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Kyle Orton Profile picture
@KyleWOrton
Aug 16, 2021 • 21 tweets • 13 min read • Read on X
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"[T]here are no signs that the #Taliban is planning any major crackdown on #Al_Qaeda, nor on any other group with foreign fighters with whom it has collaborated inside Afghanistan" - @asfandyarmir mwi.usma.edu/untying-the-go…
And with that, the United Nations has done everything it can.
Not a great vote of confidence in what this Biden speech will say.
Here we go: #Biden begins speaking about the "rapidly evolving events" in #Afghanistan, says he wants to begin with how we got here.
Biden says: "our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building", the "only vital interest is preventing a terrorist attack" on the US. Since terrorism has spread beyond Afghanistan ... that makes Afghanistan less important, somehow.
Biden claims the US can deal with "direct threats" from #Afghanistan via "over the horizon" capabilities. Goes on to claim he withdrew because of the deal #Trump made, and the only alternative was "sending thousands more" back "into combat".
"I stand squarely behind my decision": there was "never a good time to withdraw", claims "we were clear eyed about the risks" and "planned for every contingency", though concedes this unfolded more quickly than expected, and then he blames the Afghans and says it proves him right
Biden: "We gave them (the Afghans) every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them the will to fight for that future."

Disgusting blame-shifting.
#Biden says the Afghan leaders were "unable to come together" even "when the chips were down" - omits entirely what the US "peace process" did to strengthen the jihadists - and puts all the blame on a failure to come to a "deal" with the Taliban on the Afghan government.
#Biden once again claims that #Russia and #China wanted the #US to stay in #Afghanistan and are in some way perturbed by this catastrophe.
#Biden: "We will continue to support the Afghan people, we will lead with our diplomacy" and "push for regional diplomacy" (giving space to Pakistan, Iran, Russia, and China). US will "speak out" on the abuses, says "rallying the world" is how human rights are protected.
#Biden: says the Embassy has been relocated to the airport in Kabul and will be assisting Americans, allied civilians, and SIV-applicable Afghans. Biden blames the Afghans for the US not starting the evacuations earlier - the population and government.
#Biden promises a "devastating" response if the #Taliban disrupt the #US evacuation operation. Says the collapse is "proof" that he was right.
#Biden uses the phrase "graveyard of Empires", refers to "another country's civil war", "I do not regret my decision", remain "laser focused" on terrorism, and the "buck stops with me", after a speech blaming Trump and the Afghans.
#Biden says staying in #Afghanistan "is not what the American people want", and as their leader he must follow them.
#Biden concludes by saying he bravely bearing all this "criticism" in order to take the right decision for America. And then leaves without taking a question.
In sum: #Biden blamed Trump but more than anything the #Afghans, and adopted the talking point that "they didn't fight for themselves" (after he removed their capacity to do so against #Pakistan's jihadists) and said the disaster he has orchestrated proves he was right.
The #Biden administration has for a while veered between "we're nice" and "fuck the Afghans, America First" in its messaging; the President has at least now taken a firm line. And it might well work: the nationalist tone of this speech probably appeals to a lot of Trump voters.
If the TV networks were still doing the fact-checking thing about Presidential speeches, the core lie in #Biden's speech that would be the centre of attention is the idea it was the #Afghan government that was at fault for there not being a "peace deal" with the #Taliban.
The Taliban refused to recognise the Afghan government and the US went over Kabul's head, "only the first in a disastrous series of steps within the framework of this so-called peace process" that mortally weakened the state. telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/1…
What a horrible, needless situation this all is.

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More from @KyleWOrton

Kyle Orton Profile picture
Feb 26
This is a completely anodyne statement of compassion and prudence - it is rather well attested that there is a contagious aspect to suicide. But the replies are absolutely unhinged from the "pro-Palestine" set. A truly suicidal movement, in every respect.
If Aaron Bushnell, the US airman who immolated himself, is to be taken seriously ideologically - rather than us mourning the suicide of a disturbed person - the results are not pretty.

He was a straight-out HAMAS supporter, thought Israel was the Nazis of our time
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Aaron Bushnell, the US airman who immolated himself, was very clear that he thought HAMAS kidnapping and slaughtering Israelis at the music festival of October 7 was justified. He thought all Israelis were settlers and made his Nazi allusion again, people having fun beside a camp


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Read 10 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
Jan 13
#Israel's opening presentation before the ICJ show trial was very dignified and soberly done, not just by comparison with the raft of hysterical lies from the ANC's South Africa.
A point #Israel made at the ICJ that it should have made more of before now: "genocide" describes Oct. 7 and HAMAS' public political program. The Genocide Convention mandates action to prevent or to punish. So, why have others not joined the operation to eliminate HAMAS?
If the ANC's South Africa was so concerned about genocidal actors in former Mandate Palestine, it would have arrested HAMAS official Basem Naim in early December. Instead, Naim was feated and presented with a Mandela grandchild, who is an ANC MP, of course
apnews.com/article/hamas-…
Read 6 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
Jan 2
#Israel's strike in Beirut a short while ago killed Saleh al-Aruri, the overall deputy of #HAMAS. There are also reports in the Arab press that Osama Hamdan, the "official" HAMAS representative in #Lebanon, was killed, and it seems some "military wing" HAMAS officials, too.
Note the reports #Israel struck near a "Hizballah headquarters": this refers to the #IRGC's nerve centre for the whole Northern Middle East, the most important outpost of the Islamic Revolution outside Iran.
Whoever turns out to have been killed in #Israel's strike in Beirut, "HAMAS" leaders destroyed at a "Hizballah" headquarters should help put to rest the idea these are separate groups: it's all #Iran's IRGC, one region-wide Islamist network. meforum.org/62821/whither-…
Read 7 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
Nov 30, 2023
Henry Kissinger is dead at 100. His time in power abetted the onward march of Communism and brought the West to its lowest ebb at the end of the 1970s. We managed to halt and destroy the Soviet Union, but his empowerment of Red China is now the gravest threat to the Free World.
Kissinger's "opening" to Red China was the most grotesque sell-out: he gave Peking everything it wanted, over Taiwan, before the "negotiations" even began. Afterwards, of course, at Tiananmen Square and beyond, Kissinger was always there to defend the CCP. kyleorton.substack.com/p/nixon-kissin…
Kissinger's betrayal of South Vietnam is probably the most notorious of his disasters. It is not retrospective either: President Thieu knew what was happening in real time and said so. (An aside: Thieu, born within a month of Kissinger, died in 2001. Only the good die young.)
Read 11 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
Nov 10, 2023
Alireza Panahian, the spokesman for the office of #Iran's Supreme Leader, says that the Gaza war is part of the Iranian Revolution's attritional jihad against Western civilisation. Panahian says no level of Palestinian civilian casualties is too high for this project.
There has been an argument since 9/11 - sometimes made in good faith, sometimes not - that responding forcefully to Islamist terrorism only makes the problem worse. As against this essentially theological belief, we do get some data points, e.g.:
The "practical" argument for doing nothing in response to Islamist terrorism is also usually combined with a claim that responding is immoral because the victims deserved what happened - "American foreign policy", "Israeli occupation", etc.
Read 11 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
Nov 5, 2023
#ISIS calls for Muslims to initiate a "hard and fast" terrorism campaign against Jews "all over the world" as part of its plan to destroy #Israel | kyleorton.substack.com/p/islamic-stat…
Israel is not going to live under threat of this being repeated, and it is difficult to imagine any other State would even be asked to.
There were some arrests at the "pro-Palestine" rallies yesterday. One assumes this guy will soon be picked up for glorifying terrorism. What you do with the whole crowd that agreed with him, though ...
Read 14 tweets

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