Said Heather Barr, associate director of the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch who has "long experience in Afghanistan," quoted in "Get Afghan Refugees Out. Then Let Them In" by Michelle Goldberg (NYT).
Goldberg proceeds to concentrate on the need for Americans to accept refugees. She brings up our recent resistance to Syrian refugees. It's another occasion to criticize us for xenophobia.
A sampling from the comments over there. First, this, from someone in Singapore:
Good idea, please take in all the refugees there are from this war. That will be about 5 [million] Afghans. It would be a first to see that the US really cares about the damage they do to a country they brought peace and democracy to.
I think that's sarcastic. Then there's this from someone in Pakistan:
America will be making a huge mistake by accommodating Afghan nationals and I will tell you why: Pakistan took in more than 4 million refugees post soviet war but look what they did to the hosting country. With Afghans came hard drugs, AK47s and above all terrorism. Pakistan has bled rivers and is still bleeding thanks to the Indian/Afghan nexus. Afghans have deeply rooted themselves and mingled amongst the Pakistani population which makes it easier for them to carry out terrorist activities with the help of India that cannot stand Pakistan as a sovereign state. History is a witness to Afghans' ungrateful nature and we might as well witness it again after the US takes in a couple of hundred thousand of them.
Goldberg and others are critical of the bureaucracy that impedes Afghans who want to leave the country. It's why more of the people who worked with us were not extricated before the Taliban took over. Now, the argument is just take everyone — it's too late to filter. The notion is that we have lost the moral ground to protect ourselves from terrorism. Are we going to stand back and watch the slaughter of everyone who worked with us? An easy, horrible way to answer that question is that we've already squandered the chance to extricate them.
ADDED: The quote in the post title was chosen for its absurdity. It imagines the extrication of people — in vast numbers — when we just saw that even people who managed to get to the airport could not get into a plane. Some were packed onto the floor of a C-17. Others clung to the outside of a plane as it took off.
Posts
26 comments:
The Taliban have completely surrounded the airport. No one gets out without their approval. We’ll be lucky to get the Americans out.
Prediction. The top Taliban general will hold news media people hostage. He will demand a prisoner swap with Gitmo detainees. KSM will be out by Christmas.
This is going to get way worse.
The Fake News will soon be talking about the 25th Amendment. Stiffing the Press yesterday was a fatal mistake.
This video says a lot about the handling of this entire mess, particularly when it comes to protecting those who worked with and for us. If we cannot protect them, we have zero moral standing. Somehow any and everyone who wants to come into this country can simply walk in from our southern border, including terrorists- who will be coming strong and hard now that they are ramping up again. But protecting those who stuck their necks out to help us in Afghanistan?
I'm pretty sure this is not what they expected at MSNBC.
VIDEO: Matt Zeller
Who is this "we"? As far as I can tell this current debacle was/is a direct result of this current administration. The foundation for this was laid long ago but these current actions need not have gone this way except for the top to bottom ineptitude of this current administration. They are a bunch of spoiled 3 year-olds playing with explosives and everyone is "unexpectedly" shocked when stuff blows up. This administration has managed to wreck everything they touch with a speed that is unbelievable. I just can't figure out how much of this is malice or stupidity or naivety or greed. I guess I should embrace the healing power of "AND".
Some of the MSM are starting to report some of this only because they can no longer ignore it. This administration, the media, and all those that helped put this moron into office own this and what is to come.
But look on the bright side, no more mean tweets...
I believe Heather Barr should house as many Afghan refugees as she wants.
"Anyone who wants to go" will include a lot of radicals that want to export their radicalism elsewhere, particularly the United States. Look at what open borders has done to France, England, and other parts of Europe.
Below text is from Twitter feed of Joe Losdale.
“An Afghani interpreter I have come to know well over the years was hung in the streets last night. They melted his DoD ID into his chest. Cut off his arms. And killed his family.
His 10 year old daughter was spared and handed off to leadership.”
(From a note to my friend)
We should pick and choose who we take and we should be very choosy. We don't need tens of thousands of 12th-century (to be charitable) tribesman roaming the streets of middle America.
Besides, look how well our intelligence services performed. There is no way that we can trust their vetting of anyone from that part of the world.
Our country is already being invaded from the south. We don't need it to be invaded by the Middle Ages too.
Serious Question
Who is it, that "Owns" the decision to abandon Bagram Air Base first?
Shouldn't that have been Last?
"Somehow any and everyone who wants to come into this country can simply walk in from our southern border..."
I spoke to a very liberal friend yesterday...she is trying to get her mother-in-law into the U.S. from Europe and it can't be done right now.
I told her to fly her to Mexico and she can just walk in. Plus, she'd get food and a bus or plane ticket into the interior. If she wants to stay she can get welfare and healthcare too.
Only suckers go through customs.
"Serious Question
Who is it, that "Owns" the decision to abandon Bagram Air Base first?
Shouldn't that have been Last?"
Bingo!
This is also an answer to someone in another thread who asked what Trump would have done differently.
And while you're at it, don't leave all those jets laying around (along with a fully-intact flight simulator).
Don't people in the army know how to blow stuff up?
AFTER we got everyone out, both airbases should have been hit by tactical nukes and should be nothing but smoking holes in the ground...
I think of the Vietnamese boat people. They had it easier in comparison. Afghanistan is land-locked and its borders are fairly impassible I think, mountains and such and inhospitable terrain. It's harder to walk out, much easier if you can float away. Again, as I said, in comparison, not trying to trivialize what the Vietnamese refugees went through.
It really is all geography I think, it pretty much determines everything. Location Location Location. If Afghanistan were in this hemisphere they could just walk across the southern border and then be airlifted to some pleasant American city and set free.
We need to be more like New Zealand, which doesn't let anyone in, not unless you have at least $10 Million to deposit.
Take a look at this now-famous photo here:
Notice anything? The plane is filled with healthy, military-aged men who are obviously choosing not to fight for their country.
And we want them here why?
If they worked with us in an official capacity...sure...let's take them in.
The others not so much.
The Taliban offered succor to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden (and he did some favors in return, like blowing up rival leaders). It got their country invaded, many of their friends killed, and drove them into the wilderness for twenty years. Scare-mongers over here want us to assume that the Taliban have not learned from the experience, but think "Gee, that was fun, let's do it again!" Perhaps they will realize that running country is a tough job, and they don't need to go pissing off the US in their spare time.
For our part, I hope the US has learned not to apply idiotic "Pottery Barn" rules, and will make it clear that if the Taliban harbors terrorists again, we will take an Israeli tack instead and just mow the lawn whenever we have to, with Hellfire missiles.
This is terrible. People helped us, and instead of giving them a shot at a better live we left them to be tortured and killed, with their daughters made child-brides to warlords.
We should not have left until we could get the US collaborators and their families out.
I wonder if they saved the Gay Pride flag that flew over the US embassy last month. I'd hate to see that desecrated.
"anyone who wants to leave"
As if they haven't done enough damage, this is how Dems will try to turn their debacle into an opportunity for expensive virtue signaling.
Let's admit millions of Ilhan Omars, because turning Minneapolis into Mogadishu West worked out so well.
"Some [800 people] were packed onto the floor of a C-17." And a couple in the wheel wells (who were found in pieces when the plane landed).
This video says a lot about the handling of this entire mess, particularly when it comes to protecting those who worked with and for us.
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, and more. All places and peoples who we encouraged to be free against their oppressors and/or we otherwise promised to assist. And then the U.S. turned its back on all of them.
Meanwhile, we also had the situation of U.N. peacekeepers standing around, doing nothing, as the Rwandan genocide unfolded in front of their eyes.
(I got an error message when I attempted to post this the first time. I apologize if it ends up being a double post.)
Are we going to stand back and watch the slaughter of everyone who worked with us?
I cannot disagree strongly enough with this framing. They did not work with us to help us achieve our goals, we worked with them to help them achieve their goals. That it did not work out is Afghanistan's failure, not the United States'
Let's stop telling tall tales about who owes what to whom.
Blogger Mark said...
"Some [800 people] were packed onto the floor of a C-17." And a couple in the wheel wells (who were found in pieces when the plane landed).
8/17/21, 10:43 AM
Yep, but 90% of them look like military age males.
"Ensure safe passage." How Victorian of the good lady.
Anyone who doesn't have a strong stomach (the first requirement for a historian) should stop watching the news for a while.
The Beeb was talking to a young fellow in Kabul, who said that the Taliban include many speaking languages not common in Afghanistan. Interesting if true.
I have heard that it is customary for the military to leave last instead of first. The withdrawal of troops prior to the evacuation of American civilians is inexplicable and the delays in processing visas for our endangered supporters is a disgrace. The failure to remove or destroy our equipment shows how incompetent our military has become under its wokified leasders.
One more shot!
The Night They Drove Old… er, The Day Joe Biden Failed the Test
Slow Joe Biden’s the name
And each day brings another surprise
‘til hot mid-August it came
He’d really try on the dunce cap for size
In the summer of ‘21
Power sprang fast from a Taliban gun
August 16th, Kabul had fell
It was a day we’ll remember, all too well
The day Joe Biden failed the test
And the gunmen were gunning
The day Joe Biden failed the test
And the people were running
They went, “help! help! help! help! help! help!”
“Help! help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!
Back in DC, a calamity
Joe had made no plans to flee
My wife said “quick, come see
Watch this unfold on TV!”
Now, I don’t mind some Democrats
Even some of teh old sh*tbrained fat cats
But Joe lost his mud
And you know the rest
An EPIC FAILURE
When faced with his greatest test
The day Joe Biden failed the test
And the gunmen were gunning
The day Joe Biden failed the test
And the people were running
They went, “help! help! help! help! help! help!”
“Help! help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!
Don't point your gun at someone unless you plan to shoot them.
Don't go to war unless you plan to use tactical nuclear weapons and an unfathomable amount of napalm.
FTR, I have never owned a gun.
"Yep, but 90% of them look like military age males."
True, but just before that picture was taken they all held up Save Our Girls signs, so...
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