what's the right answer on this taliban vs al qaeda thing in afghanistan, though? the perception seemed to be that tulsi won the point, but that only holds if you're one of these right-wing isolationists. i think the congressman actually made the right point.

let's look at some statements and determine their truth values.

1) al qaeda attacked the united states on 9/11.
evaluation: unclear. while the united states has never convincingly argued the point, released any evidence or tried anybody in a court of law, this is what we are told, and is the assumption underlying the military action. it is technically an unproven assumption rather than a true statement, but we need to work with this unproven assumption in order to have this discussion at all. so, let us treat this as true, even if it really is unproven.

2) the taliban directed the 9/11 attacks.
evaluation: probably false. that is, i have never seen this claim made by anybody, but i've never seen it disproven, either.

3) the taliban were involved in the 9/11 attacks.
evaluation: unclear. well, let us look at both sides of the debate, here. the united states claims that the taliban refused to hand over bin laden, which would make them guilty of aiding and abetting a terrorist group, should the accusations be proven true in a court of law. but, what do the taliban say about this? crucially, the taliban claim that they were protecting the group from a false accusation. that is, the taliban refused to hand over bin laden until the united states could provide any evidence that they were actually behind the attacks. so, we're left with a conditional statement: if al qaeda were actually responsible, then the taliban were culpable; if al qaeda were not responsible, the taliban were protecting innocent people and not culpable for anything, but actually sort of heroic.

so, if al qaeda was responsible - which she clearly believes - then the taliban are guilty of aiding and abetting them and need to be dismantled for that reason, lest they continue to aid and abet other violent extremists (which they have in fact been doing for decades, as was pointed out, often as a front for the cia-linked pakistani isi). whatever way you parse it, gabbard's statements were incoherent, unless you reject the premise of aiding a terrorist group as creating yourself a worthwhile terrorist target, which is a far-right isolationist position that you'd expect to hear from a taft or something; her position is that america should not be interfering with groups that are aiding and abetting extremists because it doesn't reach the bar of a direct threat to the united states or it's interests, which is a very, very conservative approach to the war on terrorism.

again: i'm a socialist. that means i support struggle, including armed struggle. it means i support revolutionary overthrow of tyrannical governments. it means i support the fight against fascism, including the fight against islamic fascism, in whatever form it takes. and, it means i'm not a pacifist. bringing the empire in makes things very complicated, and sometimes it may make sense to oppose imperial behaviour in scenarios where you otherwise would support struggle, but to reject violence on some kind of moral level would be to reject my own politics. that is a conservative position, not a socialist position.

afghanistan at this point is a mess. but, i feel that the debate that exists is broadly disingenuous. regardless of who was responsible for the attacks, did america go to afghanistan to fight the taliban? i think it's clear enough that they actually didn't. so, is the continued existence of the taliban really a reason to withdraw? in truth, it isn't, as it's not the reason they were actually there. the actual reasons the united states are in afghanistan have to do with controlling a strategic mountain pass, and creating an unorganized state for poppy production. i mean, it's not a coincidence that bush put anthony harriman, whose family has a long history of importing heroin into the united states, in charge of the afghan security council. there's a pretty strong argument that america doesn't actually want to win this war, but just wants to continue to cause instability in the region. so, when do they leave, then? well, they don't. or, at least, not until the troops are needed elsewhere, anyways.

so, these debates are kind of pointless, as they're happening in a contrived reality. i may support a withdrawal, but we have to understand the actual situation before we start proposing it. 

so, i watched the first half 90% of the debate and actually fell asleep during it.

why does the media push warren? because it thinks a warren-trump matchup will bring the highest ratings. that would not be a valid option if warren's plans were not status quo (what is the consumer protection bureau up to nowadays?), but that is the only reason why, and don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise; they have an existing feud over twitter, and it looks to make for good theatre. and, he might beat her because of it, but they don't care about that.

so, she's going to continue to get preferential treatment over all of these charades because she's the candidate that can best maximize profit for the media. expect it. what i'm a little surprised about is that she avoided any direct attack last night.

broadly speaking, i found myself largely in disagreement with pretty much everything all of them said. i may share certain principles with the soft left on display here, but i'd argue that essentially all of these actual proposals would be total disasters. so, i'm not going to suggest that i found myself connecting to any of them; i was turned off by all of them. rather, i want to point out who sounded halfways intelligent and who didn't.

booker was the clear winner in terms of brain power, followed by de blasio and warren. but, booker had a contemplative nature in his responses, whereas de blasio and warren were more cocky about it. beta fell into a middle point, in the sense that what he was saying sounded good, but it was just a string of memorized talking points, with little projected thought behind it. if the criticism of beta was that his policies were vague, he was probably the most detailed on this night.

the rest of the candidates mostly came off as of below average intelligence for various reasons. klobuchar's accent, for example, is a non-starter. and, i think tulsi gabbard is running for the wrong party with the whole veteran shtick. castro's demand that everybody agree that illegally crossing the border be decriminalized fell absolutely flat, and both isolated him and made him look like a clown. and, while i thought inslee might be the sleeper pick, he didn't articulate himself well on this night. at all.

i'm not a democrat - neither literally nor figuratively. so, i'm not a good case study for a primary voter; i'm a better case study for a left-leaning independent voter in the general, that is going to waver between the democrats and a third party (or not vote at all). but, i wouldn't say anybody won the debate or convinced me they'd be a good candidate, even if booker seemed the least scary of the bunch.