My congratulations, friends and readers! The Taliban’s victory is our victory, yours and mine. We, non-Muslim and non-Pashtun folk, in the US and Europe, may rejoice, for in Afghanistan, virile (not “toxic”) masculinity defeated gender-diversity, believers defeated those weak of faith, the morals of our fathers overcome the morals of our sons. This is the sheer joy of the Afghan victory; this victory of bearded men with arms over a gender-diversified butch-run hosts and their feminist NGOs is our victory, too. Do not be ashamed of being a manly man; stand tall! It is a breath of fresh air, this manly victory in the far-away mountains trod by Alexander the Great’s phalanxes; and it is much nicer to write about than usual stuff, especially after this time of being drip-fed by hypochondriac news of another elder succumbing to the dreadful virus, of green passports, of medical advice on how to live longer, of atoning for the misdeeds of our forefathers, of being of the wrong race and how to avoid microaggressions lest somebody will feel hurt. If we, men, would like to hurt somebody, we won’t stop at a joke, we’ll reach for an RPG.
The RPG rocket launcher, of the kind preferred by the Talibs, really hurts. It is not an imaginary feeling of discomfort, but a real hole in the armour. Or a torn-off head. There is nothing micro in its delivery. You do not need a mask on the battlefield for the mask won’t stop the launched rocket. You won’t worry about the virus when you encounter real bullets. On the battlefield, the problem of gender-neutral toilets does not arise. Twitter can’t ban a machinegun, but a machinegun can banish Twitter and the whole Twitter gang. The Taliban defeated Wokery; they aren’t afraid of being politically incorrect as we are. The Taliban aren’t afraid to worship God and to call upon Him, as we are. They aren’t afraid to stand for family values – they don’t even understand how it could be different.
The Taliban is a harbinger of real muscular democracy and freedom from Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg, Anthony Fauci, Nancy Pelosi who all enslave us. They wouldn’t submit to this bunch; they would mete out revolutionary justice to those who want to deprive us of heating, who would blot out the Sun and suffocate us with their masks. A Trumper watches with envy as these rebels actually take the president palace instead of being accused of doing it on January 6.
These armed peasants reminded us that we still can change the world. It is not necessary to submit. All the rules of the game could be re-written; the whole game could be dumped. Normalcy, a traditional norm can be regained.
And it is a win-win thing: I, for one, do not think that America was defeated or that President Biden made a mistake. Far from it. Ending the occupation of a foreign land is a noble act. It was a real victory for Biden, victory over the Deep State, victory over Jewish Lobby. If it would be up to the Lobby, to the NY Times, to the CIA, the US would never ever leave Afghanistan. Read Bret Stephens in the New York Times (here is un-paywalled text), this is the authentic voice of the Lobby. Stephens, a Neocon and a son of Jewish parents (despite the assumed gentile last name), had been the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post at the time of the Intifada and glorified the horrors of Israeli occupation. Stephens bewails the US “defeat” and claims the US should have stayed in Afghanistan forever. His best argument runs as follows: “But didn’t we have to leave Afghanistan sometime? So goes a counterargument. Yes, though we’ve been in Korea for 71 years, at far higher cost, and the world is better off for it.” Silly man! The world would be better without US troops in Korea; North and South would unite, and money spent there could pay for Americans’ education and health.
The Neocons, the masters of the Deep State, would never allow Trump to leave Afghanistan, as they derailed his meek attempts to leave Syria. Now Trump can criticize Biden for the Kabul airport ugly scenes, but to tell you truth, there is no nice way to leave, neither an occupied country, nor a woman you lived with for twenty years. If you decide to leave, be prepared for a lot of ugly nastiness. Withdrawal from Vietnam was also ugly, but it was a right decision then, and it is a right decision now.
Consider Auschwitz, definitely a harsh place. When the Germans had to leave, hundreds of Jews followed them westward (Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust writer, was among them). They were afraid of the Red Army coming to liberate them and preferred the Germans they knew. That’s why I am not amazed a lot of Afghans want to follow the US troops elsewhere: they are afraid of their liberators.
Things could be tough for all-too-eager supporters of the occupying regime. When the Nazis left France, many collaborators went to jail, some were lynched by the French patriots. But it does not mean it would be better to keep France occupied.
Biden was right to order the US to leave Afghanistan. He demonstrated much stamina in going against pleadings of his army, his intelligence services and the whole of the Deep State. I must admit that I have today much more respect for President Biden than I had before the withdrawal. I respect him even more for his excellent response to the British poodle. British statesmen complained about Biden’s decision to withdraw “after so much blood was shed there”. The UK could stay there in Afghanistan if they liked, Biden replied. They had this option, to stay. Just without American support. The US does not want to be the world’s policeman anymore.
Incidentally, the UK was the only NATO member that had the appetite for staying there, Johnson admitted. The opposition Labour party’s new boss Keir Starmer (who came to his position after Corbyn was hounded away by the smear of antisemitism) was as strongly against Biden as Johnson was. Well, Brits like wars. They pushed the unwilling US into WWI and WWII, and recently they tried to get some action at the sea of Crimea. It is good that Biden is not an easy guy to play; not as easy as Wilson and Roosevelt were.
Now there is a fighting chance that Biden will command and take the US troops from Iraq and Syria; and with some luck, from other countries, from Korea and the Philippines, or even from Germany and the UK. It would be very good for the American people; and perhaps we shall yet see Boris Johnson climbing on the roof of the Grosvenor Square building of the US Embassy in London to take the last helicopter flight out to an American aircraft carrier before the Brits put him up against the wall.
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This is not to diminish the victory of Taliban. They achieved an unbelievable feat: in the course of a few days, they finished off the Twenty Year War. Yes, it’s good news: the long Afghan War is officially over and done with. It began in 2001 with the US invasion; it was over last Sunday, August 15, when the US protégé, the former President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, departed for the UAE with his four carloads of cash.
The Angel of History abided by the triple unity rules of classic drama: unity of action, unity of place and unity of time. In one day, power passed into the hands of the rebels – in Kandahar, and in Mazar-i-Sharif, and, finally, in Kabul. The apocalyptic expectations of the upcoming “battle for Kabul” didn’t materialise – the new government entered the presidential palace practically without a shot fired.
The most remarkable snapshot of this historic turn came on Monday. These weren’t fighters with bazookas or mujahedeen in the palace. These were Kabul girls going to school in the morning. In white kerchiefs, with backpacks, they, as usual, went to school.
