The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace, and that's made brothers and sisters out of every race. ~George W. Bush
I saw this, this morning.
(!)
Protesters in Kabul, apparently led by women and girls, but also including men and boys continuing to resist the Taliban with nothing more than flags and iron courage.
Bit of a surprise, I'll admit, after we all watched the Afghan National Army roll over like a bitch or sell itself out to the fucking Taliban.
It appears, though, that this time the Taliban may have to actually run a country, and they know it, and they know that a lot of their country's financial resources are in the care of now-hostile powers. I quite suspect they're going to get a lot of help from Pakistan and Russia and they're going to grudgingly tolerate (and selectively respond harshly to) stuff they'd have just shot people en masse for previously. Like I said I think we're up against a smarter enemy this time around. They certainly rolled the Trump administration, didn't they? While I don't like that, as it's bad that America looks like a bunch of fools no matter who's in charge, if it prevents something like the Taliban's previous criminal, thuggish rule I'll take it.
If they're forced to engage in their thuggery behind the scenes...well that's basically every government this country has had in its modern history from the Soviet-backed communist government to the Taliban to Karzai's and Ghani's regimes. It ain't great, but it ain't mass slaughter either.
In point of fact, one of the things I've seen mentioned a number of times is that Taliban fighters are doing shit like taking selfies near Kabul monuments (which means they're less likely to destroy the country's technological resources at least not on purpose) and helping themselves to food and gifts offered by supporters...and naturally there are some, whose good will they will wish to maintain...and generally speaking, restraining themselves for the most part, or some of them are restraining the other ones, at least.
There have been some people who were shot during the protests, but the people as a whole did not back down.
Street protesters are not the focus of the Taliban's efforts, maybe just not right now...but it's a start.
Probably, I'd guess...because there's an actual organized effort making use of resources taken over from the government to hunt down those they feel they need to and they'll go the route of most of their neighbors and some of their funders and have religious and/or secret police instead of random killings in the street. Again/ it ain't great...it's actually going to end up being more effective of a level of brutality than what they practiced before...but they're not taking their bullshit out on the general population. Likewise they seem to be abiding by at least some of what they said they would.
And there's these protests, too. That's a hell of a good sign, way better than I was expecting. Clearly, there are at least some of the Taliban who understand the concept, and there is something left of Afghan civil society. That's a much better thing than I hoped would be possible at this point.
At least in the cities people are standing up.
If the goddamned ANA hadn't rolled over, maybe these people could've really accomplished something. Hell, they might yet, but I suspect it will be more difficult now. But so far, the people aren't backing down.
So, What the fuck is our excuse?
On our end of things, the evacuation seems to be progressing well, and people who need or want to get the fuck out are doing so without Taliban interference, and that is also a hell of a lot better than I thought this thing was going to go. It's truly not the situation over there that worries me in the least, at this point.
We have our broken end of things in hand, finally, and the Afghan people who are remaining behind? Well, these people are tough survivors. More will get out as things progress, some will stay and fight. Some will resist in other...possibly more effective...ways. What worries me on that side is that the Taliban, too, appear to be stronger, having evolved and gotten smarter after two decades of dealing with us.
Like the Iranians, that makes them a threat. But, like the Iranians I suspect if we leave them alone they'll leave us alone...at least in a direct sense.
I fully expect things like intrigues and terrorism but we're prepared for that...and to a certain extent that's a default setting for that part of the world as wrong as it probably is to put it that way.
For a lot of reasons, it's over here that I'm more worried about. Among other things, I keep seeing pro-Taliban hot takes from American far-rightists.
I'm sorry, but I very well remember 9/11 and the days after it. Something like that is...well, I can't even imagine thinking that way...and I can remember when you might've got beat up for expressing admiration or sympathy for the enemies of America.
I expected the privileged, racist, Trump supporting assholes who'd say that they didn't want refugees from Afghanistan coming here...when they've been coming here for 40 years since the Soviets were the ones bombing the place.
I don't remember these kinds of reactions then...so why is it different now? I seem to remember when Jihad was considered a far greater threat than mere Communism and basic American liberalism wasn't even on these fucking people's radar.
Of course I should have expected they'd change their minds the second it became inconvenient to maintain their previous views.
Doesn't make it any less evil or repugnant that it was expected but it fucking was.
What I absolutely wasn't expecting was not only that the Taliban would be spoken about as if they were a good thing, the legitimate government, a mere interest group that should be on social media...and then to have them directly equated with former President Trump.
I don't think that's quite the argument you think it is there, Chester.
And I'll note this post was made from Matt Gaetz's Congressional Twitter account.
You know who'd roll over if an enemy attacked us just like the Afghan National Army rolled over for the Taliban?
Conservatives. Republicans. These Fucking People.
Those for whom America as she is, is inconvenient at best.
They don't give a good goddamn about America or its people. They worship Donald Trump. I had to go to the store today and on my way into town I was briefly behind a truck that had a bumper sticker that read "God, Guns and Trump."
And Donald Trump has been out of office for seven months now.
I've always thought the term "American Taliban" was a bit overwrought, but there are certainly American Taliban-wannabes and that is a thing we are absolutely going to have to deal with, and probably the same way eventually, with massive force...but we can't afford to fuck off for 20 years and treat this bullshit as an exercise in long-term disaster capitalism...or we will lose, at the minimum, a chunk of our country to these sons of bitches.
In fact, I rather expect that's going to be exactly what happens, certainly the collective responses to 1/6 suggest it will. My personal take is that it's what is somebody's objective, for the simple reason that such a thing would be the unending money-pot for the military-industrial complex that we absolutely couldn't walk away from because it's not halfway across the world, it's right here at home.
And if we continue to half-ass our national response to the fact that there's anti-American, literally pro-Taliban people in our own country right now...we will eventually become two countries which are perpetually at war. The only people who want that are the people who profit from war and the people who think, on ideological terms, that war is somehow good.
Given these people's newfound love of our enemies I have to wonder how much of that 1960's Domino Theory shit was really projection. I wonder if somebody knew it would come to this.
Had a conventional World War III been stopped only at the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay and Gibraltar, because our allies just rolled over like the ANA did, I wonder if all the sudden the Right would've been all about sucking up to the Soviet Union??
I think it's time to ask, Conservatives, which side are you on?
'Cause it sure seems to me like there's some people in Afghanistan even now that understand our values better than you do. And that's why you don't want them to come here.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan
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