Comments

1

Ballard link extension: 5 miles, $6 billion (current estimates), 6 stations, 23 years.

I know this development is unethical, but still an impressive timeline.

High speed train Lhasa, Tibet to Nyingchi: 260 miles, $6 billion, 9 stations, 47 tunnels, 121 bridges (at altitudes greater than 10,000 feet), 6 years.

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-tibet-railway-high-speed-electric-bullet-train-photos-2021-7#the-lhasa-nyingchi-railroad-runs-through-47-tunnels-and-over-121-bridges-3

4

@1:

"I know this development is unethical..." well, just imagine how much easier it would be to build out light rail in this region if we didn't have to worry about pesky things like: paying for rights of way and property, and could build it with what is essentially slave labor. I mean, if a privately-owned Capitalist company had their way, that's probably exactly how they'd do it.

5

"The president also told ABC News that 'the idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens.'"

uh-oh

isn't that why you have
Advisors? oh and Other
People who can take some
flack for saying those (ill-con-
sidered) kinda things? Mr. President?

hope you're
warmin' up
vp Harris

6

oh and Antiva and Antima
protesting their Right to Inflict?

didja see their sign:
'If ya dont Drink
Don't DRIVE!'

ironic when "republians"
recognize Inslee's lack of
state-sanctioned Regality
yet demand return of an
Unelected horrific 'president'
to the throne. the Uneducated:
mightn’t we Pay them
to pick up a fawking Book?

surely be Cheaper.

8

Call me silly, but if the US was violently taken over by a foreign force or internal political faction that I did not support, I would probably LAY LOW for a while. Singing Kumbaya at a rally with warlords after a fresh occupation is a recipe for disaster. Things could be A LOT worse (see Khmer Rouge). Personally, I'd go the WW2 French Resistance route.

9

@5 - So you don't want a president telling it like it is? You prefer optics over substance?

@7 - Indeed.

10

Agreed @7. They could have started a couple months earlier, but we would still be in the same spot today. Lets just hope nothing happens to these C-17's moving in/out over the next few weeks. If some trigger happy idiot takes one of them down that full of US citizens, Hell hath no fury ....

11

@dingleberry
Prez's 'Optics'
sucked AGAIN.

these are Rookie mistakes
and his getting walked all over
by Repubs for making them he's gonna Own.

Smokin' Joe's 'handling'
of this crisis don't Bode well

12

Jazy, you bring it with a flair that I appreciate.

16

@15 -- thank you.
& the less Ammo
Joe give's 'em
the Better.

17

@15: Spot on. When you have no policy ideas of your own, it's easier to whip up outrage against the ones trying something.

19

nyt: Officers: Wear Masks or Face Discipline

The [nyc] Police Department appears to have one of the lowest vaccination rates among city agencies, and officers have been criticized for flouting various mask mandates.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/nyregion/nypd-masks-police-vaccines.html

how many more Bonus Years will these
Fucking "republicans" give* to us?

a. just as
Many as we
Allow them to

END the
Impunity.

END the
Mollycoddle

*as in
TAKE
AWAY

20

@18 -- well if they're gonna run
with the Incompetence isn't it so
much Better to not Give any to them?

why hand them a Field Day
unless you're basicly inept?
and if you Are, put a different
face up there and let someone
Else take the flak.

23

@20: You're still missing blip's point.

25

"... the faster we can get out the better."

get tf outta Afghanistan?
hell yes

do it Poorly?

this is America
you gotta fucking SELL it
which 'republicans' are Masters at.

catch
tf UP
Dems

or bust.

27

@25: Why are you so concerned about how Laura, Tucker, and Sean spin it?

29

great questions st2
Biden's now gotta assure
Safe Passage -- whilst the Taliban
*seizes control and they're really only
Good at shooting not Governing so it's
already a fucking Quagmire. did it Hafta
be this way? gotta Wonder... hey -- is it ok
to criticize Smokin' Joe? he dosn't seem very
good at this. he needs a damn good Spinsmeister or two

gotta take the Headlines
by the Balls Joe. lose your
Temper once in a while. act
like a Fucking 'republican' every
once in a while and maybe you'll
catch their Attention -- and then, go to Town on 'em

@dingleberry -- ah yes si!
la vox de la experiencia
he makes a great point
re wholly-Corps-owned
Mass Media including
fb fox SINclair broad
et al -- oh PLUS far
right am radio all
Spin all the time
OWNING the
Message.

America LOVES Theater
Mister President. give
us some -- show us
how we're fucking
WINNING if you
Please.

maybe*

30

@29d -- well there's a
Project fpr ya Chas.
if you're not too
Busy

31

To Save His Presidency, Biden
Must Tell the Truth About Afghanistan

For days now, the news media has likened the chaotic end of our misadventure in Afghanistan, and the awful images of terrified people scrambling onto planes at the Kabul airport, to the final exit from South Vietnam.

The comparison is overdrawn; the last American combat troops left Indochina two years before the collapse of the Saigon government.

But there is at least one potential parallel between the two conflicts that should have President Biden worried: The last time a war blew up in the face of a Democratic president, it derailed his domestic agenda and stalled the most ambitious social reforms of a generation.

To be sure, domestic political concerns should not overshadow the immediate urgency of getting all Americans and the Afghans who worked for them out of Afghanistan.

But history shows how adversity abroad has often led to trouble for the governing party back home.

By Michael Kazin . . . a[n] historian who has written extensively about the antiwar movement and the Democratic Party in the United States.

more at
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/biden-afghanistan-johnson.html

I share his concerns

as I typed that c word
smokin' joe on npr said
it right over my shoulder

so there's that
too

32

speaking of quagmires:
nyt:
Taliban Quash Protests and Seize Enemies, Tightening Grip on Afghanistan

The Taliban’s actions and history of brutality cast doubt on their promises of amnesty, and many Afghans are afraid to venture out of their homes.

The Taliban seized control of city after city with remarkable speed once most U.S. forces had withdrawn, brushed aside the demoralized and disorganized Afghan security forces, and swept into Kabul on Sunday.

Now they are learning that while conquest may have been swift, governing a vibrant, freethinking society is not so easy.

by Carlotta Gall, Marc Santora and Richard Pérez-Peña
Aug. 19, 2021

more at
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/world/asia/afghanistan-protests.html

"... they are learning that while conquest may have been swift, governing a vibrant, freethinking society is not so easy."

hmmm. now where have
we heard that before?

33

@32: I've typically found the NYT's poorly thought out pro war imperialist unhelpful on issues like Afghanistan and their recent hot takes only confirm that.

Yes, compared to their life in a flat in Greenwich Village the Taliban must seem terrible to these journalists, but compared to the corrupt US backed government the NYT has paid little attention to over the past 20 years the people of Afghanistan obviously consider the Taliban a step forward.

This is not the place to discuss the 20 years of political and military hubris in Afghanistan the US media seems entirely ignorant of, but for all the talk of the ugly withdrawal, we are largely in this place because of the US installed and deeply corrupt authoritarian American Ashraf Ghani was president. Ashraf Ghani grew up in American, went to Harvard and worked for a Western NGO before we installed him as president of Afghanistan, so not surprisingly he was never seen as anything but a puppet of Western Imperialism.

Not only they, from the beginning he made the more increasingly ethnic by placing members from his ethnic tribe in all the positions of power, then tried to impose a top down Soviet style government structure from Kabul in a country where many villagers are so removed from the government in Kabul that when the Americans showed up in 2002 they thought they were the Russians because they had not even heard about the Russian pull out 20 years prior.

When Trump signed the peace deal with the Taliban, Ashraf Ghani refused to participate, accept it, or discuss any power sharing with the Taliban despite numerous chances to do so. Trump and the Taliban pleaded for him to engage in dialogue on power sharing, but so certain was he that the Americans would never leave that he always refused to negotiate. When Biden won the presidential election in 2021 Ashraf Ghani assumed he would be rolled the way every other president had been, so continued to refuse to engage with the Taliban at all. Biden brought him to Washington and read him the riot act on the need to cooperate with the Taliban, but Ashraf Ghani continued to refuse never believing America would actually leave. Up until the day he fled the country by helicopter with an American Passport and a pile of cash, Ashraf Ghani refused to talk with the people who were taking over.

People talk about America losing credibility by leaving Afghanistan, but Ashraf Ghani shows the real source of out lack of credibility. The idea that some petty dictator can literally do anything to his own people because he knows no matter what the US will continue to back him. That is the real lack of credibility.

If Ashraf Ghani had thought for one moment about the people of Afghanistan instead of himself, the Afghan government would not have collapsed and we would be in a very different place. He did this because they assumed we would protect him militarily no matter what.

The Taliban that was almost entirely Poshtun in 2002 in now a more ethnically diverse group as US Drone strikes and US backed government corruption pushed more ethnic groups into the Taliban camp, which is why the Northern Alliance area fell so fast this time.

The Taliban will never be members of the enlightenment, although on female sexuality many of their views are similar to those held by law enforcement here in King County (the belief that it's up to men in law enforcement to decide for adult women under what circumstances they can have sex). But the Taliban is not nothing and they are certainly more effective at providing for the people of Afghanistan than the corrupt government we backed was. Our leaving on the whole should not be seen as a step back for Afghanistan unless you think female western style liberation with "I am women" playing in the background is the only measure of progress and security. All to often we used talk of spreading democracy to impose social engineering programs on them. They would want a bridge so they could get their wife to the hospital and we would be lecturing them on what pronouns they should be using in their request if they wanted the bridge. The Taliban is actually listening to local tribal leaders and talking to them in a way the previous US government NGO backed backed Afghan government never did.

Outside Kabul, I think you would find most women feel more protected under Taliban rule even if that means they lost the gender study program that left with us. US Media will never know this because they view Afghanistan from the 5 star hotel in Kabul.

34

@13 blip: Agreed and seconded. Thank you so much for your comments--they're so consistently spot on.

@15 & @18 blip for the WIN, baybee!!!!

@17 Knat: Agreed and seconded. Well said.

@18 blip: Reason #1 why I'm so glad I don't have a TV anymore, and equally glad I have never had a Twitter account. Fox is totally unreliable as a news source.

@19 & @25 kristofarian: Agreed and seconded.

@31 kristofarian: I share both Michael Kazin's and your concerns.


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