John Brown's Notes and Essays

Image from article: An Afghan girl walks past a U.S soldier in the Maiwand district in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 5, 2012. (Stringer/Reuters) Opinion by Baktash Ahadi , The Washington Post , Today [8/31/2021] at 3:51 p.m. EDT Baktash Ahadi served U.S. and Afghan Special Operations  f orces as a combat interpreter from 2010 to 2012 and is a former chair of the State Department’s Afghan Familiarization course. He is working on a memoir of his service in Afghanistan. Like many Afghan Americans, I have spent much of the past few weeks trying to secure safe passage from Afghanistan for family, friends and colleagues, with tragically limited success. I also know that many Americans have been asking: Why is this crazy scramble necessary? How could Afghanistan have  collapsed so quickly ? As a former combat interpreter who served alongside U.S. and Afghan Special Operations forces, I can tell you part of the answer — one that’s been missing from the conversation: culture...

Image from article:   Anna Dostoyevskaya, in an undated photograph. Credit...SPUTNIK/Alamy By  Jennifer Wilson , The New York Times ,  Aug. 31, 2021 ,   5:00 a.m. ET THE GAMBLER WIFE A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky By Andrew D. Kaufman In the spring of 1880, in the midst of what felt like a political tipping point, a new monument dedicated to the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was unveiled in Moscow. Alexander II’s Great Reforms of the 1860s — including the emancipation of the serfs — had not satisfied the appetites of radicals for change. Most alarming to moderate Russians were the women who had begun joining the ranks of the self-described Nihilists. They smoked cigarettes, cut their hair short, preferred Feuerbach to romance novels and spurned marriage in favor of careers in science and medicine (or, occasionally, terrorism). Everyone could sense that Russia was on a collision course with itself, and few feared the potential o...

Shambolic adjective   :  obviously disorganized or confused; from  Merriam-Webster (including the image),  Words at Play [:] 6 Obscure Words for Messes [:]    We'll tidy them up and make them presentable.  JB: The word/its derivative, shambolic , was recently used by two NYT star commentators: Paul Krugman, ( "shambolic," in his online newsletter, Aug 31) and Ross Douthat ( "shambolically," in his Aug 31 Times column ).

image from article:  Relatives carried caskets toward a gravesite at a funeral for members of a family in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday. Credit...Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times By Ross Douthat, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times , Aug. 31, 2021; see also   Excerpt:  Our botched withdrawal [from Afghanistan] is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.  Small wonder, then, that making Biden the singular scapegoat seems like a more attractive path. But if the only aspect of this catastrophe that our leaders remember is what went wrong in August 2021, then we’ll have learned nothing except to always double down on failure, and the next disaster will be worse.

  image from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VloJ-2DO8vU

  President Biden arrives for a virtual briefing about Hurricane Ida at the White House on Aug. 30. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) Opinion by  Dana Milbank Columnist, The Washington Post Yesterday [8/30] at  6:15 p.m. EDT  If Trump voters cared a whit about substance, they would be swooning for Joe Biden right now. In ways both enthusiastic and reluctant, President Biden has pursued a surprisingly Trumpy agenda: He has  implemented  the rapid and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan that former president Donald Trump negotiated with the Taliban. He has maintained Trump’s  tariffs  against China and on  metal  imports. He has continued a Trump policy that allows for the  rapid deportation  of asylum seekers. He achieved the longtime Trump goal of a  massive infrastructure spending deal  — and continued Trump’s practice of heavy deficit spending. He has furthered Trump’s coddling of the Saudi regime (by letti...

From: U.S. Department of State ; no date; via JJ image from Wikipedia We continue to closely monitor events and carefully assess conditions in Afghanistan. The safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas remain a top priority. U.S. Citizens and Legal Permanent Residents: U.S. citizens seeking assistance to depart Afghanistan should utilize this link:  Repatriation Assistance Request    or in an emergency, call 1-888-407-4747 (U.S. Canada) or +1-202-501-4444 (overseas).  Legal permanent residents (LPRs) and spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens in Afghanistan who are awaiting immigrant visas should also complete this form. Non-U.S. Citizens or Legal Permanent Residents: The United States is also taking every available measure to assist Afghans who are at risk, particularly those who worked for or with the United States or have supported international efforts, and has established mechanisms to help Afghans at risk receive protection fro...