#Afganistan vs. Vietnam (Thread by @IndivisibleSF leader & Vietnam vet):
It's infuriating to watch horrific scenes from Kabul & hear TV talking heads dutifully regurgitate official talking points while ignoring the corruption--the giant dung heap at the center of Afghan reality.
It's infuriating to watch horrific scenes from Kabul & hear TV talking heads dutifully regurgitate official talking points while ignoring the corruption--the giant dung heap at the center of Afghan reality.
For weeks, pols and pundits have been steadfastly ignoring reports that Afghan soldiers hadn't been paid in weeks, were out of ammunition, and were subsisting on starvation rations. What happened to the funds for their pay, bullets, and bread?
Siphoned off into foreign accounts of Afghan political elite and military brass.
Where were the arms and ammo paid for by American taxpayers? Sold on the black market to the Taliban by Afghan colonels, majors, and supply sergeants.
Where were the arms and ammo paid for by American taxpayers? Sold on the black market to the Taliban by Afghan colonels, majors, and supply sergeants.
@nytimes had a photo of armed Taliban sitting in the ex-president's office. Anyone knowledgeable about military-grade weapons could see that half of them were bearing U.S.-supplied assault rifles. So it was in Vietnam 46 years ago, when our puppet government in Saigon collapsed.
My short-term memory these days may be unreliable, but my memories of 'Nam are crystal clear. For weeks, the Vietnamese foot soldiers had seen their supplies and pay being siphoned off into foreign bank accounts.
So they did what sensible soldiers have always done in the face of perpetual corruption by their so-called leaders. They stashed civilian clothes and false IDs, where they could grab them at a moment's notice, and disappeared into the confusion when the time was right.
Many of them had been working all along with the Viet Cong "enemy" (with whom they had grown up in the same impoverished villages), passing along weapons and ammo and preparing to open the door when the dime dropped.
In return for being allowed to return home unharmed, entire units made deals with the VC to simply hand over their positions and arms as soon as the VC were in position to knock on the door and be let in.
When Saigon fell, the alleys were littered with abandoned Army uniforms that enterprising peddlers were soon selling as "war-surplus" clothing in the local markets. So, too, I am sure it is with the Taliban in Kabul.
Underpinning it all was the political and financial corruption of the U.S. military-industrial-complex that willingly enabled the corruption by Vietnamese/Afghani elites, by signing authorizations and contracts for those $640 toilet seats, those bridges to nowhere...
...those hospitals with no beds, doctors, or nurses, those pallets of $100 bills--and let's not forget the international heroin trade.
In Afghanistan, military contractors like @Halliburton so deeply gouged the American public purse that even some #Republicans felt uneasy.
In Afghanistan, military contractors like @Halliburton so deeply gouged the American public purse that even some #Republicans felt uneasy.
Like pigs at the trough, @BlackwaterUSA and Triple Canopy paid mercenaries 4 times what an Army GI made for doing the same work (and taking the same risks), while billing the @DeptofDefense at 8 times a soldier's pay.
And so went the American way of modern war, kickbacks, bribes, and black market profiteering.
So softly, softly, tip-toe carefully, carefully, around that mountain of excrement that must never be mentioned, you babbling #MSM news bobble-heads. @ABC @CBSNews @NBCNews @CNN @MSNBC
So softly, softly, tip-toe carefully, carefully, around that mountain of excrement that must never be mentioned, you babbling #MSM news bobble-heads. @ABC @CBSNews @NBCNews @CNN @MSNBC
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