Afghanistan Update: Islamic State claims responsibility for multiple bombings over last two days, including two Shia mosques

[osxmatt]

Wall Street Journal are reporting 4 US Marines are among the dead.

[Keyser_Soze]

6 minutes ago, osxmatt said:

Wall Street Journal are reporting 4 US Marines are among the dead.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

18 minutes ago, osxmatt said:

Wall Street Journal are reporting 4 US Marines are among the dead.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

With the deaths of the Marines, I wouldn't be surprised if this operation isn't ending in a matter of hours.

[Jwheel86]

11 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

With the deaths of the Marines, I wouldn't be surprised if this operation isn't ending in a matter of hours.

 

Which could take days since a bunch of helicopters have to be broken down and loaded into cargo planes. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 minute ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

Which could take days since a bunch of helicopters have to be broken down and loaded into cargo planes. 

 

I'll put good money on they're not gonna bother breaking down the helos and will just disable/destroy them on the way out.

[ort]

We should have never been over there at all... like ever... okay, maybe for a few months in 2001... but whatever.

 

Biden is doing the right thing. Fuck being in Afghanastan and every motherfucking right wing ghoul trying to dunk on this whole thing is a stupid piece of shit. They're dishonest fucking warmongering goblins. Nothing they say means anything. They are despicable human garbage. They are rooting for death because it helps their narrative.

 

This chaos goes to further prove we should not be over there. WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THERE AT ALL. NO EXIT WAS GOING TO BE SMOOTH. THERE WAS NO GOOD WAY TO DO THIS, WE JUST HAD TO RIP OFF THE BAND-AID.

 

I'm sad about the people dying and the 4 marines who were killed today, but 2,500 American soldiers have been killed, only usually no one gives a fuck because they couldn't use their sacrifice to try and score political gotcha points. Their deaths are no more tragic than the other 2,500. No one should have died over there.

 

Don't even get me started on the 250,000ish Afghans soldiers and civilians we killed during our time over there. This whole shit-show was a total farce and good on Biden for having the courage to fucking end it.

 

It's not going to go well for him, but someone had to do it. IT HAD TO HAPPEN.

[mclumber1]

15 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

I'll put good money on they're not gonna bother breaking down the helos and will just disable/destroy them on the way out.

 

I've thought about this, and would the military consider just piling up what equipment/weapons is left and them drop a bunch of bombs on it?  They probably don't want any of that stuff to fall into the Taliban's or ISIS-K's hands. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Just now, mclumber1 said:

 

I've thought about this, and would the military consider just piling up what equipment/weapons is left and them drop a bunch of bombs on it?  They probably don't want any of that stuff to fall into the Taliban's or ISIS-K's hands. 

 

If push came to shove and the order came down to "GTFO now, by all means necessary", then I have little doubt that the equipment would be rendered unusable.

[osxmatt]

Wall Street Journal reporting at least 60 killed in the bombings.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Just now, osxmatt said:

Wall Street Journal reporting at least 60 killed in the bombings.

 

That number will probably grow significantly, unfortunately.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Ghost_MH]

ISIS really wants dumb Americans to champion for a continued war against the Taliban. This is an easy win-win for them.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[osxmatt]

Fox News now reporting 12 Americans killed.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

From the Pentagon briefing:

 

Quote

 

McKenzie was adamant that the evacuation operation would continue: “The plan is designed to operate while under stress, and under attack, and we will continue to do that, we will coordinate very carefully to make sure that it’s safe for American citizens to come to the airfield. If it’s not, we’ll tell them to hold.”

 

He added: “Our mission remains. We’re still committed to flying people out, until we terminate operations at some point towards the end of the month.”

Gen McKenzie said that cooperation with the Taliban has probably thwarted other planned attacks on the airport:

 

“We share versions of our information with the Taliban, so that they can actually do some searching out there for us and we believe that some attacks have been thwarted by them,” the general said. “They don’t get the full range of information we have, but we give them enough to act in time and space to try to prevent these attacks.”

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

More from the briefing:

 

Quote

 

Gen McKenzie said the US military was now talking to the Taliban about improving security at the airport by widening the cordon around it.

 

“We’ve reached out to the Taliban, we’ve told them you need to continue to push out the security perimeter. We’ve identified some roads that we would like for them to close they’ve indicated that they’ll they will be willing to close those roads, because we assess the threat of a suicide borne vehicle threat is high right now, so we want to reduce the possibility of one of those vehicles getting close,” he said.

 

He pointed out that there are drones over the area, with experts constantly assessing the scene for threats, as well as helicopters and aircraft with good imaging systems.

 

 

[Jwheel86]

Is no one going to point out the irony of the Taliban doing airport security?

[Uaarkson]

I knew this would happen. Surprised it wasn’t sooner 

[Air_Delivery]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

ISIS really wants dumb Americans to champion for a continued war against the Taliban. This is an easy win-win for them.

This has got to be it. ISIS much rather deal with the US. Once the Taliban takes over they know its over for them in the region. 

[Remarkableriots]

2 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

With the deaths of the Marines, I wouldn't be surprised if this operation isn't ending in a matter of hours.

What happens to the estimated 1,500 Americans still in Afghanistan?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 minute ago, Remarkableriots said:

What happens to the estimated 1,500 Americans still in Afghanistan?

 

According to the Pentagon, the mission will continue so it's a moot point.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

43 minutes ago, Jwheel86 said:

Is no one going to point out the irony of the Taliban doing airport security?

 

They'd better get used to the role because it's gonna be entirely theirs in a few days' time.

[osxmatt]

26 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

What happens to the estimated 1,500 Americans still in Afghanistan?

According to the briefing today, 500 were evacuated yesterday, and they are now in contact with the remaining 1,000.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Canada's airlift mission from Kabul ends, leaving many behind | CBC News

We stopped knowing that we had left people behind.

[thewhyteboar]

 

[Littleronin]

Republicans only care if it is a non-republican President's watch. Remember "he knew what they signed up for?" Yeah, where was the crazy amounts of outrage by republicans for that comment.

[CitizenVectron]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

20 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

 

I'm going to take some issue with this reporting because it lacks all context.

The Taliban control all access routes to the airport and therefore in order to facilitate ANY evacuation, it would probably be a good idea that they were provided with some kind of list.  Of course, it could be used as a "kill list", but if not for a manifest of some sort, the Taliban could easily turn away EVERY Afghan from getting near the airport.  The fact that 90,000+ Afghans have been evacuated -- and we can have a reasonable expectation that quite a number of them could be on that list -- indicates that it's working as intended, at least for now.

[Jason]

 

[Jason]

 

[Jason]

 

 

[Jwheel86]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

 

Right, because MacArthur and Patton NEVER talked to the press. Did Trump fast forward those parts of the movie?

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

On 8/26/2021 at 7:19 AM, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I regret ever having subscribed to this magazine

Fukuyama’s still legit.  He’s admitted to being wrong on what he’s been wrong about, and has given his critics’ arguments their due.  He’s guilty of being over optimistic and his work (especially ‘The End of History’) is still distorted to suit the worst excesses of neoliberals, but I can respect him.

 

The others on that list, though…*sigh*