I’m very busy at work right now (first week of class!”) but I gather that something happened in Afghanistan that’s even worse than what was happening before. Something at the airport?
Can anybody explain without any links? I looked on Twitter but everybody is emoting and not sharing what provoked the emotions. I’m guessing I missed the moment when the news was shared.
Thanks!
Thank you for explaining.
LikeLike
Well, Biden spoke, and here’s what he said (not an exact quote):
“We’re going to hunt the terrorists down and get revenge — but the terrorist attack PROVES that my original plan to get all Americans out in the next five days (by Aug 31) was CORRECT, so we’re changing NOTHING. Full speed ahead!”
Our country is in the hands of a blatantly senile, doddering old man. We are so screwed for the next three years (assuming Biden lasts that long) that I can’t even try to joke about it.
I thought we were to withdraw under Trump as well? What do you think would have been different?
LikeLike
It’s not what I think. Trump negotiated the exit for May. Biden pushed it towards September, giving the Taliban a chance to prepare what’s happening. Brought in a lot of new equipment and weaponry that now had to be abandoned to the Taliban.
Everybody here is for the withdrawal. But what’s happening isn’t a withdrawal. It’s a manufactured pretext for a new war. Biden gave a speech today that was nearly verbatim GW Bush’s speech that had unleashed the war in Iraq.
LikeLike
This already happened before. These bastards keep “withdrawing troops” in a way that somehow magically necessitates another endless war. Obama “withdrew” from Iraq, which immediately forced him to bomb Yemen and Siria. Now it’s Obama’s vice-president following the same playbook. It’s always the same. These are bastard war-mongers.
I heard that the Biden admin gave the Taliban a list of names, with photos, of every American still left in the country. For the purpose of evacuating them of course. What could possibly go wrong?
LikeLike
I noticed that and was/am quite concerned.
LikeLike
This terrorist and his victims may not be the worst at all, if America truly provided Taliban with a ‘kill list’ as some claim:
// U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.
…
the Taliban … has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict
…
“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”
LikeLike
And also the Gutless Trudeau Regime abandoned Canadians in Kabul, literally phoning it in with text messages telling them to make their own way to the airport through multiple security cordons, and in the end it was impossible for them to leave via Kabul’s airport …
So there’s also that.
How many days until Kabul’s airport winds up like the airport in Donetsk?
LikeLike
I don’t have too much sympathy for foreigners who chose to remain in Afghanistan after the US announced a withdrawal and kept warning people to leave. They’ve dug their own grave and just made things much more difficult for everybody.
LikeLike
I kind of understand where you are coming from, but at the same time there are some thing that are only easy to see in the retrospect. I seem to remember that less than 24 hours before Taliban took overAfghanistan someone in the White House was adamant that this is not going to happen.
I think that, ultimately, almost every suffering we experience in life can be, directly or indirectly, traced to (or blamed on) the person making a bad choice at some point. This person got lung cancer after smoking, this one has diabetes after being overweight and those people are stuck in Afghanistan after not leaving more promptly. Perhaps having some compassion and empathy for others is a better way to go about this.
LikeLike
I recently watched an interview with an Afghan man at Kabul airport wielding a British passport: he could barely speak English, in no way was he a British citizen in my eyes, simply a British passport-holder.
I gather that the vast majority of so-called “Americans” currently remaining in Afghanistan are likewise US passport-holding Afghans. Similarly, the thousands of equally so-called “Americans” that have already been airlifted out of the country cannot be American citizens in any reasonable sense of the term: these are Afghan nationals holding US passports, it’s not the same thing.
A world where the definition of citizen blurs easily into that of national, where borders are considered illegitimate and are in any case so porous as to have become meaningless, a world where some people (in increasingly greater numbers) may hold four or five or even more passports is a world where the very definition of the nation state no longer holds and where one may consequently very well be left stranded when in need by one’s own country (see Canada): if everyone can be a citizen, no-one may claim special status as a citizen.
Yep. The nation-state is in free fall and we can all appreciate what it looks like. The main argument against the nation is that nationalism creates violence. As if the moment you give up on schooling, policing, citizenship, etc. everybody will become magically peaceful.
LikeLike
// cannot be American citizens in any reasonable sense of the term: these are Afghan nationals holding US passports, it’s not the same thing.
So, can one say that Israeli Arabs are Palestinian national(ist)s holding Israeli passports and thus ” cannot be” Israeli “citizens in any reasonable sense of the term”?
LikeLike
I’m not seeing the analogy, to be honest. I’m also questioning the need to make everything about Israel, khm, khm. 🙂
By the way, nobody in class today could tell me which people wrote the Old Testament and what religion was theirs.
LikeLike
// I’m also questioning the need to make everything about Israel, khm, khm. 🙂
Well, it’s a new fresh topic since it’s not covid 🙂 Not even covid in Israel 🙂 🙂
LikeLike
@el
Well, I would ask them, wouldn’t you? I would ask them: do you feel Israeli or Palestinian?
But it would be a very rhetorical question for most of them, as I don’t see many of them running around with Israeli flags draped around their necks, or rooting for Israeli teams and athletes in international competitions and so on. I see more Keffyehs and Palestinian flags. Furthermore, the issue is complicated by the presence of another identity layer, that of Arabs, plus that of religion, which is very specific to the area.
Ethnic Europeans don’t normally think of themselves in terms of their religion, nor do they consider being European a kind of nationality [though some do get all emotional around the EU, especially people in Luxembourg or Belgium], it is not an extra identity layer, unlike the supranational Arab identity which used to be very strong once, probably less so today.
LikeLike
// Ethnic Europeans don’t normally think of themselves in terms of their religion,
Many Jews do, but I don’t. I used the term ‘Jewish’ as an ethnic group.
// nor do they consider being European a kind of nationality
Nationality is defined as “a group of people who share the same history, traditions, and language.”
Every European people – German, French, Austrian, etc. – do consider themselves as having a common nationality and living in their own nation state.
Western European history and traditions include democracy and do not include Islam, let alone its fundamentalist version. They did use to include a fundamentalist version of Christianity.
Lets look at individual nation states in Europe and check what one must do to be socially accepted as ‘one of us’ by ethnic majority. Something tells me it’s much harder than in America since ‘blood’ enters the picture. The situation on the ground may be starkingly different from Merkel’s former slogans.
Jews fare better in USA than in modern Europe, why would the case of Muslims be different? (Not talking currently of Muslim antisemitism affecting European Jews but of how European ethnic national majorities view them in different countries. For instance, French Jews are leaving France in huge numbers in the last years. So many have moved to Israel that it started reminding of Jewish immigration wave in the 90ies after the fall of FSU.)
I am honestly interested in questions:
How do current Western Europeans view themselves and their identity? What is required from an outsider who wants to fully join a specific people (if it is at all possible)? Of course, the answers will be different in different nation states, but I am concentrating on states who receive the most migrants.
Jews have lived in Europe and contributed to it for centuries, only to be persecuted and pushed out. The latter continues today, see: France. How and why is the treatment of Muslims different?
I saw a London park 100% filled with Muslim families one evening. Women were with covered faces, so only eyes were visible. The few (around 7 out of hundreds people there) non-Muslims spoke Russian. As an Israeli Jew, I was afraid to go deep into this beautiful park and left the place. Aren’t most Europeans uncomfortable, even if not afraid? I do not believe ethnic Englishmen view those Muslims as (fully) English.
How many generations will it take for those shrouded women to take off their hijabs, if ever? Are they all truly like Haredi Jews who remain Haredi for centuries / generations? Or is it shallower and will disappear soon? If it is the former, are ethnic Europeans ready for this scenario of public life being influenced by (not historically their) fundamentalist form of religion?
LikeLike
Western Europeans are so brainwashed into guilt and abjection that they perceive it as welcome punishment. They derive deep pleasure from this self-flagellation, like medieval monks. Those who don’t have no voice and no impact.
LikeLike
“Western Europeans … perceive it as welcome punishment”
Andrew Hammel has often repeated that Germans tend to regard immigration that’s good for a country as somehow… immoral. Letting non-Europeans into Germany is about improving the moral status of Germans (what actually happens to the people let in is of no particular concern).
LikeLike
Totally agree. If you are an American Afghan in Afghanistan, you are Afghan first, American second.
In general, if you are a dual national and you are in your country of origin, you are not considered a foreigner at all, but a national governed by the same rules and laws as everybody else in the country. I certainly think this is a strong distinction.
LikeLike
// Letting non-Europeans into Germany is about improving the moral status of Germans
In front of other Western Europeans? Do Germans truly care what French and English think about them?
Imo, the migrant numbers are still low enough so that not put majority population under too much pressure somehow, despite the attacks of women and social economic costs. The moment Germans and Swedes decide they pay too much, the welcoming culture will stop. I thought it has already stopped after Merkel acknowledged difficulties in mass migration.
LikeLike
// Western Europeans are so brainwashed into guilt and abjection that they perceive it as welcome punishment.
I cannot believe that at all.
They may engage in pleasant ego scratching till the costs start rising. Then they’ll stop.
LikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment