Linky Friday: An Interminable Week Edition

[LF1] Afghan Refugees Coming to the U.S. Aren’t Unvetted Security Threats
Nativists like J.D. Vance warn that we need to be “properly vetting” the Afghans coming to the U.S., neglecting to mention just how safe these people are. by FIONA HARRIGAN at Reason

There’s now a rift in the Republican Party over what the evacuation of Afghans should entail. On one hand, there are figures like Sen. Ben Sasse (R–Neb.) who support the evacuation of U.S.-affiliated Afghans who assisted American troops during the 20-year war in Afghanistan. “A great nation keeps its word,” he told Chris Wallace on Fox News last weekend. “We’re talking about men and women who risked their lives to protect Americans. They fought hand in hand with our troops and we made promises to them.”

But some loud voices are questioning the safety and sensibility of keeping those promises. Ohio Senate candidate and Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance rebuked Sasse in a video posted to Twitter on Monday. “Let’s help the Afghans who helped us,” he said, “but let’s ensure that we’re properly vetting them so that we don’t get a bunch of people who believe they should blow themselves up at a mall because somebody looked at their wife the wrong way.” Vance has found support from other nativists, including Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, and former Trump adviser and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller.

Vance is raising concerns that by and large don’t apply to the class of Afghans we’re talking about letting in the U.S. The security vetting of “the Afghans who helped us” has been so rigorous as to render his protests completely nonsensical.

It’s important to distinguish between Afghans coming to the U.S. and those going elsewhere for intermediate processing. The people coming straight to the U.S. “have completed the rigorous security vetting process” associated with the special immigrant visa (SIV) program, according to State Department spokesman Ned Price. “SIVs who are not at a particular stage” and those “who aren’t part of the SIV program” will be processed in Qatar, Bahrain, and Germany, since they have undergone less vetting.

The SIV program is an immigration pathway that was established in 2009 to reward Afghans for “faithful and valuable service to the U.S. government.” Careful vetting is a baked-in feature of the intensive 14-step application process. An applicant must submit proof of employment, a letter of recommendation from an American supervisor, and proof of the threats he faces as a result of his service, and he must complete various screenings along the way. He must complete an interview, where his fingerprints are taken. His case then moves through “administrative processing, which may include requesting additional documentation, conducting additional interviews, and interagency security checks,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

That is all on top of the security clearances that most Afghans had to acquire to assist U.S. forces in the first place. Combat interpreters, for instance, were vetted before ever going out on patrols with American troops. And as Task & Purpose reports, Betsy Fisher of the International Refugee Assistance Project says “that the vast majority of people who worked with the U.S. government ‘had to go through regular checks on their background,’ which included polygraph tests and ‘regular scans’ of their phones against databases of people who were suspected of connections with extremists.”

[LF2] Antifa is a Fatherless Child by Freddie deBoer

By my lights, the big problem with antifa in 2021 is this: there used to be a communal understanding within the broader radical left that antifa principles could easily be corrupted into an excuse for mindless violence, and that there are always individuals who are operating under exactly those bad motives within the broad umbrella of antifa. So antifa was respected but never trusted. But culture war and the collapse of any kind of shared philosophy or ethics within the protest movements have left that vital understanding forgotten and that self-policing function behind. The wisdom that said that antifa action could become apolitical violence for its own sake if we’re not careful, once widely shared by genuine radicals, has been drained from a “left” that learns its politics in elite universities where there’s total unanimity of opinion and on social media where all politics is performance. Absolutely vital ethical commitments have been lost in the span of a decade as people who will go on to be dentists and lawyers flock to burning neighborhoods to playact revolutionary, posing for Instagram before fading off into the kinds of bourgie lives the occupants of those neighborhoods will never lead.

Once upon a time people said “I support this movement and these ideals, but this behavior, this event, this person, no.” That would seem to be a basic aspect of adult maturity, to recognize that no political tendency, no matter how idealistically envisioned, can be healthy without good-faith criticism and social pressure from allies. But where once movement leaders with intrinsic credibility would lead the conversation about whether antifa were crossing the line at an event and needed to be confronted, now antifa gets discussed by a PR team of Twitter bluechecks who have never protested anything, know nothing about the myriad weird social realities that afflict all protests, don’t live in the neighborhoods where protest violence is happening, and have mostly already forgotten about the spasm of meandering, much-hashtagged protests from last year.

Someone who does Ted Lasso recaps for Buzzfuck.com thinks that antifa has to be good because the name says they’re against fascism. The poetry editor at the Times, who wouldn’t deign to sit through a boring organizing meeting in a million years, wants you to know that anyone who criticizes antifa is part of “the fash” by definition. Some shithead PhD at a nonprofit that gives report cards about how dedicated defense contractors are to recycling likes to throw on the black bandana he got at Hot Topic and march around at protests like a fucking circus clown and wants you to know that everyone must support our antifascist warriors. No skin in the game, no philosophical backing, no wisdom, no leadership. I am baffled by why people who work in media think I should give a single fuck what they think about antifa, given that the first time they saw the letters A-N-T-I-F-A strung together was about 15 months ago. These people pretended to care about protests for exactly the socially prescribed length of time, have moved on to pretending to care about Afghanistan, and in five years will look back on it all with mild distaste, when they aren’t preoccupied by their kid’s orthodontist appointments.

[LF3]U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans, Afghan allies to evacuate by By LARA SELIGMAN, ALEXANDER WARD and ANDREW DESIDERIO in Politico

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

Since the fall of Kabul in mid-August, nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated, most of whom had to pass through the Taliban’s many checkpoints. But the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

Asked about POLITICO’s reporting during a Thursday news conference, President Joe Biden said he wasn’t sure there were such lists, but also didn’t deny that sometimes the U.S. hands over names to the Taliban.

“There have been occasions when our military has contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said this, for example, this bus is coming through with X number of people on it, made up of the following group of people. We want you to let that bus or that group through,” he said. “So, yes there have been occasions like that. To the best of my knowledge, in those cases, the bulk of that has occurred and they have been let through.

“I can’t tell you with any certitude that there’s actually been a list of names,” he added. “There may have been. But I know of no circumstance. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that here’s the names of 12 people, they’re coming, let them through. It could very well have happened.”

NSC spokesperson Emily Horne added: “It is unfortunate that the White House was not asked for comment or explanation on such a serious issue. Had Politico asked us we would have given the same answer the President shared with the nation today: that in limited cases we have shared information with the Taliban that has successfully facilitated evacuations from Kabul.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment.

[LF4] The challenges of sustaining family-run events by Rick Henderson

I haven’t dealt much with another major player in the social fabric universe — family-run, in-person community activities. How are they handling a pandemic that has largely precluded close human contact? Will these activities resume? Can they regain the ground they lost after disappearing from the regular calendar for a year or two?

Maybe. Though not all will return.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned Rising Meadow Farm, a “sustainable” sheep farm south of Greensboro. Since Ann and Ron Fay bought the property in 1993, they’ve raised sheep for wool, skins, and, yes, meat. A few times a year they invite the public to visit, showcasing the farm and some of the local wares the neighbors produce that highlight time-honored traditions along with contemporary knowledge of sustainable practices.

On the typical open farm day (or shearing day, always a show!), a few hundred people may pass through. They’ll watch the herding dogs perform agility drills. Talk to the women (they’re typically women) plucking the coats of Angora rabbits. Pet some of the sheep at a small petting zoo. Visit the tents of the vendors. Listen to a local bluegrass band or folk singer. Buy yarn, spun from wool harvested on the farm — and, of course, lamb, delicious lamb. (They sell on their website and each Saturday at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market.)

Enjoy a delightful day in a welcome setting.

Sheep and alpacas at Rising Meadow Farm (Photo by Cara Henderson)
COVID put all that on hold. The Fays had scheduled an open farm day August 15 but had to cancel at the last minute. Local cases were surging and it wasn’t safe for them, the vendors, or visitors to roam the grounds.

In a phone interview, Ann said she wonders how much longer they can justify continuing events based at their home. They’re getting older. The pastoral novelty of their gathering now competes with the bells and whistles of professionally packaged agritourism events.

How do you pass along this family legacy to someone else?, I asked.

“I think you punt,” she laughed.

[LF5] Should Biden Resign Over The Afghanistan Debacle? by Erik Kain

Trending on Twitter today is some variation of the hashtag #BidenResign or just #resign or #ResignNow and so on and so forth. A lot of people who are brazen partisans got this going and a lot of other people who actually don’t give two shits about Afghanistan or the Afghan people are signal-boosting it.

The truth is, Biden and his administration had to exert enormous political courage to leave, to pull troops out of this failed two-decade-long occupation, to say once and for all that our attempts at nation-building were a failure—an arrogant, foolish, disgraceful failure that began with the Bush administration, inexcusably continued through Obama’s two terms (even after the death of Osama bin Laden) and only started to wind down under Trump, a president I despised but whose foreign policy was nevertheless somewhat less terrible than the neocons and neoliberals.

The terrorist attack in Kabul that left 12 US Marines and countless civilians dead and dozens more wounded is a horrific tragedy and certainly an example of why we should want no part in this backwater country filled with religious fanatics whose worldview could not be more different from our own. And while my heart goes out to the innocent people who died and who will now live under the Taliban’s cruel Sharia law, it remains a fact that this is not our country, these are not our people, we have no business determining their fate.

Everyone wringing their hands over what should have, or could have, been done better is engaging in grotesque hindsight. Lots and lots of armchair generals on Twitter going on and on about how this is all inexcusable and if only we’d done X, Y and Z differently everything would have been hunky-dory. Yes, isn’t it wonderful how in hindsight we can see all the little errors that were made. Isn’t it just as wonderful that all these people who give no shits about Afghanistan or its people are suddenly So Deeply Concerned with the whole thing.

I’m not a fan of Joe Biden but I admire his willingness to do something unpopular with the political class, something that he knew he’d get pushback on from the right but also from within his own party. Of course, I think most Americans would rather we not be there anymore, would rather we focused our energy and money here at home or at least through charitable aid rather than brute force. It is our political class, the planners and the big-wigs, who are the most warlike, who are quickest to rush us to war, to send young men to die. Who drum up fear and nativism and all the other bad impulses so easily fomented among the public.

To hell with that. The real scandal is the occupation itself, not Biden’s botched withdrawal.

[LF6] The First Thing to Understand About NIL Is That Nobody Fully Understands NIL by ROSS DELLENGER at SI

he first thing to understand about NIL is that nobody fully understands NIL. For decades, college athletes were not allowed to profit off their images. Then, last year, a patchwork of states began passing laws—all somewhat different from each other—mandating that they be permitted to. The NCAA urged Congress to pass a uniform set of rules, but no such help was forthcoming. And so, with the state laws about to go into effect, the NCAA threw the doors wide open, saying that, effective July 1, all athletes could benefit from their name, image and likeness. As if begging Congress to come to its regulatory rescue, the NCAA kept the rules vague: It has released guidelines stating only that schools cannot facilitate NIL ventures for athletes and that athletes cannot strike deals that are built around pay-for-play. Everything else is up to interpretation.

Some schools are operating under state laws that mandate additional rules. For instance, states like Texas and South Carolina specifically bar athletes from using their school’s marks in NIL deals. Other states’ laws don’t address the issue. Meanwhile, schools operating in states without laws get to make up their own playbooks (and, as we’ll see, whether to allow athletes to use those school marks is among the most consequential decisions they face).

Midnight on July 1 was met with a flurry of deals. Since then, overwhelmed school compliance staffs have been fielding up to 200 inquiries from players per day.

Between the NCAA’s hands-off approach and a lack of clarity around how state laws will be enforced, the schools are policing themselves. Creative interpretation of the NCAA guidelines is not only expected, but it’s also already happening. And it’s not difficult. As long as there is a documented exchange between an athlete and a business, it passes muster for not being facilitated by the school. If a restaurant wants to give an offensive lineman free meals for a year for tweeting an endorsement, it’s fine. If a local shoe store wants to pay a quarterback $10,000 a year to wear its cleats once, it’s cool.

“It’s pretty much a free-for-all,” says Tom McMillen, the CEO of Lead1, which represents the athletic directors of the Football Bowl Subdivision.

For years, most coaches fought against allowing athletes to be compensated for their likeness—an American right that every other college student holds. Now they have suddenly joined the chorus of change, crowing about their players’ deals, honing recruiting pitches and, some of them at least, publicly encouraging their supporters to pony up.

After all, NIL has evolved into the newest snazzy tool to woo young athletes, another question for recruits to ask.

[LF7] The Root Cause of Afghanistan Crisis? Domestic US Politics BY ANDREW DONALDSON in Diplomatic Courier

The answers to “what went wrong in Afghanistan” begin in that grey area of unlearned history lessons from the last failure of American foreign policy leading to desperate evacuations of an embassy in Saigon to the embassy in Kabul. Afghanistan is a political failure, it is a policy failure, it is a military failure, and it is a human failure. Most of all, it is, was, and will forever be known as an avoidable failure as too many of us watched idly while it slowly metastasized into today’s crisis — a crisis which history and common sense were warning us about.

Any post-mortem on “what went wrong in Afghanistan” that does not include a root cause of dysfunction within the United States government to operate as a competent and accountable governing mechanism is missing the root domestic cause of the foreign policy disaster that the Global War on Terror has become. The failures of the United States government to learn from past mistakes incubated the current dysfunction that inevitably bled through to foreign policy failures like America’s 20 years in Afghanistan. A United States that cannot conduct conflict resolution within its own government can neither project nor maintain a coherent foreign policy to the rest of the world.