Thread by @caitoz

Media Concern Trolling About Afghanistan Withdrawal Again

"Concerns mount that US withdrawal from Afghanistan could risk progress on women's rights," blares a new headline from CNN.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/media-concer…

"Concerns are mounting from bipartisan US lawmakers and Afghan women's rights activists that the hard-won gains for women and civil society in Afghanistan could be lost if the United States makes a precipitous withdrawal from the country," CNN tells us.

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1380955257128284165

What follows is yet another concern-trolling empire blog about why US troops need to stay in Afghanistan, joining recent others geared toward the same end like this CNN report saying the US can't withdraw or it will be sued by defense contractors:

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1376482033967497219

...and this one by The New York Times about a US intelligence report urgently warning that a withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to the nation being controlled by the people who live there:

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1375546199344869377

This latest one by CNN features a long quote by Annie Pforzheimer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank regurgitating the tired old mantra that a withdrawal from Afghanistan needs to be "conditions-based" to ensure no women will be mistreated.

CSIS, for the record, is funded by war profiteering corporations like Northrop Grumman and Boeing, as well as fossil fuel companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco.

CSIS is also funded by plutocrats.
csis.org/foundation-non…

CSIS is also directly funded by the US government and its allies.
csis.org/government-don…

This article is precisely the sort of narrative management initiative that such think tanks exist for, and the fact that it's considered normal journalistic practice to quote sources with such blatant ulterior motives as objective experts shows that western news is propaganda.

When think tankers like Pforzheimer babble about a "conditions-based withdrawal" from Afghanistan, they are lying about what the requisite "conditions" would actually be. A complete and total withdrawal will have nothing to do with whether women are guaranteed nice treatment.

A complete withdrawal from Afghanistan will happen when it ceases to be a vital geostrategic point of control, which effectively means the US will maintain some sort of foothold in Afghanistan for as long as China, Russia and Iran remain sovereign nations.

A US puppet regime in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran. If that somehow happens one day, the empire will have no further use for Afghanistan. Those are the real "conditions".

The US empire does not care about women. The US empire routinely kills women and creates lawless environments where rape and sexual slavery are commonplace with its military interventionism.
theguardian.com/world/2019/mar…

What this hand-wringing about women's rights in Afghanistan has actually accomplished is a convenient justification for further military occupation, a destructive industry of shady NGOs, and functionally not much else.
archive.is/UuqAH

"Still".
time.com/5472411/afghan…

But this argument wouldn't even make sense if it was sincere. The only way to argue with logical coherence that the US should occupy a nation to uphold liberal values is to also argue that the US should invade, occupy and change all other nations with illiberal cultural values.

Unless you uphold this argument with logical consistency in this way, it looks like you're simply making up arguments to justify invading and occupying geostrategically crucial regions with great military and resource value. Because you are doing that.
mining.com/1-trillion-mot…

So much empire propaganda is just concern trolling at mass scale. Oh my it sure is concerning how they're abusing that poor oppressed population in that nation whose government we just so happen to want to topple.

"Concern" is the propaganda carrier for the most violent of interventions. If imperialism was a virus, "concern" would be the benign-looking shape it took so the body didn't set off an immune response. "Concern" is the most Karen of manipulations.

Still it says a lot that they need to tug at our humanitarian heart strings like that in order to advance their empire-building agendas these days. It used to be stuff like "They're savages and they need to learn about Jesus," or even just "The King wants those people dead."

We've evolved as a society to the point where at least now they need to appeal to our better demons. Where they need to hide their disgusting agendas behind noble-looking ones.

Let's keep evolving, please. Maybe our collective consciousness can expand so far that they won't be able to get away with any of their psychopathic murderousness at all.