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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ggersh who wrote (176449)	8/15/2021 10:43:49 PM
From: TobagoJack	1 Recommendation Recommended By marcher Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217752

get it straight ... the 'same' mistake was not made, Vietnam was not again invaded. a different mistake was made, in Afghanistan. speaking of making different mistakes, mobilisation time nearing, followed by staging, and then boots on the ground, shock and awe, presumably, for the folks in charge have very short memory span in any case, Blinken says mission accomplished, but left out the detail that it was accomplished in Pakistan, adjacent to a military academy. The bothersome details are not important, only bothersome. zerohedge.com Joint Chiefs Inform Senators Terror Threat From Afghanistan "Moved Up" On Sunday Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley informed senators terrorist groups will be "reconstituted" in Afghanistan at a much greater speed than previously thought - and thus threat levels to US interests will likely increase. This after any gains made over 20 years of the US military's 'counterterror' mission in its Afghan 'forever war' and occupation seems to have evaporated overnight. Milley's phone call to senators which involved top Biden admin officials was reported by Axios, and included Sen. Lindsey Graham grilling both the Joint Chiefs chairman and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on events surrounding the rapid weekend takeover of Kabul by the Taliban. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also on the call and subject of Congressional questioning over the still ongoing disaster. The two top defense officials were asked "whether, in light of recent events, they will revise an assessment to Congress in June of a ' medium' risk of terrorist groups reconstituting in Afghanistan within two years," by the senators. Via Air Force MagAccording to Axios the response was bluntly in the affirmative: Milley responded "yes" — that he would have to assume that that timeline would get moved up, and that he would be happy to brief senators in a classified setting. Ironically, thinking all the way back to the Bush-era launch of the war in 2001, the driving rationale for the invasion and toppling the Taliban in the first place was to "protect the US homeland from terrorism". Over two decades later the Pentagon now finds itself right back where it started. More details of the no doubt tense call were reported by Axios as follows: Senators from both parties pressed Milley and Austin on efforts to evacuate U.S. personnel and the many thousands of Afghans who helped Americans in the war effort and are desperate to escape to save their lives from Taliban vengeance. A source on the call said the sad reality is there is no way they can evacuate by Aug 31. the more than 20,000 Afghans who want to escape the country. Many of them aren't in Kabul, the source said, and "if you're not in Kabul now how do you get to Kabul?" Two takeaways for me," the source said.Further the defense officials lamented that "We're gonna leave tens of thousands of people behind" and that ultimately after over 20 years of war "the timeline in terms of threats has accelerated." Kabul's 'Saigon moment' all over town as civilians scramble to get out... Other European countries such as Germany are mulling issuing emergency visas for Afghan translators and other local personnel who assisted NATO troops; however, the efforts are increasingly looking like too little too late.

To: ggersh who wrote (176449)	8/16/2021 12:58:33 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217752

… <<moment>> CNN reflects its version of history, not altogether wrong, but fails to make mention of deep-state One person one vote governance system appears easy to machinate to escape accountability - just blame it on whomever leaving the chairs on rotational basis edition.cnn.com Here’s how the Taliban regained control in Afghanistan 1 hr 15 min ago After 20 years of US intervention, thousands of deaths and at least $1 trillion dollars, the Taliban's advance in the country has been strikingly swift — here’s a look back at how the situation evolved to where it stands today: Less than a month after terrorists linked to al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks, American and allied forces begin an invasion of Afghanistan called Operation Enduring Freedom, to stop the Taliban from providing a safe-haven to al Qaeda and to stop al Qaeda’s use of Afghanistan as a base of operations for terrorist activities. On Dec. 7, 2001 the Taliban lost its last major stronghold as the city of Kandahar fell. Since then, the Taliban have attempted to gain ground in Afghanistan throughout the time US forces have been there and throughout multiple US administrations. More recently, in January 2017, the Taliban sent an open letter to then-newly elected US President Trump, calling on him to withdraw US forces from the country. Between 2017 to 2019 there were attempts at peace talks between the US and the Taliban that never finalized into an agreement. During a surprise trip to Afghanistan in November 2019 for a Thanksgiving visit with US troops, Trump announced that peace talks with the Taliban were restarting. The peace talks resumed in Doha, Qatar, in December of that year. The US and the Taliban signed a historic agreement in February 2020, which set into motion the potential of a full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. The " Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan" outlined a series of commitments from the US and the Taliban related to troop levels, counter terrorism, and the intra-Afghan dialogue aimed at bringing about "a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire." In the month following the signing of the Trump administration’s peace deal with the Taliban, the insurgent group increased its attacks on America’s Afghan allies to higher than usual levels, according to data provided to the Pentagon’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. In August 2020, Afghanistan’s grand assembly of elders, the consultative Loya Jirga, passed a resolution calling for the release of the last batch of some 5,000 Taliban prisoner, paving the way for direct peace talks with the insurgent group to end nearly two decades of war. The release of the 400 prisoners was part of the agreement signed by the US and the Taliban in February. In March 2021, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the Biden administration proposed to the Afghan government that they enter into an interim power-sharing agreement with the Taliban. In April 2021, President Biden announced that the US would withdraw forces from Afghanistan by September 2021. In August, just months after the US began withdrawing forces, the Biden administration sent in 5,000 troops into Afghanistan after the Taliban began gaining control in the country. On Aug. 15, after the Taliban seized control of every major city across Afghanistan, apart from Kabul, in just two weeks, the Taliban engaged in talks with the government in the capital over who will rule the nation. The Taliban is now edging closer to taking full control of the country and have seized the presidential palace in Kabul after President Ghani fled the country. Earlier talks to form a transitional government appear to have been scuppered by Ghani's departure. CNN's Clarissa Ward, Tim Lister, Vasco Cotovio, Angela Dewan, Mostafa Salem and Saleem Mehsud contributed reporting to this post. 1 hr 14 min agoFrom CNN's Elizabeth Joseph Citing the ongoing situation in Afghanistan, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Taliban and all other parties to “exercise utmost restraint in order to protect lives and ensure that humanitarian needs can be addressed.” The secretary-general called for all parties to allow humanitarian actors access to provide relief and services across the country. Guterres is expected address to the United Nations Security Council Monday morning. Sent from my iPad