Monday, September 6, 2021
Comparisons
The Taliban in Afghanistan has a lot in common with the Trump Cult in America. Trump prefers strongmen over democratic leaders worldwide, no wonder he negotiated surrender terms in Afghanistan with them bypassing the elected but corrupt leaders in power in Kabul a year ago. Both the Taliban and Trump cult have big issues with women. The new Taliban government has no women ministers. The Trump initial cabinet had no women in the top fifteen cabinet presidential succession positions. Reuschlein theory suggests a lot in common between medievalism and the modern empire society. See link at the end of this article. Education and professional jobs for women and girls were not available to the old Taliban regime twenty years ago and after twenty years of these rights for women it remains to be seen how the Taliban accommodates the new reality or not. The Trump cult now seeks to make abortions illegal as the 1973 Roe v Wade decision hangs in the balance. Controlling women's bodies against their will is very problematic.
Taliban Surrender Deal
When Trump and Pompeo negotiated a "peace" deal with the Taliban without the Afghan government involvement they undermined that government significantly and probably irreversibly. One Afghan US veteran observed that the corruption of the American's military industrial complex was matched by the leaders of the Afghan government. Trump himself engineered lots of "grifting" and self-serving payments to Trump properties by the US military and other agencies as foreign governments would ingratiate themselves by staying at the Trump hotel while visiting Washington DC. Trump used the government to make corrupt deals with China helping an Indonesian Trump project, Qatar be coerced to loan mortgage money to support his son-in-law's 666 5th Avenue alligator real estate and abandoned the Syrian Kurds that crushed ISIS in a deal with Turkey.
Sabotaging the Afghan Withdrawal
Trump wanted immigration blocked wherever he could do so. Steve Miller engineered a very cumbersome 14 part process for special immigration visas and then stopped all processing of those visas in March 2020 until Biden took office about eleven months later. Lowering troop levels to 2500 troops from 15,000 made any reversal of the deal almost impossible. With the Afghan government so undermined the collapse was very quick and with the immigration visa freeze for eleven months the chaos of withdrawal was assured. The quick Afghan military collapse left half the Afghan interpreters and others outside the Kabul area with little opportunity to be rescued. Then the stupid and blind US media put all the blame on Biden. "Context" is the blind spot of most modern reporting.
Cruelty is the Point
The author of the book of this title, Adam Serwer, points out that the cruelty of Trump policies is not accidental but is designed to please the Fox News viewer that makes up the Trump base. Owning the libs is the phrase of choice in the Trump media. A cartoon character description of opponents with lots of demonization does not have to be accurate to have impact. Such propaganda taken to current extremes can destroy democracy, because democracy requires equal parts tolerance and forbearance, aspects not present in FOX "news" most popular host Tucker Carlson. Respect for the other side has died with respect for not over doing it against the other side. Kind of like warfare with war crimes rules to hold both sides to some restraint. The widespread breaking of political and social norms by Trumpism has pushed the democracy to the brink. Constantly presenting lies as the truth is very problematic. Lack of forbearance is to pursue every possible advantage without any consideration of fairness or justice or restraint or truth. One of three recent books about Trump's last year (Cruelty Is the Point, I Alone Can Fix It, Yes I Did Win the Election) contains the story the Trump regime was preparing to mail multiple masks to every Anerican when they found out black and brown people were dying at twice the rate of whites, so they immediately adopted an anti-mask strategy. Seeing Covid as a means to win the election, this policy illustrates the indifference to human suffering of the Trump extremists.
Feudalism Aspects of the Empire Society:
https://bobreuschlein.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/modern-feudalism-two-cases/
Please cite this work as follows: Reuschlein, Robert. (2021, September 6), "Taliban America Stories" Madison, WI, Real Economy Institute. Retrieved from: https://www.expertclick.com/NewsRelease/Taliban-America-Stories,2021260786.aspx
Dr. Peace, Professor Robert Reuschlein, Real Economy Institute, Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2016-2021 with accelerating interest from the deciding Norwegians. A consistently growing pattern shows intense interest in my work on my expertclick.com website; daily "hard looks" per year have gone from 2 to 3 to 48 to 128 to 200 to 71% ahead of last year's pace (290/169) so far, 331 days since the last Nobel Peace Prize announcement.
Contact: bobreuschlein@gmail.com Info: www.realeconomy.com