Rolling Afghanistan Thread
- Thread starter padraig (u.s.)
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- #squadgoals allahu ackbarz barry chateau battle rhymes bit of a pickle come mr taliban tally me banana designer fundamentalism do not face allah alone when astral projecting every possible contingency is biden's fault follow the white high-tops islamic magic jihaute just do it lord miles moon demon popping down to afghanistan roadman mask servis cheetahs that spring we lived on bowls of risotto the hexing of an oppressive regime the taliban's secretive one-eyed spiritual leader the whitest most out of touch witchcraft tl;dr
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
shakahislop
Well-known member
mate I'm half-scottish, it's a completely different set of desires
shakahislop
Well-known member
more seriously: for me it's because i was involved in this war for a long time, which leads to a kind of obsessive interest, and what's going on now is affecting a lot of my friends there (but i don't know if you're talking about me).
more generally i've often wondered the same thing. i always had a bit of a distaste for the international relations students at university. always felt there was something off about their motivations, it felt a bit like worldly penis measuring to me. i've also come across random internet people who are dead into middle eastern conflicts. not many in real life since university though. it's......it's not just a hobby is it. there's something happening at the level of desire. attaching your emotions to a distant place that's more an intellectual object than a real one. i guess also with the middle east in particular there's the disgust and demonstration of disgust with 'american foreign policy'. or british foreign policy. and the orientalist thing, obvs.
shakahislop
Well-known member
Access Denied: The Costs of Keeping the Afghan War out of the Media Spotlight - Modern War Institute
It is easier these days for journalists in Afghanistan to embed with the Taliban than with the US military. While the media and the military have long had a conflicted […]
mwi.usma.edu
this is a piece of writing that i loved
I've noticed this with a fair few 'online leftists' from the US. The hatred of their own state seems to override everything.
shakahislop
Well-known member
it's basically an extrapolation of their own feelings about the US isn't it. I mean it's fair enough, it is an emotionally / affectively speaking weird place to be i reckon. but ultimately it's not about the 'middle east' itself. at least not at an emotional level.
shakahislop
Well-known member
dead on. even with the afghanistan thing, where america has been.....i mean words fail me, it's hard to describe the level of contempt i have for what they've done - the government of pakistan is really what brings me to the point of disgust. i guess the discourse is a 90s hangover, from when america really was a superpower
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
It is strange. My primary sources of news are panels at think tanks and newsletters from think tanks, like CSIS, and there is this prevailing and often purely implicit tone of hegemonic maintenance, like if another state-level actor ascends, in terms of influence, without guidance from the U.S., they are treated like a threat.
Which isn;t to say they shouldn't be, its just interesting that there is something of a complex that forms around being generally pro-establishment in a nation like the U.S.
I am presently situated in the pro-establishment left quadrant, for the most part. I tend to think there is something to be said for having a limb in all four quadrants: pro/anti establishment, left/right cultural persuasion.
Which isn;t to say they shouldn't be, its just interesting that there is something of a complex that forms around being generally pro-establishment in a nation like the U.S.
I am presently situated in the pro-establishment left quadrant, for the most part. I tend to think there is something to be said for having a limb in all four quadrants: pro/anti establishment, left/right cultural persuasion.