Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Afghanistan in German News

 A fair amount of last night's public news business (both ZDF and ARD) centered on the question....how did this Afghanistan business 'unravel' so quickly and without any warning.  At least the journalists wanted to center on this discussion....which you have to give them some positive points on.

The topic of Libya did get brought up (ARD), and a brief talk over how that was screwed up as well.   The same experts guessed wrong on that episode as well.

The topic of two million Afghan folks having stayed long-term (for two decades) in Iran, and never trusting in a 'change'?  That got brought up as well.  

Misjudgment by the Foreign Minister (Maas, SPD)?  Well....he admits some issues occurred and people just didn't grasp the significance.  Fixing or rectifying the mistakes?  The explanation given by Maas didn't go too far. 

If you caught ZDF news this morning, the general hype is over the refugee issue which will likely occur over the next hundred-odd days.  Remembering 2015 and the chaos?  Oh yeah, and virtually none of the political parties want that situation to repeat.

Merkel explaining things?  I'd say it was plain blunt 'here-are-the-facts' moment, and no ideas for the path ahead.  

The average working-class German really caring about this?  That's the key end of the discussion.  It was a no-go 'land' in the 1970s and 1980s under the Soviets.  It was a no-go 'land' under Taliban rule in the 1990s.  It was a no-go 'land' under US/NATO rules for the past twenty years.  It'll revert back to a no-go 'land' under the new Taliban 'team'.  So other than journalists hyped up to talk about things there, the vast number of Germans had no particular interest....ever.   Some might even go and say that that it's nice to have an entire week where Covid is marginally mentioned.  

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