# Afghanistan ### Chris Murphy Thread 6/ I turned to one of the Republicans on the trip, Rep. Adam Kenzinger, and said, "So the U.S. is here protecting the heroin trade that provides the Taliban with an income to continue the insurgency we are supposed to be fighting?" https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1426208059773358086?s=19 ### Afghans falling out of the sky Video: - https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1427189716294815752?s=19 - Another angle: https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1427239678722428930?s=19 - On landing gear before takeoff: https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1427269467499806720?s=19 ![[20210824_005819.jpg]] ### Casualties "I don't see how anyone can look at this chart and say the status quo in Afghanistan could have been sustained indefinitely. https://t.co/2wY2Cn5TMZ " ![[20210823_043615.jpg]] https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1429648572761391105?s=19 ### Waste of public funds (thread) https://twitter.com/AASchapiro/status/1429602510361214987?s=19 Fun 2018 SIGAR report on the $675M effort to promote "business" in Afghanistan - including a $4.1M contract to PR firm Bell Pottinger to promote Afghan artisans, which was labeled a success b/c they attended 16 trade shows. https://t.co/YCNZpFMrcp https://t.co/w2bUYDNDoa And more ### Bush was right in 2002 (but alas didn't stick to his insight) ![[20210823_044010.jpg]] Source: https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/1429498205230804992?s=19 - Also has three more (less relevant) tweets ### The evacuation is scrutized more closely than the war It's astonishing how every issue with the Afghanistan withdrawal is under a microscope when the war itself didn't get 1/10th the scrutiny. Selective emphasis is how consent is manufactured. https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/1429773460688019456?s=19 Comment: "Jared Yates Sexton wrote: "There’s nothing like a very public and catastrophic military and intelligence failure to really flush out which publications and journalists are working with which branches and agencies." " https://twitter.com/UrbanHagen/status/1429784476960366594?s=19 ### There was a climate change argument for colonialism in Afghanistan The climate change argument for staying in Afghanistan to harness its lithium deposits would make more sense if the U.S. hadn't proven totally incapable to creating the circumstances for that to happen over the last two decades. https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1429845209974820872?s=19 Wild that there is a climate change argument for colonialism in Afghanistan. https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1429845848377028612?s=19 ### Ghani fled with $169 million Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled with $169 MILLION. Is it always about the Benjamins? https://t.co/ZW23KrX8Qa https://twitter.com/cobbo3/status/1428098329569898498?s=19 Before fleeing his country with massive sums of cash, Ghani wrote a book called “Fixing Failed States” and founded an NGO called the “Institute for State Effectiveness”. What a grift https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1429953440831074329?s=19 ### US military has covered up accidental bombings of weddings and villages Whenever you hear some think tank hack arguing that the cost of continuing war in Afghanistan was sustainable should point out the military has spent years blowing up weddings and villages there and shamelessly lying about it as long as possible: https://t.co/gmpdV5vnZD ![[20210823_195948.jpg]] ![[20210823_195950.jpg]] ### [[Taliban]] have captured an estimated $212MM worth of US military equipment Taliban has an estimated $212 million worth of U.S. military aircraft, vehicles, ammunition, and spare parts. Makes Taliban arguably the best armed militant group in modern history. ![[20210824_005241.jpg]] ![[20210824_005406.jpg]] https://twitter.com/FrudBezhan/status/1429897696375152641?s=19 ### US fueled corruption in [[Afghanistan]] By spending money faster than it could be accounted for, United States achieved the opposite of what it intended: it fueled corruption, delegitimized #Afghan government, and increased insecurity Link to pdf: https://t.co/7L1PdaPkQg https://twitter.com/SIGARHQ/status/1429866029597876229?s=19 ### [[Afghanistan]] faces an economic crises in addition to a humanitarian one https://amp.ft.com/content/6395d167-3175-4332-8329-ae1478c616ca?__twitter_impression=true - Okay article Even before Taliban takeover, "Afghanistan already faced a triple threat of COVID, conflict & drought. Now it must also deal with an economic shock. W/ freezing of $9B of reserves, import coverage dropped from +15 months to 2 days overnight." @aahmady https://twitter.com/missy_ryan/status/1430282980799533062?s=19 ### Military wants to go back “We’re probably going to have to go back in” to Afghanistan to get ISIS, former defense secretary and CIA director Leon Panetta tells CNN https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1431033504930877441?s=19 ### Taliban has 85B worth of equipment? 🇦🇫🇺🇲 The Taliban have now access to \$85 billion worth of US military equipment in Afghanistan. That's more than the entire annual military budget of Russia ($61 billion) for 2020. https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/1431331718062030858?s=19 86B figure appears to be from here, which describes it as *total funding over two decades* https://taskandpurpose.com/news/taliban-weapons-afghanistan/ 86B figure debunked here https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/20/viral-image/no-proof-biden-left-taliban-80b-weapons-or-he-want/ ### Afghanis can only withdraw $200 a week from bank accounts Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) issues a letter to commercial banks to reopen and allow individual account holders to withdraw $200 or AFN20,000 per week. The central bank says that this is a temporary solution so people can address their daily needs. https://twitter.com/MohsinAmin_/status/1431585670989025285?s=19 ### [[Taliban]] show off military equipment captured from the US VIDEO: 🇦🇫 The Taliban showcase some of the military hardware they captured during their takeover of #Afghanistan outside #Kandahar -- the spiritual birthplace of the militant movement -- after the final US troops left the country https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1433074669448413186?s=19 ### [[Taliban]] makes press about victory ### Conditions for protest under Taliban rule Conditions for protests by MOI: 1- Permission from the Ministry of Justice. 2-Purpose, slogans, place, time & details of protest to be shared with security agencies. 3- Security organs should be informed 24 hours before demonstration. 4-Violators will face legal action.#Kabul https://twitter.com/MJalal700/status/1435629448779403264?s=19 Shared by [[Alex Gladstein]] https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1435634833489743877?s=19 ### [[Taliban]] rule does not include Jewish tolerance Very sad to hear that my friend Zabulon Simentov left Afghanistan. Jewish life within the country doesn't exist anymore. Zabulon didn't leave for decades and is one of the bravest Afghans I know. ![[20210908_194414.jpg]] https://twitter.com/Emran_Feroz/status/1435500572845690884?s=19 ### No accountability for failure - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/i/status/1436009353597837312) by [@MazMHussain](https://twitter.com/MazMHussain) on [[September 9th, 2021]]: - It's been about a month since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, a waste of 20 years of lives and resources, and not one U.S. official has resigned or even expressed serious contrition. They're actually congratulating themselves on having done such a good job on their withdrawal. - The U.S. lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan an no one has faced any accountability for any of it. Unless there is some serious meritocratic standard in military and political leadership the next wars are going to be lost too with potentially far more serious consequences. - It is a bit unnerving because the U.S. really is a powerful and influential country that has can play a very positive role in the world. But that is not possible with unaccountable leaders, incompetent intelligence, and institutionalized corruption. Feels a little Chernobyl-ish. ### "ISIS-K" is a ruse to save face An administration desperate to save face after their botched withdrawal tells us they conducted a precision strike against “ISIS-K”, a group we never heard of before, and it turns out they killed a bunch of innocent people. Despicable. https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1436457018005487619?s=19 Quoted thread (lots of pictures) - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/i/status/1436422176425578496) by [@evanhill](https://twitter.com/evanhill) on [[September 10th, 2021]]: - The final act of the U.S. war in Afghanistan was a drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 people. Our latest investigation shows how a man the military saw as an "imminent threat" and "ISIS facilitator" was actually an aid worker returning to his family: [Video: ‘Imminent Threat’ or Aid Worker: Did a U.S. Drone Strike in Afghanistan Kill the Wrong Person?](https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000007963596/us-drone-attack-kabul-investigation.html) - The military said it believed Zemari Ahmadi’s white Toyota Corolla, which it tracked by drone for eight hours that day, was packed with explosives. Security camera video we obtained showed him loading it with water containers for his home. I'll detail our findings in this thread. [pic.twitter.com/1hEaFBmcDo](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436423489553113107/video/1) - Ahmadi was a 14-year employee of Nutrition & Education International, a U.S. NGO that fights malnutrition. He helped start up soy factories, repair machinery, transport his colleagues and distribute food from his Corolla to displaced Afghans. [pic.twitter.com/S7r1TyHBs0](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436424154375458816/video/1) - Aug. 29, according to his family and colleagues, was a normal day for Ahmadi. He left home around 9am, picked up 2 colleagues and his boss’s laptop, stopped for breakfast, and headed to the office in the Karte Seh neighborhood. - But the U.S. military was on high alert. Three days earlier, an Islamic State suicide attack at the Kabul airport had killed 13 troops and more than 170 Afghans. “All threat warnings are flashing red,” a senior official told us. They expected another attack. [pic.twitter.com/2haQhzhhHo](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436424673303138306/video/1) - At around the time Ahmadi was picking up his colleagues, the U.S. military said it observed a white sedan emerge from an Islamic State safehouse near Ahmadi’s home, 5km northwest of the airport. Intercepted communications from the safehouse gave the sedan instructions, they said. [pic.twitter.com/v7OUg1uRQF](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436425064543625216/video/1) - But [@mattaikins](https://twitter.com/mattaikins) interviewed all 5 men who were in the car with Ahmadi that day. They said that what the military interpreted as a series of suspicious moves represented a typical day in his life. He drove his colleagues around town, where they made plans for food distributions. [pic.twitter.com/qD08rGmomI](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436425332022775809/video/1) - The office security camera we obtained is crucial to understand what happens next. Though the camera settings are off, [@mattaikins](https://twitter.com/mattaikins) verified its time by visiting the office, and [@ckoettl](https://twitter.com/ckoettl) matched what we see on camera with timestamped satellite imagery. [pic.twitter.com/luLCQXgkpn](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436425724479614981/video/1) - At 2:35pm, Ahmadi and a colleague fill several large plastic containers with water. The footage shows Ahmadi bring them to the office earlier that day. His brother told us his neighborhood suffered from a water shortage and that he routinely filled up containers at the office. [pic.twitter.com/GqzL8NeXmy](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436426143935127555/video/1) - At 3:38pm, a colleague drives Ahmadi’s car farther into the office driveway. At roughly the same time, the military said, the drone team saw Ahmadi’s car pull into an "unknown compound" 8 to 12 kilometers southwest of the airport. [pic.twitter.com/BlYOmZ0yOc](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436426660107231234/video/1) - The location of the "unknown compound" overlaps with the location of the NGO’s office, and the military told us that they only saw the white sedan at one location that afternoon. We believe that what the military called an unknown compound was in fact the NGO’s office. - With the work day ending, an employee switches off the office generator, and the camera goes dark. The military said it now saw four men load wrapped packages into the car. Ahmadi’s colleagues said they were stowing laptop bags, which the footage shows here, earlier in the day. [pic.twitter.com/24ocATEN2T](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436427419594932224/video/1) - Ahmadi drops his colleagues off and turns onto his street. His and his brothers’ children surround the car, his relatives said. The family has a habit of letting kids steer the car into the courtyard of their home. Somehow, the military said, the drone team sees none of this. [pic.twitter.com/HjRbHxN5QX](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436428040830083072/video/1) - The drone team hasn’t been watching Ahmadi’s home at all. They quickly scan the courtyard, an official told us, and see only an adult male talking to the driver. Fearing the car, which they believe has explosives, will soon head to the airport, they fire. - The decision to strike does not flow down the typical chain of command. Because of the chaos of the Kabul airport evacuation, an official told us, President Biden and the military have delegated the authority to approve airstrikes to lower-level commanders. - An MQ-9 Reaper drone fires one 20lb Hellfire missile at the car. The military says that the strike sets off large secondary explosions, suggesting the presence of a significant amount of explosives. [pic.twitter.com/RKybbVkUYF](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436430756067352614/video/1) - We gathered photos and videos of the scene taken by journalists, and [@mattaikins](https://twitter.com/mattaikins) visited the courtyard multiple times. We shared that evidence with three experts. All three agreed that the damage was consistent with a single Hellfire strike, and not large secondary explosions. [pic.twitter.com/HUXcZFHwCL](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436431890643361812/video/1) - There is one other detail visible in the wreckage: destroyed plastic containers, identical to the ones that we saw Ahmadi and his colleague fill with water and load into his trunk before heading home. The military told us they never saw them being loaded. [pic.twitter.com/YB0ioe1BZ1](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436432494719606805/photo/1) - The morning after the U.S. drone strike killed Ahmadi and 9 others, the Islamic State did launch rockets at the airport, firing from an area that Ahmadi had driven through the previous day, and using a white Toyota to do so. [pic.twitter.com/TPVu9Mwv0O](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436433018026139667/photo/1) - Our reporting concludes that the U.S. military struck a car parked inside a multi-family home in Kabul without knowing who the driver was, what he did for a living or where he lived. Fearing an attack, they interpreted an average day in his life as the behavior of a terrorist. - Four days before Ahmadi was killed, his employer had applied for his family to receive refugee resettlement in the U.S. At the time of the strike, they were still awaiting approval. Looking to the U.S. for protection, they became some of the last victims in America’s longest war. [pic.twitter.com/3IcgTyc5ca](https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1436433539445235717/video/1) - Watch our full investigation here: [Video: ‘Imminent Threat’ or Aid Worker: Did a U.S. Drone Strike in Afghanistan Kill the Wrong Person?](https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000007963596/us-drone-attack-kabul-investigation.html) - This story began with the core and essential work of our team, a quick and accurate geolocation from [@heytherehaIey](https://twitter.com/heytherehaIey): [twitter.com/heytherehaIey/…](https://twitter.com/heytherehaIey/status/1432005477546831876). We followed that up with thorough reporting, expert consultation, and tireless on-the-ground work by [@mattaikins](https://twitter.com/mattaikins). - Our thanks to [@Brian_Castner](https://twitter.com/Brian_Castner) [@johnismay](https://twitter.com/johnismay) and [@CobbSmith](https://twitter.com/CobbSmith) for lending us their invaluable expertise, and to Nutrition & Education International and Ahmadi's colleagues, who asked for anonymity, fearing they could be targeted by both the Taliban and the United States. - Additional thanks, for essential photography and videography, to Jordan Byron and [@jimhuylebroek](https://twitter.com/jimhuylebroek). - Our team: [@ckoettl](https://twitter.com/ckoettl) [@mattaikins](https://twitter.com/mattaikins) [@tiefenthaeler](https://twitter.com/tiefenthaeler) [@DrewJordan_NYT](https://twitter.com/DrewJordan_NYT) [@whitney_hurst](https://twitter.com/whitney_hurst) [@markscheffler](https://twitter.com/markscheffler) [@EricSchmittNYT](https://twitter.com/EricSchmittNYT) [@trbrtc](https://twitter.com/trbrtc) [@johnismay](https://twitter.com/johnismay) @malachybrowne - https://t.co/VNtxuh2lkW #### [[Glenn Greenwald]] thread The Biden administration lied about who it killed with its drone strike. They had no idea who they hit. The media mindlessly repeated the false claim that they killed "terrorists" when, in fact, they just killed innocent people. A perfect summation of the US Endless Wars https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1436430736685424641?s=19 Look how this NYT reporter heralded the Biden Admin's drone attack -- which wen now know killed no terrorists but wiped out a whole family -- as a pinpoint strike showing what "remarkable" intel the US has in Afghanistan. Do you see how they spread Pentagon/CIA propaganda? ![[20210910_201610.jpg]] (This was the same NYT reporter who, when Trump announced his plan to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2020, spread the CIA's fake "Russian bounties" story that was then seized on by Raytheon Dems and Liz Cheney to insist we couldn't leave): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html An entire family in Afghanistan was extinguished to prevent Joe Biden from having to endure a news cycle accusing him of weakness in the face of the attack at Kabul Airport, accompanied by lies from his Pentagon/CIA and his media about who was killed. Beyond the fact that the Pentagon and CIA constantly lie about how their drones have killed terrorists but no civilians -- they've been doing it over and over -- there were so many reasons to be highly skeptical of the claim from the start. Remember this? - Quoted tweet: Pentagon will not release names of the 2 ‘high-profile’ ISIS planners killed in single U.S. drone strike: Kirby - https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1431635731500388368?s=19 #### Military officials have been systematically lying about it Cannot overstate the fact that these people are liars. They have been lying for the entire 20 years about Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else they've been nihilistically creating chaos and misery ![[20210910_202649.jpg]] https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/1436468411064885280?s=19 [[Glenn Greenwald]] follow-up: It's nice that Gen. Mark Milley has been studying the sacred texts regarding White Rage but it's unfortunate that he's such a cold-blooded and pathological liar and that there's zero chance he will ever face any accountability for it: Watch how they lie with such ease and casualness, adeptly manipulation that emotions that all Americans felt after watching the barbaric attack at the airport [Video] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1436471340056391682?s=19 Biden's @PentagonPresSec John Kirby -- they just like lie sociopaths, not even blinking: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1436473007095046147?s=19 While many in the media mindlessly repeated their claims that they killed Big Bad ISIS-K plotters & no civilians -- all lies -- random people could tell they were lying about the whole episode. Improve journalism by hiring random people off the street for media corporations. ![[20210910_202909.jpg]] ### Ministry of Women's Affairs nixed Not surprising but worth noting that the #Taliban omitted Ministry of Women Affairs and replaced it with the Ministry of Amr bil Ma'ruf wa Nahy aan al Munkar (Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice). #Afghanistan https://t.co/tTOlqbpz9K https://twitter.com/MalaliBashir/status/1435303129029906433?s=19 ### No more women's education An Afghan girl displaying a placard asking "what is our crime to be prevented from continuing our education"? ![[20210919_162050.jpg]] https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1439410932552290307?s=19 ### Taliban killed and hanged the journalist Honer Ahmad in Afghanistan ![[20210925_171438.jpg]] https://twitter.com/AsaadHannaa/status/1441770458710302728?s=19