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

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.

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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.

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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.


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.

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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.

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

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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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