The objective success of the airlift despite the near-instantaneous Taliban takeover is almost enough to make me think that ostensibly procedural objectives to the withdrawal are really just objections to the withdrawal itself! https://t.co/yI45FVX2C0
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) August 23, 2021
It’s really one of the most irresponsible cases of the press committing itself to a narrative and refusing to be budged by any subsequent developments that I’ve ever seen: https://t.co/9e7Y6unA2P
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) August 23, 2021
======
getting the impression these people are going to be legitimately heartbroken if we’re actually able to effect an exit of personnel without the need to dump a dozen battalions in to turn kabul into fallujah https://t.co/5LJpjA3sww
— kilgore trout, terminal hiccups patient (@KT_So_It_Goes) August 25, 2021
GOP Death Cult:
I mean you cannot convince me they are not actively rooting for the taliban to shoot down a passenger jet of 500 people just so we absolutely have to have an all-out bloodbath for six months
this is what they want, they’re astonished the taliban *are not* blasting planes out of the sky and shelling the runway, and the last opportunity to reboot the whole bloody two decade adventure is slipping away
call me crazy for questioning motives but when your first solution to evacuating americans and civilian allies is immediately inject more americans to fight an all-out street war that will kill an awful lot of americans and civilian allies yeah it seems suspicious
======
The GOP Death Cult and the Media Village Idiots, loyal partners:
If there’s one thing we can say for certain about the Trump administration, it’s that they would have definitely used every weapon in the US arsenal to ensure thousands of mostly Muslim refugees could be airlifted to the United States. https://t.co/OtQ2TWhe2Q
— Ken Gude (@KenGude) August 24, 2021
Trump smears the Afghans airlifted out of Kabul. "You can be sure the Taliban, who are now in complete control, didn't allow the best and brightest to board these evacuation flights."
— Christian Vanderbrouk (@UrbanAchievr) August 24, 2021
the "if we had just fought harder on the way out" takes are really just a backdoor to "what if we just kept fighting," an attitude that already got us 20 years of absolutely no results
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) August 25, 2021
======
THREAD: 5 Bad Afghanistan Takes you should Ignore
1. Tragic: ‘What about all we lost there?’
If Afghanistan collapses this fast, there wasn’t actually that much there to lose. If anything, the rapid collapse indicates just how accurate were all those leaks over the last
1
— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) August 19, 2021
Professor of Political Science, Pusan Nat’l Univ.; 부산대학교 정치외교학과 교수; Int’l Relations, Koreas, East Asia; Classical Music; Running; that BBC Dad guy:
decade, including the A Papers*, about how little progress we were making, how corrupt the government was, how soft its military’s independent capabilities were, and so on.
2. Demagogic: ‘Did our soldiers die for nothing?’
That is an emotionally manipulative version of the sunk cost fallacy. We cannot bring back our war dead. If we must stay in an unwinnable conflict to ‘honor their sacrifice,’ then we condemn more to die later. That’s immoral. The logic of this argument means also we can never leave a commitment, no matter misconceived, which leads to imperial overstretch. We’d still be in Vietnam, Somalia, Lebanon, and Iraq.3. Histrionic: ‘America has lost its credibility’
No, relax. This is one small conflict in the wide range of US commitments. It was widely understood to be unwinnable, yet we fought for 20 years anyway. That signals a lot of resolve. Also, not all US commitments are the same. Just because the US withdrew from A does not imply it will abandon Taiwan, S Korea, the Baltics, and so on. When the Russians and the Chinese say this now, that is obviously motivated reasoning you should ignore. Allies just as likely to think Biden was wise to end an unwinnable war.4. Declinist: ‘How did a superpower get defeated by a bunch of medieval hillbillies?’
This is not how counterinsurgency works. The conflict was not a stand-up comparison of military capabilities – insurgents rarely fight openly in the field – and the US cannot just ‘bomb the hell of out ‘em’ to win. The point is to win hearts and minds of course, and in that we needed a reasonably non-corrupt and competent local partner. We had that neither in Vietnam, Iraq, nor Afghanistan. Other powerful states have lost insurgencies and retrenched without a wider unravelling. Think Rome and Scotland/Germany/the Middle East; or Britain withdrawing east of Suez. This is not the end of American power.5. Hypocritical (Trump/GOP): ‘Biden is an incompetent overseeing a failure greater than Saigon’
Gimme a break. GOP takes are wholly in bad faith. A GOP president started and then ignored this war. Another GOP president, who claimed to want to leave, was too weak-minded and conflict-averse to fight the blob to push through a withdrawal. Until a week ago, the GOP also wanted to get out of Afghanistan. All this sudden concern for our credibility or Afghan human rights is entirely situational and exploitative. Fox caring about Muslims? Are you kidding me?The rapidity of the collapse strongly suggests Biden was right to withdrawal. If Afghanistan fell apart this fast, then it almost certainly would have done so too in another 5 or 10 years. Even America makes mistakes. Don’t let American exceptionalism blind you. Sometimes we don’t win; sometimes we make errors. And sometimes it’s wise to cut our losses and retrench. That’s all this is. There is no greater lesson to be drawn, and once this is off TV in a week or so, a lot of this hysteria about a US ‘fiasco’ will fade.
* The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War
======
we're now Day 13 of Kabul Airport crisis coverage. (0 US fatalities)
When 4 US soldiers were killed in Niger ambush, Trump ignored the deaths for a week, then proceeded to insult one of the mothers of the fallen.
it was a 2-3 day story, at best.
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) August 24, 2021
it's hard to even image how much more frenzied and hysterical the Afghanistan coverage would be if 4 US soldiers had died the first day at airport.
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) August 24, 2021
We Benghazi here before…
— BreviLOCAcious ???? (@KSfirefly24) August 24, 2021
RaflW
This gross push poll still produced 45% opposed to moar woar.
MJS
The quest to find “Biden’s (previously Obama’s) Katrina” is never ending.
Cacti
I saw that Erik Prince is now selling flights out of Kabul for $6,500 per person.
Seriously, what a fucking ghoul.
If humans are suffering anywhere, you can count on Blackwater to be there…
Looking to make a buck.
The Moar You Know
@RaflW: Had I submitted a question that slanted in my psych stats course I’d have been expelled, unless I was giving an example of a question designed to produce a pre-determined result.
JML
@Cacti:
no wonder Team trump liked this guy. Prince is the living embodiment of “Too Much Is Never Enough”.
The Thin Black Duke
@Cacti: You know what’s worse? Erik Prince was born rich. But, in spite of having the option of doing anything he wanted to with his life, what rings Prince’s bell is killing people. “Sociopath” doesn’t even come close to describing this man.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know: “Should we still withdraw if it means the undead Osama bin Laden 9/11s this puppy?” And more people still said “yes” than “no”.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
And it still didn’t produce the desired result of the people that made up the question. They just ended up with a positive number smaller than 50%. Did it matter to them that the number answering their question in the way they wanted was less than the number against them? No because they didn’t intend for that result, they knew the answer already, their position is wrong from the standpoint of public perception (and every other angle) and they can’t admit that.
Benw
I’m starting to feel like all the criticism of the evac is very sus, you guys.
Kay
@The Moar You Know:
They are openly and aggressively lobbying for more war now. Dropped any pretense of objectivity.
Just appalling.
Turns out the biggest supporters of this 20 year war are at CNN, Politico and the New York Times.
Remember after they all aggressively sold the WMD lie to the public they said they would do some kind of after the fact analysis and find out why they did that? Nope. Instead they’re doing it again.
piratedan
starting to get an inkling that no matter what the Biden Administration does, it will not satisfy a large portion of the 4th estate who are still under the delusion that they will be the eventual arbiters of “truth”.
While the fairness doctrine may not touch the cable industry, it sure seems to me that its implementation would rein in the stupidity that we see on the public airwaves as everyone else is seeming like a Conservative 5th column of bad takes and lack of context.
Cacti
@Benw: It’s almost as if all the critics have significant financial interests in making sure we don’t leave.
No, that couldn’t possibly be happening in the bestest most freest country in the history of anything ever.
trollhattan
This fuckin’ guy. If there is no hell I am disappointed because Erik Prince needs to be parked there for infinity.
A.B.C. Always Be Closing.
See I’ve been beaten to the punch. The punch that needs to be applied to Erik Prince.
What’s his waste-of-skin sister doing these days? Picking yachts?
Cacti
Considering their behavior during the Iraq invasion, is this even remotely surprising?
Suzanne
O/T, but advice welcome.
A couple of months ago, Spawn the Younger was playing at a friend’s house, and someone stole her bike from the friend’s yard. The bike was one we had bought for Spawn the Elder and passed it down as they grew. We didn’t file a police report at the time, but I posted on our neighborhood page about it. It took some time and money, but we just replaced the bike. Anyway, last night, Mr. Suzanne and Spawn and the friend and the friend’s dad were all out for a walk in the neighborhood. And they found the stolen bike…. in the yard of a neighbor. We don’t want to be life-ruiner people and get them arrested (I don’t know what race they are, but I don’t like getting cops involved ever and I am more cognizant of that with people of other races), but nor do I want Mr. Suzanne to get his ass kicked (or worse) by getting into shit with a neighbor. Also, I suppose it’s conceivable that someone else stole it and they bought it from that person? I don’t know if I should let this go. I am not happy with the idea of showing my daughter that we should let people steal her things and that’s what women just have to expect, and that we don’t stand up for ourselves because we’re afraid of people having guns. Also, while replacing the bike was definitely an uncomfortable financial outlay, it was something I was able to do. Thoughts?
Kay
It’s just hard for me to square the cable personalities and NYTimes deep and abiding committment to the Afghan people because they didn’t cover Donald Trump’s massive 2019 Afghanistan bombing campaign. They weren’t worried about the safety of the Afghan people when we were dropping huge numbers of bombs? Are we all supposed to pretend that was safe for the Afghan people?
Peale
@Cacti: IDK. That’s less than a business class round trip from NYC to India. I’m sure the in flight entertainment is outstanding.
JCJ
I don’t know if it was that Rich Lowry tweet, but my daughter saw a statement like that yesterday on the Twitter. Her favorite reply was, “that is adorable” – I read that hearing a parent talking about their toddler who is describing his imaginary friend.
Spanky
What will really throw a turd in this punchbowl is if someone manages to shoot down a planeload of people on their way out of Kabul. And that “someone” is more likely to be ISIS than anyone else.
Both the US and the Taliban are hellbent on preventing it. The US for obvious reasons, the Taliban because it marks them as pariahs from Day One, and bye-bye to all that sweet cash the US has frozen. My guess is that this was what got the Director of the CIA to meet with the Taliban the other day. Intel was shared, plans were made. We’ll probably never hear the outcome. I hope we never hear about their failure.
raven
@piratedan: starting?
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
How is he going to be able to land a plane at the Kabul airport? I imagine that normal traffic in and out has been stopped, otherwise security and just the logistics would be impossible. So they would allow abnormal traffic of some money grubber?
RaflW
@Kay: I’ve been saying for several years now that the mea culpa from the NYT had no real cupla in it. Plainly obvious from their many, many reporting and editing failures during TFG. And now the war harping. Again.
Kay
@Cacti:
I had to turn it off during the Iraq invasion. The thrilled, gleeful excitement in their voices made me sick to my stomach. Dread. I felt dread.
I’ll eventually have to turn this propoganda campaign off too. There’s only so much crap one person should have to listen to.
raven
@Spanky: The reaction will be the same if they kill one GI.
Cacti
@Kay: And even recently, when Rumsfeld died. The light, breezy sendoff they gave him, as if he wasn’t a war criminal, with the blood of about 500,000 people on his hands.
piratedan
@Suzanne: if there are mailboxes, I would suggest a written note… indicating that you noticed the bike that used to be in your garage is now in their garage.
we have no idea if this was a parent doing the bad deed or the child and as such, you don’t accuse anyone of anything. Indicate that you’re not aware of any kind of trade that took place between said children and that you would like to talk about it. Maybe suggest a neutral setting like a park, where no one’s turf is in play. Ask them to leave a response or a suggestion on how they would like to proceed in your mailbox.
smintheus
That old tweet at the top of the post is old. The US evacuation in Kabul passed the 70,000 mark yesterday. One of whom is associated with ISIS, which is all we’ll be hearing about in the future from Republicans.
Personally, I have limited concern about American social workers in Afghanistan who were told months ago to leave and decided to stay on. Zero concern about American mercenaries who liked their pay more than their safety. The bigger problem is that the GOP engineered lengthy obstacles to immigration processes, knowing that this would create a crisis for Afghan allies who would need to flee the country.
Kay
@RaflW:
If you were going to launch a week long campaign against the evacuation, and your bullshit claim was it wasn’t an objection to ending the WAR but instead was some competence-based analysis, wouldn’t you make DAMN sure you knew how many people we’re trying to get out? That’s a number you need, right, if your screeching cry is we’re not getting enough of them out? You need the total number that is the goal?
They didn’t have the number. They did it anyway.
piratedan
@raven: granted… enough bad faith for us to know them as Tiger Beat on the Potomac. What bothers me is how we’re seeing the rest of the MSM slide into this same framing. It’s as if each news directorship on each network is acting as if they want to emulate Fox News as some kind of moneymaking concern instead of delivering news, accurately and with context.
RaflW
@smintheus: I’ve been googling trying to find a story that has the early evac notices going out. Would love to have a link to share with the tweeps. Ta.
smintheus
@Kay: Quite right.
Old Dan and Little Ann
The common complaint from wingers will now be we’re flying tens of thousands Taliban to our shores.
Peale
@Kay: Yeah. Although it’s my turn to be war reluctant with questions like these.
Would you agree to support the war if ISIS were to take US hostages – No
What if we told you it was only going to be an emergency use war? – No
What about if the War was FDA approved? – No
What if we gave you $100 to support the war? – No
What if we told you we didn’t need a war and instead was a coupon to buy cheap de-worming pills at the Tractor Supply Co? – No
randy khan
The answer to Mr. P’s question is “at least 10% more people than actually get evacuated, even if every single person who wants to leave gets a flight out.”
Captain C
Turtle:
Also Turtle: I plan to block any notional package paying for this with every fiber of my being unless it screws the blue states and only the blue states.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: You’re absolutely, positively sure it’s the same bike?
Geminid
The fall of this government and it’s military was guaranteed last year when trump negotiated his bogus peace agreement with the Taliban. That the fall happened so quickly is a surprise, but it was probably for the best. If government forces had fought harder the result wouldn’t have changed, just the number of combatants and civilians killed. Not that trump cared about anyone but himself
Suzanne
@Jeffro: Absolutely positively. We have photos, and we noticed that some additions we made, like the same bike bell, are still on it.
It’s only five blocks away, too. So whomever took it is local.
Peale
@Captain C: I like the expansion to “friends” – like this is going to be a failure unless every nebulous “friend” is evacuated. Maybe we should put all those “Friends” in Kentucky and see how quickly he isn’t behaving like a friend to them.
smintheus
@Suzanne:
@Suzanne:
If you’re certain it’s your daughter’s bike, then just tell the neighbor. No matter how they bike ended up there, they have a right and a need to know. And you have a right to get the bike back again. If they react monstrously about it, then it may become a question of what your response should be (me? go to the police and let them explain to the cops why they’re nice people and totally misunderstood). If they’re decent people, they’ll make it right.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Suzanne: Did your neighborhood post include an image of the bike? Or do you have one? I think your idea of assuming that they bought it or even just found it abandoned is good as it gives them a way out. As in — Spawn the Younger’s bike was taken a few weeks ago, see the post and image, and we now see it in your yard. Let’s talk about its return — it was passed down from child to child in our family and holds lots of memories. Assume good intentions. Things can work out okay if you do unless you know for sure this neighbor is a crazy person. I’m on the Architectural Control Committee of my HOA, and the neighborhood gun nut came out as I was inspecting his yard (from community property) while wearing a fluorescent vest and hat. I introduced myself and said I was double-checking the inspection reports to ensure we got it right. He gossiped up a storm about his neighbors! He also now waves to me as he walks his dog.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Send a letter to the people with the bike? They may have to hash this out among themselves before the bike is returned. A letter would give them a chance to think it over.
dmsilev
@Old Dan and Little Ann: “Biden isn’t rescuing enough Afghans from the country and simultaneously he is bringing too many of them here.”
Feckless
In the media or the military the only way to get promoted is if the country is at war.
Both institutions are permanently biased towards wars.
God bless Joe Biden.
And the devil take every single Republican.
Suzanne
@Cheryl from Maryland: I didn’t post an image of the bike to the neighborhood page, but I have photos with dates of the bike (and our kids) from prior to the post.
Captain C
@Peale: “If the good Senator from [Blue State] wishes to pay for these [foreign Muslim] freeloaders, than let his state pay. Kentucky will not insult these…people…by helping them out in their time of desperate need when they’re perfectly capable of using the Invisible Hand to help themselves. Also, my friends from Lexington need some more necessary subsidies, so let’s all vote yes on that.”
Ruckus
@piratedan:
Because they are money making concerns.
What’s that old saw about owning the printing press? That they charge what, $60/yr to read the website tells you all you need to know, they’ve even bypassed the printing press and have gone straight for the money.
brendancalling
Fred Hiatt’s bilge this morning (no, I won’t link to it) about Biden’s “blunder” nearly got me blogging again. It was an utterly disingenuous, dishonest white-washing of Hiatt’s own role in cheerleading the US into Iraq. In fact, there was not a single sentence about Hiatt having been tragically, horribly wrong about the war.
I said it almost got me blogging again, but the prospect of hunting down Hiatt’s relentless “KILL FOR PEACE” screeds (I’m a big believer in citations and quotes) was just downright depressing.
He’s another one that should be catapulted into Afghanistan, and left there forever.
NotMax
@dmsilev
“And what guarantee do we have those evacuated won’t just up and leave 20 years from now?”
//
Suzanne
@Cheryl from Maryland:
I have no idea who these people are. I mean, I think it is most likely that whomever stole it lives there, and I am not thrilled about interacting with thieves.
Old Man Shadow
When you have kids going off to kill other kids and be killed by them when none of them were alive when the cassus belli happened, it’s past time to call the whole thing off.
Kay
@smintheus:
I’m with you on the civilians who were told to leave and stayed. Obviously if someone can get them out they should, but there really needs to be an explanation for why they ignored the advisory.
It’s time for everyone to take responsibility for their actions in this thing. The only person I see being held accountable is Joe Biden. That’s fine, he is accountable, but his taking responsibility doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t have to.
Kay
I don’t think Biden “humiliated” the United States – I think he humiliated a lot of the architects and planners in DC and their cheerleaders in the media because they’re exposed as blowing smoke up our asses for the last 20 years.
That’s what they’re punishing him for. It’s not the US. It’s them personally.
NotMax
@Suzanne
1) IANAL.
2) If you did not file a police report at the time, you’re on potentially shaky ground.
3) IANAL.
Baud
No one means what they say. They just want talking points to use against Biden since everyone knows the next few months and years won’t be perfect in Afghanistan. Either they win the war against forever war, or we do, but we knew this battle was coming.
Kay
When confronted with the lie that the Afghan government was working and resilient, when that was exposed, even then they didn’t tell the truth.
They immediately came up with another lie- that the “status quo” could have been maintained. That isn’t true either.
I guess we can keep peeling this onion to see if any of them ever utter a true statement about this war, but it seems to be beyond them.
HinTN
@brendancalling:
It wouldn’t bother me if there was a slight flaw in the orbital mechanics and the launch took his accelerator orbit just a scosh too close to the sun.
gratuitous
Have you ever seen a spoiled child get a toy that he just had to have? Weeks of wheedling and whining until his weary parents just give in to shut him up? Then the kid gets the toy, plays with it for a grand total of 20 minutes or so, and then it goes to its grave in the back of the closet or the bottom of the toy chest. That’s the Republicans and their Great Adventure in Afghanistan. Once it started getting scuffed and dented and the new had worn off, they lost interest.
Then, Mom and Dad are cleaning up Brat’s room and come across the had-to-have-it toy (along with a bunch of others). They pack up the toys to donate them to Goodwill and suddenly Brat just has to keep that toy! It’s his favorite! You’re the meanest Mommy and Daddy in the universe! We’re at that stage now, as Republicans and their media stenographers rediscover their favorite toy just as it’s about to go away.
al
Listen to NPR this morning where senator Sasse pontificated about President Biden and not once mentioned the original agreement entered into by Trump and Pompeo, nor that Steven Miller deep sixed any effort to process visas before January 20, 2021. Where was Sasse when the agreement was negotiated and entered. What was his position then?
rikyrah
They are rooting for American soldiers to die?
smintheus
In June we were told the number of Afghans seeking visas to emigrate was 70,000.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-guam-government-and-politics-fc45df629a6e3b7b0c3d24cc8a4f4fca
Baud
@smintheus: To be fair, that was before they realized Biden could evacuate over 70,000.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I told them they could only use the bottom bunks at Camp David. The top bunks, what many people call the tippy top bunks, the ones the cool people sleep in, would just be empty. I told them they’d all be down there in the bottom bunks, the loser bunks as many people call them.
Mike in NC
Fucking wingnuts live in an alternate universe because Trump would have done jack shit to bring any Afghans into this country (unless he could skim some profit off it). Then again, he just loathed non-white people.
If tasked with evacuating Kabul, Prince Jerad might have succeeded in rescuing ten people, tops.
West of the Rockies
@Suzanne:
Ex LE here. Do you have a receipt and/or the serial number? The law is then on your side. What’s the value of the bike? Is pursuing it worth the stress and a possible future forever-strained relationship with the neighbors?
Cacti
This x infinity.
The instantaneous collapse of everything we “built” in Afghanistan shows how laughably, disastrously wrong all the very serious people in the war making industry were.
In any other walk of life, if these people were that wrong about something, they’d be fired and never taken seriously again.
The withdrawal has made them all look like myopic, warmongering fools, so Biden has to pay for it.
Major Major Major Major
I find myself wondering what random industry the Afghan diaspora will end up owning over here. The Vietnamese got nail salons (thanks to Tippi Hedron, fun fact). Cambodians ended up with a vast donut shop empire.
Cacti
@rikyrah: Worse.
They’re rooting for American civilians to die.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
And they’re all free to enlist to prolong it.
Fuck ’em!
Benw
@Kay: I think it was the rapid collapse of the Afgan govt that showed their whole ass.
They’re taking it out on Biden and the evacuation because god preserve them from self-reflection.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: It could be that the kids grabbed it and lied to the adults about it. It could be that the original thieves gave it to the kids that have it now. Lots of possibilities.
I like the idea of a note to the adults. You don’t know how it got there, you just want it back.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
VeniceRiley
@Suzanne: Could be one of their kids took it and lied to the parents about where they got it? Just leave a note in their mailbox “Hi neighbor, FYI in case you did not know – that’s my daughter’s bike in your yard. It was stolen on xx-xx-xxxx – Here is a FB post about it and a photo of the bike.”
OR … just steal it back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Don’t forget the NBC Borg. Nobody’s Blobbier than Andrea Mitchell. Brokaw, Russert and Matthews were the biggest promoters of the legend of McCain the Lion-Hearted, and Lindsey Graham as second on their producers’ booking list when somebody else had booked the Sage Of Sedona. Brian Williams’ rhetoric the night trump launched a bunch of missiles at an empty airfield in Syria was like self-parody– deadly force thrust into the air, surging forth, etc.
Suzanne
@West of the Rockies: I’m sure I could find the receipt and serial number if I dug for it. (Recently moved, still have files in boxes.)
We did call today and filed a police report.
Major Major Major Major
Speaking of warmongering media, I found this last night and it pissed me off
Fair Economist
Those are some great links, AL. One thing I’m noticing is that the sensible people are generating a lot of really cogent analysis which we can at least find in the face of the relentless push for MOAR WAR from the presumably-compromised MSM.
Kathleen
@MJS: This is Biden’s Birthday.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Seems to me Politico briefly got less-bad after VanDe Hei and Mike Allen left to form Axios, but maybe Axios started getting more hits and Politico is now playing catch up?
Check the link for the text Boehlert provides, he’s not exaggerating
Redshift
@RaflW:
I know I saw that too, but I can’t turn it up. However, the State Department has been advising all Americans to “consider leaving” since at least January.
Kathleen
@Benw: I’ve tweeted it’s a well funded and orchestrated psy ops. I believe it with all my heart. Media have been participating in these for years in their coverage of Dems.
Suzanne
@VeniceRiley:
Yes, for sure. Or an older sibling.
Baud
@Redshift:
April 4, at least in terms of travelers.
catclub
yeah, but Prince probably just drops them off in Quetta. … Good luck suckers.
Salty Sam
When I was about 12 or 13, I locked my bike to a rack on the Rice U. campus (I was attending summer science camp there, lived a few blocks away). When class was over, my bike was gone. I was severely bummed.
A few weeks later, I saw the bike locked to another bike rack on campus. I was using my brother’s bike and lock, so I locked both bikes together and waited. A skeevy looking young adult (didn’t look like Rice U. college material) came for my stolen bike, and raised hell when I said “No, it’s mine”. Campus security was called to the scene. After much back and forth, they said whoever could prove ownership with a serial number could take the bike. I lived only a few blocks away, ran home and got the number that my dad had INSISTED I write down.
Skeevy dude had to remove his lock and watch as I walked both bikes home. The whole episode had terrified me, but I was determined not to back down, because- IT WAS MY BIKE GODDAMMIT!!!
StringOnAStick
@Suzanne: It seems like a letter with the facts and carefully written to not escalate tensions is the best approach. Filing a police report, either mentioning that you have or you intend to is where it could get tricky but I think you had to do that to show your daughter that she shouldn’t just accept being ripped off. All that said, you know your neighbourhood better than anyone here offering advice so trust your judgement.
catclub
also shrimping on the Gulf of mexico.
Ruckus
@gratuitous:
Yep. They only want what they are not willing to actually work for or be responsible for. And when it goes wrong, and it always does, it is always someone else’s fault. Who they attempt to blame/shame because they didn’t hold their breath long enough to get their way. They complain about stuff that won’t affect them in the least, just to hear themselves complain. They always have to be right because they have no idea how to be responsible.
trollhattan
@Geminid:
A letter with a pic enclosed of the bike (with face obscured) saying it was stolen and you’d like it back with no further consequences. In case the adults are unaware. If they are, then there are few paths open.
trollhattan
@Salty Sam:
Love it.
catclub
@Mike in NC:
Just Ghani and his $170M
Jeffro
@Kay:
It’s also the end of the ‘contractor’ gravy train for many many folks. Now they’ll have to find honest work. I hear there’s openings in the restaurant biz
Captain C
@catclub:
Or tosses them from the plane like the ending of The Great Muppet Caper.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: I see a lot of other folks have offered advice here (mostly good – not a fan of ‘steal it back’ though! =) while I was in meetings.
Best wishes however you choose to approach it!
Suzanne
@StringOnAStick:
I like the letter idea, since I don’t want to interact with these people in case they have a gun. I haven’t lived here that long, so I can’t really say what is a good idea or not.
geg6
@Kay:
This. This is what the total meltdown is all about. The media, the teevee generals, the GQP, George fucking Bush rearing his stupid head to even dare to comment on any of it…
Biden makes me proud. The rest of these mother fuckers have been humiliating me for 20 years (or more, depending on who we’re talking about).
Ken
@Baud: To be fair, that’s before any of them realized there would be an evacuation.
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: Ah yes, we did import a large fishing population.
geg6
@rikyrah:
But how would Richard Engel, et al get wood if American soldiers aren’t dying?
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
My guess is restaurants. ETA: We already have several in the Hartford area.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The Times subhead was “Biden SAYS 70,000 have been evacuated” (under a screaming headline about how we’ve betrayed our allies).
StringOnAStick
@Suzanne: Doing a letter and identifying yourself tells them where you live though, so that has to be considered too; they might already know that though if they were the ones who took it in the first place. It may be that the only safe way is to send a letter and tell them the bike needs to be turned in to the police and no other actions will be pursued by you.
I don’t know, it seems like the cost of a new bike might be worth not having to deal with potentially scary people who live close by. This is a tough one. Maybe it should just be the police who handle it.
Mary G
Apologies if this has been posted before and for no link on phone. The story is in the Hill. 20 high school students and 16 chaperones ON A SUMMER ABROAD STUDY are stuck somewhere in Afghanistan. The school is in El Cajon, CA and their representative is Darrel Issa who is very concerned. They are screwed because his constitute service sucks.
Who the fuck takes a batch of teenagers to a country under a Level 4 Do Not Travel State Department warning??? People dumb enough to vote for Darrell Issa, that’s who.
Ken
The obvious next industry in the progression is aquarium supply.
Well, I say obvious, but that’s because the mini-mall near me has a nail salon, a donut shop, and an aquarium supply store in that order.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I think we should finish the job and take up a campaign to have the media enablers booted from their jobs.
With autocracy resurgent around the world, we cannot allow this amount of fecklessness.
They have shown us what they are. They are dangerous. Get them gone.
zhena gogolia
@Mary G: OMG
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: Good luck to them in finding help.
Roger Moore
I’d say the majority of the complaints here fall into a single category: criticism is BS unless it includes a serious discussion of how to do better. That applies to just about any field of criticism. We don’t listen to a film critic saying a movie is lousy unless they’re willing to go into specifics about what it does wrong that other movies do better. We don’t listen to a restaurant review unless they give details about how the food and service could be better. We shouldn’t listen to a political criticism unless they’re willing to propose a serious alternative course of action.
NYCMT
@Major Major Major Major: Fried chicken.
cain
@Feckless:
Pretty sure he already has. They are his people. Mammon worshipers the lot of em.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Biden should have beaten the Taliban!
dr. bloor
@Mary G:
Hey, it’s not like the State Department has anything else to do right now besides extracting a bunch of kids from a WAR ZONE.
Folks gonna lose jobs over this one. Unfortunately, Issa probably won’t be one of them.
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia: I guess I’m asking, what other than restaurants? There is plenty of Vietnamese food around, as you’d expect with any immigrant population, but I’m more musing about what out-of-left-field stuff we’ll see. Not like there’s an obvious answer, almost by definition!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G:
What the fucking fuck? I’m in the process of cancelling a trip to Europe, fercrissake
dr. bloor
@Ken:
Not to mention Afghanistan’s long, rich history of involvement in marine science and ichthyology.
geg6
@Mary G:
They get no sympathy from me. All of them are so stupid that, if they get killed, it just improves the gene pool. Even high schoolers should know better.
How much do you want to bet this is a bunch of evangelicals who were in Afghanistan to try to convert some Muslims?
cain
@Major Major Major Major:
I will be very disappointed if there is no afghani food trucks in every corner. I’m up for late night afghani food.
Maybe they can teach us how to deal with a fucked up country?
catclub
OT:
Maybe charge unvaccinated travelers more, too. also.
Hoodie
@Kay: To some extent, but it also is the infantile attitude, which the press shares with a lot of the public, that there is some magical way the US can always come out looking good, like the perfect exit from Afghanistan will somehow redeem all the fuckups that went on there for 20 years. It never could be perfect because, for example, someone will always be left behind and there are already thousands dead, maimed, displaced or otherwise immiserated by this wretched war. It’s not a coincidence that a lot of this attitude (which has been around at least from around 9/11 or before) exists concurrently with the existence of a large portion of the US population that thinks freedom includes the right to spread deadly pathogens around without any limitations and the right to carry ridiculously dangerous weapons of war without any regulation, i.e., there are no consequences to my actions other that what I want to recognize.
Elizabelle
@Mary G:
re El Cajon. Link? Couldn’t find it on a quick search of The Hill’s cluttered website.
Here’s a story from CBS8:
Lyrebird
@Kay: Isn’t there a Southern saying about a hit dog will holler?
I think one of Biden’s wonderful qualities is that he doesn’t go about humiliating people, other than eminently deserving ones like Orange Menace.
I think those profiteers humiliated themselves or sold their souls frankly and don’t want it to be public.
The horse paste eaters have humiliated all of us AND MADE US MORE LIKELY TO DIE OF VARIANTS (sorry…), but not Biden. Grrrr…
Thanks for doing the great work you do!
Peale
@Mary G: It doesn’t appear to actually be a school trip. They just had 20 students who are from Afghanistan go home to visit their extended families. No, they should not be there. They probably travelled as a group so that they could get discounted tickets, but it appears that they were not all together touring about.
catclub
yeah, wow. Just wow. Probably not Kabul, then.
Hoppie
@Captain C
Please do not malign Lexington. McConnell lost there by over 20 % last year, and wouldn’t send them one thin dime if he could get away with it.
Nelle
@Kay: My sister was in a country in the midst of a civil war. She wanted to come back (our father was dying) but the French refused to give transit visas to her two teenage Congolese daughters. The govt had been such a mess that they lacked important documentation. As I understood it, she was tge last US citizen who wasn’t Embassy staff in Kinshasa and they wanted to send US Marines in to get her but she wasn’t going to leave without the girls. Soldiers were very near. One half hour after our dad died, the French relented and gave the girls transit visas. They fled out of Kinshasa on the last ferry to Brazzaville. She was always adamant that her decisions were hers and that US soldiers were not to risk themselves to get her out (she went through several big upheavals there). We were told not to request such intervention.
cain
@catclub: More like fine them a lot of money for spreading the virus. They can fight it if they want – but the rules were clear that you needed to be vaccinated before boarding.
Double the fine if they lied about their vaccination status.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: at first I thought this meant they were the families of serving military, but aren’t all/most of our remaining personnel in Kabul? or they’re families of Afghan employees of the US military who had already come to the states and went back?
How the hell could this happen?
Spanky
@Ken:
Hmmmm. One of our strip malls has a donut shop, nail salon, and physical therapy office.
Don’t think Afghan physical therapy is going to be popular with my neighbors.
Captain C
@Hoppie: Nothing against Lexington, just looking for a suitably large KY city that wasn’t Louisville.
JPL
@Peale: They are probably trying to leave the country with twenty additional friends and family. Yesterday or the day before one woman from VA had been in Afghanistan for a few years teaching. She was allowed to leave, with twenty-five family members.
Another Scott
@Nelle: Wow.
That should be a book and/or a movie. Seriously.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This article is a bit clearer, these are recent immigrant families who went home at the wrong time
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Biden’s intentions have been clear for some time, so I’m not sure why the trip was permitted.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
Looking forward to the application essays to Harvard “My Summer as a Taliban Bride.”
gvg
@Mary G: I cannot find this story and I am skeptical. I just don’t think it is true. I could be wrong but it’s kind of an out there story.
I did find that California has a population of Afghan Americans. I guess it’s possible they were visiting family, though even that seems unlikely.
Suzanne
@StringOnAStick:
I know. But I also really don’t want to be That Karen who siccs the police on people. I just want it back, no harm, no foul.
We try really hard to save money by keeping things in good shape and handing them down to our younger kids and then to others we know. But the bike itself isn’t worth the guilt if I had to get the cops wrapped into it and someone went to jail. This sucks.
Elizabelle
The story about the Afghan students residing in the USA, returning for a summer vacay with the extended family — doesn’t that say a lot about these Afghans themselves not thinking the country would fall so quickly? They’d purchased their return air tickets. They were not able to use them.
I am sick of those who think Biden is magical or has secret powers to know the future.
catclub
also, ‘learning what the Kite Runner was about.”
VeniceRiley
Belarus story thread … getting buried by ‘Istanbul news
https://twitter.com/rj_gallagher/status/1430165200016187397?s=21
StringOnAStick
@Suzanne: I agree that it definitely sucks. Does anyone you now know in the neighbourhood know the family in question? Just putting the word out in the area might get it returned just based on shame.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: I say approach the adults in the house with the assumption that they don’t know their kid is riding a stolen bike, and that may be true of the kid(s) as well. It is up the adults to deal with the kid or whomever sold them a stolen bike.
Another Scott
@VeniceRiley: Interesting. It’s good to see the “white hats” getting some attention.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
This thread is still active, so have some music.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Kay: Being a war correspondent is so cool though! Lots of excuses for day drinking and it helps impress women! The only thing that come close is covering natural disasters, but the booze supply is often ruined and there’s no place to slip away for hot sex that’s reasonably private and comfortable. Also Jim Cantore gets all the good storms, and the local affiliates keep shoving in.
sab
@Kay: I was quite literally sick to my stomach during the Iraq invasion.Both of my step-sons had best friends over there in the Army.
When the same press talks about nobody knowing anyone on the military anymore, what bubble do they live in. I know someone whose son-in-law has had three tours in Afghanistan.
Major Major Major Major
@Ken: I like the way you think!
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Suzanne: How about asking your child their opinion? I understand if they’re a little young for that but an older child might have thoughts about the situation.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Let’s be clear here. These people are a bunch of dumbasses.
They decided to summer in Afghanistan after the State Department issued a Do not travel/Get the hell out warning on 4/27.
I don’t wish harm to any of them, but their predicament is entirely the result of terrible judgment.
Kay
Unless they’re essential in some way, it’s a shame they didn’t get out when they were told to get out.
Biden couldn’t have them removed at gunpoint. Not clear what he was supposed to do if they didn’t want to go in May or June or July.
Elizabelle
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: Excellent idea!
Lyrebird
@Major Major Major Major: You mean beyond restaurants that offer delicious Afghan cuisine? That and driving taxis is what previous waves have set up.
dnfree
@Mary G: the students in question weren’t all high school students—they were various ages and have families in Afghanistan.
The families from the Cajon Valley Union School District in East County are among thousands of individuals waiting to leave the country that has devolved into chaos amid the U.S. pullout of troops after 20 years of occupation.
Cajon Valley Superintendent David Miyashiro and Mike Serban, the district’s director of Family And Community Engagement (FACE), said the children range from preschoolers to high school students. They said the students went there on summer break with their families to visit extended family members.
“We have a long summer break, and nobody knew the extent of what was going to happen, nobody knew what was coming,” Serban said. “Their extended family is in Afghanistan, and they wanted to see their family. They went back, likely before the troops left, so they could say hello or goodbye one more time. What wouldn’t you do to go see your family one more time, let alone know you have only a window of time to go see them?”
Hoppie
@Captain C
No problem. Try Ashland or Paducah then. And btw, the entire state gave Mitch 100,000 fewer votes than TFG. Even some ‘pubs know a turd when they smell one.
Major Major Major Major
@Lyrebird: Hmm, well taxis are maybe on their way out…
With nail salons and donut shops you had sort of a founder effect, where early immigrants did something and it snowballed… so many of them are translators, that might affect things…
topclimber
@Lyrebird: Maybe they can win some friends with RWNJs by sharing their knowledge of insurgency tactics from observing the Taliban.
Ken
If they’d asked me, I could have told them that the US was planning to withdraw sometime around mid-year.
(That’s what I’m sure I knew back in April. I may have known more about timetables, agreements with the Taliban, or State Dept. travel advisories, but I’m not sure. Though if they’d asked me, I would have known where to look for those things.)
evodevo
@Captain C: Lexington and loovul are the only two sane cities in the state…the rest are inhabited by a GOPer majority, and forget the countryside…
J R in WV
@Kay:
Actually, I recall lots of stories excoriating “our troops” when a drone or other air support dropped munitions onto a rural gathering where enemy leaders were supposed to be gathering, only to discover that it was a wedding party instead. War Crimes!!!
So if people eventually die in or around the Kabul airport, it will be Joe Biden’s fault, as sure as if he personally pulled those triggers. Just watch if you don’t think so. Headlines already written!
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Congratulations!
I don’t think I could read that far into the story to discover in paragraph 32 that the Pentagon told President Biden to stick to the Taliban/negotiated deadline of Aug 31!
Coincidently, also my RWNJ brother’s birthday. Scheduled for our bi-annual telephone call also too. Won’t be talking about geopolitics or politics in general.
But thanks for the new data!! Also see that way back 70,000 Afghans was the target for number to evacuate, already passed by quite a bit. Did that shut them up? Of course not!
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
You’ve already replaced the bike. Just let it go…
If you can’t bear to just let it go… then at most send a letter with data/photos/serial # — but say in the letter that the closing act is up to them, you’re done.
Nothing is worth the stress with neighbors. I’m sure the grownups are unaware, and may defend their kids by reflex, as we see in schools so much now.
Tough situation…
sab
@J R in WV: I agree. Big thing is you now know who the thief neighbors are. Living there, that is useful info.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: if you don’t try to get the bike back, you teach the thieves that they can get away with it without any consequences. And if they get into legal troubles, it’s their own damned fault for not keeping their hands off someone else’s bike.