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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23319 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025

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Two National Guardsman shot in DC.

Situation is still developing... conflicting reports about deaths. Trump has already requested 500 more guardsmen to be deployed in the capital. I'm afraid that any commentary on my part will be pure speculation: I'll edit this OP as more information comes to light. Apologies for the shortness of this initial post.

I would expect ICE to be shot at, especially during active operations: but the National Guard? They're literally doing nothing but stand around. They're dads and uncles pulling overtime shifts away from their real jobs, not stormtroopers. I'm highly suspecting some sort of mental illness or dumb radicalization, but I'll refrain on coming to conclusions for now.

Edit 1: Suspect has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a Afghan national evacuated back in 2021.

Edit 2: Speculatively, a linkedin profile of the same name seems to point him as being connected to a bunch of American NGOs. I'm always skeptical of these - the world is big enough for strangers to have the same names - but the face on the profile seems to match the suspect.

Or perhaps I don't have an eye for Afghans, and they all look the same to me.

If those Afghans were so evil as to collaborate with foreign occupiers and their puppet regime based around raping boys (bacha bazi) and growing opium what else are they capable of? Absolutely reckless to let them live in America.

Vindicated.

I got banned for that comment.

This place frequently operates on the same principles as most, I don't even know what to call them, "authority worshiping" spaces? Which is to say, it's against the rules to be correct about things before the authorities have updated the correct opinions first.

There was an instance on my local subreddit where after our sloppy pullout from Afghanistan, Biden was recklessly spraying Afghan "refugees" all over local schools. People had concerns over this, and they were widely dismissed as racist. You weren't supposed to recollect how for decades stories had trickled out, even in the papers of record which you are allowed to remember (NYTimes, WaPo, etc), about how our armed forces were revolted at orders from above to turn a blind eye towards their boy love, or "bacha bazi" custom. It was widely reported that our ostensible allies were deeply committed pedarast. I brought this up, another person brought up that boys in another school in Maryland adjacent to the "refugees" had already been raped. Then the whole thread was locked and deleted.

We are still descended from Reddit. You can be correct here at your own peril.

I feel like we’re reading different Mottes. I don’t think it’s accurate to compare the rules here to any subreddit the admins have continued to tolerate, given that the limits of their tolerance are why we’re here and not there.

I have observed that posters are willing to do more consensus building and boundary policing on issues to do with literal wars than with culture wars, and the mods tend to tolerate it more, which is unfortunate. But even that fades after a while, and discussion opens up again as it never seems to do on reddit.

Why did Lakanwal drive all the way to DC to shoot two National Guardsman? There were many other National Guard deployments between his home and DC. Edit: I'm not questioning his motive to kill members of the NG. I'm questioning why he drove 40 hours from Washington State to Washington D.C.

Guess 1: It's symbolic. DC is more "America" than Portland and the attack was against America. But if so, why not wait one more day and do it on Thanksgiving proper? Even more symbolic that way.

Guess 2: It's a probing attack for a bigger event later on. Probably shouldn't have let himself get taken alive if that's the case...

Guess 3: He had a personal beef against one of the Guardsmen? Was one of them deployed in Afghanistan, he saw them on the TV once, and made it his mission to take revenge for something?

Guess 4: He is actually a Trump agent. After the "Sedition" video, Trump activated him to attack a couple national guards to show his opponents just how dangerous it is to call the military the enemies of the American people. No one was supposed to get really hurt...

Guess 5: He's actually the most patriotic of Americans and took it upon himself to lead the uprising of the American people against the Tyrannical Trump regime, as prompted by the "Sedition" video.

If you can't tell, my guesses are getting wilder and wilder, because I haven't settled on anything I find very plausible. Anyone else feel the same?

I think Guess 5 is actually a subset of Guess 1. I'd be surprised if an Afghan were a full-on anti-Trump #resistance supporter, but stranger things have happened. And I don't know any other reason a Muslim in general or an Afghan specifically would attack National Guard members, but add in a little crazy and who knows? Whatever the reason, I'd bet on Guess 1.

Why do I get as worked up or more worked up about stuff in America than in my hometown? Well, for one thing, it's a lot more interesting.

Media and other kinds of second-hand experience forms a huge part of our personal lives and our 'experience'. In a way, we all live in CA/NY/WA now.

Alternatively: he's a traumatized nutcase and because he's brown the killing is or becomes or must be political.

If he were white we'd just shrug and ultimately say he was nuts.

If he were white we'd just shrug and ultimately say he was nuts.

The NG in DC under Trump's orders is sufficiently right-coded that everyone except the left and the MSM would be assuming it was left-wing political violence until proven otherwise. Some of those people would claim that shooting a right-coded target is per se left-wing political violence regardless of the shooter's actual motives - there are still people on the Motte saying this about Thomas Crooks.

Sure, his being a nut found expression through shooting the National Guard, but the difference is that because he's brown it's assumed to be a trait of his racial identity and/or part of an organized plot.

Compare the Cybertruck bombing, which was similar in involving a US Special Forces soldier who served overseas who drove a long distance to launch a nutty but (in that case explicitly) politically motivated protest attack, involved a white guy so nobody said "THIS IS A NATIONAL CRISIS WE NEED TO INVESTIGATE EVERY SPECIAL FORCES VETERAN." There's some mumbling about overheated political rhetoric and stochastic terrorism, which nobody really takes seriously. Or, for that matter, much speculation about intelligence connections.

An Afghan is assumed to be some mix of congenitally terroristic, part of some organized group, both necessarily related to his origin.

Compare the Cybertruck bombing, which was similar in involving a US Special Forces soldier who served overseas who drove a long distance to launch a nutty but (in that case explicitly) politically motivated protest attack, involved a white guy so nobody said "THIS IS A NATIONAL CRISIS WE NEED TO INVESTIGATE EVERY SPECIAL FORCES VETERAN."

The idea that veterans are dangerous has been around for a very long time. Here's a 2012 article decrying it, and it's obviously much older than that; First Blood is based on the idea. And in fact the idea of some sort of plot by a group of veterans was involved in the cybertruck bombing WAS investigated.

He's nuts, for sure, but even crazy people have some kind of internal logic . I'm not asking, "Why did he attack the National Guards?" I'm asking, "Why did he attack the National Guard in DC instead of the ones in Portland, California, Chicago, Tennessee, etc." Or is DC the only place they are actually deployed, in which case what is with the Liberal histrionics?

Or perhaps I don't have an eye for Afghans, and they all look the same to me.

To a weasel, another weasel is weaselly weckognised.

But a stoat? That's stoatally different!

Brian Jacques approves of this post.

I am quite enjoying the responses to the effect of - "This is Trump's fault for putting those guardsmen into harm's way"

Um, excuse me? Can you please give me a reason why sending someone to Washington, DC constitutes "putting them into harm's way," and why this reasoning doesn't justify deploying the national guard?

Well, why are they deployed? Why is there a ton of tension and pressure around their deployment the a crazy ideologue can hook into?

Is Trump, strictly speaking, in the chain of causality which caused the national guards to be shot? Without a doubt.

Does this mean that he is legally or morally responsible? Hell no.

Personally, I am of the opinion that his deployment of the national guard is a waste of taxpayer money. But I do not generally want politicians to make decisions based on how some crazies might react, because that would yield a lot of power to the crazies.

Some crazies see gay night clubs as a provocation which drives them to murder. Others are similarly enraged by national guard deployments. Luckily, the crazies are few and far between, so the optimal strategy is to bury the dead and not yield an inch policy-wise.

Now, if he had ordered the national guard to parachute over Kabul, or if a troop of national guardsmen had opened fire on civilians in DC, then I would lay the dead at Trump's feet, because causalities in battle deployments and excessive force are both outcomes which I want politicians to consider (which does not mean that their risk is never worth it, obviously).

Well, why are they deployed?

Because some American cities are more dangerous than Ukraine.

Why is there a ton of tension and pressure around their deployment the a crazy ideologue can hook into?

Because Democrats are ideologically wedded to the idea that crime isn't real and that policing causes crime and the worst thing that could happen is for an increase in military-style crime deterrence to actually deter crime. Doubly so if that results in a win for Cheeto Hitler.

Because some American cities are more dangerous than Ukraine.

By what metric?

Murder rate versus dead civilian rate.

Very much agree about democrat delusion re: crime and enforcement, but my autism does not allow me to let this go.

Because some American cities are more dangerous than Ukraine.

This is statistical torture, the numbers are screaming as they are twisted into this narrative. Also kind of a rhetorical one as when you say "Ukraine" people read "front line of the Russo-Ukrainian war" but I imagine whatever stat underlies this is the mortality rate in the country overall, most of which is not a warzone. On the other side, if you are not a poor American involved in, or adjacent to, the drug trade, I imagine your odds of being shot in Chicago et al. are extremely, extremely low.

Also from the politics angle, the way and "vibe" in which these troops were deployed was intentionally maximally inflammatory, so I am not surprised that in a country with the most guns, a crazy person was baited into doing something dumb.

This past July, Chicago had ~45 murders against a population of 2.72 million. Ukraine had 286 civilians killed, against a population that seems a bit up in the air, but 35 million looks like a decent estimate, somewhat rounded down.

So in that month, Chicago had 16.67 murders per million people, and Ukraine had 8.17 civilians killed per million people.

Sure this is a bit cherry picked - though I chose July simply because that was the first search result with a tangible number of deaths for Ukraine. That article notes that the 286 dead civilians was "the highest since May 2022", and July is also usually a bumper month for urban crime. I don't think the comparison is completely off base, or unfair. If we restricted it to just active war zones or active gang wars, do the ratios really change that much?

If you're going to claim a city is more dangerous than a war zone, you have to include the people actually killed in the war - including the combatants. This isn't just cherry-picking, it's lying with statistics.

"Being a civilian in Chicago is more dangerous than being a civilian in Ukraine". Does that phrasing sound acceptable?

You're still not comparing like things. The vast majority of civilian.deaths in Chicago are criminals engaged in violent activity. Do you think the average citizen of Chicago would agree "I'd feel safer in Ukraine"?

You can make a point about high crime rates without juicing numbers dishonestly. In this case, "civilian" and "combatant" is exploiting a gap where you are comparing gang activity and warfare. Is it more dangerous to be a gangbanger in Chicago or a soldier in Ukraine? Is it more dangerous to be a non-combatant (not involved in drugs or warfare) in Chicago or in Ukraine?

It's unfair because you're only including civilian deaths.

Doesn't matter. As was similarly true for Kyle Rittenhouse, "They shouldn't have been there, and Trump sent them there" will resonate just fine with the large portion of the public attuned with the mainstream media.

Mission: You are undercover behind enemy lines. Eliminate as many uniformed enemy personnel as you can. Your life is expendable, your mission is not.

Starting equipment: One handgun and 15 rounds. Anything else you have to acquire on your own.

The good news is that perpetrator's level of human capital was, as usual, not very high. Not to overtly fed post (or @KulakRevolt post), but given such task, average mottizen even with no military training would be able to rack considerably higher score.

Of course, in current annals of ineffective terrorism/resistance nothing beats this episode.

Officials describe a coordinated plot in which about 12 individuals in black clothing and body armor allegedly used fireworks and vandalism to draw out officers and ambush them with rifles. One Alvarado police officer was shot in the neck and released from the hospital a short time later.

Local reporting and court documents identify ten individuals arrested shortly after; an alleged shooter was arrested on July 15 after a manhunt, and several alleged associates were also arrested.

I am near certain that feds inside this group provided them with blank ammo, the alternative is just too ghastly to contemplate.

I suspect they simply hadn't trained, aside perhaps from target shooting. They only fired 11 rounds, and only one hit.

This, it smacks of a group that did a lot of reading but had minimal actual field experience.

Mission: You are undercover behind enemy lines. Eliminate as many uniformed enemy personnel as you can. Your life is expendable, your mission is not.

Mission... Given by whom? Known how?

What do mottizens mean, when they reference "fed posting?"

I am near certain that feds inside this group provided them with blank ammo, the alternative is just too ghastly to contemplate.

Inside the Alvarado group? What does that have to do with this? If so, was it proven that there were "feds inside" that group?

Fed posting means posting like a federal agent, which means posting to entrap others. You are encouraging violence, action, imminent action, etc.

It's basically edgy posting, but it rings true in that you find examples of feds definitely entrapping people, and ginning up plots out of nowhere.

What do mottizens mean, when they reference "fed posting?"

Fedposting is an Internet term in general, not a Motte thing. It means that someone is posting pretty openly about doing very illegal stuff (generally violence but could be drug dealing or something of that nature I guess). The etymology is that federal agents have been known to stir people up to do illegal things, then arrest them for it. Thus, if one were to say "we should go shoot a bunch of people" or whatever, they are posting like one might expect one of those federal agents to. Thus, fedposting.

Or just shit themselves on exposure to live fire. Not to disparage the average mental health of the trans diaspora but the vast majority of people aren't gonna do anything in an actual firefight much less a bunch of first timers with no real training who probably assumed they'd easily takedown the police in the first salvo

They shot a guard in the neck.

Can't do with blanks. Maybe some got cold feet. Dregs. Getting on death row in Texas for mass murder isn't a joke.

average mottizen even with no military training would be able to rack considerably higher score.

I seriously doubt it. You're seriously outnumbered and outgunned, so the only thing you have going for you is the element of surprise. After your first few kills things will get exponentially harder.

The best way to get more kills is probably to go the serial killer route, and get them while they are off duty, but I don't think this really accomplishes the spirit of the mission.

Probably better ways to deploy a truck and/or suicide bombing for an immediate highscore.

Afghan national

Motive?

No idea, but I imagine that I might get pretty angry if I helped US forces in a war zone but was then not immediately given US citizenship in return and instead had to spend years navigating asylum and visa application processes. This, even if I had never been promised citizenship, as this man of course was not, since I would feel slighted.

Supposedly he shouted “Allahu Akbar” while opening fire so apparently Islamic lone wolf terrorism.

Edit: Please disregard the fact that the shooter was employed by the CIA in Afghanistan. Please disregard the fact that this shooting has spurred a comprehensive review of all Green Card holders in the United States. :^)

This genuinely could be a real false flag.

We now have a new addition to the list embarrassingly wrong Scott Alexander quotes:

Many Afghans had collaborated with the Americans, eg as translators, in exchange for a promise of US citizenship. As the Taliban advanced, they called in the promise, begging to be allowed to flee to America before they got punished as traitors. The article focused on a heroic effort by certain immigration bureaucrats, who worked around the clock with minimal sleep for the last few weeks before Kabul fell, trying to get the citizenship forms filled in and approved for as many translators as possible. It made an impression on me because nobody was opposed to the translators getting citizenship, and the bureaucrats were themselves the people in charge of approving citizenship applications, so what exactly was forcing them to go to such desperate lengths?

And how do you verify that they are who the claim to be and harbor no jihadist sympathy?

Arnaud Amalric has some thoughts.

The relative proportion of translators in the Afghan population is challenged only by the proportion of journalists in the Gazan population.

As somebody who's always been skeptical of the journalist numbers. I do assume if you're simply marking anybody who's ever taken footage or had an interview for journalistic purposes you could somehow explain Palestine's insane per Capita population.

...Or Israel could be targeting journalists.

And hospitals/hospital personnel

Anybody casting aspersions on the 80% of Palestine's children who are simultaneously journalists and doctors should be chided

These guys were our friends in a war zone so they must make for great neighbors.

Whilst I understand the fuzzy feels of helping those who help you, one would have preferred a sort of quarantine zone or special village for the empires mercenaries.

That being said, I think it's harsh to call Scott embarrassingly wrong based on these events in specific and that quote in particular. For starters, I'm not sure it's fair to assume any hardline position on small scale Afghani immigration based on the quote. He's talking about something else, no?.

But assuming he is, the awful performance of Afghani immigrants in Europe is a fact. So one could perhaps call him naïve on the topic of Afghani 'assimilation' if he can't imagine a reason to be against importing a fair number of them.

Afghan immigrants in Europe are mostly refugees who used the people-trafficker network to arrive overland. It is conventional wisdom in Frontex that various hostile countries, including Russia and Belarus, are intentionally facilitating refugee transit in order to destabilise the EU.

That is a differently selected group than people flown out of Afghanistan because they convinced US authorities that they were collaborators at risk of Taliban reprisal, and expecting different outcomes as a result isn't foolish. I don't know enough about the behaviour of Afghan immigrants in the US to know to what extent you are getting better results than us. One guy turning out to be a disorganised Islamist killer is weak Bayesian evidence that you are not, of course.

Refugees are also selected. They are the most privileged in that they have the money to afford the trip, and also the most cynical and selfish, in that they are willing to break laws across half the planet in order to make a quick buck.

I mean Afghanis who speak english well enough to pose as translators are a very selected group.

They only have to speak Pashto better than Americans and to speak English better than other locals. That's two bars that are not very hard to clear.

They could very well turn out to be useful. I have a couple friends who are Middle Eastern (Iraqi-) Americans that I’ve known since childhood. They once told me they laughed pretty hard when they watched Zero Dark Thirty and asked why the scenes had Pakistanis speaking Arabic (they speak Urdu). It’s one of the ways Americans don’t understand other cultures.

If the 'translators' shoot at police / guardsman does it matter if they're doing it for Islamic reasons and / or mental health reasons?

There was bodcam footage of the one from earlier im the year. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/fairfax-police-release-body-cam-video-of-police-shooting-in-greenbriar/3921110/

If the 'translators' shoot at police / guardsman does it matter if they're doing it for Islamic reasons and / or mental health reasons?

No - of course it doesn't. I don't even think it is always a distinction with a difference - given the total ineffectiveness of disorganised political violence I assume anyone engaging in it is batshit until proven otherwise.

I was wondering if your Afghan refugees (who are weakly selected) behave better than European Afghan refugees (who are not selected at all) - the point I was making is that you really need statistics to settle this question rather than dualling anecdotes.

Yeah, maybe we could run the experiment in other people's countries first.

How is that wrong?

Edit: I have no qualms saying my comments aged poorly.

The Afghan 'collaborators' were often drug-ridden, totally undisciplined, shamelessly corrupt, traitors and/or child rapists. These are the guys who gave us green-on-blue attacks. That's why the combined power of the US bloc lost to semi-literate goat-herders, the people we were allied with were in many respects worse than the Taliban and commanded less legitimacy among the population.

Plus the average Afghan refugee in the West is one of the most rapey and ill-mannered refugees.

That's why the combined power of the US bloc lost to semi-literate goat-herders, the people we were allied with were in many respects worse than the Taliban and commanded less legitimacy among the population.

This sounds like a cope. I am certain that allying with child-fucking warlords did not help win the hearts and minds of the Afghan population, but I also think that the eventual outcome was overdetermined the minute W invaded. Even if the US had made a point of murdering every alleged boy-fucker on the spot, the fact remains that few Afghans preferred freedom and democracy to the point where they were willing to die for it, while plenty were willing to die for the Taliban cause.

We could've installed a more effective puppet government and that would've worked. The Soviet puppet govt outlived the Soviet Union! Really not that hard to administer basic justice and secure a power base.

Realistically the US and co weren't going to do that or win because of these political factors you've identified - because freedom and liberal democracy was the goal. Would've been far easier to install a friendly govt that doesn't shelter Islamist terrorists. The bulk of the people we allied with were either feeble or corruptible, they were willing to give lip service to democracy or whatever they thought we would pay for. That's the problem.

Also I think the political value of murdering child rapists is underrated. That was the Taliban's original source of legitimacy, that was their starting mythology, hanging paedophiles from a tank barrel.

Not with US public opinion we couldn't.

"Administering justice and securing a power base" are, to the media and the US public, genocide and war crimes. We have to send our diplomats to hawk sex change surgeries to hillside goatherders and offer to "learn from Women of Color" who have an explosive belt locked around their waist by the warlord their family sold them to.

And it's worth noting that when we went in, the US still had the geniuses behind operation condor. Say what you will, but Pinochet was not soft on crime. It wasn't lack of ability.

Are we talking about the translators who were embeded with and beloved by US military units or the local warlords who got the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" treatment?

The program was not limited to translators, and Scott acknowledges that with "eg as translators". Anyone who worked for the American or coalition forces for at least 12 months can get a special immigrant visa.

Even steelmanning your argument though, why would we grant citizenship to someone willing to sell out their country to an invading power for a paycheck? When they swear their oath of citizenship to the United States, promising to bear arms on behalf of the US when required by law, and support and defend the Constitution, why would we believe them?

Even steelmanning your argument though, why would we grant citizenship to someone willing to sell out their country to an invading power for a paycheck?

So your claim is that the Taliban regime ca. 2004 was the obvious Schelling point for Afghans interested in the long-term thriving of their country, and those who did not support the Taliban were clearly defecting from the common good of the country?

Personally, I think the loyalty of a population is earned, not given. Citizens of the US or modern Germany should display some loyalty to their government because it represents an equilibrium which has a higher utility than any other equilibrium they are likely to establish working against the government.

By contrast, less optimal regimes do not deserve loyalty. In 1945, Hitler was just the mobster in power, Stauffenberg blowing him up would not have let to a lower utility equilibrium, hence it was not treason to try to do so. Nor were the exile Germans who aided the Allies betraying Germany, because even with the Soviets, Ally-occupied Germany was a far better place for the Germans to thrive than Nazi Germany.

The real world is not Civilization where governments change but annexation is forever.

So your claim is that the Taliban regime ca. 2004 was the obvious Schelling point for Afghans interested in the long-term thriving of their country, and those who did not support the Taliban were clearly defecting from the common good of the country?

No. I just don't think they are demonstrating qualities that would make them uniquely valuable citizens, worthy of being fast-tracked through a special process. We have plenty of carrots and sticks for dealing with collaborators: money, status, security... And if we want our local collaborators to be effective, they should be invested in the success of our effort for the long haul. If their plan is to be on an evacuation flight out, why not staff the army with soldiers who only exist on paper, and rob the treasury blind?

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By contrast, less optimal regimes do not deserve loyalty. In 1945, Hitler was just the mobster in power, Stauffenberg blowing him up would not have let to a lower utility equilibrium, hence it was not treason to try to do so.

The Allies did polling in West Germany a year after the war ended in 45’. Hitler was still remarkably popular even then. Different societies have different attitudes about what they believe their relationship to their governments should be.

For you to have been a patriot back then you’d had to have actively opposed your own government, essentially knowing you were going to be rounded up and executed as these people undoubtedly knew. And they are certainly heroes for what they did.

Ally-occupied Germany was a far better place for the Germans to thrive than Nazi Germany.

It always boggles my mind how so many revisionist types can think otherwise. At heart I think a lot of people have this suppressed desire that they wish to have seen the Nazis win out and to have gotten their racial utopia. If you look at Nazi society it didn’t work very well for the people who were in it. And it certainly didn’t end very well for the people who were in it. Some people definitely benefitted but it wasn’t a government of its citizens, but of a particular category of citizens who the Nazis saw populating Germany’s future.

It’s also why the Allies took very careful steps in their postwar planning of Germany to crush Prussia and its influence over Germany. It historically was a massive fountainhead for its supremely militaristic attitude over all aspects of society. There’s a reason why it was called the “Iron Kingdom” and the “Sparta of Europe.” States like that tend to have a short half life. The ancient Assyrian Empire ended the same way, eventually declaring war on almost everyone within its neighborhood and having a religious ideology that demands you bring order and stability to the world outside by conquering the chaotic neighbors among the fringes of your borderlands.

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why would we grant citizenship to someone willing to sell out their country to an invading power for a paycheck?

I don't really get omni-nationalism. Americans believing that the US is the greatest and deserves extra status/power/deference/etc? Sure. Ditto for the French, Brazilians, Chinese, or even Afghans. I don't see anything strange about different people having different values and opinions, even if they can't see the obvious truth that Canada is better than any of them (despite its current troubles).

Putting every country at the top of the list (but only when projecting your opinions onto other people) is a different matter. If you think your homeland is the greatest, then why do you want every foreigner to express incorrect opinions? If you're a cosmopolitan moral relativist who thinks there is no true "greatest" place and it's all opinions and tradeoffs, then why not let other people believe that too?

Saying that people should oppose you makes me feel like nationalism is a debate-club-style issue that's fun to talk about, instead of an honestly expressed and important core belief. Heck, I rarely see sports team omni-supremacy anywhere ("cheer for your home team, whichever one that is"). It's all either neutrality or people cheering for their specific favored team.

Even steelmanning your argument though, why would we grant citizenship to someone willing to sell out their country to an invading power for a paycheck?

Because the Taliban isn't "their country", it is just a group of thugs even if it is located in their country. You wouldn't ask why someone in a place run by the Mafia, or a Jew in Nazi Germany, would sell out "their country".

If they are doing it only for the money, sure, but if they are doing it for other reasons, they still need to eat.

I’m not at all convinced a large majority of Afghans view the Taliban that way. Either now or when they first came to power. In the case of the latter, they were originally greeted as liberators because they were at least bringing some kind of order to the place. Believe it or not, that’s how ISIS initially gained a large swath of supporters in Syria because they stemmed a great deal of corruption among the local population.

I also think the American “PR campaign” if you want to call it that for the Taliban is kind of funny.

There is a line in the sand for collaborating with a foreign invader to depose your government and occupy your country, which comes with unavoidable mass murder and atrocities. For Afghanistan, the death toll is estimated at around 200,000, along with the displacement of millions. The government actively trying to genocide you certainly crosses that line. The government enforcing a strict interpretation of Islamic law? That's a lot more questionable. Even a shitty government is often better than a foreign occupation and a low-intensity insurgency. Collaborating means obtaining a personal benefit from and enabling a process that imposes mass suffering on one's countrymen. I think the willingness to do so should be considered an anti-signal when it comes to citizenship, and certainly not an automatic qualification.

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Even steelmanning your argument though, why would we grant citizenship to someone willing to sell out their country to an invading power for a paycheck?

As an incentive to future collaborators? "Help us out, and you can earn your citizenship. Also, if everything does go to hell, we won't leave you in the lurch to be executed by the government you turned against".

The incentives seem misaligned when we reward our collaborators for failure. We spent decades and tens of billions of dollars training the ANA only for them to surrender practically without a fight. Giving them the prospect of an escape route to the US likely weakened their resolve rather than strengthening it. It also doesn't seem like the sort of behavior you'd expect from people who genuinely believe they will be executed or harshly persecuted by the new government.

I can see making an exception for rare cases that demonstrate remarkable courage or character as a PR strategy, but extending it to just about any collaborator is completely misguided.

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I'm talking about the Afghan military and well-connected associates of the old regime, which would presumably make up the bulk of those who got away. There may well be many decent people, translators amongst them. Generally, the population of Afghan refugees as a whole is badly behaved.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ive-worked-refugees-decades-europes-afghan-crime-wave-mind-21506

So, not the translators Scott was referring to?

Many Afghans had collaborated with the Americans, eg as translators,

That is what he said. Translators are included as part of this pool but do not make up the not the bulk of refugees.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/22/two-fort-mccoy-afghan-refugees-charged-child-sex-spousal-abuse/5820807001/

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YMMV, but "embedded with" =/= "beloved by"

Terps are like officers. Maybe someone somewhere had a good one, but for all the rest of us, they're the people most likely to get us killed.

But the collaborator in Guy Ritchie's "The Covenant" seemed really nice

nobody was opposed to the translators getting citizenship

I can guarantee you that there were people who were opposed to giving Afghan refugees citizenship.

a heroic effort by certain immigration bureaucrats

I guess this one is an opinion, but I would not classify the people who rushed immigration forms for nationals of a terror-stricken country as “heroic”. Over the course of the war, there was a constant stream of Afghans who we thought were on our side becoming terrorists. The people administering this program should have known that.

I would expect ICE to be shot at, especially during active operations: but the National Guard? They're literally doing nothing but stand around. They're dads and uncles pulling overtime shifts away from their real jobs, not stormtroopers. I'm highly suspecting some sort of mental illness or dumb radicalization, but I'll refrain on coming to conclusions for now.

You know how anti-Muslim radicals attack Sikhs sometimes? Same thing; the kinds of people willing to engage in violent #resistance are probably not especially discerning about their targets.

More than 300 West Virginia National Guard members were deployed to Washington in August. Last week, about 160 of them volunteered to extend their deployment until the end of the year while the others returned to West Virginia just over a week ago.

https://apnews.com/article/national-guard-shooting-dc-c5785dd8920d2d1ac7d71fab769faf5f

How does volunteering to extend a deployment work?

I'm curious about the motive of the shooter (it'd be very American if this was attempted suicide-by-cop gone horribly wrong) - I don't think America is on the verge of a second civil war... but I would expect an American Civil War II in the current era to consist of Troubles-esque terrorism and small-scale paramilitary skirmishes.

My impression is that barring some sort of state of emergency or legislation regarding the matter, the federal government can't nationalize state national guardsmen over extended periods of time. But if the relevant individuals wish to volunteer to remain the feds can keep on paying them, so as long as the state consents to it. It was a sweet gig for one hundred and sixty people who got OT pay and expenses reimbursed in DC - right up until now.

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