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17 Aug, 73 tweets, 33 min read
#Biden blamed the #Afghans for the US not evacuating those Afghans who were in danger - said they caused the delay - but this is a lie, one of many in yesterday's speech: Biden had been told for weeks by the military he needed to act to withdraw safely, and *he* delayed.
Perfect summation: there are thousands of Afghans who have been trying for months to leave, and the Biden people refused to start the process - a decision Biden now blames on the Afghans, as he does the collapse of a military whose demise he engineered
As @mattczeller of @n1leftbehind makes clear in the above clip: the work of finding the names of the Afghans who needed to be gotten out of the country if we were going to abandon it had been done and that information given to Biden, who chose not to act until it was too late.
The US military on the ground in #Afghanistan, coping with an entirely politically-engineered catastrophe by #Biden, are doing what they can to get Americans and Afghans to safety.
"The Squad" joined a tiny minority of kooky Republicans to vote against resettling Afghan refugees
This thread 👇🏻. All of it. Handles for those who haven't followed the utter falsity of Biden's disgraceful talking point that "the Afghans didn't fight for themselves". The reality is a force that the US betrayed via its "peace process" with the Taliban
There are non-psychopathic individuals in the Biden administration, you might be pleased to know. They don't control much, but they are there and trying to mitigate this catastrophe:
Thousands of American civilians are still trapped in Kabul, so even Biden's chest-beating America First stuff in the speech last night was a lie - he didn't get them out either.
The fake peace process is a key element in the fall of Kabul - its main concrete achievements were the US forcing the Afghan state to release jihadists and giving Pakistan respite to build up the Taliban.

Biden’s people now say they're sticking to it
Thread on the way the #Taliban used the time bought by the #US "deal" and the "peace process" to prepare their military solution 👇🏻
The #Taliban has captured a vast armoury, which will be shared out with #Pakistan's other jihadists and Al-Qaeda in the coming days
"[My family] will all be killed soon by Taliban due to me and my brother serving for the US"
European and British governments shocked by Biden's populist speech last night, and fuming over this whole process where they've been handed a potential refugee crisis and an increased terrorism threat with no consultation. It's all been very Trumpian.
#Britain's armed forces performed superbly (as ever) in a messed up situation
Just horrific
If one were so inclined, one would say Biden was elected as a result of misinformation
Current provincial map of where things stand in #Afghanistan
Just the beginning of what we have created in Afghanistan
Biden blaming the Afghans for what he has done to them is one is one of the more gruesome aspects of all this
This is darkly amusing: unable to defend Biden directly, the effort is to misrepresent the situation in Afghanistan to pretend Biden didn't really have choices and then to deflect in all directions - in the name of bringing clarity and understanding.
As with "fact checkers", the "media columnist" turns out not to be so neutral a position after all, but is strongly tinged with Democratic partisanship. Shocking stuff.
#TTP (the "Pakistani Taliban") congratulating the "Afghan #Taliban" on victory over the Americans/allies. Note TTP refers to the Taliban leader as "the commander of the faithful". The groups are known to share members, other resources, ideology, terrain.
If there is any hope of a public reckoning over all this, it might well turn on the fact #Biden chose to betray the Afghans who worked with NATO, including interpreters and others who worked closely with the press, so journalists won't let this slip by
#Biden has clearly bet that the #Afghanistan story will fade away quickly and that, to the extent it is recalled, all anyone remembers is he brought the troops home. The problem is that the press environment now is global and unpoliced. In this respect it is different to #Vietnam
In 1975, a handful of American newspapers and TV stations could decide the #Vietnam story was over and that was it for a while. With #Afghanistan that can't be done. The Communist massacres were reported late and in contested stories; there are going to be videos from the Taliban
In addition to the Taliban atrocities, all of which will be - to put it crudely - political ammunition for Biden's critics, there are all the Afghans to hear from, including President Ghani, the Panjshir resistance, and ordinary soldiers. This is a story that could run for months
Final point: even for Americans who wanted to leave #Afghanistan, they did not want to be humiliated, and since public opinion is fickle - and hardly anyone is on the record - come election time they might well decide that they had always opposed the withdrawal and punish #Biden.
On another of Biden's lies in yesterday's speech
A squalid end
For all our faults, #Britain has done what she can in #Afghanistan in this terrible situation to rescue those in need
The #Trump team's main tangible achievement on #Afghanistan was letting jihadist prisoners out of jail and back onto the battlefield as part of their fake "peace process" that is considerably at fault for mortally wounding the Afghan state
One wishes all the best to #Afghanistan's journalists, but it is difficult to believe this period of tolerance from the #Taliban lasts any longer than it takes for them to secure power and #Pakistan to lift the orders insisting on good behavior
After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, there were journalists who had been friendly to that Revolution, naively believing the Islamism was just rhetoric and that all sorts of "realities" would force the clergy to compromise on stated intentions.
Well this is horrifying. The US/allies have maybe three or four *days* to get this evacuation completed in Kabul.
#Turkey still trying to patch together some kind of #Taliban relationship
#Yemen
#Iraq
Very Obama: one statement that appears to promise something, followed up by statements that qualify the promise, and in practice almost nothing happens. So it was in #Syria and now in #Afghanistan.
On the current situation. Also makes clear that a high-profile one-off interview by a female journalist at TOLO with a talib should not be taken as representative
Beyond the "forever wars" ideology, the only reason #Biden has done this in #Afghanistan is because he thinks it will be popular and it turns out it ... isn't ... not today; who can say tomorrow? Hence the silliness of foreign policy by plebiscite.
More on the Europeans and British being treated with Trumpian back-handed by Biden over a decision that impacts them far more directly and quickly.
#Biden wanted the rhetoric of #RefugeesWelcome but was not prepared to even risk a confrontation on the point over #Afganistan
Another thing we have known for months: #Biden did not consult with allies over #Afghanistan, though he did expect them to foot the bills he was incurring on their behalf.
The pundits going to the mat for Biden over #Afghanistan might want to bear this in mind: there are going to be revelations as the various officials leak to protect themselves that are going to saw off the limbs on which people are currently sitting.
This is going to age very badly
The vice president of #Afghanistan's fallen government, Amrullah Saleh, says, with the president having fled the country, he is the legitimate caretaker president.
Not an expert on the logistics of a rescue operation for citizens trapped in jihadist-occupied terrain, but betting fairly large amounts of money it's a problem the military with guns and stuff is better able to handle than diplomats in hand-to-hand combat
Reassuring
The Biden administration's leitmotif: willing to offer every support, short of help.
"No plan is ever perfect", says the Pentagon spokesman, and then goes on to lie about having worked on the SIV program in advance of this disaster.
"The United States government has the legal authority to cut the red tape for refugees during urgent humanitarian crises. And we have the responsibility ... for them now, without bureaucratic delay. Our most stalwart allies ... are ready to help." thehill.com/homenews/admin…
Behind the press conferences and interviews with female journalists:
Away from the cameras in Kabul, the #Taliban is being the Taliban. The "Punjabi" reference is also interesting: the group is not only controlled by #Pakistan but contains a lot of Pakistanis. Again, it is not "Afghan" in any serious sense.
Pathetic
Earlier today the Pentagon said between 5,000 and 10,000 Americans remained in #Afghanistan. Now updated to 11,000.
A decent effort by @BBCNews to get at the biggest lies in the speech: "Biden's speech on Afghanistan fact-checked" bbc.com/news/58243158
#Britain will welcome 20,000 Afghans: "In the first year, 5,000 refugees will be eligible - with women, girls and others in need having priority. The plan is on top of the existing scheme for interpreters and other staff who worked for the UK." bbc.com/news/uk-582502…
On this matter of whether the #Taliban minds being isolated: the group is under Pakistani command and it is a direct part of #Pakistan's control mechanism to ensure they are solely reliant on ISI.

[@carlottagall, "The Wrong Enemy", p. 52]
An offensive operation from the remaining anti-Taliban resistance
More from the Afghan resistance
Yet more from the Afghan resistance
#ISI going all out on the PR campaign: #Taliban had an interview with #Israeli television today
Interesting
The last #Jew in #Afghanistan is not leaving, despite the #Taliban takeover
The Afghan troops Biden said wouldn't fight, helping protect Americans right to the end.
The first time Biden advocated and helped oversee a massacre of allies:
Once again, Biden was warned months ago about an issue that has now devolved into an utter catastrophe
This is how the Taliban is behaving right at the edge of the last enclave controlled (or nearly controlled) by the US
The Biden administration, having failed to anticipate the crisis despite months of warning, is now failing even to react once the crisis is upon it.
This is all breaking down extremely badly
#Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood welcomes the #Taliban victory.

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More from @KyleWOrton

Kyle Orton Profile picture
15 Sep
In Sept. 1971, the KGB's Oleg Lyalin defected from the London Embassy and told the British government about the really alarming (and some quite bizarre) "special actions" the Soviets had been planning on the West, precipitating the mass expulsion Soviet spies in Operation FOOT.
The interesting thing is that this meant the West was quite well aware, from near the beginning of Andropov's renewed campaign, that Soviet terrorism was a very real phenomenon, and yet down to the end most in the West considered it a "conspiracy theory"
The KGB recruitment of Wadi Haddad of the PFLP in 1970 was the turning point: his Palestinian group was given weapons that even Eastern Bloc states hadn't received and given tasks as various as kidnapping CIA officers and assassinating Soviet defectors.
Read 7 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
15 Sep
#Pakistan's claim to be a victim of terrorism rests on groups like #TTP ("Pakistani Taliban"), but it was the Army/ISI who created the jihadist emirate in North Waziristan where this group was formed, with the active and ongoing assistance of the ISI's loyal Haqqani Network. ImageImage
#pt: "The Foutainhead of Jihad", pp. 164-5.
The #Haqqani-run enclave in North Waziristan, operating with the full backing of #Pakistan's ISI, not only nurtured the #TTP the Pakistanis would later portray as a mortal foe, it of course supported the "Afghan" #Taliban and was where #Al_Qaeda organised many post-9/11 plots. ImageImage
Read 9 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
14 Sep
#IS established itself in "Af-Pak" by building off the Afghan Salafist community that took root in eastern areas via the Arab presence there beginning many decades ago. The Salafis had some second thoughts, but the #Taliban is now pressuring them, too. trtworld.com/opinion/the-dy…
#pt: The Taliban made an approach to IS-Centre in 2015 to ask that ISKP not be used to open another jihadist front, since this would distract from the war with the West. No dice. IS didn't even bother to reply.
#pt: The original Pakistani, mostly TTP, leadership of #ISKP was killed off quite quickly and replaced with Afghan Salafis. The current leader, though, Dr. Shahab al-Muhajir, seems to be a former Haqqani Network operative, and has peeled away other parts of that network.
Read 4 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
13 Sep
The lengths the #KGB went to in trying to destroy #Solzhenitsyn even after he had been expelled from the Soviet Union are extraordinary, and not entirely irrational: they understood the danger he posed to them.

<Mini thread drawn from "The Sword and the Shield", pp. 312, 317-21>
Andropov first tried to expel Solzhenitsyn in autumn 1971, but Brezhnev listened to interior minister Nikolai Shchelokov, who said the great writer should be co-opted rather than persecuted. Andropov did not forget this, and later witch-hunted Shchelokov until he killed himself.
In late 1973, after Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov wrote an open letter that encouraged Congress to override the Nixon-Kissinger administration by passing Jackson-Vanik that linked Soviet trade privileges to human rights, Brezhnev said the KGB should have cracked down from the start.
Read 9 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
9 Sep
#Pakistan's ruler from 1999 to 2008, General Pervez Musharraf, wrote in his memoir: "It is true that we had assisted in the rise of the #Taliban after the Soviet Union withdrew from #Afghanistan" (p. 202). Image
Even after #Pakistan's General Musharraf disparages the "obscurantist" nature of the #Taliban and the "peace of the graveyard" they brought, he writes: "Nevertheless, we still supported them, for geostrategic reasons", to minimise Indian influence in #Afghanistan (p. 203).
Musharraf tries to create a narrative where #Pakistan was not engaged with the #Taliban at inception, even though the Saudis and UAE were (p. 201-11), which is absurd, and that the ISI had lost its "leverage" over the Taliban after it came to power (pp. 203, 209), equally absurd.
Read 9 tweets
Kyle Orton Profile picture
5 Sep
"Though Mr. Biden reversed other Trump policies, he was inclined to go through with the Afghan [withdrawal] ... The military argued for keeping 2,500 troops ... Bagram air base was central to the military's plans" for drones and special forces. wsj.com/articles/insid…
On 8 May, "The Pentagon wanted a discussion on an emergency evacuation of the embassy and how to plan to remove Afghans at risk, but White House officials asked that those issues be removed from the agenda"

Again, Biden cannot say he didn't know. Biden chose to leave the Afghans
Even Jake Sullivan thought closing Bagram Airbase was a bad idea, and in June there was a pause for four days. But Biden insisted on doing all this with 650 troops in Kabul, so the Pentagon could only protect either Bagram or HKIA, and Biden went with the latter.
Read 7 tweets

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