Category Archives: Journalism

Who Are The ‘Trapped’ ‘Americans Living In Afghanistan’? Nobody Has Asked

America, Conservatism, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Islam, Journalism, Media, Terrorism

Who the hell are these “Americans living in Afghanistan”? What are they doing in such inhospitable climes, in a country most of whose people hated the American presence?

I can’t find a thing on their nationalities, origins, whereabouts, and occupations, although my guess is that U.S. citizens in Afghanistan lived within army erected green zones, paid for by American taxpayers.

And what is their business in Afghanistan? The incurious moron media never ask (although watch conservatives who monitor dissident content miraculously come up with these questions following publication of this material).

Growing up in Israel, I recall many Israelis, in those days, went to Africa to help a few friendly nations learn how to … farm in the desert, something Israel had perfected. What are our citizens doing in Afghanistan? Is nobody curious?

The blowhards on Fox News have been whooping it up with partisan battle cries such as, “Hostages, Americans behind enemy lines. Teach the Taliban a lesson, Corn Pop.”

Dare I ask if these Americans are making money off military contracts, the spoils of the military-industrial-complex?

My colleague, David Vance, did some digging. He sends a likely breakdown of “Americans in Afghanistan,” via “Danger Zone Jobs, which tracks more than 300 companies with overseas contracting jobs in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries.” It reeks:

“US troops remain in Afghanistan and as many analysts pointed out, the military numbers, whatever they end up being, have typically been supported by even more private contractors. As long as troops are on the ground in Afghanistan, civilian contractors will be there with them. …The two primary sources of jobs in Afghanistan are with private contractors supporting the military and companies who subcontract to various international relief and development efforts.”

“Approximately 29,389 DoD contractors supported operations in Afghanistan during 1st quarter FY19, an increase of 16.4% from 4th quarter FY18. Local Nationals comprise 21.5% of total contractor force; 23,078 US/TCN remain to redeploy.”

The distribution of contractors in Afghanistan by mission category are:

Base Support 4,140 (14.1%)
Construction 2,113 (7.2%)
IT/Communications Support 951 (3.2%)
Logistics/Maintenance 9,271 (31.5%)
Management/Administrative 1,881 (6.4%)
Medical/Dental/Social Services 88 (0.2%)
Other 690 (2.4%)
Security 4,842 (16.5%)
Training 1,372 (4.7%)
Translator/Interpreter 2,138 (7.3%)
Transportation 1,903 (6.5%)
Total: 29,389

MORE.

*Image care of WSJ.

UPDATED (8/22): The Empire’s Pilot And His Cargo

America, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Journalism, Military, Terrorism

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The image you see here shows “inside a U.S. Air Force C-17 plane that left Kabul for Qatar on Aug. 15 (Courtesy of Defense One).”

Media “reporting” on Afghanistan is not reporting, but, rather, an unremitting gush, in an effort to create a state of heightened sentimentality, sentiments of the right kind, of course. That involves a constant reference to the “American retreat from Saigon, Vietnam, in 1975.” Truly repulsive.

I see a special commendation in the future of the Empire’s Pilot, who made a decision to airlift more Afghanis—not Americans, mind you—than his C-17 (“workhorses of the airlift are four-engine Boeing C-17A Globemaster jets which combine excellent cargo capacity, long range and short-takeoff and landing capability“) would ordinarily carry.

The pilots initially thought 800 passengers were on board, according to an apparent audio clip from the flight, in a plane that can carry up to 164,900 pounds. “How many people are on your jet,” an unidentified person asks the flight. “800 people on your jet? Holy cow.”

“Make no mistake,” slobbers Forbes, “lifting six times more people than an aircraft is designed to seat is a heroic achievement of logistics, skill and sheer grit.”

Not that these inept journalists ask for an accounting—but reading between the lines, it is my impression that very few Americans—in the mere hundreds—have been airlifted to safety. I guess Americans are not quite as pushy.

Besides, while funded by Americans, the US military’s allegiances are global and humanitarian. Our soldiers are trained to be “a global force for good.” In 2009, that indeed was “the U.S. Navy’s recruiting slogan,” for a while.

The slogan was ditched then, but it is perfectly apropos now, since recruits are inculcated with a thoroughly cosmopolitan, even anti-American, sensibility.

By the sounds of it, very few Americans are on these flights.

Via US News:

A defense official said about 5,700 people, including about 250 Americans, were flown out of Kabul aboard 16 C-17 transport planes, guarded by a temporary U.S. military deployment that’s building to 6,000 troops. On each of the previous two days, about 2,000 people were airlifted.
Biden said 169 Americans had been brought to the airport from beyond its perimeter, but he provided no details.

UPDATE (8/22):

MORE PLEASE: Young, military age men:

The duopoly pundits seem thrilled that the US is bringing in plane loads of young, strong men, unburdened by women and children. The hallmark of a good immigrant my foot. #KabulEvacuation https://t.co/qSE4flyO92

— ILANA Mercer (@IlanaMercer) August 17, 2021

UPDATED (9/29/022): Iranian Mad-Hatter Masih Alinejad: Please, Take Her

Feminism, Gender, Intelligence, Iran, Journalism, Neoconservatism, Propaganda

UPDATED (5/22/021): NEW COLUMN: The Moral Writer’s Commandment: Cite Your Sources! (And A Bit Of A Salve: The Beatles)

Argument, Canada, Conservatism, Ethics, Etiquette, Free Speech, Ilana Mercer, Journalism, Morality, Music, Paleoconservatism

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My first submission ever to an American news magazine was as a Canadian, in the early 2000s. What was visited upon me, on that occasion, shook me to the core.

I had been published by the Canadian Financial Post, a national newspaper, on the topic of intellectual property rights. Oh, the luxury of intellectual pursuit for the sake of it; these days, survival as free individuals is the pressing topic of the day.

Naturally, I credited scholarship galvanized in the making of my argument. And so, mentioned were Sir Arnold Plant, Tom G. Palmer and Stephan Kinsella, with whom I later collaborated in an IP symposium for the now-defunct Insight magazine.

The IP column submitted to the American Magazine was fielded by a well-known editor, a gate-keeper, who, in the unethical American model was both editor, writer and syndicated columnist. Still is.

Unethical, why? Because division of labor in our profession prevents corrupting conflict of interest. The latter always and everywhere gives rise to unethical conduct, all the more so given the grubby, ego-driven nature of journalism and journalists in America. With a few admirable exceptions (Townhall, American Greatness, CNSNews), almost all conservative editors also colonize their own editorial pages with their own copy.

Such opportunistic misconduct is zero-sum. The bad pushes out the good. In direct conflict with their mission, editors have the greatest incentive to keep talent off the pages, in-case it usurps theirs—and worse.

This particular editor-cum-writer-cum-syndicated columnist replied to my submission in the negative: My piece (similar in “shoddiness” to “How Things Would Work In A Copyright Free Universe“) was just too shallow for his magazine. In other words, “Be gone with you lesser Canadian woman.”

My piece, however, was not too shallow for—wait for this—the American Editor’s syndicated column, where my column’s ideas cameoed in the United States under the dishonest man’s byline. Oh, yes. American Editor had excised smarty pants woman, seized upon her argument and her scrupulous citations of American scholars—and got himself a neat little column for his dry-as-dust syndicated slot.

Perhaps one day I shall name him, although to what avail, I don’t know. While it repulses me and I will not countenance it or be victim of it—unethical conduct doesn’t repulse many conservatives in the least.

I continue to be appalled afresh along this long and winding road (to conjure the pathos of the Beatles), and as the unfortunate topic of this week’s column attests.

Here’s the take-away lesson (as the kids like to say): Ecumenical submission to heavily promoted second-handers is not in me. When these second-handers pick the brains of longtime, marginalized, prolific, independent dissidents sans acknowledgement—they will be called out.

The new column is on WND.COM and The Unz Review, the staunchest defenders of my speech.

A bit of purity and inspiration amid a lot of moral ugliness:

The Beatles – The Long And Winding Road from Lennon-McCartney on Vimeo.

UPDATE (5/22/021):

This from a new and devoted reader I “met” through Michelle Malkin’s “Sovereign Nation”. His language is so vivid and filled with passion about ethics and justice.

Friday, May 21, 2021 11:30 PM
Subject: Fwd: RESPECT IDEAS!:> “HOMO EROTIC SUBMISSION > A MERCER ORIGINAL IDEA

Dear Friends,

The following LINKS are for an excellent essay by Misses Ilana Mercer on ideas and their, not only origin, but the acknowledgement of credit where credit is due. And this is not a case of shallow egocentricity, of a blowing of one’s own horn, and at that, out of tune. It is something I imagine a number of you have come across; that which concerns one of the most vile forms of censorship. The DISPLACEMENT of a human being, by the dishonest pseudo-intellectual weakling, who subsequently RANSACKS his victim’s artistic-intellectual-scientific creation rendering it his own. The vomitory irony is that this dishonest action of cerebral faggotry is carried out by either one who has the power to bludgeon many a time the true creator into a living oblivion or is aided and abetted by those who’ve not any concern for the truth. Have no sympathy, their hearts are as cold as ice, and know not a beat of life. I am not preaching: they’re one degree of an evil hierarchy. Be forever courageous and take the ax of a woodman to this disease ridden tree.

What Misses Ilana Mercer has written is of a most profound importance, and always has been, with broad-spread consequences not just culturally, as in artistic production, but in all the dimensions of our lives, including the financial. I ask you all to think about this; truly contemplate it. Exactness and precision is called for to-day!

https://www.unz.com/imercer/the-moral-writers-commandment-cite-your-sources/ or: https://www.wnd.com/2021/05/moral-writers-commandment-cite-sources/ Read and pass on.