UPDATE: Al Jazeera’s report below is inaccurate. Biden actually said that he didn’t think the troops would stay a lot longer, and blames Trump for the delay. The points I made still hold.
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It’s ironic that Al Jazeera explains “jihad” as “holy war” in the last paragraph quoted below, as Islamic apologists in the West have repeatedly insisted that such an understanding of jihad is wrong and “Islamophobic,” and jihad is really all about getting the kids to school on time and hitting the gym. Al Jazeera has, at least in this report, forgotten about that propaganda initiative.
Anyway, how long do we have to stay? At what point do Biden’s handlers believe that the Taliban will give up its efforts to impose Islamic law (which is already essentially in effect) in Afghanistan? Five more years? Ten more years? And if they reframe our mission there as preventing the establishment of an Islamic emirate, won’t Biden’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked allies in the United States be enraged?
The Afghanistan war has no point, no purpose, except to line the pockets of the military-industrial complex. Our troops should have come home years ago, and our focus there shifted to preventing Afghan jihadis from attacking Americans. An American president should have no other interest in Afghanistan. But as Biden has informed us, he is not putting America first.
“Taliban expect US withdrawal in May; vow to restore Islamic rule,” Al Jazeera, March 19, 2021:
The Taliban warned the United States on Friday against defying a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan, promising a “reaction” though failing to specify exactly what it would be.
The Taliban issued their warning at a press conference in Moscow, the day after meeting with senior Afghan government negotiators and international observers to try to jump-start a stalled peace process to end Afghanistan’s decades of war.
US President Joe Biden’s administration says it is reviewing an agreement that the Taliban signed with the administration for former President Donald Trump. Biden told ABC in an interview on Wednesday that the May 1 deadline “could happen, but it is tough”, adding that if the deadline is extended it will be by “a lot longer”.
“They should go,” Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban negotiation team, told reporters, warning that staying beyond May 1 would breach the deal.
“After that, it will be a kind of violation of the agreement. That violation would not be from our side … Their violation will have a reaction.”
He did not elaborate on what form the “reaction” would take, but in keeping with the agreement they signed in February 2020, the Taliban have not attacked US or NATO forces, even as unclaimed bombings and targeted killings of Afghan security forces and civilians have spiked in recent months….
The Taliban also pushed back against major regional players who said Afghanistan should not return to being an Islamic state.
On Thursday, the United States, Russia, China and Pakistan in a joint statement said they “did not support the restoration of the Islamic Emirate”.
But Taliban political spokesman Mohammad Naeem, speaking to media in Moscow on Friday, said it was up to Afghans to decide their system of governance and it should be an Islamic system.
“What is stated in the declaration is against all principles and is not acceptable,” he said.
Shaheen also said the Taliban was firm on their demand for an Islamic government. He did not elaborate on what an Islamic government would look like, or whether it would mean a return to their repressive rules that denied girls education, barred women from working, and imposed harsh punishments.
Shaheen did not say whether the Taliban would accept elections, but he emphasised the government of President Ashraf Ghani would not fit their definition of an Islamic government.
In previous statements, the Taliban has said its vision of an Islamic government would allow girls to attend school, and women to work or be in public life. But in every conversation, they emphasised the need to follow Islamic injunctions without specifying what that would mean.
The Taliban has said it would not accept a woman as president, and while women could be judges they could not take the job of chief justice.
But even without the Taliban in government in Afghanistan, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security Afghanistan said Afghanistan was one of the worst places in the world to be a woman in 2020….
Meanwhile, the Taliban refused to promise they would not launch a spring offensive despite calls from the US, Russia and China.
“I started ‘jihad’ [holy war] to remove foreign forces from my country and establish an Islamic government, and jihad will continue until we reach that goal through a political agreement,” said Khairullah Khairkhwa, a member of the negotiating team, who was one of five Taliban freed from the US prison on Guantanamo Bay in 2013 in exchange for the release of a captured US soldier….
Van Hee says
Al Jazeera can’t be trusted… they only tell one side of the story. They never mention jihad violence in any of their hit pieces.
LB says
“The Afghanistan war has no point, no purpose, except to line the pockets of the military-industrial complex.”
Exactly! The same can be said about every other foreign war the US took part in since WWII. More wars = more money, simple math. This is also the reason why Biden’s handlers are intentionally increasing tensions with Russia, and we’re only two months in! It’s not looking good, folks.
gravenimage says
I think that saving South Korea from the horrors of Communism was actually a good thing.
Dismantling the Islamic State has its good points, also. You may of course disagree.
born saturday says
we now have islamic states in the west, what does an islamic in afganistan matter so much…
Rob Smith, Jr. says
Biden has never met e war he hasn’t liked. He lead the Democrats to support Bush to go to war with Iraq. He supported the ramping up of troops in 2010 in Afghanistan. He places a board member of Raytheon as Defense Secretary. He has been bank rolled and helped bank roll the Military Industrial Complex for decades.
Thus, Biden will trash Trump’s order to leave Afghanistan and the U.S. will stay for as long as Biden can keep them there to fund the Military Industrial Complex and help them make back the trillions Trump cost them.
Walter Sieruk says
In Afghanistan, with Islam, women will never have equal rights with men.
It will only become worse for women after the Taliban regains in power in that country.
For example, on the morning of April 17, 2019 on FOX NEWS television the subject was covered about the idea of having “peace talks “with the Taliban. Viewing the history of the Taliban when they were in power in Afghanistan and the brutal ruthless misogyny they had engaged in was both vicious and malicious to the extreme.
Therefore the question, naturally, was brought up, now that peace talks” might soon begin, the Taliban was asked if they return to power in Afghanistan “ would they respect female rights ?”
To that question the Taliban replied “that when back in power they would respect.
Women‘s rights but only to the limits of the cultural of will they permit those rights of women.”
The point is that the “cultural of Afghanistan” is really the religion of Afghanistan, which is Islam.
Therefore the reality is that female rights, for both girls and woman, will not exist in a future Taliban controlled Islamic state of Afghanistan . For Islam is a religion of harsh and malice- filled misogyny.
As explained in the book, by Brigitte Gabriel, of the title THEY MUST BE STOPPED. Her book informs the readers on page 172. “Woman in Islam are considered unclean, deemed inferior even to dirt.”
Walter Sieruk says
Any “peace” agreement with Taliban is a “Deal with devil “ in other words a “fools deal.” The very idea of having actual, real, genuine productive “peace talks” with those brutal ,cruel misogynistic Taliban characters is an absurd and fool idea of folly.
One thing is for sure, even if even attempting to engage on “peace talks” with Taliban it would be best not to be naïve about them and take at face value anything that they might say or promise. To just “give trust away” to those Islamic characters who compose the Taliban would be foolishness and folly. For when trying to have genuine negotiations with the them ,it need to be kept in mind that there is an Islamic doctrine called TAQIYYA This is the Muslim dogma the lying and deception are good things to do, if and as long as the lies and deceit are done for the advancement of Islam.
For the deceptive and disingenuous Taliban have proven many times over, by their own actions, that they are a ruthless, brutal vicious gang of thugs with no honor. So in any kind of “dialogue” the Taliban will most likely speak the truth only when it happened to suite them. The rest of the time they will be speaking half-truths and also be outright lying. Likewise, the Taliban will keep their word in anything that they may happen to promise only and long as in fits into their agenda and no longer. So before engaging of the foolishness of attempting to have genuine “talks for a peace alliance” with Taliban, the officials of the current government would do well to heed the wisdom of Sun Tzu found in THE ART OF WAR. For it instructs “We cannot enter into an alliance neighboring’s princes, until we are acquainted with their designs.” To put this in a more updated and current way, it may be said that “We cannot enter into a peace alliance with the Taliban until we know the actual intentions and real schemes.”
Furthermore, if attempting to engage in “peace talks” with Taliban it would be very naïve to take at face value anything that the Taliban might promise. For example, the Taliban might say that they will respect the rights of women and girls, for they ,many times, employ the Islamic doctrine of Taqiyya In those so called “negotiations” with officials of the West .Taaqyia ids the Islamic teaching that lying and deceit
So it may be nothing but foolishness and folly to even try to have worthwhile constructive peace discussions with lying brutal cruel men who make up the Taliban . For having a genuine practical peace compromise with Taliban might be impossible
As the former US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had well-spoken when he said “There has never been – there never can be – successful compromise between good and evil.”
gravenimage says
Yes–the Taliban will never be a ‘partner for peace’. Grimly laughable.
gravenimage says
Biden says meeting May 1 Afghanistan troop withdrawal deadline ‘tough,’ blames Trump
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We cannot civilize Afghanistan, and after twenty years it is past time for us to stop trying.
Andrew Blackadder says
The USA should get out of the business of trying to sort out the problems in countries the average American couldnt find on a World Map, and so let the mega rich Middle Eastern islamic Nations do the sorting out of countries that hold their religion, and their cultural norms, to be the way forward, and stop having young Americans die thousands of miles away for people that despise us.
The Russians started this nonsense by invading Afghanistan and overthrowing the King of that Nation, they stayed a while, learned that Afghanistan is indeed the graveyard of Empires and dutifully left before it became much worse.
These Afghanistan men almost brought down the British Empire, helped by bringing down the Russian Empire and as I asked many people in the USA… “Who the hell do you think you are in dealing with these people ?”, while most of them had never even been outside America or felt any reason to even do so, and yet some people think we have something to teach them, whereas they may have something to teach us about the love of ones country, ones traditions,ones religion and culture as we have ours and they have theirs.
Would we want such people to come into the USA and try and take over, of course not, lock and load would be the cry of the day, and rightly so, so lets see US Troops pack up and walk right out of that country and let them sort themselves out and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,UAE can help them in rebuilding that country and NOT the US Taxpayer… We aint muslims….Thank Gawd…
gravenimage says
yet some people think we have something to teach them, whereas they may have something to teach us about the love of ones country, ones traditions,ones religion and culture as we have ours and they have theirs.
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You think that Jihad terror and the horrors of Shari’ah like stoning women to death is to be admired? Good grief…