Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan has gone precisely as one might expect. The Afghan army collapsed instantaneously, making way for the Taliban with little to no resistance. This has the Taliban back on the doorstep of the capital city of Kabul after just a few weeks. The situation is desperate enough that the United States is sending troops to evacuate the embassy (again) and pull out Afghanis who supported the U.S. during the 20 year waste of time, treasure and blood.
Those who still engage in sports jersey politics may find utility in going to their favorite search engine and alternating “support” and “oppose,” alternating “Trump” and “Biden,” then “withdrawal from Afghanistan.” For instance, “opposes Trump’s withdrawal from Afghanistan” will show similar names to “supports Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan,” despite the situation on the ground not being very different. Owning the libs is a largely pointless exercise, but can provide some entertainment every so often. Owning the cons can be amusing as well, and can easily be done using the same search terms with the other guy’s name.
Some have compared the evacuation of Kabul to the evacuation of Saigon, and there are definitely some similarities. A war that dragged on entirely too long in a far away place resulted in thousands of dead Americans, thousands more wounded, and nothing to show for it. The obvious exceptions being the stock prices of KBR, General Dynamics and Lockheed. Similarly, the U.S. is sending thousands of troops to evacuate the embassy and capital city of people who supported the U.S. There are, however, some important differences.
The risk of Islamic terrorists being hidden amongst the “evacuees” was nil. At no point was Vietnam an Islamic theocracy and didn’t have people from across the Middle East sneak in to help fight the against the U.S. China and the USSR, yes, but not Saudi Arabia or Europe. Additionally, there was not a well established and funded tactic of military aged males pretending to be refugees in order to infiltrate enemy territories in a bid for conquest.
There were concerns about the flood of refugees taking jobs from Americans and changing the local cultures, wherever it was they ended up. That, in and of itself, is worthy of a moment of reflection. People were concerned that refugees would arrive in the United States and start working. There was no panic over the potential of jihadists hiding amongst the refugees to commit acts of terror even worse than posting mean things on the internet.
Another similarity between this flood of refugees from a lost war and the previous one is that there is no way to reliably vet any of them. Social media is not as ubiquitous in Afghanistan as it is here. There are not national databases that can be checked for criminal records, previous addresses, political affiliations, etc. Investigators will usually rely on word of mouth, which is itself unreliable when the people they ask have no problem engaging in taqiya against an infidel, especially if there is some bribery involved.
Importing hordes of people from a violent country with an incompatible culture, language and customs seems like a bad idea. It didn’t work in Maine, Minnesota or England. In fact, England is probably the closest to what America will look like, given how similar Pakistanis and Afghanis are culturally. It won’t work in Connecticut. We can only hope that by some miracle the self induced cancer does not spread to the South.
We never evacuated Hanoi. We evacuated Saigon not Hanoi. We didn’t even have an embassy there(Hanoi) until 1995.
Thanks,
One would have thought the Yankee Empire would have learned its lesson many years ago, concerning the Taliban, whom I refer to as the Afghanistan Rednecks. Mess with them at your own risk. Of course, the American war profiteers did just fine – made a few billion dollars.
Good catch, thank you for pointing it out!