We Lost the War: Afghanistan 2020, France 1940.

it always seemed to me very peculiar and
instructive that my parents carried with them a strange sense of pride their whole lives long because they participated in a protest a street protest against the war in vietnam more especially it was also giving voice to outrage at that time about the american bombing of cambodia it seems to me strange because i'm in a position to know they were and remained completely utterly ignorant of the political reality of the vietnam war and especially of the american bombing of cambodia all their lives long not just at that time were they ignorant they stayed ignorant into their old age when they happened to have a son i wasn't even born at the time of that protest they had a son who grew up and got a serious research interest in cambodia and who eventually moved to cambodia started living in cambodia studying the cambodian language doing humanitarian work so you can imagine not every teenager of my generation might perceive their parents in this way but i was in this position to question both the way in which their participation in that protest i don't know the way it became for them such an important ego trip that they felt that they were participating in the great and momentous events of history in their time but also the way in which it gave them this this sense of self-confidence in their own ignorance it's that dangerous but common combination of self-righteous ignorance i don't think my father ever read one book about what happened in cambodia his whole life long i don't even know in what format he received communist propaganda about what was going on in vietnam and cambodia probably probably just word of mouth he was an extremist talking to other extremists i don't think they had their own radio stations or anything of the kind and it never changed he never took a positive engaged attitude towards that war as it unfolded nor any of the other wars that came and went during during my short life i'm now 41 years old or his long life he's he's now deceased so you know i was at home living with my parents when the americans invaded yugoslavia you know the kosovo crisis the breakup of yugoslavia those wars the american involvement they remained just as self-righteous and just as ignorant and they went out and participated in street protests in their self-righteous ignorance and they were opposing what the americans were doing in yugoslavia at kosovo and they didn't even know why and i think my father went to his grave and he never knew why he never learned the first goddamn thing about these momentous important political events of his generation and mine obviously our generations overlap i knew more about all of them than he did and i have no special source of information here i just read books go to the library get reports very often as i'm going to talk about today in this video the most important source information i had to work with were just having the humility to acquire and read the government's own reports on these things so the last few days it took some time to read united states house of congress report on the war in afghanistan and it's kind of sort of the final report it's the report talking about the end of the war and the signing of various peace treaties and then the question of what's going to happen next with the people of afghanistan for the taliban for the us military so on and so forth so in its small way this report from american house of congress it marks a really important moment in in my life in your lives anyone who's been alive for the last 20 some years and yet i think for even you watching this video you can pause and ask if you yourselves read anything of the kind either this final report or anything in last week or if you know anyone in your lives who reads this kind of material who cares about history as it's now unfolding and let's let's just add in the same way that my parents attended protest i think probably all of you know people who attended protests about these things you probably know people who attended protests against the war in iraq against the war in afghanistan against one aspect or another of george w bush's military career shall we say but the little bit of effort it takes a little bit of curiosity and humility to really learn about what's going on and why it's it's shocking and saddening to me how how rare that is i didn't think i was an extraordinary person when i was a teenager and i asked my father about what happened in cambodia and i was totally dissatisfied with his with his answer i didn't think i was extraordinary when i was dissatisfied with what i was hearing about iraq afghanistan yugoslav any any of these examples and i just took the time to challenge my own ignorance and find out some answers as to as to why now with this having been said many of the most mysterious things in our political history they are mysteries because we want them to be mysteries people don't know because they prefer to be ignorant and again it may be this sense of self-righteous ignorance that appeals to them why and how did the french lose in their war against the nazis in the year 1940. so that was the war in which germany conquered france the french have for many many years used the very round number of a hundred thousand deaths that a hundred thousand french men died before the french side surrendered capitulated of course they didn't just lose to the nazis they in effect switched sides they created this new government the vichy regime and they started fighting for the nazis with the nazis supporting the nazis so it's really really major event history france and everyone pretends that it's real mysterious why the french lost the real number of french who died is uh closer to 60 000 and 60 000 itself historians today are willing to admit even that is rounding up it's a generous estimate quite likely fewer than 60 000 french died fighting at the nazis in 1940 the french had over five million men an active military service at that time so if you want to know why and how the french lost the war against the nazis it's because they weren't willing to fight until 2.5 million three million four million five months they weren't willing to fight up to a level of millions of casualties if you were to ask in the last 20 years why did the united states lose its war in afghanistan it's because the americans were not willing to fight until they had millions of casualties the total number of americans who died is very roughly 2 500. if you include america's other allies like canada england and so on even some small eastern european countries it only goes up to about 3 500. i apologize i don't i don't have those numbers memorized but one number that i do have memorized is 60 000. it's a coincidence that earlier i told you only 60 000 frenchmen died trying to defeat the nazis in 1940 the total number of taliban troops the total number of armed men actively fighting for the taliban side is only 60 000. number of people in the afghan side the anti-taliban side if you like it seems to be harder to estimate because so many of them quit every year but it's probably over 200 000. they have a budget of more than 4 billion u.s dollars per year last year was about 5 billion changes a little bit from year to year if you have 200 000 men with 4 billion dollars on one side and only 60 000 taliban fighters on the other it's not hard to see why and how the americans lost this war but there's a very very important difference here and of course this is why the french would prefer this remain mysterious and i have to say as the next 10 years roll by i think that americans will try to make this chapter of history mysterious too right i mean i think there is a similar kind of um cultivated obscurity about the end of the vietnam war how and why americans lost in vietnam well well you know it's a mystery it's it's very complicated no it's not no it's not what happened at the end of the vietnam war under nixon i've already talked about it numerous youtube videos it's not mysterious people just don't want to know people just don't want to talk about the terrible truth behind it um i think as the next few years go by we're gonna have a similar kind of myth-making certainly the war in afghanistan the motivations of the americans following after september 11 2001 were simply to seek out revenge there are very few wars in history that really can be explicated in terms of revenge and i just say you know trying to conquer back territory that used to be part of your own country that's irredentism that's different colonialism that's different even trying to enslave and loot people that's different the americans in 2001 and 2002 they did not have a plan to conquer afghanistan to rule afghanistan to create a new government or democracy in afghanistan the american people and i would say most of the people in the american government they had an incredibly short-sighted and stupid mission of simply seeking out revenge and it seems that their notion of revenge was to have a bottomless budget they didn't care how many billions of dollars it cost but they were in a sense cowardly because they wanted to have as few casualties on the american side as possible they were not willing to risk american lives and that is the formula for the war as it was fought and for the war in a sense as it is still being fought to this day after the withdrawal of american troops american combat troops are all gone and the ones that remain are basically guarding the equipment as it is being withdrawn they're shutting down their bases one by one but what america is continuing to do is hand over roughly four billion dollars per year to the afghan government's army now france in 1940 i mean it's just surreal if there ever were an historical circumstance in which you'd have to say look guys it doesn't matter if 1 million people die or two million people die or all five million die and and in case you don't know this about war when you have an army that big five million you can be recruiting another million man each year you can have new men being trained and entering the army with each passing year so even if you have millions of deaths per year you can also be recouping those losses if there ever was a war in which the french side should have had 100 commitment to fight to the last man to the death to resist foreign conquest and occupation it was in 1940 when they were being conquered by the germans because they weren't just being conquered by any germans they were being conquered by the nazis i mean you could make some kind of argument that 200 years earlier or 150 years earlier when it was a totally different government in germany even in the old days even you talk about under napoleon when napoleon was fighting against austria okay you say what difference would it make why can't the french just just team up with the austrians well if the austrians conquer paris what difference is it really gonna make napoleon ended up getting married to an austrian princess anyway can't can't the french aristocracy and the austrian aristocracy just sort of their differences and have one big empire including both france and austria you know you could make arguments for different chapters of history this way but if there was one moment in the history of planet earth when the french should have been willing to fight not not to 60 000 casualties and then quit but to millions and millions and millions it was 1940. so this is about courage it's about commitment and it's about having a clear vision of the political outcomes that you're willing to pursue that's going to justify those those sacrifices so the the the mystery of 1940 is that nobody in france and pretty much nobody in the rest of the world really wants to face up to the shocking cowardice of the french side in 1940 and without digressing into it too much further it's very very difficult for me to have a charitable attitude towards that because the history and politics i've been interested in my whole life has so much to do with french colonialism overseas so it's like well gee the french you seem to have plenty of bravery when you're massacring people in third world countries who are greatly inferior in their level of technology and wealth when you're going and spreading your empire conquering parts of africa parts of southeast asia like cambodia even conquering parts of canada that became quebec or what have you gee you guys seem real brave when you're fighting this completely asymmetrical and unequal warfare when you're massacring people who don't stand a chance against you but when when we're literally talking about the germans conquering paris this shocking appalling unforgivable cowardice this shocking appalling unforgivable lack of commitment and again long story short the french didn't have any lack of tanks they didn't have any lack of naval vessels that very impressive navy at that time airplanes they didn't have a lack of fighting men in uniform or ammunition or guns there was no technological difficulty here right the problem was in a sense political social cultural the problem was of course primarily the government but in large part the people behind the government and the whole of western society has tried to give itself amnesia and try to just remember the bravery of the french resistance the people who in effect became terrorists fighting against the germans after their own government capitulated and became pro-german uh tried to hypnotize ourselves into a version of history in which the french the french are heroes rather than villains in world war ii but yeah this is a case where cowardice led to villainy so in the year 2001 2002 2003 thereabouts the problem is precisely that the american people never ask themselves to commit to conquering afghanistan to creating a new government in afghanistan to any kind of vision of the future in afghanistan all that they wanted was revenge and indeed it might be asked why didn't george w bush just give them that with something like a six-month war and then abandon afghanistan and then leave if the point was revenge only and then conversely if that's not what you were going to do if you were just doing a punitive expedition of this kind if you were actually playing to win you would have to have the commitment not just to spend billions of dollars which united states certainly has done united states is certainly going to bankrupt itself you would have to commit your finest bravest not just young men but young women also in their millions to go to that country conquer that country learn their language live with them build a new future build a new society for the people of afghanistan and that was something the americans were never committed to now very briefly this same pattern plays itself out in miniature if someone were to ask right now why has the american side lost in syria why is the american side lost in yemen why is the american side lost in libya right what we're talking about here ultimately is the willingness to suffer millions of casualties on your own side and i think there's a parallel to what i said about france in 1940 just a few minutes ago it's that just as the french became shall we say enervated the french became lazy and cowardly because they got used to just bombing and beating up on people in third world countries that couldn't really fight back right the americans in the years since world war ii they've become very used to bombing places like nicaragua hey you know what we can even include cambodia and vietnam those people couldn't bomb you back you know these incredibly asymmetrical unfair if you like conflicts the united states has gotten very accustomed to massacring people in third world countries with impunity and they've really ceased to think through at any level politically you know the society as a whole or congress or the elite levels of uh united states government they've they've ceased to think through responsibly what it would really mean if the united states wanted to bring democracy to syria it would mean millions of your people dying that's the commitment you'll be talking about all right i had a conversation with someone over the internet who was writing in offended by my recent videos about the intellectual legacy of john norman john norman was the author of the gore series of science fiction fantasy books and she wrote in repeatedly referring to this author john norman as a great philosopher and a great intellectual and i said to her look i've got to ask you to pause and reconsider here um no no he's not there are a lot of people i personally despise like slavoy jizek whom i have to recognize as philosophers and intellectuals i hate slavoshi he's the worst kind of communist and also i just think his commentary on batman movies and this kind of thing is of no substance i neither respect his work on politics nor philosophy nor on pop culture stuff like batman i have no respect for anything the guy does but if you look at the life of slavoy jack sure even if he's a bad philosopher he is a philosopher i utterly despise noam chomsky i think he's a bad philosopher i don't actually like his philosophy about linguistics i don't like social politics at all any of it i don't like him as a person nope yeah i don't but if you ask me is noam chomsky a philosopher um is he an intellectual of course he is sure he just happens to be one whose work i dislike i don't appreciate i disagree with etc right person writing into me defending the intellectual heritage of john norman what i had to say to challenger was was this this guy he's now more than 80 years old can you remember any political event that's unfolded during his lifetime that he commented this guy was a white philosophy professor in an american university and he lived through the transition from these being segregated white only institutions to integrating with black people the unfolding these amazing social changes in the united states of america and he wasn't a teenager during those years he was a university professor t.u philosophy during those years i mean he lived through the vietnam war the war in cambodia i mean every war i've mentioned in this video this guy was adult during him to get this is someone who's now in his 80s he lived through all these momentous changes in history and not only did he never show the slightest interest research interest intellectual interest or compassionate interest charity interest in anything happening outside of his window he remained obsessively focused on his own fetishes shall we say and all of his fetishes have to do with slavery and yet he never showed any interest in the real history of slavery the real consequences of slavery there were in some ways visible right outside his window or right in his own university classroom in the united states of america the person i was talking to didn't have a whole lot to say in reply my point is here i want you in the audience to learn the same lesson i learned just by observing the hypocrisy of my own parents i want you to learn the same lesson that i'm adam braiding here with the life of john norman okay don't let history pass you by the way to feel meaningful and meaningfully engaged with history as it unfolds is not standing on the street shouting and holding a placard it's not burning an american flag in front of an embassy it's not throwing smoke bombs around one of these things tear rat gas grenades what is being glorified and glamorized once again in 2020 as so-called peaceful protest aka rioting aka street violence this is not the way to have a meaningful connection with political history in your time and like my own parents you can go to those protests and remain beautifully ignorant of what it is you're protesting and why it's hard i i don't have the time to do much reading in english i really don't i woke up this morning at 5 00 a.m i studied chinese i think from 6 40 a.m to 8 40 a.m i probably should get back to studying chinese now i have other commitments i have other worries in my life we all do it's hard to take the time to read about to learn about to research about to ask yourself the hard questions and to not be satisfied with the easy answers the answers that are made available to you by the mainstream media if you just do a little bit of research it's going to enrich your life and if if there's a possibility that you can make a positive difference in that history as it unfolds wouldn't you want your action your intervention your involvement to be on the basis of real understanding on the basis of the things you learned through that research rather than being on the basis of self-righteous ignorance