Help female climbers in Afghanistan through Ascend Athletics

Old lady Hwrote:

Because you're on a climbing forum?? 

If you have other ways you choose to help, or groups you decide to support, go for it! Personally, I can't contribute to everything. This group is legit, is there, knows what they need to do....

I think you can throw a dart, at the moment, and it's highly likely whoever you give money to (assuming they are legit), is doing pretty much the same things right now. Scrambling to assure some kind of safety for the people they work with directly.

Fun factoid on NPR. The Afghani parliament has more women in it than there are women in the U.S. congress....hmmmm.

Best (and a bump), Helen

Had more women in it....

Jeremy Lwrote:

Robert and Teton and whoever else. There is a thread on the politics section for this..

This thread is much better.  And........it includes an actual, literal, real life action we all can take to do something, something now, something positive to contribute to a real cause, saving lives in a dire situation for so many people.  Now!  While time is running out, the Taliban is going door to door looking for young women, demanding families put an X on their home if they have a young women in the home so they can take her.  If they find a home with a young women without an X, they will do what they do with these people.  I'll spare the details here.  Truly barbaric!!

Alternately, we could go to the other thread and say “Alzheimer’s Joe Biden, Narcissist Trump, socialist Obama, bla bla bla”. And bicker and argue while the Taliban makes their rounds searching for women, Americans, Christians. And do what they are going to do.  

Teton Climberwrote:

Thanks for the POV. I know its easy to defend someone's will to fight from the safety of a keyboard in the U.S. I saw no effort to defend much of anything from anyone. 20 years, trillions of dollars, millions of man hours, and I didn't see a real battle to save a single city. Agree with just about everything else.

And as I pointed out, no reason not to help the cause. Just wondering, which you did not address, why the urgent need to help these women first and not the very people whose lives are actually in danger for helping the men and women of the US armed forces? Do we focus our efforts on getting women climbers out of the country with US resources or those with a Taliban target on their back?

I really just wanted to give some POV and advocate for the cause a bit after reading about it. I didn’t even mean to single you out for the comment about questioning their will to fight from a keyboard either. That was a theme I had been seeing on social media all week tbh. You bring up good points and fair questions, that I admit I have no answers for, but I do hope someone a lot smarter than me is on top of that. I like some of the banter and snark that follows  the lighter threads on here, but I try to stay out of these more politically charged topics. I think I have some worthwhile POV to contribute on this one, but not much beyond that in terms of substantive discussion/debate…

Greg Dwrote:

This is false.  Nearly 50,000 Afghans died fighting the Taliban.  They were trained and supported by US military.  They were taught the US model.  Ground troops with air support, drones and intelligence.  The US was still the air support and intelligence, a critical part of success.  And with only 2500 US troops, the Taliban has been kept at bay.  Not a single US death in 1.5 years with this skeleton crew.  Suddenly, they have no US intelligence or air support.  This is like a football team withdrawing 5 key players, including the quarter back and expecting them to still win.  Only this time, it's life and death. 

I'm not saying we should or should not have been there.  But the way we withdrew was horrible.  

I don't even follow the news on this subject very closely and I know that most of what you said there is completely wrong. The us didn't leave suddenly like you said. It was planned a long time ago.

Why do you think that only 2500 US troops could hold off the entire Taliban but the Afghan army that is 100 times bigger could not? Because the Taliban knew not to fight the US directly. Because they know if US troops were killed the US would retaliate with overwhelming force. It is just like the US troops in the Korean DMZ. They aren't there to fight off the invaders, they are there as hostages.

You are saying the Afghans lost because Biden took their air support and intelligence away? "They were taught the US model" Who taught them? Biden didn't teach them that model. The Afghan generals weren't smart enough to figure out their own model and how to fight in their own country in a war that lasted twenty years? The Taliban doesn't have air support or intelligence either. How long and slow would the withdrawal have to be for the Afghan army to not just give up?

It is a horrible situation. But if the millions of men in Afghanistan are not raising a finger to help their own women then there is nothing the rest of the world can really do. A gofundme honestly sounds absurd against the backdrop of what is going on there.

Astrid Reywrote:

You are saying the Afghans lost because Biden took their air support and intelligence away? "They were taught the US model" Who taught them? Biden didn't teach them that model. The Afghan generals weren't smart enough to figure out their own model and how to fight in their own country in a war that lasted twenty years? The Taliban doesn't have air support or intelligence either. How long and slow would the withdrawal have to be for the Afghan army to not just give up?

Why are you saying that Afghans lost?
People of Afghanistan won.
They defeated collaborators and pushed foreign invaders out.
Such sudden apparently unopposed recapture of the whole country by Taliban in a week can be explain by only one factor.
Apparently all major tribes of Afghanistan decided that Taliban is better for them than Americans.

Yurywrote:

Why are you saying that Afghans lost?
People of Afghanistan won.
They defeated collaborators and pushed foreign invaders out.
Such sudden apparently unopposed recapture of the whole country by Taliban in a week can be explain by only one factor.
Apparently all major tribes of Afghanistan decided that Taliban is better for them than Americans.

Sadly, I think that's a good summary. The men of Afghanistan had an election of sorts, and most voted for the Taliban. The women did not get a say.

Astrid Reywrote:

The men of Afghanistan had an election of sorts, and most voted for the Taliban. The women did not get a say.

How do you know this?
Have you talked to women of a typical Afghan village?
I noticed that in such societies typically women have about the same ideas of what's right and what's wrong as men.

There's a separate thread to discuss/debate the U.S. and Afghanistan. No need to clutter this one up. If you don't wanna contribute, fine, don't, but the rest of us can figure out contributing or not all by ourselves, perhaps?

H.

Bump

Apparently all major tribes of Afghanistan decided that Taliban is better for them than Americans. 

Or they were convinced by medieval, heavily armed, homicidal maniacs to make that choice

Greg Dwrote:

This is false.  Nearly 50,000 Afghans died fighting the Taliban.  They were trained and supported by US military.  They were taught the US model.  Ground troops with air support, drones and intelligence.  The US was still the air support and intelligence, a critical part of success.  And with only 2500 US troops, the Taliban has been kept at bay.  Not a single US death in 1.5 years with this skeleton crew.  Suddenly, they have no US intelligence or air support.  This is like a football team withdrawing 5 key players, including the quarter back and expecting them to still win.  Only this time, it's life and death. 

I'm not saying we should or should not have been there.  But the way we withdrew was horrible.  

Bump for the cause, but also to point out the simplistic perspective posited by Greg.  

The 2500 troops have been sufficient since the peace deal….Cuz we were leaving and had a deal.  There’s been no deaths or significant fighting since.  Because of the deal.  However, to believe and suggest that if we abrogate the treaty and decided to just keep those 2500 troops and further continued Intel and air support in place that things would just continue merrily along at the status quo is simply the height of ignorance.   Also to use that as some excuse for the Afghan collapse is also foolish.   The Taliban has no air support, a fraction of the numbers and limited equipment.   It wasn’t lack of Intel or air support that caused it’s sudden collapse.  It was lack of will and backbone as a “country” (not necessarily at the individual level).   We spent trillions for a “country” that existed only in theory, on paper, and in the imaginations of US political idiots right and left.

But in whole hearted agreement to donate to this cause.  

Lemme get this straight- the Taliban are going door to door beheading afghan commandoes and former interpreters, and you guys are asking for money to get climbers out of the country? Right now there's a single quick way out of the country, and I'm pretty sure the taliban surrounding it don't care about bribes. Yikes. 

For those of you wondering where the money is going, I just received this email.

“It is heartbreaking watching events in Afghanistan unfold. Thank you for sending support to Ascend at this time of greatest need for our girls.

Your contribution of $XX on 8/19/21 to Ascend: Leadership Through Athletics makes us so grateful at this difficult time.

In the short term, we are doing all we can to try and ensure the safety of all those involved with Ascend. However, our mission - to empower girls - remains unchanged.

Our priority at this time is to protect our staff, their families and all those involved with Ascend. To this end, our team is working round the clock to support all those involved with Ascend in any way possible. We have always sought to provide safe spaces for young women, and now their need is at its greatest.

We all need to raise our voices together today, tomorrow, and nonstop until there are better options for our girls. When you speak or write to your political representatives, please share this message with them. Our girls, employees, and their families need immediately:

1. Safe haven in Afghanistan
2. Viable refugee pathways

The refugee options are limited and the hurdles to access them are insurmountable for ordinary people. We are doing what we can but without a safe haven or a viable place to register as a refugee, the girls are trapped. We need options. And we need money to see those options through.

This is not about donations, it's about lives. Thank you for helping us give them a chance.”

Link to the latest update from Ascend:

https://www.ascendathletics.org/post/update-from-kabul-3

Mark Pilatewrote:

Bump for the cause, but also to point out the simplistic perspective posited by Greg.  

Would it be simplistic to state that the air support, intel and troops withdrew before the civilians.  Again, not arguing whether withdrawal should or should not take place.  That's a much larger discussion going back to the 1950's and our sorted history in Afghanistan.  Many agree the order of events could have been much different.  

Cornelius Yukon wrote:

Afghanistan had their own own air support, intelligence, and troops. 

These arguments aren't as much  oversimplifications as the are examples of the Dunning-Krueger Effect.

Are you saying the US didn’t provide these supports?  Or two things could be true at the same time?  Have a name for that Effect?

Greg Dwrote:

Are you saying the US didn’t provide these supports?  Or two things could be true at the same time?  Have a name for that Effect?

I think he is saying the same thing that I said. It does not explain why the whole army gave up without even attempting to fight.

Someone was kind enough to share with me that I was in the wrong thread, so passing it on. Respectful political bickering is welcomed below. Thanks to all who donated. 

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/121177049/afghanistan-withdrawal

Parachute Adamswrote:

It's also ok to leave politics and its baggage of finger pointing out of this conversation and either pony up to help or not. 

We can't change how we got here but may be able to change a life going forward.

Sorry, but no. Ascend Athletics is just as much a political organization bringing western ideals to a country that doesn't want them as the Republican Party invading Afghanistan in the first place. Their intentions are certainly kinder and more aligned with my own beliefs, but they're still operating under a colonizing mindset. Meanwhile, if girls want to move to a country where they are allowed to rock climb, there are numerous barriers in the US to them doing so. If we can't even get our heads out of our asses to help these people when they come to our own soil, what makes us think we know how to go over and help in Afghanistan? Am I really supposed to believe that a lack of freedom to rock climb is the real problem facing Afghani women?

I'll believe this organization is best for Afghani girls when an Afghan woman who is qualified to speak for Afghan women says it is. Until then, what I'm hearing is a lot of Westerners making themselves feel better rather than doing anything anybody actually needs.

My cynicism here comes from having worked in nonprofits that did a lot of foreign aid, and talking to actual people from the countries we've sent "aid". Westerners are not the saviors we fancy ourselves to be. If you're executing an idea that didn't come from the people you're trying to help telling you what they need, you're not helping, and you may be making things worse.

This shouldn't be political, but sadly it is political, and naively pretending it isn't only makes things worse.