I wouldn’t underestimate the imperative of “keeping as much of Europe out of the hands of the Soviet Union as possible”. They didn’t need to enter Europe to end the Nazis, the Soviets had that in hand and I doubt they felt a huge urge to sacrifice soldiers to save red army lives.
A lot of the civil society initiatives in Europe, and most particularly in Germany (such as supporting left centre unions, Avant Garde art and music in particular) had that as their explicit aim.
This is precisely why denazification stopped in both countries. And why they moderated purging Japan of authoritarians, too.
And much of those got CIA funding, too.
Like the whole elektronische musik madness of postwar Europe. Of course musique concrete originally was developed under Nazi patronage. I know they had worked before the German occupation with record lathes (as RCA continues to try to do all the way to their lab and synth in the 60s but they were forced to face facts) but it really took off when the collaborators got access to tape machines at RDF when the Germans brought them. This was before Bing Crosby brought them from Germany to America so he could record his shows and play golf.
I would not, indeed.
Likewise, I would not dismiss the imperative of trying to protect and to promote human rights in light of what happened and what should be prevented to happen again.
I said this complicates things. I’m not in for easy solutions.
And I acknowledge, that, possibly somewhat similar to Nazi Germany, in Afghanistan we have a complicated situation.
Again, I acknowledge that there wasn’t a perfect solution back then, and there is none now.
To break it down: what makes me mad is that the person in charge blamed someone else, namely the Afghans themselves, and their forces. And I do not buy the narrative that the US and their allies believed the Afghan military and government would fight the Taliban fiercely, and possibly even succeed.
A de-talibanisation of Afghanistan would have been a real feat. That ship has sailed. But the US and their allies tried to help building a civil society, and now are claiming they never intended this. This is a lie, and insist that it is a lie. The US were never keen on that, and I recently heard a comment on German media that Germany pushed the US for this in Munich, and at the Petersberg conference. Not being keen on it but agreeing to it still is something very different than never intended to.
That’s what I keep reiterating. There is not much room to wiggle, Biden lied. And I hate it if politicians do that. It is in their job description, but it still has to be called out.
We are far OT there, but you can send me some source links per direct message, if you like. AFL-CIO tried to de-politicise German unions, if I remember correctly, and was close to the CIA. However German unions promoting imperialism is not exactly something that fits together well in my experience.
The suffering is the point, especially if the sufferer suffers from an excess of melanin or estrogen, or worst of all, both!
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