By Tommy Acosta
Sedona News (August 20, 2021) War is the most exciting chess game of them all.
Hands down, war requires the finesse of thinking chess does but manifests in the real world with real consequences…life or death.
Consider the chess game now being played between the U.S. and the Taliban.
Start from the understanding that a deal was made between the U.S. and the Taliban, where we get the pipelines and they get their country back.
Both sides are not technically at war anymore, yet the chess game is on.
The videos of hordes of panicking Afghans rushing the airport and storming the gates is not a good start for the Taliban or the U.S.
The Taliban don’t want to add any more oil to the fire by getting themselves filmed shooting women and killing babies.
It’s up to the Taliban leadership to keep the hotheads out there from making a terrible error in judgement and blowing a kid’s head off.
While the U.S. has been playing the hell out of that plane and the people running clip, a few clips have made the media showing desperate people with their arms flailing through a gate, reaching to American soldiers on the other side to save them.
The question was raised by an elected official today that we need to vet whoever we allow into our country from Afghanistan because terrorist could hide amongst them.
Which means people have to be vetted before being allowed into the airport, causing crowds to swell, outside the gates.
The Taliban is now tasked with maintaining order at the airport gates and the U.S. is tasked in vetting those trying to get in.
The more time the U.S. spends vetting, the more desperate the crowds outside will become.
As that happens the tempers of the Taliban are tested. They don’t want to reveal their cruelty to the world, yet they must maintain order. Talk about a Catch-22.
If the leadership want to legitimize and get a bank to hold all the money they are going to make from the pipelines, they have to show patience and compassion to those trying to escape, even if it’s only for the cameras.
The Taliban, if they hope to become relevant and free to concentrate on their deal with the Chinese over the precious minerals the world needs for computer chips, have to walk a fine line here between maintaining order and appearing to do so in a humane way.
They got no choice but to be as cool as can be for now (until they get their bank cards) and blame the Americans for the chaos.
The U.S. is in a tenuous position. By not letting people in and vetting them inside the airport rather than at the gate, they are allowing frightened crowds to congregate and create a backlog.
The U.S. has already had to use teargas on them in hopes of controlling the influx and the more force we use the worse we are going to look.
The longer the crowds remain locked outside the gates the greater the chance for someone to send a bullet in the wrong direction.
Cooler heads are trying to prevail. Who wants to wait another twenty years for those oil & gas pipelines?
It’s getting embarrassing for both sides. The longer they stay in the news the worse it is for all parties. This humanitarian crisis needs to be resolved pronto for the deal to work.
The Taliban need to back away from the perimeter of the airport and the U.S. needs to let the people in. Vet them on the airport grounds and evict those who don’t pass muster.
The public’s attention to what’s happening in Afghanistan needs to be diverted. There’s too much money on the table for the deal to fail.
Don’t be surprised if we get an across the board dip in reporting on the Afghan crisis and the media goes back to its obsession with Covid19 and the Mexican border fiasco.
The bottom line? The Afghan Pipelines will be built.
This is an advertisement
3 Comments
As I recall it … President Trump successfully negotiated with the Taliban and a gradual withdrawal – civilians first, troops last – was decided.
Biden appears to have gone potty, troops out first, leaving civilians to fend for themselves.
Alsol eaving behind a shedload of military equpiment which was really not all that sensible.
But then,nothing about the current administration makes any sense except to America’s enemies who think it all wonderful.
“This, too, will pass”; it being a temporary glitch which will be overcome.
As will the Biden gig.
Patience …
?
Regardless of how the media manipulates events, the current American administration really screwed the pooch in Afghanistan, completely losing any and all gains created there over the last twenty years and gave China a big leg up on America in the Middle East. This epic failure will create global ripples for years to come, and it didn’t even need to happen this way. With a solid path to success already in place, Biden chose the most direct route to his failure. I’m not sure how one chooses patience with such a colossal, embarrassing global blunder of epic proportions.
Once again thanks for your perspective Tommy
You get a conversation going
The former president said at his inauguration we spent enough on wars that we should bring the troops home and we could have rebuilt our infrastructure twice with those monies
What happened?
Nothing.
The troops did not come home and the infrastructure did not get rebuilt
In 2020 his people negotiated with the Taliban – not Afghans – to exit May 2021
In 2019 or 2020 his people negotiated to get the Taliban leader out of jail
Are things a mess? Yes. But it is a 19 years and 11 month mess created/monitored by 4 administrations.
The former president did nothing to improve infrastructure. Now that the new administration wants to do something about it……he tells Republicans not to vote for it or he will “primary” them
It is his way or the highway. He was / is a dictator not a former president. Elected officials should be leaders not followers of the formers guys orders
Switching gears it was funny that the former guy got booed in Alabama after suggesting vaccines. I guess when you downplay the virus and vaccines (even though he got his secretly Jan. 2020) that you cannot change your negative messaging.