By James Taylor -August 20, 2021
File: Taliban insurgents turn themselves in to Afghan National Security Forces at a forward operating base in Puza-i-Eshan -a.jpg
Created: 23 April 2010
CBS News published an article today claiming global warming was a major factory in the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan and creating murderous chaos throughout the country, rather than political ineptitude. CBS News argues that global warming created horrible weather conditions that decimated crop production during the past 30 years in the country, and the Taliban fed off the misery experienced by Afghan farmers. The objective truth is entirely the opposite.
According to the CBS News article, titled “How climate change helped strengthen the Taliban,” “Rural Afghanistan has been rocked by climate change. The past three decades have brought floods and drought that have destroyed crops and left people hungry. And the Taliban — likely without knowing climate change was the cause — has taken advantage of that pain.”
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) keeps meticulous crop production data for nations throughout the world, including Afghanistan. In the graph below, the information website The Global Economy presents the UN FAO data on cereal crop yields (corn, wheat, and rice) in Afghanistan, with the left axis showing kilograms per hectare:
Afghanistan crop production, by year
CBS News claims that climate change in Afghanistan during “the last three decades … have destroyed crops and left people hungry.” As you can see, however, Afghanistan has fully doubled its crop yields during the past three decades. Also, Afghan farmers have set new production records on a regular basis, especially during the past few years.
It may be convenient for CBS News to divert attention from the current deadly debacle in Afghanistan by blaming it on climate change. The objective truth, however, is that Afghan crop production has tremendously benefited from a modestly warming world. If global warming has had any impact on Afghan farmer sentiment throughout the country, it has clearly been to make farmers happier, more prosperous, and less vulnerable to the Taliban.
James Taylor is the President of the Heartland Institute. Taylor is also director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy. Taylor is the former managing editor (2001-2014) of Environment & Climate News, a national monthly publication devoted to sound science and free-market environmentalism.
If you enjoy climate porn, you have no sense of shame. Disgusting….
Maybe they could investigate if hot weather makes sniffing girl’s hair irresistible to Joe.
We keep getting told that climate change is going to turn the earth into a cinder and we will all starve from crop failure. When the truth is that it is *minimum* temps that are going up, contributing to longer growing seasons and more crop growth – especially during warm nights. The alarmists *always* get things backwards, primarily because they aren’t pushing facts and truth but an agenda.
Could it be that the real agenda was to get a hold of Afghanistan’s rare earth minerals and copper for production of industrial wind turbines?
Then, in a way, climate change is responsible. Oh, sorry, not climate change but Climate Change™, that cult started by IPCC.
Wakhan corridor bordering China, IMO. Belt and Road Initiative.
Yes, I just discovered that tiny 50km direct border between China and Afghanistan today. I think it was on some Indian outlet.
50 shades of South Africa, Libya, etc.
Mr. Sommer: Well, yeah, that’s the real agenda of the CCP. The surprise is, that is also the Biden agenda! That is, evidently Biden WANTS China to have the stuff in the ground (along with a few drones and other military hardware and bric-a-brac), all of which we left behind. Joe couldn’t have done it better if he planned it during a lucid moment. Do not worry about the Chinese putting Afghans and Uighers to slave labor in mines, though. The State Dep’t is writing a VERY stern letter asking them not to.
Biden has been negotiating with China for years. Now we know what he was selling.
That is ALL it ever has been. China’s ambassador met with the head of the Taliban about 10 days ago. They did a deal on that. And China wants nothing from Afghanistan other than those rare earths and minerals, period. The Chinese will mine the mountains flat to get what they want. Count on it.
And make sure that the Taliban has enough resources to keep attacking the west.
In France, the wine naturally has more alcohol, because grapes have more sugar.
One “news” person asked (two years ago I think) a wine maker a Q trying to make it into a bad thing, the person being asked was trying to be helpful (why do people want to help these TV reporters?), but he found no way to make that sound bad…
Better french wines are regularly 14 %bv now. 20y ago it was unusual to find >13%.
That’s great news.
The law gives them +/- 0.5% bv margin on what is put on the label. Many producers understate the alcohol level to save on the heavy taxation. So 14 may be close to 14.5 %
“20y ago it was unusual to find >13%.”
Sorry you are talking utter rubbish, I have done grape picking 3x in France & can assure you since the 1980s when I did it 1st time, nothing has changed!
Eg. in the peak warm period of 1988-1990 Alsace “vendange tardive” was higher in sugar than today.
It was the greatest millesime of all time!
Last night we had 2 bottles of Crozes hermitage 2018.
One was 13%, the other 13.5%.
Both perfectly normal.
Yes, you are right.
Alcohol concentration depends most on fashion (induced by wine “experts” in magazines), thus it is adjusted by enologist in the cellar, to fit the characteristics which are closer to the market demand. Most often what we see on the bottle label does not reflect the sugar content of the grapes at the time of harvest.
Well they say they used to ADD sugar, and now, they don’t.
Back in the 80’s when climate debate was in its infancy, metereoligist the late John Daly suggested placing thousands of min/max thermometers in carefully selected sights away from any possible UHI influences worldwide to assess the effect of increasing CO2. A narrowing of these differences would indicate the increasing effect of CO2. I have read on several sites that such appears to be the case with increasing minimum nightly temperatures although of course not from thermometers as specified by Daly. Although a sceptic myself, if correct, this narrowing would be of concern.
So, evidently, farmers doing better makes them support the Taliban?
Certainly a flourishing trade in opium has funded the Taliban
Not true–The Taliban over saw the largest reduction in opium crop levels ever in 2001. The next year and every year since the amount of opium acreage under US rule has increased. The Taliban crackdown on the drug trade was one of the .ireasons for our invasion. It has always been a big funding trade for the CIA and some international banking concerns.
Do you have any evidence to support those claims? Or do you just believe whatever the voices in your head tell you?
Just look at the graphic posted by Cris Hanley down page. The same is available to anyone who wants to look for the truth
Actually it doesn’t show what you claimed. As for the causes that color your fevered imagination. Nonsense.
The truth? From the Taliwackers? The people who profit from the heroin trade? You really are gullible.
Mark, you can argue whether or not it’s the CIA or whatever Three Letter Agency (TLA) you prefer, but we have the technology and manpower (OK, Person Power) to completely control what comes over our borders.
Yet any sober, responsible, well thought out plan to control what comes through is scotched in the hallowed halls of our government. Why is that?
Either our D.C. elites, elected or entrenched bureaucracies, are stupid (they are) or they are bought (they are) or they are blackmailed (they are), or they are in it only to enrich themselves at the expense of the citizens they allegedly serve (that they do) but there is no reasonable explanation for the things we see with our own eyes other than the preceding.
It’s all observable, but not apparent, thanks to a complicit
propaganda machinemedia.Have you ever been to the border? The idea that we could ever completely control everything that came over, under, or around our borders is utter nonsense.
Yes. My family settled in Texas in the 1850s. The border is h-u-u-u-g-e.
Fences work. We have amazing technology. We have enormous numbers of misused and misdirected military personnel busy minding everyone else’s business but our own.
It can be done. It’s a political decision and our politicians are in favor of a
porouswide open border.Why is NASA doing Muslim outreach when we could direct those funds towards protecting our borders? No borders, no nation. Political calculus with an eye towards the politician’s wallet.
NASA ? Why would they be protection our borders? They are supposed to be challenging the “final frontier”.
Greg – Posted on here some years ago was an article on NASA being directed to engage in Muslim Outreach. It was during the early part of the first term of the administration** that preceded 45s term.
It would have been about 2010, +/- a year or so.
No telling what actually what happened to that policy. For all I know it’s still staffed and funded. Stuff like that never seems to go away.
**He Who Shall Remain Nameless (HWSRN)
Fences slow down what is coming through, they don’t stop it.
Short of putting a man every 20 feet along the border, you can’t stop those walking across the border. And even that won’t stop those who fly over or tunnel under the border. Nor will it stop those that come by sea.
Israel might beg to differ. All they get now are the odd rockets.
Here’s a 2017 article about their wall. 90% effective then and I’m sure they’ve continued to improve. You are correct on the point that no wall will be 100% effective, but I’m willing to settle for 95% – 98% compared to what we have now which is… bupkiss.
We certainly have more border but we also have more money available (printed, yes… sigh) and equal or possible superior technology.
Can you recall just how eager our Congress was to approve border wall funding for President Trump? I’m certain you do recall. Funding was fought tooth and nail for a proven solution.
And don’t forget my point that we have armed forces refereeing every lunchroom food fight everywhere around the World that could be stationed and continue their training along the US border instead.
I’d rather our troops be used to protect our sovereignty instead of meddling in other countries’ affairs, particularly when those food fights are no threat to our national security.
There are other political solutions that go along with building a wall that would increase its effectiveness, but our Congress isn’t getting paid to keep our country secure.
(Ha! And those we catch do we turn them back? Heck no! They’re given a plane ticket to your neighborhood and set up with food, clothing, shelter, a smartphone, pocket money, and directions to the nearest voting booth.)
Dang! Lost the link. Sorry, Mark.
TLA the ultimate recursive TLA !!
nice one.
Easily found.
A one year drop in a continuous increasing trend. Hardly the proof you are after.
Bingo, John.
The U.S. gubbmint has turned a blind eye to the human rights abuses (China, anyone?) of many countries so long as money is flowing into the pockets of our D.C. overlords. If there’s no money flowing from a country, then they don’t care either way (Some African countries anyone?)
But cut off any of that flow of money and Lookout! Send in the Marines to turn the spigot back on.
No, sorry, the Taliban only cracked down on Afghans using opium. They make all of their money by taxing the export.
The Taliban also cracked down on growing the opium – which worked for a short while. Trouble is that there’s too much money to be made for it to be shut down permanently. Every TLA in Washington and Europe tried to do something and accomplished nothing – more from bungled attempts and lack of knowledge than any concerted effort to keep it going – Hanlon’s razor rather than conspiracy.
No, they destroyed their RIVALS crops, theirs they protect, it is one of their major finance streams.
They’re more likely to follow the al Qaeda model and take control of mineral and gem deposits.
“Support” is a strong word, more like the average Afgan is terrified of these things who have no limit to their cruelty.
Actually, my take on the Taliban takeover is that it is an invasion by a Pakistani faction, sort of the fire-breathers being told to go take over Afghanistan, not Pakistan.
The Pashtun are a highland people, with territories on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border and are tenacious tough fighters, as Trump correctly pointed out. They make up about 42% – the real core of the Taliban (which means ‘students’) and were educated by Saudi funded schools in Pakistan that taught a strict fundamental form of Sunni Islam mixed with a little Saudi neo-wahabism. The Pakistan leadership still maintains they have no official connection with the Taliban, despite being able to maintain communications and a certain degree of control.
If the U.S. wanted to wipe out the Taliban, or at least diminish them to the point that they were no longer a problem, the U.S. would have to hit the Taliban in Pakistan where they run and hide.
The U.S. allowed the North Vietnamese a safe haven all through the war. Big Mistake.
The U.S. allowed the Taliban a safe haven all through the war. Big Mistake.
Do you see a pattern here?
The solution is not to give your enemy any quarter and definitely don’t give them a safe place they can run to and hide and rebuild to attack you again.
Too much appeaser, Leftwing anti-war delusions are involved in our wars. About the time things get reasonably under control, the leftists get into power and screw everything up.
The U.S. military goes in and brings the situation under control, and then the leftwing appeasers come in and throw all that hard work away like it was nothing.
It happened in South Vietnam, and it is happening here in Afghanistan, and some of the same leftwing appeasers (Joe Biden) are involved in both debacles. That would make sense, wouldn’t it. Once a screwup, always a screwup. Once an appeaser, always an appeaser.
The troops who fought in these wars have demonstrated they did their job. They went in and settled the situation down, and in the case of Afghanistan, they prevented another terrorist attack from Afghanistan for the last 20 years. Mission Accomplished!
It’s not your fault that delusional, leftwing fools got into power and threw away 20 years of blood, sweat and tears in Afghanistan. You did your job. It was the fools who didn’t do their job. They are the ones to blame. They are the ones who should hang their heads in shame. Not U.S. troops who did everything required of them.
The Afghan war was not lost on the battlefield, it was given away by a leftwing, appeaser fool.
The United States needs to impeach Biden and remove him from office in order to get back our Honor. The world needs to see that the American people do not agree with Biden’s delusional view of the world.
As I pointed out in a post upthread, the hard-core of the Taliban are the Pashtun people of the northern highlands and the only way to get rid of the Taliban militarily would be to commit genocide. The international military effort spent 20 years suppressing the Taliban and pushing Al Queda terrorists out of Afghanistan – not bad considering the fools in Washington once again tried to use the military to achieve a political objective. But it wasn’t going to last – history should have taught everyone involved that the Taliban would wait out the occupation then begin again.
Leftwing appeaser fools throughout our government and upper echelons of our military.
I think – and hope – the pretend humanist/”antiwar” left, who now says the disaster was predicted and inevitable, is forever discredited.
Bad things caused by the magic molecule CO2, number 28,417 (or near): How climate change helped strengthen the Taliban“
Wow! I always get excited when I find another one to add to my collection.
It didn’t but there has been one interesting thing happen – Biden admitted that he followed the advice of a consensus of experts who assured him the Afghans would hold for at least the rest of the year, if not longer. It was a damning indictment of consensus opinion!
So, uh, you actually believe Joey Biden? Someone pointed out that Joey “Ice Cream” Biden has been on the wrong side of every big foreign policy decision for the last 50 years. He and the Great Obomba had 8 years to solve the Afghan problem.
Has there ever been a right side to any big US foreign policy decision for the last 50 years?
Yes! Trump’s Remain in Mexico, certainly a foreign policy decision, was on the right side. Trump’s decision to confront Russia by supplying Ukraine with actual defensive weapons was on the right side. Ronald Reagan’s decision to confront the Soviet Union, including on the Berlin Wall, led to the Soviet Union failing – again certainly on the right side. Bush’s decision to kick Saddam out of Kuwait and then out of Iraq was a foreign policy decision on the right side.
Clinton, Obama, and now Biden – not so much. Clinton failed to stop Al Qaida when he could have. Same with Obama and ISIS. Biden? He’s now set up shop for every jihadi group in the world!
“Trump’s decision to confront Russia by supplying Ukraine with actual defensive weapons was on the right side. “
Are those the weapons they were promised as long as they investigated dirt on Biden’s son? You know the ones congress approved?
Man, you really will believe anything.
“I’d like you to do me a favour.”
simple is just that, simple.
Ooooo back to the Russian coluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusion, is it simple?
Trump getting North Korea to the negotiating table – a first for any US president.
It was a first I will give you that. But nothing came of it, except international humiliation for Trump when Kim completely ignored him afterwards.
Oh I don’t know – both sides had agendas and both sides made small gains and humiliated each other by turns. It was never going to be a fast process, whatever the US state department may have said, but getting North Korea to talk opens the door to future negotiations. Given a US president that isn’t viewed as an incompetent weak idiot.
“Given a US president that isn’t viewed as an incompetent weak idiot.”
Is that before Trump started, during his presidency or after?
Oddly enough, despite many people really hating him, he was widely seen as a strong, fairly competent president – outside of the USA at any rate. If you judge the reaction of some of the other leaders of the world, the difference between how Trump was viewed and how Biden is viewed is telling. Biden is weak, viewed as incompetent and probably senile, unlikely to serve out his single term in office; and as such, other leaders of the world are mostly ignoring the USA until they need a signature on a piece of paper.
Amazing that you’re apparently oblivious to your derangement. It’s like you’re an alcoholic in denial. It turns you into a barking moron, but you just can’t stop with your precious TDS.
Yes.
I sort of do believe it – the fact that Obama, Biden and their leftist advisors got it so badly wrong consistently over time is typical of mistakes the Democrat leadership has made time and again. The fact is that whatever the strength or weakness of their position, they try to negotiate a diplomatic solution then send in the military when it all goes wrong, which it seems to about 50% of the time – the other times they end up with a badly flawed agreement rarely worth the paper it’s written on.
The Democrat approach is to be fearful of dictators and fearful of war, and so they are on the defensive mentally right off the bat. They are the classic schoolyard kid who gives up his lunch money to the playground bully.
The Democrats are always looking for ways to escape their responsibilities on the International scene. They don’t see the Big Picture when it comes to U.S. national security. All they see is the Little Picture of their petty political careers/power, which blinds them to everything else.
Biden isn’t sending in the American troops because he is afraid of the optics.
If he sends them in now, the people who end up dying will be blamed on Biden, and he doesn’t want that to happen, so it paralyzes him into inaction.
He’s hoping things will just work themselves out and won’t make him look any worse, but the longer this situation goes on, the more likely everything is going to blow up.
Biden is showing weakness and that only provokes people like the Taliban and the other terrorists. Biden doesn’t understand this. That’s one thing that makes Biden so dangerous as the leader of our nation.
Just got another call from the CDC National Immunity ? out of Chicago, Illinois.
I didn’t know they worked on Saturday.
I didn’t anwwer it, of course. Although I hear you don’t have to answer some of them anymore to get your phone infected.
I don’t know anybody at the CDC in Chicago.
On the other hand, the number of people who are declaring that they informed Biden that this outcome was likely, has been legion.
The number of highly placed administration officials who are willing to go on record contradicting their boss is astounding.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-biden-officials-turning-more-than-afghanistan
Hmm. D’you think he can last even a year? He might have to be replaced before the mid terms at this rate.
This Afghanistan mistake is so glaring that all the Democrats are trying to position themselves so Biden’s obvious stupidity doesn’t damage their careers.
And Biden is still not doing anything, which just makes him look worse and worse. I’m sure his Defense Department has offered him all sorts of viable options, but he obviously is turning thumbs down on anything.
It’s stunning, the lack of action, in the face of the immediate need. Joe Biden holds himself out as a lover of other people but he has demonstrated in the past in South Vietnam, and here in Afghanistan, that he has no thoughts for all the poor people he is leaving in the lurch.
The Democrats still have Kamala, so they can throw Biden overboard..
I don’t think they can throw Biden overboard just yet without losing a lot of votes in the midterms. The question is whether he can actually last until even next year?
Yes, the handwriting is on the wall. Dementia Zhou is rolling around under the Democrat bus.
This does seem to be the imminent approach of the Kackling Kommie Kamala regime. (Out of the frying pan and into the fire we go).
When the propaganda outlets start running their montages of confused Biden moments, you will know that the resignation moment is near. Then I suppose that it will be called his Brave Decision to Put the Country First.
What an idiotic claim since the Taliban has been there for a long time and had control of most of the Country once before, long before GW fear monster was piling up under warmist/alarmists beds.
The Afghan army has long been a running joke, wasn’t surprised they fold rather quickly despite outnumbering the Taliban.
Especially when the Bidenistas failed to deliver fuel to them, making it impossible to resist. Very much similar to South Vietnam in 1975.
If I recall correctly, the leftwing appeasers in the U.S. Congress cut about $700 million from South Vietnam’s defense budget (which was a lot of money at the time), and these cuts really hurt the South Vietnamese military.
And I imagine someone will bring up the fact that a Republican, Gerald Ford, was president at the time. The way to judge this situation is to see who has the power in Washington DC at this time. As I said, the Democrats made drastic cuts to South Vietnam’s budget. President Ford vetoed the bills. The Democrat-controlled Congress overrode Ford’s veto. So who has the power?
One story was the South Vietnamese were so short of gasoline in the last days that they were gassing up one ambulance, and then chaining two or three more ambulances that were out of gas, behind the first, and towing them to the casualty pickup point (a helicopter landing pad).
And later on, Biden had no sympathy for bringing South Vietnamese refugees out, just like he has no sympathy for the Afghan people. Apparently, judging by his words, none of these people mean anything to him. He says he cares, but I don’t think he does.
There’s no guarantee that the Afghan army amounts to 300,000. A lot of those are just soldiers on paper, who get an American paycheck.
It’s all about human psychology in war.
South Vietnam had a very good military at the end of American troop involvment in the country, which ended in 1973, with the Paris Peace Agreement, and all American combat troops left South Vietnam and went home.
During the period from Oct. 1973 to April 1975, when Saigon finally fell, the North Vietnamese had launched several major military attacks on the South Vietnamese, and the South Vietnames military drove them back.
So the South Vietnamese military showed they were of the same quality as the North Vietnamese military. The were fully capable of defending South Vietnam if given proper support.
When the final attack by the North Vietnamese came in early 1975, the U.S. Congress, led by Biden and Kennedy and other leftwing appeasers told the South Vietnamese military to go to hell, that the U.S. was not going to come to their aid, even though the U.S. was legally obligated to do so under the Paris Peace Agreement, and was morally obligated to do so, as well.
When the South Vietnamese understood that they had been abandoned by the U.S., the military lost hope, and it was every man for himself then, and they just threw down their weapons and ran away (some did not, but too few to matter). The North Vietnamese just marched in with little resistance, just like the Taliban are doing in Afghanistan today.
So, I wasn’t surprised at all to see the same thing happen to the Afghan army when Biden abandoned them. It’s deja vue all over again.
All of these people were depending on the United States, much more than their corrupt governments, and when the leftwing appeasers abandoned them, in the name of the U.S., they felt thoroughly abandoned.
I really can’t adequately describe the disgust I feel for the delusional leftists that fostered all this misery and death on the world. If I could read their minds perfectly, then I could descibe myself adequately, but some things I’m just not certain enough of to really blast away.
You forgot to mention the stupidity of politicians that use the military to achieve political objectives. I’m all for military intervention when absolutely necessary but you have to limit the objectives to achievable military ones, then bring in diplomats and politicians to sort out the political objectives at the same time. I think there was far too much reliance in Washington that the military would just take care of everything for them.
Thew Taliban are brutal to all real women and girls. I wonder if they have a woke position to transgender women. I would not bet on it
No, the Taliban will throw transgenders off the top of a building.
I think griff should go to Afghanistan and fix the global warming problem there.
I would be happy to chip in to pay for a one-way ticket for Griff to go to Afghanistan to fix Climate Change.
Never mind corn, wheat & rice production – how did the poppy seed crops fare?
(Question submitted by H. Biden)
“When I was in Afghanistan’s navy I did help with the harvest
(youngster in back of the photo)
I should be excused for occasionally then and the later enjoying fruit of my harvesting labour of love.
Only thing I regret for never visiting Columbia to help with the agricultural efforts there, great produce and in high demand too “
said H.B.
Everything wrong is caused by climate change, especially by heating or cooling. We have to break the vicious cycle spring-summer-fall-winter.
LOL They just HAD to go there, didn’t they. No remaining credibility at all and they just keep piling on the garbage heap of stories they produce.
Vietnam will be next!!!
Beyond belief.
This has to be a new low for the mainstream media.
Sometimes these phony attributions are amusing, but this nauseating piece exploits the past, present and future misery of the Afghan people for nothing more than to try and snag the attention of a bored audience, i.e. to try and profit from it. They have no shame.
Afghanistan crop production trend:
Look! It’s a hockey stick!
The Taliban clamped down hard on poppy production the last time they were in power. I expect they will do it again.
Can’t see that happening, cos large qtys of it head over the borders into Russia for the junkies in Irkutsk and then further off into Eastern Europe.
Taliban always liked a bit of extra foreign exchange, and stirring up trouble in the other Russian “stans”, so guess why Lavrov was over there on bended knee to them!
For one year, then it returned to normal.
Mr. Hanley: Does this chart debunk CBS News’ AGW attribution? It clearly shows increased crops that seem to have thrived in the catastrophic aftermath of GW in the Kush. That would be on topic.
Or are you trying to say opium crop increased under US “control”? (Anyone watching now can see why I use quotes with “control”- US utterly failed to control this real estate). ‘Cause that would be off topic, and it might be used by trolls like JohnVC to smear US (as if US hasn’t smeared itself in all other things Afghan) and change the subject from the Clown Broadcasting Network and AGW propaganda in our media. What’s your point?
One thing that has puzzled from the beginning, the media asking about exit strategy right at the beginning of the campaign in 2001. I remember thinking, why do we need an exit strategy? We’re still in Germany, Japan and South Korea decades later and it’s worked out well for peace, why do the Afgans get abandoned?
I am a USA citizen and I don’t want the USA playing world policeman. There is a monetary cost too….Germany, Japan, and S. Korea pay some of the cost…Afghan doesn’t. Afghans have had 20 freakin’ years …it’ is apparently not a country but a bunch of tribes who are mostly low IQ and like to rule from the barrel of a gun. I have never been to Afghan and have no desire to visit but my solution is real simple – the only good Tallyban is a dead Tallyban.
If we could guarantee that the terror that will result from the Taliban retaking taking Afghanistan, then I would agree with you.
However history shows that as soon as they feel secure, they will start finding ways to attack the infidels of the world.
The Taliban not so much in the past but they will offer training camps, support and shelter to all Islamic terrorist groups – It’s a good source of revenue apart from anything else.
They have fairly good IQ’s but a low (almost nonexistent) tolerance for anyone interfering in their lives – be it foreign governments, their own governments (they treat taxes as somebody else’s problem) and even other tribes. Tribal governance is extremely minimal and usually concerned with keeping the body count and subsequent revenge killings down. There has been a very long running power struggle between the more urbanized central population (who are far less tribal and had their own monarchy some time ago) and the tribal groups in the more outlying areas. It’s not going to get sorted any time soon.
“One thing that has puzzled from the beginning, the media asking about exit strategy right at the beginning of the campaign in 2001.”
The leftwing appeasers, including those in the leftwing media don’t want to go to war in the first place, so their second option, when war is inevitable, is to look for an exit strategy. They don’t consider anything other than “how do we get out of this”? They have no stomach for confronting dictators. They run away as fast as they can. That’s what Biden is doing in Afghanistan.
This is actual long-term crop production to 2007:
CC™ has been a boon 🤣.
I’m being facetious the media use a reverse reasoning process: the victory of the Taliban is unequivocally bad, as with anything bad that happens the hobgoblin climate change™ must be implicated in food insecurity etc. rather than the war itself.
Thanks, I see it now.
Judging from the polls I’ve seen, the credibility of the mass media here in the U.S. is split pretty much along political party lines with the majority of Democrats giving the media favorable credibility ratings while the majority of Republicans give them unfavorable ratings.
https://morningconsult.com/2021/05/18/us-media-credibility-stabilizes/
The trouble is that most people probably don’t bother doing their homework and checking the credibility of any one news story that they are fed or listen to. This allows outlets like CBS News (and most or all of the others) to get away with stories like the one in this posting without having the story’s credibility challenged.
As long as the credibility of these junk stories go unchallenged and not falsified, the news outlets can continue to feed false narratives and get the American people to believe that they are true. In this way, the news outlets have an influence on the policies and direction of this country that they should not have. That is not journalism, it is political activism. I would wait for the day when the “news” outlets decide to be just that, but I doubt it will ever get here until the day that someone in the White House decides to take them on.
Like many others, I am not ignorant enough that I do not know the difference between activism and journalism. It is sad and tragic that so many out there probably can’t tell the difference.
The trouble is that most people probably don’t bother doing their homework and checking the credibility of any one news story that they are fed or listen to.
Absolutely. I’m in an ongoing discussion elsewhere where I see the exact same thing repeated. To make a point someone will post a news story – that when you follow through to the primary sources turns out to not be an accurate report. Then when provided a primary source, that same person waves it away with “not credible”, “crackpot”, or “conspiracy”, and doesn’t even look at the information.
I don’t think it’s that they don’t bother, though, rather that they don’t want to.
This is the state of the main stream media these days.
“CBS News argues that global warming created horrible weather conditions that decimated crop production during the past 30 years in the country, and the Taliban fed off the misery experienced by Afghan farmers. The objective truth is entirely the opposite.”
That is typical of climate change AND COVID reporting.. The objective truth is entirely the opposite.
They claim natural immunity from getting COVID is inferior to a vaccine immunity!
They claim only the unvaccinated are getting hospitalized and dying.
They claim sea level rise is accelerating.
They claim severe weather is increasing.
The truth is opposite.
I have been surprised by the number of news reports that have attributed the decline in Brazilian coffee crop to drought rather than frost.
Two bad Brazil coffee harvests back to back. Last year was drought, this year was frost. You can research those facts.
Men who wear hats like those can NOT be beat! (The Soviets know it too)
Some say it was green, as in naive, men and women who created the victory. Others say it was a poorly considered choice (not that Choice, but the victims and collateral damage are of a similar nature). Others yet believe that they were playing with a double-edged scalpel, and thought that they could abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too. Can they socially distance from this progsesive collusion of errors?
Maybe, one day, they will realize when everything is climate change, nothing is climate change.
Less than 30, more than 100. Yes, brother (sister?) PaulH, I know it well. The oft-sought, never realized, perpetual climate change machine in weather’s wardrobe.
[Scene begins inside a CBS news boardroom]
News Exec: “This Afghanistan situation is making our gods in the democratic party look bad. Blessed be thy name. We have to make our god look better. What do we do?”
Worshiper 1: “We could ramp up the COVID fear some more. People who are afraid are more likely to give blind obedience to the divine pronouncements of Master Biden.”
New Exec: “Amen and awoman! But we’ve already ramped up the COVID fear. The more the vaccines fail, the more Pfizer pays us to say … Oops … I meant that the more the vaccines fail, the more it makes the sweet innocent Pfizer look bad so we are already doing our part to protect such a benevolent corporation from the truth of the disobedient … Oops I meant the vaccine misinformation from the unvaccinated.”
Worshiper 2: “We could blame Trump again.” (Spits on the ground.) “Since Russia was in Afghanistan before the US was, we could say Trump collided with the Russians to make his holiness Joe Biden look bad.”
News Exec: “Amen and awoman! That is a great idea! But we already blame Trump for everything. Let us hold that one in reserve just in case the reincarnation of Hitler runs for president again. We have to make sure the vote counters think they are defeating Hitler, like we did in 2020. Any more ideas?”
Worshiper 3: “Global warming! The UN just had another meeting about this issue and it is perfect! We get to blame the sinful capitalist. And we deflect blame from the peaceful Taliban. It is win-win all-around!”
News Exec: (falls to knees.) “HalleluBiden! The divine Al Gore must have sent you to be in this meeting. Blessed be his name. That is exactly what we do. Now let us all join together to say a prayer to the Party praying for their guidance in telling this new revelation.”
[Scene ends]
A lifeless “burden” to pollute the environment. Redistributive and retributive change be upon thy color privilege. A past, present, and progressive that is Green in silent lucidity. Take a knee to the secular gods and goddesses, and let us bray amen and awomen.
In 1940s movie parlance:
Editor: Say honey I want you to do a story about the Taliban and the White House wants us to work in the climate change angle.
Cara: Sure thing boss.
The real story that CBS won’t tell:
https://nypost.com/2021/08/19/i-ran-trumps-afghan-withdrawal-bidens-attempt-to-blame-us-is-sad/
Sad? That’s all, just Sad? How about outrageous? Wouldn’t that be a better description, NYPost?
Quiz Time. In the 30 years in which CBS reckons Afghanistan has been ravaged by climate change, what has happened to the population figure? Has it
a) Fallen drastically
b) Fallen a little
c) Unchanged
d) Risen a little
e) Risen a lot
Congratulations if you picked e). The population has quadrupled.
and in 20 years they could form a murderous horde with a jihad to come after the godless infidels in Europe and we will be as spineless as the Afghan army was
Or possibly against the godless horde in America that imprisoned their leadership in Guantanamo? Afghans are really big into revenge – it might be a big problem at some point.
Mobsters really do hate it when their victims fight back.
Peace and prosperity (lowered stress) tend to subdue population growth. War and strife (elevated stress) cause it to skyrocket. This is true in both plants and animals.
To be fair to the tailors of handmade tales, premature evacuation is a first-order forcing of [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] [sociopolitical] climate change.
It’s obviously because peak oil in Afghanistan.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/976/1/012038/pdf
It really is sad the way you refuse to deal with the real world.
Well, they tried blaming Trump; that didn’t work.
Then they tried blaming the Afghans; that didn’t work.
Then they tried blaming the Americans working for the charities/NGOs for not leaving; that didn’t work either.
So now they are down to blaming CO2 ‘cause it is to blame for everything. That won’t work either.
The problem is Democrats; everything they touch they make worse. Wish there was a solution for the problem of Democrats.🤨
Abolish political parties. Establish a draft for political positions, sort of like a draft for the military. Anyone who wants to hold office is eliminated from the potentials. Do a random selection from the remaining population. Anyone picked is required to fulfill the duties of office for a set (short) number of years. Those persons get an official, no-holds bared, audit at the end of their mandatory term and will suffer the consequence of any malfeasance.
Zis, I am liking!
Actually, in the USA you have a suitable platform for this. In the mother of all parliaments (the uk), the party system is embedded because one party, or a coalition, effectively elects a leader who is Prime Minister.
I actually prefer the idea of 3 potentially conflicting ruling platforms. In the UK, the House of Lords (a sort of senate) doesn’t actually have the power to veto anything the House of Commons (House of representatives) passes. They can only delay it. The Queen still theoretically has final veto, but I don’t think it’s been used for a while.
One interesting point is that every PM ends up in the House of Lords. It seems silly to just chuck out anyone who actually knows the system so well that they got to the top. In Australia we give ’em a fat pension and let them go, unless we lose them first.
One interesting point is that every PM ends up in the House of Lords.
Not quite. Ted Heath didn’t.
Nor Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron or May. So none in the last thirty years.
My mistake. They are only invited to join, apparently.
Better to just get rid of professional politicians! There is something inherently wrong with wanting to be nothing but a politician as a career path. Term limits would be a big step in the right direction but as long as the foxes are in charge of the hen house this is not going to happen.
First line “global warming was a major factory“
…churning out bullsh@t agenda driven propaganda to create a regime of fear so that globalist megalomaniacs could more easily control the proletariat.
Climate Disinformation from CBS News.
I’m shocked.
It just keeps getting crazier and crazier.
The science of it all boils down to this: (1) find something bad and (2) attribute it to climate change.
This is the consensus science of it all and to question it is the stupid, unscientific, and Exxon funded act of climate denial.
C’mon man!
At least they try to find a tenuous link first…
What, no mention of poppies ? Isn’t that the largest cash crop in Afghanistan?
With the GIs who were guarding their fields gone and Taliban vowing to stop narcotics trade ( as they had already done in 2001 ) I would have thought that was more pertinent than small climate variability.
Climate change doesn’t seem to have harmed poppy production. Funny that.
Shameless rascals.
‘Afghanistan: Over 80% of country in serious drought’
Where?
Afghanistan has a fairly regular drought cycle – every 10 years they get a few years of drought together. Most of the time it’s dealt with locally without too much trouble. This year the troop withdrawal and Taliban takeover complicated matters enormously. The president of Afghanistan declared a drought emergency (as presumably calling it a military disaster might be premature) and few aid agencies have been able to get in to precisely verify it. The numbers have been greatly exaggerated by most sources – some regions to the north and west are likely affected, with under 30% of the population in any harm from drought.
Less vulnerable? Are THOSE guys (not WUWT) NOT seeing the chaos in Kabul and the desperation that leaves women and children behind while the useless men escape by overcrowding a plane? They won’t be able to send for their families later, y’know.
I have been awash in incoming photos and info on the debacle that is the Britsh/French/US departing the ‘Stan. For CBS to post something like this is not just bad reporting, it is as heinous as they can get. They need to be left behind with the families who are being deserted by their own husbands and fathers.
They are even dumber and more obnoxious than griffypoo, and that’s something I never expected to find.
Thanks for that article, WUWT.
Amazing isn’t it? Every time you find the lowest form of life imaginable, one even more loathsome turns up.
I noticed the other day when Biden was giving his last speech, that he bragged about getting the people who worked for the New York Times and the Washington Post in Kabul, out of danger.
I guess he was trying to ingratiate himself to the Leftwing Media. “Look guys, I saved some of your colleagues from Taliban hell!”
Similar thing happened with the Germans – they rescued several thousand bottles of beer and wine before bringing out the refugees. It hasn’t gone down well (unlike the beer and wine, I expect).
I would argue climate change did help. Bygone introduced climate change, CRT, gender studies to Afghanistan. Then when they flew the rainbow flag over the embassy, that was the signal it would be a walk over.
I used to joke that everything the MSM prints is a lie.
It’s no joke any more. And it’s not funny any more.
“farmers happier, more prosperous, and less vulnerable to the Taliban.” This would be true if the Taliwackers were not destroying crops in order to punish the people they are now torturing, raping and murdering. UN and USAID will supply the Taliwackers with all the food and medicines they could possibly need, and American tax payers are going to pay for it all. Just as we paid for all their new weapons, vehicles, ammo and explosives. Why buy when their good friend Joe Biden will just give it all to them.
Oh, and they are lying about destroying opium crop, they are the ones primarily profiting from it.
Apparently the schools created in Afghanistan were too much like American schools.
Why would Afghan parents send their girl to a school to be taught that there is no such thing as a girl?
Global Warming: The universal excuse for everything.