Afghanistan

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan had to admit that a lot of US weapons intended for the Afghan army are now in the hands of the Taliban, brushing off questions of how the US intends to deal with it.

“We don’t have a complete picture obviously of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” Sullivan said on Tuesday, briefing reporters at the White House as press secretary Jen Psaki looked on.

As Afghanistan has collapsed and been taken over by the Taliban, Kamala Harris is reportedly refusing to accept any responsibility.

A source reportedly told Kyle Becker at Becker News that Harris refused to be part of addressing the American people on Sunday after the terrorist group took over Kubal, the capital of Afghanistan.

In remote, pine-clad valleys of Afghanistan’s Kunar province and in online jihadist chat forums there is jubilation at what al-Qaeda supporters see as “a historic victory” by the Taliban.

The humiliating departure of the very forces that temporarily expelled both the Taliban and al-Qaeda 20 years ago has come as a massive morale boost to anti-Western jihadists all over the world.

The potential hiding places for them now opening up in the country’s ungoverned spaces are a tempting prize, especially for Islamic State (IS) group militants looking to find a new base after the defeat of their self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Western generals and politicians are warning that the return of al-Qaeda to Afghanistan, in strength, is “inevitable”.

Aug 17 (Reuters) – It took just a few days for the Taliban to sweep across Afghanistan and seize territory they did not already control, sometimes taking major provincial capitals with barely a shot in anger.

While much has been made of the Afghan army’s military collapse, interviews with Taliban leaders, Afghan politicians, diplomats and other observers suggest the Islamist militant movement laid the groundwork for its victory long before the events of the last week or so.

‘It’s hard for me to properly present the extent of this foreign policy failure. This is a cascading national security failure.

‘There’s a document in the embassy called the F-77. I am told the F-77 of Afghanistan indicates there are 15,000 potentially, upwards of 40,000 Americans scattered around Afghanistan right now…”

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday his government won’t recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan one day after his foreign minister said it was too early to decide.

The Butcher of Benghazi must have some great advice for Trudy. https://t.co/Tvr7WcHzAZ

— Leslie-Ann Stoffel (@LA_Stoffel) August 17, 2021

To reprise a line from a decade-old column of mine:

Afghanistan is about Afghanistan – if you’re Afghan or Pakistani. But, if you’re Russian or Chinese or Iranian or European, Afghanistan is about America.

That’s the point to remember: if you’re an Afghan schoolgirl, today is the fall of Kabul; elsewhere, in the chancelleries of allies and enemies alike, it’s the fall of America. Even by their usual wretched standards, the world’s most somnolent media are struggling to stay up to speed on the story. 

A university student tells of seeing all around her the ‘fearful faces of women and ugly faces of men who hate women’

Early on Sunday morning I was heading to university for a class when a group of women came running out from the women’s dormitory. I asked what had happened and one of them told me the police were evacuating them because the Taliban had arrived in Kabul, and they will beat women who do not have a burqa.

We all wanted to get home, but we couldn’t use public transport. The drivers would not let us in their cars because they did not want to take responsibility for transporting a woman. It was even worse for the women from the dormitory, who are from outside Kabul and were scared and confused about where they should go.