#Defend Afghan People

[earthcovenant]

Defending the Afghan People: The Morrigan's Insight

Defending the Afghan People: The Morrigan's Insight. #SuperbActions #AndrewRogers #SecureTheRights #DefendAfghanPeople #TalibanSupporters #CelticGoddess #AfghanJustice #MotivationInspiration #OracleJustice #ImajicaAgency #TheMorrigan #Morrigan #Celtic

Defending the Afghan People: The Morrigan’s Insight The Celtic Society: The Morrigan ‘The Phantom Queen, Destroyer’ – Oracle: Andrew Rogers. “Superb is the actions of and from Andrew Rogers to secure the rights and defend the Afghan people against the Taliban and the Supporters and those of who placed the Taliban in position of authority in Afghanistan which has serious threat implications…

[navree]

still on this, the thing that makes markey in particular so galling to me is that he's done NOTHING. he's been in politics for as long as my mother has been alive (my mother is in her fifties) and the only thing he has in his record in terms of tangible achievements is some bill from twenty to thirty years ago that makes it harder for poor people to have internet (in stark contrast to joe's proven bonafides and progressive record but shrug dot emoji). he's accomplished nothing meaningful, his win was based entirely on vibes that children decided he had and taylor lorenz's moronically credulous brain tried to pretend was smart politics, and promises that he immediately turned his back on the second the primary was over. he barely spends time in MA, if it weren't for joe trying to primary him he wouldn't have been in that state at all for the entire calendar year considering he lives in maryland. he's emblematic of everything people claim they hate about politics and careerism, but because he did the right lip service and sponsored one bill with aoc back before her brain developed, a bunch of kids who barely understand how government works went all in on using the internet to pretend he was this leftist king who would be the bernie of a new era and were surprised when a man who voted for the hyde amendment and stood by it even in 2020 and continuously famously doesn't back down on any bad decision he made continued to have the same stances he's had for the last fifty fucking years. fuck him, fuck the 'markeyverse', i'm so glad it basically immediately ouroborosed itself and that they're all useless and can't ever interfere in an election ever again.

calling the markey haters

[hexenfest]

its so sad and heartbreaking the things happening in afghanistan.. women are being banned from talking or even hearing eachothers voices even during prayer theyre not allowed to speak

they destroyed women businesses and have got rid of hairdressers and stores that women owned and they are being silenced

banned from school not allowed to vote and this is all a result of psychotic tyrant MEN i was genuinely shocked when i read all the stuff that has come out recently how can this even be allowed to happen???

women are losing their HUMAN rights

feminism is everything we need rn its like were going back in time its fucking sad and weird what this world is

if the roles were reversed and the ability to speak freely or have an education was taken by men there’d be a huge issue yet women are literally being silenced and having their human rights taken away from them

afghan women cant even train to be a doctor and cant be treated by a male therefore they cannot access healthcare which is a basic human right..

whats even more fucking crazier is people are trying to defend this and try to make it seem okay when its not okay??? why would it ever be okay if the same happened to you you wouldnt fucking like it its horrible

as a girl with a middle eastern mother i find it appalling how brown men talk about women and girls im happy my mother has a similar mindset to me but most brown men are genuinely so out of touch with reality and far gone some of the things ive heard or that theyve said to me is insane idk why they feel that things like this are right or okay and the fact its so normalised amongst them is crazy i feel bad for my mother and her sisters and how they were treated as kids simply bcs they are women im fortunate and lucky to have a father that literally explains to me why guys are bad and to not talk to them or waste my time on them as a girl and he has made me so aware of what men are really like and im thankful for that its been like engrained into my brain since i was very young because of him and my mother

using religion to twist it and push political ideologies that take away womens rights is such a huge issue, im not even talking about just afghanistan even america.. ive seen numerous christian men defend taking abortion rights away.. its like first why are u even allowed an opinion on it, ur a MAN.. and second why do u think its okay to tell a woman what she can or cant do with her OWN body……………

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee, Vaughn Hillyard, and Mosheh Gains at NBC News:

The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plan.  Officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out, and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason, the U.S. official and person with knowledge of the plan said. “They’re taking it very seriously,” the person with knowledge of the plan said. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Matt Flynn, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics and global threats, is helping lead the effort, the sources said. It is being framed as a review of how the U.S. first got into the war in Afghanistan and how the U.S. ultimately withdrew.

[...] President-elect Donald Trump has condemned the withdrawal as a “humiliation” and “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.”  It is not clear, though, what would legally justify “treason” charges since the military officers were following the orders of President Joe Biden to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

A 2022 independent review by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction blamed both the Trump and Biden administrations for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021. Trump first reached an agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, roughly 13,000 troops, and release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison. The Biden administration then completed the withdrawal and badly overestimated the ability of Afghan government forces to fight the Taliban on their own. Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, has criticized the withdrawal, saying the U.S. lost the war and wasted billions of dollars. In his book “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth wrote, “The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired. The debacle in Afghanistan, of course, is the most glaring example.”

[...] The transition team is looking at the possibility of recalling several commanders to active duty for possible charges, the U.S. official said.  It’s not clear the Trump administration would pursue treason charges, and instead could focus on lesser charges that highlight the officer’s involvement. “They want to set an example,” said the person with knowledge of the plan.

NBC News is reporting that Donald Trump’s transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former US military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan to face a potential court martial.

This is a fascistic insult to common sense.

[deadpresidents]

Random question, but something I've wondered for the last few years: concerning Afghanistan, should the US have considered leaving a few thousand troops in Kabul indefinitely while withdrawing troops from the rest of the country?

It seems like the capital city would've been relatively easy for American troops to defend, and their presence there could have blocked the Taliban from fully returning to power. A singular focus on protecting Kabul might've been one way to prevent the worst possible outcome.

When President Trump left office and President Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, there were only 2,500 American troops left in Afghanistan. The Trump Administration had made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw all American troops by May 2021, and Biden pushed that back by a few months, but if the U.S. wanted to defend Kabul we almost certainly would have had to commit to another surge of American troops and that simply wasn't going to happen. It would have required a bigger fight against the Taliban because we would have been pulling out of the deal that the Trump Administration negotiated and the Taliban was already in the process of rapidly regaining control of the country by that time.

Even when he was Vice President, Joe Biden strongly believed that the United States needed to get out of Afghanistan because the only other option was to be there forever. Twenty years of training and equipping Afghan troops still hadn't resulted in a national force that could stand on its own, so Biden had argued against troop surges since the earliest days of the Obama Administration. There was no way that Biden was going to surge the number of troops once he became President, and Trump was so determined to withdraw all the troops from Afghanistan before the end of his term that his Defense Department had to beg him to pump the brakes.

Just to defend Kabul would have required much more than those 2,500 American troops left in the country on the day Biden was inaugurated. And the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani was an unreliable partner that was corrupt and often seemed oblivious to what was actually happening throughout the country. You used the word "indefinitely" and that's exactly what Biden (and Trump, to be fair) wanted to avoid. We had already been in Afghanistan for 20 years, and things weren't heading in the right direction.

I certainly don't agree that we should have been there indefinitely. I think we probably should have bolstered the American forces in Kabul for a short and specific amount of time in order to ensure that the withdrawal was less chaotic. But it was always going to be an ugly end. There was never going to be a victory in Afghanistan, and I supported the decision to withdraw American troops. I wish we would have done a far better job at protecting the Afghan people who worked for ISAF/NATO and ended up left behind to fend for themselves as the Taliban took over once again. It's a tragedy that those final days were such a mess, but one of our leaders was going to have to make the difficult decision to definitively end the neverending war that we were never going to win, and I think history will eventually see President Biden's decisive action in a different light, much like President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon is understood differently today.

[djuvlipen]

Hello can you kinda explain the whole JK rolling thing and why people hate on her a lot cuz i seen ppl do nothing but hate on her and call her transphobic and i'm so confused on it as to why

Hi! Sorry I let this ask go ignored for a little while, it's a big topic so I wanted to answer it once I have some free time; I went looking for a post that could summarize the situation but, Tumblr being what it is, I couldn't find any. So here is a quick timeline, as I remember it, as someone who was a TRA on Twitter while most of it unfolded:

in 2019, Jo followed Magdalen Berns on Twitter (I also believe she liked one of her tweets and that's how Twitter users found out she was following her). Berns was a gender critical lesbian and YouTuber who was one of the first critic of TRA misogyny.

At the time, Jo was much, much more liked than she is now, obviously. This event caused some drama, it trended for a while, but it was quickly brushed aside and things went on. In my spheres (TRA Twitter), it was seen as kind of a bad look to follow Jo on Twitter following this, but you still could get away with it.

Jo has since explained that she uses the 'like' feature on Twitter to archive things she finds interesting and wants to have a closer look at. Many believe that she probably got interested in Berns' content while writing one of the Cormoran Strike novels, a crime novel series that often explores the themes of male violence and misogyny.

in december of 2019, Jo made a tweet in support of Maya Forstater, who lost her job after misgendering a non binary colleague.

After this tweet, it became forbidden to follow her on Twitter if you were a TRA. Things got worse in June of 2020, when Jo reacted to an article talking about period poverty while referring to women as 'people who menstruate':

Right afterwards, she made a thread going more in details about how transactivism harms women and LGB people:

(I'm pretty sure there was another, longer thread but I can't find it)

After this, former HP actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson accused her of transphobia, while other actors (namely Evanna Lynch and Robbie Coltrane) defended her. She got thousands and thousands of death and rape threats, was called sexist slurs, and was threatened with doxing.

A few weeks later, she published an essay on her website, explaining her views. It is a very well-written and insightful essay that I recommend to read:

And that's pretty much it. As you can see, her position is pretty tamed. She has never been rude to anyone, she just defended sex-based rights, lesbians' right not to sleep with men, and using language accordingly. She helped thousands of poor women with her charity work, funded a rape crisis center, uplifted Iranian women, supported LGB activists and helped a hundred Afghan women escape the Talibans, but because of a few Twitter threads she made, her entire political activism has been misconstructed and boiled down to "she is a fascist who hates trans people"

[gryficowa]

God damn it, it pisses me off when the mainstream media in my country calls these people trapped on the Polish-Belarusian border, i.e. "Aggressive", as if you were fucking imprisoned at the border and the border guards were there to beat you and destroy your phones. , caused two women to have miscarriages, etc… then you wouldn't be fucking angry yourself

But no, the drama about Hollan attacking the border guards (Good joke, she showed them positively, which these bastards don't deserve…)

I had no pity for them, for those dicks who say they are defending "This country" (And yes, I used to draw like that…)

So there is some difference, I know, I haven't animated for a long time, but I just can't get around to it, and I quit some projects because I boycott artists, so you understand…

And yes, the mother and child in this animation are the same character

But seriously, it pisses me off how they dehumanize these people because they are fed up with the way they are treated and defend themselves…

So what if the government has changed if it wants to enslave these people more by strengthening the borders? (Yes, I voted for the third one, but the fuckers in my country are too gullible and change their opinions like gloves, in short, they have no moral standards)

That's why I'm so harsh with Americans when they say that "They're voting for Biden because he's the lesser evil," so what if this "lesser evil" has blood on his hands? Exactly…

Unfortunately, attempts to talk about what is happening at the border in my country are often ignored in foreign countries, which is sad because these people were fleeing from the Taliban (because they are mainly Afghans) and trusted the wrong person (Lukashenko), and all the media does is their They dehumanize because they are fed up and angry…

Just because they are Muslims, they are treated inhumanely

Islamophobia kills in its pure sense, Jews were once dehumanized, today the same is done to Muslims

But the classic reaction of Poles when you talk about it is: Take them all with you

And that's their whole argument, I still remember people laughing at these people and it was disgusting

I hate the way the world has become and the way it reacts to human suffering, but you can see that if you are an "illegal immigrant" you can be beaten and dehumanized, such fucked up times we live in

Okay, I'll give you some relief, my mother asked me to write down all the companies (Okay, I couldn't write all of them, because many of them are not in Poland) that support Israel, this was more or less my mother's reaction when she saw how many there's this shit:

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 24, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 25, 2024

This morning, President Joe Biden spoke to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Earlier in the day, Secretary General António Guterres of Portugal warned that “our world is in a whirlwind” and, having lost the “hot lines, red lines and guard rails” of the Cold War, is dangerous and adrift. In contrast, Biden in his final speech before the body offered optimism.

The president noted that when he first was elected U.S. senator in 1972, the world was also in a time of “tension and uncertainty.” The Cold War simmered, the Middle East was headed toward war, and the U.S. was in one in Vietnam. The United States was “divided and angry, and there were questions about our staying power and our future.” The U.S. and the world made it through that moment, he recalled, but it “wasn’t easy or simple or without significant setbacks.” Nonetheless, the world went on to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, end the Cold War, forge a historic peace between Israel and Egypt, and end the war in Vietnam.

Last year, Biden noted, the U.S. and Vietnam elevated their partnership to the highest level, “a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the capacity for reconciliation…proof that even from the horrors of war there is a way forward,” he said.

Biden’s message continued to be one of optimism as he recalled the world history he has seen. In the 1980s, he said, the racist regime of apartheid in South Africa fell; in the 1990s, Serbian president Slobodan Milošević was prosecuted for war crimes after presiding over chaos and mass murder in southeastern Europe. At home, Biden recalled, although there is more to do, he “wrote and passed the Violence Against Women Act to end the scourge of violence against women and girls not only in America but across the world.” Then, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. brought the attack’s mastermind, Osama bin Laden, to justice.

Turning to his own presidency, Biden noted that it, too, began in “crisis and uncertainty.” Afghanistan had replaced Vietnam as America’s longest war, and after four American presidents had had to decide whether to withdraw, Biden “was determined not to leave it to the fifth.” Biden said he thinks every day of the 13 Americans who lost their lives along with hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bombing, the 2,461 U.S. military deaths and 20,744 American personnel wounded over the 20 years of that war, and the service personnel of other countries who died there.

Biden said that he came to office determined to rebuild the alliances and partnerships of the U.S. He worked to rebuild the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and NATO allies and partners in more than 50 nations supported Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Now NATO is “bigger, stronger, and more united than ever with two new members, Finland and Sweden,” he noted. Biden also worked to strengthen new partnerships like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, which brings together the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India, and whose leaders met last weekend in Delaware to affirm their commitment to the partnership. 

Biden listed the many crises around the world today. “[F]rom Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond,” he said, we see “war, hunger, terrorism, brutality, record displacement of people, a climate crisis, democracy at risk, strains within our societies, the promise of artificial intelligence and its significant risks.”

In 1919, Biden recalled, Irish poet William Butler Yeats described a world where “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” But, Biden said, “[i]n our time, the center has held.” Leaders and people around the world have stood together to turn the page on Covid, defend the charter of the United Nations, and ensure the survival of Ukraine in the face of the 2022 Russian invasion. 

“There will always be forces that pull our countries apart and the world apart: aggression, extremism, chaos, and cynicism, a desire to retreat from the world and go it alone,” Biden said. “Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than those that are pulling us apart, that the principles of partnership that we came here each year to uphold can withstand the challenges, that the center holds once again.”  

Biden reiterated the themes of his administration’s foreign policy, urging the countries in the United Nations to continue to stand with Ukraine and to manage competition with China responsibly so that competition does not become conflict. He noted that the U.S. and China are working together to combat the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics around the world, but said the U.S. will continue to push back against unfair economic competition and the military coercion of other nations in the South China Sea, while strengthening a network of alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific. 

Turning to the Middle East, Biden reiterated the horrors of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and killed more than 1,200 people—including 46 Americans—and pointed out that “[i]nnocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell. Thousands and thousands killed, including aid workers. Too many families dislocated, crowding into tents, facing a dire humanitarian situation. They didn’t ask for this war that Hamas started.”

Biden noted that the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt have put forward a ceasefire and hostage deal that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, and urged Israel and Hamas to finalize it. “Even as the situation has escalated,” Biden said, “a diplomatic solution is still possible.” Indeed, he said, “a two-state solution…where Israel enjoys security and peace and full recognition and normalized relations with all its neighbors, where Palestinians live in security, dignity, and self-determination in a state of their own,” remains “the only path to lasting security.”

Progress toward peace in the Middle East will put countries “in a stronger position to deal with the ongoing threat posed by Iran,” Biden said, to deny oxygen to the terrorists Iran supports and to “ensure that Iran will never, ever obtain a nuclear weapon.” 

“Gaza is not the only conflict that deserves our outrage,” Biden said. In Sudan, a bloody civil war has put eight million people on the brink of famine, and caused death and atrocities. The U.S. has led the world in providing humanitarian aid, Biden said, and is leading diplomatic talks to avert a wider famine.    

The U.S. stands behind the idea that people “need the chance to live in dignity,... protected from the ravages of climate change, hunger, and disease,” Biden said, and he noted that during his presidency the U.S. has invested more than $150 billion in sustainable development—including $20 billion for food security and more than $50 billion for global health—and has mobilized billions in private-sector investment. These principles were laid down in the 1950s by Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who feared that impoverished populations would be easy prey for religious or political demagogues who could use them to start wars. Biden did not acknowledge that a Trump presidency, devoted to isolationism, would almost certainly abandon them. 

Biden did note that the U.S. worked to repair the damage of Trump’s administration by rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change. It also passed the most ambitious climate legislation in history, is on track to cut emission in half by 2030, and has promised to quadruple climate financing to developing nations, investing $11 billion so far this year. The U.S. also rejoined the World Health Organization and donated almost 700 million doses of Covid vaccine to 117 countries. Biden vowed to address the outbreak of mpox in Africa and urged other countries to join the effort. He noted that the U.S., the Group of Seven industrialized democracies (G7), and partners have launched an initiative to finance infrastructure in the developing world.

Biden took office warning that the international institutions set up after World War II had concentrated wealth and power among the hands of a few and thus people left behind around the globe were losing faith in democracy. That sentiment is shared at the U.N, and today he sided with those countries calling for an expanded U.N. Security Council, greater youth engagement, and stronger measures against climate change. 

At length, Biden urged the U.N to take advantage of the possibilities and manage the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), which can both usher in scientific progress and push disinformation and create bioweapons. “We must make certain that the awesome capabilities of AI will be used to uplift and empower everyday people, not to give dictators more powerful shackles on…the human spirit,” he said.

So far, Biden’s speech was a retrospective of the changes he had seen in the world in more than 50 years in public service, and how he had tried to approach present-day changes by reinforcing and expanding America’s engagement with the world. But in his last address to the United Nations, he also had something personal to say. 

“Even as we navigate so much change,” he said, “[w]e must never forget who we’re here to represent.”

“‘We the People,’” he said, the first words of the U.S. Constitution, and the words that inspired the opening words of the U.N. Charter, which begins: “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war….”  

Biden noted that he “made the preservation of democracy the central cause of my presidency.” He recalled the difficulty of deciding to step away, concluding that “as much as I love the job, I love my country more.”

“My fellow leaders, let us never forget, some things are more important than staying in power.  It’s your people…that matter the most. Never forget, we are here to serve the people, not the other way around. Because the future will be…won by those who unleash the full potential of their people to breathe free, to think freely, to innovate, to educate, to live and love openly without fear. That’s the soul of democracy. It does not belong to any one country.”

It lives in “the brave men and women who ended apartheid, brought down the Berlin Wall, fight today for freedom and justice and dignity,” he said. It’s in Venezuela, where millions voted for change; in Uganda, where LGBTQ activists demand safety and recognition of their humanity; in citizens from Ghana to India to South Korea peacefully choosing their leaders. 

“Every age faces its challenges,” Biden said. “I saw it as a young man. I see it today. But we are stronger than we think. We’re stronger together than alone. And what the people call ‘impossible’ is just an illusion. [As] Nelson Mandela taught us…: ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.’”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[princess-of-thebes-1995]

I got a good request today for hcs. Enjoy.

One day, a mean Marine was bullying Jake for his cripple legs. Norm came in and defend his friend

But the Marine started beating up Norm. The team started yelling for the Marine to stop but it was useless.

Suddenly, the Colonel heard the commotion as he was walking down the hallway. He impressed you when he easily caught the fist of the Marine.

You, Trudy and Grace ran to norm's side to check his state. Trudy slung his shoulder around and she helped him walk to the infirmary.

You were so worried for your idiotic friend that Quaritch was staring at you. He never seen you before. In fact, he never seen anyone like you before. Perfectly beautiful. Not a human but a doll

He saw your name tag first then left

After researching about you. He would watch the security tapes around the base. You were a science puke in the labs. Under Grace of all people.

A pacifist.

Everything he hated.

But he still watched you with fascination. As if he was the scientist instead.

One day, it happened. You were walking down to the greenhouse all alone when a man suddenly grabbed you from behind. He started touching and fondling you.

Clenching his teeth, he ran to the area and stopped the attacker. He was a soldier and was reported and taken away and all that.

That was where you to officially met. Your glassy eyes staining your rosy cheeks from tears, plump red lips, and your shirt was ripped and he could see your cute green lace bra.

You were sitting on the floor, he held out his hand and picked you up by putting his hand behind your lithe back. You really were a doll.

He shivered in delight after the touch. You had such an effect.

He asked you if you were okay. You hiccuped and was still crying a little. You were sadly still scared. Poor thing. He led you to his office and gave you coffee. He knew you hated tea since he had been watching you.

You thanked him and sipped.

He introduced himself and chatted with you. But sadly he didn't want to be awkward and had to let you go. So he walked you to your room.

The next day, he was surprised to see you at his door. You offered Afghan food you cooked thanks to your own vegetable garden. He didn't take it. He was touched by your manners. He asked you out for lunch. You two both are the food.

"Thank you again for rescuing me yesterday, Colonel." You smiled.

His heart fluttered with love for you. "it's my job, doll " he showed his pearly whites.

You nodded. "I know. I am still grateful."

"I don't know what would I do with myself if something happened to you. You are my responsibility as head of security."

"you're a busy man with many to protect in the base. So do t be harsh on yourself."

"No." His tone was harsh. You flinched.

He saw that then sighed. "I'm sorry. I just can't stand cowards who attack the weak."

You felt a little offended but you knew he meant well.

Later the two of you would hang together. He would purposely bump into you and touch you and help you with carrying stuff

Eventually, the two of you... slept together but sadly you ruined your own life by getting involved with this dangerous man.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Adam Zivo

Published: Nov 30, 2023

Given the chance, Hamas would murder every LGBTQ person in the world

Amid renewed conflict in Gaza, a startling number of queer progressives are romanticizing Palestinians and playing down their hatred towards LGBTQ people. This whitewashing is wrong, no matter how legitimate Palestinian calls for self-determination may be.

Since the early 2000s, radical queer activists have fervently advocated for Palestinian rights under the assumption that, as both communities oppose the capitalist West, “queer liberation” cannot be disentangled from “anti-imperialism.”

This has never made much sense. Strategically aligning against a shared enemy does not necessarily make two groups friends. There are obvious tensions between Palestinians and the LGBTQ community that cannot be ignored — mainly the fact that most Palestinians, along with their political leaders, hate gay and trans people and many want them dead.

In a 2019 poll conducted by the BBC, only five per cent of Palestinians in the West Bank approved of homosexuality — which was the lowest rate within the Middle East and North Africa. Gazans are generally excluded from this research, but local Islamic law mandates death or 10 years of imprisonment for homosexuality.

LGBTQ people face such dire threats to their safety in Gaza and the West Bank that hundreds have fled to Israel as refugees. When interviewed by the United Nations, escapees have recounted harrowing torture and death threats from both family members and Palestinian security forces. Yet even abroad, these people are not safe. Last year, Ahmad Abu Marhia, a 25-year-old gay man living under asylum in Israel, was kidnapped and then beheaded in the West Bank just two months before he was scheduled to immigrate to Canada.

Despite this, activists throughout the West have paraded signs bearing the message “Queers for Palestine” — a slogan that some have ridiculed as the equivalent of “Chickens for KFC.” Earlier this month a banner was hung in the University of British Columbia reading: “Trans liberation can’t happen without Palestinian liberation.”

It’s unclear why LGBTQ rights are in any way dependent on Palestinian self-determination — activist explanations here tend to be vague and muddled at best.

Is the argument that no disadvantaged social group can be free until all are? If that’s the case, then why is this logic rarely, if ever, applied to antisemitism? And if all disadvantaged groups need support, then why should any LGBTQ person, who has limited resources and time, prioritize the Palestinians over the many other communities fighting for rights and attention in the world today?

While LGBTQ people have no special obligation to support Palestinians, there is nothing wrong with defending Palestinians’ fundamental rights despite their rampant homophobia — the validity of these rights is not conditional on moral perfection, after all. If a gay man can support Afghan and Iranian women, or Uyghur Muslims, all of whom have their own prejudices, then Palestinians can be reasonably supported as well.

Deciding what social causes to support is a deeply personal choice for anyone — some LGBTQ people prioritize Palestinians, and others don’t. Each option is understandable, but which path one chooses to take should, ideally, be based on accurate information.

Rather than allow this, though, the queer left uses misleading arguments to inflate support for the Palestinian cause — firstly, by fabricating an artificial obligation to Palestinian liberation, and, secondly, by playing down the severity of Palestinian homophobia (and, by extension, Islamic homophobia).

Queer leftists are quick to argue that the Qur’an’s language on homosexuality is ambiguous, while ignoring the fact that the hadiths, which are the canonical teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, explicitly prohibit homosexuality. Muslim-majority countries do not pass discriminatory legislation arbitrarily — they work off mainstream interpretations of Shariah law.

Some queer leftists try to exonerate Palestinians of any moral responsibility for their homophobia by blaming western colonialism. To make this argument, they typically fixate on the fact that legal prohibitions on homosexuality were first introduced into the region by the British in 1936.

But the British ruled this part of the Middle East for only 30 years (from 1918 to 1948) and implemented sodomy laws for barely more than a decade. Palestinians have had 75 years to improve their attitudes and laws, but haven’t done so and show no desire for change — even though the Israelis, who also inherited these laws, were able to shed this baggage decades ago.

To blame contemporary Palestinian homophobia on a relatively brief, long-dead period of colonial rule is inane and patronizing. It implies that the Palestinians have no moral agency; that their beliefs and institutions are simply dictated by western policy choices; and that they are incapable of being held to the same ethical standards as Europeans.

Another minimization strategy is to argue that Islamic homophobia is not much worse than what is experienced in the West. For example, world-famous drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova (an Irish-American who cosplays as a Soviet citizen) recently claimed on X that anti-LGBTQ violence in Gaza is comparable to that in Scotland or Massachusetts. The post went viral and was liked over 140,000 times.

The last time I checked, gay people are not beheaded or routinely tortured in the West. While some anti-LGTBQ violence exists, only very coddled westerners can delude themselves into believing that this is similar to what occurs in Gaza, the West Bank or the rest of the Islamic world.

Some queer leftists also nonsensically claim that criticizing Palestinian homophobia “erases the existence of queer Palestinians” — but absolutely no one, except maybe Hamas, is saying that LGBTQ Palestinians don’t exist. Calling attention to social prejudice actually spotlights victims who would otherwise be forgotten. This should be glaringly obvious.

The queer left’s tendency to romanticize Palestinians and ignore their homophobia may seem strange at first, but it becomes intelligible when one remembers that this crowd often subscribes to a strain of “anti-imperialism” that interprets the world through a simplistic and reflexively anti-western framework.

This framework divides the world into a simple binary: oppressors (who are unambiguously evil) and the oppressed (who are morally pure). “Anti-imperialists” assume that: i) communities that oppose the West overwhelmingly fall into the “oppressed” class; ii) members of this class tend to have similar political and social priorities; and iii) political violence committed by the oppressed automatically counts as morally justified “resistance.”

Of course, the world does not actually conform to this framework, because global conflicts are far more nuanced than anti-imperialists are willing to admit. There is no black-and-white divide between good and evil, and no grand coalition of victims — real life is too diverse and fractured for such a simplistic narrative.

Yet false simplicity provides comfort to many queer activists, because it conceals the uncomfortable compromises that come with political life. Many progressives feel anxious about their own privileged positions in the world, and, as a result, often resort to performative righteousness to assuage these insecurities. The dynamics here are not much different from what is sometimes seen among the devoutly religious — the presence of doubt, compromise and moral greyness is psychologically unacceptable.

In the context of the Palestinians, this fundamentally selfish need for black-and-white thinking leads the queer left to minimize homophobia that, in any other context, would be unacceptable. It encourages the romanticization of Hamas, a terrorist organization that would, if given the chance, murder every LGBTQ person in the world.

If queer leftists wish to ensconce themselves in fairytales, then that’s their prerogative — but other LGBTQ people are justified in taking a skeptical approach, which, yes, can include support for Palestinians’ self-determination that uncomfortably co-exists with clear-eyed recognition of the very ugly parts of Palestinian culture.

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

"In international politics, the key moment concerns Ukraine and its head of state. Since February 2022, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelens'kyi, has been rightly understood and admired as a symbol of physical and political courage. When Russia began its full-scale invasion that month, the American consensus was the Ukraine would crack within days and that Zelens'kyi would (and should) flee. Instead, he stayed in Kyiv despite the approach of Russian assassins and the Russian army, rallied his people, and oversaw the successful defense of his country. He has since visited the front every few weeks.

This is how Trump characterized Zelens'kyi in September, echoing comments that he has made before: “Every time he came to our country, he’d walk away with $100 billion. He’s probably the greatest salesman on Earth.”  Trump seems threatened by Zelens'kyi.  As Trump has made clear numerous times, his first and only impulse is to give Putin what Putin wants.  The idea of taking risks to defend freedom from the Russian dictator is well beyond the pinprick-sized black hole that is Trump's moral universe. 

And of course the claim itself is false.  The number is too big.  And the money does not go to Zelens'kyi himself, obviously.  That Zelens'kyi does personally profit is a favorite idea of Vance, who repeats Russian propaganda to this effect.  The money does not even, for the most part, go to the Ukrainian government.  Most of the military aid does to American companies who build new weapons for American stockpiles.  We then send old weapons to Ukraine, to which we assign a dollar value.

The essential thing, though, is the antisemitic trope Trump chose to express himself.  It goes like this.  Jews are cowards.  Jews never fight wars.  Jews stay away from the front.  Jews only cause wars that make other people suffer.  And then Jews make vast amounts of money from those wars.  Volodymyr Zelens'kyi, the Ukrainian president, is Jewish.  And thus "the greatest salesman on earth" for Trump.  And the corrupt owner of "yachts" for Vance.  A war profiteer, as in the antisemitic stereotype, not a courageous commander, as in reality. 

Indeed, most of what Trump says about Zelens'kyi, Ukraine, and and the war itself makes sense only within the antisemitic stereotype. Trump never speaks about the Russian invasion itself. He never recalls Russian war crimes. He never mentions that Ukrainians are defending themselves or their basic ideas of what is right. He certainly never admits that Zelens'kyi is the democratically-elected president of a country under vicious attack and who has comported himself with courage. The war, for Trump, is just a scam -- a Jewish scam.

And that, of course, is why he thinks he can end it right away: he thinks he can just shoulder the Jew aside and deal with his fascist "friend" Putin, who for him is the "genius" in this situation, and who must be allowed to win.  Despite the evidence, Trump says that Russia always wins wars, dismissing both history (regular Russian losses such as the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War, the Polish-Bolshevik War, the Afghan War) and the actual events of the ongoing Russian invasion, in which Ukraine has taken back half the territory it lost and driven the Russian fleet from the Black Sea.  Russia is counting on Trump.  They need him in power to win their war, and they know it." 

[nameinconcept-blog]

“FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE REVOLUTION AND THE FATHERLAND!”

"The heroic people of Afghanistan are fighting for a new life in difficult conditions. Imperialism launched an undeclared war against the young republic."

"Thousands of mercenaries and bandits are sowing death and destruction, using the help of American imperialism, as well as other accomplices of aggression, who spare no expense in recruiting and arming counter-revolutionaries. Pakistan became the springboard for aggression, where dozens of bases for training mercenaries and murderers were created."

"These interventionist bandits are referred to by Washington officials as “freedom fighters”, “zealots of Afghan identity”, they are supplied with an abundance of weapons, including grenade launchers, anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft missile systems, recoilless rifles, chemical ammunition. And now they are already boasting about it. Resolutions are being introduced in the US Congress calling for expanded assistance and support for the mercenaries of imperialism."

"“The revolution is in danger!” - this call raised and united the patriots. Volunteer units for the defense of the revolution operate throughout the country. The workers, students, and peasants included in them participate in the protection of public buildings, factories, power plants, in maintaining order, and assist in the work of the police."

"The undeclared war against revolutionary Afghanistan is part of the crimes of the imperialist reaction against the liberation and peace-loving forces. It is meeting decisive resistance from the Afghan people and their army. Democratic Afghanistan and its friends will be able to stand up for their interests, will be able to defend the country’s right to independence and independence, to social progress. The cause of defending the Motherland and the Revolution is in good hands. DRA patriots do not spare their lives to protect the future!"

"The PDPA considers it its sacred duty and duty, like the apple of its eye, to protect the security of its Fatherland - beloved Afghanistan, to protect the gains of the revolution, the life and peaceful work of its compatriots. For these purposes and to decisively suppress the attempts of the imperialist forces and their allies to take away the dearly won freedom of our people, the PDPA will constantly keep at the center of its attention the issues of comprehensively strengthening the Armed Forces of the Republic, increasing their combat capability and combat readiness. The PDPA and the revolutionary government will firmly pursue the line of transforming the Armed Forces into a reliable shield of the revolution and its conquests, into devoted servants of their proud and hardworking people, to rally personnel around the PDPA and the DRA government, to educate soldiers in the spirit of courage, bravery, heroism and boundless devotion to the ideals of the revolution."

Photos and Text from the photo book "Афганистан сегодня" published in 1983 by Planeta Publishers and Beikhaki Publishers.

[jaythelay]

Everyday I pulled this app up, what was meant to be a safe haven from politics, and saw Video after Picture after Story after Source after Debunk after Admittance after Enablement after Propaganda after Virtue Signaling after Using Minorities as Meat Shields to discussions, to god knows what else.

What finally did it for me was the toddler girl shot over 300 times, the rapings Israel is defending while their citizens are attacking journalists for exposing, a literal, baby's ash covered, bleeding, head, rolling in a body bag with A Body that might not even be theirs.

This, all the while, Israel Snipers are shooting people for collecting bodies, shooting old women in the head, placing IED's shaped like canned food. (Improvised Explosive Device) Whilst salting the earth to make sure no one can grow food. They love their land but turned it all to ruins.

While completely destorying homes and having settlers take them, on footage. Like. Ya'll just refuse research.

All the while I'm hearing "anti-semetism!" all I see is the worst humanity can be. No religion can do this. Only a tyrannical shithole that presently, Netanyhu is proving very much is not a democracy by forcing this genocide as long as he can before he has to go to jail for various other reasons. All the while? Biden is repeating every word he asks of him verbatim.

I don't even remember everything. I can't as is with a poor memory pull up. I forgot that they raided a hospital and forced doctors out, killing a shit ton of babies and people inside afterwards. Or was that when they turned power off to a hospital already full of premature babies? Hard to remember. I just know they've been killing kids with intention.

I've seen children have the veteran's stare. You can't make a kid act like that. Oh and them asking for their parents while Palestinians, also bloody and covered in ash, do their best just to survive and keep people alive with basically just scraps of flour they were given months ago now.

The Several Times a "safezone" got bombed. The fake aid trucks. The Waiting for Palestinians to surround food trucks to open fire. The sheer number of journalists killed, doctor's killed, again, babies and children killed. Footage. Raw. Footage. Not AI bullshit like some cruel fucks on the right like to claim and dems soon will too.

Israel has free healthcare because of our tax dollars. 80% of their military budget, we donate.

The concept of "defense" does not include war crimes or genocides. To pretend otherwise means I'm gonna puke on you at a ball game, not offer an apology, sit back down, and stare at you until you leave.

Fuck off Pro-Genociders.

I've Seen Reality time and time again.

You Simply Rejected It. Refused it. Denied it.

But reality is not gonna leave, much like the reality of Dump losing the elections by 9mil, the reality of flip flopping on Biden after he was out, and that Israel is not defending shit.

Ya'll MF's woulda support the afghan war because of 9/11 and if you don't understand, lift your shirt up, I'm aiming for your skin with this eaten hotdog that's not sitting well having to be near you.

[eelhound]

"Gaza is being pummeled now by Israeli bombs that are turning buildings to ashes. Israel’s own photos of the destruction are disturbing. Five hundred children are reported to have died in the bombings already. More will die soon, and countless will be seriously injured and psychologically traumatized. It is not the first time this has happened. Israel’s violence against Gaza has been a constant feature of life there. When Gazans tried to protest their condition in 2018, Israeli snipers shot them dead in cold blood. Was the shooting of medics and journalists not 'barbaric'? Was it not 'terroristic'? (Note that Hamas is said to deploy 'terrorists,' not 'soldiers,' while Israel has 'soldiers' even when they kill equal or greater numbers of civilians.) 

Moreover, Israel is the aggressor in the underlying conflict, because it maintains an occupation and siege against Palestine that violates basic international law. While international law does not permit violations in response to violations (meaning that Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights and sovereignty does not confer on Hamas the right to ignore the civilian/combatant distinction), Israel is not exactly 'defending itself.' If I enter and occupy your house by force, and you attack me using force in response, I cannot justly claim to be engaged in mere 'self-defense,' even if your own violence is grotesquely disproportionate to what the situation requires. 

A morally serious person does not just look at individual horrors perpetrated by only one party in a conflict. They look at the full facts of the conflict. Hamas’ crimes are great indeed (as a pacifist, I have zero love for Hamas and think they do terrible harm to the Palestinian cause), but here is the latest news out of Gaza:

Crowds of frantic people, some barefoot, rushed toward them, fleeing their just-destroyed homes. The ground shook with each strike from an Israeli fighter jet. 'People were crying for the children they had to leave behind under the rubble,' Mr. Ahmed, 32, said. 'They were begging us to go in and pull their children from the rubble — this was all they wanted, for us to go and pull their children out.'

Yesterday, 45 people were reported to have been killed after an Israeli strike on a Gaza apartment building. Eyewitness accounts from Gaza are harrowing, as people wait without water or electricity in fear of their impending deaths. 

It’s also harder than ever to argue that Israel’s killings of civilians are a mere 'tragic necessity.' The country has been quite open about abandoning 'precision' bombing in favor of 'destruction,' with its soldiers thirsty for 'revenge.' Already, more Palestianians are reported to have died in Gaza than the number of Israelis that died in Hamas’ attacks.

In the aftermath of a particular horrific act, as that thirst for vengeance takes over, it can be difficult to think straight. I remember the period after 9/11. People were angry and wanted to blow stuff up (to 'put a boot in their ass' as a song of the time put it). Many Americans didn’t particularly care whether the Muslims their country ended up killing had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks. And as the U.S. unleashed absolute hell on Afghanistan and Iraq, our media paid little attention to the lives taken, even when the atrocities were just as disturbing as what Al Qaeda had done to us (see, e.g., our bombing of an Afghan hospital, where patients were burned alive in their beds). In the U.S., a defining characteristic of public discourse is extreme hypocrisy, righteously condemning the terror perpetrated by other countries while either ignoring or rationalizing the terror inflicted by our own mighty military machine. Defenders of Israel are quite similar, rightly being enraged by Hamas’ killing of Israel’s children but quick to justify the equally gruesome killing of Palestinian children as a mere tragic necessity. (Former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir once grotesquely claimed that while Israel might 'forgive the Arabs for killing our sons…it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.' To which many a grieving Palestinian parent would surely answer: Who the hell forced you?) 

As an egalitarian socialist, I begin from the principle that every child counts equally. And I recognize that if you care only when certain children die, the idea that you are motivated by sympathy for children is called into question. Israel is currently carrying out acts in Gaza that are just as repellent as those committed by Hamas. It does so in the context of being the aggressor power in its conflict with Palestine. Nobody should be taken seriously who is not equally appalled by the violence rained down on Gaza as they are by the crimes recently carried out against Israel."

- Nathan J. Robinson, from "You Can’t Selectively Pay Attention To Certain Atrocities And Ignore All The Others." Current Affairs, 14 October 2023.

[thefairfolk]

No-one is tripping up over themselves idolising Iran. They still have the right to defend themselves against the brutal Israel attack. Even if they suck (not arguing with that) it's still a good thing that they defended themselves AND that they targeted political power and not civilians.

Hi, anon, thanks for this.

Let me explain why I disagree, bit by bit:

I have indeed seen people idolise Iran, going so far as to say that any country attacking Israel is 100% in the right at the moment. This is false, since to say such a thing would disregard the atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic against its people. (Note that I am doing my best to separate the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) with Iran. I don't believe in a political faction when my country is so fraught, but rather the people.)

Yes, Iran does have a right to defend itself. In the comments of another post, talking with another Iranian in Persian, I mentioned that there's nothing wrong with political revenge done right. This was not done right. If you consider the meagre amounts of weaponry and finances Iran has stockpiled (which has been at an all-time low since Ahmadinejad, which would take too long to explain here), then this "defence" was much too extreme. Why? Because, if Israel chooses to retaliate, and it very well might, Iran could be at a severe disadvantage, especially if the US even slightly gets involved. And I say if, because Biden will likely choose to stay out of it in order to not have a tumultuous time in the office. The best case scenario for a retaliation from Israel would be if they hit a few military bases, possibly in the far south where ships are stationed, but we cannot calculate those possibilities accurately considering the way Israel treats its enemies.

Iran did target areas of political or militaristic power, I never said it didn't or that that was the issue here. The large scale of attack/defence in and of itself could pose as a huge problem to Iranians far, far more than Israelis. Isn't that ironic and awful?

As for anyone, whether if it's anon or someone else, who still thinks this is okay for Iran to do, let me ask you this:

If Russia bombed Israel, would you forget the Ukrainians? Would you ignore that and heap praises on Russia for attacking a Zionist state in self-defence?

I do hope not. Because in such a simile, the IRI is Russia, and we (innocent people) are like Ukrainians.

I understand that seeing that someone has finally worked up the guts to land a solid hit on Israel must ignite both hope and satisfaction, but remember that this someone is a government we cannot trust, even if you ignore the atrocities against women (I will always pray for Mahsa, Nika, Sarina, and so much more), children (Kian and the Afghan boy without a wish, you are in my heart), men (the innocents sent to the gallows because they wanted a better life), and so, so many others. Even if you ignore all of them (and that's just those from last year!) there is so much other trouble like economy, natural disasters, and pollution in Iran. From every angle, this government is destroying its land and its people.

I know you, and likely many others, are quick to clarify, "I think it's good that Iran did this- I don't support the government though!"

I'm sorry, but it's not enough. It is not good that Iran did this. Whatever the damage to Israel, if (and I wish it's an "if") that country retaliates, Iran will suffer ten times the amount.

[olderthannetfic]

/726438799156101120/ I think in general that people need to be more aware of how the "person from X marginalized group said so" can be weaponized for reactionary purposes if you make it a thing you can never question. We saw this with the Russian spies on here in 2016 but it hasn't ended: I remember a tankie trying to defend Putin with something about having been Afghan-American post-9/11 and "this reminds me of that." it's ok sometimes to just say, "yeah, sorry, sounds fake" on that shit

--