Dumping the Browser Tabs

Hey dear readers!

I honestly haven't been able to blog.

Right now I'm doing heavy prep work. My college starts its fall semester on Monday and I'm teaching six classes. I'm excited, but the prep is exhaustive, as my school is once again mostly online for fall, and the Canvas (online learning) system takes time to revise from semester to semester.

By the end of this term (second week of December), I'll have taught almost two full years since the start of the lockdown in March of last year. More specifically, the spring term starts up in early February next year, so altogether, at that time, it'll be about 23 months since I've taught on campus.

Not only that, of course I've been glued to the TV in my remaining time this last few days, and of course I was completely glued to the set after the bombings yesterday at the airport. Things are so bad: It's astonishing what's happening, and events are moving so fast you shouldn't trust anyone claiming they know what's going to happen --- this weekend or years from now. 

So, I've have read a few articles I've been meaning to share. The old veteran blogger Jimmie Bise used to have a saying, something along the lines like "dumping the browser tab," as in my title to this post. Sometimes you read so many articles before you know it you've got a dozen tabs open, and that's too much to blog! You've gotta dump 'em! (And I see that Jimmie's doing very well, has published a recent book, and is interviewed at this podcast). Good for him!

At any rate, a few of my tabs:

At YouGov, "Americans who think the withdrawal from Afghanistan went poorly blame Biden." 

If his numbers are crashing now, it's going to be like a rockslide down Mt. Whitney before too long. Again, you can't predict the future. The best I can say is it's going to be a rough few years ahead, and I'd be surprised if the Democrats can hold on to their congressional majorities in next year's midterm elections (and if G.O.P. candidates are prepping new attack ads following the news out of Afghanistan --- these dolts need to get new campaign managers. *Sheesh.*

Also, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K)." 

This is a very good piece, and it's interesting because the New York Times is out with this today, "What Is the Islamic State Khorasan, a.k.a. ISIS-K?"

If you're not up on it, "IS-K" is definitely the preferable term. Note that "ISIS" stands for the "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," but the group dominated that part of the world way back in 2014 --- almost eight years ago --- and since then they were completed routed by the Trump administration --- and if it weren't for the debacle in Afghanistan they'd still be long forgotten. (Not by me, but almost all of the American public, of whom most are more concerned with domestic affairs --- like the economy --- than U.S. incursions in hotspots around the world. It's been that way a while, and political science research going back decades has established this point as fact. (But note this 2014 piece on the topic at the Washington Post . More, a 2015 Gallup Poll found that just 21 percent indicated that foreign policy was a top concern. See here and here, too, for more examples.)

In any case, top analysts for a while have preferred simply the "Islamic State." The goal of this organization, perhaps the most violent, merciless, and indiscriminate terrorist group in the world, is a global caliphate. That is, the group's interpretation of Islam is totalitarian, in more ways than one, but especially in that its ideology calls for Muslim domination of the entire world. All non-believers would be placed under the yoke of extremist Islamic rule, and no one would be safe --- frankly, I hesitate to say it, but if such a thing were to ever to come about, it's not out of the realm of the possible that Islamic jihad could murder more innocent people than the Nazis during WWII.

Finally, read this great piece from Henry Kissinger, who at 98 years remains one of the most important international relations scholars ever. See, "The future of American powerHenry Kissinger on why America failed in Afghanistan."

That's all for now. Thanks for reading and check back soon for further updates. 

Candace Owens, Blackout

At Amazon, Candace Owens, Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation.

The Last Neocons

I rarely post from the American Conservative, as it's a controversial publication with views I frequently find repugnant. 

That said, neoconservatives are on the defensive now, big time, so this is interesting.

See, "The Last Neocons on the Island":

NEW: "By pointing to Germany and Japan, the hawks have let the cat out of the bag," writes @mattpurple5. https://t.co/MRGaTHkF90

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) August 25, 2021

Told the Post I'd be voting for @TerryMcAuliffe for governor. His opponent, @GlennYoungkin, embraces the model of @GovRonDeSantis and FL on COVID, and Sam Brownback and KS on fiscal policy. Ugh. Proven moderate competence > reckless right-wing pandering. https://t.co/ZmOhC0M575

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 24, 2021

If you want to understand the delusions that permeated the early-stage war on terror, pick up a copy of An End to Evil by Richard Perle and David Frum. Published in 2004, it reads like a fever dream one might have after playing Age of Empires on fast mode right before bed. Iraq? Saddam indicted not just himself “but all Arab tyrannies and all of their supporters.” Syria? “Why have we put up with it as long as we have?” (The entire country, apparently.) Everyone from the South Koreans to the peacekeepers in 1994 Rwanda are presented as appeasers for having failed to sufficiently confront evil.

Against all this criminality and cowardice, there can be only one tonic: a whole lot of American bicep-flexing. “When it is in our power and our interest,” Frum and Perle declare, “we should toss dictators aside with no more compunction than a police sharpshooter feels when he downs a hostage-taker.”

The difference, of course, is that sharpshooters tend to not get trapped for the next 20 years in the office buildings they help clear. So it is that even most hawks don’t talk this way anymore. Frum spends his time on Twitter pretending An End to Evil never happened. The antiwar blog LobeLog, meanwhile, noticed a few years ago that Perle had effectively vanished from public life. Some of their fellow neocons have gone and reinvented themselves as realists, asserting that American empire is a hardheaded necessity rather than an idealistic choice. Others have even moderated a bit.

Yet there remain a few stubborn holdouts, those stranded on the island who really do believe the “long war” is still going on. And it is they who have yelped the loudest as President Biden finally withdraws from Afghanistan. This is best illustrated not by a single personality but by an argument, heard from hawkish quarters in recent days. It goes like this: Why shouldn’t the United States remain in Kabul when we still have troops in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, decades after those conflicts ended?

It’s a sloppy comparison for several reasons. In none of those three theaters did America face an active civil war 20 years after the occupations began. And in none of those cases did the government we helped build turn out to be a weak, dysfunctional, on-the-take narco-state. It is also hardly a credit to the interventionist cause to point out that America still has military bases in the most powerful country in Europe and the third largest economy on earth 75 years after World War II ended. It tends instead to confirm what their opponents have said all along: occupations encourage dependence and mission creep.

But more important is the mentality that runs beneath this contention...

Keep reading.

 

Country Beauty

On Twitter.

Also, Victoria Justice.

And Lauren Gray.

Candace Owens on Slavery (VIDEO)

At Prager University:

How Many Remain in Afghanistan?

I've been thinking about this, especially the number of Americans are deadly risk of being left behind.

At the New York Times, "How Many People in Afghanistan Need to be Rescued? The Number Remains Elusive":

WASHINGTON — More than 70,700 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan as of Tuesday evening. Nearly 6,000 American troops are protecting the international airport in Kabul, the capital. And additional U.S. flights are leaving every 45 minutes.

The Biden administration has provided a stream of updates about its airlift of Americans, Afghans and others since Aug. 14, when the Taliban closed in on Kabul. Yet U.S. officials are reluctant to offer an estimate of the one number that matters most: How many people ultimately need to be rescued.

That tally has never been more critical, with the American government preparing to wind down evacuations as the U.S. military begins its final withdrawal from Afghanistan. On Tuesday, President Biden reaffirmed his plan to remove all American troops by Aug. 31, although he left room “to adjust the timeline should that become necessary.”

But U.S. officials believe that thousands of Americans remain in Afghanistan, including some far beyond Kabul, without a safe or fast way to get to the airport. Tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government over the last 20 years, and are eligible for special visas, are desperate to leave.

And refugee and resettlement experts estimate that at least 300,000 Afghans are in imminent danger of being targeted by the Taliban for associating with Americans and U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

Recounting his conversations with other world leaders, Mr. Biden said Tuesday evening at the White House that they had agreed to “continue our close cooperation to get people out as efficiently and safely as possible.”

“We’re currently on a pace to finish by August the 31st,” Mr. Biden said. “The sooner we can finish the better.”

But other senior U.S. officials doubt the evacuations will be complete by then.

“Americans want us to stay until we get our people out, and so do our allies,” Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said Tuesday. Mr. Biden, he added, should “tell the Taliban we’re getting our people out however long it takes.”

Administration officials say the numbers are changing on an hourly basis, if not minute-to-minute, especially since other countries have their own evacuation operations.

But the American effort is unquestionably the largest. Given the resources and risk the United States is putting into the evacuation, how can the government not know how many people it is planning to fly out?

“Very good question! We are wondering the same,” said James Miervaldis, the chairman of No One Left Behind, a nonprofit that advocates the relocation of Afghan interpreters to the United States. Here is what we know...

Keep reading.

 

Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan

At Amazon, Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan: A History.

Desperation Sets In

The U.S. issued a warning on Afghanistan today, and of course, hopes have been shattered among the people.

At NYT, "Desperation sets in for Afghans after return of Taliban":

For many Afghans, desperation is deepening. At least a quarter of a million people have fled their homes since the end of May as the Taliban marched steadily across the country. About 80 percent of them are women and children, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

At a park in central Kabul on Saturday morning, people who had escaped the Taliban’s march across northern Afghanistan in recent weeks were stuck in dust-blown makeshift settlements, washing their clothes in a stream and unsure of where to turn.

Days after they reached Kabul, the Taliban seized the city of six million, and now they may be stranded without assistance as international aid groups try to evacuate staff members who they worry are at risk of Taliban reprisals.

Known for barring girls from school and chopping off the hands of thieves when the group led the country in the late 1990s, the Taliban have presented conflicting signals of how they intend to govern this time. Top leaders have pledged to protect the rights of women and the free press, even as fighters beat protesters and search for supporters of the former government or its Western allies, according to the United Nations and witnesses.

The former insurgents have also demonstrated little aptitude for administering basic services in a country that is heavily reliant on foreign aid...

Keep reading.

 

'Dumkirk'

Today's cover.

And you know, even in defeat the Britain triumphed and Churchill roused the nation with his "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940.

And the U.S. today, well, you can fill in the blanks ____________________.

You Will Wear Masks Forever

Well, at least in California. And nationwide, well, frankly, I thought I saw a headline somewhere this last week saying the Biden administration is considering one.

Masking and vaccinations by force. Surely, not America?

Well, at least in California.

At LAT, "Delta variant likely to bring a fall and winter of masks, vaccine mandates, anxiety":

The rise of the Delta variant has upended previous optimistic projections of herd immunity and a return to normal life, with many health experts believing mask mandates and tougher vaccine requirements will be needed in the coming months to avoid more serious coronavirus surges.

While there are promising signs that California’s fourth COVID-19 surge may be starting to flatten, the fall and winter will bring new challenges as people stay indoors more often and vaccine immunity begins to wane.

The rapid spread of Delta among the unvaccinated — and the still relatively small number of “breakthrough” cases among the vaccinated — shows that significant increases in inoculations will help stop the spread. In fact, officials are now preparing to provide booster shots to those who already got their first series of vaccinations, saying the extra dose is needed to keep people protected.

Still, “the vaccines themselves are not going to likely be sufficient. And during times of increased transmission, we’ll need other tools available to protect all of us — and particularly those who, at this time, can’t be vaccinated, like our children,” said UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo

California is in a better position than other states because of relatively higher vaccination rates, and there is little appetite for a return to stay-at-home orders. But in settings where more people gather, strategies that can be used to keep COVID-19 controlled include ensuring people are either vaccinated, have a recent negative coronavirus test or both, Bibbins-Domingo said.

“There will be a time when we have our masks off again as transmission goes back down. But I think we’re going to have to be prepared that if we’re in an environment when there’s more virus around, that it is sensible that we have another layer of protection — and that will be masks,” Bibbins-Domingo said. “And I don’t think we’re going to be totally throwing our masks away anytime soon, frankly.”

Policies like mandatory masking and requiring vaccines or regular testing in workplaces “are going to be very important if we are ever going to get over this pandemic,” said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a medical epidemiologist and infectious-diseases expert at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

It was once thought that as soon as 70% to 85% of a population was vaccinated, communities would reach a high enough level of herd immunity that the threat of COVID-19 would be mostly behind us. Now, “that’s out the window,” Bibbins-Domingo said, and computer models suggest the coronavirus will be with us for the foreseeable future. “Almost certainly, we’ll be dealing with it this winter.”

How long the pandemic will last depends on any new variants that emerge, the ability to adapt the vaccines to them and temporary measures that may be needed to tamp down surges, Bibbins-Domingo said.

There are several key factors that have altered what we previously understood about COVID-19 and underscore just how far off the end of the pandemic still is.

The first is the emergence of the Delta variant — at least twice as transmissible as the previous dominant variant, Alpha, and capable of producing a viral load up to 1,000 times greater in the upper throat.

“The big challenge with Delta is that it’s so much more transmissible than the original strain. ... And really, this is possibly an unprecedented change in terms of the amount of the” shift in the so-called R-naught, or the basic reproductive rate of the coronavirus, Shane Crotty, a vaccine researcher at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, recently told a forum at UC San Francisco.

Originally, a person infected with the ancestral strain of the coronavirus spread it to 2.5 other people on average. But the Delta variant is estimated to spread to five to eight other people. That means that within 10 cycles of transmission of the virus, in a population with no immunity to the virus, instead of fewer than 10,000 people being infected, more than 60 million will be infected, Dr. Carlos del Rio, an Emory University epidemiologist and infectious-diseases expert, said at the same UC San Francisco forum.

This is why vaccine mandates will become more important, especially at places of employment, del Rio said. “I think the going phrase that we’re hearing over and over is: ‘No jab, no job.’ And I think mandates are going to make a big difference,” he said.

Second, breakthrough infections — in which fully vaccinated people become infected with COVID-19 — are still uncommon but no longer rare. “I think vaccinated persons are much safer than unvaccinated persons, but they’re not completely safe. Breakthrough infections occur often enough with Delta that you will see them,” del Rio said.

While a vaccinated person with a breakthrough infection can transmit the virus to others, he or she is likely to be infectious for a significantly fewer number of days, del Rio said. “And therefore your contribution to transmission is much lower if you’re vaccinated than if you’re not.”

And that’s why wearing masks indoors remains important. Del Rio said many infectious-diseases doctors never stopped masking indoors, even after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it wasn’t necessary for fully vaccinated people.

Vaccinated people with breakthrough infections have much more mild illnesses because the body is already equipped to defend itself against the virus and likely can avoid lung illnesses or hospitalization, said Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, a deputy health officer for Orange County. But without prior immunity, the virus can lodge deeper into the body and cause more severe illness, eventually making it very difficult to breathe...

 

They're Liars and Hypocrites, But You Knew That Already

Very passionate essay, from Caitlyn Flanagan, at the Atlantic, "The Week the Left Stopped Caring About Human Rights."

Steve Coll, Directorate S

At Amazon, Steve Coll, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Besieged in the Culture Wars

 At NYT, "The School Culture Wars: ‘You Have Brought Division to Us’":

July and August are supposed to be the quietest months of the school year. But not this time.

In Williamson County, Tenn., protesters outside a packed, hourslong school board meeting last week shouted, “No more masks, no more masks.”

In Loudoun County, Va., a debate over transgender rights brought raucous crowds to school board meetings this summer, culminating last week with dueling parking lot rallies. The board approved a policy that allows transgender students to join sports teams that match their gender identity and requires teachers to use transgender students’ pronouns.

And, in a particular low point for school board-parental relations, a woman railed against critical race theory during a meeting in the Philadelphia area, yelling, “You have brought division to us.” After the allotted time, the school board president walked off the stage, into the audience, and took the

As summer fades into fall, nearly all of the major issues dividing the country have dropped like an anvil on U.S. schools.

“The water pressure is higher than it has ever been and there are more leaks than I have fingers,” said Kevin Boyles, a school board official in Brainerd, Minn., who said he recently received 80 emails in three days about face masks. He described being followed to his car and called “evil” after a board meeting where he supported a commitment to equity. Another time, a man speaking to the board about race quoted the Bible and said he would “dump hot coals on all your heads.”

“You are just trying to keep everything from collapsing,” Mr. Boyles said.

Schools were already facing a crisis of historic proportions. They are reopening just as a highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is tearing through communities. They need to create a safe environment for teachers and students, while helping children who have been through major trauma.

And then there are the education gaps that must be made up: For many of the country’s 56 million schoolchildren, it has been a year of lost learning and widening inequities.

But at this critical moment, many school officials find themselves engulfed in highly partisan battles, which often have distracted from the most urgent issues. The tense environment comes amid a growing movement to recall school board officials, over everything from teachings on race to school closures. Nationwide, there have been at least 58 recall efforts targeting more than 140 officials this year, more than the previous two years combined, according to Ballotpedia.

As a superintendent in Albany, Ore., Melissa Goff first noticed pushback when her district closed classrooms during the pandemic; a slate of candidates ran for school board largely on a platform to open schools.

But by the time students returned this spring, a new flash point had emerged: Should police officers welcome students back to campus? Though it was a local tradition, some parents said their children, sensitive after a year of Black Lives Matter protests, felt afraid.

Ms. Goff asked the police to pull back. Dozens of people — including a school board candidate riding on a military vehicle — protested at the district office, some calling for her resignation.

Then in May, Ms. Goff said she came under fire for a plan to hold vaccine clinics at local high schools. Though she said the clinics were intended to reach low-income families and people of color, Ms. Goff said some people saw the effort as “making kids

get vaccines.” By the summer, a new school board had taken over and Ms. Goff was fired without cause. The school board chair, in an email, said Ms. Goff was not fired for her position on equity and diversity, but pointed to “divisiveness” and “underlying problems created by the district administration.”

Ms. Goff, who has worked in education for 26 years, said she had never seen so many political issues converge on schools. There was not just one contentious issue, she said. “It was every place you turned.”

This is hardly the first time the classroom has become the center of civil strife. From the teaching of evolution in the 1920s to the push for school desegregation in the 1950s, schools have often been a nexus for major societal conflicts.

“Schools are particularly fraught spaces because they represent a potential challenge to the family and the authority of parents,” said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an associate professor of history at the New School in New York City.

The two biggest divides in schools today are also highly volatile because they challenge fundamental narratives of what it means to be an American. The debate over mask mandates puts two values into conflict, collective responsibility versus personal liberty. And an examination of the country’s history of racism challenges cherished ideas about America’s founding...

This is mind-boggling to me, but no surprise. The tension at my college is the highest it's ever been in over twenty years.

 Still more.

Theresa May Speaks Out (VIDEO)

She's a backbencher now, and, frankly, I'd forgotten about her since her resignation in 2019.

Obviously, she's not too pleased with the debacle in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: What Went Wrong?

Almost everything, it seems. 

At LAT, "News Analysis: What went wrong in Afghanistan?":

WASHINGTON — Twenty years ago, the mission seemed direct, clear and just: Invade Afghanistan and pursue, capture or kill Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and his armed band of followers.

Achieving that goal also included overthrowing the Taliban, and steadily the mission morphed into a vast, complicated experiment to reshape a society that few Americans understood.

After a war stretching over four U.S. presidencies and costing more than a trillion dollars and tens of thousands of lives, the once-routed Taliban has retaken power in a swift march across Afghanistan, barely meeting resistance, occupying the presidential palace and driving the remaining U.S. troops to a single redoubt: an airport now swamped with Afghans desperate to flee.

Despite its military might, expertise and investment, the United States badly miscalculated the speed and absolutism with which the Taliban would overtake Afghanistan and is handing a battered country back to the very people the U.S. sought to defeat, with any gains in nation-building, education and civil rights in jeopardy.

Why? And who is to blame?

The Afghan army “chose not to fight for its country,” U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday, hours after Taliban militants entered the capital, Kabul, and occupied the president’s residence.

On Wednesday, as criticism of the withdrawal mounted, and finger-pointing and postmortems began, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concurred while also recognizing broader blame.

Afghan security forces “had the training, the size, the capability to defend their country,” he said at a tense briefing at the Pentagon. “This comes down to the issue of will and leadership. I did not, nor did anyone else, see a collapse of an army that size in 11 days.”

In fact, the reality is much more complicated. Putting all of the blame on the Afghan army, government and people ignores U.S. directives, policy and lack of knowledge. It’s also a hollow analysis of what the United States was trying to do in Afghanistan in the two decades since President George W. Bush launched the initial invasion.

The invasion For years, Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network thrived in Afghanistan under the Taliban, which then ruled most of the country. Shortly after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people, Bush dispatched American troops to Afghanistan to hit the terrorist group where it lived.

It took a decade to finally assassinate Bin Laden, in 2011, in Pakistan. One distraction during that decade was Bush’s ill-fated decision to launch a second war in Iraq, despite the country having no relation to the Sept. 11 attacks. Today, military officials and analysts say the threat from Al Qaeda is diminished but not gone. Al Qaeda franchises have sprung up in parts of Africa, for example, where they did not operate previously. Moreover, according to the United Nations, the Taliban never completely severed its ties to Al Qaeda, despite its pledge to do so.

The Taliban surrendered in December 2001, although many of its forces hid in impenetrable mountain ranges or in neighboring Pakistan and other countries. But the U.S. mission was just beginning. It shifted to “nation-building,” an attempt to construct democratic institutions, to open civil rights for all, including women, and to fashion a system of freedom familiar to the West but unknown in Kabul.

It included missteps, many experts say, that the U.S. military and its civilian partners have often made — misjudging local cultures from Vietnam to Bosnia-Herzegovina, botching realistic goals and making serious errors.

Creating a dependent army

Many observers now are questioning how an army built with nearly a trillion dollars in U.S. and NATO funding over two decades and tons of materiel — from rockets to Humvees — could so quickly collapse. It appears that as the Taliban marched across the country in the last couple of weeks, its fighters met little resistance from the U.S.-trained military.

Reports from several provincial capitals said local elders and tribal chieftains negotiated with advancing Taliban troops, agreeing not to raise arms against them in exchange for a peaceful resolution. Some Afghans say that arrangement extended nationwide.

“The leadership at one point gave up and told the security forces not to resist,” Roya Rahmani, until last month the Afghan ambassador to the U.S., said this week. “Over the last few weeks, they continuously received calls from Kabul asking them to surrender, asking them not to resist.”

Afghan security forces and ground troops were operating without the air power that had been vital in staving off Taliban advances. At some point — it is not clear when — supportive airstrikes stopped. In recent weeks, the U.S. declined to provide most air support, leaving Afghan troops on their own.

Under U.S. tutelage, the Afghan army became increasingly dependent on its American patrons, so withdrawal of that support was devastating.

“They baked dependency into the Afghan forces,” said Laurel Miller, former acting special envoy for Afghanistan now at the International Crisis Group, describing the U.S. strategy.

She said U.S. efforts too frequently ignored facts on the ground, underestimated the sway of powerful regional warlords and failed to sufficiently take into account vast corruption and the collapse in morale among the rank and file as well as deficiencies in Afghan leadership and command.

Miller and others also gave some credit to the Taliban as fighters — fiercely dedicated and zealously motivated. Strategically, the Taliban, as it sought to regroup, concentrated many of its operations in northern Afghanistan, preventing a resurgence of the so-called Northern Alliance — militias that helped initially to defeat the Taliban. It continued to grow stronger even during a massive, temporary troop surge ordered by President Obama.

The U.S. military made a major mistake in trying to create an army replicating U.S. standards, which made little sense in Afghanistan, said James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander with responsibility for Afghanistan.

“I believe we probably trained them in a way that did not prepare them for this kind of moment in the sense that we tried to make them a mini version of ourselves,” he told MSNBC. “Dependent on intelligence, dependent on air cover, that was not as it turns out the force that was needed to defeat the Taliban.”

The levels of corruption in the Afghan military and government were something U.S. officials never came to terms with.

The Biden administration has repeatedly asserted that the Afghan army was a fighting force of 300,000, dwarfing the Taliban. But the payrolls of the Afghan military and police contained thousands of “ghost” soldiers, fighters who did not exist but were listed so officials could abscond with their payments.

A government watchdog, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, or SIGAR, in recent years found a gap between recorded and actual strength levels in the tens of thousands of personnel; in southern pro-Taliban provinces, 50% to 70% of police positions were filled by people who did not exist, the agency found.

The widespread corruption also served to demoralize the Afghan fighting forces, which by many accounts were formidable and relatively professional...

Keep reading.

 

'I Can't Help Myself'

Described by Billboard as a "spirited, fast -paced wailer performed in unique style."

The Four Tops. A phenomenal hit. 

Another live version here, even more excitedly upbeat.

U.S.-Allied Afghan Forces Are in Hiding

Pfft.

Every day I get more and more disgusted with Biden — and that’s saying a lot.

At NYT, "Hunted by the Taliban, U.S.-Allied Afghan Forces Are in Hiding":

#Warning⚠️: Video contains graphic images#Kandahar: Afghans are taken out of their homes and killed by Taliban. Videos have emerged on social media showing scores of dead bodies on roads and streets in the province. #SanctionOnPakistan #SanctionPakisan #Afghan_lives_matter pic.twitter.com/Wao6y9MaiO

— RTA World (@rtaworld) August 13, 2021

Columns of Afghan soldiers in armored vehicles and pickup trucks sped through the desert to reach Iran. Military pilots flew low and fast to the safety of Uzbekistan’s mountains.

Thousands of Afghan security force members managed to make it to other countries over the past few weeks as the Taliban rapidly seized the country. Others managed to negotiate surrenders and went back to their homes — and some kept their weapons and joined the winning side.

They were all part of the sudden atomization of the national security forces that the United States and its allies spent tens of billions of dollars to arm, train and stand against the Taliban, a two-decade effort at institution-building that vanished in just a few days.

But tens of thousands of other Afghan grunts, commandos and spies who fought to the end, despite the talk in Washington that the Afghan forces simply gave up, have been left behind. They are now on the run, hiding and hunted by the Taliban.

Continue reading the main story

“There’s no way out,” said Farid, an Afghan commando, in a text message to an American soldier who fought with him. Farid, who agreed to be identified by his first name only, said he was hiding in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, trapped after the regular army units surrendered around him. “I am praying to be saved.”

Accounts of the Taliban searching for people they believe worked with and fought alongside U.S. and NATO forces are beginning to trickle out, offering a bloody counterpoint to the kinder and gentler face the militants have been trying to present to the world.

The militants are threatening to arrest or punish family members if they cannot find the people they are seeking, according to former Afghan officials, a confidential report prepared for the United Nations and American veterans who have been contacted by desperate Afghans who served alongside them. Most spoke on condition of anonymity to protect friends and loved ones still hiding in Afghanistan.

The officials said the Taliban had been combing through records at the ministry of defense and interior and the headquarters of Afghanistan’s spy service, drawing up lists of operatives to search for. And there are more and more reports that the militants are exacting swift and fatal revenge when they are found.

One former interpreter for American Special Forces said he saw another man gunned down feet from him on the mere suspicion that he had worked with foreign forces.

In the southern city of Kandahar, video posted on social media last week by RTA, Afghanistan’s public broadcaster, showed dozens of bodies left by the road, many of them reportedly Afghan soldiers and officials executed by the Taliban. RTA itself is now in the hands of the Taliban.

How many Afghan soldiers and security officials are on the run is unclear. Dozens of Afghan pilots escaped to Uzbekistan, where 22 planes and 24 helicopters carrying nearly 600 men arrived on Sunday, according to Uzbek officials; an unknown number made it to Iran, former Afghan officials said.

On paper, the Afghan security forces number around 300,000. But because of corruption, desertion and casualties, only a sixth of that number were actually in the fight against the Taliban this year, U.S. officials say.

Thousands surrendered as the Taliban rolled through the country, laying down their weapons after being promised they would not be harmed. The Taliban so far appears to have stuck with those deals — historically a common feature of Afghan warfare — and the militants seemed far more focused on the 18,000 Army commandos, many of whom did not surrender, and officers from the country’s spy service, the National Directorate of Security...

Alexis Ren, Ashley Tavort, and Caroline Vreeland

It's a good day!

Ms. Alexis is on Twitter.

Ashley Tavort is here.

And also Caroline Vreeland here and here.

Clarissa Ward Reporting from Afghanistan (VIDEO)

 He's either foolish or brave. 

Either way, it's been doing phenomenal reporting, even heroic,

At CNN, and Melissa Mackenzie below:

Good grief. @clarissaward is going to need years of therapy after this horror in Afghanistan.

She's doing good work.

God bless her and our soldiers. This is an abomination.

— Melissa Mackenzie (@MelissaTweets) August 20, 2021

Kamala Harris Goes to Ground

She's upside-down in a recent poll.

See, NYP, "Kamala Harris tanking in poll as she goes to ground on Afghan withdrawal."

'The Night House' Review (VIDEO)

Super, scary, scintillating.

A modern-day psychological thriller, and worth your time.

At the L.A. Times, "Review: Rebecca Hall keeps the tension building in ‘The Night House’."

Douglas London, The Recruiter

At Amazon, Douglas London, The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.

London was the CIA's Counterterrorism Chief for South and Southwest Asia befoe his retirement in 2019.

Tucker Carlson Slams Biden on Afghan Refugees (VIDEO)

CNN was hammering Tucker today during their programming. It's like a night and day contrast: CNN's boosting the Democrats (for example, in its reporting on the serious threat from Larry Elder to Governor Newsom in next month's recall election) and Fox News (especially the evening opinion segments, though not exclusively, i.e., Bret Baier) has been eviscerating Biden on the disastrous crisis in Afghanistan.

Below is the long segment that got the folks over at CNN all hot and bothered. Indeed, Don Lemon took on Tucker in last night's segment. These goobers are shaken.

I should note that I'm not against accepting Afghan refugees, as long as they've been comprehensibly vetted for terrorist activity (or any of the slightest collaboration with the Taliban, al Qaeda, or any or all of the many other totalitarian jihadists across the international system). And to note, apparently even President Trump has flip-flopped on the issue of accepting Afghan refugees to the U.S.

At Fox News:

Protests Threaten Taliban Rule (VIDEO)

That's the New York Times' take. 

But if the Taliban are a truly totalitarian force, they won't stand for these protests too long. They'll arrest, torture, imprison, murder, assassinate, and slaughter any and all opponents of the new regime. 

See, "As demonstrations spread, the Taliban face growing challenges in running the nation."

Bernard-Henri, Levy Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

At Amazon, Bernard-Henri, Levy Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

Liz Cheney on 'This Week' (VIDEO)

The defeat in Afghanistan will certainly resonate in international politics for years to come. I'm still gobsmacked yet fascinated about this whole thing, especially how swiftly things fell apart, and the shape of the future for the nation. The Afghan people are worthy of your prays. 

I'm also interested in it from a policy perspective. I'm neoconservative, a dreaded "neocon," to listen to all these pro-isolationism and "Never Trumpers," the majority of whom were warmongering boosters just a few years ago. I saw former Breitbart writer John Nolte on Twitter ragging about how awful U.S. policy has been, but I'd bet if you check the archives there from, say, a decade ago, you'd find all kinds of attacks on President Obama and his own pledge to surge the troops with a firm deadline for a troop withdraw, to say the least.

To be honest, the fact is each and all the last four presidents bear responsibly, but clearly, none more than President Biden.

What to do now? I mean, if I were in charge of course U.S. troops would have stayed. The U.S. would have maintained bases and prisons, and would have had robust air-power to support ground operations, including throughout the hinterlands across the country. A number of commentators have noted that just keeping U.S. forces in country, with no announcement of a troop withdrawal, would have been preferred, and of course we could have temporarily surged troops if things got out of hand. 

Now we'll have to continue fighting there, for one thing, to prevent a humanitarian and regional security nightmare from taking place. This may not be a popular position right now, but it's stupid to argue that the U.S today is more secure today than it was just a week or so ago. 

At the video, Liz Cheney argues that instead of ending the war, U.S. policy --- in both the Trump and Biden administrations --- has guaranteed the war there will continue.

She's not a popular figure in her party, and it'll be interesting to see how she fares in the 2022 midterms, but she's firm and consistent in her positions, and I think she's great.

Watch: 

Afghan Women Fear for Their LIves

Tragic, but no surprise, at all. 

At NYT, "For Afghan Women, Taliban Stirs Fears of a Return to a Repressive Past":

As Afghan women remained cloistered at home in Kabul, fearful for their lives and their futures, a starkly different image played out on Tuesday on Tolo News, an Afghan television station: a female presenter interviewing a Taliban official.

Sitting several feet away from Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a member of the Taliban’s media team, the host, Beheshta Arghand, asked him about the situation in Kabul and the Taliban’s conducting house-to-house searches in the Afghan capital.

“The entire world now recognizes that the Taliban are the real rulers of the country,” he said, adding: “I am still astonished that people are afraid of Taliban.”

But many are deeply fearful, among them the millions of Afghan women who are afraid of a return to a repressive past, when the Taliban were in power from 1996 to 2001, and barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. In 1996, a woman in Kabul had the end of her thumb cut off for wearing nail varnish, according to Amnesty International. In recent months, some women have been flogged by Taliban fighters for having their faces uncovered.

In the two decades after the U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban, the United States invested more than $780 million to encourage women’s rights. Girls and women have joined the military and police forces, held political office, competed in the Olympics and scaled the heights of engineering on robotics teams — things that once seemed unimaginable under the Taliban.

Now, however, a central question remains: Will the Taliban once again trample over women’s rights with the same velocity they captured the country?

The Tolo News interview was part of a broader campaign by the Taliban since taking power to present a more moderate face to the world and to help tame the fear gripping the country. They are encouraging workers back to their jobs — and have even encouraged women to return to work and to take part in the government.

“The Islamic Emirate doesn’t want women to be victims,” Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, was quoted as saying by The Associated Press, using the militants’ name for Afghanistan. “They should be in the government structure according to Shariah law.”

Still, worried about running afoul of local Taliban officials, many women have remained shuttered at home. Kabul residents have been tearing down advertisements showing women without head scarves in recent days. In some areas of Afghanistan, women have been told not to leave home without being accompanied by a male relative, and girls’ schools have been closed.

And, despite their pledges of no reprisals, there have already been reports of Taliban seizing property, hunting down government workers and journalists and attacking crowds of civilians.

At the same time, the Taliban was showing indications that it was, at least for the moment, adopting a more tolerant stance regarding the role of women and girls. Unicef, the United Nations’ children’s organization, said one of its representatives met a health commissioner on Monday in Herat and reported that he requested that women who work for the health department return to work.

That made the work of Tolo’s female journalists, including a reporter out on the street, all the more notable.

Matthieu Aikins, a journalist who has reported widely on Afghanistan, described the Tolo interview as “remarkable, historic, heartening,” although he pointed out that during recent peace talks in Qatar, the Taliban had given access to female journalists from Afghanistan and other countries.

Afghanistan observers said that while it is not unheard-of for the Taliban to grant interviews to female journalists, including international correspondents from CNN and other outlets, they are rare inside the country... Yeah, CNN's Clarissa Ward, apparently stuck behind enemy lines. I literally pray she has security. I watched her segment yesterday, and Wolf Blitzer finished off that part of the discussion admonisher her to stay safe...

Such a beautiful, beautiful woman, and wearing a burqa, as all Afghan women will be wearing now that the nation's in Taliban hands.

I shake my head and say to myself: I must pray.

 

Norman Podhoretz, World War IV

At Amazon, Norman Podhoretz, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism.

War in Afghanistan Ends in Ignominy and Shame

At NYT, "For America, and Afghanistan, the Post-9/11 Era Ends Painfully":

An era that began two decades ago with the shock of hijacked planes flying into American skyscrapers drew to a close this week with desperate Afghans clinging to American planes as they tried to escape the chaos of Kabul. Some fell; one was found dead in the landing gear.

A colossal bipartisan investment of American force, treasure and diplomacy to defeat a hostile ideology bent on the creation of an Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has failed. Over four presidencies, two Republican and two Democratic, more than 2,400 Americans gave their lives, and more than $1 trillion dollars was spent, for shifting Afghan goals, many of which proved unattainable.

The curtain came down on the post-9/11 era, with the Taliban retaking control of the country that served as the base for the attack on America, a full-circle debacle for the United States that will engrave Afghanistan painfully in the national memory.

Mistakes and illusions and a particular American naïveté, or hubris, about remaking the world in its image led to the swift Taliban takeover almost two decades after its defeat, but a more fundamental factor also played a part. With China flexing its muscles, the nation’s priorities shifted. The relative power of the United States is not what it was 20 years ago.

The country’s capacity and inclination to commit resources to faraway struggles ebbed. Absent the Cold War, Americans have little appetite for the kind of open-ended military commitment that cemented democracies in Germany, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere.

“As president, I’m adamant we focus on the threats we face today, in 2021, not yesterday’s threats,” President Biden said Monday, defending his decision to proceed with a rapid military withdrawal.

“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” Mr. Biden said.

Yet if there has been a single thrust to Mr. Biden’s presidency, it has been the defense of democracies at an “inflection point” with repressive forms of governance spreading, and the reassertion of American values.

“America is back,” has been the refrain. But the question will now be raised: To do what? A planned summit in December conceived to reinforce democracies looks far less credible now that Afghan schools may be closed to girls again and Afghans who believed in freedom are desperate to flee.

“For decades Afghanistan has been the victim of people who wanted to do it good,” said Lakhdar Brahimi, an Algerian diplomat who served as United Nations Special Representative for Afghanistan and Iraq. “At this point there was no good time to leave, so this was as good — or as bad — as any,” he added.

The chaos in Kabul as the United States and its allies scrambled to evacuate their nationals, and the Afghans who had helped them, has inevitably been compared to the desperate scenes in Saigon in April 1975 as North Vietnamese troops took the city. Then, as now, a homegrown guerrilla insurgency undid a superpower’s designs.

The analogy should not be overdrawn, however. The United States was bitterly divided over the Vietnam War. Today most Americans want out of Afghanistan. Their priorities are domestic.

As Mr. Biden said, an overriding American objective was achieved: Islamist terrorism, in the form of Al Qaeda, was largely defeated over the past two decades. But the political Islam embraced by the Taliban has retained its magnetism as an alternative to secular Western models of governance.

It remains to be seen whether a newly savvy Taliban, honed by diplomatic experience that may have cooled something of the zealous ardor of the seminary, will honor promises to prevent Afghanistan becoming a terrorist haven again...

C'mon. No one believes the Taliban won't renew their global jihad. It goes without saying U.S. national security is more a risk than it was just last week.

And it's all on Biden, and he's getting hammered for it.

Still more.  

Human Remains Found in Wheel Well of C-17 Military Plane That Departed from Kabul

Absolutely horrifying. 

At ABC News, "The discovery was made after a day of chaotic evacuations from Kabul's airport":

A U.S. official has confirmed that human remains were found inside the wheel well of a C-17 military plane that had been swarmed by hundreds of people on the tarmac as it took off at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

The discovery was made upon landing at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday.

A dramatic video taken earlier Monday showed some people clinging to the plane as it taxied down the runway in Kabul.

A defense official said the individuals swarming the plane had breached the runway from the civilian side of the airport. At the airport in Kabul, there is a side for military operations and another side for commercial flights.

Air operations were suspended for hours at the airport Monday because of the crush of Afghan civilians desperate to leave Kabul. Operations resumed after the U.S. military, Turkish forces and other troops forcibility removed 15,000 Afghan civilians who had breached the runway, a U.S. official said...

Keep reading.

 

Raymond Ibrahim on Totalitarian Islam (VIDEO)

At Prager University:

Republican Candidates Vow to Rollback Mask and Vaccination Mandates

 At LAT, "GOP recall candidates vow to roll back Newsom mask, vaccine rules. But can they?":

Conservative talk-show host Larry Elder, who recent polls show leads the field of candidates running to replace Newsom if he’s ousted, has promised to take quick action to undo Newsom’s policies. During a news conference on Friday, he called mask mandates an “assault on freedom.”

“When I win I will fight any and all vaccine and mask govt mandates at state and local level,” Elder tweeted to his followers.

Elder’s comment came shortly after San Francisco decided to require proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for restaurants, bars, gyms and other indoor venues. The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday called for a similar ordinance. The day before, Elder and other GOP candidates were critical of Newsom’s announcement that public school teachers and staff members will be required to be vaccinated or be tested regularly for the coronavirus. That order followed earlier directives by the Newsom administration that, with limited exceptions, require all public school children to wear masks in class, all healthcare workers to be vaccinated and all state employees to be vaccinated or tested for the virus.

Other well-known Republicans running in the recall election also oppose mask mandates, including former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, 2018 gubernatorial candidate John Cox, Rocklin Assemblyman Kevin Kiley and former Northern California Rep. Doug Ose.

“I have consistently urged my fellow Californians to join me in getting vaccinated, but mandates are not the solution,” Faulconer said in a statement Wednesday.

At a GOP debate the week before, when Faulconer was asked if he would take action as governor to ban mask mandates at schools as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has done in Florida, he sidestepped the question.

Ose called the mask mandates a “significant overreach” of government authority.

“We must draw the line and protect people’s freedoms,” Cox said...

Keep reading.

 

Drop Dead People of Afghanistan and American and Afghani Military and Civilian Personnel in Country (VIDEO)

Disgusting dishonest of the Commander in Chief, not to mention the cowardly blame game. 

At WSJ, "Biden to Afghanistan: Drop Dead":

President Biden told the world on Monday that he doesn’t regret his decision to withdraw rapidly from Afghanistan, or even the chaotic, incompetent way the withdrawal has been executed. He is determined in retreat, defiant in surrender, and confident in the rightness of consigning the country to jihadist rule. We doubt the world will see it the same way in the days, months and years ahead.

Mr. Biden refused to accept responsibility for the botched withdrawal while blaming others. He blamed Donald Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban and falsely claimed again that he was trapped. He blamed his three predecessors for not getting out of Afghanistan. He blamed the Afghans for not fighting hard enough, their leaders for fleeing, and even Afghans who helped us for not leaving sooner. The one group he conspicuously did not blame was the Taliban, who once harbored Osama bin Laden and may protect his terrorist successor.

The President made glancing reference to the horrible scenes unfolding in Kabul and especially at the airport, though again without addressing the mistakes that led to them. Had the U.S. not given up the air base at Bagram, now controlled by the Taliban, the U.S. would not now have to fight to control Kabul’s commercial airfield.

The chaotic scenes at the airport, with Afghans hanging from a U.S. military plane and two falling from the sky to their deaths, will be the indelible images of this debacle. They are the echo of 9/11, with people falling from the sky, that Mr. Biden didn’t anticipate when he chose the 20th anniversary of 9/11 as his withdrawal deadline.

Instead of taking responsibility, Mr. Biden played to the sentiment of Americans who are tired of foreign military missions. It’s a powerful point to speak of sending a child to risk his life in a foreign country, and no doubt it will resonate with many Americans. It is a question that every President should ask.

But the President was dishonest in framing the U.S. mission merely as fighting in another country’s “civil war.” The U.S. didn’t remain in Afghanistan for 20 years to send women to school or to “nation build.” The core mission was to prevent the country from again becoming a terrorist safe haven. The Taliban’s victory will now attract thousands of young jihadists from around the world, and they will have Americans and the U.S. homeland in their sights. Mr. Biden said he would maintain a “counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability” to strike camps in Afghanistan, but that will be much harder from the distance of the Persian Gulf. This is a far bigger risk than he lets on, as U.S. intelligence agencies know.

Mr. Biden was also dishonest in framing his Afghan decision as a false choice between total withdrawal and sending tens of thousands of troops again. He knows his own advisers, military and civilian, believed they could support the Afghan military with no more than a few thousand troops to supply air power and intelligence.

He also knows the U.S. hasn’t had a single casualty in more than a year in Afghanistan. Even if Mr. Biden was set on withdrawal, he could have done it based on conditions that would have given the Taliban more incentive to negotiate with the government.

Mr. Biden claimed that Afghan leaders Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah had refused his advice to negotiate with the Taliban. That is false. They had been negotiating with the Taliban for months, under enormous pressure from the Trump Administration. The problem is that the Taliban had no incentive to negotiate in good faith when it knew the U.S. was leaving and would be able to take its chances on a military victory.

Like all good liberal internationalists, Mr. Biden thinks you can achieve a diplomatic outcome by diplomacy alone. Mr. Biden’s claim that the U.S. will continue to support the Afghan people and stand for human rights and the women of Afghanistan is the same kind of internationalist twaddle. The Taliban is taking the women of Afghanistan back to the Dark Ages, and the “international community” will do nothing to stop it. Mr. Biden’s words of “support” will be cold comfort when the Taliban knocks on the doors of women who worked in the Afghan government...

Still more.

 

Clint Romesha, Red Platoon

At Amazon, Clint Romesha, Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor.

Over Kabul, Tragedy in the Sky (VIDEO)

As if this entire episode isn't tragic enough. 

At the Guardian U.K.:

Biden Rebuked

If anyone deserves it, it is he.

At NYT, "In Washington, Recriminations Over Afghanistan Emerge Quickly":

WASHINGTON — A conference call between members of Congress and the Biden administration’s top diplomatic and military leaders on Afghanistan turned contentious on Sunday, as lawmakers pressed the administration on how intelligence could have failed so badly and how long the military would help hold the Kabul airport.

Lawmakers said the 45-minute call with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III; and Gen. Mark. A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; was not particularly revelatory.

“It was, I would say, a rote exercise in telling us what we had already learned from the media and social media,” said Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan and a former Army reservist who did conflict analysis in Afghanistan.

But the questioning was pointed and at times contentious, centering on which Afghans the United States would get out and how. Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, who was a State Department official in the Obama administration and a former leader of Human Rights Watch, pressed the top officials on how long the U.S. military would be able to keep the Kabul airport open to charter and commercial flights.

Lawmakers also asked whether the Afghans that Americans were trying to help leave would include more than those who worked for the embassy, interpreters for the military and others with special immigrant visas, or S.I.V.s. The briefers assured them that they would try to help a broader group, including human rights and women’s rights activists, journalists and students of the American University of Afghanistan.

“I want to make sure we don’t pick up and leave when all the Americans and S.I.V.s are out,” Mr. Malinowski said.

Democrats said they did emerge from the call convinced that the military would hold on to the airport for a while, even if the Taliban took full control of the government. But that is no guarantee that all Afghans who want to get out will be able to do so.

“It is overwhelmingly clear to me that this has been a cascade of failures at the Defense Department, with the intelligence community and within our political community,” Mr. Meijer said. “And nothing on the call gave me the confidence that even the magnitude of the failures has been comprehended.”

On the conference call, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican minority leader, was recognized to ask a question, then began a blistering attack on the Biden administration, saying the collapse in Afghanistan would empower China and weaken the U.S. position in the world, according to people on the call.

He put out a statement afterward saying that during the call “I only heard excuses.”

“Amidst the ongoing chaos and ensuing instability at home and abroad, the only solution President Biden has offered is to play politics and baselessly blame his predecessor,” he said...

Keep reading.

 

Abject Desperation as U.S. Evacuates from Afghanistan (VIDEO)

Richard Engel, reporting for NBC News:

The chaos and devastation --- including massive human rights violations inflicted by the Talbian --- is at what seems biblical scale.

Watch:

Ms. Katie

Ms. Katie's on Twitter.

Plus, "ON/OFF FLASHER FRIDAYS OF THE DAY."

More, "BRITNEY SPEARS TOPLESS STRIPTEASE FULL VIDEO IN 4K."

Hananya Naftali

Afghanistan Has Fallen.

Afghanistan: A Return to Brutal Islamic Rule Under Stone-Age Taliban

On comes the barbarity.

At LAT, "The Taliban won. Here’s what that could mean":

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Afghans woke fearfully to both a new and old reality Monday with their country under the control of the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group that ruled Afghanistan with a brutal hand for five years before a U.S.-led invasion ousted it from power in 2001.

The Taliban captured major population centers with breathtaking speed last week, culminating in the fall Sunday of the capital, Kabul, and the ongoing flight of foreign diplomats, including ones from the U.S. There were reports Monday of chaotic scenes — and at least two deaths — at Kabul’s international airport amid the crush of people desperate to flee the country.

The millions of Afghans left behind now face a radically different government, and lifestyle, from the one they have known over the last two decades.

How will the Taliban rule? Have they changed?

When the Islamist insurgent group first came to power in 1996, it billed itself as a corrective movement in a society mired in the lawlessness of years of civil warfare.

Under its harsh interpretation of religious jurisprudence, women and girls were pushed almost completely out of public life and forbidden from employment and schooling. The Taliban imposed sartorial injunctions on both sexes, and mandated such brutal punishment as hand-chopping and execution by stoning — for infractions of its brand of Islamic law. It also banned television and music.

Lately, the militant group has sought to present a more benevolent image.

“We will respect rights of women,” said Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen in an interview with the BBC. “Our policy is that women will have access to education and work.”

But they will also have “to wear the hijab,” he added, referring to the Islamic head covering for women.

Other statements from the Taliban have sought to reassure Afghans and others that insurgents would not engage in looting or revenge killings against members of the former government, and that embassies, international missions and charities would be allowed to continue their work unperturbed. Even international journalists, the group said, could operate after registering with authorities.

Yet the group’s recent actions have been at odds with that rosy image, unverified reports say. In the areas it has recently overrun, girls’ schools have reportedly been closed, women have been plucked out of their place of employment and told to send a male relative in their stead; or forced into marrying a Taliban fighter. (A Taliban spokesman on Twitter vehemently dismissed the last assertion as propaganda.)

It has also re-imposed harsh punishments. Last month in the southwestern province of Helmand, the group’s fighters hanged two men it said had been convicted as child kidnappers. It kept their bodies swinging from a bridge for days.

And far from offering amnesty for those linked to the state, there have been ominous reports from residents on social media and elsewhere of militants going door-to-door asking for government employees. Months before the Taliban entered Afghanistan’s major cities, scores of activists, journalists, prominent female advocates and other members of civil society were killed in a Taliban assassination campaign...

I don't believe "Taliban statements" for one minute. 

It's virtually 100 percent certain the stone-age rule will return to the country, with amputations, mass murder and executions, harsh sharia law and the brutal subjugation of women, many of whom will be murdered by families and communities for violating antediluvian tenets of Islam --- women stoned to death, raped and passed around as sex slaves, and the loss of life prospects. The women's place is in the home and no women can leave the shack without a male escort, at risk of beatings. 

At Least 7 Dead as Chaos Erupts Amid Evacuations at Kabul International Airport

I'm still shaking my head at this debacle.

It's a huge story and an extreme risk for Joe Biden and his presidency. 

At USA Today, "US troops try to manage Kabul airport turmoil; 7 dead as thousands attempt to flee Taliban":

WASHINGTON – U.S. troops Monday sought to gain control of the international airport in Kabul after thousands of Afghans rushed through the civilian side and swarmed the military landing strip. At least seven people have died in the mayhem.

Senior U.S. military officials say the dead include some who fell from a departing American military transport jet, according to the Associated Press. Videos show people clinging to the sides of a U.S. military plane as it taxied, as well as falling from a plane as it took off.

U.S. troops killed two armed individuals at Hamid Karzai International Airport during the chaos there as civilians poured onto runways and halted flights, Pentagon press John Kirby said.

The troops had been fired on, he said, adding that there may be one servicemember wounded, but reports are incomplete.

There is no indication that the individuals killed were members of the Taliban.

There are about 2,500 troops at the airport and another 500 will arrive by Tuesday, he said. In all, there will be 6,000 American forces at the airport.

Amid this, President Joe Biden is expected to address the Taliban's takeover later Monday from the White House.

US troops try to secure civilian side of airport

U.S. troops are attempting to set up barriers to separate the military portion of Hamid Karzai International Airport from the civilian terminal and its landing strip, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The airport had no physical barrier between those operations, although they are separated by a significant distance. Huge crowds of Afghans desperate to flee the country and its new Taliban leadership entered the civilian side of the airport and swarmed a U.S. Air Force C-17 as it taxied on a runway.

U.S., Turkish and other allied troops were clearing the field to allow flights to resume, Kirby said. Large crowds of Afghans remain on the south side of the airport where civilian flights arrive and depart.

The Taliban’s surprisingly swift rout of Afghan security forces and fall of the government on Sunday — including the flight of Afghan President Ashfar Ghani from the country — drew comparisons to the U.S. abandonment of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, as well as harsh criticism for President Joe Biden’s strategy for winding down the nearly 20-year-old war in Afghanistan.

US veterans:'Were all of our sacrifices wasted?' War veterans react to stunning Afghanistan collapse

Jonathan Finer, Deputy White House National Security Adviser, speaking on MSNBC early Monday, confirmed there will be additional US troops at the airport.

"Absolutely there's a plan to secure the airport," Finer said. "That's why we've been able to flow additional forces into Afghanistan without having to fight their way in. There has been contingency planning going on now for a period of month. We believe there are the forces in place to be able to provide security for the airport, particularly with the additional forces that are going to be arriving again today, tomorrow and in the coming days, and the main focus of our efforts today are going to be getting that airport back up and running so the flights can continue."

Biden expected to speak Monday afternoon

Facing heavy criticism for his handling of Afghanistan, Biden planned to return to the White House on Monday and deliver remarks in the afternoon. Biden spent the weekend at Camp David, where he had been out of sight save for an image of him participating in a videoconference that was released Sunday by the White House.

Robert Gibbs, who served as White House press secretary during the Obama administration, called it imperative that Biden speak to the nation and the world.

“Hopefully this happens very soon,” Gibbs tweeted Monday morning. “He must lay out again the reasoning behind his decisions, how he sees the future of this region & what must be done to prevent another safe haven for al-Qaeda to plan attacks."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., put it more bluntly.

“Mr. President,” McCarthy tweeted, “Do your job and address the nation.”

The comparison to Saigon is haunting. If Vietnam was America's first defeat in war, Afghanistan's the second, and far more foreboding.

Still more.

Claire

The editor of Quillette and a stunning beauty --- and fascinating too.

Her face is a picture of serenity. Her skin so fair it's heavenly. And her blonde hair so light and shimmering and dreamy. I suspect she's been in the sun and her tresses have bleached out, for at other times her hair is more an autumnesque shimmer of mystical light grey.

Most intriguing is her Australian accent. I've heard some Aussie men's accents (most notably, "Crocodile Dundee"), but not as frequently women's. The Australians are not so near the British in their mode of pronunciation, for, at least for Ms. Claire, it's seems there's a bit of harshness, almost the hard ack! of the German (harsh in the sense of that back-of-the-throat sound, like "Achtung!" (attention in German).

This is much less a criticism than a celebration of variety, and in Ms. Claire a brush of her fair beauty and wonder.

She's hella smart too, if not a bit arrogant sometimes (all part of her unique personality, as true for anyone).

Via Twitter:

Democrat Congressional Majority in Jeopardy

 Kiss Pelosi's slim House majority goodbye --- and thank goodness!

At NBC News, "Early indicators suggest Democrats' House majority is in jeopardy":

WASHINGTON — Democrats with proven track records of winning tough districts aren't running for re-election. Republicans are enjoying early fundraising windfalls. And, as Donald Trump and Barack Obama both learned the hard way, midterm elections almost always break against the president's party.

The early indicators that showed Democrats poised to make big gains in Congress four years ago now point the other direction, suggesting that the narrow 220-212 Democratic House majority is in serious danger.

"Based on all factors, you'd have to consider Republicans the early favorites for the House majority in 2022," said David Wasserman, who tracks congressional races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

"But as we found out in 2020, surprises can happen, and it's not a done deal," he said. "Democrats' best hope is that Biden's approval rating stays above 50 percent and that Republicans have a tougher time turning out their voters without Trump on the ballot."

Much remains uncertain about the midterm elections more than a year away — including the congressional districts themselves, thanks to the delayed redistricting process. The Senate, meanwhile, looks like more of a toss-up.

House Democrats think voters will reward them for advancing President Joe Biden's generally popular agenda, which involves showering infrastructure money on virtually every district in the country and sending checks directly to millions of parents. And they think voters will punish Republicans for their rhetoric about the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 election.

"Democrats are delivering results, bringing back the economy, getting people back to work, passing the largest middle-class tax cut in history, while Republicans are engaged in frankly violent conspiracy theory rhetoric around lies in service of Donald Trump," said Tim Persico, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

But the challenges Democrats face are real and numerous.

They knew they would face a tough 2022 immediately after 2020, when massive, unexpected GOP gains whittled the Democratic majority to just a handful of seats.

"House Republicans are in a great position to retake the majority," said Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, "but we are taking nothing for granted."

Emmer and other Republicans say they think they can continue to press their advantage on divisive issues supported by the "far left" and make hay of rising inflation and crime rates. "We are going to continue to relentlessly hold House Democrats accountable for their socialist agenda," Emmer said.

Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, one of just seven Democrats representing districts Trump won, shocked politicos Wednesday when he announced that he'd "run out of gas" and wouldn't seek a 14th term in Congress.

His rural district had been trending Republican for years. Kind won re-election last year by just about 10,000 votes.

Incumbency is an enormous advantage — well over 90 percent of members of Congress win re-election — and some Democrats worry that lawmakers like Kind who are abandoning swing districts this year are the only ones who can win them...

It's still early, and while I'm very confident Republicans will take control of both chambers, it's still early and risks for the G.O.P. still impossible to calculate.

It's going to be fun, though.

Keep reading. 

 

Andrew Hacker, Two Nations

At Amazon, Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal.

So Wonderful

Ms. Kate, for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: