Oh, I'm not saying that it was purely undertaken because of the Republican Party. What I'm saying is that the American state began to whip up the war drums nearly the day after the attacks occurred.

I was middle school at the time, and, so, I wasn't quite apt for detailed political analysis then, but there seemed to be a coordinated campaign of added security measures and pro-war propaganda even before we decided to invade Afghanistan.

Sure, you would see kind of a vengeful response from some people here and there. I recall seeing a bumper sticker suggesting that we should drop nuclear bombs in region. Without the military publicity campaign, coordinated security efforts, often to the point of outright absurdity, and, perhaps, most particularly, media sensationalism, I do think that the response to the attacks would have moreso been one of mourning.

In catechism, I remember watching a memorial video for the people who died in the attacks. Though I'm not really one to laud the Catholic Church, among the audience, there was no real anger or jingoism. It was all very solemn. That seems to have been a much more appropriate response from a populace who has born witness to one of the most successful terrorist attacks in all of human history, at least, in so far that we are to exclusive consider terrorism as having been carried out by some sort of insurgency as we do today.

There was also a notable push to recruit young people to join the military at the time, and, so, among the martial administration, I think that there was a generalized assumption that we were going to war before the war even began, rather in spite of that their own strategists must have known that such heavy-handed tactics tend to be fairly ineffective in countering terrorism.

In a way, I think that the Cold War American myth, that of the United States being a bastion of freedom and democracy in the world, one that I would have no qualms with it living up to were it, at all, to actually do so, engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of people all over the Earth, a somewhat messianic and expansionist enterprise in its own right, against the evils of totalitarianism, which we could lay some claim to on account of having won the Second World War, though, as, I think, we all know, effectively turned out to be any and/or everything that could be characterized as "communism", which, granted, did have some material basis within the form of control that any number of nations effectuated, proceeding from the establishment of the Soviet Union, transferred to spectral haunt of Islamic extremism, perhaps, in part, due to a cult pathology engendered by what American security advisors could no longer avoid coming to the realization of, namely that we had significantly contributed to the conditions for which it could occur.

In a way, the attacks on the Eleventh of September in 2001 were a godsend for the martial administration of the United States, as they provided both the legal and extra-juridical rationalizations and justifications for the mass expansion of fourth-generation warfare strategies and technologies, aside from the most obvious vindication in the form of another enemy to fight.

I don't think that anyone wanted for the towers to come down. The most abject and selfish reactionaries within the Central Intelligence Agency wouldn't have willed for such a tragedy to occur in the interest of accumulating power in the wake of a projected "war on terror". I do think that we were lying in wait for an attack, however. They knew that a bomb would go off somewhere eventually and were speculating upon which one could be utilized in crafting yet another noble lie and extenuating a form of conflict that exists everywhere, all at once, and is directed against a nameless enemy.

Oh, and, as much nuance as we can add to a critique of the American weltanschauung, in this country, there is the plain, pure, and political fact of a rather fervid and fairly intransigent partisan entrenchment that has relentlessly been carried out on the part of Fox News, who, leading up to and during the conflict, before, at least, the general populace became numb enough to lose interest and more or less forget that it was ongoing entirely, did absolutely nothing but deliberately incite a vengeful and jingoist fervor in favor of a war whose rhetoric increasingly came to be comparable to a crusade.

MSNBC and CNN both did more or less supported tacitly supported the war, with the caveat of the occasional detractor being given a minute and a half to voice their opinion, but there is no way to adequately assess the response to 9/11 without taking the decisive influence that Fox News hammered into the American populace into consideration.

Triple post, but, w/e.

While I appreciate your invocation of a "larger than life politician", as I think that elected leaders ought to aspire to live up to all of the lofty ideals of Liberalism, engage in the political process with deliberation in a calm and rational manner, and be capable of coping with situations that do arise so as to make difficult and decisive decisions in times of crisis, I do think that it points to a certain poverty of the American situation in that it would seem to require an extraordinary person, though, in so far that we entrust public officials with the effective facilitation of the democratic process, they kind of all ought to be somehow extraordinary, in order to respond to situation adequately. The attacks on 9/11 certainly created a crisis, the proper response to which would have been one of mourning and to deal with what was an act of terrorism as a security concern, i.e. the aforementioned "police investigation", though I think that international terrorism does ultimately require some form of intelligence, which, of course, in the United States, is a serious problem, because we have an intelligence service that not too many people trust, and, though they don't often know why, there is good reason for this. Clearly, a president, security advisor, or whomever else, would have had to have been able to adequately cope with the situation at hand, but, that is just simply precisely what we entrust to elected officials.

We should expect much more from politicians, at least, in so far that we're going to consider for them to extraordinary, than merely being capable of dealing with crises adequately. There are plenty of countries in the world, I think, where the suggested response, though difficult to enact, would have been effectuated. It is because of the poverty of the American political situation, that we should expect that only a person who was as a beacon of hope could have dealt with the situation properly.

I was very invested, though not terribly active, in my opposition to the war previously, and, so, do have a lot to say about it, but apologize for just kind of rambling. It's just kind of something that I think that people should talk about.

I do think that it points to a certain poverty of the American situation in that it would seem to require an extraordinary person, though, in so far that we entrust public officials with the effective facilitation of the democratic process, they kind of all ought to be somehow extraordinary, in order to respond to situation adequately. — thewonder

The extraordinary, or "larger than life" politician is simply the person who can make decisions when there isn't the obvious road map to be taken or chooses the best policy that goes against normal contemporary thinking. Then this person has to truly lead, to have the ability to influence and change thinking of people. The tactic of "Replying to terrorist strikes with bombing strikes" already happened with Ghaddafi and Reagan and the LaBelle discotheque bombing and the repraisal bombings of Libya with Operation Eldorado Canyon. In fact, the tactic or strategy resembles what Israel often does as it simply has had a low-intensity war against the Palestinians and the PLO with similar strikes.

(Eldorado Canyon in 1986. That NATO members (other than the UK) did not in any way participate can be seen from the flight routes from the UK to Tripoli. But guidelines how to react to terrorist strikes are made).


Antiterrorism in the UK, Germany, France or Italy has been quite different. With them of course the terrorism has been mainly domestic.

Prior to 9/11 there was already a debate in Foreign Policy circles about "new threats" where one of them was international terrorism. Hence there was already a road map of what to do if there is a successful terrorist strike. You are correct that this made the intelligence services to be "lying in wait for an attack", just like the CDC was "lying in wait" for a pandemic to happen. And this is way more realistic than the conspiracy theories of 9/11 being an inside job. Everybody that prior to that event flew in the US remembers how lax security was on domestic flights.

I don't think that anyone wanted for the towers to come down. — thewonder

Except the small cabal of Islamist fundamentalists who wanted for the US to get involved in wars. It was evidently clear when they declared that "killing Americans, any Americans" is a really good thing to do and then they went on with the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. And let's not forget that 9/11 was the second time they attacked the Twin Towers.

Hence Ayman al-Zawahiri (on the right) has to be very happy about present events.

I was referring to the United States. I'm sure that there are plenty of people in the region to have celebrated the attacks. I even remember watching videos of them doing so afterwards.

This concept of a larger than life politician seems to play part and parcel to your philosophical mission, and, so, I am sure that you know more about it than I do, but I guess that the point that I was making is that a majority of, let's say, Finnish politicians, I think, would have adequately responded to a similar crisis. They would become transformed in that moment so as to be extraordinary, but, in the United States, you would already have to be an extraordinary figure to have made the near unilateral decision to respond to the crisis as such.

I guess that the point that I was making is that a majority of, let's say, Finnish politicians, I think, would have adequately responded to a similar crisis. They would become transformed in that moment so as to be extraordinary, but, in the United States, you would already have to be an extraordinary figure to have made the near unilateral decision to respond to the crisis as such. — thewonder

No, I don't think that Finnish politicians are better or would perform better than Americans or vice versa. When you start having a group of people more than 100, then simple laws of statistics start to apply. Because a group of 100 political leaders and top government officials will likely be quite similar in both countries: academic graduates, many with the highest mark and many these achievers.

Above all, put Finnish politicians in charge of US policy with US capabilities and then they will likely start thinking as their American counterparts. As I've said again and again, when you do have those seemingly unlimited capabilities of the US armed forces, you can get into all kinds of things where others simply would have to dismiss the issue because there is no capability. In a way, having limited ability and having to anticipate what others will do smartens politics by necessity. The politicians can be as smart as before, but they have limited power to yield.

Actually for Americans this is very important to understand: put into your shoes, a lot of other people would do the same as you. You can look at how for example France behaves in it's "backyard" in Africa, in it's former colonies. There it has many garrisons and it intervenes in the domestic politics of these countries, if necessary. I suspect there is a French equivalent of Noam Chomsky telling how awful the French government has been, but as I don't speak French, I don't know the author. It would be very interesting to compare US involvement in it's "backyard", in Latin America, and France in its former colonies in Africa.



The only thing where you will have really different kind of people in power is when the society isn't a democracy, but power is taken and held on by a gun. It's actually no wonder that criminal organizations end up with deranged psychopathic killers as their leaders hiding in a small cottage in the middle of nowhere, not only from the police, but also their former allies (who are still alive). When you can obtain power by killing others and everybody is basically OK with this, then that's what you will end up with.

Once political power is about using violence on your competitors, then you have different kind of people in power. Hence democracy is truly extremely important: you don't want your leaders to be homicidal psychopaths, but people who if they loose the elections, will bow out and uphold democracy.

Above all, put Finnish politicians in charge of US policy with US capabilities and then they will likely start thinking as their American counterparts. — ssu

This is a very strange thing to say in my opinion. If I'm not mistaken Finland would invite the UN peacekeepers along with diverting much more interest to the established UN in force.

It's almost as if Finland was a Republican member of the EU, and not Norway of Scandinavian countries.

This is a very strange thing to say in my opinion. If I'm not mistaken Finland would invite the UN peacekeepers along with diverting much more interest to the established UN in force. — Shawn

IF THEY WERE FINLAND, NOT THE US!!!

Remember you are talking about a small country with 5+ million people who know that their country is quite expendable. Nobody would have given a fuck if Finland would have been occupied, Finns would have been deported to Siberia and Russians moved here after WW2... just like happened with the Estonians. Who the fuck cared about the Baltic States? But having two huge oceans on each side, a puny Mexico in the south and ever so friendly Canucks in the north, and then 320 million people really changes things!

Let's have a fictional mind game: What if Americans be modern-day Canadians?

Assume that George Washington would have been sent to India and a no-nonsense British officer would have gathered up the other founding fathers and taken them for a walk in the nearby forest and nobody would have heard anything from them later, or about any constitution or any other declaration. Then the British would have given representation due to taxation and Americans would have lived happily as part of the British Empire as Canadians did.

So basically then you would have gotten your independence in 1931 and basically full independence in 1982 or something like that. Or not even that, because the British (ahem...the English) are a truly shrewd lot. If in their shrewdness (and that they likely would have understood how important Northern American is to their massive Empire), they would have made the US-Canada to be part of the UK as Scotland and Wales are. So Americans, or British-Americans would be having votes now about being independent or not and still many thinking that they are proud members of the British Empire.

In this case the "new" country of the US really might be different, because nearly all of your history would be history of the British Empire. British-Americans or North American British might feel quite differently about their role is, should they have a large army now and so on. They might easily think that all that imperialism and Superpower stuff is done by the people in London and they are themselves pacifists and nice to everybody. Like, uh, Canadians today.

The actual point I'm trying to make is that there are huge amount of different factors that influence the way politicians act and what the political discourse is like. History, the economy, the geopolitical situation, the domestic situation, even the environment (and so on) all have an effect how politicians behave.

Hence Robert Kagan can make his famous observation:

On major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus; they agree on little and understand one another even less

I think that you make some good points, but haven't quite understood what I mean by a comparison of Finland to the United States. To my knowledge, Finland is at the top of the World Happiness Report and either at the top or close to it of the Democracy Index. The United States, at least considering its wealth and power, only does so well in terms of happiness and is now considered as a flawed democracy. It makes more sense for you to advocate civic engagement within the democratic process, as you live within a country that is still considered to have an equitable, efficient, and effective democracy. The cultural climate, there, is probably, though there's only so much stock to place in these U.N. reports, considerably better. Your quality of life and faith in your elected officials is probably considerably greater than both your average American citizen and whomever it is that is of equivalent social standing, all of which, I think, informs your appeal to sincere nonpartisan civic engagement within the democratic process. There's also that you have options, particularly within elections for the prime minister, as to who to vote for. In the United States, a responsible American citizen almost always has only one choice, that of the Democratic Party candidate. I would've liked to have seen a Ralph Nader or Jill Stein presidency. As our political system stands, however, a vote for either a Green Party or independent candidate really kind of is just a vote thrown away, particularly now that Bernie Sanders came close enough to winning the Democratic primary for people to believe that someone like him could be capable of doing so. Not voting, which I have done, is also just kind of irresponsible. Damage to our political process just simply needs to be minimized. The Democratic Party is well aware of this, though, naturally, subject to a certain degree of hubris, and, because of it, doesn't really have to do very much in order to retain voters amongst their support base. I'm sure that there actually are reasonable and responsible people within the Republican Party, but, they are now far too few and far between. All of which, of course, isn't terribly engaging for the average American voter. I agree to the democratic process to a certain extent. If a Republican president wins the popular vote, than, it would both be unethical and unwise to remove them from power without warrant. There, however, is just simply no way out of partisan politics within the United States, as the only way for things to change is for the Democratic Party to consistently win elections. All of this, of course, results in a certain degree of apathy and antipathy towards the process in general. I don't really have anything against all of the lofty democratic ideals. I am just pessimistic enough not to believe that they will be upheld in my country in any near future.

I suspect there is a French equivalent of Noam Chomsky telling how awful the French government has been, but as I don't speak French, I don't know the author. — ssu

It's only really Godard. The rest of the French intellectuals just kind of speculate upon the United States. In a way, it's kind of a problem, actually, as even Godard still kind of celebrates France, and the French, to my estimation, at least, do seem to still have to come to terms with their colonial legacy.

So basically then you would have gotten your independence in 1931 and basically full independence in 1982 or something like that. Or not even that, because the British (ahem...the English) are a truly shrewd lot. If in their shrewdness (and that they likely would have understood how important Northern American is to their massive Empire), they would have made the US-Canada to be part of the UK as Scotland and Wales are. So Americans, or British-Americans would be having votes now about being independent or not and still many thinking that they are proud members of the British Empire.

In this case the "new" country of the US really might be different, because nearly all of your history would be history of the British Empire. British-Americans or North American British might feel quite differently about their role is, should they have a large army now and so on. They might easily think that all that imperialism and Superpower stuff is done by the people in London and they are themselves pacifists and nice to everybody. Like, uh, Canadians today. — ssu

I think that you've gotten kind of carried away with your example, but, as inclined as I am to view George Washington favorably as I am, I really wouldn't mind being Canadian right about now.

The actual point I'm trying to make is that there are huge amount of different factors that influence the way politicians act and what the political discourse is like. History, the economy, the geopolitical situation, the domestic situation, even the environment (and so on) all have an effect how politicians behave. — ssu

Let's consider a hypothetical Finland with a larger populace, military, military budget, and a history of operations within Central Asia. This hypothetical Finland, however, has, at least, a comparable socio-economic, political, and cultural climate to the one that exists in the actual Finland today. Let's even account for the military operations, larger military, and larger populace. I would contend that Sanna Marin would step up to the plate and deal with such a situation aptly. I would even contend that this would be true regardless of Finnish party affiliation, including some of those on the right. If you had an outside candidate from the Power Belongs to the People Parliamentary Group or even the Finns Party, maybe not, but, even then, I'm not so sure. I don't really know anything about Finnish political parties, though.

Sure, such thought experiments are only so useful, but the point that I'm making is that, were the attacks to have occurred in Finland, an adequate politician would have become extraordinary in the moment, which is to say that just a pretty good politician would have sufficed. I think that, in the United States, you would not only have to be a great politician, but one of the best to have been able to cope with our government as it stands.

You're really lucky to live in Finland, y'know? I've even thought about moving there whenever I can move somewhere before.

There, however, is just simply no way out of partisan politics within the United States, as the only way for things to change is for the Democratic Party to consistently win elections. — thewonder

I also wanted to explain this seemingly paradoxical statement. The Trump presidency, by that he declared the elections a fraud and was subsequently impeached for a second time, is indicative of that the Republican Party needs to be reformed quite radically. The only way that this either can or will happen is for them to have to. For them to have to, they would have to consistently lose elections until they just simply had to adapt to the sway of the American populace. They only can lose elections to the Democratic Party. Despite the seeming contradiction of that my resolution to the bipartisan deadlock is that the Democratic Party just consistently win for probably a good sixteen years, there is a certain degree of sense to it. In adapting to the adaptation of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party would also be reformed and American politics would generally improve.

Without really getting into any of the above text, though, as Fox News is the mouthpiece for the Republican Party, despite the aforementioned tacit support on the part of CNN and MSNBC, as they did kind of just bang their war drum for as long and as loud as it took to create the so-called "War on Terror", it would be somehow inaccurate to characterize support for the war as exclusively concerning the general mindset of the American populace outside of the domain of partisan politics. Like the Vietnam War, which was also undertaken, in part, by the Democratic Party, the War on Terror entrenched the population within partisan politics, the most fervid supporters of the war having been none other than the American Right.

Also, according to Wikipedia:

"On 14 August 2021, the Taliban captured seven provincial capital cities; Gardez, Sharana, Asadabad, Maymana, Mihtarlam, Nili, and Mazar-i-Sharif, the fourth-largest city in Afganistan. Two long-time anti-Taliban warlords, namely Dostum and Atta Muhammad Nur, fled to Uzbekistan. Taliban forces also entered Maidan Shar, center of Maidan Wardak Province. At this point, the rebels had encircled Kabul, while the Afghan National Army had descended into chaos following its rapid defeat across the country. Only the 201st Corps and 111th Division, both based at the Afghan capital, were left operational.

Early on 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province, unopposed, making it the 26th provincial capital to fall; leaving Kabul as the last major city under Afghan government control."

The Taliban ain't stupid either, they learned from the 1996 and 1999 evenings. In order to avoid civil war, the north was first taken under their control, before other militias could have done that in vacuum that was left by US withdrawal. The south supports them anyway.

Conclusion: The war on terror does not work, and never ever worked even for a minute. Killing one terrorist creates ten more. Violence breeds violence. In other words war on terror breeds exclusively more terrorists. The proof of this is that after twenty years not only did that happen the west failed to stabilize Afghanistan, but previously stable countries are destabilized by war launched or provoked by west: Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc.. As result of war on terror those countries are considered a stronghold of terrorism, where they have never seen before.

One thing is achieved indeed. The Taliban is no longer a terror group, but the government of Afghanistan, again.

SP

Let's consider a hypothetical Finland with a larger populace, military, military budget, and a history of operations within Central Asia. — thewonder

I think a very important issue is just how those operations within Central Asia played out. (Btw, in reality Finnish troops left Afghanistan just last June.)

Because if they (the operations in Central Asia) would be somehow successful, perhaps Finland got a lot of praise and those relations with Central Asian states were beneficial to the country, there could be a political view that military boots in Central Asia is important to Finland. Even the social democrats could happily participate with it. Just like a female reserve officer friend of mine who served in Afghanistan once remarked "CIMIC (Civilian Military Cooperation) is basically military intelligence with Tarja Halonen (our social democrat President at the time) will accept. It's all for a good cause, right?

And why shouldn't it be? Isn't there value in that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis aren't in power and occupying Central Europe? Isn't it good that we have K-pop and South Korean gizmos rather than reports of famine across the Korean Peninsula? Do not forget that sometimes US foreign policy has been quite beneficial to freedom.

Or let's take an aspect that actually has been discussed: the safety of Finnish citizens abroad. There are several occasion where Finns have been kidnapped by Islamic militants (in the Phillipines and in Yemen) and there has been public discussion if Finland ought to have the ability to do something, to have the ability to rescue hostages from an non-state actor in a country where there simply aren't the police or security officials to co-operate with. The Finnish defence establishment is there to defend us from Russia and international operations are a secondary issue. Yet in some countries those international operations are the major emphasis.

This is the basic way you get involved into military operations abroad, just from starting from the safety of your own citizens. To participate in international peace keeping (and peace enforcing) operation. Take for example Sweden. The slippery slope can start from there. We can surely understand just what is now going in the minds of US officials with the Afghan collapse: the fall of Saigon or what happened to the hostage crisis Tehran during the Islamic revolution there.

(Pictures that Biden does not want to be repeated. That's why the US embassy is destroying all US logos, flags etc. in order for them not to be paraded around by the Taleban and troops are sent to guard the evacuation and B-52s and AC-130 gunship are trying to keep the Taliban off from Kabul as every other major city has already fallen.)




We live in interesting times...

We live in interesting times... — ssu

For sure. Thanks for the exploration of Nordic foreign policy, international peacekeeping and whathaveyou. You always have a lot to say about international politics.

A lot of the associated press has made the comparison to the Fall of Saigon. I, too, am reminded of the images of United States troops throwing helicopters into the ocean. It's definitely something that people should pay close attention to and reflect upon.

Also, the Afghanistan president, Ashraf Ghani, reported to have left country as Taliban orders fighters to enter Kabul.