Here's what's happened in Afghanistan over the past 24 hours:
- Order has been restored at Kabul airport.
- Evacuation flights are operating.
- The Taliban has announced a "general amnesty" for government officials.
- The US embassy in Kabul is still operating, coordinating the evacuation of US citizens and "vulnerable Afghans."
- Kabul remains calm, and the Taliban is not targeting American citizens or diplomatic personnel.
- President Biden authorized an additional $500 million in aid to Afghan refugees.
- He also announced that in addition to the Afghan refugees authorized earlier this month, he planned to expand refugee access to Afghans who worked for US NGOs and news agencies.
Some of this could change by tomorrow, of course, and in the long term it's almost certain that Taliban rule will be brutal and medieval, especially for women. Still, this is an example of how dangerous it is to panic over a single day's images. Yesterday the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan was a world-historical disaster and a sign of America's imminent collapse on the international stage. Today, 24 hours later, everything is running fairly smoothly.
And tomorrow? Nobody knows. But instead of guessing, why not wait until tomorrow dawns and find out?
And how much of this restoration of a semblance of order should be attributed to the thousands of US troops sent back in after the initial bug out ?
Exactly none, because they're not there yet.
Right. Instead, we can realistically attribute it to the fact that
(a) the Taliban are brutal and medieval, but they're probably not stupid, and
(b) President Biden has made it clear to them that they need us and our aid to govern that mess they call a country, so they have to control their impulses or they will lose whatever hope they have for the future of their ability to govern.
The likes of https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/44319/20210816/10th-mountain-troops-secure-kabul-airport-during-chaotic-evacuation suggest otherwise.
You mean it doesn't take a year to move 3000 troops?
You mean the troops who "began a nine-month rotation in Afghanistan near the beginning of 2021," per the citation?
The post, you see, is about the recent narrative, not about movements that were planned and completed more than half a year ago ...
And whom we presumably pulled-out a few weeks ago...
Actually we sent in 3000 troops to aid in the evacuation and they are there now.
Or there's this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/greater-stability-as-western-forces-help-to-secure-kabul-airport
Actually the first 3k are there and the second 3k are arriving soon. The knowledge that this was happening before they could create some really spectacular humiliations is likely why the Talibs shrugged and said further attempts weren't worth getting their asses handed to them in an open fight. They're not fools.
In othet words: the panic made the response faste5 and bigger which is a big source of improving calm.
If the Taliban is smart, they will use their ties to Moscow to get Hungarian observers from FIDESZ to come to Kabul to help install an Islamist Orbanite type regime.
I would say, could just use Turks from the Erdogan dictatorship, but using quasi-western, pseudo-democratized experts from the EU will lend the Taliban's new imprimatur greater legitimacy with the west in general. The co-sign from Vik will help pitch the Talibs as a capable, traditionally gendering, sex role conforming, pious regime that even a trad cath like Rod Dreher can love.
From the EU? Are you under the impression that Turkey is part of the EU?
He was saying Hungary as eu would be better than turkey as not eu.
Chaos is such a better story, though! If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead.
Precisely. The GQP will fundraise and electioneer about the Total Failure Of Joe Biden's Democrat Afghanistan Strategy up through the 2022 election -- and beyond, if it keeps working, regardless of facts "on the ground."
They -- and most significantly, their sheep-like followers -- don't keep up with any news that doesn't spin off the social media or other components of the Right wing noise machine. These folks were still raging against the Failed Hubble Space Telescope as an exemplar of governmental incompetence for years after it was fixed and was dazzling the world with star photos never before seen.
Rick Scott is already pimping the butterfly known as the 25th amendment to get El Tio Demento out of the White House.
instead of guessing, why not wait until tomorrow dawns and find out?
Now listen here Mr Drum, the Narrative has been established and that is that. For heaven's sake, we can't go changing the story from day to day, just because of some silly events. Our viewers would become confused, you see. Our brand would be inconsistent. Advertisers might get nervous, because as you should know, consistency is important in advertising. And besides, think of the embarrassment our producers and publishers would suffer at the better clubs and cocktail parties! No no no, that simply won't do at all. We've got to stick to our guns here. To do otherwise would send the wrong Message.
Watching backward and barely literate folks imposing their hateful ways on more educated and capable ones is surely one of the cruel ironies of the moment. How can we defend against the barbarians and religious fanatics when so many believe this foolishness?
This tragedy is not as much about the US military failures and the US government incompetence (though they are surely massive failures!). It's about the inability of the afghans to reconcile with modern life. They aren't even close to achieving an understanding of life in the developed world.
Perhaps one needs to liberate your states of Alabama and Missippi first, eh?
We've been fighting a civil war since 1961 to liberate Alabama, Mississippi, and their allied insurrectionist states. We experienced early military victories but were subsequently stymied by local insurgents. I am optimistic we will see victory within my lifetime.
Ah the joys of a comment system even more limited than Mother Jones’ attack dog Coral…
I assume you meant 1861.
Those states don't even have the same ethnic composition as 1861. Ditto the Northeast. It's dialectical illusion.
With the possible exception of Georgia, the ethnic composition of those in power has not yet changed.
Ha. For a moment, I thought you were describing the United States.
In the US backwards barely literate folks impose their order on both more educated and other backward barely literate folks.
As a general matter the new Taleban leadership appears to know what their medium term interest is - which is certainly not to provoke the Americans into lashing out and cause more chaos which would simply make their consolidation of power harder for themselves.
To what extent they actually believe their calming "Taleban 2.0 better than the alpha version" rhetoric of course is another matter. As in most instances of insurgencies, probably some do indeed lean towards more the Muslim Brotherhood or Erdogan type vision. Whether they win out.... one can doubt but not to entirely exclude.
Based on the reports I've read.... lasts about a week. Then it's back to women at home and civil servants come work or get shot.
Maybe they have different aims or methods this time around? Reports say they used the no-attacks-on-Americans months they negotiated with trump to reach deals with local bigshots across the country, and that this is the biggest reason for the sweeping triumph-- they didn't need to fight much, just send in some commissars and enforcers in pickup trucks. Word also has been that they're trying to get mid-level former-government functionaries to stay on the job, meaning minimal disruption in daily life.
So maybe this time they want to run the country as an ongoing concern they can skim without too much trouble? There's sure a lot more to skim now than there was 25 years ago. We could have some sense of that if we knew how they've been running the regions they've controlled up to now.
Everybody remembers the murderous bug-eyed fanatics who slaughtered people and blew up ancient Buddhist monuments. That established their limits-- none-- and their reputation. Maybe that reputation does a lot of work for them now and they don't have to rely on those tactics much.
Besides, it serves their longer-term interests to let the Americans and NATO and their Afghan enablers get out. It's a cleaner and very effective way to purge the unreliable elements.
Don't turn around -- uh-uh. Der Komissar's in town, uh-huh.
This over the top propaganda convulsion we've been seeing in the mainstream press, with women on TV crying that America betrayed them (instead of, say, every able-bodied Afghan male who just abandoned their civil war and wandered off), is definitely proof that Biden did absolutely the right thing rushing this exit.
Biden had watched Obama get completely railroaded by the military brass and the media into surging troops into Afghanistan instead of leaving. Clearly he learned the lesson. Imaging the crushing media blitz if he had done this gradually over 6 months... leaving would have been politically impossible.
The elite women who hobnob with journos.
Which Westerners naively lap up as representing Women of Afghanistan.
And the able bodied Afghans who abandoned the American Potemkin village regime likely did not abandon their own combat, they simply abandoned a corrupt regime, a Potemkin façade, that wasn't even bothering to pay its supposedly own security forces. Dying to fight for them makes no sense. Returning to tribal or ethnic forces rather makes more sense.
And as Altoid above notes they have been cutting deals rather than acting like they did in the 90s - so why die for the foreigners, the Americans, agenda, why not quietly go home with your guns and wait-and-see?
The Taliban may eventually revert to form, but right now they are clearly on their best behavior. There won't be any decapitation videos or mass executions. They know the world is watching them, and they don't want to give the U.S. a reason to change our minds about leaving.
The question now is whether we can find a way to *keep* them on their best behavior once the world's attention moves on.
I think it was a shock to the Taliban 20 years ago when the US came in and blew them away and no one (except perhaps Pakistan) did anything to object.
Kevin made the point yesterday, "Our withdrawal from Afghanistan is not the disaster the media is making it". This seemed crazy to me at first, but now I see he was ahead of the media and other pundits. This reminds me of why I read his blog each day.
So the remaining biggest concern is for trapped Afghans who helped us, like interpreters. But even here, how badly is it going? We really don’t know yet.
The fall of Afghanistan was always going to be messy – any evacuations of Afghans who helped us by the nature of it would have been at the very last minute. We wouldn’t evacuate Afghans if there was any chance Afghanistan might not fall.
Related, yesterday commenter kenalovell made this point: “It's deluded to think America can rescue all the Afghans who backed the wrong side in a civil war.”
Good point! Josh Marshall, over at Talking Points Memo, made this argument in this week's special podcast. If the US had begun evacuating our allies a year ago, or even more months ago, it would have been a sign that the United States fully expected that the Afghan government was going to fall. And these actions and implicit lack of faith would have caused it to fail earlier, before the US had time to get its own people out, much less the indigenous allies.
Others have pointed out the curious notion that these trapped afghans "helped us." They were supposed to be helping themselves.
People like interpreters put themselves at risk by working with us. And yes, that means they helped us. Their work was also meant to help their country.
I want to see how long the amnesty will last & to whom it will apply - Karzai's a dandy compared to Taliban men, but I admire him for at least staying in Kabul, trying to negotiate, while Ghani fled.
But since they've already killed soldiers who turned over their weapons, & women who displeased them, I don't hold out much hope.
Cite?
Biden comes from an era of Huntley-Brinkley and Cronkite. Not 24-hour cable news and social media. He's not as conditioned to react to how things look on the TV, unlike TFG who was all about new as reality show.
Background anecdote relating to who is being targeted or not: https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/asia/afghanistan-women-taliban-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
One could write the same article and replace a young man answering the door and Americans knocking. It's essentially meaningless and removed from time.
Maybe slightly off topic (but not much): I've watched some of the cable TV hand-wringing this afternoon. The core of all of it is (more or less): "Why aren't they cutting the red tape to get the Afghans who helped us out?" They refer to it as bureaucracy. I'm not an expert but I have a pretty good guess.
Regarding all of those Afghanis swarming the airport, trying to get on the planes... how do we know which one's are solidly on our side? Does anyone think that there aren't ANY jihadists trying to get on those planes? That's what vetting is for. The term "red tape" is just a pejorative word for vetting. The people on TV complaining act like everybody knows with absolute certainty which locals were genuinely helping us. I'm pretty sure that if a US special forces person managed to cultivate a local to help. that specials forces person wasn't likely to run around telling everybody and their brother/sister who it was! People need to chill out a bit and let the professional do their job. They aren't perfect, but I'd bet money that they will do a better job than any untrained person who is an observer/pundit/commentator (on TV or here).
Do you want another example of "bureaucracy"? One of the most lauded US military tools for projecting power is the aircraft carrier. If you don't understand that it takes a large "bureaucracy" to make that thing run smoothly, I think you're naïve.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not an apologist for neo-cons. I'm a pacifist. I didn't support either invasion of Iraq, and I don't like my country using military action as a way to solve political or social problems. But I also don't like it when I see Monday morning quarterbacking whereby US citizens and media figures have a free-for-all taking easy pot-shots at the folks in charge of what is inevitably a messy endeavor.
ps. I want them to get as many legitimate helpers out as they can. I trust they will do their best. I don't see TV pundits making a clear distinction between a hypothetical local who was actively helping our forces and the ordinary Afghani citizen who really wanted our help in trying to change the brutality of life in that country, but didn't really engage in actively helping. I'm talking about the distinction between an ally and a refugee. We can't take in everyone from that country who doesn't want to live under Taliban rule.
I saw an internet report that said a rumor had spread in Kabul that Canada was taking all comers without a visa. Young men who wanted a free pass to the land of milk and honey rushed the airport.
Milk and honey? You mean beer and poutine shirley?
Moose n' hockey!
Have they read any of the leading elected Republicans? Why? Because Republicans are referring to them with eliminationist rhetoric?
I would like to get the girl roboticist team out.