the gravy train will continue via drone, I'm sure
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 20:24 (two years ago) link
Urgent!!!! US army is blocking arrival commercial flights to Kabul airport. Many Afghan women were booked in flights to Delhi and Dubai and now they are stuck because US personnel and US citizens are more important than Afghan women who are the main and direct target. #cnn— AAWA (@aawa_us) August 15, 2021
― Left, Sunday, 15 August 2021 20:46 (two years ago) link
Watching the parade of retired generals and national security types repeat the crap of the last 20 years reminds me of that quote about the Bourbons: they've learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
The only reason Old Man Biden didn't fall for the drivel (again) this time is his being in the same room when the generals snookered Obama and being in the Senate when the same generals snookered him and Bush.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 15 August 2021 20:51 (two years ago) link
xpost seeing images of the tarmac at the Kabul airport, it’s a good thing no commercial planes are allowed landing.
― Van Horn Street, Sunday, 15 August 2021 20:53 (two years ago) link
fuck off
― Left, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:04 (two years ago) link
Foreign Office blocks Afghan students from UK scholarships https://t.co/5jjQlQPlWJ— Guardian Universities (@GdnUniversities) August 15, 2021
― Left, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:05 (two years ago) link
Go ahead Left, land a commercial plane on a tarmac full of people in a city that is under fire.
It’s the american military responsibility to get as many Afghans to safety, not Air India.
― Van Horn Street, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:09 (two years ago) link
um I think it's up to Air India to make that call tbh
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:11 (two years ago) link
or do you still think the US runs the country?
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:12 (two years ago) link
very much in character for the US to do a last "fuck you" to the actual people of Afghanistan"
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:13 (two years ago) link
great fucking job they’re doing if that’s the case, which anyone can tell it never has been xps
― Left, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:14 (two years ago) link
It’s the american military responsibility to get [..] Afghans Americans to safety, not fuck Air India and the Afghans who bought tickets.
FTFY
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:20 (two years ago) link
(I do realize they are also evacuating translators fwiw, that seems legit)
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:21 (two years ago) link
― sleeve, Sunday, August 15, 2021 5:12 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink
They are, right now, in control of the airport on the military side and the airport itself is under fire.
And no, Air India can not take unilateral decisions of the kind in situations like these, and I have my doubts they will: it would be too big a risk for the pilots and more importantly for people on the ground.
― Van Horn Street, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:22 (two years ago) link
is there no instance of US imperialism you won't defend to your dying breath?
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:34 (two years ago) link
(serious question)
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:35 (two years ago) link
I don’t see US imperialism in seeing a massive security risk, and I don’t see why that risk ought to be taken by civilians at the possible expense of civilians and I’m clear it is up to the US military to clean up that mess.
― Van Horn Street, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:47 (two years ago) link
your version of the US military does not exist. the real one is coordinating with the taliban right now
― Left, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:52 (two years ago) link
Clearest indication the British Government will recognise the new goverment led by Taliban, and work with it. This was all planned sometime ago and that is why the Taliban controlled the country within 10 days. US-UK governments purposely allowed this to happen #afghanistan https://t.co/1ly10vGSEC— مهيار (@Mehiyar) August 15, 2021
― Left, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:55 (two years ago) link
xxp I honestly have no idea what that sentence means
― sleeve, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:57 (two years ago) link
mind you, they've been doing it all along, if all those stories about multiple advance surrender negotiations and deals are true. The fearsome peasant warriors mainly talked their way to power.— jamie k (@jkbloodtreasure) August 15, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 15 August 2021 21:58 (two years ago) link
go ahead left
― plax (ico), Sunday, 15 August 2021 22:41 (two years ago) link
Land that plane
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 15 August 2021 22:51 (two years ago) link
dream about me
― mookieproof, Sunday, 15 August 2021 22:53 (two years ago) link
NEW: Biden admin has curtailed the number of flights to the US for Afghans who worked alongside the US as it prioritizes the evacuation of American personnel from the country, three sources familiar with the situation told CNN.— Jennifer Hansler (@jmhansler) August 15, 2021
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Sunday, 15 August 2021 23:27 (two years ago) link
Sorry if someone already posted
https://laurajedeed.medium.com/afghanistan-meant-nothing-9e3f099b00e5
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 16 August 2021 00:01 (two years ago) link
xpost to Raymond: great article, thanks
― sleeve, Monday, 16 August 2021 01:08 (two years ago) link
yeah very good. sad, bitter.
― Nhex, Monday, 16 August 2021 01:21 (two years ago) link
My ex wife asked me about what was up with Kabul earlier tonight while we were waiting to pick up takeout dinner. She didn’t understand the whole thing.
I summarized in a rush, ultimately feeling empty and defeated.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 16 August 2021 01:26 (two years ago) link
Yeah, that article was a gut punch.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 16 August 2021 01:27 (two years ago) link
Got into an argument I totally regret with H over this, her taking the line that we should have stayed to protect women’s rights, leaving me in the always horrible position of arguing no we shouldn’t because it’s hopeless and our military isn’t even designed to do that. But it’s still the cynical asshole argument in the moment even if right in the long run. There’s no good position to take. That medium article has it right and I was team taliban.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 16 August 2021 02:12 (two years ago) link
There are roughly 3.5 billion women on earth. They all deserve good lives. I'm not sure that a nearly unlimited supply of military munitions are the correct means to secure that outcome.
― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Monday, 16 August 2021 02:46 (two years ago) link
So how do you solve a problem like the Talibans then? Not talking about an US perspective there, but like, how do you secure good lives for the 16 millions women when you face an armed fascist threat.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 16 August 2021 02:53 (two years ago) link
you are profoundly unqualified to answer that question, that's all I know
― sleeve, Monday, 16 August 2021 02:58 (two years ago) link
OTM
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 16 August 2021 03:00 (two years ago) link
who among us feels qualified to state how to change Afghan society in order to make it accept western liberal ideology? if no one feels qualified, then calling VHS unqualified as all the rest of us isn't exactly a sick burn.
― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Monday, 16 August 2021 03:05 (two years ago) link
I don’t think it’s a sick burn so much as the point. Even asking the question of what is to be done assumes being in a position of opining on or deciding what is to be done, which I would venture to guess none of us are in or even have the right to be in.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 16 August 2021 03:21 (two years ago) link
Sometimes the world would be better off if Americans would just say “we aren’t the ones who should answer this question.”
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 16 August 2021 03:22 (two years ago) link
I specified not talking from an US perspective.
― Van Horn Street, Monday, 16 August 2021 03:27 (two years ago) link
then who is the "you" in that question? how is anyone supposed to answer that
― ✖, Monday, 16 August 2021 03:54 (two years ago) link
are you asking for instructions on how you yourself can carry out a personal delta force mission in kabul
― ✖, Monday, 16 August 2021 03:57 (two years ago) link
Promoting and facilitating increased immigration from Afghanistan to the US is a thing we could and absolutely will not do.
― Marty J. Bilge (Old Lunch), Monday, 16 August 2021 04:28 (two years ago) link
guys am i understanding correctly that the “security” situation in afghanistan is “deteriorating”
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 16 August 2021 06:15 (two years ago) link
Old Lunch otm. Every person in Afghanistan who wants to come to the US — who dreads living under a newly empowered Taliban — should be allowed to do so.
― treeship., Monday, 16 August 2021 06:38 (two years ago) link
As cynical as we all were about the prospects of “nation building” there, on the ground in afghanistan were people who thought their country could be better, who remembered secular regimes of past decades. The US didn’t help them build that country even as we said we would. There is a debt.
― treeship., Monday, 16 August 2021 06:40 (two years ago) link
I don’t know how this could be done logistically but still — it’s stomach churning to think of what will happen to Afghans who worked with the US.
― treeship., Monday, 16 August 2021 06:47 (two years ago) link
I suspect that decades of arming rogue elements then invading in order to defeat those rogue elements and displacing millions of people and destroying infrastructure and enabling warlord feudalism and then arming rogue elements etc is not the best way to help the people of Afghanistan.
Everyone knows the roots of Afghanistan's problems are in becoming a proxy site of the long cold war. Remove adventurism and provide redress through a transformed refugee and resettlement program that includes closing the vast UNHCR camps that people live in intergenerationally across the global South and provide amnesty for all millions of victims of ongoing legacies of colonialism welcoming instead of demonising all the people who have been made to flee from the violence that we have brought to their homelands.
I agree this sounds pretty far-fetched but compared to trying to change the political culture of another country on the other side of the globe using the tactic of sending people in with advanced weaponry, I would suggest this is the less far fetched.
In any case the immediate statements and actions by the UK home office show quite clearly how little change this is likely to make to the clueless mendacity of the ghouls that run this show.
Anyone serious about helping the people of Afghanistan now should be involved in putting extreme pressure on their governments to provide corridors for refugees and liberalise the asylum process. Everything else is bullshit and there's twenty (plus) years of history to prove it.
― plax (ico), Monday, 16 August 2021 07:12 (two years ago) link
yes.this is the level, step it up ppl
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 16 August 2021 07:27 (two years ago) link
As cynical as we all were about the prospects of “nation building” there, on the ground in afghanistan were people who thought their country could be better, who remembered secular regimes of past decades.
Not saying these people don't exist, and fully behind the thing you're arguing for, but would like to say that anecdotally the only guy from Afghanistan I know, a friend of my parent's who v much remembered those secular regimes and desperatley wanted to go back, was never under any illusion that the US coming in would lead to his country getting better. Whether or not ppl buy the West's propaganda shouldn't be the standard for whether we have a moral responsibility to help them.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 16 August 2021 07:31 (two years ago) link
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12024253
worst timeline ever starting from 1838 here
― calzino, Monday, 16 August 2021 07:52 (two years ago) link