Afghanistan Falls

bubblesort · Sep 24, 2021

Innula Zenovka said:
They were sacrificed "for nothing" only if you consider the fact that however many million Afghans were able to live under a government not controlled by the Taliban for 20 years, and however many million girls and young women were able benefit from educational and career opportunities denied them under the Taliban, and however many million Lesbian, Gay and Trans Afghans didn't have to worry about the Ministry for Vice and Virtue and so on.

You may consider those benefits to the Afghan people by no means outweighed the sacrifice of all those "good American lives" over those 20 years, but that's a different calculus. I don't think it's accurate to say those Afghan people's lives and the other benefits of not living under Taliban rule were worth "nothing" though.

They're presumably worth something to the Afghan people themselves.

Oh yeah, we were so great to the Afghan people, making them live under martial law, droning their weddings, locking up innocent people in gitmo without trial... remember collateral murder? That kind of thing probably happened all the time. A conservative estimate of how many Afghan civilians we murdered is around 175k. I read many stories about how the Afghan soldiers we were training would sneak kids onto American military bases to rape them, and we turned a blind eye to that. We're no angels, and our leaders need to be held accountable for that. I want to rub their noses in it for the rest of their natural lives. They are pathetic.

Innula Zenovka · Sep 24, 2021

bubblesort said:
Oh yeah, we were so great to the Afghan people, making them live under martial law, droning their weddings, locking up innocent people in gitmo without trial... remember collateral murder? That kind of thing probably happened all the time. A conservative estimate of how many Afghan civilians we murdered is around 175k. I read many stories about how the Afghan soldiers we were training would sneak kids onto American military bases to rape them, and we turned a blind eye to that. We're no angels, and our leaders need to be held accountable for that. I want to rub their noses in it for the rest of their natural lives. They are pathetic.

Nevertheless, many people in Afghanistan seem far more anxious to escape from the country now the Taliban are back than were trying to escape from the country during the US occupation, and they do actually have the advantage of having been able to compare the two experiences.

To my mind, the US simply compounded the harm it had already done to the Afghan people by following Trump's plan to cut and run, thus leaving them with the results we'll see unfolding for the foreseeable future as the country's infrastructure and economy collapse.

ETA: I came across this in The Economist (I think it's free to read):

Niall Ferguson on why the end of America’s empire won’t be peaceful

As it leaves Afghanistan in chaos, America’s decline mirrors Britain’s a century ago. It may also invite wider conflict, warns a historian

www.economist.com

Granted, America has few true colonies: Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the north Pacific, and American Samoa in the south Pacific. By British standards, it is a paltry list of possessions. Nevertheless, the American military presence is almost as ubiquitous as Britain’s once was. American armed-forces personnel are to be found in more than 150 countries. The total number deployed beyond the borders of the 50 states is around 200,000.

The acquisition of such extensive global responsibilities was not easy. But it is a delusion to believe that shedding them will be easier. This is the lesson of British history to which Americans need to pay more heed. President Joe Biden’s ill-advised decision for a “final withdrawal” from Afghanistan was just the latest signal by an American president that the country wants to reduce its overseas commitments. Barack Obama began the process by exiting Iraq too hastily and announcing in 2013 that “America is not the world's policeman.” Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine was just a populist version of the same impulse: he too itched to get out of Afghanistan and to substitute tariffs for counterinsurgency.

The problem, as this month’s debacle in Afghanistan perfectly illustrates, is that the retreat from global dominance is rarely a peaceful process.

Innula Zenovka · Sep 24, 2021

‘We buried our sportswear’: Afghan women fear fight is over for martial arts

Female taekwondo and karate trainers are forced to practise in secret since the Taliban takeover and fear they may never compete again

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

Innula Zenovka · Sep 25, 2021

Afghanistan: Taliban hang bodies as warning in city of Herat

Bodies of alleged kidnappers are hung in public, a day after a warning executions would resume.

www.bbc.co.uk

Kamilah Hauptmann · Sep 27, 2021

Can be a wanker and be correct:

Kamilah Hauptmann · Sep 27, 2021

Kamilah Hauptmann said:
Can be a wanker and be correct:

On the other hand: “Transnation security elite” So, global controlling elites.

Also Assange in 2011,

Unabashed by this error, he [Assange] went on to say that we were part of a conspiracy led by the Guardian which included journalist David Leigh, editor Alan Rusbridger and John Kampfner from Index on Censorhip — all of whom “are Jewish”.

I pointed out that Rusbridger is not actually Jewish, but Assange insisted that he was “sort of Jewish”
WikiLeaks vs. Private Eye on anti-Semitic rant – Foreign Policy

The Joos!

Arms lobby not off the hook.

Innula Zenovka · Sep 28, 2021

Female Afghan judges hunted by the murderers they convicted

Six former female judges who have gone into hiding speak to the BBC from secret locations across the country.

www.bbc.co.uk

Innula Zenovka · Sep 28, 2021

Kamilah Hauptmann said:
Can be a wanker and be correct:

We should not forget, of course, the number of well-intentioned US liberals and socialists who, even after 1939, were eloquent in their support for America First's policy of neutrality, not wanting to be dragged into what they regarded primarily as an exercise by capitalists and arms manufactures (some of whom were probably JOOOS anyway, donchaknow?) to profit by dragging the US into another European war so soon after the previous one.

Of course, from 1939 until June 1941, they had Stalin's assurances that this was, in fact, the case.