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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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    Shit, just realized why the turn in the Syrian conflict seems so uncannily familiar. It rhymes very strongly with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in the 80s (which led, among other things, to the Kashmir insurgency). This is not a good rhyme.

    5:22 PM - 14 Oct 2019
    • 14 Retweets
    • 73 Likes
    • Sam, the Filiblaster christopher kim Ameya Mhatre Rhys Lindmark Tony, from a distance Patrick Krusiec Darius Kazemi 🔫 🎀 sonyasupposedly.com 🤖
    5 replies 14 retweets 73 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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        Roughly, the 1980s/now mapping would be (purely structural balance of power, with no value judgments of politics/ideologies in play) US = USSR Russia = US Kurds = Mujahideen Syria = Afghanistan Turkey = India Pakistan = Iraq+ISIS

        2 replies 2 retweets 16 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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        Americans of course have a very... interesting memory of what happened. Basically, Rambo 3 (1988). Noble US supplies noble Mujahideen to force evil empire to withdraw. Led by Rambo. The withdrawal was 1988-1989. Kashmiri insurgency began like 5 minutes later.

        2 replies 1 retweet 14 likes
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      4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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        The one difference here is that ISIS and Kurds are enemies, whereas in the 1980s, Pakistan was the supply chain to the Mujahideen, and later the "handler" as it metastasized into Taliban, Kashmir foreign terror outfits and eventually Al Qaeda. It was a godawful mess. Still is.

        1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
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      5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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        It is really grimly hilarious how much narratives can influence how you think. I remember watching Rambo 3 and of course rooting for the "good guys" and hey, 3 years later, the people the movie portrayed had turned into the real-life bad guys in Indian newspaper headlines.

        2 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
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      6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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        I think the Kurds are basically screwed btw. They do not have the deep bench ideological and civilizational capability of Wahabbism to back them for decades. They appear to be a genuine cultural island. Everybody around them appears to have their knives out for them.

        3 replies 0 retweets 17 likes
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      7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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        I hope this localized analogy does not indicate a US collapse similar to USSR collapse. I think not. That withdrawal was caused by a desperate attempt to contain an unraveling of empire gracefully (and failing). This is an own-goal by one moron from a position of strength.

        5 replies 0 retweets 11 likes
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      8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 14 Oct 2019
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        I’m so a product of the 80s it’s not even funny. Age 6-16 is like the only dentist anchor zone.

        1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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      9. End of conversation
      1. The Nightjar‏ @LapsusLima 14 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @vgr

        It most certainly does.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      2. Adolf Richter Brill  🐮‏ @typhoonjim 14 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @vgr

        The painful irony here is that this outcome could have been avoided with a less intransigent president, who possessed advisers willing to counsel him on a good path but to respect his preferences and not to attempt to shackle him more strongly to path dependency

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. Adolf Richter Brill  🐮‏ @typhoonjim 14 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @typhoonjim @vgr

        the narrow temperate zone here probably looks a lot like Nixon's cabinet, but Trump is not Nixon and he doesn't have a Kissinger

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      4. End of conversation

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