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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13014 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025

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Afghan national

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?

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.

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?

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/

As I understand the chaotic fall of Kabul, there was very little "vetting", the evacuated were just lucky people who barged into the planes first. Is my understanding correct?

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