Afghanistan – Page 44 – Blazingcatfur

Why the media love Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal

The President’s policy is identical to Donald Trump’s — but that’s not how CNN sees it

This week Joe Biden announced that the United States would begin withdrawing it’s military from Afghanistan in May, with the aim of leaving the country entirely by September 11th.

Biden is not the first President to announce this move. President Trump did so in 2019, and again in 2020.

Given that Biden is enacting exactly the same policy Trump wanted to pursue, you might expect the media coverage of these announcements to be similar.

by Blazingcatfur•April 15, 2021April 15, 2021•0•"Joe Sleazebag Biden", Afghanistan, The Media, The Media Lies, The Media's Preferred Narrative

Afghanistan: ‘We have won the war, America has lost’, say Taliban

Driving to Taliban-controlled territory doesn’t take long. Around 30 minutes from the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, passing large craters left by roadside bombs, we meet our host: Haji Hekmat, the Taliban’s shadow mayor in Balkh district.

Perfumed and in a black turban, he’s a veteran member of the group, having first joined the militants in the 1990s when they ruled over the majority of the country.

The Taliban have arranged a display of force for us. Lined up on either side of the street are heavily armed men, one carrying a rocket propelled grenade launcher, another an M4 assault rifle captured from US forces. Balkh was once one of the more stable parts of the country; now it’s become one of the most violent.

All that “Nation Building,” all that blood and treasure down the drain. Hooda thunk it in a swell place like Afghanistan?

by Blazingcatfur•April 15, 2021April 15, 2021•0•"Islamophobia", Afghanistan, Islam, Islam and violence, Taliban

Afghans face pivotal moment as US prepares to ‘close the book’

“We need to close the book on a 20-year war,” is how a US official put it when he broke the news on Tuesday that the last US troops would be out of Afghanistan by 11 September.

Two decades on, what does this “book” say about the country that some 10,000 US-led Nato forces will soon leave behind?

It’s a dramatically different country than the shattered land and pariah state of the Taliban toppled in the US-led invasion of 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.

But this withdrawal window is decisive. It could accelerate a push towards peace, or a descent into violence that shreds the more open society which has been taking root – however slowly and unevenly – over the past two decades.

Afghanistan has been in a state of fratricidal warfare since the Taliban entered the scene, this will increase in intensity about two minutes after the troops leave.

by Blazingcatfur•April 14, 2021April 14, 2021•0•Afghanistan

Biden to pull all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11: Report

President Biden reportedly will pull all remaining U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11, blowing past a May 1 deadline set by his predecessor while also fulfilling his own campaign pledge to wind down the longest war in American history.

The roughly 2,500 American forces in the country were supposed to leave by May 1 under a deal former President Trump struck with the Taliban last year. Instead, Mr. Biden will withdraw those troops by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks that led to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan two decades ago.

by Blazingcatfur•April 13, 2021April 13, 2021•0•Afghanistan, USA

Selling liberalism to Afghanistan: Washington wanted democracy, but got a bloated NGO sector instead

“America is back,” declared Joe Biden earlier this year. And with it, a resurrected liberal internationalism that has lain dormant for the past four years. Biden’s cabinet, packed with officials who supported the Iraq invasion, the Libya intervention, and expressed remorse over Washington’s failure to play a bigger role in Syria, now wants America to reclaim the mantle of global leader.

by Blazingcatfur•April 9, 2021April 8, 2021•0•Afghanistan, USA

Afghanistan investigates ban on girls’ singing levied by it’s own education director for Kabul

“This is Talibanisation from inside the republic,” Sima Samar, an Afghan human rights activist of nearly 40 years, is quoted as saying by the Associated Press

The Afghan education ministry says it is investigating a recent statement from the director of education in the capital, Kabul, which banned girls older than 12 from singing in public.

The ban was widely criticised on social media. Girls shared clips of themselves singing using the hashtag #IAmMySong.

The row comes amid concerns about consequences of a possible peace deal with the Taliban.

So the Government and the Taliban sing the from the same songbook? Color me shocked.

In this video, my younger sister Nila, who is a 13-year-old student of the school, sings and raises her voice against the recent decision of the Kabul's Education Directorate. on banning female students over 12 from singing in public. #IAmMySong #MyRedLine #NotGoingBackToThe90s pic.twitter.com/Yb0cYQHqjP

— Murtaza Ibrahimi (@MurtazaIbrahimi) March 13, 2021

AP Interview: Minister says Afghan forces can hold their own

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s interior minister said Saturday that Afghan security forces can hold their ground even if U.S. troops withdraw, challenging a warning from the United States predicting a withdrawal would yield quick territorial gains to the Taliban.

Masoud Andarabi’s comments in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press were the first government reaction to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s warning issued in a sharply worded letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last weekend.

Sounds good, time to go.

by Blazingcatfur•March 14, 2021March 14, 2021•0•"Islamophobia", Afghanistan, Islam, Islam and violence

Afghanistan bans schoolgirls older than 12 from singing — reports

Afghanistan’s government has reportedly decreed that girls will only be allowed to sing at women-only events. The ban sparked outrage among social media users, many of whom said it resembled the Taliban’s policies.

by Sarcasticat•March 11, 2021March 11, 2021•0•Afghanistan, Islam means submission, Islam's war on women

We will never defeat the Taliban – While the West fights an enemy that doesn’t exist, Afghanistan is poised to fall to pieces

The pair of towering Buddha statues in Bamiyan watched over Afghanistan’s Silk Road for fifteen centuries — until the Taliban came along and obliterated them using anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank mines and dynamite. When a video was released showing their destruction exactly 20 years ago, the West responded with unbridled horror. The Taliban Government, however, was resolute: idolatry had no place in their Afghanistan.

The statues’ demolition certainly lived up to the depiction of the Taliban in international media: they were a group of religious fundamentalists who beat women, banned music and measured the lengths of men’s beards to make sure they tallied with the religiously mandated length. This was the government of the day: coherent and imposing its will on the people of Afghanistan, whether they liked it or not.

by Blazingcatfur•March 3, 2021March 2, 2021•0•"Islamophobia", Afghanistan, Islam, Islam and violence

Biden Cannot Allow the Taliban to Destroy Trump’s Peace Legacy

With former US President Donald J. Trump no longer able to dictate US policy on Afghanistan, the Taliban are exploiting the opportunity to increase their efforts to seize control of the country in spite of the peace accord they signed with the Trump administration last year.

Under the terms of that agreement with the US, the Taliban agreed to negotiate a peaceful resolution of this benighted country’s long-running civil war in return for Washington agreeing to withdraw all its remaining forces. In addition, they agreed to cut their ties with Islamist terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda.

Yet, to judge by recent events in Afghanistan, the Taliban are showing little inclination to abide by the terms of the deal.

by Blazingcatfur•February 20, 2021February 20, 2021•0•"Islamophobia", "Joe Sleazebag Biden", Afghanistan, Islam, Islam and violence, Taliban

Foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond May deadline – NATO sources

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – International troops plan to stay in Afghanistan beyond the May deadline envisaged by the insurgent Taliban’s deal with the United States, four senior NATO officials said, a move that could escalate tensions with the Taliban demanding full withdrawal.

“There will be no full withdrawal by allies by April-end,” one of the officials told Reuters.

“Conditions have not been met,” he said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “And with the new U.S. administration, there will be tweaks in the policy, the sense of hasty withdrawal which was prevalent will be addressed and we could see a much more calculated exit strategy.”

Did anyone vote to stay in Afghanistan? Why are NATO sources leaking Biden policy?

by Blazingcatfur•January 31, 2021January 31, 2021•0•Afghanistan, USA

High-Tech American Military Equipment Lost in Afghanistan

The Defense Department lost advanced military gear sent to bolster coalition forces in Afghanistan, raising the risk that this proprietary equipment falls into the hands of terrorist forces still operating in the war-torn country, according to a new government oversight report.

Around 60 percent of the military items transferred to Afghan forces were not properly inventoried, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which oversees the Defense Department’s spending on the war. In one case, 19 of nearly 50 night-vision goggles given to the Afghan National Defense and Security Services in the past year were captured by enemy forces. U.S. officials admitted to the inspector that they have never been able to inventory 100 percent of the military equipment sent to Afghanistan due to the volatile security situation.

Boy am I shocked.

by Blazingcatfur•December 19, 2020December 18, 2020•0•Afghanistan, USA

Australia Calls For Mass Murdering Communist Chinese Regime To Remove Afghan Atrocity Poster

Beijing has rejected calls for an apology after a Chinese official shared a doctored poster of an Australian soldier attacking an Afghan girl, urging Canberra to instead seek forgiveness for its alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an official apology from Beijing after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted a tweet calling for justice over a recent war-crimes report released in Australia – with an illustration of an Aussie soldier holding a knife to a child’s throat.

by Blazingcatfur•November 30, 2020November 30, 2020•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Afghanistan, Australia, WTF?