Today In Wyoming's History: Casper College Western History Center: Archival Ne...

Today In Wyoming's History: Casper College Western History Center: Archival Ne...:  Casper College Western History Center:Archival Needs Assessment Report

Defeat In Afghanistan. How It Came About.

Flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

The pathetic blame game going on regarding the debacle in Afghanistan has me once again stunned, even though I really ought to know better.

My right wing friends were backing withdrawal from Afghanistan fully when Trump launched the current disgrace.  As soon as Biden started what Trump started, they switched to decrying what occurred.  The mess isn't praiseworthy by any means, but this exercise is really a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Let's look at what really occurred leading up to this embarrassing American defeat.

Indeed, we'll go all the way back.

Afghan ambush during the First Anglo Afghan War.

• 1838. The British invade Afghanistan and install King Shah Shujah. The event is termed the First Anglo Afghan War.
• 1842.  King Shah Shujah assassinated and Afghanis rebel, driving the British from Afghanistan.

Horse artillery in the Second Anglo Afghan War.

• 1878  The Second Anglo Afghan War commences resulting in British control of Afghanistan's foreign affairs.
• 1919  Emire Amanullah Khan declares British protectorite status over.
• 1926 to 1929.  Amanullah attemptes to modernize the country, leading to his being driven from teh country.
• 1933  Zahir Shah becomes King of Afghanistan.
• 1953  Gen. Mohammed Daud becomes Prime Minister, turns the country towars the Soviet Union for economic and military aid, and introduces social reforms.
• 1963  Mohammed Daud forced to step down as Prime Minister
• 1964  The country becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• 1973.  Mohammed Daud seizes power in a coup and deposes the monarchy.
• 1978  Mohammed Daud is overthrown in a pro Soviet coup.
• 1978   An anti Communist insurrection begins.
• 1979.  The Soviet Union interevenes to keep the pro Communist government from falling.
• 1980  Babrak Karmal installed as Soviet backed ruler.
• 1980  Western powers, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia start aid the mujahideen.
• 1985  Half of the Afghani population is in exhile.
• 1989.  Red Army pulls out and communist government collapses, followed by civil war.
• 1996  The Taliban, represeting armed Islamic extremist, seize control of Kabul
• 1997  Pakistan, with strong Islamic leaning, and Saudi Arabia, which is also the domain of extreme Islamic sentiments, recongize the Taliban as the legitimate government.
• 1998. The United States, in retaliation for terrorist acts by Al Queada, hits Al Queda basis in Afghanistan with missile strikes
• 1999  The United Nations impose sanctions on Afghanistan due to its harboring Osama bin Laden.
• 2001  Afghanistan based Al Quaeda stages the Twin Towers attack on the the United States.

• 2001  The United States invades Afghanistan in October following air raids, but with limited forces.  The main US effort rapidly turns towards Iraq, which was not involved in the terrorist strike.
• 2001  In December Hamid Karzai is made president.
• 2002   The invasion becomes more substantial with the arrival of NATO forces.
• 2002  Deposed King Zahir Shah returns, but makes no claim to the throne.
• 2003.  NATO takes control of Kabul.
• 2005.  First Afghan election in 30 years.  Most of the seats in parliament are taken by warlords.
• 2006  NATO takes control of security from the United States for the entire country.
• 2007  Afghanistan threatens to intervene against the Taliban in Pakistan, which is harboring them.
• 2008  US increases troop strength by 4,500 men.
• 2009  US increases troop strength by 17,000 men.
• 2009 US troop strength brought up to 100,000 men for "the surge" but President Obama also declares the UW will withdrawal by 2011.
• 2010  The Netherlands pulls out of Afghanistan.
• 2010  NATO declares it will turn security of the country over to Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
• 2013 Afghan army takes control of security of the country from NATO.
• 2014  The United States and United Kingdom end their combat operations.
• 2015  The United States announces it will delay full withdrawal from the country at the request of the Afghan government.
• 2015.  The Afghan government and the Taliban hold informal peace talks.  The Taliban refuses to lay down its arms.
• 2015.  The Taliban briefly takes Kunduz.
• 2015.  President Obama announces that 9,800 US troops will remain in the country.
• 2015. A Taliban splinter group forms but is crushed by the main Taliban.
• 2015. The Afghan National Army defeats a Taliban effort to take Sangin, backed up by US air support.
• 2016  Pakistan forcibly repatriates Afghanis in Pakistan.
• 2016  US air strikes reverse Islamic State advances in eastern Afghanistan.
• 2016  President Obama indicates 8,400 US troops will remain and that NATO will also remain until 2020.
• 2016  The Taliban makes advances in Helmond province.
• 2016  The Islamic State captures Tora Bora.
• 2017  President Trump, contrary to campaign pledges, indicates US troop strength in Afghanistan will be increased to fight the Taliban.
• 2019.  The United States enters negations with the Taliban
• 2020  The Unites States enters into a peace agreement with the Taliban without hte participation of the Afghan government.
• 2020  President Trump, following his election defeat, indicates that he will withdraw from Afghanistan before the inauguration of President Biden.  It doesn't occur, but the wheels for withdrawal are set in motion.
• 2021.  In July, the United States withdraws from Bagram air base overnight.
• 2021  President Biden commits to withdraw Americans forces from Afghanistan by September 11.
• 2021.  In August the Afghan government collapses and its armed forces do as well, the Taliban take the country.

And so that's where we are now. 

Now, what to make of all of this, that's the question.

Well, to start off with, perhaps we can make some conclusions about Afghanistan itself.

This long history of the country, from an American prospective shows that the country has in fact little evolved from what it was at the time of the First Anglo Afghan War.  The country isn't a country, but a collection of tribes, not all of whom are ethnically related, living within a certain border.  It's more defined, in some ways, by what it isn't, than it is.

The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group, but there are significant numbers of Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Nuristani, Aimak, Turkmen, and Balochs in the country as well.  Indeed, in the far north of the country the native population has a distinctively Asian appearance.  Genetically, if you will, all of these groups are represented as are the genes of those who came through and with the forces of the Mongols in the Middle Ages.  The only really common thread among all of these people are that they are all Islamic.

Now, people are going to be quick to blame Islam on the plight of the Afghans, but the biggest single thing impacting their situation is their extremely tribal nature, and tribal natures are always local.  In this fashion the Afghans resemble the Russian peasantry of the 1910s and 1920s, which overwhelmingly opposed the Communists, but only when they were in the neighborhood.  With no real national identify, Tajikes, for example, from the country's far north have very little desire to go to war against anyone in the far south of the country, but are perfectly willing to fight if people show up in their own valley.  Just as the Russian peasantry didn't like the Reds, almost all Afghans don't really like the Taliban, they just don't identify with any country and therefore so need to fight hundreds of miles away against somebody else.

And this is why, we'd note, the Afghan parliament was a failure.  It was simply a collection of warlords.

We don't need to go through every year from 1839 to the present date to see that, but we can touch upon the highlights.  Afghans always opposed the British presence in the country in the 19th Century, but they never supported their own governments either.  Those governments managed to persevere mostly because they were so weak.  You don't need to worry about a king in Kabul if he really doesn't impact your actual life in your own valley.  That became really evident, in the 1970s, when there was a real effort to form a real national government, with that government being a Communist one.

It's seemingly forgotten by us now, but Communism was a real force throughout the Middle East and Central Asia in the 1950s through the 1980s not because it was reveolutionary per se, but because it was modern.  It offered educated people something the politics of their own countries completely lacked, modernization.  We may, and should, look at the forced modernization of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s with horror, but to educated people living in Middle Eastern and Central Asian backwaters after World War Two, that looked good in comparison to tribalistic village societies.  And no wonder.  Building a dam, for example, for hydroelectric power and increased irrigation may look good to you if you are an engineer, but to a local poppy farmer who has complete domination over his wife and daughters and enough money from heroin to get by, it doesn't look nearly as appetizing.  

This has, we'd note, been the history of forced civilization throughout history, something we very oddly forget even though its the history of our own cultures.  The Romans didn't spread through Europe as they were handing out kittens and greeting cards.  They fought their way through against tribes that bitterly resented their presence. And those tribes weren't "freedom fighters" like we imagine today.  Boadicea's rebelling wasn't about the vote.  It was about keeping civilization out, tribal society in, and all that meant. And that always meant the same thing.  Tribal rights, which may have been very free at the local level, or may not have been, depending upon the culture, but which were violent and often, well weird.

And this is also why 19th Century Colonia endeavors frankly were much more realistic than modern "nation building" endeavors have been.  European countries, when they went into the distant regions of the globe, flatly accepted that the local cultures had no concept of more civilized values and that they had to be forced upon them. If that sounds brutal and racist, and both may be true, our current view has tended to be that the entire world is populated by Jeffersonian democrats, which is both naive and incredibly stupid.

And indeed, while we hate to admit anything of the sort, for the most part colonization was a success in terms of turning tribal societies into countries.  For the most part, European colonial enterprises didn't invade other countries to force them into empire, they invaded tribal regions to do that.  Even examples in Europe, such as when the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland, provide that example in context. And that's why it was so late in the day before any country attempted to invade and conquer Ethiopia.  It was already a nation.

The key is, however, that for this sort of thing to really work, a long presence is an absolute given, and that presence will be nearly wholly unwelcome.  Vietnam, perhaps, provides a good example. The Vietnamese never wanted the French in Indochina, but by the early 20th Century it had gone from a collection of local tribes of various types to an area with a real national identify.  When nationalism really broke out as a fighting force in the 1940s, due to World War Two, the Vietnamese of all stripes could see themselves as a nation.  When the French first showed up, well, not so much. The same example, in the case of the French, could be given in regard to Algeria.  By 1945, Algerians could identify an Algeria, and their interest with Algeria.  In earlier eras, they were simply local tribesmen.

Afghanistan has never gotten there.  It's made up of local tribesmen.

Taliban flag.

Well, what about the Taliban. They aren't a tribe, now are they?

No, they aren't, although they incorporate Pashtoon norms, and ironically they represent a more modernizing force than their opposition, even though we dare not admire them or regard them as modern.

The Taliban is a Deobandi Islamist movement which seeks to impose a Sunni Deobandi Islamic rule upon the country governed by their interpretation of Sharai law.  Most of its members are Pashtuns and they were educated as students, which is what Talib means, in Pakistan for the most part.  Their movement incorporates Pashtoon social norms with Sharia law.

We noted them as a more "modernizing" force than simple warlordism, but we do not suggest to mean a fully modernizing one. Their goal is to impose Sharai law, in a harsh form, over the entire country. To the extent it's modernizing, it would be simply because it would be based on a unifying national principal, rather than the current Afghan norm of everything really being local and tribal.

But, that principal, provides its own problems, to say the least.

The Taliban has no desire to actually modernize the country in any form. Rather, what it wishes to do is to impose a strict theocracy on the country.  What it will do in the future can be predicted by the past.  Women stand to not only lose their political rights, for example, but to become completely subservient to men.  In essence, what the Taliban intends to do is to put Sharia law combined with the Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code, into effect as the law of the law of the country.

Traditionally Afghanistan has not only been tribal, and regional, but not extremely strict in the application of Islam. Islam is the religion of the country, both culturally and legally, but a fairly lax variant of that. The Taliban will end that. And it'll suppress all regionalism.

Now, it's tried that before, which lead to a civil war in various part of the country against it. That will repeat as well.  So what the future holds for the country is a retrograde advancement in regard to individual rights, particularly those for women, and a suppression of regional power, which will lead to civil war. 

So, what conclusions can we draw from all of this:

• The Bush neoconservatives who thought that the United States could make the country into a western democracy overnight were naive in the extreme.
• The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's fundamental problem was tribalism and regionalism.
• The Islamic Republic, however, was making progress in forming a national army, as long as it was backed up by the United States.
• The Taliban isn't popular in the country as a whole.

In short, what the Bush neo cons failed to appreciate is that it was going to take a very long time to make Afghanistan into a modern country.  A country that has no national identity has to form one.  That would have taken at least an additional two decades from the two that have already passed.

Should we have undertaken to do that?

Well, here's the thing, if we weren't going to, we shouldn't have started trying.  We could have simply engaged in a punitive raid in the country and left it.  That would have left it to the Taliban, to be sure, but that's what we've now done after having had an influence on the country and its people for 20 years.  We've done the worst thing possible, which is to go half the way.

Back in 2001 when this was debated, I took the position we could just do a punitive raid, although I did that elsewhere, as this blog wasn't a thing yet.  I thought we should go in, get Al Queada, and leave.  But we didn't.  We didn't even fight the initial war wisely.  

But fight it we did. And at that point, we had an obligation to stay.  There was no excuse for leaving.

Sunday August 31, 1941. First British Convoy to Archangel arrives

 

The first British convoy to arrive at Archangel did so.  The convoy, which had departed Iceland ten days earlier, consisted of ten merchant ships and nine escorts.

Saturday, August 30, 1941. Far away places.

For various reasons, I missed putting up the Anglo Soviet invasion of Iran when it occurred.  It commenced on August 25, 1941.

Soviet cavalry meeting British tankette.

On this day, it concluded with a ceasefire. The country would be occupied by the British and the Soviets for the remainder of World War Two.

Russian T-26 tank in Iran.

The Iranian military did resist, but ineffectively. The country would be occupied by the British and the Soviets throughout the war, with the British withdrawing on time in March 1946 but the Soviets refusing to do so, citing security concerns.  A complaint to the United Nations from Iran on this became the first such complaint filed with that then newly founded body. The Soviets withdrew in May, 1946.

British troops inspecting a Soviet 26, Soviet soldier on deck of tank.

Ultimately Iran became an Allied power and declared war on Germany.  The US contributed to the forces in Iran during the occupation, which assuaged Iranian fears of being absorbed as a colony by the occupying powers.  The Soviets did sponsor Communist groups that did create problems for the Iranian government, so it cannot be claimed that the occupation was wholly benign.

The Soviets launched a major counterattack near Smolensk which was successful, as to its objectives, but which sustained high casualties. The Germans also sustained high casualties.

The British conducted the first of two small nighttime commando raids on the Pas-de-Calais.

Tuesday August 30, 1921. Private Warfare.

President Harding intervened in the West Virginia Coal Wars and declared that if miners did not disperse near Logan, where they were fighting a much smaller force led by a local sheriff but equipped with machine guns and aircraft, that he would deploy Federal troops to the area.

A battle did ensue that day when 75 miners led by Reverend John Wilburn probed the operators/sheriffs line, resulting in a confused small battle and several deaths.

The entire matter was a dispute between union and non-union miners, and the owners of the mine.  One badly wounded non-union miner was flatly executed by a union miner.

This is interesting in part as people who imagine that the past was better than current times often omit things like this.  It's impossible to imagine private warfare of this type today.

Friday August 29, 1941. Shifting sands

On this day in 1941, Charles Lindbergh at a rally of the American First Committee in Oklahoma City warned the audience that the United Kingdom might turn against the US "as she had turned against France and Finland". 

Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana.

Lindbergh was backed up by Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler who counseled that "If our interventionist want to free a country from the domination of another country, we ought to declare war on Great Britain and free India.  I have never seen such slavery as I saw in India a few years ago".

Wheeler was an outspoken left wing Democrat who had at one time crossed over to the Progressive Party and then back.  He opposed entry to the war right up until December 7, 1941 and was instrumental in the leaking of US plans to aid the British prior to the war, which went to press on December 4, 1941.  His isolationist stances caused him to suffer defeat in the first Montana election in which he was up after December 7, and he never returned to politics. A lawyer by training, he returned to practicing law and defended Max Lowenthal in front of the House Committee On Un American Affairs in the 1950s.  He's an example of how opposition to entry into the war was not, as sometimes imagined, politically uniform.

The rally itself was not well received by the public, and polls started increasingly swinging towards the Administration's interventionist policies.

Speaking of Finland, the Finns retook Viipuri.  Not forever of course, its Vyborg, Russia.

Flag for the city of Vybork, in the Leningrad Oblast.

The city did have a Finnish population at the time, but its entire population was evacuated in 1944 with the collapse of the Eastern Front.  It is, therefore, an example today of the massive population disruption brought on by the Second World War.

Finnish victory parade, August 31, 1941.

In Serbia, the puppet collaborationist Government of National Salvation commenced control of the country.

Vichy authorities arrested American journalist Varian Fry.  Fry was running an underground railroad effort helping Jews escape from France and to the United States, using Spain and Portugal as conduits.  He'd be expelled from the country.

Arthur McFadden became Australian Prime Minister in a coalition government.  He was a member of the minority Country Party.  The National Country Party, the "Nats" is a center right party that's strongest in rural areas and which has a focus on agrarian issues.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

Churches of the West: First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.: 

First Baptist Church, Rock River, Wyoming.

This is the First Baptist Church in Rock River, Wyoming.  The Baptist church in the tiny town was founded in 2010 and obviously used a commercial structure for its basic design.

Best Post of the Week of August 22, 2021

The best posts of the past week.

Really, there weren't any great ones and I'm tempted not to put this up at all, but here goes. . .

German Wehrmacht driving in to surrender near Prague (1945)

Ambition

Thursday,, August 28, 1941. The Office of Price Administration Created, Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Loses Favor, The Soviet Dunkirk, Slaughter at Kamianets-Podilsky

The Office of Price Administration was crated by the Roosevelt Administration to combat inflationary trends caused by the massive boost in employment caused by World War Two and the countries efforts to get ready for it.

Stalin issued  a Decree of Banishment exiling Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic which had previously been an ethnic German Soviet enclave.  

The VGASSR would be officially disestablished on September 7.  It'd been created in the 1920s when the Soviets still attempted o placate local ethnic groups on the hopes that they'd come to like the Communist regime. 

Volga Oblast in yellow at bottom of map.

The fate of Volga Germans, in the country since the time of Catherine the Great, proved to be grim. The war would permanently impact their position in the country and while conditions improved for them after the death of Stalin, many emigrated to Germany under the German Law of Return, a trend that reached near totality in the 1980s and 1990s.  By that time it had reached a state of pathos and irony in that the remaining Volga Germans retained much of their early rustic nature, while also having lost the ability to speak German to a very large degree.  Their retained cultural attributes tended to shock modern Germans, while their inability to speak the language of their ancestors made it difficult for them to fit seamlessly into modern Germany.

While his action is regarded as one of the great atrocities of the Stalin era, and the Soviets have since apologized for it, at least in this instance Stalin's paranoid brutality was not without some reason to fear that they'd become a fifth column during the war given that anti Communist sentiments were strong in various Soviet ethnic groups.  Having said that, large numbers of Volga Germans volunteered for Soviet service in the Red Army during the war, although their services were not always accepted or wanted.

Emigrating to North America, it should be noted, had been a trend in the region for decades, and was accelerated when the Imperial Russian Government in later years rescinded exemption for the population from conscription.  In an interesting development, resistance to conscription, which in some Anabaptist German communities in Imperial Russia lead to North American emigration, did not tend to repeat itself in North America.

Today in World War II History—August 28, 1941

The Soviet Navy suffered a serious disaster when it lost several ships to mines while evacuating Tallinn, Estonia, in what has been called the "Soviet Dunkirk".   The Germans occupied the city on this day.  Meanwhile, the Germans lost a U boat to capture in Iceland. The boat would be returned to service in the Royal Navy as the HMS Graph.

The Germans also slaughtered 23,600 Jews in Kamianets-Podilsky on this day, as their campaign of slaughter reached new regions in the Soviet Union.

Another reason to admire Bhutan.

It has a Gross National Happiness Commission.

And that's not a joke.  Its actual goal is to promote the happiness of the population, something that's written into the country's constitution.

Boston - Peace of Mind (Audio)

Ambition

Let others work and lose their health
In piling up the sordid wealth,
    But that is not my wish.
Let others burn the midnight oils,
Devising ways of grabbing spoils;
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Let others solve the problems great,
Affecting the affairs of state;
    None of that on my dish.
Let others hew the nation’s path
And bear the thankless public’s wrath,
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Let others lead the strenuous life
That’s full of worry, toil and strife,
    But that’s not my ambish.
Let others wear their lives away
By living five years every day;
    I’d rather sit and fish.

Roy K. Moulton, July 29, 1913

Topeka State Journal.

German Wehrmacht driving in to surrender near Prague (1945)

Really fascinating film clip of German troops surrendering in Prague at the end of the Second World War.

Some observations.

At 1:07, a US soldier can be seen with a C96 "broomhandle" Mauser pistol in a holster.  In a few scenes down the film, the same soldier requires a bunch of German officers to surrender their sidearms.

Overall, these German soldiers are heavily armed with small arms and are still under arms.

At 4:46 an American Lt. Col speaks with a German officer and his driver. The officer, and maybe the driver, have pulled the Nazi cap devices off of their caps.

The German troops are accompanied by a lot of women who are riding out with them.  As they are not in Germany, it'd be interesting to know the circumstances that caused the women to be rather obviously riding with them.

Tuesday, August 23, 1921. The pieces of the Ottoman Empire.

President Harding signed the New York Harbor bill into law.

I have utterly no idea what the statute did, but the photograph is of fairly high quality.

Faisal I bin Hussein bin al-Hashemi was crowned King of Iraq.  The kingdom was sort of a consolation prize for not getting Syria, and not a particularly good one.  In later years, he'd note that "this country is ungovernable."

In another part of the former Ottoman Empire, the Battle of Sakarya commenced in Turkey.  It would prove to be a long, and pivotal, battle in the Greco Turkish War, with the Turks ultimately prevailing three weeks later.

And a photographer took the following photo contrasting new and old two wheeled means of transportation.

Sunday Morning Scene: Wind City Church, Medicine Bow, Wyoming

Churches of the West: Wind City Church, Medicine Bow, Wyoming: 

Wind City Church, Medicine Bow, Wyoming

These photographs are of Wind City Church in Medicine Bow, Wyoming.  The church is a fundamentalist Christian church of the sola scriptura branch of Protestantism.  It opened in 2019.

Best Posts of the Week of August 15, 2021. The going down in defeat edition.

The best posts of the week of August 15, 2021.

A big week for defeat, nationally and personally.

Sunday August 15, 1971. The End of Bretton Woods

Defeat in Afghanistan

Afghanistan: What We Should Do.

Kabul airport

President Biden hasn't been in office long. . .

Not sending "American boys to (fill in bank) boys should do for themselves". The President's speech.

How we lost the war in Afghanistan

Ben Sasse on Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the situation in Afghanistan.

An answered prayer?

Tom Tugendhat speech on Afghanistan

Lex Anteinternet: An answered prayer?

Blog Mirror: Glacier Achieves Full Certification as International Dark Sky Park

This is good, I guess, but the fact that we have to certify someplace as a "dark sky" park is, quite frankly, sad beyond belief.

Glacier Achieves Full Certification as International Dark Sky Park

Lex Anteinternet: An answered prayer?

Keeping at, that is what's described here:

Lex Anteinternet: An answered prayer?: God does not come to free us from our ever present daily problems, but to free us from the real problem, which is the lack of love. This is ...

And today I get this in my Twitter feed:

Fr. Joseph Krupp

@Joeinblack

#talkedtotheboss He said when we find ourselves in a spot where we want Him to change our circumstances, we need to be open to the possibility that He’ll change us instead.

I'll admit, this is becoming disconcerting.

Still keeping at it, however.

Saturday August 20, 1921. Depictions of women.

 

Tom Tugendhat speech on Afghanistan

An answered prayer?

God does not come to free us from our ever present daily problems, but to free us from the real problem, which is the lack of love. This is the main cause of our personal, social, international and environmental ills  Thinking only of ourselves:  this is the father of all evils.

Pope Francis.

This is from Pope Francis' Twitter feed.

I don't know, really, what I think about Popes having Twitter feeds, but Pope Francis does.  This showed up yesterday when I checked Twitter, which is odd as I don't subscribe to Pope Francis' Twitter feed.

I'm hoping it's not, actually, an answer to a prayer.

A statement like this by a Pope is really too simple to be reduced to dogma and of course everything a Pope says isn't infallible.  Indeed, rarely does any Pope speak in that fashion.  But this item is oddly timed for me, as yesterday morning as I hiked to work I definitely said a prayer to be freed from one of my "ever present daily problems", maybe.

I'm not going to get into that, but there's something I'd very much like to receive a yes answer to in a prayer, and it's very much on my mind right now.  It's perhaps in the nature of irony, given that to some people what I'm praying about is to be relieved of a sort of gift in the first place, and I'm lucky to hold it.  This is one of the ironies of individual human natures, just because other people may be envious of something you have, do, can do, or just because you may be known for it, doesn't mean it's how that plays out inside your head.

I'm reminded here of actor William Holden, actually, who is an actor I really like. He was great in an entire host of films, and yet he didn't really like acting.  He must have at one time, but in later years he was incredibly blunt when asked about it and told interviewers he didn't like it and only did it as he had to pay the bills.

Or consider Blind Owl Wilson, the famous guitar player from Canned Heat.  Wilson was a musical genius, but he absolutely hated performing on stage.  His superb talent was contradictory to his nature, and ultimately he descended into drugs, which killed him.

Another example would be a college professor I had at UW who was a fantastic and interesting professor.  I enjoyed two of his classes greatly, upper class courses in a discipline I wasn't actually in.  He was frank, however, that he didn't enjoy what he was doing and actually cited a work we read about that a person could in fact be good at something they didn't like.  But for his mentioning it, you'd never have suspected anything, as he was so good at it.  I don't know if he ever prayed about it, as he was a praying man and was a co-religious, but irrespective of that he left UW to went on to an Ivy League school, so you can make of that what you will.

Or consider a lawyer I remotely knew here at one time who wanted to be a filmmaker.  He moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream and, a few years later, was back, dream unfulfilled.

There are other examples I can think of, the problem being with all of them is that they're all things like this, which shouldn't be taken as direct analogies on anything.  People who dream of excelling in athletics but who don't have the talent, people who write works of music or literature but can't get them performed.  People who live in one place, seemingly in daily contentment, but who desperately wish to live in another.

There must be an endless list of things like this.  Maybe every person has them.

God answers all prayers, but sometimes his answer is 'no'! And you may become upset because he said no. But open up your eyes and look around at the things he said yes to.

Jerome D. Williams.

I'm not completely certain that Pope Francis is correct in his statement about ever  present daily problems, even though I agree with him on the larger statement.  The problem I have with the Pope's statement is that for lots of people, their ever present daily problems are pretty big problems, from their prospective.  People destroy their lives, literally and figuratively, over problems that seem small to us.  Being a lawyer, not a year goes by that I don't read about a successful lawyer somewhere that hasn't descended into drink, drugs, or even death, due to his occupation.  "We didn't see it coming" will be the quotes from his friends and family even as they recount that the victim was working seven days a week, night and day.  They saw it coming, and they just chose to ignore it, probably figuring it was that person's obsessive personality or that it was "temporary".  Indeed, a lot of the very worst problems an individual may have been indeed highly temporary, and yet in their minds they're overarching.  "Just get this done, and we'll go on vacation".  "Just get through the annual accounting, and we can buy that boat".  Whatever.  To a person carrying by a burden of some sort, which maybe is uniquely a burden just to them, it's still a burden.

That's what leads me to question Pope Francis on this one.  I believe in prayer, and I've seen at least one example of what I'd regard as a miraculous comeback from illness by a very sick person, due to prayer, and I agree with Dr. Williams.  Sometimes the answer is no, for reasons that we can't understand and won't in this life.

All of which gets to a minor part of the "problem of evil".  Why would God invest a person with a strong desire to do something (we'll assume something moral, or at least morally neutral) and yet not allow them to actually do it?  Why would God allow a person to be afflicted with a strong desire to do something immoral?  We don't really know why, and perhaps in our own lives we can't really see it.  Maybe it's a sort of Mr. Holland's Opus sort of situation, where a persona's affliction turns into a great benefit for others.

Maybe that's the reason the answer is sometimes no.

All I know is that I can't watch Mr. Holland's Opus.  And I've started to have the same reaction to It's A Wonderful Life.  They're getting to personal, really, and I just might not like the message, valid message though it is.

Anyhow, synchronicity is one of those things that's difficult to explain.  Yesterday, as I hiked downtown (my car was in the shop) I prayed on a topic I've prayed on before, and I asked for it to be solved that day.  During the day sometime I checked my Twitter feed and there was the Tweet from Pope Francis whom, as noted, I don't subscribe to on Twitter.  So maybe my prayer was answered, but not in the way I wanted it to be.

Well, I'm only human and very flawed.  I'm praying for the same thing again today. 

The first act of extremist who come to power by force of arms. . .

 is usually to make sure they're the only ones who have them.

Taliban in Afghan Capital Kabul Start Collecting Weapons From Civilians

"We understand people kept weapons for personal safety. They can now feel safe. We are not here to harm innocent civilians"

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the situation in Afghanistan.

Mr Speaker, I beg to move –

and may I begin by thanking you and all the Parliamentary staff for enabling us to meet this morning.

Before I turn to today’s debate, I am sure the House will want to join you and me in sending our condolences to the family and friends of those killed in the appalling shooting in Plymouth last week.

Investigations are, of course, continuing but we will learn every possible lesson from this tragedy.

Mr Speaker, I know that Members across the House share my concern about the situation in Afghanistan, issues it raises for our own security, and the fears of many remaining in that country – especially women and children.

The sacrifice in Afghanistan is seared into our national consciousness, with 150,000 people serving there from across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, including a number of Members on all sides of the House, whose voices will be particularly important today.

And so it is absolutely right that we should come together for this debate.

I thank my honourable friend and I can assure him that I will be saying in just a few moments, we will be doing everything we can to support those who have helped the UK mission in Afghanistan and investing everything we can to support the wider area around Afghanistan and to do everything we can to avert a humanitarian crisis.

Mr Speaker, it is almost twenty years since the United States suffered the most catastrophic attack on its people since the Second World War, in which 67 British citizens also lost their lives at the hands of murderous terrorist groups incubated in Afghanistan.

In response, NATO invoked Article V of its Treaty, for the first and only time in its history, and the United Kingdom, amongst others, joined America in going into Afghanistan on a mission to extirpate Al Qaeda in that country and to do whatever we could to stabilise Afghanistan, in spite of all the difficulties and challenges we knew that we would face.

And we succeeded in that core mission.

As I said in the House just a few weeks ago, there was an extensive defence review about the Afghan mission after the combat mission ended in 2014, and I believe most of the key questions have already been extensively gone into.

It’s important Mr Speaker that we in this House should be able to scrutinise events as they unfold.

Mr Speaker, we succeeded in that core mission and the training camps in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan were destroyed, Al Qaeda plots against this country were foiled because our serving men and women were there, and no successful terrorist attacks against the West have been mounted from Afghan soil for two decades.

Mr Speaker, I think it would be fair to say that the events in Afghanistan have unfolded and the collapse has been faster than I think even the Taliban themselves predicted.

What is not true is to say that the UK Government was unprepared or did not forsee this, because it was certainly part of our planning, of pitting the very difficult logistical operation for the withdrawal of UK nationals has been under preparation for many months Mr Speaker, and I can tell the house that the decision to commission the emergency handling centre at the airport took place two weeks ago, Mr Speaker

Alongside this core mission, we worked for a better future for the people of Afghanistan.

And the heroism and tireless work of our armed forces contributed to national elections, as well as the promotion and protection of human rights and equalities in a way that many in Afghanistan had not previously known.

Whereas twenty years ago almost no girls went to school and women were banned from positions of governance, now 3.6 million girls have been in school this year alone, and women hold over a quarter of the seats in Afghanistan’s parliament.

But Mr Speaker, we must be honest and accept that huge difficulties were encountered at each turn and some of this progress is fragile.

The honourable gentleman raises exactly the right question.

I spoke this morning to Ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow as well as to Brigadier Dan Blanchford who is handling the evacuation

And it would be fair to say the situation has stabilised since the weekend but it remains precarious and the UK officials on the ground are doing everything that they can to expedite the movement of people, those that need to come out, whether from ARUP scheme or eligible persons to get from Kabul to the airport.

And at the moment it would be fair to say the Taliban are allowing that evacuation to go ahead.

But the most important thing is that we get this done in as expeditious a fashion as we can, and that’s what we are doing.

And I may say that I am grateful not just to the UK forces who are now out there helping to stabilise the airport but also to the US forces as well

The combat phase of our mission ended in 2014 when we brought the vast majority of our troops home and handed over responsibility for security to the Afghans themselves, and we continued to support their efforts

Even at that stage, we should remember that conflict was continuous, and that in spite of the bravery and sacrifice of the Afghan army – and we should never forget that 69,000 of those Afghan army troops have given their lives in this conflict – significant parts of the country remained contested or under Taliban control.

And so when after two decades, the Americans prepared to take their long-predicted and well-trailed step of a final extraction of their forces, we looked at many options, Mr Speaker, including the potential for staying longer ourselves, finding new partners, or even increasing our presence, I think that when he asked for a commentary on the respective military potential power of the Taliban and the Afghan forces, it’s pretty clear from what has happened that the collapse of the Afghan forces has been much faster than expected

And as for our NATO allies and our allies around the world, when it came for us to look at the options that this country might have in view of the American decision to withdraw, we came up against this hard reality that since 2009, America has deployed 98 per cent of all weapons released from NATO aircraft in Afghanistan, and at the peak of the operation, when there were 132,000 troops on the ground, 90,000 of them were American.

The West could not continue this US-led mission, a mission conceived and executed in support and defence of America, without American logistics, without US air power and without American might.

I spoke to Secretary General Stoltenberg of NATO only the other day about NATO’s continuing role in Afghanistan.

But I really think it is an illusion to believe that there is appetite amongst any of our partners for a continued military presence or for a military solution imposed by NATO in Afghanistan.

The idea ended with the combat mission in 2014 and I do not believe that today deploying tens of thousands of British troops to fight the Taliban is an option, no matter how sincerely people may advocate it, and I appreciate their sincerity, but I do not believe that is an option that would commend itself either to the British people or to this House.

Mr Speaker, we must deal with the position as it now is, accepting what we have achieved and what we have not achieved.

The government has been working around the clock to deal with the unfolding situation.

We must deal with the world as it is, accepting what we have achieved and what we have not achieved.

The UK will work with our international partners on a shared plan to support the people of Afghanistan and to contribute to regional stability.

There will be five parts, Mr Speaker, to this approach.

First, our immediate focus must be on helping those to whom we have direct obligations, by evacuating UK nationals, together with those Afghans who have assisted our efforts over the past twenty years.

And I know the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the bravery and commitment of our Ambassador, Sir Laurie Bristow, I thank the right honourable gentleman for raising the very needy case that he does.

I am sure that colleagues across the House, literally every member will I imagine have received messages from people who know someone who needs to get out of Afghanistan,

And I can tell the right honourable gentleman that we are doing everything we can to help out of that country those people to whom we owe a debt of obligation

And on that point, I want to repeat my thanks, not just to Sir Laurie Bristow, but also our commander on the ground, Brigadier Dan Blanchford and the entire British team in Kabul.

I can tell the House that we have so far secured the safe return of 306 UK nationals and 2,052 Afghan nationals as part of our resettlement programme, with a further 2,000 Afghan applications completed and many more being processed.

UK officials are working round the clock to keep the exit door open in the most difficult circumstances, and actively seeking those we believe are eligible but as yet unregistered.

That’s why it’s been so important that we maintain a presence at Kabul airport and that’s why we’ve been getting the message out that we want people to come through

As I said earlier on, it is important for everybody to understand that at the moment in the days that we have ahead of us, which may be short, but at the moment, this is an environment in which the Taliban are permitting the evacuation to take place.

Mr Speaker, these are interpreters, they are locally engaged staff and others who have risked their lives supporting our military efforts and seeking to secure new freedoms for their country.

We are proud to bring these brave Afghans to our shores – and we continue to appeal for more to come forwards.

Mr Speaker, that’s the 5000 on whom we are spending £200 million to bring a further 5000 on top – I think it will be 10,000 altogether that we bring under the ARUP and other programmes.

We will be increasing that number over the coming years as I said to 20,000.

But the bulk of the effort of this country will be directed, and should be directed, to supporting people in Afghanistan and in the region in order to prevent a worse humanitarian crisis

I tell the House that in that conviction I am supported very strongly both by President Macron of France and by Chancellor Merkel of Germany.

We are also doing everything possible to accelerate the visas – we are making sure that we bring back the 35 brilliant Chevening scholars, so that they can come and study in our great universities.

We are deploying an additional 800 British troops to support this evacuation operation, and I can assure the House that we will continue this operation for as long as conditions at the airport allow.

We will not be sending people back to Afghanistan and nor by the way will we be allowing people to come from Afghanistan to this country in an indiscriminate way.

We want to be generous but we must make sure we look after our own security.

Over the coming weeks, we will redouble our efforts, working with others to protect the British homeland and all our citizens and interests, from any threats that may emanate from a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, from terrorism to the narcotics trade.

Like many of us I have been extensively lobbied on behalf of the excellent work done by Mr Pen Farthing – I am well aware of his cause and all the wonderful things he has done.

And for animals in Afghanistan I can tell my honourable friend that we will do everything we can to help Mr Pen Farthing and others who face particular difficulty like himself

But as I say without in any way jeopardising our own national security

These are concerns shared across the international community, from the region itself to all the NATO alliance and indeed all five permanent members of the UN Security Council. and I will chair a virtual meeting of the G7 in the coming days.

Third, Mr Speaker, we also have an enduring commitment to all the Afghan people, and now, more than ever, we must reaffirm that commitment.

Our efforts must be focused on supporting the Afghan people in the region itself, particularly those fleeing conflict or the threat of violence.

We therefore call on the United Nations to lead a new humanitarian effort in this region.

I’m very grateful to right honourable lady opposite because I think she’s asked a question that formed in many people’s minds about the 5000

And yes indeed the 5000 extra and the resettlement scheme and in addition to those already announced – we will support those people in coming to this country

We will also support the wider international community in delivering on humanitarian projects in the region by doubling the amount of humanitarian and development assistance that we had previously committed to Afghanistan this year, with new funding, taking this up to £286 million with immediate effect.

And we call on others to work together on a shared humanitarian effort, focusing on helping the most vulnerable in what will be formidably difficult circumstances.

My Right Honourable friend makes an excellent point and that’s why the UK has chaired the security council of the UN, and asked to put the motion together with our French friends to get the world to focus on the humanitarian needs of Afghanistan

And we’ll be doing the same thing in NATO, in the G7 and the other bodies in which we have a leadership role.

We want all these countries to step up as he rightly says and focus on the most vulnerable in what we will be formidably difficult circumstances

Fourth, while we must focus on the region itself, we will also create safe and legal routes for those Afghans most in need to come and settle here in the UK.

So in addition to those Afghans with whom we have worked directly, I can announce today that we are committing to relocating another 5,000 Afghans this year, with a new and bespoke resettlement scheme focusing on the most vulnerable, particularly women and children, and we will keep this under review for future years, with the potential of accommodating up to 20,000 over the long-term.

And so taken together Mr Speaker, we are committing almost half a billion pounds of humanitarian funding to support the Afghan people.

Fifth, Mr Speaker, we must also face the reality of a change of regime in Afghanistan, and as President of the G7, the UK will work to unite the international community behind a clear plan for dealing with this regime in a unified and concerted way.

Over the last three days I have spoken with the NATO and UN Secretaries General, with President Biden, Chancellor Merkel, President Macron, and Prime Minister Khan, we are clear and we have agreed that it would be a mistake for any country to recognise any new regime in Kabul prematurely or bilaterally.

Instead, those countries that care about Afghanistan’s future should work towards common conditions about the conduct of the new regime before deciding, together, whether to recognise it and on what terms.

We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes – and by its actions rather than by its words.

On its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access and the rights of girls to receive an education.

Defending human rights will remain of the highest priority.

And we will use every available political and diplomatic means to ensure that those human rights remain at the top of the international agenda.

Mr Speaker, our United Kingdom has a rollcall of honour that bears the names of 457 service men and women who gave their lives in some of the world’s harshest terrain, and many others who bear injuries to this day

fighting in what had become the epicentre of global terrorism, and even amid the heart-wrenching scenes we see today, I believe they should be proud of their achievements, and we should be deeply proud of them, because they conferred benefits that are lasting and ineradicable on millions of people in one of the poorest countries on earth, and they provided vital protection for two decades to this country and the rest of the world.

They gave their all for our safety, and we owe it to them to give our all to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.

Because no matter how grim the lessons of the past, that future is not yet written, and at this bleak turning-point, we must help the people of Afghanistan to choose the best of all their possible futures, and in the UN, the G7, in NATO, with friends and partners around the world that is the critical task on which this government is now urgently engaged, and will be engaged in the days to come.