of course so many people are doing amazing work but they're stretched so thin & having to make awful decisions they should never have been forced to make because fuck europe
― Left, Saturday, 4 September 2021 00:52 (two years ago) link
Tough night on ilx.
I really dislike how this -- otherwise generally informative piece in a trainspotter historian sorta way -- talks of Kabul as a disaster.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/04/afghanistan-britain-worst-failure-since-suez-uk-foreign-policy
The withdrawal is generally fine. It's the refugee situation that is fucked.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 4 September 2021 11:43 (two years ago) link
lol. it really was!
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:43 (two years ago) link
just a bit of jovial horseplay at last orders time!
― calzino, Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:52 (two years ago) link
fuck you, you worthless motherfucker!! I says to the barkeep
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 4 September 2021 13:59 (two years ago) link
Let me take you to the placeWhere membership's a smiling faceBrush shoulders with the arseholesWhere wankers take you by the handAnd welcome you to a wonderful ilx threadAnd they spit in your face and call you a melt-cunt
― calzino, Saturday, 4 September 2021 14:07 (two years ago) link
The Taliban takeover has restored order to the conservative countryside while plunging the comparatively liberal streets of Kabul into fear and hopelessness. This reversal of fates brings to light the unspoken premise of the past two decades: if U.S. troops kept battling the Taliban in the countryside, then life in the cities could blossom. This may have been a sustainable project—the Taliban were unable to capture cities in the face of U.S. airpower. But was it just? Can the rights of one community depend, in perpetuity, on the deprivation of rights in another? In Sangin, whenever I brought up the question of gender, village women reacted with derision. “They are giving rights to Kabul women, and they are killing women here,” Pazaro said. “Is this justice?” Marzia, from Pan Killay, told me, “This is not ‘women’s rights’ when you are killing us, killing our brothers, killing our fathers.” Khalida, from a nearby village, said, “The Americans did not bring us any rights. They just came, fought, killed, and left.”
In this week's @NewYorker I write about the Afghan women who wanted US troops to leave https://t.co/nQGzqKPFZu— Anand Gopal (@Anand_Gopal_) September 6, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 6 September 2021 17:25 (two years ago) link
pretty sure I’m taliban after reading that
― k3vin k., Monday, 6 September 2021 18:24 (two years ago) link
Here's the Times-published op-ed from the general whose atrocities are detailed near the endhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 September 2021 19:28 (two years ago) link
This was a good light-ish critique of that piece
Some of this is a bit too novelistic in presentation to inspire complete confidence imho, but the core claim that the occupation of Afghanistan was a parade of crimes and horrors is very clearly going to be completely correct. https://t.co/ziiyZCv9Tp— Lafargue (@Lafargue) September 7, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 17:58 (two years ago) link
NYT: The drone strike that the military said took out a potential ISIS car bomber right before we departed Afghanistan likely hit a a longtime worker for a U.S. aid group who was bringing people to and from work. https://t.co/eh5C18FTAg— Sam Stein (@samstein) September 10, 2021
― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, 10 September 2021 20:58 (two years ago) link
ah! nevertheless
― k3vin k., Saturday, 11 September 2021 00:26 (two years ago) link
BREAKING: Gen. McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, to announce no ISIS-K fighters killed in U.S. drone strike in Kabul Aug 29. 10 civilians killed, including 7 children in Toyota. No disciplinary action expected, officials say. US military stands by intel leading to strike.— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) September 17, 2021
― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, 17 September 2021 21:20 (two years ago) link
No disciplinary action expected, officials say. US military stands by intel leading to strike.
I can only think of a few possibilities of how this went down, but none of them fit with both of these sentences. Either the intel was inaccurate. Or it was inadequate. Or it was accurate and actionable, and the operator made a grievous error and struck the wrong target. Or the operator was ordered by a superior to strike although the target was incorrect.
― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Friday, 17 September 2021 21:31 (two years ago) link
Asked by a reporter to explain how the "complete and utter failure" could have occurred, McKenzie said, "While I agree that this strike certainly did not come up to our standards and I profoundly regret it, I would not qualify the entire operation in those terms."
Fucking piece of shit
― jmm, Friday, 17 September 2021 21:47 (two years ago) link
In this week's @NewYorker I write about the Afghan women who wanted US troops to leave https://t.co/nQGzqKPFZu— Anand Gopal (@Anand_Gopal_) September 6, 2021― xyzzzz__, Monday, 6 September 2021 17:25 (one week ago) link
*strokes chin thoughtfully*
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 17 September 2021 21:47 (two years ago) link
I've been listening to like 6 different podcasts with Spencer Ackerman bc of his new book being out and I am finding all of them incredibly informative & sensible. His description of how the war wasn't really happening *in* Kabul and it was safe to be a drunk Westerner walking through the streets to your hotel, there was no security, etc, versus how heavily rural areas were droned, mined, and so on...was something I hadn't realized at all.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Friday, 17 September 2021 23:16 (two years ago) link
I put a hold on his book at the library, but I'm 11th in line for a shot at one of the 4 copies in the system.
― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Saturday, 18 September 2021 00:17 (two years ago) link
― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Friday, September 17, 2021 5:31 PM (two hours ago)
I read this anand gopal essay essay earlier this week and I think it illuminates the perverted ethics of this sort of thing
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-on-syrian-civilians/amp
― mens rea activist (k3vin k.), Saturday, 18 September 2021 00:28 (two years ago) link
The Ackerman book is great
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Saturday, 18 September 2021 00:45 (two years ago) link
incredible pic.twitter.com/8bFf5vVLH5— rice🌐 (@412ricefarmer) October 25, 2021
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 26 October 2021 01:32 (two years ago) link
otm
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 26 October 2021 01:36 (two years ago) link
they tried so hard to manufacture consent
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 26 October 2021 01:47 (two years ago) link
extremely grim report: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/08/afghanistan-winter-crisis/
The country’s new rulers, cut off from most international aid as well as Afghan government assets held in U.S. accounts, have scant resources to protect millions of vulnerable people against another harsh winter. Aid groups estimate that nearly 23 million Afghans, out of a total population of 39 million, already do not have enough to eat. Many also lack solid shelter and money to heat their homes at night, forcing them to choose between food and fuel, and creating additional potential for a full-fledged humanitarian disaster, aid officials said.
― rob, Monday, 10 January 2022 19:02 (two years ago) link