer here.
Iran has its own internal problems. Again no easy answers.
Betty Cracker
From the linked Reuters article about Afghanistan:
Here’s an idea: leave.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: Not exactly a vote of confidence re: their own vaccine!
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Dictatorships can change their foreign policy very rapidly, too, and not just when the dictator dies or is overthrown. Dictators can change their minds suddenly for their own idiosyncratic reasons.
Mike in NC
Frontline will be running an episode called “American Insurrection” in a couple of weeks. The riot at the Capitol was no spontaneous event and the organizers — Trump, his children, Giuliani, Roger Stone, and any Republican senators and representatives involved — must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Try them on charges of sedition and lock them all up for 10-20 years.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: It’s true that US foreign policy sometimes changed quite a bit from admin to admin, but Trump was an irresponsible, incompetent, belligerent psychopath, which was somewhat novel. I don’t blame other countries if they never trust again. I don’t.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Fair point.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
I agree that Trump was a special piece of work.
But there has been a turn towards nationalism that is worrisome. Brazil, the UK, India and China, may be noteworthy examples.
Geminid
@Mike in NC: Besides their criminal liability, the organizers of the insurrection will face civil lawsuits from the many injured in the violence. A lawsuit filed by N.Y. attorney Robbie Kaplan against organizers of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, on behalf of those injured in the fatal car attack, can serve as a template.
Dan B
@Betty Cracker: Adam Smith is my Rep. He’s great, very progressive. I don’t know every detail of his history but am fine giving him the benefit of the doubt. As our Adam Silverman has detailed it’s tricky keeping people safe in a withdrawal. There are troops and civilians plus locals who are at high risk. It’s like ending restrictions on Covid while the cases are down, like ending caution while Zombie counts are down
If your actions result in disastrous consequences it can set things back worse than cautionary delays.
StringOnAStick
@piratedan: My ex-friend who became a Men’s Rights idiot loves him some Greenwald; I think it’s highly correlated.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: True, but I think our “leader of the free world” conceit makes the fact that we elected an incompetent, petty, dumb, destructive douchebag especially damaging to our image.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I think we’re going to leave; it’s just a matter of wanting to get out in an orderly fashion rather than just abandoning everything. I think that’s not too much to ask as long as we’re clearly on the way out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, brilliant. No one ever thought of that before. Have you considered sending your “plan” to the Pentagon? I am sure they would find it helpful.
ETA: It’s not often that I am at a loss for words, but that damned near did it.
Poe Larity
I can’t wait for Greenwald’s tears on Afghani suffering caused by Biden when the Taliban takes over.
Cacti
A May 1 withdrawal is “too soon”. It’s only been 20 short years.
smh
Betty Cracker
@Dan B: In the article, Smith noted that the Taliban said all foreign troops have to be out by May 1 (the Taliban said they’ll attack foreign forces remaining after that date), and he added if they don’t agree to a more open-ended deal, “I don’t see that we have much choice but to leave.”
Well, why not take them at their word and leave then? That’s my question. What possible good can come of staying longer?
I get the need to coordinate with allies and contractors. I also think we’re morally obligated to offer immigration status or other relief to Afghans who endangered themselves by working with our forces. But delaying the withdrawal feels like pointlessly kicking the can down the road.
Robert Sneddon
What are the benefits of foreign forces staying in Afghanistan, either to the people who live there or to the invaders? As it has been pointed out there are 10,000 troops NATO total, to dominate and control an entire nation a fifth the land area of the continental United States. The NATO forces in-country are buggerall use there but they have to stay to save the political face of whoever is in charge in the White House at any given time.
oatler.
But somebody has to stay behind and burn the poppy fields!
sdhays
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s a little harsh for a nearly top 10,000 blog, but I’m reminded of a highly-respected former-Senator and former-Presidential candidate’s “plan” for Iraq back in 2008 was “get everyone in a room and tell them to ‘cut the bullshit'”.
Good times.
Ken
Like we ever even got a 25-cent shoeshine out of any of Trump’s special friends.
Though I was somewhat amused when North Korea got him to fly all the way to Thailand for a handshake photo. Personally amused, that is, while feeling humiliated on behalf of the United States.
piratedan
@Betty Cracker: don’t have a problem if we leave, I think it’s imperative to include anyone else who has worked closely with our forces, civilian or military, to be allowed to come with us as well. Otherwise, we’re sentencing a whole lotta people to an essential death sentence.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@StringOnAStick: I agree completely. The reason more AA and Hispanic men moved into Trumps column, small as their numbers were, was their shared misogyny. Keeping women subservient to men in very traditional gender roles animates the right to a very large degree, especially the religious right. That is one of the big underpinnings of their objections to LGBTQ+ issues, too.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Yep. Arguably, Germany’s Merkel has been leader of the free world. The US had money and military power, but the rest of the world worked around Trump where they could.
WaterGirl
@Cacti: Moving thousands of troops safely isn’t something that can be done with 45 minutes notice. (Note: I am not literally talking about 45 minutes, but I’m sure you get my point.)
As I understand it, leaving was part of a deal that the two remaining parties would behave in a certain way, and they have not.
I’m not going to be cynical about this. Biden has been in office for two months, I am certainly willing to give him some breathing room, especially because Biden will be held responsible for the clusterfuck that will ensue if we leave under these particular circumstances.
Brachiator
@Robert Sneddon:
The US can’t stay in Afghanistan. But the worst case scenario might be terrible for the people there.
Subsole
@Captain C: As someone who fell for his bullshit back in the bad old Days of Dubya, it still amazes me just how deep Glenn manages to get that boot into his mouth…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
“But they’re brown and foreign to Our Cherished Shared Christian Culture and Way of Life, and should want to stay in Afghanistan to fix it and open ChicFilA franchises from Kabul to Kandahar. You’re talking about importing likely Islamofascist terrorists in a libtarded way….”
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I think the point is that they’re not talking about delaying for the sake of delay; they’re talking about needing more time to make sure we’re coordinated with our allies, both foreign and Afghans who have been helping us.
Subsole
@Captain C: Also, needs a lot more snot-nosed querulousness in the verbiage.
Otherwise, yeah. Solid effort.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: I’m tired of the US selling out the people who have helped us. I’m fine with taking the time to do this right. Or as right as we can, given the current state of the clusterfuck.
Ken
“So, when Bolsonaro needs to cement his hold on power by starting a murderous pogrom against some ‘outsiders’, do you think he should start with the American expats, the gheys, or the political bloggers? Just asking questions.”
Subsole
@piratedan: Yeah. And it is so prevalent across so many outfits, broadcast, print, online…
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
What would Carrie Mathison do?
Poe Larity
Maybe we should just stay in Afghanistan forever as a warning to ourselves.
Robert Sneddon
@Brachiator: Please remember that it’s not just US forces in Afghanistan, it’s NATO forces. Servicemen and women from countries such as France, Britain, Germany, Turkey and other NATO countries have fought there, killed Afghans there, had limbs blown off there and died there for the past twenty years and for no particular reason other than the President of the United States threw an epic temper tantrum after 9/11. Defending the United States from three hundred religious loonies with boxcutters holed up in caves on the Pakistan border cost the UK over 450 lives over a fifteen-year period of achieving buggerall politically and militarily.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: Not according to the Reuters article Cheryl linked, which I’m beginning to think no one read except me:
It sounds like the logistics argument is at least partly a delaying tactic to stretch things past the 5/1 deadline and negotiate a longer stay.
Subsole
@sdhays: I would be mighty hesitant to let anything tied to Vladimir’s gov’t into my physiological systems. That includes the water, food and air.
Subsole
@dmsilev: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
SUCK OUR DUST PRESIDENT TONKA-TRUCK!
Old School
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Please. She’s already been station chief there and bombed a wedding. We need fresh minds on this!
Roger Moore
@WaterGirl:
I want to do it right, but I can definitely see where Betty and Robert Sneddon are coming from. We’ve been talking about getting out for so long, each delay seems like it’s just another excuse for why we still aren’t out. It will be hard to believe we’re really getting out until after it’s happened.
Subsole
@trollhattan: Until we get some actual Voting Rights laws on the books, with actual enforcement, they can’t.
We deferred Reconstruction for 156 years.
The bill is due. Plus interest.
raven
This testimony from the firefighter is intense. She tried so many ways to get them to let her help.
Cheryl Rofer
LOL
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator: I will admit to persevering my way through both of Steve Coll’s tomes on the subject: this one and this one, and I think the US is fucked no matter what. Can’t leave, can’t stay.
Gin & Tonic
@opiejeanne: Link?
Subsole
@Roger Moore: “His excellency Idi Amin to the flashing multicolored courtesy bullhorn… his excellency Dr. Mr. Amin, please pick up the flashing multicolored courtesy bullhorn…”
Subsole
@Mike in NC: Nice of them to take a break from inviting Republicans on to pimp the Great Lie.
Subsole
@Brachiator: Brazil kind of flat-footed me, honestly.
Was that just backlash to the prior gov’t, or what?
Subsole
@StringOnAStick: Glem Greenwald=GG
Goober Gate = GG
Coincidence? You decide!!
Roger Moore
@Subsole:
I’ll admit my first thought was of the rapidly changing relationship between Germany and the USSR in 1939-41. Admittedly, that wasn’t so much a dictator changing his mind as strategically making peace with an enemy he was planning on betraying, but that’s not an important distinction. From the outside those two things are indistinguishable, and it led to a very volatile foreign policy.
Brachiator
@Robert Sneddon:
Worse case scenario is that Islamist purists take over and Afghanistan becomes a living hell for the people there, especially for girls and women. The country might also become a haven for terrorists again.
US and other forces maybe still should withdraw. But this doesn’t mean that the outcome will be good or even neutral.
Dan B
@Betty Cracker: I’m no fan of the 20 years of occupation but I recall feeling hope for Afghani women. The horror the Taliban would visit upon them would be, well, horrifying to people around the world.
I’d love to have Adam Silverman weigh in but don’t feel he has an obligation to us or to wade into a critical negotiation.
And I’m still wiped out by my Pfizer 2.0 on Saturday. My brain says sleep. It also says there will be pain for Afghani’s and for people who yearn for peace and justice everywhere, no matter what path we take. The pressure on Adam Smith and Joe is great.
Subsole
@Ken: Dog shelter owners.
I mean, how many can there be, right, Glenn?
Jay
@Robert Sneddon:
the key mission for NATO and other Nations troops in Afghanistan, is training and advising the ANA and various Police Forces,
The secondary mission is hunting ISIL,
The third mission is providing intel and Air Support to the ANA and various Police Agencies.
Keep in mind, the TFG “Peace Deal”, ( capitulation) is with the “Beach Talibs”, who have been living in the UAE and the Petty Kingdoms, for over a decade, and don’t actually “control” the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban armed groups and allied factions.
Subsole
@Robert Sneddon: In fairness, if he didn’t invade something we would have lynched him
This country was ugly after 9/11. Doesn’t excuse him. But it started a lot further down the tower than the penthouse suite.
Subsole
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you John Bolton.
More history, less Rambo. You monumental fuckup-in-a-mustache.
Brachiator
@Subsole:
There has been a resurgence of right wing nationalism in various countries. In South America it is often racist and strongly anti-indigenous.
Subsole
@Roger Moore: Good example.
Kaiser Billie the second is the one that always gets me.
In some ways he was a bit like Trump: egotistical, immature, crushingly needy. Trump was a lot more malevolent though.
topclimber
@WaterGirl: Preach it.
The Moar You Know
I don’t envy Blinken his task. What Former Guy did was show the world that in three more years, we could go right back to governance by Tweet likes or worse. Our short-term promises (one year, two year) are probably regarded as good. Our long-term promises are worthless and the rest of the world is going to treat us as such for decades. If I were the EU I’d be making arrangements to close all American military bases and arming up as fast as humanly possible.
Reminded of a couple of friendships that have gone bad. Some of those folks I’d be willing to conditionally trust again. Some I’d be tempted to shoot on sight if I see them on my street. Trust is hard to gain and so easy to lose, and we have lost it but good.
topclimber
@Poe Larity: Poewn’d the neocons on that one.
Robert Sneddon
@Jay:
This “training” and “advising” mission has been going on for about fifteen years or so. Some of the Afghan police and soldiers trained by NATO forces in the early days have now retired through old age. One would think that the Afghan security forces should have their own training schools and establishments well in hand by now and they don’t actually need foreigners who don’t speak any of the local dialects to teach them how to shoot their own countrymen.
Pardon my cynicism, it’s late and I’m tired.
Anonymous At Work
The hard part, to me, is tying Russia, Iran and North Korea back to “American families”. Afghanistan’s ongoing conflict and China’s economy tie in pretty directly.
Tying North Korean nuclear ambitions back to “kitchen table” issues is pretty hard without 2-3 suppositions (if NK gets nukes, Japan will as well, lowering their exports, etc.).
Russia’s internal problems eclipse ours but they are destabilizing their region to re-achieve a sense of hegemony; their broader impact isn’t acute, I’d think (Vaccine Diplomacy aside?).
The issue with Iran is it gets wrapped in “Middle East problems” and people’s brains shut down. Like talking about the recent and fourth-straight inconclusive Israeli election.
How would you tie this things to teh kitchen table, if you were Biden?
Robert Sneddon
@Subsole:
Saudi Arabia was available. The Bin Laden family is big there — they might have been the ruling family if the British hadn’t plumped for the House of ibn-Saud back in the 1930s — and even though black-sheep Osama was cast out for being a raving loony fundie he was still kept supplied with lots of cash and support. Most of the actual 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nutters, their religious affiliation was a bugfuck version of Wahhabi Islam which is centred in Saudi Arabia etc. etc.
Poe Larity
@Anonymous At Work: We hear today that sanctions on China will continue. So repivot back to China. Taiwan is going to happen this decade.
For Afghanistan, it’ll be whatever Pakistan wants to do with it.
After AQ, I wondered what came next. ISIS. Now I wonder what comes after ISIS. Not like Syria, Libya, Yemen are going to get more stable.
MBS and Erdogan have grand plans for their worlds.
Jay
@Robert Sneddon:
15 is not a long time to help turn around what was a corrupt broken tribal state awash in guns, drugs, crime, smuggling with both Private Armies, terrorists for hire, and no shortage of outside sponsors.
Eg, Russian GRU bounties0 on US Troops.
germy
“She was just 17, you know what I mean…”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Dan B:
You too? I’m trashed by Moderna #2 from yesterday. Fatigue, exacerbation of old tinnitus, earache, mild fever. I’m laying in bed, covered in blankets.
Martin
Got shot #1. Lots of happy people. My location was doing about 1200 people per day. They described it as one of their smaller efforts, but it was close and had the soonest appointment.
The location wasn’t super well suited to this kind of effort, but it was well organized. Chatted with the nurses a bit, and they said this was the most fun they’ve had in a LONG time. Helping people not get sick in the first place is top-tier nursing.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
An old fashioned Mann Act violation? How quaint!
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Dan B
@Jay: Thanks for the context. Sounds like Jared contacted his friends at the beach resorts. Where are reports coming from that these “Beach Taliban” will begin attacking American troops after May 1?
WaterGirl
@raven: ??
burnspbesq
@sdhays:
I was texting with a buddy in Lithuania the other day. Those folks trust the Sputnik vaccine not even a tiny bit. “Russian? I’ll pass, thanks.”
Dan B
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: My arm started to hurt 5 minutes after the “mildest stab ever”. I slept 1 1/2 hours that afternoon (vacc at 1PM) and 11 1/2 hours that night then two naps of over an hour the next day, plus painful neck and trapezious. Was able to sleep on my left side last night but trying to stave off sleep for another few minutes so I can check out this post’s thread.
Sorry to hear about tinnitus and other symptoms. I’m mostly wiped out with localized pain, and some swelling.
burnspbesq
@Cacti:
Should we put the billions of dollars worth of gear we would have to abandon in place in order to withdraw by 5/1 on your tab?
germy
@WaterGirl:
The Chauvin trial. A witness gave dramatic testimony.
Then she was reprimanded by the defense lawyer and judge for not simply answering questions. But the defense questions are bullshit distractions
burnspbesq
@germy:
‘The jury either credits her testimony or it doesn’t. The judge and defense counsel don’t have much to say in that.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Those tweets are so enraging.
WaterGirl
@germy: Thank you. Wow, if that’s the best the defense has got, they should be in real trouble. Operative words are “should be”.
That judge is whack. Nothing impartial about that judge from what I saw in the videos you linked to.
Robert Sneddon
@Jay:
General Elphinstone to the white courtesy telephone, please…
As for the Russian bounties on US troops, President Reagan feted and funded brave Afghan Mujahadeen patriots as they attacked and killed Russian troops during the Soviet version of the Elphinstone Expedition back in the 1980s and even as recently as 2005 the US was paying hard cash to local bandits for assorted ‘terrorists’ they shipped off to Camp X-ray in Cuba where they’ve been left to rot ever since.
Omnes Omnibus
@Robert Sneddon: I am not arguing in favor staying. No one is doing that. Saying that 10,000 soldiers can simply “leave,” otoh, is either simplistic or disingenuous.
Steve in the ATL
@germy: “and the way she looked/was way beyond repair…”
germy
@Steve in the ATL:
The way she looked was way beyond compare.
His career is way beyond repair.
J R in WV
@Roger Moore:
I will point out the UK’s Prime Minister, Alexander Boris de peffel Johnson, who is at least as unstable and incompetent as TFG ever was.
What a disaster for that nation, Brexit and Boris… OMG!
Robert Sneddon
@Omnes Omnibus:
General Elphinstone left Afghanistan, no problems. His troops stayed though…
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
and the women come out to cut up what remains,
jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
and go to your gawd like a soldier.
Plan to leave, go through with plan, leave, job done and dusted.
I hold the US up as an exemplar of logistics and the ability to actually carry out a move like this pretty much perfectly. There’s no-one better in the world than the US military at moving a shitload of troops, equipment and supplies large distances in a short period of time, possibly because they get so much practice at it.
At the moment though the US is insisting on this “training” and “advice” role for NATO forces in Afghanistan, dragging its allies along with it down a long and dusty trail for no good reason other than Dolchstosslegende optics in the American heartland.
J R in WV
@raven:
What testimony from which firefighter, raven? Link? I confess I don’t know what you’re talking about… and so ask for some help.
J R in WV
@Dan B:
I was wiped out by Moderna 2 almost two weeks ago, slept 14 or 16 hours a day for 2 or 3 days, still shaky with strange and different muscle cramps, which I am prone to anyway, but in new and different places…
Still glad to have had the vaccination, don’t mistake me… but ouch, he said.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: I had the same question. germy answered at #104.
James E Powell
@J R in WV:
Here is a thread with excerpts, including the judge admonishing her, jury not present
ETA – Or see germy at #104.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: Why was the jury not present?? I hadn’t seen that.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
There’s practically continents worth of ground between “never change their foreign policy” and the Jekyll-and-Hyde change of policy between Obama and TFG.
Though I agree with Cheryl that calling TFG’s Administration’s interactions with other countries a ‘policy’ is being overly generous.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
I expect the logistics of pulling out aren’t as simple as they look to someone who hasn’t been there. Not only do we have to get ourselves, our stuff, our allies, our contractors, and locals who’ve stuck their necks out for us all out of there, but we’ve got to do it in a way that everybody’s adequately defended from hostile attacks until the last plane is on its way out.
I agree with you that we shouldn’t drag this out any more than necessary for the safety of all concerned. And I expect we can do this in a way that by May 1, it’s clear that we’re gathering up the jackets and moving to the exits. But May 1 is 32 days away, and it may or may not be doable in a safe manner in that amount of time.
So if we’re not actually out by then, but clearly on our way out, I’d call that close enough for government work.
Geminid
. Well, the comments on this post got me thinking about Afghanistan. I do not follow this war closely, and I can see I’m not the only one. Two points: ten thousand NATO troops are not trying to hold down the country. They are supporting ~200,000 Afghan troops, and another 100,000 or so police, who at this point are trying to hold down half the country. And our 3,000 troops are not training Afghan soldiers so much as training cadres who train soldiers. U.S. officers have advised at the battalion level, but I think that has not been the case for the past year. Brigade level, maybe.
How effective are the Afghan government forces? If they were all good, the Taliban would be on the defensive, which they are not. If the government’s troops were all bad, the well-organized and capable Taliban would control the entire country by now, and they don’t. So, the government’s forces are somewhere in-between, which makes the U.S. administration’s decision harder. And the way trump ignored the Afghan government, and then ignored the Taliban’s violations of what is now a one-sided agreement, makes Biden’s decision harder still. He will have to choose the lesser of two evils, and I can’t kick if he pulls out this summer, and I won’t kick if we are there a year from now.
The belief that we should bring out Afghans who are at risk for retaliation is understandable. But it can’t be done. There are just too many at risk- soldiers, police, civil servants, and others. Taliban military leadership is hardened and embittered by almost twenty years of war, and they can be counted on to execute tens of thousands of their opponents, if not more.
The four million+ Hazaras in the central mountains would be especially endangered. The Taliban’s destruction of statues of the Buddha at Bamayan is well known. Less well known was their systematic brutalization of the Shiite Hazaras. The Hazara have been a particular foe of the Taliban, and if they win, this time the Taliban could well decide to not just brutalize the Hazara, but to exterminate them.
For months, the U.S. refrained from attacking Taliban forces, as agreed to in trump’s peace deal. That has already started to change with air strikes supporting Afghan soldiers. The Taliban says it will start attacking American troops again if we stay. When asked about this on his recent visit to Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Austin observed that a commander’s first obligation was to defend his troops, and that the U.S. general in command had “more than adequate means” to do this. So if we stay, we fight, and it will likely be a very violent year. But it will be a violent year if we leave also.
I wish I knew what U.S. service members who served there now think about our presence. And I really wish I knew the answer to the most important question: what do the Afghans want?
Miss Bianca
@germy:
A band I was in used to cover that song, and I love it, but you know, the older I get, the creepier that line sounds to me…
YY_Sima Qian
I do not agree with this last comment, if it means the Biden Administration is to continue the momentum of Trump’s policies in the most challenging relationships, until a new direction is set pending the review.
The Trump administration purposely poisoned the wells for the Biden Administration following the election on multiple fronts, particularly with China. Keeping the holding pattern continues to solidify the rapidly deteriorating reality and keep the wells poisoned. It also continues the policy incoherence from the Trump days. I keep reading that some in the Biden Administration believe maintaining the tariffs on China and the sanctions on Chinese technology companies give the US negotiating leverage. However, everyone (sane) knows the trade war has been disastrous, and probably has been more damaging to the US than China, so what is this purported leverage wrt tariffs? The technology war has been damaging to both sides, probably more to China in the short term. However, reduced revenue to US tech companies due to reduced sales to China will reduce their ability to finance further R&D and maintain their technological edge, and sanctions on Chinese technology companies have contributed to the global chip shortage (prompting the Chinese chip consumers like Huawei to hoard chips before sanctions are implemented, and affecting supply from Chinese chipmakers like SMIC).
Likewise, Biden Administration appears to be demanding concessions from Iran to return to the JPCOA framework. However, it was the US that unilateral withdrew from the framework and imposed new unilateral sanctions from Iran. Why would Iran make additional concessions just to return to the status quo ante? Who would want to solidify the precedent that the US can tear up any agreement at any time it wants to force more concessions from others (precedent already uncomfortably set by Trump wrt NAFTA and FTA w/ South Korea, though perhaps going back to the treaties with Native American nations)? That is how a mafia boss operates.
Finally, the Biden Administration is looking to coordinate and cajole the EU into taking tougher positions on China on human rights, technology and geopolitical influence, and get the NATO nations to increase their military presence in the Western Pacific. At the same time, the Biden Administration is threatening sanctions on European companies for Nord Stream II, as well as retaliation against digital taxes imposed by the EU nations. All that will do is to push the EU toward greater geopolitical independence, which serve Chinese interests. (Russian, I think, is more interested in chaos and division in the EU).
I understand that the Biden Administration is preoccupied with domestic emergencies, and rightly so. I also understand that they do not have the domestic political space to make any accommodating moves wrt China and Iran. It is also understandable that a degree of incoherence is inevitable early in an administration, especially with the mess that Trump left. However, how about some low hanging fruits like agreeing with China to reopen the consulates in Houston and Chengdu? Confidence building measures to provide a bit of ballast. Otherwise, by the time the Biden Administration completes its policy review and develops a strategy, it may find the grounds have shifted yet again.