Showing posts with label afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label afghanistan. Show all posts

Friday, October 15, 2021

Afghanistan

Image by andreas N from Pixabay

This is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in an intersectional meltdown. Intended for H. sapiens who are — in the words of the late, great bon vivant, polymath, and pic-a-nic basket expert, Professor Y. Bear — "Smarter than the av-er-age bear." 
Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"I don't think the Taliban will ever come back to take Afghanistan, no. 
                                                                                              -Hamid Karzai


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

Not long ago Uncle Joe blew his lifeguard whistle and ordered Americans out of the pool, so to speak, in Afghanistan. You may have heard something about the fact it didn't go very well. Some of our swimmers are still trapped there even though the pool's closed.  

{Afghanistan is so, like, yesterday's news.} 

True dat, Dana. 

Rather like the latest social media kerfuffle — featuring a whistleblower testifying at a Senate hearing — that's apparently already in the rearview mirror of my favorite high tech Robber Baron, Lord Zuckerberg. 

And more importantly, is Dog the Bounty Hunter is still trying to catch Brian Laundrie? 


So, what's up with all those American citizens... and green card holders... and deceived Afghans... who missed the last bus out of the graveyard of empires (GOE)?

How did such an important story fall off the radar screen of the American media faster than a UFO? On a related note, whatever happened to the people we locked up at Gitmo and didn't torture, merely interrogated in an enhanced sort of way? 

Gitmo has been a thing, well, off and on, for as long as Afghanistan. It was established about the same time we started teaching the locals of the GOE how to all get along so they could develop their hooge hoard of mostly untapped mineral wealth instead of having to rely on poppy farming.  

                                                  Advertisement

Are you an old-school junkie? Synthetic opioids just not the same thing? Insist on products derived from Afghanistan-certified opium™. Look for the ACO logo, your guarantee of a fentanyl-free recreational pharmaceutical. 

{Excuse me, my favorite pathetic pasty patriarch, are you allowed to say true dat? Is that racist?}

I don't think so but you might be able to build a case for cultural appropriation.

Now, where was I... oh yeah, Afghanistan.

{Right, and what about Iraq? Whatever happened to Iraq?}


As for the current state of the state of Iraq, There's a State Department Travel Advisory in effect.  

Iraq - Level 4: Do Not Travel

Do not travel to Iraq due to COVID-19terrorismkidnappingarmed conflictand Mission Iraq’s limited capacity to provide support to U.S. citizens.


As for Afghanistan, I googled the phrase — what's going on in Afghanistan today? — and "About 407,000,000 results (0.56 seconds)" were returned. 

{Ain't Google somethin'? Looks like you were wrong, Sparky.}

Technically speaking maybe, but when I started scrolling through the hits there wasn't much to find about the current state of the American (and Americanized), um... strandees? 

{I'm guessing most western reporters aren't begging to be assigned to the Afghanistan beat.}

True dat. But Al Jezera is there, as you might well imagine, but don't seem to be devoting much coverage to our strandees, as you also might well imagine.

The Associated Press had stories about people like "... 100 students, alumni, and faculty members of the Afghanistan National Institue of Music..." making it out. Apparently, there's Hadith about music lovers having molten lead poured into their ears on the day of judgment but...

{Ouch.}

But nothing about the unfortunate folks I'm interested in. 


Devoted columnist that I am, I shall continue to slave over my hot keyboard and mouse with my arthritic fingers, in service to my readers, by checking the Afghanistan web page of the Associated Press early every morning this week.

After all, the AP supplies news to the news media... who are free to ignore it, or publish it "below the fold."    

Monday, 10.11.21: The US is going to provide humanitarian aid to a "desperately poor Afghanistan." 

"In their statement, the Taliban said without elaborating that they would 'facilitate principled movement of foreign nationals.'"  Fingers crossed?


Tuesday
Nothing from the AP but the Wall Street Journal reports that Aman Khalili, "An Afghan interpreter who helped rescue then- Sen. Joe Biden in 2008 when his helicopter made an emergency landing in Afghanistan has escaped from the country."

He's not here, but he and his family made it to Pakistan — because some U.S. and Afghan veterans snuck him out.

{I believe that should be sneaked.} 

I don't care.


Wednesday
Spain's defense ministry manages to extract 160 locals they had employed while in Afghanistan.  


Thursday
Move along folks, nothing to see here.


Friday
5:40 am: No news is good news? Oh... Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller has pleaded guilty to demanding someone take responsibility for the Afghanistan S.N.A.F.U. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

{Wait-wait-wait. What about Gitmo?}

Oh yeah, sorry. Looks like 39 people are still locked up there. But Uncle Joe promised back in February to shut it down — by 2023. Sounds like a job for Vice President Harris... once she finishes fixing the Mexican border crisis.  


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