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Afghanistan

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Slim Cognito
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Re: Afghanistan

#226

Post by Slim Cognito »

I just got some good news from my grandson who is in the Air Force. He told me a few weeks back he was quarantining in Qatar and then would "deploy." but he didn't say where. I figured he meant Afghanistan so I've been super stressed, especially after yesterday.

Natch, he's busy and doesn't have a lot of time to respond to messages but he got back with me just now and he's in Abu Dhabi so

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Re: Afghanistan

#227

Post by AndyinPA »

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... story.html
A lawyer for the famed all-girls Afghan robotics team has sent a cease-and-desist letter to an Oklahoma woman, telling her to stop taking credit for the girls’ escape from Kabul and warning that her numerous media appearances endanger their organization’s remaining members in Afghanistan.

The woman, Allyson Reneau, spoke last week to Today.com and then to several other media outlets, telling a story of her supposed involvement in the evacuation of several members of the robotics team, known internationally as the “Afghan Dreamers.” These outlets reported that she had “saved” the girls from probable oppression under the Taliban.

But a lawyer for the team’s parent organization, the Digital Citizen Fund, said that Reneau has overstated her role and has, in fact, put the girls and their families at risk because her repeated claims are undermining ongoing rescue efforts in the country.

“Continuingly recycling old pictures with the Afghan Girls Robotics Team, many of whom are minors, as validation that you had anything to do with their immensely stressful and dangerous escape not only impacts the safety of the girls but it also significantly affects the safety of the members of the team who still remain in Afghanistan,” wrote Kim Motley, a lawyer for the group and a Digital Citizen Fund board member, in a letter sent to Reneau just after midnight Wednesday. “It is highly unfortunate that you would use such a tragically horrible situation … for what appears to be your own personal gain.”
ETA:

It's an interesting read for the media's part in this story.
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Re: Afghanistan

#228

Post by Slim Cognito »

I haven't had a chance to read it yet so this may be redundant, but, yeah, media, stop showcasing every Tom, Dick and Harriet who wants to exploit this Afghan tragedy.
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Re: Afghanistan

#229

Post by Foggy »

It's amazing the number of right-wing dolts who have suddenly gone from being totally uneducated experts on virology and public health to being totally uneducated experts on foreign policy and military operations.

On the Twitter machine, all sorts of people have pointed out that for all the criticism by the dolts of Biden’s supposed mismanagement of the situation in Afghanistan, none of them have come up with an alternative solution that really makes any sense.
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Re: Afghanistan

#230

Post by Slim Cognito »

Just heard on the radio from an Afghan translator who just made it out with his family a few days ago with the help of Tom Cotton (if I heard correctly) and my thoughts went here:

Why are right wingers so concerned about the safety of Afghan women and children, yet don't give a god damn about the safety of Honduran woman and children?
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Re: Afghanistan

#231

Post by bob »

Slim Cognito wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 1:51 pm
Why are right wingers so concerned about the safety of Afghan women and children, yet don't give a god damn about the safety of Honduran woman and children?
Because they believe in the Pottery Barn Rule.
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Re: Afghanistan

#232

Post by Uninformed »

I know it’s more nuanced than this but I feel much the same about those who ignored warnings to leave Afghanistan as those who ignore the pleas to get vaccinated. Both have, and are, putting others lives at risk.
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Re: Afghanistan

#233

Post by neeneko »

Slim Cognito wrote: Fri Aug 27, 2021 1:51 pm Why are right wingers so concerned about the safety of Afghan women and children, yet don't give a god damn about the safety of Honduran woman and children?
For the same reason they bring up the plight of afghan women whenever feminists in america are criticizing something.. they do not care, they just know the left does and they can use it as a weapon.
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Re: Afghanistan

#234

Post by tencats »

UK evacuation from Kabul to end in ‘a matter of hours’

Defence secretary says up to 1,100 eligible Afghans to be left behind, as UK stops taking people into Kabul airport
Fri 27 Aug 2021 07.01 EDT
The UK has stopped taking people into Kabul airport to remove them from Afghanistan, the defence secretary, Ben Wallace has said, and the evacuation process will end in “a matter of hours”.

Accepting that there would be Afghan translators or others who worked with UK forces who would not get out, Wallace said these people would be advised to seek access to third countries or offered advice on “how they can look after themselves” under Taliban rule. :snippity:
Asked on Sky about the fate of people such as a translator for UK forces and his family who had not been able to reach the airport, Wallace said: “We can help him. We can’t help him as optimally as we like right now. Obviously, we’ve had to close the hotel where we did the processing.”

Such people, he said, should try to reach neighbouring countries and then apply to reach the UK. “We will give them advice about how they make their way somewhere, but also how they can look after themselves at the moment.”


The UK had removed about 13,000 Afghans since the airlift started, among 16,000 people taken out since April, Wallace said. “But as I’ve said repeatedly for really the last two weeks, the sad fact is not every single one will get out.”

Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... fghanistan

We feel hopeless now’: the British nationals left behind in Kabul
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... -officials
UK passport holders describe feeling abandoned as the end of the evacuation nears
Fri 27 Aug 2021 13.51 EDT
British nationals stuck in Kabul have described feeling abandoned by UK officials as it became clear that the promised help with evacuation was looking increasingly unlikely after the news that repatriation flights will soon be suspended.

Nine British citizens who had hoped to be evacuated this week said they had heard nothing from British officials since late on Thursday, and were feeling increasingly hopeless about the possibility of getting back to their homes in the UK.

One described the evacuation operation as “hugely mismanaged” and a “shambles”. All said they were increasingly concerned about their safety. They voiced frustration that it had become impossible to get through to the Foreign Office’s Afghanistan helpline and said emails to the dedicated Afghan assistance account were not being answered.

It is not clear how many British passport holders remain stranded in Afghanistan or how many eligible people are still waiting for evacuation. Ministers said there were only 1,100 people left to be rescued, but it seems likely that this figure significantly underestimates the total number of people who have been promised emergency visas.
:snippity:
The guards who provided security for the British embassy in Kabul were also pessimistic about their chances of fleeing Afghanistan on Friday, after a failed attempt by the international security firm GardaWorld to evacuate them. “We successfully gathered 185 families of British embassy workers, about 1,000 people in total, and got them to the airport, but we were not allowed in,” the guards’ supervisor said. “Right now for us there is no hope.”

Oliver Westmacott, the GardaWorld president for the Middle East and Africa, said attempts to get the guards out would continue either overland or on commercial flights “once things calm down in the coming months”.

Read it all at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... -officials
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Re: Afghanistan

#235

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Re: Afghanistan

#236

Post by Uninformed »

If you can't lie to yourself, who can you lie to?
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Re: Afghanistan

#237

Post by AndyinPA »

https://news.sky.com/story/us-airstrike ... k-12392733
The US has killed an Islamic State "planner" in retaliation for Thursday's suicide bombing in Kabul.

Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for US Central Command, said the US military had conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State member in Afghanistan's Nangahar Province.

The strike killed one person and there were no known civilian casualties, he said.

The move was in retaliation for a devastating suicide bombing by Islamic State offshoot ISIS-K, which killed more than 160 Afghans and 13 military personnel, along with two Britons.
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Re: Afghanistan

#238

Post by busterbunker »

That sounds like one expensive bullet. Probably pretty fancy.

That will show them. They don't any fancy bullets like that.

Wait a sec, remind me, why were we there in the first place?
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Re: Afghanistan

#239

Post by fierceredpanda »

The last couple weeks have made me reflect on the tragic wastefulness of the US occupation of Afghanistan on a more personal level. So, allow me to share something I haven't talked about, here or anywhere else, until now:
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Re: Afghanistan

#240

Post by Volkonski »

:( :bighug:
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Re: Afghanistan

#241

Post by Reality Check »

The truth that almost every pundit and politician seems to be avoiding about Afghanistan is that we lost. When you lose the war there is no easy way to exit. We should be thankful it is about over and not much messier than it is. Yes, we achieved a few objectives along the way. We chased Al-Qaeda into hiding in Pakistan. We killed a bunch of their leaders and eventually got Bin Laden. However, if the main objective was to install a moderate, stable government with an army trained and equipped to hold back the Taliban when we eventually left then we failed spectacularly.

We spent a trillion US dollars, 20 years, and thousands of lives in Afghanistan. Yet we lost. Spending more money, more lives and years there is not going to work. Any politician who says if we just stayed longer then the outcome would be different is lying to you. I am thankful that after three previous three administrations lied to us we finally have a President who is telling the truth about Afghanistan. Maybe just maybe we will finally learn that we suck at nation building. It didn't work in Vietnam. It didn't work in Iraq. It sure as hell didn't work in Afghanistan.
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Re: Afghanistan

#242

Post by AndyinPA »

I think one of the reasons we enter wars so casually here is our location. We have never suffered the loss of a war that many societies have. We don't have ruined cities to rebuild. Then, we bring what's left of our people home, and move on to the next one. Even the loss of the war for the South didn't really teach much. Lives were destroyed, cities were destroyed, but there were no long-term physical effects for the South. And it seems in many ways they learned a wrong lesson.

I think the number of years we have not been at war in our history is 16 years out of 245 years. That's not a good record for a country that considers itself to be a peaceful country. We don't have to deal with the chaos the way the Afghanis are dealing with it, the ways the Germans dealt with it. The families of the soldiers whose lives have been ruined or lost deal with it, but we don't really see much of that. And the trauma goes on for years. I have had relatives who have fought in wars. My husband had a cousin who died in Vietnam. I've had two cousins who I'm sure are not counted among the casualties, one from Vietnam, one from Iraq. This country sent them to war, and both of them, decades apart, came back completely destroyed and utterly unlike the men who left. Each of them died within ten years or less, quietly, of the trauma that changed them, and that they could not escape.

One of humankind's worst traits is that we never seem to learn from history. Once those who have suffered die out, and the actual memory is gone, it all starts over again.
"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears… To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies." -Octavia E. Butler
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Re: Afghanistan

#243

Post by Slim Cognito »

I don't know who to attribute this to but it went something like this: Those who learn from history are doomed to watch those who don't repeat it.
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Re: Afghanistan

#244

Post by Reality Check »

AndyinPA wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:06 pm I think one of the reasons we enter wars so casually here is our location. We have never suffered the loss of a war that many societies have. We don't have ruined cities to rebuild. Then, we bring what's left of our people home, and move on to the next one. Even the loss of the war for the South didn't really teach much. Lives were destroyed, cities were destroyed, but there were no long-term physical effects for the South. And it seems in many ways they learned a wrong lesson.
:snippity:
We agree all around. I would imagine that for every life lost in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there are 2 or 3 more that were ruined by PTSD, severe injuries, amputations, and other afflictions. But unless it affected you personally life pretty much went on unchanged. I am going to be interested to hear Joe Biden's words on the 20th anniversary of 9/11/2001. I hope he emphasizes that in 2021 our greatest threat is no longer from a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is from within our borders.
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Re: Afghanistan

#245

Post by Suranis »

Slim Cognito wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:22 pm I don't know who to attribute this to but it went something like this: Those who learn from history are doomed to watch those who don't repeat it.
You can attribute it to me. I said it in a faceboob post a while back. It wouldn't surprise me if someone else said something similar before I did but I wasn't copying anyone that I know of.

And I used to say this as well abd I probably should go back go repeating it - America has been surrounded by a gigantic moat where no-one can attack you directly. You have been shielded from everyone else and have been poking everyone with a sharp stick from your lofty pillar while your centers of production are nice and safe. O live less than 200 miles from Belfast where really real terrorists ere blowing people up for 20 years. If you were that close to Terrrrrrsts you people would shit yourself.

But for some reason you are only comfortable when you feel under threat of attack. How long have people thought the Chinese army was in Canada ready to attack while Isis has bases in mexico ready to attack. Deep down you ot know you are completely safe, but the guilt of it makes you imagine threats so you are on the level of everyone else.

The few times someone has actually hit your mainland with something you expect the entire world to Kneel and behold the extreme tragedy of it all. Pearl harbour wasn't close to the first air attack on a harbour, similar attacks had happened in Italy, London and France.

The 11th of September was pretty serious but it wasn't the first time planes had been crashed into cities, and the nauseous "9/11 anniversary" documentaries have started to wave YOUR terrorist attack to a world that increasingly rolls its eyes. You think the city of Birmingham has big celebrations every anniversary of the Birmingham bombings? I'll say it - Fuck 11/9. I'm sick of hearing about it and I don't care.

Oh. and for the love of God will you start putting the Date in front of the month like the rest of the goddam planet?
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Re: Afghanistan

#246

Post by AndyinPA »

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana

The Life of Reason, 1905, from the series Great Ideas of Western Man.
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Re: Afghanistan

#247

Post by Uninformed »

AndyinPA wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:06 pm …One of humankind's worst traits is that we never seem to learn from history. Once those who have suffered die out, and the actual memory is gone, it all starts over again.
This thought has become more and more troubling to me in recent times.
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Re: Afghanistan

#248

Post by Foggy »

Anti-American rant much, Suranis? :bored:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Re: Afghanistan

#249

Post by AndyinPA »

Suranis wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:45 pm
Slim Cognito wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:22 pm I don't know who to attribute this to but it went something like this: Those who learn from history are doomed to watch those who don't repeat it.
Oh. and for the love of God will you start putting the Date in front of the month like the rest of the goddam planet?
Off Topic
I totally agree! That and 24-hour time.
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Re: Afghanistan

#250

Post by fierceredpanda »

Off Topic
Suranis: Don't say anything negative about the Catholic Church, or I will flame you.

Also Suranis: Pardon me whilst I hijack this thread with a rant about how Americans are cowards, al-Qaeda were wankers who can't hold a candle to the manly men of the glorious South Armagh Brigade of the 'RA, and also fuck September 11th.

I don't understand this at all.
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