;)
The Commentariat -- August 17, 2021
Afternoon Update:
How Could This Have Happened? Dan Levin of the New York Times: "Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday, though he has no symptoms, the governor's office announced.... Mr. Abbott, who is fully vaccinated, will now be isolated in the Governor's Mansion while receiving monoclonal antibody treatment, which can help Covid-19 patients who are at risk of getting very sick.... Mr. Abbott, 63, has faced withering criticism as coronavirus cases have increased sharply in Texas and available intensive-care beds have dwindled in Austin and other cities. But he maintained his ban on mask mandates, which prohibits local officials from imposing restrictions in their communities." This is an item from the NYT's live updates Tuesday. ~~~
~~~ Paul Weber of the AP: "The positive test comes a day after Abbott tweeted a picture of himself not wearing a mask while speaking indoors near Dallas to a group of GOP supporters, most of whom were unmasked.
Here's a transcript of President Biden's speech on Afghanistan, as delivered Monday.
Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration on Sunday froze Afghan government reserves held in U.S. bank accounts, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. institutions, according to two people familiar with the matter. The decision was made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials in Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people said. The State Department was also involved in discussions over the weekend, with officials in the White House monitoring the developments. An administration official said in a statement, 'Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.'"
Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former American government officials. By July, many intelligence reports grew more pessimistic, questioning whether any Afghan security forces would muster serious resistance and whether the government could hold on in Kabul, the capital. President Biden said on July 8 that the Afghan government was unlikely to fall and that there would be no chaotic evacuations of Americans similar to the end of the Vietnam War. The drumbeat of warnings over the summer raise questions about why Biden administration officials, and military planners in Afghanistan, seemed ill-prepared to deal with the Taliban's final push into Kabul, including a failure to ensure security at the main airport and rushing thousands more troops back to the country to protect the United States' final exit."
Hans Nichols of Axios: "Senior national security officials presiding over a historic foreign policy collapse are privately expressing deep frustrations about the thin Afghanistan withdrawal plans left behind by Donald Trump.... Many experienced operatives in both parties are aghast that President Biden and his team didn't ready better preparations over nearly seven months since taking office. But two Biden officials who spoke with Axios on Monday on condition of anonymity bristled at the criticism.... 'There was no plan to evacuate our diplomats to the airport,' a senior national security official told Axios about the preparations they inherited from the previous administration.... 'When we got in, on Jan. 20, we saw that the cupboard was bare,' the official said, echoing a complaint Team Biden also made about Trump's vaccine distribution plan." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I read the Trump plan & found it quite comprehensive: "Leave on a jet plane." For a $50 contribution to the Reinstate Trump PAC, you could get it with a Mary Travers CD.
Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump gushed about the prospect of a Taliban-led Afghanistan last year, predicting that once they took over the country, they would devote themselves to killing terrorists.... Last February, months after canceling a planned meeting with the Taliban that would have placed the group's leaders inside the White House on September 11th, Trump gloried in the idea of a Taliban-led Afgh[a]nistan that would become a bane to terrorists.... And as recently as late June of this year, Trump boasted that the deal he'd made for the withdrawal made it impossible [for President] Biden to reverse course -- and explicitly predicted the collapse of the Afghan government as soon as the U.S. departed."
Luis Martinez of ABC News: "A U.S. official has confirmed that human remains were found inside the wheel well of a C-17 military plane that had been swarmed by hundreds of people on the tarmac as it took off at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. The discovery was made upon landing at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday. A dramatic video taken earlier Monday showed some people clinging to the plane as it taxied down the runway in Kabul."
Meet Your Trump Backer. Julian Mark of the Washington Post: "Hours before the special Senate runoff in Georgia was called for the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock (D) in the early hours on Jan. 6, Eduard Florea [-- a Proud Boys supporter --] went on the conservative social media platform Parler and wrote: 'Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he's swinging with the ... fish.' In a later post, he wrote in reference to Warnock: 'Dead men can't pass [expletive] laws.'... In addition to making threatening comments about Warnock on Jan. 6, Florea had also written on Parler about going to Washington to incite violence.... On Jan. 12, federal agents and police ... discovered more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, plus hatchets swords and 75 military-style combat knives [in Florea's Queens basement apartment].... Florea surrendered and was taken into custody. Now, Florea is facing up to 15 years in prison for making those threats, prosecutors announced Monday. The 41-year-old from Queens pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting threats to injure and one count of possessing ammunition after having been convicted of a felony."
Mark Guarino of the Washington Post: "The family of Anthony Huber, who was fatally shot by Kyle Rittenhouse during riots in Kenosha, Wis., last summer, filed suit in Milwaukee on Tuesday, alleging that the city of Kenosha and its police and county sheriff's departments openly conspired with White militia members, which gave them 'license -- to wreak havoc and inflict injury.' In the first major federal lawsuit against the city, police and county resulting from the riots in August last year, attorneys say that Rittenhouse and other gunmen were given preferential treatment because of their race."
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times' live updates of developments in Afghanistan Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here: "The Taliban announced a general amnesty for government officials and ordered its fighters to maintain discipline Tuesday, as an uneasy calm settled over the capital, Kabul, and some evacuation flights resumed at the airport.... Media reports suggested, however, that access to the airport remained difficult for many residents seeking a way out."
The CEOs of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal & Washington Post have written a joint letter to President Biden urging him to ensure "Facilitated and protected access to the US-controlled airport[;] Safe passage through a protected access gate to the airport[; and] Facilitated air movement out of the country."
"The Buck Stops with Me." Michael Shear & David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Biden offered a defiant defense on Monday of his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, blaming the swift collapse of the Afghan government and chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport on the refusal of the country's military to stand and fight in the face of the Taliban advance. Speaking to the American people from the East Room after returning briefly to the White House from Camp David, Mr. Biden said he had no regrets about his decision to end the longest war in United States history. But he lamented that two decades of support failed to turn the Afghan military into a force capable of securing its own country. 'We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries. Provided for the maintenance of their airplanes,' Mr. Biden said. 'We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide was the will to fight for that future.'... As the fourth president to preside over the war in Afghanistan, though, he said that 'the buck stops with me.'" ~~~
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "President Biden's unapologetic defense on Monday of his decisions in Afghanistan rallied some Democrats to his side, but the president still faces angry and increasingly public criticism from lawmakers in both parties over the chaos descending on Kabul. After leaving the White House largely undefended, some Democratic leaders voiced tentative support after the speech.... But other lawmakers were unmollified. Many moderate Democrats remained furious at the Biden administration for what they saw as terrible planning for the evacuation of Americans and their allies. Liberal Democrats who have long sought to end military engagements around the world still grumbled that the images out of Kabul were damaging their cause. And Republicans who months ago cheered for ... Donald J. Trump's even faster timetable to end U.S. military involvement in the nation's longest war have shoved their previous encouragements aside to accuse Mr. Biden of humiliating the nation." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I think it was Nicole Wallace of MSNBC who pointed out that 95 percent of politicians & pundits have excoriated Biden for the precipitous fall of Afghanistan while 95 percent of the public stand behind his decision to leave. See also Margaret Sullivan's column, linked below.
Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden presented voters with a core argument why he, more than anyone else, was the best choice to replace the wildly unorthodox Donald Trump: He would bring competence.... But over the past few days, the images from Afghanistan have put on vivid display an inability to plan, an underestimation of a foreign adversary, an ineffective effort to scramble and make up for it -- and, as Biden demonstrated in a brief address Monday, an attempt to deflect full responsibility.... A scathing assessment of Biden's performance came from Ryan Crocker, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan under [President] Obama.... 'I'm left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander in chief,' he said. 'To have read this so wrong -- or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care.' A senior administration official ... said there had been months of planning and various contingency plans, but the administration was surprised at how rapidly the situation deteriorated."
Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "Tens of thousands of Afghan nationals risked their lives to assist the United States military in Afghanistan, many of them working as interpreters alongside American soldiers in combat. Now, after the Taliban's takeover, they are more desperate than ever to leave -- but swift, safe passage to the United States may prove elusive. More than 300,000 Afghan civilians have been affiliated with the American mission over its two-decade presence in the country, according to the International Rescue Committee, but a minority qualify for refugee protection in the United States. Among them are those who worked with the U.S. military, qualifying them and their families for special immigrant visas. However, thousands are stuck in a yearslong backlog that is only ballooning as the situation on the ground deteriorates after the withdrawal of American troops. About 2,000 such people whose cases already had been approved have arrived in the United States on evacuation flights from Kabul, the capital, that began in July."
Ahmad Seir, et al., of the AP: "Thousands of Afghans rushed onto the tarmac of Kabul's international airport Monday, some so desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country that they held onto an American military jet as it took off and plunged to death in chaos that killed at least seven people, U.S. officials said. The crowds of people rushing the airport came as the Taliban enforced their rule over the wider capital after a lightning advance across the country that took just over a week to dethrone the country's Western-backed government. While there were no major reports of abuses, many stayed home and remained fearful as the insurgents' advance saw prisons emptied and armories looted." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "... thousands of U.S. citizens are trapped in and around Kabul with no ability to get to the airport, which is their only way out of the country. As Taliban soldiers go door to door, searching for Westerners, these U.S. citizens are now reaching out to anyone and everyone back in Washington for help. The Biden administration must get moving on a plan to rescue them before it's too late.... The No. 1 job of the U.S. government and the roughly 7,000 U.S. troops in or on their way to Kabul must be to rescue American citizens first and then all the Afghans who risked their lives based on America's promise of safety."
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... knowing the U.S. was going to leave, the administration has no excuse for its failure to evacuate our allies and prepare for a refugee exodus.... It was only two weeks ago that the administration started the P-2 visa program for Afghans who worked for American contractors, nongovernmental organizations and media outlets.... [Now] there is no time for bureaucracy.... There is no moral argument against vastly expanded refugee admissions."
Marie: In hindsight -- and from the Department of Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda -- my take is this: While the Taliban was busily coercing goverment forces to stand down (see Craig Whitlock's report below), the U.S. should have been negotiating with the Taliban to allow the free passage of Americans & Afghans to the Kabul airport & to Bagram Airfield (which the U.S. inexplicably handed over to Afghans July 1). To ensure Taliban compliance with such a deal, U.S. & allied military personnel would monitor & secure main routes to the airfields. The deal could have included a date-certain end. Even if our intelligence community hadn't figured out how fast Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban, they knew it would fall, and there should have been a contingency plan to adequately protect our assets & allies in Afghanistan. There was not. BTW, for those who think the U.S. should have been "sneaking" our friends & operatives out of Afghanistan these past few months, well, no. There was no way a "secret" airlift would have remained secret for more than a few hours. ~~~
~~~ Update. Absent any reasonable planning, it appears the U.S. has figured this out after the fact: Joseph Choi of the Hill: "The U.S. has reached a deal with the Taliban to ensure that evacuations from Kabul's airport can take place without interference from the group.... The deal was reached in talks in Doha, Qatar, between senior Taliban officials and Gen. Frank McKenzie. The two sides apparently agreed to a 'deconfliction mechanism' in which operations at the airport in Kabul are permitted to continue without interference from the Taliban. McKenzie reportedly told the Taliban that any interference would be met with force from the U.S. military, who would move to defend the airport if necessary."
Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "... according to documents obtained for the forthcoming Washington Post book 'The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War,' U.S. military officials privately harbored fundamental doubts for the duration of the war that the Afghan security forces could ever become competent or shed their dependency on U.S. money and firepower. 'Thinking we could build the military that fast and that well was insane,' an unnamed former U.S. official told government interviewers in 2016. Those fears, rarely expressed in public, were ultimately borne out by the sudden collapse this month of the Afghan security forces, whose wholesale and unconditional surrender to the Taliban will go down as perhaps the worst debacle in the history of proxy warfare. The capitulation was sped up by a series of secret deals that the Taliban brokered with many Afghan government officials. In recent days and weeks, Taliban leaders used a combination of cash, threats and promises of leniency to persuade government forces to lay down their arms."
Josh Marshall of TPM: "Americans, or at least the commentating classes, are watching aghast as events unfold in Afghanistan. Some are second-guessing the wisdom of withdrawal -- after all, how hard is it to maintain a few thousand soldiers there permanently? Others are taking the more comfortable position of saying yes, we had to leave but this just wasn't the right way. I must be the only person in America who is having exactly the opposite reaction. The more I see the more I'm convinced this was the right decision -- both what I see on the ground in Afghanistan and perhaps even more the reaction here in the United States. It is crystal clear that the Afghan national army and really the Afghan state was an illusion. It could not survive first contact with a post-US military reality. As is so often the case in life -- with bad investments, bad relationships -- what we were doing there was staying to delay our reckoning with the consequences of the reality of the situation.... If anything, given the outcome, quicker is better -- since a protracted fall is necessarily a bloodier fall.... Someone had to make the decision that Bush, Obama and Trump did not and apparently could not. Biden did." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Katherine Huggins of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump called on President Joe Biden to 'resign in disgrace' on Sunday over the messy withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.... Around the same time that Trump's statement was published, journalists noted that the RNC appeared to have removed a page from their website in which they highlighted their support for withdrawing from Afghanistan." Uh, routine maintenance, the RNC said in a huff. (Also linked yesterday.)
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "If ever a big, breaking story demanded that the news media provide historical context and carefully avoid partisan blame, it's the story of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Instead, what we largely got over the past few days was the all-too-familiar genre of 'winners and losers' coverage. It's coverage that tends to elevate and amplify punditry over news, and to assign long-lasting political ramifications to a still-developing situation.... Here's the predictable headline on Miranda Devine's column in the Murdoch-owned New York Post: 'Joe Biden's defeat in Afghanistan will echo for eternity.' [MB: also my favorite headline.]... Throughout [the 20 years since the war began], the American government has lied to the American people about how well things were going in America's longest war.... Maybe the pullout from Afghanistan really will go down as Biden's Waterloo. But maybe deciding that should take more than a few hours."
AP: "U.S. officials on Monday declared the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought. Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River -- Lake Mead -- have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white 'bathtub ring' of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.
Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid- to late September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions. Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant that is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration's authorization of additional shots.... The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents and health care workers, followed by other older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received." The AP's story is here.
Tennessee. Andrea Salcedo of the Washington Post: "Michelle Fiscus met with state investigators in July to report the suspicious package mailed to her office containing a silicone dog muzzle. During the meeting, the then-medical director of Tennessee's immunization program told agents she suspected the Amazon package from an unknown sender was a 'veiled threat.' The muzzle, she said, was meant to make her 'stop talking about vaccinating people.' But ... state agents [soon] learned the muzzle was purchased with a credit card under Fiscus's name, according to a department report obtained by The Washington Post. (The findings were first reported by Axios.)... Fiscus has denied purchasing the muzzle, tweeting Monday that her 'credit card was charged with the incorrect billing address -- my state work office -- to an Amazon account I didn't know existed.... No, I didn't send it to myself,' Fiscus added." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm tempted to give Fiscus the benefit of the doubt. Just last week, PayPal denied a claim I made for an online purchase because they said they had proof the item was delivered to me. When I called to ask where the purchase -- a toilet -- was delivered, they told me it was delivered to my mailbox. Really? sez I. I don't have a mailbox, and if I did, I don't think the postperson could stuff a toilet into it. PayPal paid my claim.
Texas. Jonathan Allen & Laura Strickler of NBC News: "With Covid-19 surging across the state, Texas has requested five mortuary trailers from the federal government in anticipation of an influx of dead bodies, state officials told NBC News.... Department of State Health Services spokesperson Doug Loveday said the trailers were requested Aug. 4 after officials reviewed data about increasing deaths as a third wave of the coronavirus struck the state.... [Gov. Greg] Abbott issued an executive order banning vaccination and mask mandates July 29 as cases rose in the state. The order was challenged and recently upheld by the state Supreme Court."
Beyond the Beltway
New York. Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: "Reversing course, the New York State Assembly will continue its broad investigation of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and issue a report with its findings, lawmakers said on Monday, following fierce bipartisan backlash over the decision to suspend the inquiry. Carl E. Heastie, the speaker of the Assembly, had announced on Friday that lawmakers would close their investigation of Mr. Cuomo and would no longer move to impeach him, despite finding 'credible evidence' regarding allegations made against him. Mr. Heastie, a Democrat, made the announcement days after Mr. Cuomo said that he would resign, citing constitutional concerns about impeaching a governor who was leaving office. The reversal on Monday does not mean that lawmakers will move to impeach Mr. Cuomo; Mr. Heastie had cited a six-page legal memo on Friday that argued that lawmakers lacked the constitutional authority to impeach an official who was out of office.... Last week's announcement had prompted an outcry from both Republican and Democratic legislators, who said that the Assembly had a duty to, at the very least, make public the findings of the taxpayer-funded investigation, which began in March."
15 Comments
Reader Comments (15)
An aphorism:
Work comes in two forms. Making messes and cleaning them up.
The same might be said of foreign policy.
--Author known but anonymous
Has that RNC website page supporting withdrawal from Afghanistan been restored yet?
If all the “experts” in the MSM (forget confederate media) now rushing to pile on Biden for the Afghan withdrawal were so dead sure this endgame would go so badly, where were all the carefully constructed think pieces advising extreme caution and laying out better plans for ending this engagement that began with lies and continued with the help of dangerously wishful thinking on the part of the military high command? I don’t seem to recall reading any of those.
Every bobble head doll sitting at a keyboard can be an expert after the fact. All these “I KNEW this would happen” pieces are the shoddy work of opportunistic media mediocrities, shallow drum beaters who will be moving on to the next easy target and shiny object with the rest of the pack in a couple of days.
This is the type of “journalism” that promotes knee jerk, thoughtless mob mentality, the same sort that gave us Donald Trump, thank you all very much.
A quote from Hemingway seems appropriate to the Afghanistan situation:
“How did you go bankrupt?"
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Nothing in our experience seems to apply to the progression of the Taliban takeover in the past two weeks. We're used to something that you can plot on a map, as a moving entity approaching the capital. Or as a spreading stain, the rate of which can be fairly estimated. Those are the analytical frameworks that analysts must have worked within to figure the fall would take longer.
But, in fact, the Afghanistan government was a sort of One Horse Shay, which came apart all at once rather than piecemeal. And from earlty open reporting, it appears that the Taliban loosened all the bolts and stays on the shay, with the help or acquiescence of the stablehands, but without the knowledge of the owners in the big house.
There will be many Lessons Learned (or, as some call them, "Lessons Observed"), but one hardy perennial is that there is no substitute for human intelligence placed among the low levels of society. Which is hard to do, and which often degenerates into motivated snitches, but is necessary to know that the bolts are loose, just enough to fall, not enough to be detected by cursory inspection.
Another LO is that we spend a LOT on Intell but have problems sorting and using it ... still.
Thanks, Patrick, for the Gradual/Sudden quote; I was thinking of the same one. Regarding infiltration in Afghanistan, I was once speaking with a Yemeni translator, who had been extracted from Yemen and was now a US citizen. I thought his language skills were such that he could be an infiltrator in Afghanistan. He told me that this was impossible, because the Afghans would immediately recognize that his speech was not "theirs," no matter how well he spoke it, and he would not be able to trace his lineage in such a way that they would ever trust him - no matter where he went in Afghanistan. All in all, it's no surprise that US soldiers/workers were blind and deaf in Afghanistan.
@Patrick: Thanks for your observations. They sound spot-on to me. Some bright person should develop a program that is smart enough to print out all the raw intel in black-and-white, but highlight in red print the screaming scary stuff. Now, as ever, it's up to people to do that, and those people don't seem to be all that good at highlighting. Ergo, 9/11, 1/6, this week in Afghanistan.
The program would have to work off of specific words and word combinations, I guess. But of course that doesn't mean the poobahs would necessarily react appropriately to "Bin Ladin determined to strike in US," highlighted or not.
Marie: sad to report that several such programs already exist, but it remains difficult in general intelligence analysis (as opposed to monitoring specific sources) to see the needle among the stack of needles.
FYI I am not and have not worked in intelligence but have been a consumer.
This one might have been linked here when I was out of town, but just came across it going through accumulated newspapers:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tennessee-incentivizes-giving-cows-vaccines-but-giving-humans-covid-shots-not-so-much/
Would be a head scratcher if the governor were not a Republican. Because he is, it makes "sense."
@Patrick
Very much like the one-horse shay reference, tho' I'm not sure the Afghani shay really operated all that well over the last two decades. I take what has happened in Afghanistan to be clear evidence that the U.S. presence was only tolerated and that the majority of the population was not at all sorry to see us leave. Many were apparently eager.
Would go further to say that after the original combat mission there, we stayed there only for our own perceived and vacillating political purposes. I remember all the talk of the immense mineral riches that we might gain with Afghanistan as a compliant satellite, which paralleled the British Empire's foreign policy approach that has resulted in so many geopolitical messes around the globe that still fester.
Still, regardless of the causes, what is happening there is a large scale human tragedy.
I'm back from our foray into dog sitting and marveled at this dog's ability to completely ignore the shit storms of human operations and just concentrate on his own doggy issues. Even after I explained the situation in Afghanistan, he just wagged his tail, got his ball, and nudged me into another game of "go fetch."
Catching up on a lot of R.C. comments and news –-all done so well and so thoroughly. Let me add just two items:
Before 9/11:
"We have information that a group of Saudi's have been taking flying lessons." From a female FBI dispatcher
IGNORED
George Ball, advising a group of "the president's men," not to go into Vietnam–-giving cogent reasons since he had lived there and had studied that country thoroughly was not only rebuffed but fired from his post.
"None around that table had the slightest background on Vietnam; it was like trying to reason with idiots." Ball
From the Lead a Horse to Water Dept.
Thinking of the startling intel “Bin Laden to attack US”, and how it was blithely ignored (yes, time, place, and manner were not specified but the number of such warnings were so great as to mandate much higher scrutiny and whatever preparedness was necessary; instead, Bush went on vacation), I am reminded that the single most important battle in the Pacific theater, early in WWII, was an immense victory for the US because of human intelligence.
Naval intelligence officer, Commander Joseph Rochefort, intercepted and decoded vital Japanese battle plans. Rochefort had lived in Japan, knew the language, and just as importantly, cultural benchmarks, including a sense of how the Japanese thought, highly useful in trying to fill in the blanks. He came across a shorthand bit of data that showed something like “Japanese navy to attack AF”.
Rochefort determined that AF referred to Midway. Navy poobahs dismissed his intel, largely because he was considered a bit of an odd duck (he prowled around tables loaded with intel printouts in slippers and a smoking jacket). Luckily for the US, he used a back channel to the newly installed commander of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, Admiral Nimitz, to get his message across. He was able to prove his theory using an ingenious red herring message over open channels knowing the Japanese would pick it up. Within hours, he had confirmation that AF was indeed Midway. Nimitz went to work.
This knowledge turned what could have been a death blow to the Pacific fleet into a game changing victory.
As Patrick mentioned, having intel is one thing. Using it appropriately and decisively is another thing entirely.
For instance, the media should have paid attention to warnings that Trump could be elected and would use every dirty trick he could to do it. Instead, they cheered him on. Then we had to endure the tsunami of “expert” opinion that said Trump would grow up overnight and become a responsible and serious leader. A disaster of historic proportions. And we didn’t even need a translator for that one.
Maybe every military officer who deliberately lied to the public, Congress, and our Presidents should have a black mark put in their files and be demoted by a rank. A few lost stars and stripes might remind the military and Pentagon about their obligation for integrity.
From MSNBC:
Trump to his worshipers on August 15, 2021 at 7:34 P.M. boasting:
"I started the process, all the troops are coming home, they
couldn't stop the process. 21 years is enough. They couldn't stop
the process, they wanted to but couldn't stop the process."
At one point, the Trump administration suggested that Taliban
might somehow partner with the U.S., working "alongside us to
destroy" al Qaeda.
Several months later, Trump announced shortly before Election Day
2020 that he was ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing all
troops home "by Christmas."
Trump wanted to be known as a president who finished the nation's
"endless wars", despite the inconvenient fact that he hadn't ended
any wars--but his announcement was ridiculous. Trump hadn't
coordinated the declaration with his own team, and U.S. allies
had no idea what he was talking about.
Sorry if this has been mentioned here before. I've been out of
internet for a while. FoMo.
@PD Pepe: Yup, I was thinking about that 9/11 intel you mention, the other part of which was, "OMG, they're only learning to take off; they're not taking landing lessons." And thanks for the part about George Ball; I didn't know about that.
In looking over some of the photos of Taliban leaders in Kabul's presidential palace, I was struck anew a top advantage of adhering to some fundamentalist religions: because of arranged marriages (sometimes) and super-modest dress codes, people never have to make the slightest effort to make themselves attractive. When I think of the time I've wasted over the years trying to make myself presentable ...
Yeah, unfortunately it is now likely that unruly nose hair is totally ok in Kabul.