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Where Do I Go to Say “I’m Sorry” to Afghans?
The blame game is easy right now, and everybody’s playing it, especially the suits in charge. But put yourself in Afghan shoes, on the feet of scared people, saying goodbyes hunkered down in homes with crazed fanatics running around with AK-47s, bloodied knives, and severed heads. Unimaginable.
It is impossible for any of us in the United States to know what it feels like to be a normal Afghan right now; especially a young woman, or the parents of one. Hostile forces you thought you’d been liberated from twenty years ago are back and with a vengeance. If you’re a woman between the ages of 15-45, you’re about to be placed into an arranged marriage to a Taliban fighter. You’re at least on a list. And it will be a one-sided affair. He can decapitate you anytime, without penalty, if you don’t capitulate. In every way. Just as they’ve done to hundreds of others deemed remotely disloyal to radical Islam or the new overlords.
It’s nothing remotely like we experienced, even from the worst public officials among us – think Governors Andrew Cuomo (NY), Tom Wolf (PA), Phil Murphy, (NJ), Gretchen Whitmer (MI), and others – who gleefully shut down our lives and businesses and sent us scurrying stores to stock up on toilet paper and cleaning supplies 16 months or so ago. We were told to lockdown, stay home, shut down schools, not wear masks, wear masks, and watch helplessly as Governors Cuomo, Wolf, and Murphy, especially shoved COVID-positive elderly back into nursing homes. Tens of thousands died. Millions more, especially children, continue to suffer emotionally and physically with never-ending mask mandates.
But even now, under these circumstances, we should bend a knee, count our blessings, and thank the Almighty.
No, Afghanistan today is much worse, much more deadly, more depressing, and with repercussions bigger than a once-in-a-century pandemic that kills way less than 5% of the people it infects. They have nowhere to turn, and no hope for the immediate future. None. No vaccines, no Dr. Fauci’s, and no American troops.
The Afghan people have been betrayed, and not just by the Biden Administration and their “suits.” They have been betrayed especially by their own government, their own corrupt society, and now by the rest of the world. They are now prisoners to a malevolent, misogynist, tyrannical, emboldened, and a murderous regime that promises a return to the worst of the dark ages. In every respect. Perhaps you’ve read the stories. It’s worse than that.
This post from Bari Weiss’s superb Substack account (you should support her work) will give you a feel for what it is like to be in Afghanistan right now. You don’t want to read it, but you must. We need to fully understand what is happening, right now. Afghanistan, their region, and frankly the world is a bit less stable than we were just a few months ago. You know it is true.
How long before we see ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups emboldened with money and resources from Chinese Communists who are poised to quickly officially recognize the “new government,” no doubt with plans to add them to their “belt and road” initiatives, extract rare earth minerals and pad Taliban coffers and their allied terrorist groups? Oh, by the way, how’s our US southern border doing?
US policy, especially under Joe Biden, is to blame for much but not all of this. If only the US had lived up to its part of the deal that Trump negotiated and didn’t cut tail and abandon Afghanistan’s poorly led military. After all, just 2,500 US troops helped keep peace in Afghanistan for many years, after a couple of surges. Joe Biden sent 5,000 troops in hurriedly to extract an estimated 10,000 Americans and blamed Donald Trump for it. If only Afghanistan has lived up to its potential and understood what it was really fighting for. It has tried in past years to enjoy western-style freedoms, and Kabul was a charming and modern international city in the 1970s. You can look it up. That’s over.
This had less to do with “nation-building” – something we really never did – and everything to do with having smart leaders with a game plan they were willing to live up to. Just read what former Sec’y of State Mike Pompeo and the Trump Administration negotiated and were prepared to do if they had been in charge the past 7 months. It’s not what happened; Biden would not enforce the deal and the Taliban smelled weakness (noticed by other countries, no doubt). That is indisputable, no matter the gaslighting we can all see-through in the media.
For Americans, we’ll never be trusted anytime soon, especially in the Middle East, and we don’t deserve to be, at least not now. Biden cut tail and scampered, but no worse than Afghan’s own leaders and military. For Afghans, their lives turn to misery, religious totalitarianism, and tribalism.
If we had a real President, he would apologize, admit it was his fault, learn from it all, point out the errors (going back to the Bush and Obama Administrations) and find new paths forward with resolve and leadership. He would especially apologize to the 2,500 or so Gold Star moms and dads who lost sons and daughters, and the 20,000 or so wounded from service in Afghanistan. We are not so blessed with such a President, sadly, not remotely close. I would respect him or her very much if we did.
Our diminished President won’t do it, but where can I tell the Afghan people how sorry I am?
Here’s the post from Bari Weiss. Stick with it, read it all. To the end. Have tissues nearby. And it’s OK to get really angry. I am.
We Once Waltzed in Kabul
The U.S. abandoned my friends. Now they are trapped in Afghanistan and hiding from the Taliban.
Catastrophe. Calamity. Chaos. Humiliation. Tragedy.
All words that can be used to describe what we are witnessing right now in Afghanistan, 20 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
You can believe, as many people I respect do, that this war should have ended long ago. You can believe that it was always unwinnable and should have never started in the first place. You can believe that it was utterly naive that America ever thought that something resembling human rights could take root in this foreign land.
But the disgraceful, haunting scenes we are now witnessing— were those also a fait accompli? Of course not.
And I cannot look away from them. From the helicopters evacuating Americans from the U.S. embassy. From the Taliban flag flying over the presidential palace; and from the terrorists who hoisted it hosting a press conference inside. From the supposed leaders of the free world beseeching medieval barbarians to recognize “the international community,” warning them that “the world is watching.”
Another Saigon moment: chaotic scenes at Kabul International Airport. No security. None.
August 15th 2021
2,554 Retweets3,240 Likes
The most shameful and dishonorable part of this shameful and dishonorable exit is Washington’s abandonment of those Afghans who helped us, trapped by American bureaucracy and now by the Taliban itself.
The email inbox for emergency visa requests for Afghans who worked with American forces has reportedly crashed. “This is murder by incompetence,” said one former sergeant trying to get apply for Special Immigrant Visa on behalf of his Afghan counterpart.
August 15th 2021
3,654 Retweets9,476 Likes
There is so much to say about this unfolding catastrophe. In the coming days I will have pieces from the likes of Gen. H.R. McMaster, Justin Amash, Thomas Joscelyn, Nikky Haley and others explaining what this unraveling means for America and the world. If you haven’t yet subscribed, now is a great time to lend us your support:
But before the day was out I wanted to share this moving essay by the journalist Kathy Gilsinan, whom I have long admired, about her friends trapped in Kabul.
We hear a lot about privilege these days in America. Reading Kathy’s moving essay, I am overwhelmed by my own.
I am a free woman — a freedom hard-won and so very far from inevitable.
It’s a freedom that Afghans tasted and will now lose. A freedom that so many of them sacrificed to secure. Surely we owe them something more than abandonment? — BW
“The Taliban have entered Kabul from the south and east.” I saw the note on my Facebook messenger app when I woke up Sunday morning, but by then it was all over the news. “We can’t do anything kathy jan,” wrote my friend, a young Afghan man in Kabul. “The Taliban have taken over all of Kabul. They are like wild animals with long hair and dirty outfits. We all have taken shelter inside our houses . . . Everyone is panicked.”
I’m not using names here, because I believe my friend when he says no one is safe. We met in 2011, when we were both working for an Afghan news organization. He was 19 then and had never known a country at peace. He was also very cute, and the other American girl and I would anticipate prayer times because he would roll up his sleeves to do his ablutions. We surreptitiously called those moments “muscle o’clock.”
Once, when we thought there was a Taliban threat to our office, he told me not to worry. “I will protect you,” he said then. “And Allah gave me the heart of a lion.”
The Taliban didn’t hurt us that day, but on Sunday they took over his city. “I cried so much,” he told me.
He was trying to get a visa to leave — everyone in his neighborhood knew he’d worked for the Americans, it was only a matter of time before the Taliban learned it, “and then you know what will happen to me.” He needed one more document: a letter from a supervisor who had stopped returning his emails. On Saturday, I got help from some D.C. friends to track the supervisor down. The supervisor responded immediately, saying the young man had “worked tirelessly to help the U.S. mission in Afghanistan,” and had “regularly placed himself in harm’s way without any objection.”
I was relieved he’d gotten this ticket out. But by Sunday it was clear it was too late; the Taliban weren’t letting anyone leave.
Another friend, a translator, had all his paperwork filled out. He had been telling me for months of his plans to leave, asking about what it was like in the United States. He’d already done his interview in July and gotten a medical exam on August 7.
But he hasn’t heard from anybody since. He doesn’t know where his visa is. For the past week, he’s been listening to Chinooks fly over his house. They’re not stopping for him.
A friend of a friend, this one a female journalist, made it to the airport after being stopped on the way and robbed at gunpoint. She didn’t get to say goodbye to her family. Like so many other women in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, she dared to build a life for herself based on promises we made. Now she’s hunkered down at the airport, which is under fire. She is awaiting an escape that may never come.
In 2011, I lived in a guest house in the Shar-e-Naw neighborhood, which is now full of refugees who fled the Taliban blitzkrieg throughout the country only to have it follow them to the capital. The proprietor of the guest house also became a friend; he found me a guitar to play, and he smuggled me alcohol. We smoked and waltzed and read poetry. He introduced me to Hafiz and Rumi, and I introduced him to Elliott Smith. He smelled like cigarettes and Axe body spray and spoke English with a pretentious British lilt.
I wrote to him today, saying we’d waltz again soon, inshallah. He, too, is in Kabul, with no idea what will happen, just trying to stay sane for the next phase of the resistance. “Thank you for everything,” he wrote back. “I truly lived a good life.”
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While it pains me to say so, I agree with Jerry on this (I snipped out the few details I’m not 100% on board with).
Jerry:
“What evidence is there that the “normal” Afghan is different from the Taliban? I know little about the country. The data that I’ve consulted indicates that: (1) the country is about 99.7% Muslim, and (2) among the Muslims, 99% want to live under Sharia. So my guess is that an Afghan who some people here characterize as our “friends” or “allies” are just about as bad as the Taliban.”
I ‘m sorry I find that statement appalling.
First, the Islam of Afghanistan and those areas close to the old Silk Road historically as I understand it were of an Islam far different from the Islam of the Wahhabi Sect that descended on Afghanistan in the 80’s with the importation of Saudi influence in the war against the Russians. The areas along the old Silk Road over a thousand years ago were indoctrinated into an amalgamation of a more peaceful and tolerant Sufi Islam by wandering Sufi Scribes that preached among the diverse peoples of the Silk Road that was more to the liking of Steppe peoples of that region. For those of you who don’t know, the Sufi are now seen as heretics among the Wahhabi Fundamentalists.
The Taliban or “student” or ‘seeker” in Pashto are a Militant, hardline Fundamentalist sect of Islam who are very strict in their interpretation of Islam. They are seeking to “teach” those heretical Afghans the true hardline, unforgiving Islam.
Afghanistan up until the era of modern communications of the Russian war had little exposure to hardline Islam because it was far away from Mecca and the Hardliners. With modern communications, Fundamental Islam was introduced to Afghanistan, which it had not known before.
Also for those of you who don’t know, even among Muslims, it is the troubled down and out, much like our politicized homeless and Antifa nutters who are drawn to Hardline Fundamentalism. So the Taliban are really different from your “normal” Afghan.
I thought it had been determined that the hardliners were more like our Trust Fund Kids. Pretty well off, generally. (Which is certainly true of our antifa nutters.)
I’ve listened pretty closely to everything that Zuhdi Jasser has said about Islam and it’s issues for this era. He tries really hard, but I think the way the texts are written, it’s pretty hard to make it work in the West.
It’s too tribal and they have too little logistical connection between the areas for anything else but Islam to be its cohesion for a government. It may not have mattered before Whabbism, but it matters now.
Rufus:
“He tries really hard, but I think the way the texts are written, it’s pretty hard to make it work in the West. “
One of the real tragedies of the Biden Administration is the undoing of the miracle Trump pulled off in the Middle East.
Over the last 15 years or so, American production of oil and gas has more than doubled due to fracking. As a result, America is no longer dependent on Middle Eastern Oil, so a significant portion of the market no longer needs OPEC.
That fact and the fact that the population of Saudi Arabia, now around 35 million, has become too great to live off oil revenues alone , forced Prince Salmon to consider some radical changes in the way SA was run. He concluded that SA needs to become more industrialized to feed it’s population and therefore needed to be more integrated into the West. That conclusion led him to start pressuring the Saudi Clerics to reform the Hadiths, ( not the Koran) so that normal, everyday Saudis could live alongside Westerners without the rancor that we have seen in the last few decades. So Rufus, the texts- they may be a changing.
This same conclusion led him to make peace with the Israeli’s, but that whole miracle is now on the brink of unraveling due to the insane pro Iran policies of Uncle Joe Biden and his traitorous minions.
Fair enough, but it doesn’t change my facts. My best boss that I ever had and probably the best human being that actually helped me out was a Muslim. The only time I saw him kind of lose his composure was when he told me that people in his own religion wanted to kill him.
I find most theology pretty tedious and I only like it on a certain vector, but I have tried to listen to experts explain this to me and all I can say is I hope it works out, but it looks like a problem to me.
Afghanistan now looks exactly like it did shortly before we went there.
Yup. It was always a sham. They can thank us for the twenty year interruption in barbaric savagery to experience corruption with richer rewards, and the occasional dose of civilized savagery.
A war with no goals or exit strategy somehow didn’t pan out. And now the exit’s not looking too hot.
It may be truly impossible to “civilize” (Westernize?) Afghanistan, and I’m certainly able to believe that if it proved out. But 20 years was way too short a time to really find out. And before this “withdrawal” the annual cost was rather small.
Good point. But it could have turned out differently, without the artificial 20-year deadline.
This is the nominal leader of the main organized Never Trump group that is, I think really run by Kristol and Omidyar. This is a perfect example of how those guys have been twisting themselves into knots, since the Biden election when they communicate. I forget her name, but the communication analyst on Fox News, showed that nobody liked this part of the speech. Tom Nichols is a train wreck in this sense.
No, 20 years is more than enough time to see if societal changes are taking effect or not. Of the many problems one of the largest was the persistent corruption of local officials, meaning that most of the funds we “invested” in Afghanistan ended up in their pockets.
The “ghost soldier” problem is a very common form of corruption and one that the leadership of the Afghan military was unwilling to change.
I think the bigger problem is that 20 years is barely enough for someone who was born at the start, to be a useful member of the Afghan military without having been indoctrinated in nothing but muslim extremism for their entire life. Let alone reach a position where they might be able to do something to improve more in the military itself. And even with the corruption, it wasn’t costing all that much to maintain the status quo. It would be like saying a “troubled” corporation must be shut down just as the guy who’s been rising through the ranks might be able to take over as CEO and clean things up. Maybe it doesn’t actually work, but 20 years was just too short to know.
Given what the west has been doing these days, I can see why they don’t want to westernize.
Not much chance that Afghanistan would be brought directly to current US operating model. More likely, where we were 50-200 years ago. Sounds pretty good to me!
Mark Levin is saying that the Taliban doesn’t even poll well in Afghanistan. 20%.
Just reporting. I have no big opinion on this.
So they’re like many young South Koreans?
“We want America to leave!”
“Then North Korea comes down and takes over.”
“We don’t want THAT!”
Great. The buck stops with him. And it’s a disaster. So what are you going to do about it, MAYO!? Gonna keep pretending he’s Presidential material?
NeverTrumpers are the worst. Worse than Democrats.