Afghanistan Lesson 101 for hopeless ignoramus Squad sister Congress member Rashida Tlaib from someone painfully in the know—Maleeha, my once 9-year-old temporarily adopted Afghan girl, now a single Mother raising three children in Toronto.”Temporarily” until a local church pastor helped me bring her Mother and siblings to join her in Canada.
“Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was blasted for claiming Sunday that the U.S. supported the Taliban against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s, a decade before the Islamist group came into existence.(Fox News, Aug. 16, 2021)
“Rashida, your stunning ignorance is showing.”
"That’s what this is: the horrible consequences of endless war and failed US policy going back to the 1980s when we backed the Taliban against the Soviets. Innocent people suffer the horrors of war while political leaders and arms-dealing corporations sit back and make billions," the far-left Squad member wrote in a plea for the U.S. to open its borders to refugees from Afghanistan amid the deteriorating situation there.”
On behalf of an impassioned Maleeha: “Rashida, your stunning ignorance is showing.”
It was, of course the Afghan Northern Alliance under the leadership of Lion of the Panjshir Valley Ahmad Shah Massoud who drove the most dreaded army on Earth— the Russian Red Army—out of Afghanistan in the 1980s while the rest of the world mostly looked away.
American and British support of the Northern Alliance nothwithstanding, they did it on their own, farmers, rug dealers, everyday Afghans—in their bare feet, ultimately fighting off the much better equipped Soviet forces in the country’s treacherous mountains!
The writer of this article met the first planeload of wounded mujahideen at Andrew’s Air Force Base through Kingston Ontario Afghan Medical Relief Organization (AMRO) founder Alan Henriksen in the mid 1980s.
The aforementioned Maleeha, then a little girl of only 9, injured from shrapnel left in her brain during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, was the only female on the plane.
The Canadian Government of the day did not want their wheat deal with the Russians left at risk
All Afghan passengers brought into the West through Andrew’s Air Force Base, were scheduled for free medical help at Kingston’s hospital Hotel Dieu, as arranged by the late and wonderful Dr. Simon Wren.
Why did the first plane load arrive at Andrew’s and not a Canadian airport?
The Canadian Government of the day did not want their wheat deal with the Russians left at risk.
In the current catastrophe in Afghanistan, the Canadian Liberal government states it will take in 20,000 Afghan refugees.
Here’s hoping that no Taliban operatives come with the refugees. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, now running for reelection, is mostly a cosmetic PM and like Tlaib, knows nothing about Afghanistan.
Some of the injured Muj had gaping wounds, still festering. American medics, who greeted them upon their arrival, categorized Maleeha, whose injuries gave her the appearance of an elderly stroke victim, as being in a helpless vegetative state. Future years, including her honor roll graduation from a Scarborough, Ontario school, proved she was anything but.
Some of the warriors I met on that fateful day were to go on to live in my memory for a lifetime.
Prominent among them were teenagers Ahmed Zai and Sharif U Din. Sharif U Din, who could speak only a smattering of English, was once found rolling on the floor with laughter at the antics of the Three Stooges on television. During their stay, I took them to the CN Tower whose management treated them to a three-course lunch at the revolving restaurant. With his newfound passion for ice cream, Sharif U Din could not be dissuaded from choosing three different flavours for all three courses.
Mischievous as any Canadian teenager, he sometimes chased ladies down the street with small garter snakes, even gaining ground on them--with his leg still in a cast.
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“My countrymen await my return to the war!”
In spite all of these winning ways, Sharif U Din, only 14 years of age, was a genuine warrior of the Afghan army. When his departure appeared imminent, I asked him wouldn't he prefer to remain in the safety of Canada. With eyes flashing fire, he retorted, “My countrymen await my return to the war!”
On the sad day of his flight from Pearson International, I wrote in a Toronto Sun column that he was returning to his country the same way he left it, “as a 14-year-old man”.
AMRO's mandate, as promised to the Canadian government, was to have the reconstructive surgery performed at Hotel Dieu and allow the patients a reasonable period of convalescence before shipping them back to the war.
None of us ever heard of the fate of both teens after their return to the ongoing Afghan war, though we long after wondered about them.
The fate of Afghan interpreters, the 20-year-later displaced Afghan citizens is the latest tragedy now that President Joe Biden has turned his back on them.
It was difficult talking to Afghan friends in Toronto by telephone last night, as so many were devastated, left in tears for worry over their relatives trapped in their former homeland.
One, whose name I won’t mention for fear of reprisal told me in frustration: “The American president left vehicles, arms and everything else for the Taliban.
“Many of my Afghan relatives caught up in this catastrophe will try to make their way to Pakistan and Iran where the Taliban are waiting to kill them.
“God help them!”
My mind goes back today to Doris Lessing’s “Firsthand Account of the Afghan Resistance”, in her book, ‘The Wind Blows Away Our Words’:
“We cry to you for help, but the wind blows away our words”-Mujahid Commander, Peshawar, 1986.
Judi McLeod——Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
Afghanistan Lesson 101 for hopeless ignoramus Squad sister Congress member Rashida Tlaib from someone painfully in the know—Maleeha, my once 9-year-old temporarily adopted Afghan girl, now a single Mother raising three children in Toronto.”Temporarily” until a local church pastor helped me bring her Mother and siblings to join her in Canada.
“Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was blasted for claiming Sunday that the U.S. supported the Taliban against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s, a decade before the Islamist group came into existence.(Fox News, Aug. 16, 2021)
