Finally reading The Afghanistan Papers, by Craig Whitlock. Attempts to train Afghan forces sound like something out of science fiction, where modern people travel back in time and meet medieval peasants. Afghans didn't know their colors and mistook urinals for drinking fountains.
Children thought the color on a black soldier's skin would come off.
US Army Major: “I hate to say it, but there was a lot of inbreeding. The district chief had three thumbs."
"US troops referred to the practice as 'man-love Thursday'... Maj. Randy James... recalled a tense encounter in 2003 when an Afghan man approached a baby-faced male American soldier in his unit and declared, 'You’re my wife.'"
The Taliban came really close to assassinating Cheney in 2007. A fascinating historical what-if is if they'd succeeded. I shudder to think how this country would've reacted. We would've probably invaded 5 more Muslim countries and his daughter would permanently own the GOP.
The US tried to get rid of the warlord Dostum by making him an executive producer on a movie, then threatening him by reminding him of other American allies who got killed. At the same time, others in the gov were paying him $70K a month.
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US-India relationship is being harmed because Pakistan is more willing to kiss up to Trump, and Modi has too much pride to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize when he didn’t do anything.
Mr. Trump contends that he used trade as leverage to get the two sides to stop fighting. After these enticements and warnings, he said, “all of a sudden they said, ‘I think we will stop’” the fighting.
Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts released! See here for thread on the most interesting parts. 1/n
Ghislaine is asked whether Epstein ever received money from any intelligence agency, including Mossad. She replies that not as far as she knows and she would be surprised if he did.
Epstein started taking testosterone in the late 1990s. But he was not on any other substances.
Man comes to the US from Lebanon. Starts out delivering pizzas, becomes a Nobel winning neuroscientist. Trump freezes his funding, he gets an email from China offering to move his lab “any city, any university I want" with guaranteed funding for 20 years.
How to think about immigration. You should be paranoid about the possibility that the US rejects geniuses. One brilliant entrepreneur can or inventor can carry a lot of dead weight. Almost all immigration is good, but this would be true even if it wasn't. richardhanania.com/p/exchange-wit…
Earlier I discussed Casey Means, Trump's nominee for Surgeon General, and her mystical and quack beliefs.
I've looked into her story about how she left her residency. It's very strange, and indicates that there's something that we don't yet know.
Means says she was in an otolaryngology residency and almost finished, but she instead decided to quit because her surgical residency didn't focus on nutrition enough. Isn't that something she would have known well before 4 years of residency, on top of medical school?
I think the real reason was she was unfit. Look at her cohort. The other two doctors went straight through their residency normally. Means, in contrast, had a one month gap between June-July 2018. I don't know what can explain this, but it indicates something abnormal happened.
Trump just nominated Casey Means for Surgeon General.
This is a lunatic who will do serious damage to public health. Thread here, which will only be able to scratch the surface.
She'll be the first occupant of the office to believe in using spiritual mediums, praying to ancestor shrines, doing full moon ceremonies to amplify her dreams, asking the trees in the forest to deliver her a hunky man, being a shroomhead, and praising indigenous wisdom.
She has no academic achievements to speak of. All she did was med school and she dropped out before completing her residency. This is weird, as anyone in medicine will tell you.
I've written the Trump reckoning you've been waiting for.
I used to think Dems would turn us into Western Europe. That looks good now when the other side is offering third world levels of incompetence, corruption, and authoritarianism.
I convinced myself that the choice was between leftism and conservatism, but it's actually first world leftism versus third world authoritarianism.
I didn't want to believe it! It means I have to be much more pessimistic about the future of America.
Partly it's because I was getting bad information. People close to the admin told me that RFK wouldn't be at HHS and economic policy wouldn't be so insane. But it turns out I was only talking to people who agreed with me, and they were engaging in their own wishful thinking.