PeterRS

I had no idea that Mao's poetry was required reading in schools and I can find no reference to this. Frankly, experts agree that Mao was anything but a great poet. I like the description of his literary attempts by an eminent British translator of Chinese literature, "not as bad as Hitler's paintings but not as good as Churchill's!". But it has since been discovered that Mao actually stole some of his Cultural Revolution poems from the poet Chen Mingyuan. Chen later refused to deny that he was the author in an edition of the Beijing Review in 1986. When he earlier discovered Mao's theft of his work, he wrote to Mao's right hand man, the much respected Chou En-lai. Chou said Chen should not be punished for speaking out. But that did not happen, Chen endured a dozen years of misery that included imprisonment and four years of hard labour. Like many in those years, he attempted suicide. Your mention of poetry sparkes a memory. One of the foremost poets in Chinese arts and literature in the first half of the century was Guo Moruo. He was even called China's Goethe. In his famous Book of Poems published in 1920, he proved to be a passionate champion of creativity and individualism. Although from a wealthy family, he eventually sided with the Mao's communists. He was appointed Head of Propaganda. After the success of the Revolution, he was given various senior Party posts. But many of Mao's contemporaries felt his Party credentials were not sufficient and criticised him. Mao shielded him. "His merits outweigh his demerits," he is alleged to have said . During the Cultural Revolution, crowds started to mass outside his house. He bent with the wind and started writing poetry praising Mao and his dreadful wife Jiang Qing. Even so, two of his sons were murdered. Once the carnage of that dreadful period was finally over, by 1978, he returned to his former lifestyle and attempted through his poetry to revert to his former style. In his eulogy after he died, Deng Xiao-ping lauded Guo's "infinite loyalty". Yet as so often happened, the Cultural Revolution had virtually devoured one of its own. Fortunately Guo remains once again revered in China and his home in Beijing is now a Museum.

The little Red Book of Mao's sayings all but disappeared decades ago. It is now largely a collector's item. After the Cultural Revolution, the leadership passed to Hua Guo-feng, Mao's chosen successor. But he was quickly eased out and Deng Xiao-ping the reformer effectively took over in all but name two years into Hua's Chairmanship. Deng had suffered considerably during Mao's mad campaigns and his fear of his leadership colleagues. When he took the top job Deng determined that China should never again have a personality cult in the leadership and got Politburo agreement. Although hugely popular when he died, Deng left instructions that he was to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the sea. He wanted no monument, nowhere Chinese people could come to pay respects to his memory. His wishes were fulfilled. Xi has broken Deng's rule and persuaded his colleagues of the need once agin for a leadership cult, seemingly without opposition. How long it will last, who knows?

Oh dear, you found me out! Although we have never met, I did photoshop that pic a bit as I feel I know you a little from the elegance and intelligence, to say nothing of the suave quips, from your various posts. I take it I have your permission to keep the photo in the post. LOL

As you point out, the recent moves are aimed at the entertainment industry. "The moves are part of discouraging what it sees as unhealthy attention to celebrities and certain distracting activities." Although gays are sometimes referred as "sissy", that is rarely the case in China as very few gay men adopt such characteristics. As for BL dramas, that is surely hardly surprising in a country which has little experience of such dramas. Precisely the same was true in Thailand when they first were aired. In fact, many producers avoided the BL genre until they eventually realised they were extremely popular with young girls and therefore very profitable! It is certainly true that some LGBT groups at major universities have had their social media accounts shut down, notably on WeChat and Weibo. Other users have allegedly complained about the rising number of such groups. One user, according to the BBC website, stated, "I don't mind it if the LGBT community quietly does their own thing, but why do they have to keep shoving their ideals in my face through these groups? It's right to shut them down," one person said on Weibo. I believe the general sentiment expressed in that post - whoever actually posted it - summarises the view of a big majority of Chinese Do your own thing - but do it out of the public eye. Presently there is little indication that this is the start of a larger reaching LGBT crackdown. If there were a crackdown in the works, the gay social app Blued would surely be one of the first to curtail its activities. From the documents filed at the time of its NASDAQ IPO a year ago, 51% of its members were inside China - 25 million out of 49 million total. After all it is a Chinese company based in Beijing. The numbers in the websites that have been taken down will be infinitesimal compared to the total number of Blued members. Let's also remember that Weibo announced in 2018 it would take down all gay-related posts. This received such a massive response against the move that gay content was reinstated. From what my friends have told me, gay bars and discos in Beijing and Shanghai are still operating as normal, except when ordered closed due to covid regulations. The large Destination in Beijing remains one of the major Asian gay clubs.

I don't recall a previous global pandemic when these countries "answered that question long ago." Please clarify.

I don't see developments in Beijing quite in the same light. Xi is clearly the leader and he has managed to clear out many of the anti-Xi faction. Many were crooks anyway and their jailing for massive corruption could lin other circumstances be seen as a good thing. But he is walking a very fine line between hardliners and reformers. There are many who would love to see him kicked out of the way. He surely realised this considering one of his first major actions was a major reshuffle of the Central Security Bureau in 2015. When he came to power, those who elected him did so primarily on the basis of his three promises - * to end poverty by 2020 * to position China as a superpower * to complete the Belt and Road Initiative (this consists of the Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st century Silk Road: together they are intended to link 65 countries involving 4.4 billion people and 29% of global GDP) He has not fulfilled any of these promises. Admittedly Covid19 upended a lot of his planning and pushed the timetable back. But he is probably the first Chinese leader since Deng to see poverty rates rise. The BRI has also hit several major roadblocks with some countries pulling out of earlier agreements and some, like Sri Lanka, in trouble because it can not pay back the huge loans from China for its BRI infrastructure developments. It has sometimes been labelled a "Chinese Debt Trap" although some economists dispute this. So whilst the ground beneath Xi's feet is not yet made up of eggshells, he is nowhere near as secure as he wants the west to believe. What we must hope is that if he is pushed aside, he is succeeded by a Deng-like reformer rather than an even more hard-liner. As for gays, there seems to be no evidence yet that he is starting an anti-LGBT campaign. One of the world's largest and most popular gay apps Blued still operates out of Beijing with at least one state company as an investor.

I've found the best and cheapest way for you to travel to Thailand. You don't even need to wear a tie. But I guess there is no guarantee you will actually make it all the way there. 🤣

And what about the risks tourists might pose to the people in your holiday destinations?

I have just watched that PBS Frontline documentary. Although i have followed the 737 Max saga virtually since the first crash in Indonesia and read hundreds of informative articles, especially from such knowledgable sources as The Seattle Times which won the Pulitzer Prize for its Max coverage, watching that programme filled me with horror. There is no need to explain why as this quickly becomes obvious. I used to love Boeing's 747 series. I first flew one long haul in 1979 when my trip from Europe to Asia had three en route stops. I remember the start of non-stop flights on the 747-200 series when passenger numbers had to be limited to 70% of capacity to allow for the extra fuel tanks. And then the glorious 747-400 designed specifically for Pacific routes, a plane I just loved boarding and loved flying in. I must have taken at least 500 flights on a mix of long haul and relatively short haul sectors. Learning that Boeing's own chief test pilot could not control the 737 Max and crashed it in his first flight in a simulator in November 2012 is chilling. Since then, the deliberate lies, the deliberate deceptions, the unrelenting pressure to keep information from the FAA, the far too cosy relationship between the Company and the FAA and then, following the crashes, the deliberate attempts to deflect blame on to foreign pilots should be engraved in large letters on all Beoing headquarters and manufacturing plants. As for the allegations that "American pilots would not have lost control", that is yet again another deliberate lie. Prior to the crashes several US pilots did in fact report to the anonymous hotline for pilot incidents that their 737 Max had gone out of control. Fortunately they were at a sufficiently high altitude that they were able to gain control of their aircraft. I have written before I will never fly a 737 Max. Some suggest it must be the safest plane in the sky after the last two years. Frankly I don't care. I trust neither the plane nor Boeing. The 787 problems appear to be manageable and so I will fly that plane if there is no alternative. But never in a 737 Max.

As you assume not, then I assume you also see no point in Gay Pride Parades and see no difference in them from ordinary Parades. Having been to quite a few Gay Pride Parades and had such fun, I could not agree less.

The international Gay Games scheduled for 2022 in Hong Kong have been postponed by a year to November 2023. The pandemic and Hong Kong's very strict quarantine regulations are blamed for the year's delay. Even fully vaccinated Hong Kong residents have to spend 21 days in a quarantine hotel if they come from high risk countries. “We want to make sure that everyone is able to come to the event,” Gay games founder and co-chair Dennis Philipse told HKFP. “We cannot be in a bubble event, people cannot be in quarantine for 21 days.” The Games will be the first to be held in Asia. Organisers won the bid to hold the Games in Hong Kong in 2017. They were expected to have an economic impact of around HK$1 billion (US$128 million), drawing 12,000 participants, 75,000 spectators and 3,000 from 100 countries. But the successful bid for the Games was slammed by some Beijing lawmakers who were then rebuffed by the city's leader Carrie Lam. Since then Ms. Lam has shown that she is now merely a Beijing puppet. It will be interesting to see whether the Games can actually take place or another reason will be found for their cancellation. https://hongkongfp.com/2021/09/15/breaking-hong-kong-gay-games-postponed-due-to-covid-travel-restrictions/

On Tuesday Singapore had its highest number of new one-day covid cases in more than a year. As a result the government has paused reopening and introduced some new restrictions. What is worrying is that discounting children under 12, 90% of the population is fully vaccinated. The majority of the 809 new patients are aged 66 and over. Of these, 75 are seriously ill requiring oxygen - double the number form 2 days earlier - and 9 are in intensive care. Dale Fisher, a professor at Singapore’s National university hospital who specialises in infectious diseases, said on Monday "We’re sort of feeling our way, but clearly you can’t just open the gates and say the vaccine will look after us. It needs more than that." Singapore is now considering booster shots especially for older people. China's new outbreak stems from the Delta variant brought in to the country by a returnee from Singapore. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/15/singapore-reports-biggest-spike-in-covid-cases-in-a-year-despite-81-vaccination-rate

As if the 737 Max problems and its grounding for more than a year and a half were not enough for platemaker Boeing, its 787 Dreamliner is also becoming something of a bad dream. After the self-combusting battery fires in its first year of service had been solved, all seemed to go well for this long haul aircraft. Then new troubles started. Deliveries were halted in October last year after one set of production flaws arose. After the 5-month hiatus by March all seemed well and deliveries of new aircraft resumed. In June, though, yet another problem arose and new deliveries were once again suspended for at least another five months. Now the Wall Street Journal has reported that the FAA has recently rejected the Company's proposal that it reinspect the 787. The FAA is unhappy that Boeing's employee group set up as an in-house regulator first needs to agree with the Company's changes to the aircraft. That has not yet happened because the employee group has disagreement amongst its own members. The FAA has stated it will not sign off on the inspections "until our safety experts are satisfied." A few customers were by now pissed off and three airlines cancelled orders for five of the jets. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/08/boeing-orders-continue-to-outpace-cancellations-dreamliner-deliveries-still-paused.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/04/boeings-delivery-of-new-787-dreamliners-reportedly-may-remain-halted-until-late-october.html Another comment on the Professional Pilots Rumour site pprune.org suggests the Boeing's decision in March to move all its 787 production to its South Carolina plant is one reason for the 787's continuing problems. Its long term plant in Washington State has been unionised for decades. Boeing has resisted efforts to unionise South Carolina often using bullying tactics. In November 2018 it sacked three long term workers with excellent records on made-up excuses but in reality because they were union members. Boeing's 2011 move to open its South Carolina plant was widely seen as a union busting move. At that time only 2.7% of the state's workers belonged to a Union, the lowest of any US State. Undoubtedly cash was a reason. Average hourly wages at the Washington plant in 2018 were around $33; in South Carolina for the same job $24. The difference in the cost of living between the two states was only around 10%. Another article illustrates the depth of the ill feeling amongst workers in both plants towards the Boeing management. To be fair, Boeing has since fired its former CEO and revamped its Board in the wake of the 737 Max scandal. But it can surely ill afford to keep on having problems with its other major money spinner, the 787. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/03/boeing-union-workers-fired-south-carolina https://psmag.com/economics/a-tale-of-two-boeing-factories For my part, I have taken several flights on both the 787 and its competitor the Airbus A350. Although I enjoyed all, I have a clear preference for the A350 especially on overnight flights.

There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?

Houston, we have a problem.

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

I cannot see upgraded carriages speeding up travel times. You'd need better trains for that - and probably also better track. I wonder what the tourist routes will be.

Bond, James Bond!

In another article in yesteday's issue of The Guardian, Afghanistan's reincarnation of Vietnam's Lt. William Calley has once again been revealed. Some of the article refers to incidents already itemised in the New Yorker article posted earlier by @fedssocr. But this is new, at least in this forum as far as I am aware. It speaks for itself. "The men of Zangabad village, Panjwai district lined up on the eve of 11 September to count and remember their dead, the dozens of relatives who they say were killed at the hands of the foreign forces that first appeared in their midst nearly 20 years ago. "Their cluster of mud houses, fields and pomegranate orchards was the site of perhaps the most notorious massacre of the war, when US SSgt Robert Bales walked out of a nearby base to slaughter local families in cold blood. He killed 16 people, nine of them children. "America’s tragedy, thousands of families’ terrible losses on that September morning in 2001, would indirectly unravel into similar grief for thousands of other families half a world away. "Afghans who knew little or nothing about the planes flying into towers in New York, and certainly had no link at all to al-Qaida, were caught up in the war that followed, and that claimed their loved ones year after year. "Haji Muhammad Wazir lost almost all his immediate family, apart from his four-year-old son in the early hours of 11 March 2012. It was more than a decade after the twin towers came down, but they were the reason the US military was on his doorstep. "Bales killed his wife, four sons, four daughters and two other relatives. He shot the children in the head then tried to burn their bodies. “It is very hard for me, I still feel like these things are happening right now,” Wazir told the Guardian, nearly a decade after the almost unimaginable slaughter ripped apart his life. “I am very happy the American forces have finally left Afghanistan, and very grateful to Allah for making this happen. At last I feel safe.” The article later points out that the Taliban, too, was responsible for the deaths of Afghanis. But it was the actions of some of the US servicemen and their NATO partners in the war that drove many Afghanis directly to the Taliban, either as fighters or as financial supporters. At least Bales was arrested for his crimes in what is now known as the Kandahar massacre. In a plea deal he pleaded guilty to murder, assault and attempted murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The US Supreme Court refused to hear his case and his lawyer is now trying to get a new trial in a civilian court. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/10/how-mass-killings-by-us-forces-after-911-boosted-support-for-the-taliban

What sounds like an interesting movie has just wrapped filming in Brighton, England. It tells the story of a loving married couple (man and woman) living in a happy menage a trois with the husband's male lover. "My Policeman" is an adaptation of a novel which covers the interesting period between the 1950s and 1990s when attitudes to sex and sexuality went through much change in Britain and much of the rest of the world. An article in The Guardian takes as its theme the role of the lover, played by the gay actor Rupert Everett. This, the writer suggests, is ideal casting as Everett has had to live through many changes in recent years following his starring role in the film version of the E. M. Foster novel, "Another Country" in 1984. Although homosexuality in England was not decriminalised until 1967, attitudes took time to change. Then came the gay plague AIDS which set advances back a few years. It also resulted in closet gay personalities like Rock Hudson and Liberace having to die with neither privacy nor dignity. The writer has interviewed many gay actors over the last 40 or so years. He wonders if the public as a whole actually was as homophobic as the media claimed. He is depressed that when interviewing the gay actors Richard Chamberlain and Sir Anthony Sher (the latter is one of Britain's most famous actors particularly for his roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and who became best known for his portrayal of Shakespeare's Richard III who first appears in silhouette on crutches rather like an overlarge spider), their PR masters had informed him that on no account could he discuss their private lives. Photo: from Anthony Sher, Year of the King - Nick Heron Books Like so many others, both hid their sexuality and Sher actually got married as a disguise. Sher, who sadly is dying of a serious unspecified illness, now agrees that not talking about his private life essentially was like having a neon sign over his head saying "This guy is gay!" Sher eventually came out and was one of the first to enter into a civil partnership with his long time lover. Some, like the macho Harry Andrews, was firmly in the closet despite being partnered. Interviewed when he was in his 70s, the writer thinks Andrews had wanted to come out but he was then being considered for a starring role in the hit TV series "Dynasty" as Blake Carrington's father. Had he been known as gay he would almost certainly not have got the part. Earlier in 1970 he had been cast in the role of a leading gay man in the film of Joe Orton's hilarious "Entertaining Mr. Sloane". It was almost as though he had wanted to send a signal by accepting this role, but was always reluctant to discuss his participation in that movie in his rare interviews. Others like John Schlesinger, the director who in 1971 made "Sunday Bloody Sunday" with its famous lips-on-lips deep gay kiss, was quite happy to be out. When there were media objections to Ian McKellen's award of a knighthood, he signed an open letter defending him. “I could hear a particular sound in my head the morning it was published,” Schlesinger told me, grinning. “It was teacups clinking disdainfully on saucers in Cheltenham as little old ladies said to each other ‘My dear, it’s so unnecessary’.” The writer ends the article by stressing - "Each of the actors I spoke to found his own modus vivendi. What’s not in question is that the tabloids and some politicians had made these relatively recent years a distinctly hostile environment for gay people." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/08/40-years-celebrity-interviews-attitudes-gay-men

I used to visit Manila quite a few times but these were way back in the early 1980s. Those trips made a welcome relaxing break from the more hothouse atmosphere of working in Hong Kong. Besides, gay life in Hong Kong in those days was limited and against the old British colonial sodomy law (not repealed until 1991). Each year 3 or 4 guys would be thrown in jail for a couple of years for some alleged offence or other. It was known the police kept tabs on the handful of gay venues and cruising places. Triad activity involving rent boys was rife. Manila on the other hand was a haven of beautiful and willing boys. Like many gays I'd stay at Imelda Marcos' lovely Philippine Plaza Hotel on the Bay (her murdering, thieving dictator of a husband owned the posher Manila Hotel not far away). The rooms were large and well-furnished, the view over the bay superb and the pool and garden a superb place to relax over a drink or two - or three. At week-ends the hotel seemed like cruise central. So many expats would be there from Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere, each with a different boy du jour every time at breakfast. Even with martial law in force, gay life seemed not to be curtailed. Coco Banana was the in-place for more up-market gays, a sort-of Studio 54 of Manila with DJs playing the latest disco music from the US, a melange of fashion, society and entertainment - and lots of gorgeous boys. I believe it was Asia's first openly gay club and seemed to stay open all night. I met and brought several guys to the hotel, spending time with the same one on several visits. Gay life in Manila at that time seemed more active and raunchier than Bangkok. The place to go for sleaze was an enormous barn of a place at 690 Retiro Strip in the nearby Quezon City district. When getting a taxi, you never had to utter more than "690" for the driver knew exactly where you wanted to go. Packed to the gunnels at week-ends, this bar/club had long catwalks with beautiful Filipino boys parading wearing little or nothing. Shows with naked boys and soap suds were common before I ever saw one in Bangkok. The one depressing factor of those trips was the horrendous poverty. At every intersection, tiny waifs would hold out their little hands for a peso or two. Marcos had had placed large boards by the massive rubbish tips where children seemed to be everywhere scavenging for anything they could find that they could sell. Marcos and the dreadful Imelda couldn't bear visitors to see the reality behind the facade of their beautiful city. As Bangkok's nightlife developed, I switched my allegiance to Thailand. Frankly, I had grown a bit tired of Manila whereas I have never tired of Bangkok. I have since been back for three work visits, the last around 1998. Unsurprisingly the whole scene had changed. One alleged gay bar I attended was not gay at all and the "boys" seemed all in their 40s. I am sure there were several which I just did not bother to visit. For me the glamour of the gay scene had descended to pretty basic levels. Perhaps it was just that Thailand at that time offered vastly more in terms of nighttime entertainment and willing young guys. Perhaps the elected governments had tightened up restrictions. In the mid-1990s Manila's Mayor Alfredo Lim was The Philippines predecessor to Thailand's Interior Minister Purachai. He was unrelenting in his campaign to close down all Filipino prostitute bars - both gay and straight - all of which were raided from time to time. Many ended up just closing. In the mid 2000s, the media - in particular the leading broadsheet The Philippine Enquirer - started an anti-gay campaign led by a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Who knows? Times change.

Once a genie is out of the bottle it is usually difficult to get it back. Young people in China are like young people most everywhere else. They follow the latest fads and fashions, and with the K Pop look and craze having flooded the country, I can see the increasingly old guard among the leadership muttering disapprovingly that this is not what the revolution was all about. Let's not forget that President Xi's father had impeccable credentials as a revolutionary, even though in his later years he was better known and even imprisoned for his political moderation. I am sure the old guard will succeed in their efforts to control the rise of Tencent and NetEase, just as they have clipped the PR wings of Alibaba and other private sector giants. They see the rise of any company that gets so big and with such an extensive national reach as increasingly able to sway the public as a threat to the Party. But when it comes to the way people dress, I don't believe there will be more than a temporary change - if that.

I find the incredible delay in testing in packed slum areas like Klong Toey one of the government's biggest failings. They just had to look at the huge clusters discovered among Singapore's migrant workers dormitories or even that among both legal and illegal workers at the Samui Sakhon fish market way back in December - both a result of failure to test. But then this Thailand government has little time for the poor. They have to fend for themselves no matter that we are in the midst of a pandemic.

I think it is important to realise that the Chinese have very long memories. Most families will still have older members who recall the supreme disaster of the Cultural Revolution which destroyed so much of the country and it culture with its education and judicial systems wiped out. China was till then an agrarian society with most of its population desperately poor. I can recall my first visit to Shanghai in 1986 barely ten years after that disastrous period in Chinese history when lamplighters still lit the streetlamps in the French quarter! These grandparents still cannot believe how the country has changed out of all recognition. I know I have said it before but how many countries have ever in world history dragged 400 million or more out of poverty in the span of just one generation? How many countries have enjoyed massively increased and increasing incomes since then? How many could have possibly considered that Shanghai would become an even more cosmopolitan city than pre-coved Hong Kong? From my Chinese and western friends who live in China, I know well that there are costs to such rapid growth. Those of us brought up in the west would probably find it difficult to live in any country where our freedom to think and say (within reason) what we want is curtailed. But we look at this country of 1.4 billion people from our own western experiences. The vast majority of those who live in the country have a different mindset borne of their history and society when for the entire millennia of their existence they have lived under a similar system. The average Chinese today puts up with its unelected government because they can compare what it has achieved in little over 40 years. My friends are perfectly happy living in China and none, not even the Americans with Chinese boyfriends, some wealthy in their own right, want to live anywhere else. The inevitable question then becomes: how long can any people live under a virtual dictatorship? My only answer is as long as the compact between government and people that people's lives continue to improve.

I finally had time to read this fascinating yet horrifying and damning article. All the spin we have heard over the last 20 or so years is shown to be just that - spin. As the coalition PR machine kept telling us so frequently, the war was being won. As in Vietnam, in the countryside the exact opposite was true. Clear disagreements between the USA and its NATO allies. An Afghan translator mistakenly arrested and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with no appeal. US forces raiding the home of a "beloved tribal elder", killing him and leaving his son a paraplegic. A coalition air strike hitting a mosque and killing all inside. At least the Taliban fighters would warn villagers where they had placed IEDs so they could be avoided. Not so, the coalition forces. Several of Shakira's cousins being killed at different times. Seven year old Muhammad mistakenly killed when coalition forces strafed the car he happened to be in. Her 16-year old cousin Amanullah was merely working in the fields when murdered by a sniper of the Afghan army. No reason given and a family too afraid to ask. "Entire branches of Shakira’s family tree, from the uncles who used to tell her stories to the cousins who played with her in the caves, vanished. In all, she lost sixteen family members. I wondered if it was the same for other families in Pan Killay. I sampled a dozen households at random in the village, and made similar inquiries in other villages, to insure that Pan Killay was no outlier. For each family, I documented the names of the dead, cross-checking cases with death certificates and eyewitness testimony. On average, I found, each family lost ten to twelve civilians in what locals call the American War. "This scale of suffering was unknown in a bustling metropolis like Kabul, where citizens enjoyed relative security. But in countryside enclaves like Sangin the ceaseless killings of civilians led many Afghans to gravitate toward the Taliban. By 2010, many households in Ishaqzai villages had sons in the Taliban, most of whom had joined simply to protect themselves or to take revenge; the movement was more thoroughly integrated into Sangin life than it had been in the nineties. Now, when Shakira and her friends discussed the Taliban, they were discussing their own friends, neighbors, and loved ones . . . "Some British officers on the ground grew concerned that the U.S. was killing too many civilians, and unsuccessfully lobbied to have American Special Forces removed from the area. Instead, troops from around the world poured into Helmand, including Australians, Canadians, and Danes. But villagers couldn’t tell the difference—to them, the occupiers were simply “Americans.” Pazaro, the woman from a nearby village, recalled, “There were two types of people—one with black faces and one with pink faces. When we see them, we get terrified.” The coalition portrayed locals as hungering for liberation from the Taliban, but a classified intelligence report from 2011 described community perceptions of coalition forces as “unfavorable,” with villagers warning that, if the coalition “did not leave the area, the local nationals would be forced to evacuate.” By 2019 when the US was holding talks with the Taliban, an optimism returned to the valleys. It did not last long. "Shortly before the Americans left, they dynamited her house, apparently in response to the Taliban’s firing a grenade nearby. With two rooms still standing, the house is half inhabitable, half destroyed, much like Afghanistan itself." ". . . the Afghan government and American forces moved jointly on Sangin one last time. That January, they launched perhaps the most devastating assault that the valley witnessed in the entire war. Shakira and other villagers fled for the desert, but not everyone could escape. Ahmed Noor Mohammad, who owned a pay-phone business, decided to wait to evacuate, because his twin sons were ill. His family went to bed to the sound of distant artillery. That night, an American bomb slammed into the room where the twin boys were sleeping, killing them. A second bomb hit an adjacent room, killing Mohammad’s father and many others, eight of them children. "The next day, at the funeral, another air strike killed six mourners. In a nearby village, a gunship struck down three children. The following day, four more children were shot dead. Elsewhere in Sangin, an air strike hit an Islamic school, killing a child. A week later, twelve guests at a wedding were killed in an air raid. "After the bombing, Mohammad’s brother travelled to Kandahar to report the massacres to the United Nations and to the Afghan government. When no justice was forthcoming, he joined the Taliban." As in all wars, mistakes are made and massacres probably and sadly an inevitable result. Do we remember My Lai in Vietnam, an atrocity where up to 500 Vietnamese villagers - men, women, children and infants - were massacred but not before American troops had first gang raped women as young as 12? When this finally came to light, the platoon leader was sentenced to life in prison, surely a just sentence. But Americans look after their own. All he served was three and a half years under house arrest. How can any reasonable person consider this is justice? As the subject of the New Yorker article, Shakira, says of the future under the new regime - “I have to believe,” she said. “Otherwise, what was it all for?” If we cannot get things right in our own countries, what right do we have to try and sort out problems in others? None!