"But none of them is about partisan politics, either; they are about defining our national interest."
But then goes on to imply that it is partisan by, though not stated, she seems to be talking about Republicans here:
"It
strikes me that some of the same people currently expressing concern
over the fate of Afghanistan’s women and girls work quite happily with
Saudi Arabia, which has its own repressive government, and have voted
against reauthorizing our own Violence Against Women Act. Some of the
same people worrying about the slowness of our evacuation of our Afghan
allies voted just last month against providing more visas for them, and
others seemed to worry very little about our utter abandonment of our
Kurdish allies when we withdrew from northern Syria in 2019. And those
worrying about democracy in Afghanistan seem to be largely unconcerned
about protecting voting rights here at home.
Most
notably to me, some of the same people who are now focusing on keeping
troops in Afghanistan to protect Americans seem uninterested in stopping
the spread of a disease that has already killed more than 620,000 of us
and that is, once again, raging. "
But I've also read that many Democrats are criticizing Biden for pulling troops out of Afghanistan (his reasoning seems sensible to me), so isn't Heather contradicting herself a bit here?
God, what a mess!
the preceding 2 paragraphs are what she refers to as nonpartisan, not what comes after that sentence.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,677
This is the complete thought for going forward, what followed was the bar against that. she is calling out hypocrites.
But
the attacks on Biden for the withdrawal from Afghanistan do raise the
important question of when it is in America’s interest to fight a ground
war. Should we limit foreign intervention to questions of the safety of
Americans? Should we protect our economic interests? Should we fight to
spread democracy? Should we fight to defend human rights? Should we
fight to shorten other wars, or prevent genocide?
These are not easy questions, and reasonable people can, and maybe should, disagree about the answers.
But none of them is about partisan politics, either; they are about defining our national interest.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Taliban announce 'amnesty,' urge women to join government
By AHMAD SEIR, TAMEEM AKHGAR, KATHY GANNON and JON GAMBRELL
3 mins ago
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban declared an “amnesty” across Afghanistan and urged women to join their government Tuesday, seeking to convince a wary population that they have changed a day after deadly chaos gripped the main airport as desperate crowds tried to flee their rule.
Following a blitz across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a brutal rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical.
Older generations remember the Taliban’s ultraconservative Islamic views, which included severe restrictions on women as well as stonings, amputations and public executions before they were ousted by the U.S-led invasion that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
While there were no major reports of abuses or fighting in the capital of Kabul as the Taliban now patrol its streets, many residents have stayed home and remain fearful after the insurgents’ takeover saw prisons emptied and armories looted. Many women have expressed dread that the two-decade Western experiment to expand their rights and remake Afghanistan would not survive the resurgent Taliban.
Germany, meanwhile, halted development aid to Afghanistan over the Taliban takeover. Such aid is a crucial source of funding for the country — and the Taliban's efforts to project a milder version of themselves may be aimed at ensuring that money continues to flow.
The promises of amnesty from Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, were the first comments on how the Taliban might govern on a national level. His remarks remained vague, however, as the Taliban are still negotiating with political leaders of the country’s fallen government and no formal handover deal has been announced.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with full dignity and honesty has announced a complete amnesty for all Afghanistan, especially those who were with the opposition or supported the occupiers for years and recently,” he said.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
But there's a lot of herion and cellphone raw materials there, not to mention the Pakistan border and Iran's border, it's just so damn special. oh ya and the spread of democracy and stuff.
Reports link Karzai's brother to heroin trade
By James Risen
WASHINGTON — When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.
Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.
Two years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of heroin. Soon after the seizure, United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the briefing.
The assertions about the involvement of the president's brother in the incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.
Both President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar Provincial Council, the governing body for the region that includes Afghanistan's second largest city, dismiss the allegations as politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.
"I am not a drug dealer, I never was and I never will be," the president's brother said in a recent phone interview. "I am a victim of vicious politics."
But the assertions about him have deeply worried top American officials in Kabul and in Washington. The United States officials fear that perceptions that the Afghan president might be protecting his brother are damaging his credibility and undermining efforts by the United States to buttress his government, which has been under siege from rivals and a Taliban insurgency fueled by drug money, several senior Bush administration officials said. Their concerns have intensified as American troops have been deployed to the country in growing numbers.
"What appears to be a fairly common Afghan public perception of corruption inside their government is a tremendously corrosive element working against establishing long-term confidence in that government — a very serious matter," said Lieutenant General David Barno, who was commander of coalition military forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and is now retired. "That could be problematic strategically for the United States."
The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week.
Numerous reports link Ahmed Wali Karzai to the drug trade, according to current and former officials from the White House, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. In meetings with President Karzai, including a 2006 session with the United States ambassador, the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief and their British counterparts, American officials have talked about the allegations in hopes that the president might move his brother out of the country, said several people who took part in or were briefed on the talks.
"We thought the concern expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him out of there," one official said. But President Karzai has resisted, demanding clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing, several officials said. "We don't have the kind of hard, direct evidence that you could take to get a criminal indictment," a White House official said. "That allows Karzai to say, where's your proof?"
Neither the Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, nor the fledgling Afghan anti-drug agency has pursued investigations into the accusations against the president's brother.
Several American investigators said senior officials at the DEA and the office of the Director of National Intelligence complained to them that the White House favored a hands-off approach toward Ahmed Wali Karzai because of the political delicacy of the matter. But White House officials dispute that, instead citing limited DEA resources in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan and the absence of political will in the Afghan government to go after major drug suspects as the reasons for the lack of an inquiry.
"We invested considerable resources into building Afghan capability to conduct such investigations and consistently encouraged Karzai to take on the big fish and address widespread Afghan suspicions about the link between his brother and narcotics," said Meghan O'Sullivan, who was the coordinator for Afghanistan and Iraq at the National Security Council until last year.
Humayun Hamidzada, press secretary for President Karzai, denied that the president's brother was involved in drug trafficking or that the president had intervened to help him. "People have made allegations without proof," Hamidzada said.
Spokesmen for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
An Informant's Tip
The concerns about Ahmed Wali Karzai have surfaced recently because of the imprisonment of an informant who tipped off American and Afghan investigators to the drug-filled truck outside Kabul in 2006.
The informant, Hajji Aman Kheri, was arrested a year later on charges of plotting to kill an Afghan vice president in 2002. The Afghan Supreme Court recently ordered him freed for lack of evidence, but he has not been released. Nearly 100 political leaders in his home region protested his continued incarceration last month.
Kheri, in a phone interview from jail in Kabul, said he had been an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and United States intelligence agencies, an assertion confirmed by American counternarcotics and intelligence officials. Several of those officials, frustrated that the Bush administration was not pressing for Kheri's release, came forward to disclose his role in the drug seizure.
Ever since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, critics have charged that the Bush administration has failed to take aggressive action against the Afghan narcotics trade, because of both opposition from the Karzai government and reluctance by the United States military to get bogged down by eradication and interdiction efforts that would antagonize local warlords and Afghan poppy farmers. Now, Afghanistan provides about 95 percent of the world's supply of heroin.
Just as the Taliban have benefited from money produced by the drug trade, so have many officials in the Karzai government, according to American and Afghan officials. Thomas Schweich, a former senior State Department counternarcotics official, wrote in The New York Times Magazine in July that drug traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials. "Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government," he said.
Suspicions of Corruption
Of the suspicions about Ahmed Wali Karzai, Representative Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican who has focused on the Afghan drug problem in Congress, said, "I would ask people in the Bush administration and the DEA about him, and they would say, 'We think he's dirty.' "
In the two drug seizures in 2004 and 2006, millions of dollars' worth of heroin was found. In April 2006, Jan, by then a member of the Afghan Parliament, met with American investigators at a DEA safe house in Kabul and was asked to describe the events surrounding the 2004 drug discovery, according to notes from the debriefing session. He told the Americans that after impounding the truck, he received calls from Ahmed Wali Karzai and Shaida Mohammad, an aide to President Karzai, according to the notes.
Jan later became a political opponent of President Karzai, and in a 2007 speech in Parliament he accused Ahmed Wali Karzai of involvement in the drug trade. Jan was shot to death in July as he drove from a guesthouse to his main residence in Kandahar Province. The Taliban were suspected in the assassination.
Mohammad, in a recent interview in Washington, dismissed Jan's account, saying that Jan had fabricated the story about being pressured to release the drug shipment in order to damage President Karzai.
But Khan Mohammad, the former Afghan commander in Kandahar who was Jan's superior in 2004, said in a recent interview that Jan reported at the time that he had received a call from the Karzai aide ordering him to release the drug cache. Khan Mohammad recalled that Jan believed that the call had been instigated by Ahmed Wali Karzai, not the president.
"This was a very heavy issue," Mohammad said.
He provided the same account in an October 2004 interview with The Christian Science Monitor. Mohammad said that after a subordinate captured a large shipment of heroin about two months earlier, the official received repeated telephone calls from Ahmed Wali Karzai. "He was saying, 'This heroin belongs to me, you should release it,' " the newspaper quoted Mohammad as saying.
Languishing in Detention
In 2006, Kheri, the Afghan informant, tipped off American counternarcotics agents to another drug shipment. Kheri, who had proved so valuable to the United States that his family had been resettled in Virginia in 2004, briefly returned to Afghanistan in 2006.
The heroin in the truck that was seized was to be delivered to Ahmed Wali Karzai's bodyguard in the village of Maidan Shahr, and then transported to Kandahar, one of the Afghans involved in the deal later told American investigators, according to notes of his debriefing. Several Afghans — the drivers and the truck's owner — were arrested by Afghan authorities, but no action was taken against Karzai or his bodyguard, who investigators believe serves as a middleman, the American officials said.
In 2007, Kheri visited Afghanistan again, once again serving as an American informant, the officials said. This time, however, he was arrested by the Karzai government and charged in the 2002 assassination of Hajji Abdul Qadir, an Afghan vice president, who had been a political rival of Kheri's brother, Hajji Zaman, a former militia commander and a powerful figure in eastern Afghanistan.
Kheri, in the phone interview from Kabul, denied any involvement in the killing and said his arrest was politically motivated. He maintained that the president's brother was involved in the heroin trade.
"It's no secret about Wali Karzai and drugs," said Kheri, who speaks English. "A lot of people in the Afghan government are involved in drug trafficking."
Kheri's continued detention, despite the Afghan court's order to release him, has frustrated some of the American investigators who worked with him.
In recent months, they have met with officials at the State Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence seeking to persuade the Bush administration to intervene with the Karzai government to release Kheri.
"We have just left a really valuable informant sitting in jail to rot," one investigator said.
I can remember reading about Afghan and heroin and Saffron. 2 of their biggest money makers.
The reason for going lax on the heroin was for a few reasons. 1- In the beginning it was reported the people had no other way of making that much money so switching to say soy beans, the people said no. Forcing them to grow another crop would only make more enemies. 2- The drug trade was much bigger than anything else out there and had to leave it be. Examples being the above article.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
This is the complete thought for going forward, what followed was the bar against that. she is calling out hypocrites.
But
the attacks on Biden for the withdrawal from Afghanistan do raise the
important question of when it is in America’s interest to fight a ground
war. Should we limit foreign intervention to questions of the safety of
Americans? Should we protect our economic interests? Should we fight to
spread democracy? Should we fight to defend human rights? Should we
fight to shorten other wars, or prevent genocide?
These are not easy questions, and reasonable people can, and maybe should, disagree about the answers.
But none of them is about partisan politics, either; they are about defining our national interest.
Most of the criticism of Biden I've seen has been about the way this withdrawal has been handled, rather than criticism for actually withdrawing. I think mostly everyone agrees that we should be out of there (should've been long ago). But images of hysterical, fearful people holding onto commercial airplanes as they try to take off is going to draw criticism. And it hasn't been just from right-leaning Americans. I've seen the BBC, Australian news, and an editorial on CNN being critical.
As for the Taliban taking complete control, there's blame to go around. Biden said yesterday that America trained 300,000 Afghan troops. Talk about a failure. I wonder if those troops folded out of fear of the Taliban, or because they'd rather obey (or even join) the Taliban than be American's little pet project military. And the Taliban was able to take over without resistance. Apparently, at least according to Rachel Maddow's report last night, once Trump brokered that deal to withdraw, the Taliban began negotiating (by negotiating, I mean threatening with violence) local jurisdictions to give up power, which they did. Then it went bigger cities, then providences, and ended in Kabul the other day. Not sure how the Biden administration didn't know this was happening over the past year (or did know and just let it happen). Judging by some of the military higher-ups that have been giving press conferences in the past few days, they seemed pretty clueless.
Let’s not over think think this. The Taliban are just a bunch of criminal thugs, nothing more…they will be sending the Americas p,entry of heroin in the years ahead
The Afghan Army was well trained they choose not to fight…
if even 1/2 of the military age men picked up a gun and fought the Taliban, then I could see the US offering up air support? But in the end they choose not to…
All foreign aid needs to seize or your just supporting terrorist…
my thoughts on why the afghan army did not put up much of a fight:
1. someone paid them to stand down. 2. most of the afghan military are men. they realized that as men, their lives were not going to change that much under taliban rule.
my thought is maybe the afghan army's views on society and government is not that different from the taliban's. maybe they did not want to have to fight the taliban over womens' rights?
just thought i had this morning.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
my thoughts on why the afghan army did not put up much of a fight:
1. someone paid them to stand down. 2. most of the afghan military are men. they realized that as men, their lives were not going to change that much under taliban rule.
my thought is maybe the afghan army's views on society and government is not that different from the taliban's. maybe they did not want to have to fight the taliban over womens' rights?
also, saw this yesterday. this is reported to be the taliban driving bumper cars at an amusement park in kabul yesterday. again, i am not sure if this is true because i have never heard of the source, but it had me like "is this really happening??".
my thoughts on why the afghan army did not put up much of a fight:
1. someone paid them to stand down. 2. most of the afghan military are men. they realized that as men, their lives were not going to change that much under taliban rule.
my thought is maybe the afghan army's views on society and government is not that different from the taliban's. maybe they did not want to have to fight the taliban over womens' rights?
just thought i had this morning.
I pretty n=much said the same thing. They have zero desire to change as a country/peoples.
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,674
"But none of them is about partisan politics, either; they are about defining our national interest."
But then goes on to imply that it is partisan by, though not stated, she seems to be talking about Republicans here:
"It
strikes me that some of the same people currently expressing concern
over the fate of Afghanistan’s women and girls work quite happily with
Saudi Arabia, which has its own repressive government, and have voted
against reauthorizing our own Violence Against Women Act. Some of the
same people worrying about the slowness of our evacuation of our Afghan
allies voted just last month against providing more visas for them, and
others seemed to worry very little about our utter abandonment of our
Kurdish allies when we withdrew from northern Syria in 2019. And those
worrying about democracy in Afghanistan seem to be largely unconcerned
about protecting voting rights here at home.
Most
notably to me, some of the same people who are now focusing on keeping
troops in Afghanistan to protect Americans seem uninterested in stopping
the spread of a disease that has already killed more than 620,000 of us
and that is, once again, raging. "
But I've also read that many Democrats are criticizing Biden for pulling troops out of Afghanistan (his reasoning seems sensible to me), so isn't Heather contradicting herself a bit here?
God, what a mess!
the preceding 2 paragraphs are what she refers to as nonpartisan, not what comes after that sentence.
Yeah, OK, I see that now, thanks.
So here's another couple of questions my sleep deprived brain doesn't seem to be able to zero in on- what is she hinting at here? Where is she going with this:
"While a lot of U.S. observers have quite strong opinions about what the
future looks like for Afghanistan, it seems to me far too soon to guess
how the situation there will play out. There is a lot of power sloshing
around in central Asia right now, and I don’t think either that Taliban
leaders are the major players or that Afghanistan is the primary stage.
Russia has just concluded military exercises with Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan, both of which border Afghanistan, out of concern about the
military takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban."
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
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curmudgeoness
Brigadoon, foodie capital Posts: 3,226
my thoughts on why the afghan army did not put up much of a fight:
1. someone paid them to stand down. 2. most of the afghan military are men. they realized that as men, their lives were not going to change that much under taliban rule.
my thought is maybe the afghan army's views on society and government is not that different from the taliban's. maybe they did not want to have to fight the taliban over womens' rights?
just thought i had this morning.
Yes, it's thought that they were paid. Washington Post had an article about this over the weekend.
There also was an interesting Twitter thread yesterday from someone who did two military tours there in 2008-2010. She said it was obvious then that the situation was hopeless, and she used the opium crops as an example. Each year, she said, US forces needed to decide how to handle the opium farmers. Choices:
1) Do nothing and let them export their crops -- then the Taliban will shake them down for their profits.
2) Burn their crops, whereupon the farmers give up join the Taliban.
3) Give them wheat seeds and fertilizer; then the farmers sell the fertilizer to the Taliban, who use it to make IEDs.
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
my thoughts on why the afghan army did not put up much of a fight:
1. someone paid them to stand down. 2. most of the afghan military are men. they realized that as men, their lives were not going to change that much under taliban rule.
my thought is maybe the afghan army's views on society and government is not that different from the taliban's. maybe they did not want to have to fight the taliban over womens' rights?
just thought i had this morning.
Yes, it's thought that they were paid. Washington Post had an article about this over the weekend.
There also was an interesting Twitter thread yesterday from someone who did two military tours there in 2008-2010. She said it was obvious then that the situation was hopeless, and she used the opium crops as an example. Each year, she said, US forces needed to decide how to handle the opium farmers. Choices:
1) Do nothing and let them export their crops -- then the Taliban will shake them down for their profits.
2) Burn their crops, whereupon the farmers give up join the Taliban.
3) Give them wheat seeds and fertilizer; then the farmers sell the fertilizer to the Taliban, who use it to make IEDs.
Interesting....I saw a take from a former contractor that said they would engage in firefights with the Taliban and recognize troops they had recently trained among the dead.
I can't say this exit couldn't have been done better but we need to get out of there.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
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curmudgeoness
Brigadoon, foodie capital Posts: 3,226
my thoughts on why the afghan army did not put up much of a fight:
1. someone paid them to stand down. 2. most of the afghan military are men. they realized that as men, their lives were not going to change that much under taliban rule.
my thought is maybe the afghan army's views on society and government is not that different from the taliban's. maybe they did not want to have to fight the taliban over womens' rights?
just thought i had this morning.
Yes, it's thought that they were paid. Washington Post had an article about this over the weekend.
There also was an interesting Twitter thread yesterday from someone who did two military tours there in 2008-2010. She said it was obvious then that the situation was hopeless, and she used the opium crops as an example. Each year, she said, US forces needed to decide how to handle the opium farmers. Choices:
1) Do nothing and let them export their crops -- then the Taliban will shake them down for their profits.
2) Burn their crops, whereupon the farmers give up join the Taliban.
3) Give them wheat seeds and fertilizer; then the farmers sell the fertilizer to the Taliban, who use it to make IEDs.
Interesting....I saw a take from a former contractor that said they would engage in firefights with the Taliban and recognize troops they had recently trained among the dead.
I can't say this exit couldn't have been done better but we need to get out of there.
I agree. Leaving was inevitable, the outcome probably would have been the same regardless of timing. The "how" is the really problematic part; interpreters and other allies needed to be expatriated before this happened. An explanation for that has been offered, but right now it feel inadequate, to say the least.
David Frum has an essay in The Atlantic this morning, positing that the only conclusive, "positive" way we could have gotten out of Afghanistan once we went in looking for al Qaeda is if bin Laden had been found in late 2001, thereby effectively ending our rationale for being there. Since he was Bush's speechwriter at the time, it's an interesting perspective.
There is also the political angle that no POTUS wants to be the "weak" leader that tucks their tail and retreats
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
So Biden follows through Tumps plan to pull out and now he gets blasted for it? I'm sure Trump would have been killed for this too.
Everyone as American tax payers should be angry that we spent 20 years there and didn't make a friggin dent.
Even worse, we've basically paid for the Taliban's military bases, armored cars, weapons, etc. that have bee left behind. I can't imagine how much money it takes to construct a military base, but those constructed for the so-called Afghan military are now the property of the Taliban.
So Biden follows through Tumps plan to pull out and now he gets blasted for it? I'm sure Trump would have been killed for this too.
Everyone as American tax payers should be angry that we spent 20 years there and didn't make a friggin dent.
Even worse, we've basically paid for the Taliban's military bases, armored cars, weapons, etc. that have bee left behind. I can't imagine how much money it takes to construct a military base, but those constructed for the so-called Afghan military are now the property of the Taliban.
This kind of reminds me of the part in Braveheart when The Irish go out to fight the Scottish and when they get out there they embrace and shake hands at the chagrin of the English.
Comments
the preceding 2 paragraphs are what she refers to as nonpartisan, not what comes after that sentence.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
These are not easy questions, and reasonable people can, and maybe should, disagree about the answers.
But none of them is about partisan politics, either; they are about defining our national interest.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Russia was there occupying for 10 years and the Soviet backed govt lasted 3 years or so.
We occupied Afghanistan for 20 years and the collapse was almost immediate.
At this point can we all agree that they just don't really want to change?
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban declared an “amnesty” across Afghanistan and urged women to join their government Tuesday, seeking to convince a wary population that they have changed a day after deadly chaos gripped the main airport as desperate crowds tried to flee their rule.
Following a blitz across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a brutal rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical.
Older generations remember the Taliban’s ultraconservative Islamic views, which included severe restrictions on women as well as stonings, amputations and public executions before they were ousted by the U.S-led invasion that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
While there were no major reports of abuses or fighting in the capital of Kabul as the Taliban now patrol its streets, many residents have stayed home and remain fearful after the insurgents’ takeover saw prisons emptied and armories looted. Many women have expressed dread that the two-decade Western experiment to expand their rights and remake Afghanistan would not survive the resurgent Taliban.
Germany, meanwhile, halted development aid to Afghanistan over the Taliban takeover. Such aid is a crucial source of funding for the country — and the Taliban's efforts to project a milder version of themselves may be aimed at ensuring that money continues to flow.
The promises of amnesty from Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban's cultural commission, were the first comments on how the Taliban might govern on a national level. His remarks remained vague, however, as the Taliban are still negotiating with political leaders of the country’s fallen government and no formal handover deal has been announced.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with full dignity and honesty has announced a complete amnesty for all Afghanistan, especially those who were with the opposition or supported the occupiers for years and recently,” he said.
continues....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The reason for going lax on the heroin was for a few reasons.
1- In the beginning it was reported the people had no other way of making that much money so switching to say soy beans, the people said no. Forcing them to grow another crop would only make more enemies.
2- The drug trade was much bigger than anything else out there and had to leave it be. Examples being the above article.
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and she'll vote against helping america
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
thinks she's being cute
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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Most of the criticism of Biden I've seen has been about the way this withdrawal has been handled, rather than criticism for actually withdrawing. I think mostly everyone agrees that we should be out of there (should've been long ago). But images of hysterical, fearful people holding onto commercial airplanes as they try to take off is going to draw criticism. And it hasn't been just from right-leaning Americans. I've seen the BBC, Australian news, and an editorial on CNN being critical.
As for the Taliban taking complete control, there's blame to go around. Biden said yesterday that America trained 300,000 Afghan troops. Talk about a failure. I wonder if those troops folded out of fear of the Taliban, or because they'd rather obey (or even join) the Taliban than be American's little pet project military. And the Taliban was able to take over without resistance. Apparently, at least according to Rachel Maddow's report last night, once Trump brokered that deal to withdraw, the Taliban began negotiating (by negotiating, I mean threatening with violence) local jurisdictions to give up power, which they did. Then it went bigger cities, then providences, and ended in Kabul the other day. Not sure how the Biden administration didn't know this was happening over the past year (or did know and just let it happen). Judging by some of the military higher-ups that have been giving press conferences in the past few days, they seemed pretty clueless.
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
The Afghan Army was well trained they choose not to fight…
if even 1/2 of the military age men picked up a gun and fought the Taliban, then I could see the US offering up air support? But in the end they choose not to…
All foreign aid needs to seize or your just supporting terrorist…
1. someone paid them to stand down.
2. most of the afghan military are men. they realized that as men, their lives were not going to change that much under taliban rule.
my thought is maybe the afghan army's views on society and government is not that different from the taliban's. maybe they did not want to have to fight the taliban over womens' rights?
just thought i had this morning.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
I can't say this exit couldn't have been done better but we need to get out of there.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
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It doesn’t say much for our political culture that it takes far more political courage to end a pointless war than it does to start one.
Everyone as American tax payers should be angry that we spent 20 years there and didn't make a friggin dent.
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com