quote:

Originally posted by Hermdriver:
I failed my country.

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Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
The real thing I'd love to hear is exactly what our allies in Britain, Germany, etc. are saying. You know, the same people who were there with us and are now dragged into this goat rope because of Ole Joe.

Like what are the diplomats and politicians there saying to their counterparts in the US.

That's what I'd LOVE to hear exposed.

quote:

Social media reactions

Helpless Displacement Rage

A column by Sascha Lobo

The painful force of the pictures and reports from Afghanistan is reminiscent of September 11th. Disturbing reaction patterns are revealed in social media - starting with the raging hatred towards German politics.

August 18, 2021, 2.47 p.m.

It is a horror that the Islamist-extremist Taliban have taken power in Afghanistan. What remains in memory from their last reign: music and dance were forbidden, irreplaceable cultural assets were blown up - but primarily women, girls, homosexuals and non-Islamist men had to pay a million times bitterly. The pictures of people who are now hanging on to planes in sheer panic and finally crashing from a height of a few hundred meters are reminiscent of September 11, 2001 in their painful force. The monstrosity of the pictures that we saw mainly on social media was a premonition of what agony is racing towards so many people in Afghanistan.

Many reactions in the German-speaking social media were understandably overflowing. For me personally, I found a rule a long time ago not to post anything when I am very angry, very sad, or very both (this is specifically not a demand that you have to do the same). This rule sprang not so much from my ingenious insight, but rather the repeated posting of spectacular nonsense in such situations, from which I got a kind of social media hangover afterwards.

After the devastating pictures I almost broke my rule, the desire was too strong to counteract my own helplessness with at least some communicative, collective coping. It would have been difficult - just as it became difficult for many people in the first and second reactions. Probably the vast majority of people posted, completely understandably, shaken, angry, sad, just human. But there were also some disturbing to catastrophic reaction patterns. I would like to highlight three of them. We are in campaign season, moods are being set in social media which, via multipliers and editorial media, can affect the whole country and ultimately even influence Germany's policy on Afghanistan.

Displacement Rage

Focus on Germany: There are without a doubt many, many mistakes and omissions of the federal government that one can be angry about, one must be. And research will surely result in many more. But I think in the heat of the unfolding horror I observed a different mechanic: displacement rage. In fact, the biggest furor on social media should have been aimed at the originators of the horror - the murderous Taliban themselves.

But it is not easy to be angry with faceless groups without prominent leaders in the West. Social media work extremely personalized, so the mass anger discharged where it had tangible addressees. My thesis is that this is one of the reasons why top German politicians were met with a positively gigantic raging hatred that was greater than their respective mistakes and unreasonable expectations. Almost as if [Conservative candidate] Armin Laschet, [Foreign Minister] Heiko Maas and [Defense Minister] Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had just personally introduced Sharia law in Kabul. Sometimes this happened on the basis of incorrect or incomplete information: Anger does not factcheck.

When, for example, the Bundeswehr aircraft that had transported paratroopers to Kabul to protect German citizens took off again with only seven passengers, a social media inferno ignited on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The hashtag #SevenPeople was temporarily number one in the German Twitter charts. People spread tens of thousands of times how much they were ashamed of how big the difference was to the Americans who had a fully occupied plane take off. Assumptions escalated that missing lists were the only reason for this. Completely unhistorically and bizarre, people tweeted that Germany had experience in letting people die because of lists. All of this in great excitement - but without any reliable information from Kabul.

That in an extreme situation such as a guerrilla war with a revolution and takeover of power by Islamist extremists, as well as the fleeing and panic of thousands of people, there could be other reasons for such a start - it doesn't matter. Indeed, the Defense Ministry's statement sounds plausible that both the Taliban and the US armed forces had cordoned off the airport and that after the paratroopers disembarked, they had to take off again after a very short time for security reasons.

It is not said that there was no failure here, and I look forward to the upcoming committee of inquiry which - depending on the colors of the next government - will certainly uncover many errors, omissions and structural misanthropy. But the displacement-angry just couldn't have known it at the time of their explosion. I can well understand that such outbursts happen, I have probably let myself be carried away several times. Unfortunately, the fatal thing is that with every outbreak that is not supported by facts, the power of justified anger becomes weaker and more irrelevant. And upright social media anger is just what is needed. It is an important political corrective.

Spontaneous Bigotry

Conservatives called for women and children to be protected from the Taliban, but for God's sake not to bring them to Germany (after all, they are still foreign Muslims) - in Germany, feminism rather tends to get in their way. Progressives immediately demanded a robust airlift, therefore one protected by armed force, but for decades considered the defense budget to be far too high, and the Bundeswehr to be eww. Leftists demanded all at the same time, the "Bundeswehr out of Afghanistan" posters from the last campaign still in the basement. Times of crisis are always times of bigotry, but what was spontaneously uttered on social media about Afghanistan revealed a number of ideological grand delusions in the globalized, networked world.

That you need a powerful, well-equipped army even if you really want to be a peace power (it should just be as little right-wing extremist as possible). That conservatives cannot simultaneously rant about sacred values ​​and approve of people dying (unfortunately they can, you just can't let them get away with it). That Merkel-type pragmatism may seem wise in crisis situations - but can lead into horrendous moral abysses. Bigotry or not: everyone is allowed to learn, but realization must also be recognizable for this. And thankfully there was, even from the conservative side, in the form of a tweet from CDU MP Roderich Kiesewetter. He said of the Green move in June to evacuate the Afghan auxiliaries of the Bundeswehr:

»It was a big and grave mistake to reject - on principle - the Greens' proposal. Full stop."

Drama Surfing

I would like to call an (as far as I know) previously unnamed social media category drama surfing. Similar to agenda surfing, it is about celebrating your own topics in current events and thus belittling the original occasion. The more catastrophic the event, the more shameful the drama surfing - which is why the numerous clumsy takeover attempts seemed all the more bitter.

In the European competition for the most disgusting Afghanistan tweet by a political personality, the competition was fierce. Right-wing misanthropists, conservative cynics, egocentrics of all kinds have presented solidly. A left-wing politician won all the more impressively, namely the former Greek finance minister and short-term opponent of [former German colleague] Wolfgang Schäuble, Yanis Varoufakis, fighter against anything neoliberal. He tweeted: “On the day liberal-neoconservative imperialism was defeated once and for all, DiEM25 [his party's] thoughts are with the women of Afghanistan. Our solidarity will probably bring them little, but we cannot offer more for the time being. Hold on, sisters!” Yes, that is certainly what despite everything fills the Afghan women with blazing Joy, that the Taliban have defeated the neoliberal Americans hated by Varoufakis, and soon even the poorest women will be able to afford burqas.

In spite of its reprehensibility, displacement anger seems somehow forgivable to me because there is something human about it, at least if one recognizes and corrects it afterwards. Even spontaneous bigotry only gets really bad when it solidifies and becomes permanent bigotry. But I would really like to encourage drama surfers in the Afghanistan case to personally raise their concerns with the Taliban.

quote:

Originally posted by Expat:
Apologies if posted. Her distillation is beautiful.

quote:

Originally posted by Expat:
Apologies if posted. Her distillation is beautiful.

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
The real thing I'd love to hear is exactly what our allies in Britain, Germany, etc. are saying. You know, the same people who were there with us and are now dragged into this goat rope because of Ole Joe.

Like what are the diplomats and politicians there saying to their counterparts in the US.

That's what I'd LOVE to hear exposed.

quote:

Nato allies urge rethink on alliance after Biden’s ‘unilateral’ Afghanistan exit

European leaders criticise US as troop withdrawal ‘debacle’ brings longest-running mission to end

European allies had hoped Joe Biden’s election to the US presidency would bolster Nato’s relevance after Donald Trump’s acrimonious tenure. Washington’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan is prompting a rethink.

After the fall of Kabul, EU defence and security officials have been critical of the US decision to send home its 2,500 troops, saying it has weakened Nato and raised questions about Europe’s security dependence on Washington. Their reaction marked a bitter end to the alliance’s longest-running mission, which involved 10,000 personnel from 36 countries.

“This kind of troop withdrawal caused chaos. Chaos causes additional suffering,” Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s defence minister, told local radio on Tuesday. Such long-term missions were unlikely in the future, he added: “This era is over. Unfortunately, the west, and Europe in particular, are showing they are weaker globally.”

He echoed Ben Wallace, UK defence secretary, who appeared on the verge of tears on Monday as he predicted “some would not get back” from the war-torn country. “It’s sad. Twenty years of sacrifice is what it is,” he said.

Armin Laschet, Germany’s conservative candidate to succeed chancellor Angela Merkel, on Tuesday called the troop withdrawal “the greatest debacle that Nato has experienced since its foundation”.

“It looks like Nato has been completely overtaken by American unilateral decisions,” said Lord Peter Ricketts, the UK’s former national security adviser. “First of all, Trump’s decision to start talking to the Taliban about leaving and then the Biden decision to set a timetable.”

“The Afghanistan operation was always going to end some time, it was never going to go on forever, but the manner in which it’s been done has been humiliating and damaging to Nato.”

Nato’s intervention in Afghanistan, prompted by the al-Qaeda-led September 11 2001 attacks on the US, was the first and only time the alliance invoked its Article 5 collective defence principle, under which an attack on one ally is considered an attack on all.

Two decades on, there have been cracks in the unity over how to end “America’s longest war”. As the Taliban encircled Kabul on Friday, Wallace revealed that he had tried this year to form a coalition of “like-minded” Nato countries that would keep some troops in Afghanistan.

Lord George Robertson, who was Nato secretary-general on the day of the 9/11 attack in New York, and who triggered Article 5 a few hours later, suggested the disunity was damaging. “It weakens Nato because the principle of ‘in together, out together’ seems to have been abandoned both by Donald Trump and by Joe Biden,” he told the Financial Times.

Biden administration officials had consulted with allies as they sought to unstitch Trump’s isolationist approach. On Afghanistan, however, some alliance members complained that Washington presented them with a fait accompli.

“This was discussed at length, and the US listened, but Biden had made a political decision,” said one person familiar with the withdrawal planning.

Once the decision was formalised, the UK, Turkey and Italy were keen to find a way to keep forces in place to help stabilise Afghanistan. But this was considered impossible without the vast military infrastructure provided by the US, notably air support from the US-run Bagram air base north of Kabul.

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg insisted there had been “no willingness” from other European allies or from Canada to fill in for the US once it announced its withdrawal plan.

“We must realise that when it comes to the Nato mission to Afghanistan, it was not possible to have an independent role for Germany or the European forces,” Merkel said on Monday. “We always said that we are basically dependent on the decisions of the US government.”

One former military commander who served in Afghanistan said there were “big implications” for perceptions of Nato’s deterrence capabilities.

“It’s all very well Nato talking up its ability to fight off Russia, but it couldn’t even find 3,000 to 5,000 troops to ensure Afghanistan was stable enough to force a stalemate, and eventually a ceasefire on the Taliban, without American underpinning,” the person said.

In its 2030 strategy, Nato outlined a promise for deeper political co-ordination and renewed commitment from its members to the 2 per cent defence spending target. But the crisis in Afghanistan has revived unease over a lack of strategic focus.

“Afghanistan today is the umpteenth expression of Nato’s failed, supine policy,” Ione Belarra, Podemos leader and Spain’s social policy minister, wrote on Twitter.

“It is time to make a shift towards greater sovereignty and the defence of our own interests,”, Lilith Verstrynge, another Podemos official, said, echoing France’s president Emmanuel Macron.

Asked on Monday if Nato should move away from “nation-building”, Merkel agreed: “The goals [of such deployments] should be made much narrower.”

The failure of the alliance’s training programme was also one “big question”, Stoltenberg noted. “Why were the forces we trained and equipped and supported over so many years . . . not able to stand up against Taliban in a stronger and better way than they did?”

Lord Mark Sedwill, who served as a former ambassador and senior Nato representative to Afghanistan, suggested this week the alliance should focus its efforts on rebuilding the practical capabilities to intervene when necessary, “avoiding the over-reach and impatience which proved fatal to the Afghan campaign”.

The Afghanistan drawdown might act as a cautionary tale for Nato nations failing to recognise that US security guarantees were time-limited, Robertson said. “If this is a wake-up call to the Europeans — that in the future they’ll have to safeguard their own security much more than before because . . . the American global policeman is not necessarily going to be around all the time — then it will have served a purpose.”

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Originally posted by Herkdriver: I will be ok because I know I did my best. I am not sure about everyone else but I hope and pray they will be ok as well.

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Like many veterans, this last week has been one that has seen me struggle through anger, grief and rage. The feeling of abandonment, not just of a country but of the sacrifice that my friends made. I’ve been to funerals from Poole to Dunblane; I’ve watched good men go into the earth, taking with them a part of me and a part of us all. And this week has torn open those wounds, left them raw, left us all hurting. I know it’s not just soldiers. I know aid workers and diplomats who feel the same way. I know journalists who’ve been the witnesses to our country in its heroic effort to save people from the most horrific fates.

This isn’t just about us. The mission in Afghanistan wasn’t a British mission, it was a Nato mission. It was a recognition that globalisation has changed us all. The phone calls that I am still receiving, the text messages that I have been answering, putting people in touch with our people in Afghanistan, reminds us that we are connected. Afghanistan is not a far away country about which we know little. It is part of the main. That connection links us also to our European partners, to our neighbours and our international friends.

And so it is with great sadness that I now criticise one of them. Because I was never prouder than when I was decorated by the 82nd Airborne after the capture of Musa Qala. It was a huge privilege to be recognised by such an extraordinary unit in combat. To see their commander-in-chief call into question the courage of men I fought with — to claim that they ran. It is shameful.

Let’s stop talking about ‘forever wars’, let’s recognise that forever peace is not bought cheaply — it is hard
Those who have never fought for the colours they fly should be careful about criticising those who have. Because what we have done, in these last few days, is we’ve demonstrated that it’s not armies that win wars. Armies can get tactical victories and operational victories that can hold a line. They can just about make room for peace, make room for people like us, parliamentarians, to talk, to compromise, to listen. It’s nations that make war. Nations endure. Nations mobilise and muster. Nations determine, and have patience.

Here we have demonstrated, sadly, that we, the West — the United Kingdom — does not have patience. Now, this is a harsh lesson for all of us and if we are not careful it could be a very, very difficult lesson for our allies. And it doesn’t need to be. We can set out a vision, a clear articulated vision, for reinvigorating a European-Nato partnership, to make sure we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader, but that we can work together with Japan and Australia, with France and Germany, with partners large and small, and make sure we hold the line together.

We know that patience wins. We know it because we have achieved it, we know it because we have delivered it. The Cold War was won with patience. Cyprus is at peace with patience. South Korea, with more than ten times the number of troops that America had in Afghanistan, is prosperous through patience.

So let’s stop talking about ‘forever wars’, let’s recognise that forever peace is not bought cheaply — it is hard. It is bought through determination and the will to endure. The tragedy of Afghanistan is that we are swapping that patient achievement for a second fire and a second war.

Now we need to turn our attention to those who are in desperate need, to supporting the UNHCR, the World Food Programme and so many other organisations who can do so much for people in the region. Yes to support refugees, though it’s unnecessary to get into the political auction of numbers. We just need to get people out. So I leave with one image. In the year that I was privileged to be the adviser to the governor of Helmand province, we opened girls’ schools. The joy it gave parents, seeing their little girl going to school, was extraordinary. I didn’t understand it until I took my own daughters to school about a year ago. There was a lot of crying when she first went in, but I got over it.

But there is a second image that I must leave you with and it is a harder one. But I am afraid it is one I think we must all remember. The second image is one that the forever war that has just reignited could lead to. It is the image of a man whose name I will never know carrying a child who had died hours earlier, carrying this child into our base and begging for help. There was nothing we could do. It was over. This is what defeat looks like: when you no longer have a choice of how to help. This doesn’t need to be defeat — but at the moment, it damn well feels like it.

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Originally posted by dewhorse:
At least our Allies are stepping up, we need to put out to our people to find the ex-pat Brits and get to their RP so the Brit Paras can pick them up.

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Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

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Originally posted by Expat:
Apologies if posted. Her distillation is beautiful.

I don't have time to watch many of the videos posted, but glad I took the time to watch this one. Great insight from someone who lived in Afghanistan and knows the region.

The US wanted this outcome. We have multiple ways to have made it different and chose not to. It could be changed today, but the US is choosing not to. Why? That's the question for whoever is actually pulling the levers of power in the US government.