By SUZANNE DOWNING
Who will save the girls of Afghanistan? Will it be the radical feminists who elected President Joe Biden because they hated with every bone in their bodies the sometimes-odd, always-alpha male presidency of Donald Trump?
Zarifa Ghafari, the 27-year-old mayor of the small Afghani town of Maidan Shar, fled her country on Sunday. She saved herself from certain death.
There were no protests in Washington to demand her safe passage. The radical feminists of America have gone back to their Pilates and Peloton classes. They cannot be bothered. “Biden’s got this, right? He’s one of us.”
Ghafari, an intelligent woman who looks as though she could be a doctor or scholar, was one of Afghanistan’s first women mayors. She was raised by her parents during the time when the Taliban had been driven back into the mountains by U.S. forces and Afghan Armed Forces. While the terrorists attacked and regrouped to attack again, she grew up during the brief window of time when girls in Afghanistan could finally go to school, even in her very conservative town.
Ghafari was born under the Taliban rule, but lived most of her life in a somewhat more modern social setting. She could show her face, for example, rather than be cloaked in a burka. Like so many women of her age, she’s known a world where girls can get educated, although her region is famously illiterate – the literacy rate is just 25 percent.
She attended Halima Khazan High School in Paktia Province, and went on to Panjab University in India.
Girls born just a few years before Ghafari’s birth were not so lucky. In areas under firm Taliban control, girls are limited to just a few years of schooling, or they are banned from education completely. Baby girls born today in Afghanistan will be locked into a life of Taliban subjugation.
Ghafari told a British newspaper in early August that she was waiting for the Taliban to come and kill her. She wouldn’t leave her family.
“I’m sitting here waiting for them to come. There is no one to help me or my family. I’m just sitting with them and my husband. And they will come for people like me and kill me. I can’t leave my family. And anyway, where would I go?” she asked the reporter.
We can presume that Ghafari knows of what she speaks which is why she made the decision to evacuate while she could. Her life had been threatened many times, and her own father, Abdul Wasi Ghafari, an Afghan Army colonel,
was gunned down by Taliban in November of 2020, just days after an assassination attempt on her life failed, the reporter wrote. Ghafari believes her father was killed because of her.
Known for her work on women’s rights in Afghanistan, Ghafari was named an International Woman of Courage in 2020 by then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. That puts a bigger target on her forehead.
Maidan Shar, her hometown, is the capital of the Maidan Wardak province in central Afghanistan.
This month the province was finally retaken by the Taliban, the fundamentalist sect of warrior men who are particularly savage toward women, especially women who do not know their place in the patriarchy.
Women like Ghafari and women in her extended family are going to be marked by the Taliban. She had been hunkered down in Kabul for her own safety, for Maidan Wardak has long been a high-risk province and her town, adjacent to Kabul, is a major travel route for the Taliban.
Wind the clock back to January 19, 2019, when a suicide bomber drove a vehicle into the regional military base and police training center in Maidan Shar, killing a dozen and injuring 30.
Perhaps we can ask the Handmaid’s Tale costuming “cosplay” women who donned red capes and white wimples to protest of Donald Trump on Jan. 19, 2019 to take a passing interest in what real oppression looks like, and to use their abundant sense of righteousness to save 18 million deeply endangered women.
Perhaps the pussy-hatted women with their Dump Trump signs will rescue their sisters in Afghanistan.
Or perhaps the American women pretending they were oppressed and engaging in the worst sort of political theater have now been exposed as simply partisan actors working to remove a president they found offensive.
These pussy-hatted Women’s March feminists own the Biden presidency, and by extension, they own the rape, torture, and debasement of the women of Afghanistan, who are living in a true dystopia, one that even the novelist Margaret Atwood could not imagine.
Millions of Zarifa Ghafaris did not get out in time. Every one of them heading for a life of servitude and sexual slavery matters.
Suzanne Downing is the publisher of Must Read Alaska and Must Read America.
Suzanne, remember it was Don Trump that set this withdrawal in motion.
Bill Yankee,
in technical terms you maybe correct. The problem is a known reality is never simple.
Its not what you do its how you do it .
Also blaming trump is just gaslighting. Similar to saying biden is responsible for the full mess.
The ones mostly responsible are the ones who invaded and kept the invasion going for 20 years while pocketing the profits. The true blame falls at their feet and biden was certainly involved as a public servant . It’s known that when an item needs done such as military withdrawal, it must be accomplished in a professional functional successful manner. As President Biden was responsible for this . He failed catastrophically. People died and will suffer unnecessarily. Trump was displaced from office and it was bidens turn to do the job . He failed. Which is not surprising considering he has mostly only had experience as a government desk and speach man with little hands on experience with management or actual work. It is our fault for allowing him to be elected when he was more than clearly incompetent for such office: we all hold blame for those peoples suffering through our thoughtless voting and lack of holding officials responsible . Its a sad day for our nation. May we learn and progress.
There was, no doubt, an intelligence failure at the speed with which this occurred. Many military had to know these Afghan military would cave but for their own reasons kept quiet.
That all said, what we were sold on by Trump is that these Taliban would no longer protect Al Queda folks (which was the reason Bush went there to begin with). Who knows if this still holds water.
So what is what it boils down to. We are out of there and likely should have been years ago.
Bill the intelligence failure was the lack of Biden’s intelligence. Biden is evil to his core. If you voted for this half Witt clown you own this disaster and the disaster on our southern boarder and this covid fiasco. 8 months in office and our country is in shambles. And it’s just begun.
Talk about a low-watt bulb Doug-why not give us your credentials on proclaiming someone “evil.”
And you’ve apparently forgotten that it was DT that gave us this covid fiasco.
News is that for the last three days now we’ve given over 1 million vaccines/day. Not you of course, but it does seem to be catching on. Heheh!
He did but he also had a plan that Biden didn’t follow through on, he didn’t tell anyone he was doing this and left thousands of Americans stranded with no way out. This is Biden’s “Fall of Saigon” moment and he may not recover from it.
Don’t hold your breath for that wishful thinking Hunter. Heheh! DT would have screwed it up worse.
There’s no way of knowing because Trump isn’t President anymore. You sound almost proud of how royally screwed up it has been.
So you tend to read things into a post that aren’t there so you can comment on them???
Brilliant-what other assumptions should we consider? Perhaps that DT screwed up everything he touched is no reason to think he would do things differently?
You are daft.
Bill yank me… Biden trashed trumps handling of the Chinese flu since day one. He based his election on how he was going to fix this pandemic problem overnight and trump was a dumb dumb for the way he was handling it. Well here we are eight months into Biden and the pandemic has only worsened. And it’s trumps fault? And Biden’s fiasco in Afghanistan is also trumps fault? How come you lefties only can point fingers and blame other people? Why can’t you take responsibility for your actions? The death of those servicemen is on you, Biden, and anyone else that voted for him. Trump has nothing to do with it.
Pretty funny there Andrew as everything DT touched turned out a disaster and he was turned out for that reason.
You still thinking he will be re-instated???
Heheh!
The low-watt bulbs continue to spew their BS on here but few pay any attention to them IMO.
You just can’t help yourself, can you?
You evidently thought I was kidding Kerry. Heheh!
It wasn’t Trump that screwed up the withdrawal.
You think you know who did??
I don’t understand. We only had 2500 American troops and we were able to defend Afghanistan against Taliban. Send 2500 home and Afghanistan falls!? Why weren’t we as the American people aware of these circumstances!?
Trump’s fault…somehow.
Good article, Suzanne. When American women are stripped of their LBGTQ reference books, their CRT and cancel culture desk books, their feminist law review articles and their wokeness, who do they have left to protect them from incursions of the real world? That is, the enemy who would rape and torture them? The enemy who would enslave them? The enemy who would kill them with ease? It’s not the courts. It’s not NOW. It’s not the feminine men and metrosexuals who wear earrings and nail polish.
All they have left to defend them are their big, badass Conservative men who have protected them for hundreds of years.
China since 2004, has been Investing with Taliban to eXtract rate earth minerals.we went into Afghanistan without econiomic reasons.
You remember when gender studies in Afghanistan was in our ridiculous tax payer budget??! How fruitless! Who ever legislator that suggested that should be fired!
No one is coming. Not Madonna, not Hanoi Jane, not even Woopie Goldberg or Oprah. You’re on your own.
Taliban owned Afghanistan.since you believe it only took 2500 American troopers to secure Afghanistan. I’m willing to pay for that. Biden has screwed us!!!
Question: Would you fight for your child’s education in America or would you fight for the Afghan women’s education?
I think we should send the idiots pushing equity and transgenderism in the schools over to Afghanistan to help the women, gays, and trans people get out. We can do both that way.
Well, Madame Editor, I think it’s far more likely that they will try to help them than will the plastic Ivankas, and the Conservative Karens of the Right/TrumpWorld.
Give them a chance, and stand back and watch.
This is another good example of a MRAK red-meat non-story, tossed out there (when there is other real news to report) for your voracious readers to pounce upon and devour with their cynicism, resentment, and anger.
Back to your medical marijuana and CNN, Dog.
Dog, people falling to their deaths from 2000 feet from our c130 is news. They knew they’d be dead in 24 hours if they stayed. Supposedly these were our allies.
Conservative Karens?
Never met one. Each and every Karen I met was a dyed in the wool leftist.
And please remove the apostrophe in “Karen’s”. It’s a typo, and not a (far too common) misuse of the apostrophe.
It sure would be nice for people to be able to edit their own comments as is possible on some other platforms. Thanks.
This is the truth of our nation. Standing ovation Suzanne.
Here in Juneau those pussy-hat marches included Alaska Representatives Fansler, Westlake and Parish – standing up for women, or something like that. Perhaps we could send those fellows to set the Taliban straight. They’re not preying on pages now as they are no longer legislators. The House Majority has kept in touch with them.
Amen Suzanne, amen…..
How about offering ways to HELP these Afghan women instead of snarky cherry-picked comments??!
FYI…The pussy-hat protesters (women AND men) demanded respectful language from someone who was to represent them in the US and around the world.
FYI…The Handmaid protesters were highlighting what could happen to American women if they lose their rights to Free Choice in managing their bodies (affordable healthcare specifically for women, contraceptives, abortion).
Aside from all your rhetoric, will YOU be doing anything for these Afghan women or is this all talk and no action???
Ahhh…..the leftist spewing Free Choice. Does that Free Choice work those that don’t want to receive the prick as well?
Actually, Suzanne bringing this to light is doing something. She is promoting talk and nothing can happen without first people talking about it. What do you want her to do go over there with an AK-47 and shoot up the place and get 10 kids off of a bus?
Welcome back Greg and I hope you are doing OK.
May I suggest that there are ways to “bring this to light” without falsely criticizing others for their purported “inaction”? This article is definitely not about helping Afghani women – it’s an example of using them to throw shade on progressive women, a group hated and oft disparaged by the Editor.
How about pointing out their plight, offering ideas on how to help, and then asking others to do so? Apparently that approach appeals neither to the cynical author, nor to her similarly-minded readers. And of course, such an angle generates neither clicks, notoriety, or ad revenue. Shame.
Whidbey the Cur, I resent your disingenuous radical leftist use of the word “progressive” to refer to those who are are in fact reactionary authoritarian regressives. There is nothing “progressive” about statist tyranny, nor those who support it.
You may be right dog. What is the solution for girls age 12 years and over being rounded up and sold off to the Taliban? It’s already too late for them. Anybody older than that isn’t allowed to come out of their house. I think the Biden administration just handed the White House back to Trump. They certainly handed it to somebody and won’t be able to keep it after this. This is egg on your face times 10. I’ve never seen or heard of such a thing and I lived through Vietnam. We used to go out and play war at night after school in the streets. We hide with our play guns and I can remember setting up a machine gun nest in my neighbor’s shrubbery. But that doesn’t mean anything about this other than the embarrassment that America is suffering from right now is nothing compared to what the Afghan people are going through. Kind of reminiscent of the Jews being rounded up and the Swiss people looking the other way as the trains loaded with Jews went through their country.
How about going to Afghanistan and issuing every woman a .38 special with ammunition? How about if we had done this 20 years ago? How about if we had interfered with their ‘culture’ and let our soldiers stop the violence and rape of children-they were ordered not to interfere. How about letting our soldiers impose American justice upon them? Current Taliban would be DEAD! And so should many others. I don’t care that they like us with our ‘gentler, kinder, woke’ military. That’s not their job, destruction is their job and we did too little of it. One of my family died trying to bring running water to a village. They should have dropped a MOAB in vengeance.
It’s too late for any of that now. We got our tail between our legs and we are running. And Russia and China and Iran are all throwing rocks at us as we leave. Biden is hoping that the G7 will tell him what to do. We have no leader in this country. This is left such a bad taste and everybody’s mouth not even pelosi and Harris want to touch it. Biden the buffoon will not be in office come Christmas. He may not even make Thanksgiving.
Little catch there: if Smilin Joe is removed, Spread Eagle becomes president. As such, the Senate divides 50/50. Senate approval is necessary to appoint a new VP, and everything else. Barring our own Leeza jumping to her true party, the democrat agenda is frozen. It could be a mess.
Under socialist installed government here women and children are forced to wear masks (I thought it was some type of solidarity with the Taliban today by the rabid lefties at Costco today with all the face coverings), and have no choice over health decisions concerning their own bodies in being injected with toxins labeled as experimental vaccines.
Women who wish to terminate their own children’s lives get fed and state subsidy to pay the executioner. Condoms are cheap and plentiful at Freddie’s. You get gas points if you use your Freddie’s card at checkout.
The problem with you and others is that as children, you never were told no so you don’t understand what the word means. All those times you threw yourself down on the floor and the checkout lane at Walmart or wherever, kicking and throwing and never loving fit when your parents should have got you up and tore your ass off, they got you up and shoved a candy bar in your mouth or whatever else it was that you were wanting. You were never told no so you never learned no and that’s the problem.
Abortions are not healthcare.
Pregnancy is perhaps one of the most natural things that happens to a woman. It is the epitome of health to carry and give birth to a child. It was what keeps the human race viable and healthy as a whole.
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Aborting a child is contrary to that. It is the opposite of healthcare, because it goes against good health.
Ah yes…fearmongering…because who needs ideas?
I feel your and their pain. well said Suzanne.
The hypocrisy of left is real. They can’t have a conscious since they don’t have any morals.
this fits all the liberal democrat women here in Sitka
Perfectly written, Suzanne. Thank you for this dose of truth.
Suzanne,
I must say you are hard hitting. The question is how do you get these pussy hatters to read and understand what you wrote? Perhaps you are expecting a little to much of a specific group. Could it not be said we all share in the responsibility for this disaster against humanity? We have had ample time to vote for people who would resolve Afghanistan in a professional humanitarian manner yet we have nearly all turned a blind eye. It’s been 20 years. We allow corruption in government. We say oh thats my party so its ok . Its Not ok.It destroys our government model we inherited . When public servants enrich themselves as ours do ,its past time for structural changes in regulation. Its time for regulation as to office holders and their relatives- money and penalties for profiting from office or government service even after office to reduce incentive influence “ book deals” “discounted seashore property” “art sales” “campaign contributions” “dinner with lobbyists or associates” we get what we allow . We allow a fraudulent election. We get the leader who the monied powerful interests choose and our citizens in all parties close their eyes and say feel no evil see no evil. We allow our courts to pass the buck. It was not acceptable when the courts declined to hear the cases regarding election dishonesty . We are walking into the dark ages lured by lies and obsufucation . We ignore history. The government should not be enabling infringement on free speech. Yet we allow section 230. We have allowed this deteriorating situation. The pussy hatters are a side note . You cant expect everyone to understand everything but you can expect the majority to throw off the chains of tyranny imposed by our own allowance of government malfeasance. Allowing contributions to help District Attorneys get elected is hyper questionable. Oddly even pussy hatters are an aspect of a free democratic society that may hold importance. The point is those of us who understand the problem must try to relate and present solutions in a format that is inclusive and can develop improvement that goes beyond just venting or whipping up our base . Our writers must step out beyond the base and appeal to the wisdom within all parties involved in this nation. My skill is not in writing.
Suzanne my hat is off to you for being a great leader among men and women. Can you go further and elict sparks of wisdom even within those that are not easily understood? You are a master of writing. Can you get people thinking beyond just the people who already understand you ? I just want to say thank you for doing a great service for our state by being a great reporter and educating us all on the issues at hand . Thank you Suzanne.
You are a classic example of someone who thinks he understands the problem and gives us that really do understand it a bad name.
Heheh!
Bill, you don’t understand anything. Like a well trained parrot you just babble on the slick democrat talking points and smugly proclaim how much smarter you are than the average bear.
For Pete’s sake AK, that was a joke. Lighten up.
Sadly, Bill, in this day and age with all of the terrible things occurring, I see little levity in the news. I have six girls and taught all to shoot…I bought several of them .38s early on. I also taught them that it is better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Bill, I find it ironic for somebody who has pretensions of being educated and intelligent to not even be able to recognize how and when to use “that” vs. “who” (i.e., “… gives us WHO really do understand it a bad name”).
You are running out of arguments it seems Jefferson to resort to such BS.
Get a life.
Yankee, if you hold the marijuana smoke in longer, you will pass out and relieve us all.
He always resorts too personal attacks. It’s like a knee jerk reaction for him.
Wise guy, King Solomon (someone similar to President Trump) said: “… In a thousand men I have found one good one in ten thousand women I have not found…” This ratio probably is still applicable which is why I appreciate the Bible, God’s living word, and prayer so much.
Yeah but why didn’t he use his ring to defend the temple? Supposedly it had powers.
Wow great article . You really drew out the lefties on this one. I share your anger.
Well said Suzanne! Great head line! 🙂
‘It goes through the air…you know the touch…it’s not the touch it’s the air’ that is what your President said when he lied to us about a viral pandemic. HE LIED and people died needlessly because he didn’t want to look bad, VANITY. He lied about Otto in 2017 while on his coveted quest for a Peace prize award, He said Warmbier was ‘hurt bad’, when Otto returned to his parents in a coma and died within hours. Liar. Unfortunate timing you say? The opposition is so warped about the empowerment of women in this country they have blasted ERA for decades. THAT is not unfortunate timing it is hypocrisy. Mendacity, and the king of all acrimony is the Liar Trump.
As I watch the Afghan people falling to their death off our transport planes, in their desperation to escape Biden’s dystopia, I think to myself, and smile, “at least we have no more mean tweets from Bad Orange Man”.
Whew! Problem solved, right? Right?
One thing you can count on since the 1960s. If the US says they’ve got your back, the swamp intends to put a knife in it.
Yeah. I wouldn’t trust us either. Our promise has an expiration date.
Oh puleeze, Suzanne. Afghanistan was a slow motion train wreck not waiting to happen, but actually happening as we ignored it for the past ten years. To blame pussy hatted protesters for the calamity that awaits Afghani women, those unlucky enough not to get out, is silly.
Trump, the Great Grifter, was never interested in the lives of Afghanis, especially Afghani women. What did he do to relieve their plight. He decreed the US would pull out, not quite calling it a “shithole” country but treating it as one. That set the Titanic that was Afghanistan on a collision course with the Iieberg named Taliban.
These kinds of misadventures do not happen overnight. They take years of hubris and disillusionment to create. Trump, as so often was the case, did not play along because there was nothing in it for him. As soon as he found out withdrawing was popular, he couldn’t wait to set the wheels of Afghan misfortune in motion.
Trump didn’t need a pussy hat to throw Afghani women under the bus. All he needed was to know that he might get some more votes if he did.
Suzanne, progressives don’t care. They don’t care about truly oppressed women; they don’t care about children at risk; they don’t care about minority issues; they don’t care about racism; they don’t care about the environment; they don’t care about anything important to the functioning of good society. They are miserable, bitter, angry, disgusting people who want unlimited, unfettered power to force their misery upon every member of society. And even when they achieve that they are not satisfied, demanding eternally more from those who they oppress, which are essentially everyone else. I would say that they should be pitied, but to them pity equals acquiescence. No, they must be unconditionally crushed and relegated to the backwaters of history to which they belong.
Thank you for the well written essay. It should be printed in a national forum.
I didn’t know the vast majority of the Republicans in DC were progressive.
Well don’t act surprised.
I suppose that the big catastrophe for our imposter prez is that he can no longer command that the Rainbow Flag be raised over the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
I’m with the Government and I’m here to help.
Same as Bill Walker running for Governor again.
There is an old adage “If it were not for the British, no one would know the name Ghandi”
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Ghandi was only able to do what he did in India because the British Empire was run be benevolent individuals who actually placed some value on human life. Had Ghandi tried anything under Chinese, Mongolian, or other rule, he would have been executed.
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Every time I see the “feminists” and “activist athletes” and the rest of them protesting for rights in the US, I wonder how different it would be to do so in China, Pakistan, or Afghanistan? Stand around in Handmaid’s Tale cosplay garb in front of the Taliban, see how much change you make.
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No US feminists are going to save a single Afghani woman. That would actually require placing their lives at risk. Instead, there will be a twitter hashtag campaign, and some people with bullhorns might gather in Lafayette Park. But, that will be meaningless gestures, because the Taliban frankly do not care.
The people of Afghanistan are some of the most heavily armed in the world and they could just kill every Taliban who comes near them.
This woman is a good example of why they’re going to be ruled by a minority…she was just sitting at home with her family waiting to be killed…her words.
She should have been waiting, weapons in hand, to take as many with her as she could.
Die like a lion not like a sheep.
That’s the way it always is. The minorities trying to rule the masses. That’s the way it is here in our country now with 13% of our people trying to take over the country and repaint it as their own with bro lives matter flags. Some would argue it is their own country and yes it is there’s to share but it’s not theirs to say not my country and try to resew a national flag and recompose a national anthem. The citizens of Afghanistan have no backbone. We can prompt them up as long as we’re willing to do all the dirty work but they simply can’t or won’t do it on their own. I see pictures and movie clips of thousands of people in the streets of Kabul and Taliban walking down the street and in junk cars and trucks. They’re probably outnumbered 300 to 1. I have no guts. We tried to help them but they were unhelpable. The only solution was to go in and kill every damn Taliban we could find and we screwed that up.
Easy to say, as a keyboard warrior. but in reality, you’d be most likely one of the folks clinging to a C-17 as it took off.
I would have been long dead by now.
James assuming that he knows what a total stranger would do in any situation, typing away on his own keyboard while calling someone else a keyboard warrior. Probably not aware enough to see the irony.
They need to be taught as such. We failed a generation and a nation with our ‘kinder, gentler’ policies.
Yankee, if you hold the marijuana smoke in longer, you will pass out and relieve us all.
Now how would you know that Julia?
Why is it Republicans are more often siding with the Taliban these days?
The pussy-hatted women of the left do not know that the women of Afghanistan exist and they don’t care what happens to them. Now maybe if the Afghanistan women had orange hair, then maybe they would take notice.
You mean libfems?
We have a lot of work to do to guarantee the liberty of every female around the world. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, N Korea, Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, China….. etc, etc, etc. We need to basically rescue them all. Pay for their transportation, resettlement in our country, education, healthcare, housing… the whole mary-ann. How do we pay? No problem. Just raise our income taxes to 99% plus nationalize all our assets and become a communist country. Each of us could house and feed a dozen foreign women in our homes. Why would we do this? Well isn’t it our obligation?…. spelled out clearly in our constitution? Duh… maybe I should read that document again. I know it allows any US citizen to go abroad and help the needy all they want. Beyond that, I don’t see any provisions.
China is moving into Afghanistan for the rare earth metals. Their puppet in the Whitehouse rolled out the red carpet for them; thy paid him off through his son, Hunter. Now we can start repaying the war debt we owe to China. Meanwhile, the the China Whitehouse puppet is shutting down rare earth mineral extraction in Alaska. Chinese are buying American land very quickly. You will be serving them in your own country.
The dots are easily connected.
Wayne, the link between Biden and China is obvious, I wonder how it is that such great thinkers like Greg R. and Billy Yankee who comment here have not expounded on this subject? Billy Yankee the oracle of the Backloop please , your public awaits your musings.
And doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:
“Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States
“Whaling Voyage by One Ishmael”
“Bloody Battle in Affghanistan”
— Moby Dick, 1851
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