To filibuster or not to filibuster? Biden needs to get a move on before Doofus Duck waddles back into the swamp (Biden-Trump Thread #128)

[TheNorthWestPawsage]

Still waiting for the kraken to appear.

@AcrossthePond55 thank you for that information. I had naively thought Trump had grey suits behind him stopping his worst excesses.

I still cannot find anything on why he negotiated with the Taliban instead of the legitimate Afghan govt though.

[quote Dragon50]@AcrossthePond55 thank you for that information. I had naively thought Trump had grey suits behind him stopping his worst excesses.

I still cannot find anything on why he negotiated with the Taliban instead of the legitimate Afghan govt though.[/quote]
Because he's an idiot.

Seriously, who knows why he did half the shit he did whilst in office other than that he or one of his gang profited by it personally or he thought it would make him 'look good' for the 2020 election. It certainly didn't have anything to do with true statesmanship or a humanitarian concern for the Afghani people. Who knows, maybe he thought it would get him the Nobel Peace prize. God knows he's been trying everything to win it (and failing) ever since he was elected.

NPR
@NPR
·
4m

'BREAKING: The Pentagon has announced a drone strike against the group that bombed the Kabul airport, ISIS-K. A spokesman for U.S. Central Command says the attack in Nangahar Province of Afghanistan is believed to have killed the target, who was not named in the statement.'

I hope there weren't civilian casualties but I'm glad about the drone strike.
Biden has to look strong on this. A decision has been made on withdrawal for a myriad of reasons and he has to follow through

Not just the Taliban who have no regard for women's rights

A Texas law banning abortion at six weeks is set to go into effect in just a few days. And while the ban will make it nearly impossible for women to get abortions in the state, the six-week ban — abortion opponents’ garden-variety tactic of late — is not the most concerning part.

What makes this Texas statute particularly troubling is that it deputizes private citizens to actively seek out and sue people “aiding or abetting” women who are attempting to get abortions in the state of Texas. If you successfully sue that person — whether it’s an abortion provider, a pregnant woman’s friend, or even the rideshare driver who dropped her off at a clinic — you receive a $10,000 bounty.

“It’s baked-in prize money,” said Kristin Ford, the acting vice president of communications and research at NARAL Pro-Choice America.
www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-abortion-ban-sb-8_n_6129383ce4b0231e369bab25

And this is from people who are afraid of communism.

That is disturbing, 'baked-in prize money' ffs. No respect for women's autonomy and yes no difference with the Taliban.

That just makes me so so depressed. Womens rights non existent. I just can't get my head round it.

It's the Texan version of the Taliban, absolutely. No exception for rape or incest either, horrifying, absolutely horrifying

edition.cnn.com/2021/08/28/politics/donald-trump-hugh-hewitt/index.html

[quote TheNorthWestPawsage]Not just the Taliban who have no regard for women's rights

A Texas law banning abortion at six weeks is set to go into effect in just a few days. And while the ban will make it nearly impossible for women to get abortions in the state, the six-week ban — abortion opponents’ garden-variety tactic of late — is not the most concerning part.

What makes this Texas statute particularly troubling is that it deputizes private citizens to actively seek out and sue people “aiding or abetting” women who are attempting to get abortions in the state of Texas. If you successfully sue that person — whether it’s an abortion provider, a pregnant woman’s friend, or even the rideshare driver who dropped her off at a clinic — you receive a $10,000 bounty.

“It’s baked-in prize money,” said Kristin Ford, the acting vice president of communications and research at NARAL Pro-Choice America.
www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-abortion-ban-sb-8_n_6129383ce4b0231e369bab25[/quote]
This is roughly equivalent to paying Hopkins per head for every "witch" he identified, isn't it.

I wonder how stringent the conditions will be for claiming that bounty: a successful prosecution? Or merely an accusation?

On a different topic: the Taliban puzzles me greatly in one respect. They have a superb opportunity to make things very difficult for countries of the hated West by causing them to have to have to take in and help a large number of refugees whom the Western nations owe big-time for their help; but they prefer to prevent these people from leaving. They don't want them, as far as I can make out; all they plan to do with them is slaughter them and their families. So why don't they just tell the unfortunate interpreters and so on to bugger off out of it to their Western friends, while confiscating everything they owned in Afghanistan, thus causing maximum inconvenience to all concerned?

Is it purely for revenge? Is that something that Allah would approve of?

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-dakota-covid-cases-quintuple-after-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-n1277567?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_bw

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, I was wondering that too.

However, the Taliban don't see themselves as the bad guys. They are going to build their dream caliphate and to do that, they will probably need a few skilled people around who know how to administer medicine and run the economy. There's also the slight problem that you can't extract as much tax from poor farmers as you can from the affluent middle class.

There was an article on CNN from an Indian female evacuee and her ordeal on getting out of the country. At one point, the Taliban diverted her bus, ordered everyone out and split them up into groups whilst checking their passports. The lady telling the story feared she would be shot. She also recounted this conversation - errors in recollection are my own;

Where are you going?
"Home. I am an Indian national."
"Why are you going?"
"We are afraid of you"
"Will you consider coming back?"
"No."

Which got me wondering, what did the Taliban think was going to happen? There are 3.5 million internal refugees in Afghanistan and none of them choose to flee from active fighting zones to Taliban controlled areas.

[quote TheABC]@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, I was wondering that too.

However, the Taliban don't see themselves as the bad guys. They are going to build their dream caliphate and to do that, they will probably need a few skilled people around who know how to administer medicine and run the economy. There's also the slight problem that you can't extract as much tax from poor farmers as you can from the affluent middle class.

There was an article on CNN from an Indian female evacuee and her ordeal on getting out of the country. At one point, the Taliban diverted her bus, ordered everyone out and split them up into groups whilst checking their passports. The lady telling the story feared she would be shot. She also recounted this conversation - errors in recollection are my own;

Where are you going?
"Home. I am an Indian national."
"Why are you going?"
"We are afraid of you"
"Will you consider coming back?"
"No."

Which got me wondering, what did the Taliban think was going to happen? There are 3.5 million internal refugees in Afghanistan and none of them choose to flee from active fighting zones to Taliban controlled areas.[/quote]
I read that even the Taliban were surprised at the speed at which Kabul fell. So pivoting from fighting to governing is going to be difficult with no structure decided. Apparently they have kept the current health minister and mayor of Kabul in place so maybe there other officials who have been allowed to continue in their roles? But I'm assuming even the righteous Taliban aren't immune to in-fighting and corruption. Keeping a lid on IS might be too much to achieve and will continue to drain their resources. More suicide attacks will undermine the Taliban's new authority and question their legitimacy. Leaving just misery (or death) for innocent Afghans.

I do think that Biden was stuck between a rock and a hard place but I've lost some of my respect for him - this was never going to end well but it seems like it was a complete clusterfuck could have been handled a whole lot better.

But I can just about organise my own life so what do I know...?

I don't normally contribute to these threads but I just heard on the BBC World Service that according to the UN World Food Programme Afghanistan is in all likelihood going to run out of food by September.

I'm so shocked that there is this on top of everything else so I wanted to post informing people.
Not expecting anyone to have any solutions to anything; just thought the more people know about this aspect too the more it's possible the world community might find a constructive way forward.

heldinadream, the same is happening in Lebanon

DuncinToffee yes I know. I feel like we are watching the end of times. And most of it was predicted and could have been avoided, but the powers that be always take the easier, short term paths - and now the consequences are rolling in on all sides. It's so grim.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/29/the-observer-view-on-the-resurgence-of-the-taliban

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/15/afghanistan-will-be-seen-as-joe-bidens-defeat-and-it-may-come-back-to-haunt-him

On food.

news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1098462

'The World Food Programme (WFP) reported that one-in-three Afghans, or 14 million people, are hungry today and two million malnourished children urgently need treatment.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of the year, conflict and insecurity have driven more than 550,000 Afghans from their homes as some 70,000 displaced people have converged from across the country into the capital, Kabul.

And as the cost of sustenance has surged in recent months, WFP Regional Director John Aylieff pointed out that today, 14 million people in Afghanistan are struggling to put food on the table.

“The price of wheat has gone up by 25 per cent in the last months and, therefore, with the economic situation…and with the turmoil in which the country has been thrown, it is very difficult now to see the future for this population…a future which is food secure…without malnourished children”, he said.'

thediplomat.com/2021/08/can-ngos-continue-to-provide-aid-in-afghanistan/

'Currently, the Taliban want foreign aid and are contacting NGOs to ask them to stay. While many NGOs have already left, others have chosen to stay behind.'

It may well be that one of the reasons for a rise in the cost of food in Afghanistan is that it is a country which has been badly hit by climate change and has had poor crops for several years: opium poppies do grow better than food like wheat, rice and potatoes in many places and in poorer conditions, but you can't eat them. This poor cropping on top of fighting and hopeless administration by the Taliban is very bad news indeed for everyone there, but can't exactly be blamed on any human agency within the country, whether external forces from the West or Islamist forces from anywhere at all.

A couple of very interesting perspectives on Afghanistan on BBC Radio 4 'From Our Own Correspondent' yesterday, especially the second one, Kate Clark
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000z5gk

In Afghanistan itself, some among the Taliban now in charge of the country again have grievances of their own, after losing relatives and comrades killed in airstrikes and night raids over the past twenty years. So how will they rule, and treat their old enemies? Kate Clark was the BBC correspondent in Kabul in the final years of the last Taliban regime, where she witnessed the fall of the city in 2001 – and she has done so again in 2021. She’s seen rulers come and go – and how after each change of regime, cycles of revenge have been fed, prolonging the conflict. After a week of chaos, she considers a longer view of four decades of war.

President Biden and the First Lady are traveling to Dover Air Force Base to attend the dignified transfer of 13 U.S. Service Members killed in Thursday’s terror attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Yes, to that Across.

Here's a little bit on climate change:

www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/taliban-afghanistan-climate-change-b1909760.html

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/anthony-fauci-florida-merchandise-desantis-attack-desantis_n_612c010de4b06e5d80ceb188?ri18n=true