Afghanistan

[Boomhauer]

That said most of the current military Chinooks are conversions/rebuilds from earlier models so there probably are quite a few Vietnam era Chinooks flying around.

[Ben]

Quote from: kgbsquirrel on August 15, 2021, 19:28:41
A reminder for the class that if the Departments of State and Defense had obeyed Trump's direct orders to them (to withdraw from Afghanistan) this would not have happened.  The people who disobeyed direct orders to pull out, lied to the commander in chief about doing so, and then bragged about it in the media, are responsible for this.  Still waiting for them to be punished for the aforementioned, but maybe now illegitimate administration will throw those fellas under the bus to save themselves?  One can dream.

Really good point that I had completely forgotten about. I'll take part of the blame for that, but I think the MSM has a good portion of the blame for  "curating" and/or disappearing that stuff as it happened.

[Ben]

MSNBC throws the poor, misunderstood Taliban a softball interview.

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/08/16/meanwhile-msnbc-had-a-taliban-spokesperson-on-to-make-claims-that-went-unchallenged/

[Ben]

The Taliban is confiscating (or "collecting", according to Reuters) civilian weapons as they are "no longer needed for personal protection".

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/08/16/seems-familiar-taliban-confiscating-civilians-firearms-because-theyre-no-longer-needed-for-personal-protection/

[Angel Eyes]

Finger-pointing kicks into overdrive:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/biden-afghanistan-blame-shifting/index.html

[makattak]

Finger-pointing kicks into overdrive:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/biden-afghanistan-blame-shifting/index.html

Replied to the wrong post. This makes me so angry- these incompetents are STILL showing their colors. In a crisis, they are scrambling to assign blame, not try to fix/mitigate their previous errors.

[MechAg94]

Finger-pointing kicks into overdrive:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/biden-afghanistan-blame-shifting/index.html

Skimming the article, it sounds like everyone involved planned and talked and planned and talked, and no one ever made a decision. 

[WLJ]

Got the Monty Python theme struck in my head.

[MechAg94]

Got the Monty Python theme struck in my head.

Well, I was wondering if someone was acting as the power behind the throne which was why Biden was hiding at Camp David.  However, if someone was actually in control, I think we would have seen something different.  This does sort of look like the executive just isn't there much of the time and everyone is on hold waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

[Ben]

Finger-pointing kicks into overdrive:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/biden-afghanistan-blame-shifting/index.html

It occurs to me that the State Dept has been screwed up ever since Hillary was in charge. I think she filled it with partisan shitheads. First Benghazi, then the deep state stuff during Trump (he should have fired 50% of the staff there) which already affected an Afghanistan withdrawal, among many other things, and now their further incompetence seems to be on display. DoD is not perfect, but I'll mostly take their side on this, I think.

[Boomhauer]

Biden is abandoning between 5 to 10 thousand Americans in Afghanistan, no plans to help them get to the airport

We should be screaming from the rooftops that the blood of these Americans is on the hands of Biden voters, just like they like to blame us for shootings and Trump.

[MechAg94]

Biden is abandoning between 5 to 10 thousand Americans in Afghanistan, no plans to help them get to the airport

We should be screaming from the rooftops that the blood of these Americans is on the hands of Biden voters, just like they like to blame us for shootings and Trump.

I hadn't heard anything about that number of people.  Who is still there?

[WLJ]

If Trump was still president and only one person was left the Dems and MSM would be calling for criminal charges

[WLJ]

I hadn't heard anything about that number of people.  Who is still there?

My guess would be mostly contractors

[AZRedhawk44]

Biden is abandoning between 5 to 10 thousand Americans in Afghanistan, no plans to help them get to the airport

We should be screaming from the rooftops that the blood of these Americans is on the hands of Biden voters, just like they like to blame us for shootings and Trump.

I really doubt they are US citizens.  They may be US allies from A-stan, which is certainly bad.  This pull-out should have covered US allies prior to troop evacuation.

Abandoning a small town's population of US citizen foreign contractors is too grotesque even for Biden/Harris.

[RocketMan]

I really doubt they are US citizens.  They may be US allies from A-stan, which is certainly bad.  This pull-out should have covered US allies prior to troop evacuation.

Abandoning a small town's population of US citizen foreign contractors is too grotesque even for Biden/Harris.

I don't think anything is too grotesque for Harris/Biden.

[Ben]

It appears a person clinging to the outside of the C-17 became caught in the landing gear mechanism. I don't know anything about the C-17, but the story suggests that the photo shows the person's body, with the upper torso trapped. Pilots declared an emergency and landed the plane, and human remains were found. Grisly way to die.

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2021/08/17/lord-forgive-us-heartbreaking-footage-appears-to-show-afghani-who-clung-to-departing-c-17-trapped-in-the-landing-gear-photo/

[Hawkmoon]

Even the uber-liberal BBC is fact checking Biden on this one:

https://www.bbc.com/news/58243158

[WLJ]

 

    It is wild watching white Americans freak out about "Muslim terrorists" while they buy hot dogs and ice cream for white terrorists here (themselves).

    — saira rao (@sairasameerarao) August 16, 2021

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2021/08/17/saira-rao-finds-it-remarkable-that-white-americans-freak-out-about-muslim-terrorists-while-they-buy-hotdogs-and-ice-cream-for-white-terrorists-like-themselves/

[WLJ]

yep

    The Taliban spokesman got a question about freedom of speech and he said the question should be asked to US companies like Facebook who claim to promote it while still censoring pic.twitter.com/woXd5RRCWK

    — Liam McCollum (@MLiamMcCollum) August 17, 2021

https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2021/08/17/let-them-fight-when-pressed-on-freedom-of-speech-taliban-spokesman-seriously-dunks-on-facebook-watch/

[DittoHead]

A reminder for the class that if the Departments of State and Defense had obeyed Trump's direct orders to them (to withdraw from Afghanistan) this would not have happened.  The people who disobeyed direct orders to pull out, lied to the commander in chief about doing so, and then bragged about it in the media, are responsible for this.  Still waiting for them to be punished for the aforementioned, but maybe now illegitimate administration will throw those fellas under the bus to save themselves?  One can dream.

You and Jennifer Rubin are kinda on the same page here. 

President Biden deserves ample criticism for a clumsily executed, poorly planned evacuation in Afghanistan. (We will see whether he can atone for it in the follow-up rescue operation.) But he should also receive credit for calling out the military’s dissembling about our progress that paralyzed three previous presidents. If people want to know what expertise he brought to the job, look to his ability and willingness to reject two decades of dishonest Pentagon spin.
...
Biden, at least, deserves credit for his perception and stark candor. If other presidents grasped what was really going on, they did not have the wherewithal to blow the whistle on a war conducted under a blizzard of false assessments. When the rescue operation is behind us, politicians and military leaders should have to testify as to what they knew, when they knew it and why they were not more candid. That inquest should include past presidents, secretaries of defense, military leaders, Pentagon press personnel, national security advisers and more. We deserve to know who was deliberately misleading and who was merely obtuse.

 

[kgbsquirrel]

It occurs to me that the State Dept has been screwed up ever since Hillary was in charge. I think she filled it with partisan shitheads. First Benghazi, then the deep state stuff during Trump (he should have fired 50% of the staff there) which already affected an Afghanistan withdrawal, among many other things, and now their further incompetence seems to be on display. DoD is not perfect, but I'll mostly take their side on this, I think.

State has been corrupt/incompetent for a long time.  They were the morons that fired the entire Iraqi army right after the surrender in 2003 thus creating 700,000 insurgents for hire overnight.

[Ben]

I hadn't heard anything about that number of people.  Who is still there?

White House claims 11,000 Americans. Or more precisely, who "self-identify as American citizens" as per Psaki.


https://www.theepochtimes.com/5000-to-10000-americans-remain-in-taliban-held-afghanistan-pentagon_3952778.html

[Ben]

This is kind of a pisser if accurate. One of the leaders of this Taliban offensive was released from Gitmo by Obama in the prisoner exchange for Bergdahl.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/reported-mastermind-taliban-takeover-released-guantanamo-obama-bergdahl

[Hawkmoon]

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2021/08/17/saira-rao-finds-it-remarkable-that-white-americans-freak-out-about-muslim-terrorists-while-they-buy-hotdogs-and-ice-cream-for-white-terrorists-like-themselves/

Wait -- the white terrorists eating ice cream and hot dogs are White Supremacists? I assumed that meant antifa.