https://twitter.com/CortesSteve/status/1427839604376444929
These people are pure evil. I would legitimately have a hard time not punching this guy in the face.
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Oh shit, you should see the people with Christian profile pics and shit ripping LSS for bringing African war refugees to my town. This shit is going to ignite their craziness even more.
That seems crazy to me. No need to go on missions if they’re coming to your town! EZ game.
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What I mean is they’re not going to be recruited by people who are helping them through the settlement process. Maybe they figure they’ll get a shot at them some other way. There are missionaries who go to door, for instance.
I saw tweets about a reminder from church leadership regarding obligations to help refugees just a few days ago. Could be they anticipated what was about to happen. There was no pushback about that (that I saw) like there was about direction to wear masks and get vaccinated.
Do people want to compete with china and grow the economy? If so, we need like 100M more refugees. I’m stealing this take from Matt Y, but anyone who wants to make America great should be pushing for at least million refugees and other immigrants per year.
It’s not just a US thing, any industrial nation could step up it’s game with a lot more refugees (eg, Canada, Australia, Spain). Germany has done this to some extent but not many others. At least Germany believes in the greatness of Germany!
Aside from rank presentism and racism, it’s foolish not to accept refugees. Even if the first generation doesn’t fully acculturate the younger and those born here do. One generation’s German or Irish street thug is the next’s president.
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Everyone is stupid. Countries need people. People aren’t hard to assimilate over time.
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There are refugee demographics that have been heavily Republican. (Cubans and Vietnamese, at least)
I’d think GOP pols could rather easily have a message towards Afghan-Americans that emphasizes the democrats being at fault for the fall of Kabul and do alright.
This is nothing new, of course yadda yadda yadda but it remains astounding the degree to which the right just has no willingness to even try to appeal at all to demographics they could compete for if they are not white.
Cubans are a special case, but by now my sense is that most vietnamese are pretty standard Asians and lean Dem or will in a few more years. One wacky generation from Cuba, Syria, Iran, etc is nothing compared to 100 or 200 years of “normal” American offspring.
The Vietnamese media consumed in America is 100% deplorable, beyond Fox grade.
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Second and third generations consume English media.
Refugees from communist countries skew right wing. It’s not that surprising. Refugees from Guatemala or Somalia aren’t Republican voting blocks.
That’s not a “war” cost, that’s a stimulus package.
Petraeus on CNN going HAM with sunk cost fallacy, on the other hand maybe he’s trying to build deplorable support for biden by pointing out that European elites want the US to stay.
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grunching: is it “they went there”?
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Any article focusing on tactics (literally 99% of articles) is harmful because the implication is tactics matter. They don’t. All the attention should be on the assholes who got us into this by establishing a mission beyond “kill actual terrorists.”
The Morning Joe neocons who pretend they’re democrats (or is there a difference?) are certain at this point that this is the thing that will give us House Speaker Mike McCarthy. “I’m really worried for the Democrats” -Donnie Dutch, not two hours ago. (And all while duly noting that 75% of the US wanted/wants US out of Afghanistan)
The entire country is either on fire 
literally or figuratively with Covid and GOP is actively killing people especially kids and even the Dem-adjacent media is all-in on LOOK OVER THERE AT AFGHANISTAN!!! Rachel Maddow has devoted every show (so far) to it since last week at least.
It beats all I’ve ever seen.
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There is no better topic for exposing the toxic nature of the media than forever wars. Cheerlead into them, publish and amplify lies, then even after it turns out to be an unmitigated, highly fatal disaster, parade the same assholes whose lies you published out to inform the audience while doing absolutely zero introspection of any kind. The only necessary “analysis” is always how Democrats are pussies and they’ll lose votes because of it. Empirical content optional.
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In private interviews, as well as in informal discussions with Afghan politicians, some Taliban figures leave the impression that the group still sees itself as a government forced into exile. What they want is the return of their Emirate with a more open embrace that shares power, but not a renegotiation of the fundamentals of how they view power.
“What they are saying to Americans is this: You have accepted Saudi Arabia, and we won’t do more than their basic code — retribution for murder, chop off the hand for robbing,” Mr. Shinwari said. “If you have accepted Saudi, what’s wrong with us being another? The rest will be your priorities: aid, friendship, economic relations.”
At least the Taliban are advanced in trolling
Some of you may be familiar with CoasterDad from the Floyd thread. Here’s another instance where he was incredibly spot on.
A few days after 9/11/01 he said “kids, get in the car, we’re going to Washington D.C.”. You see, the toll roads were not charging tolls in the aftermath of the attacks, and he knew the city would be mostly empty because everyone was still in shock and terrified that more attacks were coming. We enjoyed seeing the monuments, going to a completely empty Six Flags America, and camping at a completely empty campground. We spent much of the trip discussing the state of the world and why America had been targeted.
About a week after 9/11 we were standing in the field across from the still smoldering Pentagon. It is an image that is forever burned in my memory. My dad said “this was a terrible tragedy, but what comes next will be far worse. The US will use this as an excuse to invade Afghanistan, Iraq, and maybe other countries. We will start an unwinnable war that will last a generation. We will spend trillions of dollars to kill innocent brown people in the name of revenge while trying to force democracy into these countries. Ultimately it will be a failed war because the people of Afghanistan don’t want us there, and this will just create more hatred towards the US as we kill their kids.”
Some guy neaby had a large radio tuned in to the news. We heard the breaking story that the US approved an invasion into Afghanistan (I think?). CoasterDad said “kids, now would be a good time to head home.”
It’s a conversation I’ve never forgotten. Seeing it play out exactly how he told me it would 20 years ago has been…something. Sad? Scary? Pathetic? If a random boomer window salesman from New Jersey could predict this so accurately, what the fuck was our government doing thinking this would be a success? I know, I know, it was a success for the corporate interests and military industries. But fuck if this entire disaster wasn’t completely avoidable.
And of course seeing the Republicans flip this as being entirely on the Dems is going to be beyond infuriating, because it will work.
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This currently ongoing evacuation continues totally by the grace of the Taliban, right? They wouldn’t even need to take the airport; a little shelling of the runway and it’s over, no?
Germany at least secured their most valuable assets weeks ago:
According to a report from the German news magazine Der Spiegel , about 20,000 liters of beer, as well as 340 bottles of wine and Sekt (sparkling wine), and an unknown amount of shandy have to come back to Germany.
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