8/17/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I teaching myself Bruno Mars’ song, Count on Me, on the ukulele by watching You-Tube videos. Musical vibrations are known to be healing, so even when I hit a sour note, I feel good. The idea of the song is that friends have each others’ backs, no matter what. As you know, this sentiment was shared by lots of the Afghan War vets when they worked with locals in places like Kandahar. Our friends in Afghanistan are living in fear right now. Let’s do all we can to live up to our commitments.

            I am trying to hold on to some hope that members of the Taliban will heed the promises being made by their leaders right now. According to the G, the new boss, Haibatullah Akhundzada, is a religious guy who is “repeatedly exhorting low-level Taliban fighters and officials to seek to win over communities through good governance and discipline.” His deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, opined in the NYT in 2018, ““We together will find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women granted by Islam, from the right to education to the right to work, are protected, and where merit is the basis for equal opportunity…We will take all measures to make sure the new Afghanistan is a bastion of stability and that nobody feels threatened on our soil…Afghanistan cannot afford to live in isolation.” Aljazeera suggests that various Taliban leaders are discouraging revenge killings.

            Unfortunately, men with guns do stupid things, especially when it’s unclear who is in charge. Something like that happened recently in Myanmar when commanders in the Karen National Defense Organization admitted that their troops killed 25 civilians in June because they thought they were “spies.” I am praying that these extrajudicial executions do not happen in Afghanistan.

            I hope you will be generous in admitting refugees from Afghanistan & the rest of the world.

            BYBS,