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This is worse than Saigon
Spiked Online ^ | 16 Aug 2021 | Brendan O'Neill

Posted on 08/16/2021 5:12:27 PM PDT by Rummyfan

Even now, Washington seems completely out of touch with events on the ground in Afghanistan. Its intelligence officers said the Taliban could take Kabul within 90 days. That was four days ago. They know nothing. One gets the impression of a confused, decaying empire looking with bamboozlement upon even those parts of the earth it rules.

But above all of that, above even the political and military incoherence of the American empire, there is the corrosive cultural dynamic. This might just be the most important factor in the Afghan humiliation – the fact that the US, and the West more broadly, clearly lacks the cultural resources necessary for a clash of civilisations. This wasn’t just a territorial battle, a fight over the land of Afghanistan. It was also a cultural clash. It was a war between one side that has very strong beliefs and is more than willing to die for them, and another side that doesn’t know what it stands for anymore and would rather avoid risk and self-sacrifice if at all possible. I’ll leave you to decide which of these is the Taliban, and which the US.

This was always the West’s problem in Afghanistan: it lacked faith in the very values it claimed to be delivering to that benighted country. We will liberate women from life under the burqa, Western officials said. But isn’t it ‘Islamophobic’ to criticise the burqa, or any other Islamic practice for that matter? Our elites have insisted for years that it is. We will replace your intolerant Islamist system with a civil society fashioned by clever professors, the West promised. But isn’t it judgemental and possibly a tad racist – certainly an offence against the ideology of multiculturalism – to imply that Western democracy is superior to Islamist theocracy?

(Excerpt) Read more at spiked-online.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; bloggers
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1 posted on 08/16/2021 5:12:27 PM PDT by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

Yes, it is.


2 posted on 08/16/2021 5:13:34 PM PDT by sauropod (Time is like quicksilver, smearing the years... - Bill Nelson)
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To: Rummyfan

The bus is speeding towards the edge of the cliff and nobody is driving. Is this country seriously going to allow that?


3 posted on 08/16/2021 5:14:17 PM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (As long as Hillary Clinton remains free equal justice under the law will never exist in the USA)
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To: Rummyfan
The scale of the humiliation just suffered by the United States cannot be overstated. The most powerful military force on Earth and its incredibly well-funded allies in Kabul have been pushed aside by a regressive 12th-century movement that thinks adulterers should be stoned to death. The allies of the most technologically sophisticated army in the world have been sent packing by a ragtag Islamist army which set about painting over billboard posters for female beauty products the minute it arrived in Kabul. A nation founded in freedom – and which justified its international presence in the language of freedom for the entire postwar period – has been usurped by a movement so intolerant that it bans pop music, executes comedians who make fun of it, and beats women with canes if they are immodestly dressed.
4 posted on 08/16/2021 5:16:58 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.d)
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To: Admin Moderator

Author of this piece should be BRENDAN O’NEILL..... Not Brenda. Thank you.


5 posted on 08/16/2021 5:18:00 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.d)
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To: Rummyfan

Bookmark


6 posted on 08/16/2021 5:18:09 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog. )
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To: Rummyfan

Why would any nation ever agree to be a US ally in wartime? If an election goes south, our allies are screwed.


7 posted on 08/16/2021 5:18:40 PM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn't become your biography, what good is it?)
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To: Rummyfan

Notice thread below says Uzbekistan claims it shot down a military plane fleeing Afghanistan. Once that happens with civilians on board, the airport can’t be a good place for the hundreds of hostages who are desperate to flee. What then, Biden?

That did not happen in Saigon. Just helicopters leaving, not shot down.


8 posted on 08/16/2021 5:21:41 PM PDT by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda

Yes, this country IS going to allow that, as long as the proles get their bread and circuses .


9 posted on 08/16/2021 5:25:15 PM PDT by Walrus (I do not consent)
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda

See new tagline.


10 posted on 08/16/2021 5:25:19 PM PDT by OKSooner (Joe and The Ho have got to go.)
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To: Rummyfan

Hell yes it’s worse.

Nothing to compare in my lifetime.


11 posted on 08/16/2021 5:25:20 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (All I know is The I read in the papers.)
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda

“ The bus is speeding towards the edge of the cliff and nobody is driving. Is this country seriously going to allow that?”

This is a country that doesn’t believe in itself or it’s “system”. An empty shell where the corrupt take whatever they want of it. There’s no way to extricate The country from its own corruption using normal processes of government.

It isn’t so much that it will be allowed, it’s more that it’s a runaway train that has no means to stop.


12 posted on 08/16/2021 5:26:08 PM PDT by Scott from the Left Coast (Make Orwell Fiction Again)
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To: Rummyfan

He nails it in several areas- the one that carries the greatest price- we don’t believe in our values anymore- just words.


13 posted on 08/16/2021 5:32:48 PM PDT by SE Mom (Screaming Eagle mom)
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To: Rummyfan
We are witnessing history repeat itself.

For anybody who voted Biden/DemonRAT or stayed home last election, The shitshow we are witnessing now is YOUR fault!

14 posted on 08/16/2021 5:35:19 PM PDT by rllngrk33 (It seems the soap box and ballot box have failed, it might be time for the bullet box.)
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To: Rummyfan
Here is another money quote from your posted article:

"American officials convincing absolutely nobody with their unhinged claims that the 'mission has been successful' (in Anthony Blinken’s words). It’s clear for all to see, commentators insist: Kabul in 2021 is a replay of Saigon in 1975. America humiliated, its enemies ascendant."

'mission has been successful'!? Hell's bells, that is delusional.

15 posted on 08/16/2021 5:35:38 PM PDT by WMarshal (The Pleasant American )
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To: Rummyfan

And it’s only just begun.


16 posted on 08/16/2021 5:36:34 PM PDT by BusterDog
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To: Scott from the Left Coast
 
 
As good a summary as any. We're being ransacked from within and nobody's pumping the brakes on it. Corruption and treason from within is bringing us down in record time. We've met the enemy and they are us.
 
 

17 posted on 08/16/2021 5:40:29 PM PDT by lapsus calami (What's that stink? Code Pink ! ! And their buddy Murtha, too!)
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To: Walrus

Agree...just look at them at Sam’s club


18 posted on 08/16/2021 5:42:56 PM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (The 2020 election Trump victory determines the fate f America and Freedom.)
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To: Scott from the Left Coast

Agree


19 posted on 08/16/2021 5:43:55 PM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (The 2020 election Trump victory determines the fate f America and Freedom.)
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To: Rummyfan

bookmark


20 posted on 08/16/2021 5:46:13 PM PDT by GOP Poet (Super cool you can change your tag line EVERYTIME you post!! :D. (Small things make me happy))
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