15 August 2021: A New Day in Infamy

I am devastated at the cruelty of the Allied occupiers just leaving this hapless land to the butchery and savagery of the Taliban,
I weep for the girls and women and moderate citizens who were trying to work their way into the 21st century.
Such hypocrisy of our leaders( Australia was there all along too)
Such a travesty for our troops who gave so much
God help Afghanistan…..

All of us who care and are above politics are devastated. It hurts to say the least when thinking of all those people we gave hope to and then abandoned. Thank you Diana. Stay well.

And yes, sadly you're right, Australia, the UK... all of NATO are a part of this mess. Good thing the cold war with the USSR didn't go hot or we'd all be living under communism based on NATO's pathetic performance.

As for President Biden, in one day he proved his "empathy" was nothing but a facade to fulfill his political ambitions and to use as a means to wallow in self-pity over other peoples' tragedies. He is nothing but cold-hearted and cruel. The only difference between him and Trump is Trump let everybody know he was a narcissist, selfish and only cared about himself. It's laughable how Trump and Biden are now pointing fingers at each other and Republicans are pulling down their pages that supported this pathetic and heartless act of cowardice.

From an American perspective, Liz Cheney got it right when she posted on Twitter:

The Trump/Biden calamity unfolding in Afghanistan began with the Trump administration negotiating with terrorists and pretending they were partners for peace, and is ending with American surrender as Biden abandons the country to our terrorist enemies. t.co/PQ1i5W6zZt

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 14, 2021

This get our troops out of Afghanistan is a terrible decision, and the people of Afghanistan are the ones that are going to suffer.
The Taliban are intolerant of any dissent against their interpretation of islam. they treat women, children, gays and non-muslims appallingly.
I dread to think what is going to happen, once the western citizens have been evacuated and the news media have other things on their mind.

e2a - it would take many more years of education and aid to bring this area out from under the tribal / religious feudalism systems it currently "enjoys", and I don't think the current "short-termism" of the broader western political system is up to that task.

I agree and tragically from what I've heard, the slaughter has begun in some places with door-to-door searches and executions. Posters displaying women are being painted over, girls kidnapped, etc. Human rights have been betrayed and thousands will die. It's even more despicable that everyone who helped in some capacity as well as women and children have been left to be slaughtered. It is so bad, people chose to risk their lives hanging onto airplanes and wound up dying. :(

'The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a jus cogens rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms.[1][2] It states that people, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference.[3]

The concept was first expressed in the 1860s, and spread rapidly thereafter.[4][5] During and after World War I, the principle was encouraged by both Soviet Premier Vladimir Lenin and United States President Woodrow Wilson.[4][5] Having announced his Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918, on 11 February 1918 Wilson stated: "National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. 'Self determination' is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action."[6] ' (Wikipedia)

Therefore, the Western world should have stayed out of internal Afghan affairs from the very beginning. Because how a population wishes to live is its own business. At best, one would have been legitimised to specifically pursue and exterminate individual assassins. But no one is legitimised to want to rob an entire people of its millennia-old tradition just because we think our own culture is the better one.

I think it is only logical that the West should finally withdraw. Because history teaches us that this ethnic tribe will never let itself be deprived of its autonomy. Better an end with horror than horror without an end.

Whether it takes 3 weeks or 3 years for the Taliban to take power makes no difference in the end result. A state will arise there that will organise itself according to its own ideas, regardless of whether we like it or not. Our only task is to respect it.

Bernhard,

I agree people have a right to self-determination. What has happened in Afghanistan is NOT self-determination. The Taliban have basically seized the country and will now impose their sick ideology on the masses who reject it. Furthermore they merely use Islam as a facade since in fact they are apostates whose beliefs are antithetical to the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad.

If I'm mistaken then I would accept Taliban rule as long as they do not allow groups like al Qaeda to re-engage in unprovoked cowardly terror attacks like 9/11. But the only way to know is for fair, free, and transparent elections to be held under international supervision and even then, basic human rights such as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international norms such as the Geneva Conventions, etc. MUST be respected at all times without exception. If not then evil must be confronted even if the will is weak and the courage lacking.

I see it in a larger context., with a look to the last 500 years. Wherever we Europeans have appeared, there has almost always been suffering, misery, death and rape. European peoples have plundered the planet wherever they could. They stole the land from the indigenous peoples or murdered them. The British in North America, India and Africa, the Spanish in South America, the French in North America, Africa and Indochina, the Germans in Africa. They have behaved even more cruelly in many cases, than the Taliban.

It would be pharisaical to point the finger at the Taliban now. In the name of the cross, our ancestors were no better than them. They drew justification from the Bible (Genesis 1:28) - the Taliban draw it from the Koran. Such a fundamental conflict cannot be resolved, but only pacified. This includes tolerating the otherness of the other. We are not above the Muslims, but next to them. For both world views are based not on facts, but on faith.

In 1979, US imperialism under Jimmy Carter began a policy aimed at destabilising the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul and provoking the Soviet Union into military intervention. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski stated that the goal at the time was "to give the USSR its own Vietnam." This policy proved successful, but the Afghan people became collateral damage. Washington's machinations led to a civil war that has cost the lives of millions of Afghans.

I believe that the United States lost Afghanistan because it kept the country under quasi-colonial occupation for two decades. The promises to bring democracy and prosperity to the Afghan people have been exposed as a fraud. The puppet regime in Kabul, born out of rigged elections and deals with criminal warlords, lacks any legitimacy. The US has spent $143 billion on the "reconstruction" of Afghanistan, more than on the reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II. This money has not led to any significant improvement in the lives of Afghans, nor to any significant development of infrastructure. Instead, it has mainly gone into the pockets of one of the most corrupt kleptocracies in the world.

It is good that the democrats who started this evil imperialist game are now ending it. However, they should not shirk the responsibility they have, but grant asylum to the millions of Afghans who now fear for their lives.

As much as I wished Donald Trump to hell and wished for a change of power in the US, I am now stunned to observe that the Democats obviously have no plan at all what to do with the people who are in mortal danger after their withdrawal. It is not just a matter of evacuating a few thousand people. Hundreds of thousands are in danger. They deserve to find shelter with those who are responsible for the whole disaster.

One can't just play sheriff all over the world but leave the social work to other countries.

Bernhard,

I agree about the plunder across the world. Hell, the USA was not entirely founded on freedom since a much overlooked article of the Declaration of Independence was aimed at preserving slavery and allowing colonialists to breach existing accords with the indigenous peoples west of the Mississippi to plunder and seize their land. And you're correct about the crusades, especially the first one where so-called Christians ignored every fundamental covenant of the faith massacring innocent Muslim women and children in Jerusalem such that the streets flowed with their blood. It was disgusting. Christians could learn a lot from the benevolent example of Saladin (1137-1193) who spared the lives and then freedom of Christians and Jews in Jerusalem when church officials fled with the city's wealth that was supposed keep them out of slavery.

I've always said it's a huge mistake when religion is used for the basis of violence and will always reject the notion that my faith is the only correct faith and the only path to God. Perhaps this is why I have friends of different faiths, we wish each other happiness during our respective holidays and are like brothers and sisters. This is also why I have great respect for the prophet Mohammad, various Buddhas -- since God doesn't relegate His word to one faith alone.

Jimmy Carter made many mistakes. Opposing the USSR on ideological grounds was certainly one of his biggest mistakes; the extremism that spread around the world in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal and eventual 9/11 attacks clearly demonstrate this.

Finally, here in the USA it's not worth just branding Trump. Trump, Biden, Democrat, Republican -- they're all for themselves, self-serving, narcissistic, unempathetic and morally empty and corrupt. We need a new party and new leaders that remember the people, recognize and address past evils such as slavery and genocide here in the Americas. The creation of a third chamber of congress that is elected by the indigenous peoples of the country based on their tribal lands might be a good start as well as efforts to end racism and uplift the lives of African-Americans who though ignored contributed greatly to our history, which also in the text books needs to be more balanced.

Thank you for your input and I hope and pray for the best for the Aghan people and human rights perhaps with the naive hope that one day we'll recognize we are all ONE race regardless of borders whose lives and diversity are indispensable for the greater good of our ONE planet.

Je suis totalement d'accord !! Nous avons abandonné les afghans , en particulier les femmes
Personnellement je suis très choquée

Il y a une autre chose qui m'a choquée : hier aux infos , on voyait une foule courir après un avion , pour fuir l'Afghanistan ... mais il n'y avait que des hommes ... ils s'enfuient sans leurs épouses , mères , soeurs , filles ? Les laissant en danger de mort entre les mains des Talibans ???

I agree, it was shocking and also sickening that people would feel so desperate they would risk and lose their lives. It is important the world is unequivocal -- if the Taliban want to be viewed with legitimacy, dissent and human rights especially of women and girls MUST be respected. I was encouraged to hear in certain parts of the country per UNICEF, girls are still allowed to attend school. Hopefully yesterday's executions are the product of undisciplined fighters and now that their leader has arrived, things can stabilize and change for the better. At the same time, I'm not naive since words are cheap.

This has gone through 4 presidents ... both Republican and Democrat.

We never should have been there.

In my opinion, if countries have disagreements --- let the leaders go and fight it out. Not our young men and women.

Peggy, you forgot about 9/11. If the Taliban had simply expelled al-Qaeda there never would've been the need. I just wish once bin-Laden was killed, which he deserved, an exit strategy had been formulated that would have allowed a more peaceful and orderly transition to independent rule. Propping up a corrupt and illegitimate government (I believe Abdullah Abudulla actually won the presidential election) was the worst approach. Nevertheless, now that this is done, pressure must be kept to ensure human rights for all are respected. I admire today's young Afghan journalists who asked tough questions to defacto Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar during his press conference today. And yes, it would be so much better if leaders fought their own battles among themselves instead of subjecting their citizens to such carnage.

Hello William, I can only add one more sign to your words: ✅

Am still speechless about what happened.
Just read again both impressing books by Khaled Hosseini - "Kite runner" and "A thousand splended suns".
When I read it first (a lot of years ago) I was so glad about: US-army and soldiers from Europe tried to bring back a bit of "normal life" to this poor country, full of crazy violence from all sides. And now? ALL the world again left Afghanistan back for stupid, fanatic devils - like 1996-2001 will continue there ... Shame on all of us.