Afghans plan withdrawal strategy
While the US public breathlessly watches Jay Leno withdraw from NBC next year, Afghans are quietly planning their own withdrawal from their country, according to the LA Times;
The wealthy are buying second homes abroad and moving huge amounts of money out of Afghanistan, fearing that security will deteriorate and the economy will collapse. Others are applying to study overseas, seeking invitations from relatives abroad or risking their lives trying to get into countries illegally.
“Everything has stopped,” said Elyas Faizi of Blue House Real Estate. “No one can sell. No one is buying.”
Some of his clients are snapping up apartments and villas in Dubai on the Persian Gulf, where wealthy Afghans have long sought sanctuary. The number of Afghans buying property there jumped in 2011 and 2012, many paying in cash, according to local brokers.
“I think they wanted to have a Plan B in place,” said Parvees Gafur, chief executive of Propsquare Real Estate in the United Arab Emirates.
Yeah, ’cause Plan A – take the Americans for every penny instead of trying to rebuild your country – kind of went to shit. So the cycle continues. Meanwhile, in Farah Provence, 9 Taliban wearing suicide vests attacked a court house in an attempt to free more than 12 comrades killing about 44 people, according to reports from the Associated Press.
The attack began when two assailants blew themselves up inside one of the vehicles while the others jumped out and ran toward the courthouse and prosecutor’s office, provincial police chief Agha Noor Kemtoz said. Guards opened fire, killing one of the attackers, as the others engaged in a fierce gunbattle that left civil servants and government officials holed up in their offices.
Other civilians fled to the basement of the courthouse, where gunmen found them and killed 21 people, officials said.
The New York Post reports more than 50 dead. Bloomberg blames the Obama Administration for being “opaque” as far as their plans for Afghanistan.
“In Afghanistan right now there’s a huge amount of anxiety about the scale and nature of the U.S. commitment long-term,” Obama’s former Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, who was on the trip last month and was the Pentagon’s third highest- ranking official, said in an interview.
She said spelling out U.S. intentions, including how many troops will stay, would “reduce counterproductive hedging behavior on the part of various parties in Afghanistan and in the broader region.”
But, since the intention of this administration was to merely withdraw, I don’t they’ve been opaque at all. Well, withdraw under a drone umbrella, so he still looks tough. How that helps Afghans, I have no idea.
Not only are the Taliban making their way back to Afghanistan, the Christian Science Monitor reports that the Russians may be headed back there, too;
Moscow is extremely worried “that any escalation of the situation in Afghanistan after NATO troops pull out in 2014 could have a negative impact on the security of both Russia and other European nations,” he added.
Russian experts insist that it’s not an attempt to overcome Russia’s own version of the “Vietnam syndrome” – an agonized folk memory of the decade-long war in Afghanistan that arguably brought down the Soviet Union. Rather, they say the new engagement will be limited to commercial obligations, negotiated with NATO before it pulls most of its forces out, and will absolutely not involve any active military role.
Of course, they are adamant that no Russian troops will be involved…well, until the first time unprotected Russian citizens get exploded.
Category: Terror War
And no doubt the idiots in the MSM who have been talking defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., since 9/11 will no doubt paint the Taliban as “agrarian reformers” much like they did about the Khmer Rouge and North Vietnamese while they rounded up and murdered millions.
Another Democrat runs a war, another administration runs away, another bloodbath ensues. We ain’t learned shit.
Don’t give up yet, Sparky.
Bottom line, move the battle west a few thousand miles, change the names of the countries, let the bad guys stage out of Pakistan versus Cambodia and Laos, and get a libtard Congress/administration that can’t wait to cut and run, and viola!
SSDD.
I was there ’05-’06, we were getting the job done right, and tha vast majority of the Afghans wanted us there, they actually had a life to look forward to! Now B. Hussein 0bama & Co. are trying to flush our successes down the drain as fast as they can, as well as crapping on us Vets that have risked our asses over there and spitting on the graves of those we lost. I see it as liberals doing what they do best, flushing hard-won accomplishments down the pipes while telling dropouts that life owes them everything!
Sparky and Infidel: The world has moved on. Two things to remember: the liberal world-view is non-viable. It can’t maintain, and won’t. And what all of you did in Afghanistan left an indelible mark. They may choose to pick up the ball and run with it, or leave it lay; but either way, they can no longer claim ingnorance for their actions. The responsibility for their conditions rests squarely on their shoulders now.
“Yeah, ’cause Plan A – take the Americans for every penny instead of trying to rebuild your country – kind of went to shit. ” But not before Plan “A” funded Plan “B.” Where else do you think they got all the money to buy out of country real estate…
@5 It’s always rested on their shoulders, they have always been too busy squabbling with each other over a hard scrabble agrarian life to actually consider what life might be like if they would work together and develop a nation.
I don’t believe it’s ever been a true “nation” in the sense we understand them. A conglomeration of turd piles united by a language and some geography maybe.
Living in the stone age has been all that they have ever aspired to achieve, and it’s exactly where they will continue to live once the US leaves. It was never going to be a blue jeans and pop music democracy….because there was never a plan to spend 3 generations there educating all the children male and female.
Ignorance is their stock in trade, and so it will remain for another millennia. Had it not been for 9/11 they would still be running around with clubs beating women for exposing their faces or daring to ask for an education. We didn’t change that base in 12 years, no matter what we tell ourselves. When we leave we will not see that sh1thole suddenly jump into a cycle of education and advancement.
@7 I’m not an evolutionist particularly, not in the classic sense of the word, but I do believe that there are human cultures that don’t advance. That area of the world may just have a people that have become stuck in time, for one reason or another. If, in their development, something in their psychological growth has stopped completely, they will be unable to advance. If such is the case, then yes, they will remain as they are. And eventually, disappear completely.
I didnt know real estate companies existed in or around afghanistan.. All i saw was mud huts.
I pretty much stopped at the line: “The wealthy are buying second homes abroad and moving huge amounts of money out of Afghanistan, fearing that security will deteriorate and the economy will collapse” because that pretty much summed up the rest of the article.
I have just 3 things to say about that:
(1) No shit. That’s no surprise, and;
(2) Just don’t come to America. We have enough problems over here where we don’t need your bullshit and religious fanaticism.
(3) Have fun with the Taliban.
Hey, it’s gonna get like April ’75 over there… Democrat deja vue, thanks dudes!
VOV: one of the serious problems in Afghanistan is that there is not a common language. Pashto and Dari are the most common languages and are generally used for communication between different ethnic groups, but these two languages are only somewhat mutually intelligible. There are also a number other languages: Tajik, Baloch, Nuristani, Turkomen, Uzbek, Pashai, Wakhi, plus others. It’s estimated that more than 40 languages may be spoken in Afghanistan.
[…] sends a link to NBC about the same discussion we had the other day about Afghans planning their own withdrawal strategy from their own […]