What the Taliban Understood About Afghanistan - The Atlantic - "“What We Need to Learn: Lessons From Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction”—notes that the United States spent about $900 million helping Afghans develop a formal legal system. Unfortunately, Afghans do not seem to have been impressed. One of the first things militant groups like the Taliban do when they enter new territory is provide “rough and ready” dispute resolution. Often, they outperform the local court system. As Vanda Felbab-Brown, Harold Trinkunas, and I noted in our 2017 book on rebel governance, “Afghans report a great degree of satisfaction with Taliban verdicts, unlike those from the official justice system, where petitioners for justice frequently have to pay considerable bribes.” This is one major reason why religion—particularly Islam—matters. It provides an organizing framework for rough justice and a justification for its implementation, and is more likely to be perceived as legitimate by local communities. Secular groups and governments simply have a harder time providing this kind of justice... Pilfering from Afghanistan’s past constitutions was easier than proposing something more appropriate for what had become a very different country. The new constitution created a top-heavy system that gave the president “nearly the same powers that Afghan kings exercised,” as Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a prominent Afghanistan scholar, has written. Strong presidential systems are appealing because they offer the prospect of determined action. But the concentration of power inevitably alienates other stakeholders, particularly on the local and regional levels... The risks of a presidential system are heightened in divided societies, and Afghanistan is divided along ethnic, religious, tribal, linguistic, and ideological lines—in almost every way possible. This raises the stakes of political competition, because what matters most is who ends up at the very top. Finally, the system works only if the president is competent. The now-exiled president, Ashraf Ghani, managed to be all-powerful in theory but resolutely feckless in practice... In addition to fashioning new political institutions, America believed that it could transform the culture of a country. Naturally, most American politicians, nongovernmental organizations, and donors thought that the things that worked in advanced democracies would work in fragile would-be democracies. Liberal values were universal. And because they were universal, they would be, if not embraced, at least appreciated. Somewhere close to $1 billion was spent on promoting gender equality. But such a focus was too often tantamount to social and cultural engineering in a conservative country that was still struggling to establish basic security... If the United States had made other choices, would the outcome have been different? I don’t know. Americans believe in certain things. Suspending those beliefs in the name of understanding another society can easily devolve into moral and cultural relativism that many, if not most Americans, would reject. Would a Republican—or, for that matter, a liberal suspicious of religion’s role in public life—have felt comfortable supporting programs in Afghanistan that involved the implementation of a version of Sharia, even if that version wasn’t the Taliban’s?... Many of the political institutions that America helped create have now been washed away. It is almost as if they never existed. By insisting on the primacy of culture over politics, the United States thought it could improve both"
I thought we are told Islam & secularism and democracy are compatible
How Will the Taliban End? Remember the Khmer Rouge - "LinkedIn It has been almost a year since the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan drew easy parallels to the U.S. exit from South Vietnam almost a half-century before. In Kabul, images of young Afghans, their promises betrayed, running after airplanes and some subsequently falling to their deaths were seared into the American consciousness, updating the iconic photograph of American government employees scrambling onto a helicopter as Saigon fell. There were other parallels between America’s longest and second-longest wars. Politics and poor diplomacy rather than military defeat caused the United States to throw in the towel. Historians now understand the Viet Cong was far closer to the breaking point than contemporaries realized when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated the agreement that allowed North Vietnam to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Likewise, when Joe Biden pulled the rug out from beneath the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, the Pentagon had, for a cost not much larger than the U.S. presence in Japan and Korea, enabled a small American force to amplify Afghanistan’s army and enable it to keep the Taliban out of every district capital let alone Kabul. In the last eighteen months of the Trump administration, U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan averaged less than one per month. What Biden and his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called “endless wars” had become, in Afghanistan, traditional deterrence... In the vacuum caused by the American withdrawal, the Khmer Rouge rampaged through Cambodia, ultimately sacking the capital Phnom Penh. They were every bit as ideological as the Taliban, with a hatred equally deep toward those they saw as cosmopolitan or corrupted by Western culture. And, like the Taliban who persecute the Hazara without mercy, the Khmer Rouge combined their ideological animus toward the West with more traditional racism, often targeting Cambodians whose blood they believed to be polluted by Vietnamese ancestry. The Khmer Rouge ultimately murdered almost two million Cambodians. In this slaughter, they were helped by the naïveté of some Western non-government organizations and self-described peace groups. The American Friends Service Committee, for example, sang the Khmer Rouge’s praises even as the genocide was ongoing. John McAuliff, who headed the Quaker NGO’s Indo-China division, dismissed reports of Khmer Rouge massacres a U.S. attempt to discredit “the example of an alternative model of development.” Given the opportunity, the Taliban might do similar. Unfortunately, they will find no shortage of useful idiots who will rationalize Taliban actions and strip the group of agency in order to blame the United States. At the very least, the Taliban are, like the Khmer Rouge, quite incompetent. It is one thing to wage an insurgency and stymie the elected government’s efforts to develop Afghanistan; it is another to provide the most basic services"
New Taliban Rule Bans Teenage Boys From Working Out With Adults - "The Taliban has put this ban because it sexually arouses the adults to see teenage kids work out... the new rule also bans gym lovers, athletes, and bodybuilders from showing off their abdominal muscles by wearing loose-fitting clothes even in the gym. The report also says that bodybuilding had become a major sport in Afghanistan after the Taliban rule fell in 2001, and there were many posters too of the bodybuilders that were put up in public places"
Weird that the article doesn't even mention the Bacha bāzī
Biden Moves to Split $7 Billion in Frozen Afghan Funds - The New York Times - "President Biden is starting to clear a legal path for relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pursue $3.5 billion that Afghanistan’s central bank had deposited in New York before the Taliban takeover, while also seeking to steer a roughly equal amount toward spending to aid the Afghan people... After the Taliban took over Afghanistan, they appointed their own official to lead the central bank and demanded the immediate release of the money held in New York. But under longstanding counterterrorism sanctions imposed by the United States, it is illegal to engage in financial transactions with them. Another option has been to let the assets sit untouched, gathering interest for what is likely to be years before the Taliban perhaps again lose power and a more normal government arises."
Naturally, there were people upset over this. The right of conquest only applies to non-white people (i.e. not Israel either)
America’s Afghanistan Journey Was No “Endless War” - "Both Biden and Sullivan’s justification of the withdrawal falls short. To remain was not to escalate but rather to stabilize. With only a skeleton force, the U.S. presence enabled Afghan forces to hold Kabul and every district capital. The expense of such a deployment was on par with the U.S. military presence in Japan and Korea. By rebranding deterrence as “endless war” deserving of condemnation, Biden convinced dictators in Moscow and Beijing that aggression could work... The United States was never going to be in Afghanistan in perpetuity, but the timing of withdrawal matters... Contributing to the chaos of the final withdrawal was the decision to rely on Kabul’s International Airport rather than the Bagram Airbase. The former was urban, hard to secure, and had limited runway capacity. That the White House never explained the logic behind its decision suggests that Biden’s top White House staff—none of whom served in the military—made their choice first rather than listen to experienced voices in the Pentagon... Congress and the media have spent millions of dollars, issued subpoenas, and held hearings to investigate the January 6, 2021, protest-turned-riot on Capitol Hill. Certainly, an examination of the decisionmaking surrounding the Afghanistan withdrawal is equally justified. If Biden’s aides ignored warnings, failed to consult or coordinate, or promoted a penchant for process on paper above the reality of the situation, then it is important to hold those individuals to account. It is also important to address an intelligence failure: How was it that the Taliban was able to infiltrate into almost every provincial capital to negotiate their own passage and government surrender without diplomats or the intelligence community being aware? How did thousands of Pakistani soldiers join them, also undetected? On the first anniversary of the great abandonment, the White House may want to frame the debate as a choice between responsible statecraft or endless war. This is a false choice. With so much bloodshed and thousands more abandoned, Americans are overdue an honest accounting for the decisionmaking surrounding the withdrawal. Afghans also deserve more... One of the greatest mistakes of its two-decade experiment with democracy in Afghanistan was to insist on a strong Kabul. The reason for this was to enable the Afghan government to co-opt regional warlords while the U.S. military reconstructed the ANSF. At a local level, Afghans resent having a government imposed from outside their province or district. This is an issue the National Resistance Front must address as Afghans are wary that it might bring Tajik domination. Rather than lecturing the Taliban on women, the State Department would better serve everyone by crafting an attractive alternative to the Taliban’s brutal emirate. It is also crucial to recognize that the Taliban are not a natural manifestation of Afghan political culture. Rather, they are a proxy of Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI). Whether the United States is a combatant or not, there will be no peace in Afghanistan until the cost of the ISI’s interference is too great for Pakistan to bear. As such, it is a U.S. interest to treat Pakistan as a terror sponsor. Breaking decades of ISI-dominated foreign policy is the only way to end Pakistan’s addiction to militancy and save it from state failure"
Richard Hanania on Twitter - "Comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam is an insult to the South Vietnamese regime. They actually controlled major cities, and held on for years after the US left. They fell when the US cut off support. Afghan gov is still paid by US, collapsing before it leaves. An epic failure. So many crazy things to consider about Afghanistan. Here's another one: The Taliban spent all of the 1990s trying to get control over the country, and struggled against the warlords. After 20 years of American occupation and trillions of dollars, they're having a much easier time"
Liam McCollum on Twitter - "The Taliban spokesman got a question about freedom of speech and he said the question should be asked to US companies like Facebook who claim to promote it while still censoring"
Jon Gabriel on Twitter - "US intelligence agencies who said just 4 days ago that Kabul could fall in 90 days have revised the figure to 72 hours"
"In their defense, US intelligence agencies are more interested in spying on Americans"
The Left Abandoned Afghan Women - The Atlantic - "Get the hell out has, of course, been the liberal position for two decades, until about 72 hours ago, when Democrats suddenly became so concerned about the fate of Afghanistan, you’d think they were at a Dick Cheney revival meeting... Is your conscience prickling? Don’t worry, Senator Dianne Feinstein has everything under control. She is “concerned” about at-risk women and girls in Afghanistan. We aren’t abandoning them! They will be covered by the bipartisan Protect Women’s and Girls’ Rights in Afghanistan Act... Do you ever get tired of being lied to? According to this act, America will use the withholding of economic aid and the “voice” of the United States government to protect Afghan women. If the Taliban abuses those women, America will ensure that the militants are brought “to justice.”... for all of America’s sins, our default position is freedom. For all of our sins, we are a great country... For a bewildering two decades we had the political will and a large-enough volunteer military to spend our blood and treasure protecting the human rights of some of the most powerless people on Earth: girls. In no other country would that story even be possible."
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 on Twitter - "BREAKING: State Department requesting urgent guidance over child brides among Afghan escapees. Staff at Fort McCoy reporting multiple cases of underage girls said to be married to adult Afghan men"
Women’s rights and the US’s ‘civilising’ mission in Afghanistan | Women's Rights | Al Jazeera - "the US’s transparently Orientalist civilising mission in Afghanistan – of a piece with age-old colonial rhetoric in the Middle East and beyond – becomes even more nauseating when one recalls the US track record of transparently uncivilised treatment of women worldwide."
The usual whataboutism, false equivalences and non-sequiturs - what a country the US is friends with does is the fault of the US. Meanwhile AJ+ keeps pushing feminism in developed countries. The agenda is clear
Julia Hartley-Brewer on Twitter - "18 million women and girls in Afghanistan will be banned from showing their faces, treated only as servants to men, baby makers or sex slaves under the Taliban. So where's the outcry from the #MeToo women? Did you use all your anger up over the tampon tax and wolf whistling? 🙄"
Taliban enforces order for Afghan women TV anchors to cover faces - "After they seized power again in August, the Taliban initially appeared to have moderated somewhat their restrictions, announcing no dress code for women. But in recent weeks, they have made a sharp, hardline pivot that has confirmed the worst fears of rights activists and further complicated the Taliban’s dealings with an already distrustful international community. Earlier this month, the Taliban ordered all women to wear head-to-toe clothing in public that leaves only their eyes visible. The decree said women should leave the home only when necessary and that male relatives would face punishment for women’s dress code violations, starting with a summons and escalating to court hearings and jail time. The Taliban leadership has also barred girls from attending school after the sixth grade, reversing previous promises by Taliban officials that girls of all ages would be allowed an education."
Music will be banned in Afghanistan and women will need a male chaperone if they travel alone - "under the old Taliban rule, women were not allowed to attend school and faced public flogging if they were found to have violated morality rules, like one requiring that they be fully covered. At the time, the Times reports, the Taliban also said the restrictions on women will be temporary."
Bruno Maçães on Twitter - "US intelligence agencies who said just 4 days ago that Kabul could fall in 90 days have revised the figure to 72 hours
No one I talked to in Kabul believes the Americans can be so incompetent. They think it is all deliberation and dissimulation. Can you blame them? Incompetence at this level has indeed never been witnessed"
Damn Trump!
Facebook - "Hilarious how they keep trying to stick it on Trump instead of the fact that Afghanistan's army still can't make it even after 20 years."
Meme - scott jones: "Perspective: 17 times more people have died of covid in Florida than ALL Americans dying in Afghanistan in the past 20 years"
Chris Hayes on Twitter - "Again, probably A THOUSAND people are going to die today from Covid."
Whataboutism is only bad when non-liberals do it
Comment (elsewhere): "All of a sudden they're interested in comparing Covid numbers to other deaths? Also, isn't Biden in charge of our Covid plan?"
World Bank freezes $600m funding for Afghanistan over Taliban U-turn on girls’ education - "The World Bank has suspended four projects in Afghanistan worth $600m (£456m) after the Taliban’s decision to ban girls from returning to secondary and high schools."
Thank God Afghanistan rejected white cultural imperialism!
Maajid أبو عمّار on Twitter - "Aug 13 2021: “Kabul is not in an imminent threat.”
Aug 15 2021: The Taliban conquers Kabul without a fight.
Pentagon, does this margin of error explain how China took us all from the inside without a fight, too?"
White House Forces Out Trump Appointees From Boards of Military Academies - The New York Times - "Ms. Conway, one of Mr. Trump’s most prominent White House aides, wrote a letter refusing to resign from her advisory position at the Air Force Academy. “President Biden, I’m not resigning, but you should,” she wrote on Twitter, with an image of her letter. “Three former directors of presidential personnel inform me that this request is a break from presidential norms,” Ms. Conway wrote in the letter, which was addressed to Mr. Biden. “It certainly seems petty and political, if not personal.” Other Trump appointees were similarly defiant. Mr. Vought also declined to resign as a member of the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Naval Academy, noting on Twitter that members serve three-year terms. He was appointed to the board in December. Mr. Spicer said on his show on Newsmax, the conservative news media outlet, that he would not resign from his advisory position at the Naval Academy, and that he was joining a lawsuit with other appointees to contest his removal... Mr. Spicer suggested that the Biden administration was removing him and the other Trump appointees so that it could “inject liberal ideology” into the schools’ curriculums without pushback from the advisory boards."
Facebook - "Typically, they serve the full 3 years. Purges usually happen after military defeats to ensure that the boss doesn't get overthrown. It's been nearly 8 months post Trump, so we know it's not a qualifications thing since you don't leave unqualified people in office unless you are an incompetent President. So yes, it is tied to the retreat from Afghanistan."
NYT Politics on Twitter - "Top U.S. military officers on Tuesday acknowledged publicly for the first time that they had advised President Biden not to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan ahead of the evacuation."
Facebook - "US says Kabul drone strike killed 10 civilians, including children, in 'tragic mistake'"
"Joint Chief Chairman General Mark Milley previously described as a "righteous strike," lying about secondary explosions. This was the same guy that broke the chain of command and civilian control of the military, based on a false assumption that President Trump was unstable and would give orders for a nuclear strike - something which history proved never took place. Great judgement here. (Sarcasm). So keen to save the face of Biden that he made a really wise call."
Facebook - "Right: Cosplaying activism via signaling luxury beliefs
Left: Real activism, real bravery, real courage"
"Right: Equal rights for women, peg the patriarchy
Left: Afghan women call for respect in rare protest, Afghan women are sharing photos of dresses to protest the Taliban's black hijab mandate"
Afghan children starving to death as country on brink of becoming world's worst humanitarian crisis
Shadi Hamid on Twitter - "It's worth noting that Ashraf Ghani was one of the best and the brightest. He was one of the world's leading experts on... failed states and how to rebuild them. This 2016 @newyorker profile of Ghani is a fascinating read, knowing what we know now"
Taliban leader was freed from Guantanamo in 2014 swap by Obama - "When President Barack Obama released five Taliban commanders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for an American deserter in 2014, he assured a wary public that the dangerous enemy combatants would be transferred to Qatar and kept from causing any trouble in Afghanistan. In fact, they were left free to engineer Sunday’s sacking of Kabul. Soon after gaining their freedom, some of the notorious Taliban Five pledged to return to fight Americans in Afghanistan and made contacts with active Taliban militants there. But the Obama-Biden administration turned a blind eye to the disturbing intelligence reports, and it wasn’t long before the freed detainees used Qatar as a base to form a regime in exile. Eventually, they were recognized by Western diplomats as official representatives of the Taliban during recent “peace” talks. Earlier this year, one of them, Khairullah Khairkhwa, actually sat across the table from President Biden’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, in Moscow, where Khairkhwa was part of the official Taliban delegation that negotiated the final terms of the US withdrawal. The retreat cleared a path for the Taliban to retake power after 20 years... He also promised not to retaliate against any Afghans who worked with the US military or the US-backed government in Kabul... Reports coming out of Kandahar and Kabul indicate the extremists have already broken their word. Taliban thugs have started a reign of terror against people who cooperated with Westerners. Guided by a “kill list,” they are going door to door to punish their enemies. Special envoy Khalilzad convinced the White House the US-backed government would not collapse and the Taliban would not take over"
Since liberals keep blaming Trump for releasing Taliban prisoners...
Taliban behead junior volleyball player who was part of women’s national team: Report - "There were reports that Taliban militants had allegedly beheaded Mahjabin Hakimi, a member of the Afghan junior women's national volleyball team, after her coach spoke to Persian Independent. Her family, however, refuted the allegation and said she died by suicide. In an interview, coach Suraya Afzali (name changed) said a woman player named Mahjabin Hakimi was killed by the Taliban earlier in October, but nobody learnt about the gruesome murder as the insurgents had threatened her family not to talk about it... pictures of what seemed to be her severed head and bloodied neck turned up on social media... Since their takeover, the Taliban have tried to identify and hunt down women athletes; the militants have been even more keenly on the look-out for members of the Afghan women's volleyball team, who competed in foreign and domestic competitions and appeared in media programs in the past, claimed Afzali."
‘Cutting off of hands is very necessary:’ Taliban official says executions and amputations will return - "meanwhile, Taliban leaders have claimed that there will be gender equality and justice in its new rule... “We are changed from the past.” The last Taliban regime had banned all forms of entertainment, including films and sports. But television, mobile phones, photos and video will be allowed now “because this is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it”, he said. He added that judges, including women, will hear cases this time, but reiterated that the laws will be based upon sharia (Islamic) laws."
Taliban whip women protesting Afghanistan’s all-male interim govt
Taliban urges women to stay home because some of their fighters have not yet been trained not to hurt them - "This call for women to not venture out was “temporary,” according to Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid. Some experts, however, said a similar statement was used by them when they ruled the country before in 1996. Mujahid said women in Afghanistan must stay home until a “new procedure” is in place, without mentioning for how long such a measure would continue... The Taliban, this time, promises their rule will be different"
Stella Parton: ‘Women In America Are Being Treated Worse Than Women In Afghanistan’ - "country music star Stella Parton, who had a string of hits including 1975’s “I Want To Hold You In My Dreams Tonight” and is the sister of the iconic country music star Dolly Parton, pontificated that American women are treated worse than women in Afghanistan."
Imagine hating your country that much
Ben Shapiro on Twitter - "Afghanistan isn't Saigon.
Sorry, the Taliban is in charge.
You're not stuck in Afghanistan.
Sorry, please don't come to the airport.
We're working with the Taliban.
Sorry, the Taliban can't control ISIS.
If you are stuck in Afghanistan, it's your fault."
Gad Saad on Twitter - "Not a single Arab state made the list to top 20 countries to offer refuge to Afghans"
"This feels very Islamophobic on the part of the Arab countries."
Elif Shafak on Twitter - "It’s amazing how quickly the Taliban presence has become the new normal in Kabul. Many fear their intentions, but on the street they’re approachable. I told them i’m from USA. No hostility. Not even surprise really."
"It’s amazing how quickly the Taliban are being normalised across Western media. Once again, the question is, who is telling the story and whose voices we never get to hear. Approachable, really?Let’s ask that to Afghan women. Listen to women. Listen to minorities.That’s the story"
Meme - MalangKhostay (Taliban member): "We painted over the mural of a false liberal deity in Kabul and wrote uplifting messages of faith and freedom in its stead. *George Floyd*"
James Kirkpatrick (@VDAREJamesK) - "The anger you should feel is not that Kabul "fell." It's that patriotic Americans were suckered into fighting for the Rainbow Empire in a pointless cause, that lives and trillions of dollars were wasted, and at the end of it we're just going to import more people to hate us."
Hen Mazzig on Twitter - "The Squad’s days-long silence on the Taliban taking over Afghanistan is the loudest statement they’ve ever made."
Shashank Joshi on Twitter - "Biden, last month: "The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.""
"US helicopters seen this morning at US embassy Kabul. It seems the evacuation is underway. Photo by @AP"
Taliban ask for list of girls above 15, widows under 45 to be married to their fighters: Reports
Facebook - "It's fascinating to me that the Taliban control of Afghanistan is never condemned as the inevitable result of Soviet aggression and imperialism. But that's exactly why we're here."
Facebook - "And there it is: seizing on US weakness, China warns Taiwan that the US will not defend them. As the US and allies flee with local Afghanis clinging on to departing aircraft in desperation and falling to their deaths, China and Russia's embassies stay put. In geopolitics and foreign policy, optics and power are EVERYTHING. Biden is turning out to be Jimmy Carter 2.0."
Sargon of Akkad - Posts | Facebook - "99% of people in Afghanistan want Sharia law, according to Pew."
86% in Malaysia, 72% in Indonesia - bastions of "moderate Islam"
Dr. Keith Rose on Twitter - "When we came to Afghanistan I remember reading that Afghanistan was finally liberated from a regime that imposed mandatory face coverings, destroyed statues, and promoted the genital mutilation of children. Sadly that could also be said as we leave. #Afghanistan"
Meme - "America can't even stop Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland & San Francisco from degenerating. You think they were fixing up the Middle East with your tax dollars?"
Joe Biden on Twitter - "It's hard to believe this has to be said, but unlike this president, I’ll do my job and take responsibility. I won’t blame others. And I’ll never forget that the job isn’t about me — it’s about you."
Biden blames Trump for Afghanistan bedlam
