Making a "No Shit" Headline Permanent...For a While.

Somebody begins to suspect something. WaPo reports. 

The footage of rifle-toting Taliban fighters occupying the presidential palace and rolling up the Afghan national flag stood as a defining image of a failed U.S. effort to transform Afghan society at the cost of a trillion dollars and thousands of lives lost. “Decades from now, these images will be invoked as a vivid example of the limits of U.S. power, and of its inability to fight modern wars effectively or to end them on favorable terms,” said Michael Kugelman, an Afghanistan scholar at the Wilson Center.

Expect a lot of trite self-evident BS like this occupying the first pages of the West's media in coming weeks, with "scholars" expressing their opinions which are worthless in any practical sense. In related news, the sky is blue, water is wet etc. For Kugelman personally--learn about real war, in spare time, you know. The problem, of course, is deeper, much deeper than obvious humiliation of the United States. French globalist rag Le Figaro concludes (in an obvious attempt at numbing a profound butt-hurt) that even America's traditional competitors or enemies such as Russia, China or Iran are not joyful from America's failure. At this stage I need to make "No Shit" headline permanent. No, Russia is not "enjoying" America's humiliation, because real geopolitics and national interests do not work like this. By the "do not work like this" I mean a two-bit sublimation by Western "academe" of own complexes into pseudo-scientific dick-measuring contests in matters in which they have no even minimal competencies--a defining feature of modern West's (pseudo) "intellectual" class. Real great powers care about order and predictability, not some clusterfuck which is left by the United States anywhere it goes to "promote democracy".

Phil Giraldi wrote an excellent piece on this matter, namely American ambassadorship using a pseudo-"scholar" and certified clown Michael McFaul as an example, and stated:

Whenever one gets into discussions about the decline of America’s ability to positively influence developments around the world a number of issues tend to surface. First is the hubristic claim by successive presidents that the United States is somehow “exceptional” as a polity while also serving as the world’s only superpower and also the anointed Leader of the Free World, whatever that is supposed to mean. Some critics of the status quo also have been willing to look a bit deeper, recognizing that it is the policies being pursued by the White House and Congress that are out of sync with what is actually happening in Asia, Africa and Latin America, being more driven by establishing acceptable narratives than by genuine interests.     

Not only the United States doesn't have a diplomacy, as a tool of a statecraft, in any operational sense, it fails in something which is even more important--intelligence. As the events in Afghanistan have shown, US "intelligence" estimate on Kabul being able to hold on for "around 90 days" was not just bad, which is always the case in the last few decades, but it was obviously a figment of imagination, and not a good one at that. Recall Patrick Armstrong's: 

NO, YOUR INTELLIGENCE IS ACTUALLY BAD. VERY BAD.

Or Margarita Simonyan's famous address to the US:

I’ve been telling you for a long time to find normal advisers on Russia. Sack all those parasites.

They will not, and they will continue to believe own BS, because if they will stop deluding themselves, they will have to live with unbearable facts of their responsibility for what they have done around the world and to own country which is...well, read my latest book. Russia is not "enjoying" because she will have to deal with Taliban on a state level as Afghanistan's legitimate government, but Taliban's first actions, including immediately providing good security for Russian diplomats in Kabul, is a promising sign (in Russian). Obviously some arrangements need to be made, including regarding the fate of ISIS cells (courtesy of the US and British "corridor" for them from Syria) in Afghanistan who need to be eradicated, plus there are issues with Al Qaeda. Russia is in waiting. If Taliban puts Afghanistan under full control and will provide law (well, Sharia is THE law) and order, including, as they already conveyed to Moscow, observing human rights, Russia will remove the title of "terrorist organization" from Taliban, which will open some interesting perspectives for Kabul. Taliban DOES know this--emerging Eurasian market is extremely promising for all participants. 

As current Russian meme states:       

"We will not allow to turn Afghanistan into Ukraine--this is how Taliban explained main motive for their Blitzkrieg". 

Remarkably, there is a lot of truth in it. As Douglas Macgregor bitterly states:

All that can be said with certainty is that between 2001 and 2021, none of the senior officers expressed opposition to the policies of intervention and occupation strongly enough to warrant their removal. None felt compelled to leave the service and take their opposing views to the public forum. When it became clear that the collective strategies and tactics in Afghanistan and Iraq were failing, not only General David Petraeus, but most of America’s senior military leaders chose to prevaricate and distort facts in public to show progress when there was none. How many American lives might have been saved had someone only told the truth will never be known. There is no getting around it. America’s senior civilian and military leaders (together with their supporting service bureaucracies) are fundamentally incapable of developing or implementing effective military strategy.

They can't tell the truth, because:

And that was the case for a long time in America and that is a true "No Shit" moment. They will learn nothing. 

 

UPDATE: for those who are interested--the interview of Boris Gromov to Vzglyad (In Russian). Use Google Translate--it is worth it. 

 

I Spent My Hard-Earned $12.99 (Plus Tax)...

On January/February 2021 issue on Foreign Affairs when on Friday visited Barnes & Noble. The only reason I spent this substantial sum of money (this is a price of a half-bottle of Jack Daniels--much more sensible investment) was, knowing that this is a Council on Foreign Relations publication, to preview what victorious Democrats are preparing for America in the nearest future. Boy, I was not disappointed. This volume #100, Number 1 is everything one needs to know about America's decline and mechanisms which drive this decline, if not collapse altogether. The "opening salvo" is Samantha Power's middle school level essay titled The Can-Do Power. America's Advantage and Biden's Case. This is a superb piece in so far as the exhibiting of delusion and lack of any professional adequacy of upcoming America's "foreign policy" establishment goes. Make no mistake, the United States didn't produce competent foreign policy in decades. There are simply no people of knowledge and statue in modern US "foreign policy" establishment capable of sober and professional assessment of both outside world and the internal US political trends to put US "diplomacy" to serve US national interests since nobody can formulate them, least of all American diplomats. 

Re: Samantha Power, who is slated to become a big honcho in USAID in Biden's Admin, is known to a be a sanctimonious uncultured lawyer turned "diplomat" as US Ambassador to UN, who was periodically humiliated as a petulant teenager by then alive and well Vitaly Churkin. 

Power, being uncultured and badly educated product of Anglo humanities sphere, substitutes knowledge, solid assessments and professionalism with hysterical moralizing and crusading spirit based on delusions and outright falsifications. She can check all boxes in the career path of US systemic foreign policy incompetence starting from Ivy League law background, to Pulitzer for falsification of the Balkan Wars and inability to apply personal experiences prudently. This is precisely the set of qualities required for modern American "diplomats" and Power is perfect for the job. 

She opens her piece with a reference to... Madeleine Albright with her "indispensable nation" declaration, granted that even Power admits in her piece that this statement is being "vigorously debated" and goes for the jugular accusing, correctly, Trump Administration in being "incompetent". She thinks that Trump's response to world problems was very bad, which implies that Obama's response to them was very good. Remarkably, Samantha Power, who defended Syria's terrorists at the UNSC and was a part of Obama Admin, on whose watch Libya was attacked, not to mention a bloody coup and civil war in Ukraine have been unleashed by the United States, cannot be taken seriously as a geopolitical analyst--she simply has no background for that. She certainly has a reputation for being unhinged and that's the problem. The case she makes in her piece is an exhibit A of a delusion exercised by US "diplomacy" (quotation marks are deliberate). Power states: 

"For all the criticism directed at US foreign policy is eras past, foreign leaders and public largely retained respect for the United States' willingness to undertake challenging endeavors and its ability to accomplish difficult tasks--a significant but underappreciated cornerstone of American power". 

I agree, in the "eras past", especially on Power's watch as a bullhorn of Obama's radically interventionist and aggressive "foreign policy", the United States achieved absolutely stunning things, which otherwise no country could have ever achieved:

1. The United States through criminal policies in Libya, Syria and Ukraine made sure that overwhelming majority of Russians, while having no quarrel with American people, abhor the United States and viewed it as number one threat to Russia and the world already in 2015. Russians also made sure that they have enough power to annihilate the United States under any circumstances and made sure that "values" which Samantha Power and Democratic Party, she belongs to, profess are prevented from entering Russia by means of new Russian Constitution. 

2. The United States, obviously, performed also an incredible diplomatic feat by making sure that already on Obama's watch Russia and China de facto concluded their political alliance, which, inevitably started to evolve towards a military one. All that while Power was still in UN. 

3. US Middle East policies are altogether is an AIPAC-induced mess, which Power has zero power to change and will do as she told by her Israeli-first masters. 

So, yes, the United States is a "can-do power" because to fuck it up on this truly historic scale one does need "diplomats" of Samantha Power scale of ignorance and zeal. Of course she is not alone, but there is very little difference, primarily without distinction, between Power and, say, Pompeo. 

But Power doesn't stop her attempts to let people forget those bygone "eras" and proposes same ol' routine on repudiation of Trump's "policies" and following what is perceived to be Biden's policies. Again, a difference without distinction. Power states that the United States is a home to 40% of Nobel prize winners and based on that she concludes that the US should show people a way into economic recovery and technical progress. Sure. The problem with this argument is the fact that Power, having American "humanities" degrees, doesn't understand that Nobel Prizes in literature and, especially, economics are a complete BS since are primarily ideologically driven and are in the fields which have relatively minor to outright baneful, such as "economics", effect on human lives. What she doesn't know, of course, is that in the fields which truly matter for serious economic and technological developments, the United States long ago is not a leader, not even close, and in produces as many STEM graduates as Russia, whose population is more than two times smaller. This was in 2016. 

By now Russia accelerates her STEM enrollments while in the United States most STEM graduates are... foreign. If Power thinks, and she does, that one can revive the country through granting non-STEM degrees, such as hers, I have a bridge to sell.  But that is what Power proposes in essence--let's allow foreign students back in the US, since it reflects well on US reputation and is somehow supposed to be related to US... competence, lack of which Power admits while proposing utterly incompetent measures, which allowed China, indeed, to capitalize on by preparing a substantial portion of her STEM graduates in the US especially throughout 2000s-mid-2010s. What Power offers in effect is to prepare highly valuable scientific and engineering cadres for someone else, while continuing to destroy real education in the United States. I am sure the United States is in dire need for Ph.Ds in Diversity, Gender Studies and Political "Science". Can one be more oblivious to the very real issue for the United States than Power? 

Remarkably, Power doesn't forget to attack China--I am not going to judge the merits of such attacks--but if Power thinks that already lost Covid-19 Vaccine race may somehow restore US "competence", she obviously wasted her time "teaching" in Harvard Law School, reproducing the now traditional American incompetence in the international relations field, instead of paying attention to actual trends both internationally and domestically. Remarkably, it was CFR's big honcho Richard Haas who in his twitter on January 6th, 2021, traditionally, over-reacted: 

We are seeing images that I never imagined we would see in this country-in some other capital yes, but not here. No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again. If the post-American era has a start date, it is almost certainly today

Which only strengthens my argument of the last almost a decade. The United States lost its mojo through a series of events, which I describe on this blog for the last 7 years. Also in my books. America is being destroyed and is being driven into the Orwellian world as a result of a systemic crisis which cannot be resolved within current economic, military and cultural paradigm. But that is what piece by Power, and as a whole issue of Foreign Affairs--can you believe this, they gave Francis Fukuyama podium again, Jesus--are a testament to. You cannot fix the American autoimmune disease, including through her increasingly incompetent and malevolent "elites", whose "intellectual" level and self-awareness are those of high school students. In other words, I spent my hard-earned $12.99 for pretty much what I knew already, I just needed the proof. I got it--there is no hope. 

In related news. In a face of political (and criminal) repressions in the US, Maria Zakharova admitted today (in Russian) that there are inquires and requests, primarily from Trump's supporters, about Russian citizenship. As I stated not for once, Russia is more than just superpower, it is also an arc. I predicted long ago that the stream of Western, primarily white, Christian folk to Russia will eventually grow to a river. Current American elites have three properties, they either are insane, or cowardly, or both. These are the people who do conceive of totalitarian society and many crave it, especially on the Democratic side. They do so because they are an urban office plankton, who care only about themselves and are subjected to all kinds of social and psychological pathologies. Such a society has no future and the America of the past is no more. Thus, the threat of violence, civil war, persecution and even mass repressions will drive increasing number of Americans to consider moving to Russia and this is totally understandable.  BTW, for those people who asked, Griezbach family IS in Russia and they are now permanent legal residents and are on their way to citizenship. All kids are with them and are doing great. I could never imagine in my wildest dreams 25 years ago that I will say that: you want real democracy, free thinking, free inquiry and social normality? Russia. That is why it is so hated.

Ahh, The Skripal Snafu.

Even if it takes a profoundly lefty Salon to start question things and even come to this conclusion: 

It may be that the not-especially-competent May got carelessly out in front of herself as she authorized the first expulsions of Russian foreign service staff. It may be that the French, Germans and Americans lined up an extensive alliance behind the British to save the May government from self-induced embarrassment. But what followed last week suggests something else. Given the evident coordination of the rapid-fire wave of expulsions, we are left to question whether the Skripal incident was not extensively planned among the leading Western capitals as an intentional provocation. This is Moscow’s argument now, in any case.

Then something went really-really wrong. I can even say what--a loss of Western competencies across the whole spectrum of states' activities, including inability to even do a proper false flag. Not that recent West's false flags were proper--all of them, from WMD in Iraq to White Helmets' "chemical weapons" histrionics in Syria, all of them are the work of amateurs. As it is duly noted in Salon's piece:

If I read the past week correctly, we witness the start of a sustained campaign to force Russia into a condition of diplomatic isolation. This may be correctly viewed as a response to the failure of economic sanctions to cripple the Russian economy, given that Russian GDP is now once again expanding, but that is not the point. As spring turns to summer we are also to watch as NATO once again pushes the degree of tension along Russia’s frontier to a still higher degree of danger.

Are these matters a prelude to events disastrous enough to get their own chapter in the history books? Things unfold incrementally, one bit of bad news at a time, leaving us disinclined to think in these terms. We should resist this tendency. Moments such as this have turned into disasters often enough in the past.

Actually, what is highlighted in yellow IS the point. Everything what was thrown at Russia in the last 10 years by combined West not only didn't reach any desired objectives but, in fact, grossly weakened this very West. You know I like to use Tolstoy often and I'll do it again to draw warranted, in fact irresistible, parallels with the state of mind of the combined West today, which explains a lot:

"Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and they all shunned one another's eyes only a de Beausset could fail to grasp the meaning of what was happening.

But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that the least accident might now- with the fight balanced on such a strained center- destroy him and his army.

When he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in which not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon, or army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the concealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the Russians still holding their ground- a terrible feeling like a nightmare took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing, might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him, and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows should annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and limp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in his helplessness"

Leo Tolstoy, War And Peace, Book 10, Chapter XXXIV.

I can only repeat Marga Simonyan's recent appeal to the West:

I’ve been telling you for a long time to find normal advisers on Russia. Sack all those parasites. ...But the only Empire, you have left, ignores history, it doesn’t teach it and refuses to learn it,  meaning that it all will end the way it always does, in such cases.