Biden says he does not regret Afghanistan withdrawal as Taliban take over more towns

[Avnger]

He’s describing an event from before said state really existed, still during the civil war and while Lenin was still alive.

It was still undertaken by the Bolshevik-led nascent Russian Soviet Republic (which in turn became the USSR), wasn't it? And while Kronstadt did occur during the civil war timeline, the rebels were disillusioned, Soviet-supporting former Red Army fighters; it's not like these were actions taken against tsarists....

 

[Revnak]

It was still undertaken by the Bolshevik-led nascent Russian Soviet Republic (which in turn became the USSR), wasn't it? And while Kronstadt did occur during the civil war timeline, the rebels were disillusioned, Soviet-supporting former Red Army fighters; it's not like these were actions taken against tsarists....

And their rebellion meant they were now yet another side in that civil war not fighting the Tsarists who only had the opportunities they did due to WWI leaving all state power at the time in the hands of reactionary psychos who wanted every Slavic peasant dead. Which never would’ve happened if people had listened to Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the first place. Criticize Lenin, sure, but his life was one of making the best possible choices he could think of from the day his brother died, and generally those choice were dramatically better than literally any peer you could compare him to.

 

[Silvanus]

I initially missed this swipe at me since it was in a post that wasn't quoting me;

Even if it offends the sensibilities of some who style themselves socialists and yet want to condemn as unworthy any socialist project which enjoyed enough success to be capable of exerting power.

If someone calls themselves a socialist, they have an obligation to actually investigate how that power has been wielded, and not simply to offer automatic support for any power that attains it and calls itself socialist. I'll sing the praises of any successful socialist project that attains power and then wields it for the genuine increase of the workers' democratic power/participation, and utilises its military in a genuinely defensive manner. But you don't get a blank cheque if you call yourself "socialist" and then devolve into the same violent repression & invasiveness as the capitalist/imperialist states. Using the word as a self-descriptor doesn't convey carte blanche.

On a side-note, this is a country which would (at that time) have imprisoned (or abducted/killed) me personally because of who/what I am. In that sense they've categorically rejected my support.

Identifying the popular movement behind the PDPA and the Saur revolution with the authority of one guy-- whether it's Taraki or Amin (or Karmal)-- is quite deranged.

Good thing nobody's doing that. A strange non-sequitur statement as a response to my post, though.

 

[Kwak]

It's a combination of the equipment being left for the Afghan security forces and the equipment being significantly more expensive to take with the US forces as they pulled out than to simply replace them.

Plus creates more manufacturing contracts.

 

[09philj]

This is literally the worst way to do that. It’s like re-examining socialism starting with the Khmer Rouge.

The Khmer Rouge is one of the only things from the Cold War where the Soviets actually come out looking good, because they actually opposed the Khmer Rouge because the Khmer Rouge's main ally was China and China and the USSR had fallen out over severe ideological differences. (The USSR was course correcting hard after Stalin which caused China to label them as being revisionist traitors)

A great deal of Cold War foreign policy on all sides was clearly fucking stupid and/or basically evil, and the War on Terror is basically a monument to the US's inability or refusal to learn any lessons from the Cold War and compensating with money and fucking huge bombs.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Good thing nobody's doing that. A strange non-sequitur statement as a response to my post, though.

The PDPA was in control of Afghanistan before and after the death of Amin. The popular revolution in Afghanistan started before Amin and existed after Amin. Removing Amin from power does not overthrow the popular revolution; indeed, the popular revolution never chose Amin to lead them in the first place: he reached his position by assassination.

Or there's another way of looking at it: the United States would not have been satisfied with a change of leadership of Afghanistan from Amin to someone else in the PDPA.

Thus, to make your snide conclusion, you need to assume that Amin is the state, is the popular socialist movement, is the Saur revolution. There is no logical way around it. Or you're making your own non sequitur, completely whiffing any engagement of the point because you have nothing worthwhile to say about it. Those are your two options.

If someone calls themselves a socialist, they have an obligation to actually investigate how that power has been wielded

And to automatically accept any anticommunist propaganda that sounds like a critique from the left, rejecting anything else as naivety, sure, sure.

On a side-note, this is a country which would (at that time) have imprisoned (or abducted/killed) me personally because of who/what I am. In that sense they've categorically rejected my support.

Like your own country. Or mine. OK.

All in accordance with public opinion, of course. Very nice to see that democracy is discarded immediately upon conflict with your domestic policy goals. /s

Another is strategic: aiming to serve broad foreign policy aims, usually against rival Imperial powers (the USSR in Afghanistan fits here).

So it's imperialism to attempt to prevent another power-- from the other side of the world-- from taking over a friendly country next door.

 

[Silvanus]

The PDPA was in control of Afghanistan before and after the death of Amin. The popular revolution in Afghanistan started before Amin and existed after Amin. Removing Amin from power does not overthrow the popular revolution; indeed, the popular revolution never chose Amin to lead them in the first place: he reached his position by assassination.

Yes, I'm sure the government installed by a foreign military and which sat solely at that military's tolerance felt 100% in control of Afghanistan's agenda. Not as if said military had just made it abundantly clear that if you do stuff they don't like (such as pursuing a non-aligned cold war policy), you disappear.

Or there's another way of looking at it: the United States would not have been satisfied with a change of leadership of Afghanistan from Amin to someone else in the PDPA.

"The US would've done worse!" is irrelevant to the point in discussion. We're discussing what actually happened. I believe that whenever a hypothetical implies something you don't much like, you call it a "counter-factual" and refuse to discuss it, IIRC?

Thus, to make your snide conclusion, you need to assume that Amin is the state, is the popular socialist movement, is the Saur revolution. There is no logical way around it.

Absolute bollocks. You've inferred a sense of continuity from the fact that the puppet came from the same party (completely irrelevant), to insinuate that nothing more meaningful happened than the removal of one man.

The removal of the head of government, plus the removal of all non-aligned socialists from power, and installation
of their favoured candidate, represents a comprehensive change of government and policy direction. To characterise this as anything else is reductionist and dishonest.

Like your own country. Or mine. OK.

All in accordance with public opinion, of course. Very nice to see that democracy is discarded immediately upon conflict with your domestic policy goals. /s

My own country had at least decriminalised my existence a decade prior. Not so your "liberatory" state.

The appeal to "democracy"... I don't even know where to start, that's such fucking callous drivel. Are you seriously defending the criminalisation of homosexuality if "public opinion" is against gay people? Please, follow your line of argument to its logical conclusion. That's what you've done, isn't it? Insinuated that it would be "undemocratic" not to persecute a minority if people didn't like us/them.

It's incredible how some "self-styled socialists" will lean hard into hard-right tropes so long as the power in question terms itself "socialist": we've had apologia for military occupation of a sovereign state, now we have condonement of violent minority persecution! Here I was thinking socialism was about fucking solidarity with workers regardless of race/sex/orientation.

So it's imperialism to attempt to prevent another power-- from the other side of the world-- from taking over a friendly country next door.

Nope. It's imperialism to take over that "friendly" country yourself and then justify it by saying someone else would've done it instead.

And they weren't very "friendly" once the occupation was underway (lest we forget the massive increase in civil unrest and civil war), which gives ample evidence that this intervention was hardly welcome.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Absolute bollocks. You've inferred a sense of continuity from the fact that the puppet came from the same party (completely irrelevant), to insinuate that nothing more meaningful happened than the removal of one man.

The removal of the head of government, plus the removal of all non-aligned socialists from power, and installation
of their favoured candidate, represents a comprehensive change of government and policy direction. To characterise this as anything else is reductionist and dishonest.

The vast majority of what you're speaking of here was done by Karmal over the objections of the Soviet Union, completely obliterating your point.

 

[Silvanus]

The vast majority of what you're speaking of here was done by Karmal over the objections of the Soviet Union, completely obliterating your point.

Oh, the Soviets objected to Karmal's summary executions and violent purges of Kalqists. There was no objection to the realignment of the government, with non-aligned socialists removed from power or heavily demoted, & various other government buildings seized at the same moment Amin was assassinated (funny-- if this was about one man, why was that necessary, I wonder?) And that "objection" hardly counts for much, considering they put him there and sat back while he did it anyway, acting as his national security force all the while.


But, that aside...You've just finished telling me that you think it would be undemocratic for a country not to imprison or kill me if the population itself was prejudiced. Am I not going to get any follow-up on that grotesquerie?

 

[Seanchaidh]

But, that aside...You've just finished telling me that you think it would be undemocratic for a country not to imprison or kill me if the population itself was prejudiced. Am I not going to get any follow-up on that grotesquerie?

I'm just sarcastically shining your own liberal pathology back at you. Very surprised that you find it grotesque. You should have noticed the "/s" the first time. And then the second.

But since you need an explanation, that liberal pathology is the idea that consistency requires judging all policy goals as morally equal, differentiated only by the means used to pursue or achieve them. This is what you're doing with respect to comparing the foreign policy actions of the United States and Soviet Union. Apparently you can be shocked out of that pathology if it hits close enough to home.

 

[Silvanus]

I'm just sarcastically shining your own liberal pathology back at you. Very surprised that you find it grotesque. You should have noticed the "/s" the first time. And then the second.

Yes, I saw the /s. The comment started with "very nice that....", so the sarcasm tag indicates that you don't find it "very nice". Or are you now trying to claim it was double-sarcasm?

You're just trying to weasel out of the fact you gave a justification for criminalising homosexuality, because you'll find a way to excuse absolutely fucking anything if a power you have existing sympathy with does it.

But since you need an explanation, that liberal pathology is the idea that consistency requires judging all policy goals as morally equal, differentiated only by the means used to pursue or achieve them. This is what you're doing with respect to comparing the foreign policy actions of the United States and Soviet Union. Apparently you can be shocked out of that pathology if it hits close enough to home.

What absolute drivel. I do not believe that all policy goals are morally equal, or that they should be judged at such. And nothing I've said in this thread whatsoever requires that to be true.

What I do believe is that sympathetic foreign policy goals do not provide an automatic justification for any and all methodology, no matter how repressive, invasive or violent. And I also believe that the Soviets' ultimate foreign policy goals were not the pure-hearted defensive ones you seem to have accepted at face-value.

 

[Seanchaidh]

You're just trying to weasel out of the fact you gave a justification for criminalising homosexuality

Don't be obtuse.

If you think that "very nice to see that democracy is discarded..." normally signifies approval of discarding democracy, I ... don't know what to tell you. yes, it's "double sarcasm" in that case. But the irony was in framing the matter that way at all, mocking jabs like this:

And yours depends solely on whether you happen to sympathise with the foreign policy aims of those perpetrating it.

By the way, your lack of support for the lesser evil against the Tsar is very privileged and selfish.

 

[Silvanus]

If you think that "very nice to see that democracy is discarded..." normally signifies approval of discarding democracy, I ... don't know what to tell you. yes, it's "double sarcasm" in that case.

You were being sarcastic... about being sarcastic. OK, sure, whatever. Putting aside the fact that you've already spent many a post excusing racial/religious persecution when perpetrated by a self-described "socialist" power in China, so there's a track record already of looking the other way when it comes to hard-right persecution perpetrated by self-described "socialist" States.

But OK, let's accept the explanation for the sake of argument. The question remains: Do you believe a political party/ state should be able to rely on the support of people they want dead? Why in hell should I support a party programme that doesn't want me to exist? They've categorically rejected worker solidarity in favour of indulging bigotry, but I'm supposed to believe they live up to the socialist ideal in any meaningful sense. Surreal.

 

[Seanchaidh]

excusing racial/religious persecution when perpetrated by a self-described "socialist" power in China, so there's a track record already of looking the other way when it comes to hard-right persecution perpetrated by self-described "socialist" States.

'excusing' is precisely what I did not do about that.

Why in hell should I support a party programme that doesn't want me to exist?

You shouldn't. At least not on that particular point. Assuming the worst about everything else is a bit weird.

You were being sarcastic... about being sarcastic.

No, I was sarcastically telling you that the details of process matter more than the result.

 

[Silvanus]

'excusing' is precisely what I did not do about that.

There was some denial, too, but I remember you also justifying the existence of the camps in order to counter "extremism".

You shouldn't. At least not on that particular point. Assuming the worst about everything else is a bit weird.

And when they fail to live up to their supposed principles in such egregious ways, time after time after time, when does it start being weird to assume the best?

No, I was sarcastically telling you that the details of process matter more than the result.

Some might call a decade of occupation a bit more than a "detail", but I digress. What result is that? The marked increase in civil unrest? The decade-long civil war that followed intervention? Where is the glowing result I'm supposed to be grading them on instead of focusing on methodology?

 

[Seanchaidh]

There was some denial, too, but I remember you also justifying the existence of the camps in order to counter "extremism".

"Something different is happening than what is being claimed" is not 'an excuse' for what is being claimed. ffs