Just over four years ago, the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan rapidly collapsed, marking the end of a two-decade effort to transform the country. The final days of U.S. involvement proved bizarrely emblematic of the tragedy that had unfolded up to that point. Afghans clinging to a U.S. airplane tumbled from the sky to their deaths. A suicide bomb left 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans dead. A U.S. drone killed seven children in what the U.S. military ineptly mischaracterized as a “righteous strike.” Good intentions and moral high ground gave way to national embarrassment.
Tag: Self-deception
Ukraine: Victory Plan
Victory Plan (Google Translate)
“We hear the word negotiations from our partners, but the word justice is heard much less often,” Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday in his speech to the Ukrainian Rada. “Ukraine is open to diplomacy, but honest diplomacy. That is why we have the Peace Formula. It is a guarantee of negotiating without forcing Ukraine to accept injustice. Ukrainians deserve a decent peace,” the Ukrainian president continued in his presentation of the Victory Plan to deputies and other authorities of the country’s political and security apparatus. Kiev’s intentions are clear: to achieve a position of strength in which Ukraine does not have to yield to Russian demands. Nothing indicates that there has been any change in the way of thinking of the Ukrainian leadership, which has always understood justice as something that only the part of the population under its control deserves, without those on the other side of the front and whose territories it aspires to recover having a say in the future of the country.
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The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions.
A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
Marx and Engel’s Collected Works Volume 3: Karl Marx, March 1843-August 1844 (PDF)
Chas Freeman: The Many Lessons of the Ukraine War
I want to speak to you tonight about Ukraine – what has happened to it and why, how it is likely to emerge from the ordeal to which great power rivalry has subjected it; and what we can learn from this. I do so with some trepidation and a warning to this audience. My talk, like the conflict in Ukraine, is a long and complicated one. It contradicts propaganda that has been very convincing. My talk will offend anyone committed to the official narrative. The way the American media have dealt with the Ukraine war brings to mind a comment by Mark Twain: “The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that, if they continue, we shall soon know nothing at all about it.”
Chas Freeman: The Many Lessons of the Ukraine War
Israel: Netanyahu Led Us to Catastrophe. He Must Go.
“How could this happen?” we asked one another, neighbors in pajamas suddenly gathered in the not quite safety of the stairwell of our Jerusalem apartment building. Our first air-raid siren of the new war had just sounded. It was early on a holiday morning; I’d heard no news. In a jittery loud voice, a man from across the hall told us about the Hamas invasion of Israel that had just begun.
Netanyahu Led Us to Catastrophe. He Must Go.
The Long-Term Economic Implications of the Ukraine War
The human suffering in Ukraine is predicated on massive U.S. military aid, and is transforming an ailing country into a bankrupt failed state
The Long-Term Economic Implications of the Ukraine War
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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