Biden to remove all US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021.

[Kath2]

Well overdue, in my opinion, but a good decision.

[Celerity]

1. so fitting

[Kath2]

2. I agree.

20 years too long. Never should have started. I'm sure a lot of businesses got rich.

[Celerity]

3. Congresswoman Barbara Lee Recognizes the 19th Anniversary of Her Vote Against the 2001 AUMF

https://lee.house.gov/news/press-releases/congresswoman-barbara-lee-recognizes-the-19th-anniversary-of-her-vote-against-the-2001-aumf-

Washington D.C. — Congresswoman Barbara Lee released the following statement on the 19th anniversary of her vote against the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) following the attacks on September, 11th 2001. Congresswoman Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against the measure.

“Today marks the 19th anniversary of the post-9/11 AUMF, a blank check to deploy US military personnel anywhere in the world in the name of going after terrorists, which I alone stood in opposition of.

“Decades later, Congress continues to abdicate its constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on matters of war and peace while young men and women continue to risk their lives for this country. I opposed this abuse of power then, and I still oppose it to this day, but we have made incredible progress – Earlier this summer, the full House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2021 Department of Defense Appropriations bill, which included my amendment adopted in the committee to sunset the 2001 AUMF.

“I believe the end is finally in sight for these endless wars. Now is the time for Congress, and eventually the White House,?to reckon with the reality that gross inequity and institutionalized violence is far too prevalent in our society. We must reconceptualize how we build security both at home and abroad to uphold the wellbeing and dignity of all people. Our focus should be on broad reforms to end our government’s ability to do harm in the world – such as by repealing the AUMFs and publicly debating any future use of military force – and finally reimagine what tools we employ to confront the threats of the twenty-first century.”

[Kath2]

4. She was right.

I was against the war from the beginning.

[Celerity]

5. Chalmers Johnson's Blowback Trilogy was staggering in its prescience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalmers_Johnson

Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010) was an American political scientist and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean War, was a consultant for the CIA from 1967 to 1973 and chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1972. He was also president and co-founder with Steven Clemons of the Japan Policy Research Institute (now based at the University of San Francisco), an organization that promotes public education about Japan and Asia. Johnson wrote numerous books, including three examinations of the consequences of what he called the "American Empire": Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis; The Last Days of the American Republic. A former Cold Warrior, he notably stated, "A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modelled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship."

Blowback series

Johnson believed that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies, the US, since World War II, has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world. A long-time Cold Warrior, he applauded the dissolution of the Soviet Union: "I was a cold warrior. There's no doubt about that. I believed the Soviet Union was a genuine menace. I still think so." At the same time, however, he experienced a political awakening after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and noted that instead of demobilizing its armed forces, the US accelerated its reliance on military solutions to problems both economic and political. The result of that militarism, as distinct from domestic defence, is more terrorism against the US and its allies, the loss of core democratic values at home, and the eventual crumbling of the American economy. Of four books he wrote on the topic, the first three are referred to as the Blowback Trilogy. Johnson summarized the intent of the Blowback series in the final chapter of Nemesis.


Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

In Blowback, I set out to explain why we are hated around the world. The concept "blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation comes – as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 – the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback. In the first book in this trilogy, I tried to provide some of the historical background for understanding the dilemmas we as a nation confront today, although I focused more on Asia – the area of my academic training – than on the Middle East.

— Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006)


The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic

The Sorrows of Empire was written during the American preparations for and launching of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. I began to study our continuous military build-up since World War II and the 737 military bases we currently maintain in other people's countries. This empire of bases is the concrete manifestation of our global hegemony, and many of the blowback-inducing wars we have conducted had as their true purpose the sustaining and expanding of this network. We do not think of these overseas deployments as a form of empire; in fact, most Americans do not give them any thought at all until something truly shocking, such as the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, brings them to our attention. But the people living next door to these bases and dealing with the swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape their women certainly think of them as imperial enclaves, just as the people of ancient Iberia or nineteenth-century India knew that they were victims of foreign colonization.

— Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006)


Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic

In Nemesis, I have tried to present historical, political, economic, and philosophical evidence of where our current behaviour is likely to lead. Specifically, I believe that to maintain our empire abroad requires resources and commitments that will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and in the end produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent. The founders of our nation understood this well and tried to create a form of government – a republic – that would prevent this from occurring. But the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favour of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play – isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy. Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation.

— Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006)