After the lightning collapse of the flimsy Afghanistan government and military before the Taliban, the United States military is managing to hold the Kabul airport with around 4,000 troops in order to evacuate 5,000 to 9,000 people per day.
South Dakota could help those thousands who are fleeing violent theocracy by offering them shelter here where their rights to free speech, free press, and gender equality would be mostly respected. But to the Afghans who witnessed our failure to build a viable democracy on their home ground yet who still believe enough in America to abandon their homes and come live here, Governor Kristi Noem’s line remains, Call me when you’re an American. Governor Noem refuses to welcome Afghan refugees to South Dakota, instead seeing another opportunity to politicize foreign policy and bash President Joe Biden:
Governor Kristi Noem (R-South Dakota) isn’t so sure she would be open to the idea of South Dakota accepting Afghan refugees.
“We’ve evaluated this in the past, and the decision to accept refugees was based on how thoroughly they were vetted before they came to our state,” Noem explained.
Noem had previously said that she would be okay with accepting Syrian refugees in 2019 under then President Donald Trump. Now, she says that she has no faith in the Biden Administration’s ability to vet refugees.
“This is a dangerous part of the world, we know we have a lot of dangerous people who are there that want to do the United States harm,” Noem said. “We do not want them coming here unless we know they are an ally and a friend, and that they don’t want to destroy this country” [Austin Goss, “Noem Skeptical of Afghan Refugee Resettlement Efforts,” KSFY, 2021.08.17].
Back in 1975, we managed to evacuate 138,000 Vietnamese from Saigon, and we resettled them in every state. There wasn’t time for vetting in Saigon. We continued to take Hmong, Laotian, and other Indochinese refugees, and the Viet Cong didn’t use the opportunity to overrun South Dakota or the U.S. But if Governor Noem wants more vetting of refugees now, she’d better support more federal spending on more staff to vet all the Afghans who still view us as the beacon of freedom.
While Noem mongs fear, other Republican governors are recognizing our moral obligation to help refugees from the country we failed to fix:
Massachusetts Gov Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, said in a series of tweets his state is “ready to assist Afghan refugees” who are “seeking safety and peace in America.”
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, another moderate Republican, said in a video posted to Twitter his state has already committed to taking in 180 refugees but is “ready and willing to do even more,” calling it a “moral obligation.”
…Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said in a statement his state “stands ready to welcome refugees from this war torn country,” tweeting that Utahns should “open our homes and hearts” to them [Andrew Solender, “These Governors Are Offering to Take in More Afghan Refugees,” Forbes, 2021.08.17].
The Biden Administration is doing the best it can to respond to a quickly changing, complicated, and dangerous situation and act in America’s national security interest while helping people in need. As usual, Governor Noem is doing the worst she can, turning a foreign policy problem into one more campaign ploy without offering any practical solutions to help Americans or Afghans.
Rupert “Murdoch [has done] more to divide America than Vladimir Putin and … his media empire … causing the presidency of Donald Trump as well as the Capitol riot that marked the disgraceful climax of his time in power.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/malcolm-turnbull-says-rupert-murdoch-and-donald-trump-did-vladimir-putins-work-for-him
“News Corp. had essentially become a political party that wasn’t accountable to anyone…. its [FOX NEWS] network pumps out climate denialism and incites violence against minorities.”
“These voices on the populist right, particularly from Murdoch’s organization, are essentially doing the work of the terrorists,” said the ex-prime minister. “They regularly seek to incite animosity towards minorities, particularly Muslims.”
Trump planned and executed the insurrection. Kristi was at his right hand.
Our governor “want[s] to destroy this country”. As president she will.
Is Kristi Noem an American? I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone would confuse Noem’s lust for power with true American values. She cuddles up to authoritarians in the White House, sides with the January 6th terrorists and tries to write out real Americans from South Dakota history. Who would call that “American?” That sounds more like Taliban ideology than true red-blooded Americanism.
I’d rather have the Afghan refugees than Noem. Maybe we can make a trade. Give us 10,000 Afghans refugees and we’ll give you Kristi Noem. Fair trade.
I have 37 terabytes of data proving that Kristi Noem is a Taliban sleeper agent helping sow discord and pave the way for theocracy in the United States. I defy any reader to prove that she isn’t. ;-)
Seriously, Donald’s point is well-taken: Afghan refugees would likely bring more work skills, more education, and more GDP growth to South Dakota than Kristi Noem has with her “work”.
Good.
Intellectual, economic, and ethical/moral development of the people here should take priority.
I believe Governor Noem has a LOT of work to do in this regard.
John
The Afghans I have known over the years are the kindest, gentlest smartest of people. Of course – they are not conservative rural Pashtun Taliban (Pakistani-based mountainous folks)- they are liberal urbanist Tajik – descendants of the ancient Persians (Iranian mountainous folks). Note – it is not the conservative rural Taliban who are fleeing Afghanistan.
Afghan refugees are breathing a sigh of relief. NO NOem/Taliban to worry about. These educated, English speaking capitalists, will go where their talent takes them. That means places that have opportunity. You can’t find that cutting up chickens and turkeys or working in a CAFO.
When you see NOem, you see what the Taliban are, ugly as hell.
Thank you Gov Noem. Appreciated that you are rejecting them. We need to take care our own first
My relationship with Afghans in South Dakota is very similar to Richard S. In addition to being kind and smart, they are respectful, grateful to be living in the United States and intellectually curious. I’ve enjoyed several conversations about Christianity and Islam, politics, and most recently, the COVID pandemic. They believe strongly in education and the opportunity it affords. Unfortunately, our ethically and morally deficient governor chooses to cast a cloud of suspicion over all Afghan refugees to gain political standing among racists and Christian fundamentalists.
Thank you Gov Noem. Appreciated that you are rejecting them. We need to take care our own first
Especially the wealthiest. I fixed it for you, Sam.
Syrian refugees under Obama were vetted for at least 2 years overseas, but magats rejected them anyways because of their skin color, aka non-pastey white.
My interpreter was beheaded in front of his kids because he helped us. Maybe stop campaigning and start trying to be a decent person, Kristi.
I have frequently seen Sam’s “We need to take care our own first” argument is a variety of contexts. It could be a rational argument if the richest country in the world lacked the capacity to simultaneously take care of both “our own” and other folks not lucky enough to be considered part of “our own” that need help. I have yet to see any evidence, however, that America lacks the resources to assist both “our own” (whoever that might be), and people that some folks like to call the “other” and thereby exclude from the category of “our own.” This lack of evidence reveals the bogus nature of the “We need to take care our own first” argument.
In addition, such an argument tries to generate an unjustified sense of fear based on the human survival instinct, coupled with a subtle reminder of the unwritten caste system that is necessary to the identities of too many people. The obvious premise of the argument is that we should be afraid of being left out if the powers that be help someone else first (an “other”). And if the proponents of the argument can place that “other” on a lower level of the American caste system than the level on which people born here might place themselves, helping the lower caste “others” in need is supposedly that much worse.
There has been an almost herculean effort by Trump (build a wall), Noem, and other grifters, con men/women over the last few years to dehumanize immigrants, as well as other groups., and thereby create a lower level (the “other”) on the existing American caste system. This has led to the unspported supposition that helping an immigrant threatens the survival of better people sitting on a higher rung of the caste, such as folks lucky enough to have been born here, regardless of anything else about their values or behavior.
Such premises and goals expose the pernicious nature of the “We need to take care our own first” argument. This, along with the absence of any evidence suggesting helping one group necessarily excludes or limits helping another group in the richest country in the world, makes it appropriate for rational and morally inclined folks to summarily reject such an argument.
Well…..First of all, of course we should accept Afghan refugees..it is our moral and patriotic duty. On “taking care of our own”..we spent over 2 Trillion in 20 years trying to build a democratic Afghanistan and protect innocent people from slaughter at the hands of the Taliban. The Taliban are supported financially, and have been for twenty years, by two of our so called “allies” Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, to whom we have given billion upon billions of dollars in economic and military aid. In opposing the Taliban (and I hope we do), we are now allied with Russia and Iran…strange bedfellows. Central Asia is the limit of our power projection and we have paid a terrible price for finding that out. All of the money spent on this adventure and our military aid to the Paks and Sauds and, lest we forget, the money spent supporting the Taliban against the Russians -600 billion-have all been wasted at the expense of our fellow Americans. Plus, 2500 young men and women have died in service to this cause and thousands have been disabled.
Magats have, for years, attempted to shrink our government by cutting revenues to the treasury (taxcuts for the rich) and then cutting welfare for the needy by slashing programs for the poor, elderly, underserved and children. to pay7 for the taxcuts. Then they slashed more revenues by forcing migrant workers to leave America. They were paying a large chunk of the taxes magats don’t think the wealthy should pay.
The least a GOP governor could do would be to help clean up the mess a GOP President made.
Unfortunately the only way Governor Noem would care about these refugees would be if they were transgendered and wanting to compete in sports in their gender identity division — you know, the important issue of our day.
Sam- perhaps she SHOULD take care of her ‘own’ first!!!! Meaning a lot more effort in the effort to get ahead of the pandemic; not the other trumpist politicians vying for national publicity and $$$. But then, that requires real work, a societal conscience seeking best for all, and empathy for those she would erase from history teaching.
When Lutheran Social Services and other national faith based organizations make placements, there will be Afghan immigrants coming to S.D. People will help those in need despite the racist obstructionist anti Americans like Noem.
My mother and grandmother, both Lutherans, talked fondly of the Vietnamese family their church sponsored in the 70’s. If I ever complained about anything they always reminded me of “their family” coming half way across the world in a boat with just the clothes they were wearing. They were very grateful for anything and always laughing. My mom and nana learned a lot from them and oddly enough, the subject of religion never came up.
But they were all a different generation, having lived through scarcity with the dirty thirties and WWII. What they all had in common was the “strength in numbers” and “we are all relatives” world view.
Very good bcb, very good. NOem/Taliban republican’s have retreated from the Biden pullout and are now focused on those that helped us there to try to damage him. Everyone can see that except ol’ Sam.
Turns out that the South Dakota National Guard didn’t know they were pimped to go to the border. NOem doesn’t know the proper channels to not only convey orders but to also clarify mission statement. Daffy girl just thinks she’s cute shaking that money maker in front of the fellas.
Ghani would be welcome by NOem/Taliban here, along with his 169 million of tax payer cash. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9905093/Former-Afghan-President-Ashraf-Ghani-fled-169MILLION-cash-stuffed-helicopter.html?ci=Xw8nQTvild&si=28686035&ai=9905093
Taliban should have shot the crooked s.o.b. out of the sky. No wonder he held up the evacuations of Afghan service interpreters and their families.
Meanwhile, a couple red states over …
“Utah ‘eager’ to assist with resettling Afghan refugees: governor”
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/568321-utah-eager-to-assist-with-resettling-afghan-refugees-governor
Words are inadequate to describe the intolerance and racism expressed by the South Dakota governor regarding the possible settlement of Afghan refugees in the state. “Give me your tired, your poor” apparently doesn’t hold water in South Dakota. May those who loudly proclaim their Christianity be willing to demonstrate their Christian love to those in great need who have already demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice their own safety for Americans and our ideals. This is not about politics, Kristi.
John Dale, see David McFarland’s comment above on the moral development we need to work on here in South Dakota. Welcoming all the Afghan refugees we can fit (and we have a lot of open spaces and open jobs) would improve South Dakota’s moral, economic, and intellectual development.
But, this is about politics, hers. She is demonstrating her drumpfian bonafides to the magat base which she needs to have any chance of winning the potusship in 2024. Being a phony kristian, white scumacyst racist is part of the package.
Call her pumpernickel.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-taliban-pakistani-prison/
Guy who might be Taliban prez of Afghanistan was languishing in Pakistani jail until drumpf administration secured his release in 2018.
Well..Mike from Iowa…He got put in prison by the Paks who were embarrassed that bin Laden had been living 5 miles from a Pak airbase for years, unguarded by anyone except family members and obviously secure in Pakistan’s hospitality. This cat was also living the life of Riley in Pakistan…when we found bin Laden the Paks, who denied they knew anything about his whereabouts, arrested the Taliban leader and put him in a prison (actually more like house arrest) to keep the American foreign aid coming. Trump’s people (the incredibly out of touch, Mike Pompeo) tried to negotiate an agreement with him and allowed him to live in Dubai during and after that process in 2018.
One question that I keep coming back t as I watch the chaos of our protracted engagement and ultimate withdrawn is: Is there ANY possible way for the US to end this engagement without tragedy?
One Bush II decided to go into the Soviet’s quagmire, did that doom the US to tragedy no matter what?
The governess has 33 counties hemorrhaging population while she tries refusing immigrants.
These 33 counties look more like Afghanistan than they are different. Tick through the metrics.
It’s likely the Afghan refugees are more worldly, and smarter, than the, “free land’ refugees of the 1860s-80s They likely have no intent trading one backwater for another.
Such hypocrisy. Such irony.
O..in my opinion, yes. We were able to establish a government run by the Tajik minority in Kabul and Kabul returned to normal but the rest of the country is like the wild west, ruled by various war lords representing various tribes and minorities. The Taliban are the strongest of these militarily, supported by the Paks. We supported them against the Russians, when they fought the Russians as part of a broader coalition.The country is larger than Texas and has never been effectively governed.
Mike & Arlo, the cold hard truth of the Afghanistan situation, as I’ve seen it play out for the last 20 years, is that not everyone in the world wants to be like us. Don’t look for our war hawk type of leaders to ever admit they could be wrong. There’s too much at stake for them: 1) “American Exceptionalism”, which is an unrealistic belief that our way of life is superior to all others and needs to be emulated by the use of military force, if necessary and 2) Making huge profits in the war industry – transferring the wealth from us into their coffers – leaving America in a huge inescapable debt hole. As we recently witnessed the Afghan “paper tiger” collapse, I thought to myself that’s all it was: a corrupt, USA-propped up puppet government and military. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that most Afghanis were playing along because we held them by military force. They had no intention of keeping up appearances to satisfy America’s ego once we left. I do not blame the Afghanis. It’s finally time after three huge military debacles – Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan – that we as Americans: GET OVER OURSELVES, grow-up, quit throwing our military power around and constructively work with others in the world instead of trying to impose our will.
How we do that…is up to us as American voters. We need to vote out the war hawk, Military Industrial Complex supporters from Congress as a start. We can use the harsh lessons from Afghanistan and the other debacles in a coordinated campaign movement to end the endless war era. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to heed the advice of the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Things have cooled off now in Kabul so we won’t be hearing about that little deal anymore. Just NOem/Taliban and the rest of the gang that now doesn’t want these brave Afghans who risked their lives for our service personel. These so called republicans hate the police and they hate our military. All of the elected republicans in office today hate the two pillars of Democracy, the military and the police because they stand up for the Constitution. Can’t have that in their trumpian world. Watch the headlines now fade to black regarding Afghanistan. Biden won and so did America.
Jerry, I agree with you that President Biden made the right decision. But, we need to stop trying to impose our will around the world. This goes beyond the President and Governor Noem. We as a people need to focus on being constructive players in the world and lose the “might is right” ego. Recent events show us once again how that kind of mindset never works out in the long run.
One thing is for certain, Africa, a whole continent, will be the next place we get stalled in. Mali, landlocked like Afghanistan, is likely (move over France). A lot of sand and that Niger River (CRT covered) that will get the white nationalists all hot and bothered. We seem to like it in places that are warm to warmer so we can unleash our power on mud huts. My experience tells me that. We had enough of that cold stuff with Korea. Got to go where the weather allows 24/7 attacks even during the rainy season. Also, there is an abundance of corruption in Africa with some real winners of the autocrats that republicans love. So keep voting republicans so we can keep the war thingys going unabated. Boom is money, ask Raytheon.
Guy, I agree not everyone wants to be like us, nor should we expect them to be. I certainly don’t want anyone to be like the authoritarians and fascists we have right here in the US, and who found a welcoming home in the Republican Party. We voted them out of office. And, I think any nation should have free and fair elections to decide who they want to lead them, the rule of law, etc.
Every nation should be held to certain minimum international standards of behavior toward bordering states, other states, and human rights. It’s not our fault, and it’s to our credit, that we do stand up for such standards, though not consistently. I don’t think we are “exceptional,” and we often fail to follow our values both domestically and in our foreign policy.
I don’t particularly like military solutions to such problems, but sometimes the only way to solve them is to bludgeon people like Hitler, Milosovic, bin Laden and various warlords into submission.
Jerry, I agree that Mali and Niger could be hot spots. Lots of contention by various actors over minerals (particularly uranium). China has become a new bad actor in Africa, copying the US by using debt to cripple countries then taking their minerals as payment. France has played similar role in this area for decades. And in the last decade Islamist extremist groups have caused more and more difficulty for uranium miners.
Donald, I think the real evil are the people in our own country who profit handsomely off war. How people like that can go on with their lives after destroying countless lives I will never understand.
President Biden made the right decision and he did it the best he could. Most Americans, including me, back Biden on his decision and I also credit President Trump for starting the process that eventually got us to this point. It was not going to end the way many wanted it to because Afghans did not want the government we imposed on them. The reality of the situation speaks for itself. President Biden has made it clear that he stands squarely by his decision and we all have no choice but to accept that now. There’s no going back there.
The top 10% of this country is heavily invested in the war machine.Until they are sent to do the fighting, nothing will change. Wars are inevitable to create more wealthy profiteers.
Common point above: we can’t make the rest of the world be like us. Afghanistan and Vietnam certainly illustrate that we can’t do it at gunpoint. If we have any hope of converting others to liberty and democracy, such hope lies in setting a moral and practical example, practicing liberty and democracy in everything we do here at home, supporting women’s and minority rights, free speech and press, universal suffrage, free and universal education…. Living up to our ideals is the proper counterprogramming to the narrowminded tyranny of the Taliban.
And while we wait for the general public in Afghanistan to muster the strength and courage to exterminate the Taliban and Sharia Law, we should open our doors wide to all who are willing to abandon their country to come live under the ideals of ours.
O, no, there is now no way for the US to exit without tragedy. There was a time – before Cheney/Rumsfeld convinced W he needed to avenge the attempt on his father’s life by Saddam, when the US COULD HAVE salvaged its reputation in the world, and in particular in the ME by throwing copious amounts of reparation aid, nation RE-building (not building anew), cleaning up the messes we left behind post Soviet/Reagan proxy war and so on. But instead – the warmongers won out and ruined the day. The sort of rule by terror and intimidation that the Taliban engage in cannot stand up to an overwhelming outpouring of love and caring (vs. creating a huge military operation) such an effort would have demonstrated. we did not act like actual “good guys”, but rather like the ignominious “ugly Americans” – again.
20 years ago magats threatened to use Democrat no votes for war against them in the next elections. This could explain why so many Dems voted for these disasters.
On O’s fatalism: I’m not sure even making Afghanistan the 51st state would have prevented a Taliban takeover. Heck, statehood hasn’t stopped our own Taliban from taking over South Dakota.
Starting massive evacuations sooner would have knocked the legs out from under the government and army we tried to build up. It would have been a visible vote of no-confidence. If President Biden had, on January 21, said, “We’re starting evacuations now so that everyone who wants to leave Afghanistan is out by the time our last soldiers leave,” he’d have effectively been saying to all parties involved, “The Afghan government and military don’t stand a chance against the Taliban.” Likewise, imagine if we had started repossessing all of our Humvees and other military equipment that we had given to the Afghan military: “Sorry, we have to take these tanks back before August, because we don’t want them to fall into Taliban hands.”
We took the ill-advised gamble that, knowing we were going to leave them on their own, the government and military we built might stand against the return of Taliban tyranny. The odds on that gamble were against us, but if we had fully folded in January, the Taliban takeover would only have happened sooner. President Ghani would have fled to the UAE with his four cars and helicopter stuffed with sacks of cash even sooner.
President Biden is not an idiot. He’s been doing foreign policy since before the Soviets tried annexing Afghanistan. He’s understood for a long time that our occupation of Afghanistan would end similarly to the Soviets’. He chose to bite the bullet and take the heat now, something his three predecessors didn’t do. Even the last guy put it off until this year, dangling the withdrawal as an election-year pander to a nativist base.
Now the best we can do is help the Afghan people who want to flee and enjoy a better life in our country. Governor Noem lacks the courage and decency and sense of moral responsibility to make even that effort. She’d rather stoke the old Ron-Branstner/Al Novstrup fears that those darn dark people are all terrorists bringing Sharia Law to Aberdeen.
Tom ‘Iranians are better educated on US constitution than me’ Cotton explains it all in a tweet….
Take it from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, one of our country’s leading exponents of U.S. military might—even if it’s deployed against the American people. “It’s clear President Biden and his Department of Defense have been more concerned with critical race theory and other woke policies than planning an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan,” tweeted Cotton.
My bad. Tweet comes from New Republic.
Afghan refugees began arriving in Colorado, today.
They are given a place to stay, furnishings for the home, food-clothing-English language classes-diapers, and opportunities for employment from the North Denver Islamic Center, for their first five years in the city.
No state money is needed.
All assistance comes from donations.
I won’t live in South Dakota and I wouldn’t want New Americans to experience it, either.
iowa looks forward to accepting Aghan refugees. unlike very red badlands of Northern Mississippi. Porter and I have you miscreants surrounded.
Well…we’ll be happy to take any Afghan family with a teen age son who is at least 6’4″ and can shoot the basketball.
Great news Porter, great news indeed. Turns out National Security Advisor to trump knew that the Taliban would beat the Afghan military in short order, but went ahead anyway with the deal. https://crooksandliars.com/2021/08/john-ratcliffe-taliban-trump
So the republicans knew all about it and now they feign surprise at what they knew. I used to do that surprise thingy at xmas time for the kids when they didn’t know better.
Thankfully, President Biden was up for the task, like the great state of Colorado is. Booyah!!
Jerry, President Biden is doing the best job he can despite the circumstances of our pull-out from Afghanistan. As an Independent, I believe he made the right decision in finally getting us out of an unwinnable situation. His decision to pull us out was calm and measured. The chaos that ensued brings to light how American greatly misunderstood the history and culture of the Afghan people through our own hubris. As time passes, I hope we can finally learn from this debacle and move on from our imperialistic tendencies. After Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s time America matures in it’s foreign policy endeavors. It’s never too late as a nation, to admit we were wrong and make every effort to do what is right moving forward: working constructively in the world without military force. President Biden is showing that he wants our country to do that and refocus on rebuilding our infrastructure here at home. President Biden’s resolve will be tested in the coming months from those in Congress and certain media outlets who want to further push a false narrative in an attempt to keep us divided through petty partisan political games. After all that we have been through, I would caution all of us to take a deep breath, step back, and not allow ourselves to get emotionally sucked back into these partisan political games. When you read the news from certain media outlets, if you find your resolve is quickly overcome by rage and anger…STOP YOURSELF…and tune it out. It’s a trick to have you succumb and pulled back into that vicious partisan cycle. As the President has calm resolve, so must we have calm resolve to overcome their dirty tricks of trying to pit us against one another.
Fox News is one of those media outlets, that I alluded to, that is trying to frame this false narrative against President Biden and anyone who is not for more endless wars. We are witnessing the classic modus operandi of Fox News. They did it back in 2002-03 to push us into war with Iraq after we went into Afghanistan. Like today, Fox News played heavily on the emotions of the American People, mixing it in with their fake version of patriotism to back George W. Bush’s War on Terrorism. After witnessing the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe that as a nation, we can overcome their worn out and restless propaganda machine. What gives me hope this time is reading more balanced news from other media sources who have interviewed countless war veterans who have actually turned against these endless wars because of their own harrowing experiences. We have great hindsight now into how media outlets like Fox News operate and manipulate us into endless wars that have led to so much misery and destruction over 20 years. Yes, Fox News is trying an all out assault on President Biden since pulling out of Afghanistan and I’m old enough to remember how this is the same thing they did almost 20 years to pull us into the Middle East Quagmire. We just got out of it…do not let them pull us back in.
What magats become when not fly dusted in infancy… (Hint…Charlie Jirk)
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/19/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-baselessly-claims-biden-intentionally/
Two final thoughts:
1) what went wrong? Nearly everything. 13 years of reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, https://www.sigar.mil/allreports/
2) criticizing the US withdrawal and departure is a fools errand. When the US was forced out of Vietnam at gun point there were no airlift evacuations. The US left Marines behind. The US had to repatriate their bodies a year after the war. https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-on-those-left-behind-in-afghanistan-and-vietnam-119088709801
Then you got Congressmen like Mo Brooks from Alabama trying to take yesterday’s bomb threat in the capital and make it a partisan political campaign. Brooks was is trying to incite partisan passions from a criminal act. He was very careful in his wording, but if you keep your calm resolve you can read right through his words as using an unfortunate situation to stir up people.
Postscript.
Systemic cultural delusion perhaps is an Ameri-English trait.
The Wests nation building fantasy.
“It is now 22 years since Tony Blair gave a speech in Chicago lecturing the US on his doctrine of international intervention. He wanted the west to invade countries across the world not in self-defence, but to save people everywhere from oppression. It was a reformulation of Alfred Milner’s Victorian concept of moral imperialism. British politicians on both the left and the right have long been uncomfortable about the abandonment of Milnerism as the acceptable face of empire. Global policing is somehow embedded in Britain’s political DNA. All Blair’s wars of aggression were cheered on in the House of Commons.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/20/west-nation-building-fantasy-afghanistan-boris-johnson
“Likewise there has been no reckoning over the west’s support for mujahideen fighters against the Soviets in the 1980s, when aid was often funnelled to the most extreme groups via Pakistan’s secret services. That might, after all, lead to a reassessment of the west’s ongoing alliance with Saudi Arabia, whose regime has long allowed its wealthy citizens to fund the Taliban while it subjugates its own women and violently represses dissidents as our government looks the other way.
While Taliban atrocities are widely understood, those committed by western forces and their allies have been wilfully ignored. As the author and Afghanistan expert Anand Gopal told me, the Taliban all but evaporated in 2001. But Afghan politicians in the new government exploited a US desire to eliminate “bad guys” by falsely claiming their opponents were Taliban supporters. Massacres, mass arrests, house raids and torture followed. Pro-government forces recruited children as soldiers, while the Afghan Local Police – a 30,000-strong pro-government militia mobilised by the US – murdered civilians, committed fraud and engaged in theft, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking and extortion.
The CIA-backed Khost Protection force oversaw similar human rights abuses: their victims ranged from 14-year-old boys to 60-year-old tribal elders. As Human Rights Watch puts it, a central myth was that the Afghan strongmen, warlords and commanders the US chose as allies to oust the Taliban “could help to provide security and stability, despite their records of abuses”. The opposite proved to be the case. From the very beginning, anti-Taliban forces attacked villages, raped women, summarily executed civilians and stole livestock and land.”
“These victims are ignored because their deaths undermine the self-serving narrative that allowed the west and its allies to present themselves as the “good guys” to their domestic audiences. As far as western foreign policy is concerned, the lives of brown-skinned civilians are only relevant when they can be used to mobilise public opinion in support of unleashing more bombs and bullets.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/19/afghanistan-crisis-britain-foreign-policy-delusional
John, thank you for sharing. All hard and inconvenient truths, but we as Americans must wake-up and face them. To do so will help us to overcome our ugly imperialist tendencies at foreign interventions.
There has been a centuries long dispute as to where the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan (arbitrarily drawn BY THE BRITS) lies. That arbitrary line effectively splits the Pashtun (the Taliban) traditional territory in half – half in Pakistan and half in Afghanistan. The Taliban are in actuality acting as agents for Pakistan in claiming more territory. My prediction in this is eventually, Afghanistan will be split up much like the former Yugoslavia along ethnic lines, with a portion of it (South and East) becoming part of Pakistan, The North and East a Tajik/Dari country and the rest a few small independent nations. And like the Balkans (Yugoslavia) they will be based on ethnicity and language differences.
Noem finally found her “Gnome Family” yesterday. She may reject Afghani refugees, but at least she knows her true family. She posted several photos of her huge reunion with her Gnome Clan. Kristi said she had driven by the park several times in her life and FINALLY noticed the gnome statues as some of her relatives. By the way, I’m wondering…what would you bring to a Gnome Family potluck picnic in the park?
Kristi posted the big family reunion news on her Facebook page for laughs. At least we now know Kristi is a big Gnome at heart. However, I really believe she could learn something from her new found family members: you can accept other people from other countries into your heart and into your home like we accept you.
My mom was nearly 4yo on the rez when she was accepted as a US citizen by this group of immigrants Running it Today & who did take over our country. So its difficult to reject any Race since its a normal progression in this world in regards to people in general.