US President Joe Biden (Image: EPA/Jim Lo Scalzo)

Studies in futility Via The Australian:

In an address to the nation Joe Biden said the purpose for the war had been accomplished and it was time to leave. ‘Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building.’

What possible reason could it have lasted so long, if that’s the case? Why continue in the country after the scattering of al-Qaeda or the emergence of Islamic State? Why did it continue after the initial escape of Osama bin Laden? Or his eventual assassination in Pakistan? Why was the campaign called Operation Enduring Freedom?

Why did then-president George W Bush put it this way: “By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall.” This was a reference to the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild western Europe after World War II. Of course, taking nation-building out of the equation might make Biden’s assertion that the US achieved its aims in Afghanistan more palatable. But we still struggle to imagine what he thinks those aims actually were.

A message from Rudy In other September 11 adjacent disaster news: Rudy Giuliani. The former New York mayor, contender for Donald Trump’s most embarrassing lawyer and inspiration to visibly melting men everywhere has joined Cameo, the distinctly modern service that allows you to hire public figures to send someone a personalised video message.

There is something appropriate about Cameo acting as a knackery for Trump flunkies: the pure transaction of it all; the illusion of connection between powerful grifters and everyday people; the vague sense of desperation, like if you look away from these people for too long they simply disappear. So it’s no surprise that Giuliani is a long way from the first. Indeed he joins a roster that includes pseudo-intellectual former deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka, reality show star and former White House communications director Omarosa Manigault Newman, Sean Spicer and the man who replaced him as press secretary for less than two weeks Anthony Scaramucci, as well as pioneer in the area of Trump aides getting arrested and 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and Trump confidante and 1960s Batman villain Roger Stone.

Legislative dead ends After the territory’s two-week lockdown, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has called for the next federal parliamentary sitting period to be postponed. We don’t anticipate a huge amount of pushback from Scott Morrison — his government has been been trying to use the pandemic as an excuse to bunk off from work since it started. Hell, given the paucity of its legislative agenda, and the conclusive transfer of power and responsibility from the federal government to the states, we’re not sure anyone would notice.

Which, during a prolonged public health crisis and with the majority of the population under lockdown, seems like, I don’t know, a bad thing?

Desiri-Data News Corp is flooding media sites like Mumbrella with advertising for its Data Partnerships, which uses the work of Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti as an interesting starting point for a plug for the joys of surveillance capitalism via a brag about the giant footprint of information they’ve been able to corral about Australians:

In his artwork Mura Ukapilamayzinga (All Connected), Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti tells of a journey from the past to the present, from community to community. Its intricate overlaying of patterns representing the billions of data signals and connections News Corp Australia has across its network. 

… 2 Billion first party data points allow News Connect to understand audiences’ viewing habits and shopping patterns. This behavioural data enables clients to target over 2000 audience segments.