What’s happening in Afghanistan?
To a certain extent, when the Vietnam-era draft ended people lost interest in news of Vietnam. There was a flurry of renewed attention when we finally left and then cut off most of the military aid years later, including the famous “helicopters on the roof” story. After that, every now and then some boat people would arrive and that would get a bit of coverage, too.
But for the most part we turned our backs on the suffering there. It’s not just that we weren’t intervening any more, it’s that most people simply weren’t aware of what was happening and of the role our abandonment played in it.
The left was rather happy about that because it got them off the hook, and they learned that they could repeat the process when they caused us to exit any war. In fact, none other that President Biden is reported to have explicitly cited this in 2010 when he wanted to get out of Afghanistan and the Obama administration wasn’t doing his bidding:
Holbrooke, who was the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2010, asked Biden whether the US had a moral obligation to remain in Afghanistan to protect people like that little girl.
“F— that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it,” Biden replied, according to Holbrooke’s diary, as cited by the Atlantic.
I would argue that it wasn’t Nixon and Kissinger; it was the Democrat-controlled Congress (with some Republicans voting along with them) that pulled the plug on the South Vietnamese. The Democrats didn’t pay any price for that, either. Au contraire. Carter was elected in 1976 and the Democrats continued to have huge Congressional majorities.
So it was not difficult to predict that, once the nasty and actually disastrous pullout occurred in Afghanistan, coverage would fade and we would not learn the details of what was happening in that country as a result. Perhaps a few stories here and there, but whatever horrors are presently being perpetrated there are not going to get major coverage from an MSM dedicated to supporting everything Democrat – although you know that there would be wall-to-wall coverage of atrocities if the pullout had happened with Trump at the helm.
As far as I can tell, only the right is reporting on things like this:
As the Taliban consolidates its hold on power, reports of executions and mass killings are coming in from all across Afghanistan. The Islamist militia beheaded two boys aged 9 and 10, the media reports on Wednesday said.
Taliban fighters are hunting down former Afghan government officials and security personnel. Besides targeting people connected to the deposed government, the Taliban death squads are murdering their family members — including minors, Jean Marie Thrower, a former U.S. Army officer working on getting stranded Americans out of Afghanistan, told the National Review.
The National Review reported the gruesome beheadings, citing Afghan Rescue Crew‘s (ARC) Jean Marie Thrower:
Even retired members of the Afghan army are marked for death by the Taliban. “We’ve got people who retired, ten, 15 years ago. They killed the Taliban, and the Taliban don’t forget,” Thrower says. “We have one guy who was just working on cars. He said, ‘I haven’t done this, I haven’t been in the resistance for 15 years, but they have my name and they’re calling me.’”
Thrower disputes the U.S. State Department’s characterization of about 100 Americans being left on the ground; she said that as of a few days ago, the figure her group had was closer to 1,000 — although she noted that every group making a rescue effort has its own list, potentially leading to overlap with one another in certain cases. The 1,000 figure may include U.S. green-card holders, too, which the State Department is putting in a separate category. (…)
She describes the case of an American child whose Afghan uncle was recently killed by the Taliban. “We have had people shot, beheaded. They’re taking the kids. If you’re on the run, and they find your family, they’ll hurt your family and put the word out in the neighborhood that ‘we’ve got your brother or son or daughter.’ They cut off the heads of two boys that were nine and ten.”
You might ask why we should care at this point; after all, awful things happen all over the world with great regularity. And while that is the case, it is also the case that these things were not happening in Afghanistan when we were there, and they are happening now as a direct result of our leaving in the obscenely stupid and/or purposely destructive manner in which we departed, and it’s happening to people who had helped us and whom we had promised to rescue if it ever came to that.
Biden and the rest knew it would happen and they did what they did anyway, and shrugged at it. And the Democrats and the MSM not only shrug right along, but praise the administration and Biden himself for what they did.
I’ve been thinking about this letter written during the time we were washing our hands of both Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1970s, and I’ve been trying to decide in what context to quote it. It may as well be here, although I may have occasion to quote it again:
The epitaph for the U.S. involvement in Indochina had been given earlier that month before the fall of Phnom Penh in neighboring Cambodia. Just days before his execution at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodian statesman Sirak Mitak penned a final note to the U.S. ambassador refusing his offer of evacuation.
“I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You leave and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under the sky.
“But mark it well that, if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad because we all are born and must die one day. I have only committed this mistake in believing in you, the Americans.”
The Democrats truly are a self centered, evil organization. Their leaders will not enjoy the afterlife, as it will be far too warm.
My view.
In the late 60s what I saw was that the “New Left” cared about the Vietnam War and the draft only as a recruitment tool. Once LBJ dropped out the field, candidates for both Parties had people running who pledged to end the war. That killed the war as a New Left tool just as the 1964 voting rights laws killed their earlier use of civil rights.
What happened after 1968 was various factions were trying to show that they had the best new way to go. By the late 70s it had all fallen apart in factional disputes. In the early 80s, the old Left, CPUSA, types hauled everyone in and laid down the law on the new tool to use, Community Organizing, and that has been a roaring success so far.
Afghanistan will not be looked at, much done about, or talked about, unless it can be used to increase Left power or if it threatens the power they currently have. They’re always making omelets and broken eggs are just part of the price for their power-breakfast.
Yet, here we are pledging something like another $64 million to the Taliban. And EU countries are doing the same. Will the Taliban start televising the executions? Would that then wake up some on the left, and the willful right to the evilness? Doubt that too.
I am so cynical anymore.
Those who voted for this regime should care because the democrat leadership have now demonstrated that the only time promises mean anything to them is when their power rests upon fulfilling a promise. Once they have a firm enough grip upon power they will betray those who supported them but are no longer needed.
It’s the nature of the beast.
In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Churchill paraphrased Santayana, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
The US is not the world’s policeman. Trump has made this the US mainstream thought.
Afghanistan won’t be politically significant / noticed in the news, unless a terror attack kills Americans, or the us hostage Snafu heats up. Right now the mainstream media is ignoring Afghanistan as much as possible to help Biden and other Democrats.
Trump is hammering Biden over the withdrawal.
My gut feeling is a scapegoat or two will be sacrificed on Afghanistan. There seems to be some type of blame game going on in the executive branch.
Vietnam and Afghanistan will be the same. Many brutal killings followed by a humanitarian crisis of hunger.
Foxnews has a reporter in Kabul who is being given the royal treatment by the Taliban. They’re taking him around and showing him how humane and advanced they are. While in the rural areas the killing begins. The Taliban will need a lot of humanitarian food aid in the coming months. Otherwise there is going to be a lot of hunger., as occurred in Vietnam.
Once again the Democrat politicians have proven they can’t be trusted. I’m sure Biden thinks he has “gotten away” with this. I never liked him, but I now find him to be depraved.
J.J.:
Yes, depraved, or sociopathic, or amoral, or any number of descriptors like that. The question is really whether he’s always been that way or whether it’s recent. I think always. I read a very old interview from him and I was struck by how repellent he was even then, just less obviously.
It’s odd that they think that of Trump. They lie about him, of course, but they really do (my friends, anyway) see him as an evil sociopath. I used to see him as an unreliable loose cannon; that’s what frightened me way back when he was running in 2016. But his behavior as president mostly reassured me about that, although he often said impulsive things or used hyperbole. But most of the time he seemed very spot on, and still does.
I wonder about my liberal friends who like Pelosi et al and hate Trump. I’m separating “like” from policies. I can imagine liking Pelosi and Biden’s policies if I were on the left, but I cannot imagine liking them or thinking they were good people. For example, when Bill Clinton was president and I was a Democrat, I voted for him with some reluctance because I felt he was somewhat of a con man (I voted in the primary for Tsongas, whom I liked). So I know it’s highly possible to vote for someone while thinking them pretty untrustworthy. What I cannot imagine is liking Biden or Pelosi and thinking they are people with integrity.
I know you mean what you write Neo, but I wonder just how entirely and genuinely sociopathic people like Biden and Pelosi are. I had no feeling that Jimmy Carter didn’t genuinely want to free the hostages in Iran, even though he had a big political motivation to rescue them. I was much younger and dumber back then, but I still feel that he probably cared about them and the special forces he sent.
Not Joe Biden. It’s all human chattel to him. That’s what scares me. We’re just human livestock. Whatever he can get away with.
_____
This is a completely oblique point, but there is a book entitled “This Time It Is Different” by Reinhart and Rogoff. It was a big deal in congress when it came out and I read it (more or less), in spite of it being one of the most boring economic books ever written.
It’s about governments defaulting on their debt and stiffing their creditors. Statistics compiled over a 200 or 300 year period. The shocker for me was the there is a huge dividing line between debt that is held entirely by a country’s own citizens and debt that is held by foreigners. If you haven’t guessed it, the foreigners get respect if they have armies, and politicians screw over their own citizens with abandon. Statistically and historically speaking.
So now we have U.S. citizens stuck in Afghanistan, probably around 500 or 1000 of them, and a sociopath in the White House.
I keep saying that the dems–the ostentatiously virtuous, and the mush heads–voted for this and…they don’t care.
It’s one thing to despise, say, Pelosi, or Biden, or Milley. It’s another to look at your friends and relatives who voted for this and don’t care.
If they could even be brought to face the issue, the response would be…not our business, Trump would have been worse. And I doubt they’d believe themselves.
I recall many years after Vietnam, reading that the South did not fall as expected. Against all expectations they held on. And on. And on. Dems were not amused as they were wedded to the prediction that the South was only being propped up by the force of US arms.
It was not till the US refused to sell them munitions, orders which they had cash money to pay with, only then did South Vietnam fall.
Then came the horrors trying to escape by boat. Seized by pirates, men and children throw to the sharks, women raped and sold into sex slavery. A large group escaped to Hong Kong, only to be returned by authorities.
Pretty sad and ignored mostly the MSM.
So if you see stories from time to time, Neo, yes. Do print them here.
So far, I’ve seen whisperings that the Taliban had made serious inroads into the Panjshir Valley to kill independent opposition. Many years ago, the leader of the Northern Alliance in the valley named Massoud was killed 2 days before 9/11 by a suicide bomber Muslim “reporter”. Then, after 9/11 came the US attack. It was a busy time for Afghanistan.
Neo: “What I cannot imagine is liking Biden or Pelosi and thinking they are people with integrity.”
My thoughts exactly.
Trump’s personality isn’t my cup of tea. I prefer a bit more humility. But the policies – ah yes, hardly a sour note.
I now know that globalism is bad ju ju for the working class. And Trump was the one that finally convinced me of it. But engagement based on our interests seems to work. The Abraham Accords, the easing of tensions with North Korea, NATO nations paying their fair share, the new trade agreement between Mexico/Canada/U.S., standing up to China’s mercantilist policies, and more all came about because of engagement. Then there’s lower taxes, less regulation, and the effects they had on the economy. How any rational person could look at that record and not be impressed, I have no idea.
I never guessed that Biden was a closet Commie. But here we are. 🙁
What’s Happening in America:
https://www.axios.com/afghan-refugees-each-state-data-bea47ca4-0212-4a41-98bd-a2ea9f15a5bc.html
Neo’s Yom Kippur post mentioned a prayer that inspired a song by Leonard Cohen, so of course I looked it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unetanneh_Tokef
The background to the prayer includes this:
Seems appropriate to the topic here.
I know I’m getting repetitive but the intention of this haphazard withdrawal was to create the conditions for our return to Afghanistan. It might take a few more months. Joe Biden will resign due to health reasons. Kamala will do as she is told. The war will continue…fortunes will be made by the military industry.
Conspiracy theory?
Was it Joan Baez who was so prominent in the anti-Vietnam war movement who later expressed horror when she finally learned of the carnage that took place when we knifed the South in the back? One of the very, very few who claimed to care so much who actually showed they cared.
Evil people are known by the evil they do and the evil they support. One would have hoped that the first hundred such examples would have been enough for people to figure it out. Apparently, thousands may not be sufficient.
stan,
Yes, I thought about bringing Baez up; exactly your point. I was busy in college when that all happened and I didn’t know about it. But years later she appeared on a talk show and they covered it in some detail.
Yawrate,
It’s a mistake to think about the federal power block, uniparty, and deep state as a unified monolith. I think you are correct that the there is a powerful sub-block that wants what you say. (War profiteering.) I don’t think they can get any of that done with the current (or any) Democrat political power structure in the White House.
The current administration, which to my thinking, is really the Obama variation on the Black Liberation Theology; only unleashed under Biden. It was leashed under Obama, because his motto was “Don’t do stupid sh_t” and he wanted to be admired and have a legacy. It’s unleashed under Biden because because they now have a front man stooge to blame it all on.
What is the Obama theology, as directed probably by Susan Rice? At it’s base it’s “We hate America.” Everything about America that generates success and power, they hate. They hate the projection of military power most of all. They see the latter as colonialism, and imperialism, and even fascism.
Those people actually think it makes perfect sense that Somalia, Sudan, and Venezuela are members of the UN Human Rights Council and would like to see more of that kind of thing around the world and here at home.
If we ever get another Republican administration in the White House, then you can worry about the war profiteers. Did I make and yin & yang argument or a yin & yin argument? Republicans don’t have to suck up to war profiteers. I don’t think Trump did exactly. But they certainly have in the past.
And in that same week, how many children were drugged or mutilated for transgoals?
“I know I’m getting repetitive but the intention of this haphazard withdrawal was to create the conditions for our return to Afghanistan.”
Even I find it hard to believe anyone is stupid enough to think sending the U.S. back into Afghanistan will do anything but ensure an absolute bloodbath at the next election, be it 2022 or 2024.
Mike
I’m sure Russia, China, jihadists, North Korea and the Weather Underground are happy with the Afghanistan debacle, but any Democrat who wants the donks to do well in future elections is not.
As I saw the abandonment of our allies in Afghanistan, I recalled the letter from Cambodia. I was ashamed then, as I was when I first read the letter over forty years ago. But this is even worse because we are abandoning American civilians as well.
The scale of the lethality of the progressive narrative has become appalling, when you include inner city violence, the disastrous response to the COVID virus and the massive import of fentanyl over the southern border.
“and the massive import of fentanyl over the southern border.”
There’s also this thing called Oxy.contin which came from within the border.
Yeah, the commies committed genocide after the Americans refused to back the (corrupt, boot-licking-leader led) S. Viet soldiers. Who ran away (retreated?) from the NE border so as to give the Americans (Pres. Ford, after Nixon resigned) time to bring back the air power needed to win the battle against the N. Viet aggression. We won the war in the Vietnam.
We lost the peace.
We won – see the Paris Peace Accords, 1973.
But peace must be maintained by the threat of just violence to stop, and punish, the unjust aggressive violence, like border crossing invasion.
“At least the Taliban aren’t Hitler! (Like Trump was! ???)”
The demonization of Hitler, less bad against his own people than our Ally Joe (not Biden) Stalin, has kept the commie atrocities fairly unseen.
All the post-War boomers have no responsibility for Hitler – but helped enable N. Viet & Cambodia commie Killing Fields (Pol Pot murdered more of his people, some 2 million, so the 200,000-ish murdered S. Viet people are only a 10th – “too few to mention”).
I’m ashamed of the US leaving that way in S. Vietnam, and even more ashamed at our stupid running away method in Afghanistan.
I can’t stand it – I’m escaping by playing more computer games. And drinking a bit more, but still no pina coladas.