Probably a Chinook Flight Engineer who steps aboard the Ramp and hits the "UP Lever" of the last Helicopter departing Kabul Airport.

Will the Taliban be providing the final Security Perimeter for the extraction?

A somewhat reasoned view:


https://nationalinterest.org/feature...306?page=0%2C1

"Will the Taliban be providing the final Security Perimeter for the extraction?"

If I was them I'd provide a brass band, a red carpet and a guard of honour............. they've got it all for almost nothing

Looks like that charter flight is heading up to Kabul
EDGE20 ex Muscat?

My ideal final scenario has the youngest and most shattered Tom pulling the up lever and Biden left on the tarmac trying to remember how to salute, covered in downwash and turds.

Still quite a few American C-17’s inbound and two stratotankers, plus one MC130 combat shadow enroute. Although I guess that could be being used to refuel helos to get them out of country.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...adviser-going/

Pen Farthing said to have left voicemail for Ben Wallace's adviser: 'I am going to destroy you'

Now leaving Pakistan Coast under original Call Sign ZSTGY

Stick with weather forecasting. Your bile really does piss off peiople like me off. You have never served in the **** holes of Iraq and the Stan. You have no fecking idea on what being shattered is. I did after having to work 65 continous 12 hour night shifts at the COB between March and May 2008. My TELIC medal doesn't have a clasp, but is worth way more than my Granby gong. Checking if my guys that were outside in IDF were OK is what I cared most about then.

Cat, we have been here before, give it a rest please. LangleyBaston has done nothing to you and does not deserve any of this you are doling out, it is a public forum and he is as entitled as you to post his thoughts and comments, The only person that has any grievance with him is you, everyone else likes him and value his input.

I must have missed your promotion to moderator. Congrats....

He has a point though, the weather worrier would do well to stay in his lane more often....

Pen Farthing’s charter flight arrived at LHR this morning.

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2021/...s-at-heathrow/

FWIW I thought LB's post about Biden was crass in the extreme. Presidents and prime ministers generally don't get to take easy decisions: those get taken for them further down the food chain. Biden had the choice of withdrawing or re-escalating a conflict for which the US electorate had long lost its appetite. He took a decision which both Obama and Trump kicked down the road. History will judge whether he made the right decision, just as it has judged that Reagan did in Lebanon, and Nixon and Ford did in Vietnam, both despite facing heavy criticism at the time. It's a momentous decision that deserves and needs deeper context, analysis and reflection than a crass emotional reflex to undeniably shocking events. Ten thousand Afghans have been dying annually in this conflict and I don't recall there being any heart-wrenching at all about that, either in the Western media or in this forum.

Contrast Biden's gritty decisiveness with Boris folding in the face of nagging from his wife about a plane load of stray cats and dogs. I can't quite believe the Defence Secretary chose to acquiesce. Now that would have been an impactful resignation, unlike that of the USMC officer being discussed elsewhere.

Total egotistical bellend.

TF 160th doing their thing!

Big difference between dying in battle and being murdered.

The complaint is not the withdrawal....but the manner in which it was done and thus turned into a disaster.

But...as Harry Truman rightfully said (and affirmed by that piece of wood on his desk in the Oval Office). "The Buck Stops Here!". No. matter how you try....Biden owns this....every bit of it. He is the President and he made the decisions that got us to this point. That is unless one is right when it is assumed others are making the decisions for him and he merely rubber stamps them "Approved".

Bravo Zulu to everyone involved in Op Pitting (Except that cats and dogs chap). There being a first time for everything, I may even have to say something nice about movers!

Let's put things into context for the healthcare professionals.

In the UK, more Healthcare professionals have died since the start of the pandemic than UK military personnel who died during Gulf War 1, Gulf War2 and the Afghanistan conflict combined..

In common with most conflicts, the number of deaths, only tells part of the story though. For example, I know of some nurses who were transferred from their relaxed jobs that they'd been doing for 10 years or more, to a highly stressful areas like intensive care and with minimal training, and then left to get on things. Again to put things into context, it usually takes a highly motivated qualified nurse a year or so to start to approach a level of competency that they can work independently, here you had people being moved with no notice and no choice and given a few hours training.

The effect that this had had on countless individuals cannot be understated, they'll never be the same people again.

As you've probably twigged, I have more than a passing interest in this area. I'm a health care professional who was moved to ITU from my job, and even though I had a high level of motivation to do my bit, nothing in my training and experience properly prepared me for it. From helping people say goodbye to their partners via an iPad prior to intubation in the knowledge that it could well be the last time that they'll ever talk to each other, to watching your colleagues who have become patients slowly deteriorate and die.

On top on this, I caught Covid earlier this year, developed pneumonia and became quite ill. 6 months on, now I struggle to work half the hours I used to. Prior to being ill, I'd compete in cycling events and it wouldn't be unusual for me to disappear in the Peak District for 6 hours or more on my bike. Now I can barely cycle and haven't managed 200 miles this year. On top of this, I also have the knowledge that my sick leave entitlement is running out soon, so unfortunately I'm forced to sell my house because obviously I'll not be able to afford to the mortgage on the hours that I'm able to work.

My situation is not unusual.

Prior to the pandemic, the only time in my career that a strike was called, I refused to join it and only really saw my union membership as a form of legal insurance. Now things have changed. In the last 18 months, countless healthcare professionals have stepped up and many have paid a huge price. Now it's only fair that a decade of austerity, where once again the health care professionals were expected to make their sacrifice, was reversed and financial recognition given.

For all the people complaining about flying animals out, I'm curious. What makes your life more important than that of a dog or a cat? Or an ant for that matter?
What makes you humans so special?