Afghan war news and discussion

[weatheriscool]

Pentagon preparing to house 30,000 Afghan refugees in U.S.

Documents obtained from a source show DoD planning to potentially relocate up to 30,000 Afghan SIV applicants into the United States in the immediate future.

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 16, 2021

The Department of Defense is preparing to immediately house thousands of Afghan refugees on American military installations, Fox News confirmed late Sunday. Documents show DoD plans to relocate up to 30,000 Afghan SIV applicants into the United States in the immediate future.

The bases include Fort McCoy in Wisconsin and Fort Bliss in Texas.

“We want to have capacity to get up to several thousand immediately, and want to be prepared for potential of tens of thousands,” Pentagon Spox John Kirby tells me. “Bliss & McCoy have capability right now – what’s advantageous is w/ a bit of work, could increase in short order.”

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 16, 2021

Kirby says American citizens will not be given priority evacuation over Afghan SIV applicants. “Once we get more airlift out of Kabul, we’re going to put as many people on those planes as we can. There will be a mix…

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 16, 2021

Read the full thread here…

[Ken_J]

Just because the US may be gone, does not mean any war might be over. If there are so many people who are afraid or trying to escape that can't, you may have the foundations of a peoples resistance.

[weatheriscool]

Taliban shooting kids in front of their parents
https://www.mid-day.com/news/world-news ... s-23186832
08 August,2021 06:04 AM IST | Kabul

According to local media reports, the Taliban have murdered more than 40 civilians in Malistan in the past one week. Most of these civilians were Hazaras

[weatheriscool]

Biden says he stands 'squarely behind' Afghanistan decision
Source: AP

By ZEKE MILLER, JONATHAN LEMIRE and JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Striking a defiant tone, President Joe Biden said Monday that he stands “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan and that the Afghan government’s collapse was quicker than anticipated.

Biden said he was faced with a choice between sticking to a previously negotiated agreement to withdraw U.S. troops this year or sending thousands more service members back into Afghanistan for a “third decade” of war.

Biden said he will not repeat mistakes of the past and did not regret his decision to proceed with the withdrawal.

“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said in a televised address to the nation from the White House East Room. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-af ... 973a8b3d25

[raklian]

Just because the US may be gone, does not mean any war might be over. If there are so many people who are afraid or trying to escape that can't, you may have the foundations of a peoples resistance.

Which the US will probably fund, just like they did with the Taliban.

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Kabul Under Taliban Control: Checkpoints, Beatings, Fear

On their first day in control of Kabul, Taliban fighters commandeered streets and searched the homes and offices of government officials and media outlets, spreading fear and menace across the Afghan capital.

Armed militants erected checkpoints throughout the city of six million people, imposed a 9 p.m. curfew and took over army and police posts. Fighters, many grinning in victory, rode through the streets in captured U.S. and Afghan military vehicles flying the Taliban’s white flag.

Turban-clad insurgents searched the phones of passersby for evidence of government contacts or compromising material they might deem un-Islamic. Bridal dress advertisements that showed women with exposed strands of hair were covered in fresh white paint. Stores were shut across the city.

-snip-

Rozina, an Afghan-Canadian woman visiting Kabul with her Afghan husband, said Taliban fighters came to their hotel Monday morning while she was in a back garden. Frightened, she ran upstairs to her room. Minutes later, Taliban fighters came inside with the hotel manager, who persuaded her to come out of the bathroom where she had hidden.

Three armed militants rummaged through Rozina’s purse and luggage, checked her passport and asked questions about her relationship with her husband, she said. They demanded to see their marriage certificate. Her husband protested, saying that devout Muslims wouldn’t invade his wife’s privacy. They slapped him across the face and hit him in the back with the weapons, she said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ka ... ar-AANofXe

[weatheriscool]

Jack Posobiec
@JackPosobiec
Afghan air force flees en masse: Uzbekistan SHOOTS DOWN one fighter plane and forces another FORTY SIX helicopters and planes to land carrying 600 Afghan soldiers

[weatheriscool]

Taliban leader was freed from Guantanamo Bay in 2014 swap by Obama
By Paul Sperry
August 16, 2021 9:44pm Updated
https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/taliban-l ... -by-obama/

When then-President Barack Obama released five Taliban commanders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for an American deserter in 2014, he assured a wary public the dangerous enemy combatants would be transferred to Qatar and kept from causing any trouble in Afghanistan.

In fact, they were left free to engineer Sunday’s sacking of Kabul.

Soon after gaining their freedom, some of the notorious Taliban Five pledged to return to fight Americans in Afghanistan and made contacts with active Taliban militants there. But the Obama-Biden administration turned a blind eye to the disturbing intelligence reports, and it wasn’t long before the freed detainees used Qatar as a base to form a regime in exile.

[caltrek]

Well, I see that a lot of folks seem to be very upset about Biden's policy of withdrawal in Afghanistan. Often cited is the terrible human rights record of the Taliban. In These Times recently featured an article written back in 2017, maybe to remind us how great things were before Biden came along.

The U.S.-Trained Warlords Committing Atrocities in Afghanistan
by May Jeong
September 19, 2017

https://inthesetimes.com/article/our-wa ... fghanistan

Extract:

(In These Times) According to Malik Lal Mohammad, a local elder, one day in August 2009, a pro-government armed group and their U.S. advisors arrived in Khataba to seek out Taliban fighters.

Khataba residents had learned to make themselves scarce when government forces were on a sweep. In a previous U.S.-advised raid, locals say, at least three men suspected of affiliation with the Taliban had been disappeared.

A group of farmers, however, decided that they had little to fear. They were all relatives of Hanif Hanifi, a two-term Afghan senator with clout among local officials. After a rushed assembly to discuss their options, the men, all Pashtun, decided to continue working in the fields. Hanifi’s name, they believed, would afford them protection.

…The farmers never had time to make their case. The Afghan patrol opened fire, killing all seven men. It was not clear whether the U.S. advisors, who were stationed half a mile away, witnessed the killings, but Mohammad believes they would have been within earshot of the gunfire.
This kind of impunity has come to be the norm in Afghanistan. Numerous reports from human rights agencies have implicated U.S.-backed militias in killings and human rights violations over the course of the war. No one has a comprehensive tally. Due to poor record-keeping, even the U.S. government may not know how many militias it has funded or how many civilian deaths those militias are responsible for. None of these crimes have been prosecuted in Afghan or international courts.

[caltrek]

The following are extracts from a public document, and therefore size limitations due to copyright considerations do not apply. I have edited the comments somewhat for the sake of a shorter read.

Remarks by President Biden on Afghanistan
August 16, 2021

Remarks by President Biden on Afghanist ... hite House

Extract:

Today, the terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan: al Shabaab in Somalia, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. These threats warrant our attention and our resources.

We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have a permanent military presence.

If necessary, we will do the same in Afghanistan. We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed.

When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021 — just a little over three months after I took office.

U.S. forces had already drawn down during the Trump administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country, and the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001.

The choice I had to make, as your President, was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season.

There would have been no ceasefire after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1.

There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict.

I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.

….Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.

...And here’s what I believe to my core: It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not. If the political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down, they would never have done so while U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan bearing the brunt of the fighting for them.

And our true strategic competitors — China and Russia — would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely.

When I hosted President Ghani and Chairman Abdullah at the White House in June and again when I spoke by phone to Ghani in July, we had very frank conversations. We talked about how Afghanistan should prepare to fight their civil wars after the U.S. military departed, to clean up the corruption in government so the government could function for the Afghan people. We talked extensively about the need for Afghan leaders to unite politically.

They failed to do any of that.

I also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong.

So I’m left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay: How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghans — Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not? How many more lives — American lives — is it worth? How many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery?

…I also want to acknowledge how painful this is to so many of us. The scenes we’re seeing in Afghanistan, they’re gut-wrenching, particularly for our veterans, our diplomats, humanitarian workers, for anyone who has spent time on the ground working to support the Afghan people.

…It is for me as well.

…I’ve traveled there on four different occasions. I met with the people. I’ve spoken to the leaders. I spent time with our troops. And I came to understand firsthand what was and was not possible in Afghanistan.

We will continue to support the Afghan people…with our diplomacy, our international influence, and our humanitarian aid.

We’ll continue to push for regional diplomacy and engagement to prevent violence and instability.

[weatheriscool]

Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby Says There Are Thousands of Americans Still in Afghanistan
Source: Newsweek

There are thousands of Americans still trapped in Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover of Kabul, a Pentagon spokesperson said Tuesday.

John Kirby, the press secretary for the Department of Defense, told CNN's New Day host John Berman that there could be anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 U.S. citizens near Afghanistan's capital.

"We think there are certainly thousands of Americans," Kirby said. "We don't have an exact count."

Kirby noted that the State Department is advising U.S. citizens there on how to get to the airport and begin processing for flights out of the country.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pe ... ar-AANq9xY

[wjfox]

[funkervogt]

The Taliban's official spokesman, Mohammad Naeem, said to Al Jazeera news "The war is over in Afghanistan."

https://www.yahoo.com/now/taliban-spoke ... 25403.html

When will we be closing this thread?

[wjfox]

Perhaps it's best if we continue the discussions here, for now:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=690

We can always reopen this "war" thread if/when there's a significant escalation of military action.