The Fall Of Kabul To The Taliban

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Below are facts tweeted by Lucas Tomlinson, Fox News reporter covering the Pentagon briefing this am:

https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews

"Over 400 U.S. troops have departed Kabul ahead of Biden's Aug. 31 deadline: U.S. officials"

"Pentagon: 10,000 people now inside Kabul airport waiting to be evacuated"

"Pentagon: In the past 24 hours, five evacuation flights have landed at Dulles airport outside the nation's capital with 1,200 Afghan refugees"

"Pentagon: In the "last couple of days" before Biden's Aug. 31 deadline the priority will be for the U.S. military for the remaining evacuation flights"

"Pentagon: After U.S. military leaves Kabul on Aug. 31, no Americans will guard the $800 million dollar U.S. embassy in Kabul"

"BREAKING: U.S. military launched another helicopter rescue mission outside the Kabul airport last night to rescue 'less than' 20 Americans"

"Over 4,400 Americans have now been evacuated from Afghanistan: Pentagon"

"Pentagon says it was surprised that two members of Congress made an unannounced visit to the airport in Kabul yesterday. Pentagon "not encouraging" more VIP visits. Reps Moulton and Meijer disrupted "what we were planning to do that day," Kirby says."
 
TGIRecovered said:
It's beyond ridiculous that the taliban is being allowed to call any shots at all. We should just blow them to bits if they dare touch a hair on another American's head.
Here is a drone coming straight at your head, mister taliban with a little "t"-- Boom!
Taliban deadlines mean nothing in real life. Taliban deadlines only exist namby-pamby coward life. MOO
Click to expand...

I really don't think acting like John Wayne is the way to go in this situation: just sayin'
 
Exactly. They are a tribal people-they govern through bribes & favors and protection deals. It's their way, their choice, their desire. They never expressed an interest in democracy.

All I really care about are the women and girls but mostly the young girls like those in this article who were completely westernized and now are essentially being trafficked to Taliban fighters. These girls are braver than most of the men I've seen and heard.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/10/afghanistan-girls-education/

And let's not forget the former president negotiated this deal which let out Taliban leaders and fighters and cut out the Afghan government which the people never trusted anyway. So all the village/tribal elders sold out to the Taliban and there was no resistance at all in most places. And the government officials, knowing they were cut out and afraid of the Taliban, collected all the US $$$$ they could & absconded. Or maybe not totally as Ghani is now back. So maybe it was just all arranged amongst themselves even though we cut them out.

Whatever the reality we are clearly incapable of democratizing a tribal society and should have never exhibited the hubris to try. We should have left years ago and saved the billions now funding Ghani and others to continue living large on our $$$'s.


Lilibet said:
I agree that what we are seeing now has deep historical roots and that these invasions are doomed. I believe we have simply delayed the inevitable for 20 years. As we watch with sadness and even anger the scenes at the airport and in Kabul, I think it’s important to understand the culture and history. It’s too easy to frame the picture in the emotion of the immediate moment, rather than in a deeper understanding of the culture and history and mistakes made by the U.S. across four administrations since 2001 (and even earlier).

I mentioned in an earlier post that it would be helpful if the U.S. government could analyze and learn from this experience in order to avoid becoming enmeshed in a future conflict. I was pleased to discover that there is an “Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction” who has compiled numerous “lessons learned” reports over the years. Whether these reports are studied and applied is another matter.

This link is to the latest report published this month. Reading the “Executive Summary” and “Introduction” at the beginning gives an overview of what went wrong. I haven’t read all 140 pages, but the quoted section epitomizes IMO the intrinsic problem with the entire mission in Afghanistan. It makes it clear, to me anyway, that it would likely fail, and why my initial reaction to the invasion in 2001 was sadly accurate. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t care deeply about what we see happening to Afghans this week and in the future, while also acknowledging the complexity of the culture and ultimate futility of the U.S. attempt to reconstruct a country that had been in conflict since 1979.

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf

Page 80
WILLFUL DISREGARD FOR CRITICAL INFORMATION
When the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, they embarked on an ambitious effort to encourage or even impose broad reforms that touched essentially all aspects of Afghan society, including politics, economics, education, defense, rule of law, and the societal roles and relations between men and women.

The U.S. government pursued these reforms while simultaneously attempting to
quell multiple security threats, including a burgeoning Taliban insurgency, a powerful narcotics industry, warlords entrenched in the Afghan government, and a nascent local affiliate of the Islamic State. Yet as this chapter demonstrates, rarely did U.S. officials have even a mediocre understanding of the environment, much less how it was responding to U.S. interventions.

In fact, blaming mistakes on a simple lack of information may be charitable. Many mistakes were borne from a willful disregard for information that may have been available. After all, in many cases, the U.S. government’s very purpose was to usher in an orderly revolution that would replace existing Afghan social systems with western or “modern” systems. If the intention was to build institutions from scratch, understanding and working within the country’s traditional systems was unnecessary. As one former senior USAID official told SIGAR, “We wanted to give them something they had never had before.”441

But instead of being a society deconstructed to its foundation by conflict and primed
for the introduction of western political, economic, and judicial systems, it turned out Afghanistan was a complex society with ingrained traditions and an incorrigible political economy. These traditions were neither easy to uproot and replace, nor could they be shoehorned into a Western institutional framework, as evidenced by the attempts to use strongmen and warlords to build a nascent bureaucracy.

BBM
Click to expand...
 
I've been in touch with several Afghani women who are involved in human rights, education etc. Strikingly none of them expressed any desire to leave or expectation that someone should physically rescue them. They WANT to stay and take back their country. The only way that happens, at least in Kabul, is international pressure. By that I mean it may only ever be possible to have a limited "protected" space over there and that would likely be Kabul.

Right now, all the allies/western countries and the US have frozen all Afghan assets in financial institutions outside Afghanistan which is basically all of them. They have no experience governing and no experienced administrators. Let us support the women in the traditional deals/negotiations that Afghans engage in and ensure no $$$ is available without strict human rights requirements.


Skigh said:
White House signs joint statement asking the Taliban to protect women and girls | Daily Mail Online


White House signs joint statement with 19 other nations asking the Taliban to protect women and girls and vowing to 'monitor closely'
  • The statement says the nations are 'deeply worried about Afghan women and girls'
  • Comes amid fears Taliban will again deny women a role in the public sphere, girls were denied schooling, and Sharia law was imposed
  • Governments say they will 'monitor closely how any future government ensures rights and freedoms' of Afghan women and girls
  • Taliban spokesman said Tuesday that 'We are guaranteeing all their rights within the limits of Islam'
  • Statement signed by 20 nations plus the European Union
Click to expand...
 
Female student, 22, makes desperate plea on behalf of Afghan women | Daily Mail Online

A young female student trapped in Kabul has made a desperate plea to the world on behalf of Afghan women.

Aisha Ahmad (not her real name), 22, spent four days trying to get into Kabul airport and feared she would be crushed to death as people stampeded.

She posted shocking footage of the crush, sharing clips with shots being heard in the background as people desperately shoved towards the airport.

Now, having all-but given up hope of escaping the Taliban's control as the August 31 deadline looms, the Kabul University student has told MailOnline that the hopes and aspiration of Afghan women in general are about to be trampled into the dust.

In her open letter, Aisha demanded that the nations of the West stand up for her and other women in the benighted nation.
 
''August 25, 2021 12:04PM EDT rbbm.
Canada will end its Afghanistan evacuation before Aug. 31 deadline: Sajjan
OTTAWA -- Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says the Canadian military will begin wrapping up its mission at Kabul airport ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline the United States set for ending the mission.

Sajjan says that's because the U.S. is leading the mission and its forces must be the last to leave the airport, meaning Canada must begin departure preparations in advance.

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino says Canada's commitment to helping Afghans will go on after the military withdrawal from abroad.''

''Garneau says Canada and the G7 will be laying down clear markers for the Taliban in talks that will take place over the coming days to impress upon the regime that it must not block Afghans from leaving the country.''
 
IMO, this dishing out inaccurate info is not helping this administration in the least. There is some serious bad juju going on...

Per Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News covering The White House

https://twitter.com/JacquiHeinrich

"Senate sources are NOT HAPPY they were given inaccurate information. One source: “It's literally the number one thing everyone wants right now. Unbelievable” "

referring to herself and her previous reporting, via Twitter

"State Department now tells me the BRIEFER MISSPOKE on this call, and the 4100 number is not accurate. State did not provide an accurate number, said Blinken will speak to this later.
Quote Tweet
TWUq1jy__mini.jpg

Jacqui Heinrich
@JacquiHeinrich
· 1h
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NEW: source tells me reps from NSC, State Dept, and Joint Staff said on Senate call approx 4100 Americans remain in Afghanistan *** the briefer cautioned that number will fluctuate as some decide to stay in country for any number of reasons. Approx 4500 evacuated so far. "

https://twitter.com/JacquiHeinrich/status/1430590825860317184
 
@jaketapper

Blinken now says the number of Americans who want to be evacuated is definitively 500, with 1,000 others they are trying to ascertain their status, though numbers are hard to pin down.

Blinken says this number is just American citizens, not US green card holders


Not all the Americans are located in/around Kabul.


@mviser

Since Aug. 14, according to Tony Blinken, the US has evacuated 82,300 people. About 4,500 are U.S. passport holders and their families. Precise breakdown of the others evacuated — how many SIV applicants, green card holders, other Afghans, other foreign nationals, etc — unclear


Taliban will allow Americans, at-risk Afghans to leave after Aug 31
 
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I personally distrust the numbers that they are throwing out. Ten days ago, the number of US citizens was stated at about 10-15,000.

Today, the US State Department is singing their praises of rescuing 4500. Per my math, 10 - 4.5 = 5.5 thousand citizens. (Not 500 remaining, which is the latest claim.)

The word- smithing of the phrase " Those who wanted to leave" by the WH press secretary recently..plus the now added phrase from the State Department " Those we have been in contact with", in my mind begs the question of what about the rest of them? What if they were AFRAID to contact you? What if they were UNABLE to contact you? What if?

IMO, adding to this disastrous show, the unexplained visible lack of cognizance by our POTUS to speak with anyone...including Foreign Leaders without reading from a teleprompter or a note card and answer a darn question! Have a dialogue for crying out loud!

I wish someone in the MS media would be allowed to, or have the ***** to ask that question regarding the lack of communication from the Leader of the Free World
 
huh?
rbbm.
Federal minister Maryam Monsef calls Taliban ‘our brothers,’ stresses she views them as a terrorist group
''Canada’s minister for women and gender equality, Maryam Monsef, referred to the Taliban as “our brothers” Wednesday as she called on them to ensure the “safe and secure passage” of those looking to flee Afghanistan.

The “cultural reference” to the new regime drew criticism from some amid ongoing scrutiny of Canada’s response to the Afghan crisis.''

Federal minister Monsef says her mention of Taliban as 'our brothers' is a 'cultural reference'
''OTTAWA -- Canada’s minister of women and gender equality says her mention of the Taliban as “our brothers” during a press conference Wednesday is a “cultural reference,” after receiving criticism for her choice of language.

Maryam Monsef – who was born in Iran and raised in Afghanistan – had a direct message for the terrorist group, which has swiftly taken control of most of Afghanistan since the U.S. began withdrawing its troops following a 20-year mission.

“I want to take this opportunity to speak with our brothers, the Taliban. We call on you to ensure the safe and secure passage of any individual in Afghanistan out of the country. We call on you to immediately stop the violence, the genocide, the femicide, the destruction of infrastructure, including heritage buildings,” she said, speaking alongside colleagues while providing an update about Canada’s efforts to evacuate Afghans from the country.''
 
The following is a smarmy smart - alec response from the POTUS today, to a well respected reporter from NBC News, Chief White house staff, Peter Alexander.
The question was a well thought out important question that many Americans are wondering. And, he seriously said this?

Heaven help us!!!

"I asked President Biden what he will do if Americans are still in Afghanistan after the 8/31 deadline. His response: “You’ll be the first person I call.” Took no questions. "

https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/1430595335685017605
 
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