The sole fact that we can comprehend complaining about wasting resources to get some animals out instead of people.

Funniest thing is there is a good chance that most if not all of the animals brought to the UK are going to have to be put down anyways.

I have pets. A dog and 2 cats, oh and some fish as well. I wouldn’t spend a second on them before my wife and children. I wouldn’t expect them to come before another human being,
although to me they are more precious than pretty much most human beings.

This!
It's not the "If", it's the "How" that leaves one completely puzzled and irritated.
There are alway f*ck ups which you can't easily foresee. But in this case it is rather difficult to foresee how it shouldn't have ended in a desaster.

As a nurse of 40 plus years and 29 of those years working in ICU, be careful what you wish for. Have any pay rise you want, but there will be consequences in that as any rise will have to be funded and if you destroy Agenda for Change many many people will lose out as happened when AfC was started and clinical grading before that. Management saw AfC as a way to redefine jobs and grading and things such as unsocial hours plus the hoops to jump through for promotion or just an increment point will be harder to attain. Then add in changes to unsocial hours pay, management has for years wanted to get rid of unsocial hours and replace it with an across the board one off payment. When I was working in the NHS my unsocial hours pay allowed me to pay a large slice of my mortgage each month as single householder. Sick pay. will be another target.

A pay rise means you will pay more tax and NI and possibly move up a tax band, increased parking fees etc.

The civilian sector is also very much involved and has been for the last three weeks flying in the evacuation chain, civilian air liners in and out of the ME plus civilian medical teams on the evacuation aircraft.

That's some disingenuous BS. It was the nature of the agreement to withdraw (freeing top Taliban leadership, ceasing US airstrikes, setting a hard date for getting out) that led directly to manner of 'how' the withdraw unfolded.

The buck does indeed stop with the President, though I never recall you saying much about the Doha Agreement that led to this debacle when Trump was in charge.

Perhaps my calendar is out of date.....and my knowledge of the Doha Agreement differs from yours.....but for sure as of January 20th Joe Biden became the President and he had plenty of time to assess the situation and determine a plan of action (of course with the splendid and candid input of his advisors).

It makes sense to set a date for the event to be completed by and then an orderly scheduled system of events take place to make that happen.

Do explain to us all how Biden's decision to abandon Bagram, Biden's decision to remove the bulk of the combat troops ahead of non-military persons, when confronted by the tremendous gains of controlled territory by the Taliban make sense?

Knowing the Doha Agreement as you do....you do recall what it said about delays should the Taliban not adhere to its terms...right?

Why did Biden decide to continue with a withdrawal of forces all the while the Taliban were taking provincial areas one after another?

For the record....your trying to blame Trump comes across as being very lame.

Biden set the date, Biden made the decision re Troops rather than Civilians, and Biden made the decision to abandon Bagram.

Exactly what role did the previous President play in all of that?

Things were pretty quiet in the years since the Doha Agreement was signed and Trump left Office......what happened to change that?

Any ideas?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f...usic-52hssc62w

Folk singer Fawad Andarabi dragged from home and shot after Taliban outlaw music

Taliban fighters have shot dead an Afghan folk singer after it outlawed music and women’s voices on television and radio in the bellwether province of Kandahar, laying the ground for a nationwide ban in an echo of the brutal Islamist regime of 20 years ago.

Fawad Andarabi was dragged from his home and shot in the head in the village of Andarab, north of Kabul on Friday, his family said. The murder has provoked an outcry and fuelled fears of a return to the repressive regime of the 1990s since Taliban fighters overran Kabul two weeks ago.

Andarabi was famed for playing the ghichak, a bowed lute, to accompany folk songs about the mountains that surrounded his home, which lies near the Panjshir Valley, the last bastion of resistance to the Taliban takeover.

His murder follows comments by Taliban leaders last week that music was “un-Islamic”, and the southern province of Kandahar issued an order banning it today. Local officials also barred “female sounds” from all broadcasting, saying: “Hope be to avoid such activities.”…..

The order from Kandahar also confirms fears that women will be forced out of the media and off the airwaves, crushing a vital opportunity for educated, professional women that has flowered in the 20 years since the first Taliban regime was overthrown…..

The ban on music was trailed last week by Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman who is now touted as the information minister for the new administration. He said that “music is not allowed in Islam,” though he claimed a decision on a ban would be delayed until the government was officially formed.

The announcement from Kandahar has pre-empted that decision, however, telling all media outlets that “music and related programmes with female sounds” were banned.….

Taliban leaders have distanced themselves from the former regime since seizing Kabul for the second time.

The announcement from Kandahar will again raise suspicions that claims the Taliban has changed during its 20-year insurgency are just window dressing, made with an eye on their global audience as the new government appeals for international legitimacy and the return of foreign aid and investment for Afghanistan’s bankrupt economy……

Considering he had a chartered aircraft paid for, his staff were all signed up and cleared for travel to the U.K., I for one cannot understand why they were not allowed to depart with the animals, to stop them at the final gate and deny them all sounds a bit like sour grapes by the U.K. I am neither for nor against this mans actions, though I do question the logic of pets over people. Heck one reason they had to have troops load them were the staff had been stopped.

If as Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman said is correct in that the Taliban has finally liberated the Afghan people, why are they all trying to leave?

Not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse or provocative.

His staff weren’t turned back by the US or UK forces, they were turned back by the Taliban roadblocks on the approaches to the airport who weren’t allowing any Afghans through.

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/s...-b1910350.html

I read that it was the Taliban that stopped the staff from reaching the airport gates.

The social media chat on this has been nauseating. "tHeY fLeW a CaR oUt inSteAd of PeOpLe", oblivious to the space for more passengers around that car and the consequent likelihood the flight had taken everyone who'd been processed when its departure slot arrived. "ThEy aReN't jUsT pEtS, They HeLpEd oUr BrAvE bOys' MeNtAl HeAltH dUrInG tHe WaR" ignoring that it's been 7 years since we had a combat role (and it wasn't in Kabul). "BuT tHe AnImAlS gO iN tHe HoLd", as if a bunch of Afghan girls who've never touched an aeroplane could have loaded the hold safely without diverting military personnel from other tasks. Insane.

Having a pop at the bloke with the dogs is ludicrous.
He isn’t the foreign secretary,PM or the defence secretary.Celebrating the success of the effort by the U.K. & allied militaries is absolutely right.
The people to be vilified are our elected leadership, whether Brit or US,it is their abject failure that has lead us to this.
In the U.K. Raab will be the political fall guy,but many others should be sacked or resign.

“U.K. foreign policy is missing in action,” Tobias Ellwood,Conservative lawmaker and former soldier, in reaction to the news. He called the crisis “our biggest foreign policy failure in a generation.”

ahh that explains it I heard it was the last gate, which wouldn’t be the Taliban normally, obviously mixed up in the news… obtuse huh, you been watching the ShawShank Redemption again.. ,;)

We Band of Brothers. Hope you are well Friend. I despair for those in the Stan that have had the light ripped out again by the brainwashed inbreds. They never left and were winning way before Biden got power. Way above my authority to help. :(

Anyhoo - back on thread - it seems the Hellfire 9X was used in the latest strike:
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources...d-missile-r9x/

The Times:

Getting all the troops home takes some fancy footwork

US military commanders at Kabul airport are engaged in an elaborate choreography to complete America’s final troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by midnight tomorrow (Michael Evans writes).

The priority had been to keep hundreds of marines, soldiers and special operations troops in place for as long as possible to ensure safe evacuation of the last Americans and Afghans with immigration visas.

At the same time they have had to put enough troops on the planes starting at least 48 hours before the deadline is reached to guarantee that all the 4,000 service personnel who were there at the end of last week are removed on time.

US defence officials have acknowledged that it may be impossible to remove all the helicopters and other equipment on the remaining flights because of the space they will take up.

The US military has already destroyed a large amount of assault rifles and ammunition supplied to the Afghan national security forces. The CIA has demolished a building outside the airport used for training Afghan intelligence agencies in counterterrorism. It contained sensitive equipment.

However, there is no evidence that the US has yet had to destroy or disable any helicopters, all of which have been vital to the evacuation.

At least a dozen Chinook, Black Hawk, Apache and special operations-adapted Little Bird helicopters are on the list for withdrawal but some may have to be left behind. US defence officials have indicated they may be destroyed in an airstrike before the midnight deadline.

However, those used by the US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers, can be flown out of Kabul individually because they have air-refuelling capability.

For the troop airlift choreography, the commanders have had to draw up flight manifests based on the requirement to continue checking visas of Afghans and securing the airport. The 5,800 troop total was cut to 4,000, helped by a decision to close some of the airport entry gates and all the roads around the perimeter.

This enabled marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU) and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, both responsible for perimeter security and checkpoints, to start withdrawing.

The 2,000 Marines from the 24th MEU had originally been airlifted from ships in an amphibious-ready group in the Gulf to Kuwait before being flown to Kabul. They will return to their ships via Kuwait although, sadly, without 11 of their comrades, who were killed in the suicide bombing at Kabul airport.

Among the last to leave Kabul will be several hundred US special operations troops who are expected to be on the final flights out in the hours before midnight tomorrow.

They will be accompanied by the last remaining CIA paramilitary officers. Green beret soldiers of the US Army’s 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and CIA members of the intelligence agency’s special activities division were the first to arrive, covertly, in Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks.

The first in, they will now be the last out when the final chapter of America’s campaign in Afghanistan comes to an end tomorrow.

Interesting piece in Politico about today’s UN Security Council meeting….

Later in New York

Briefings out of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ meeting with the Security Council’s five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — will also be worth watching…. The meeting is currently scheduled for 6 p.m. New York time.

French President Emmanuel Macron took London by surprise, announcing in the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that France and the U.K. would put forward an emergency U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a safe zone at Kabul airport to allow people to continue to leave Afghanistan.

“Our resolution proposal aims to define a safe zone in Kabul, under U.N. control, which would allow humanitarian operations to continue,” the French president explained. The plan was “about protecting these threatened Afghans and getting them out of the country in the coming days or weeks. We will see if this can be done through the capital’s civilian airport or through neighboring countries.”

More here from my POLITICO colleague Paul Dallison. Later, on a visit to Mosul in Iraq, Macron said: “I cannot see who could oppose enabling the safety of humanitarian operations.” Reuters has the quotes.

Officials in London say the draft resolution had “been under negotiation” among Security Council members over the weekend “with the aim of adopting it early this week.”

Macron’s early move is seen by some in London as a preemptive strike against the U.S. There are fears in some quarters that Biden might claim credit for an initiative they said has been led by the U.K. and France, one government official told Playbook……

I find this a highly informative and thought-provoking thread.

I guess the ultimate question was whether 10-20 thousand Afghan deaths a year in a country of 38 million was a price worth paying for a free society for some 60-70% of the population; one where women could learn, work and live their own lives, heck one where you could listen to music, because you can't now!

Trump had an election promise to keep and he did. Biden; I just don't know. Certainly the US and NATO military presence was sustainable https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020...-us-president/ . Aiui, the Afghan government wasn't really consulted and wasn't offered the opportunity of making that decision.

I don't really understand anyone in the media calling the evacuation a "disaster". It was a highly successful operation spun up in just a couple of days and sustained for a fortnight, and largely met its objectives (in fact I bet it exceeded what the planners thought was possible). Everyone involved should feel very proud. If they mean needing to perform the evacuation is a disaster, fair enough, but I wish they'd choose their words more carefully.

Very much agree with that…unfortunately the MSM narrative has now swung to “Ah, but not good enough because we didn’t get absolutely everybody out who wanted to get out and we didn’t get all of that Royal Marines cats and dogs out”..:rolleyes: