Please Think Back on When and Why We Went to Afghanistan

[BumRushDaShow]

69. "See Trudeau/Canada, for one."

So how many ships and/or planes has Canada sent there since they apparently barely had something to evacuate their own embassy and managed to grab a "couple planeloads" of refugees, but are otherwise "monitoring" the situation.

August 13, 20216:18 PM EDT Last Updated 2 days ago
Asia Pacific
In desperation, U.S. scours for countries willing to house Afghan refugees

By Idrees Ali and Humeyra Pamuk, Jonathan Landay


WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration has been holding secret talks with more countries than previously known in a desperate attempt to secure deals to temporarily house at-risk Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, four U.S. officials told Reuters.

The previously unreported discussions with such countries as Kosovo and Albania underscore the administration's desire to protect U.S.-affiliated Afghans from Taliban reprisals while safely completing the process of approving their U.S. visas.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/desperation-us-scours-countries-willing-house-afghan-refugees-2021-08-13/

I am hearing the same sort of nonsensical arguments that were hurled against Obama when he was trying to move people out of Gitmo and getting someone to take them in, because no one wanted them "here" in the U.S., and Congress refused to fund what it would take to actually "logistically and legally close" the facility, and house the prisoners (those who were deemed truly "terrorists" ) here. In fact they even explicitly wrote legislation that stripped out the funding for him to do it.

I.e., it's like deja vu -

Funds to Close Guantánamo Denied

By David M. Herszenhorn

May 20, 2009

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to cut from a war spending bill the $80 million requested by President Obama to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to bar the transfer of detainees to the United States and its territories. The vote, which complicates Mr. Obama’s efforts to shutter the prison by his deadline of Jan. 22, 2010, was 90 to 6. Republicans voted unanimously in favor of cutting the money.

“The American people don’t want these men walking the streets of America’s neighborhoods,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota. “The American people don’t want these detainees held at a military base or federal prison in their back yard, either.” The six Democrats who voted against the measure include some of their party’s most prominent voices on military affairs and criminal justice issues. Among them were Senators Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the majority whip; Tom Harkin of Iowa and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island were the others voting against the measure. The vote was on an amendment to a $91.3 billion military spending bill that will finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as some other national security programs, including preparations for pandemic flu, through Sept. 30.

The abrupt decision by Senate Democratic leaders to strip out the money for closing the Guantánamo detention center amounted to a strong rebuke of the Obama White House, which lawmakers in both parties have criticized for not providing a more detailed plan for what will be done with the 240 detainees currently held in the prison.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21detain.html