Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Eric Tweets about the reality of today's wars

This is the wrong lesson and the wrong framing. We have got to fight against the bumbling empire narrative. Vietnam wasn't a mistake. Afghanistan wasn't a mistake. The US didn't invade for no reason. These aren't wars that are "won" and "lost" in the traditional sense.
America did another Vietnam. And we lost, again. Admit it, pack up, go home and stop spending billions killing people for no reason.
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12:31 PM - 9 Dec 2019
24 replies1,180 retweets5,237 likes
 
 
    1. New conversation
    1.  22 hours ago
      These are wars to sow chaos, gain or strengthen a foothold in a certain area, and destabilize entire regions in order to extract resources and increase profits. US efforts towards this end in Afghanistan did not begin in 2001. They stretch back decades.
      6 replies155 retweets998 likes
       
       
    2.  22 hours ago
      Every step was calculated. The US armed and funded the forces that fought against Afghanistan's blossoming socialist state and then used those same forces as an excuse to invade directly, all towards the same goal of subordinating the nation to imperial will.
      6 replies89 retweets639 likes
       
       
    3.  22 hours ago
      Stop framing imperialist wars in the way the state frames them after the fact. WaPo isnt publishing these documents to expose wrongdoing. It's publishing them at the behest of the state it serves in an effort to control a narrative that's gotten away from them.
      2 replies115 retweets633 likes
       
       
    4.  22 hours ago
      It serves their interests for people to think that these terrible, destructive, illegal wars that directly led to unimaginable profits for a variety of multinationals were well-intentioned but mismanaged.
      1 reply92 retweets557 likes
       
       
    5.  22 hours ago
      Their strategies to "remake Afghanistan into a modern nation" weren't based on "flawed assumptions about a country they didn’t understand" as a former "White House Afghanistan war czar" puts it, because their actual goal was never to rebuild the country. This is damage control.
      3 replies80 retweets562 likes
       
       
    6.  4 hours ago
      Want to add/clarify that none of this is meant to say that these papers don't have value - just that you need to contextualize them. It is good to have hard proof showing that the US state lies about what its engaging in.
      1 reply5 retweets68 likes
       
       
    7.  4 hours ago
      You should extrapolate from that, tho, that they're lying about other similar endeavors (Venezuela, DPRK, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and on and on) that haven't yet reached a full-scale direct invasion and you need to consider WHY they're allowing certain information to come to light.
      1 reply10 retweets74 likes
       
       
    8.  4 hours ago
      Individual journalists often do good work, but the mainstream outlets they work for operate hand in hand with the state and this is well-documented. They're not going to print things that the state thinks is too damaging. Bourgeois media is an arm of the state, not an adversary.
      1 reply11 retweets73 likes
       
       
    9.  4 hours ago
      If something is being published in any of the major mainstream media outlets, it is, at worst, directly at the request of the state, and at best, with their consent and assistance in contextualization. So, just consider that when assessing these things.
      1 reply4 retweets49 likes
       
       
    10.  4 hours ago
      The media gives validity to these lies, often knowingly. They accept what the state says, report it uncritically, and then, only once the damage has been done and it's convenient and deemed acceptable by the state, do they follow up and correct the record.
      A reminder that when it is deemed necessary to do so, the CIA outright fabricates news stories in order to demonise and slander the US' enemies and the media habitually accepts these fabrications uncritically and reports them as fact. For example:







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