Sarah Chayes on Afghanistan

[Ramsey Barner]

Americans like to think of ourselves as having valiantly tried to bring democracy to Afghanistan. Afghans, so the narrative goes, just weren’t ready for it, or didn’t care enough about democracy to bother defending it. Or we’ll repeat the cliche that Afghans have always rejected foreign intervention; we’re just the latest in a long line.

I was there. Afghans did not reject us. They looked to us as exemplars of democracy and the rule of law. They thought that’s what we stood for.

And what did we stand for? What flourished on our watch? Cronyism, rampant corruption, a Ponzi scheme disguised as a banking system, designed by U.S. finance specialists during the very years that other U.S. finance specialists were incubating the crash of 2008. A government system where billionaires get to write the rules.


Is that American democracy?

[link:https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august|

[JohnSJ]

1. Everyone one is a f**king expert. Nation building was not our job. The original objective was

supposedly to get bin laden and break up AQ

We should have learned from Viet Nam

We are the cause of the Afghan government being corrupt, and the Afghans are not like that?

Guess what, that is the best reason against nation building

After 20 years, you can’t just blame it on the US

[Polly Hennessey]

2. Another expert? And who is Sarah Chayes?

And who cares what she thinks.

[JohnSJ]

3. The link indicates she was doing charity work there. Her judgment is

that the US were responsible for the Afghan government corruption:

“Afghans could not be expected to take risks on behalf of a government that was as hostile to their interests as the Taliban were.”

Clarissa Ward on Colbert last night in her observation and interviews within Afghanistan was that the Afghan army had no desire to resist the Taliban, and the Taliban advance was largely bloodless.

The fact that the Afghan government told us not to start any evacuations because they would be able to hold off the Taliban was obviously bullshit.

General Miley will be speaking today and answering questions

[Claire Oh Nette]

4. Well, she has a point...

"A government system where billionaires get to write the rules.

Is that American democracy?"


Koch Brothers, Heritage Foundation, ALEC, and other ultra-conservative think tanks write our legislation, do they not?