"Video footage shows hundreds of people running alongside the plane as it moves along the runway of Kabul international airport. A number of people hang on to the side of the C-17A aircraft, just below the wing. Others run alongside waving and shouting."
The Guardian reports, with video that I won't embed. It's hard to interpret the scene. The people look more celebratory than desperate. Were they trying to capture the plane or somehow ride with it? Were they taunting the Americans or longing to stay within our strange guardianship?
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It's hard to interpret the scene. The people look more celebratory than desperate.
I would interpret it is not one of the numerous pieces of footage of desperate people trying to flee on commercial flights, but one of the last military planes leaving while surrounded by Taliban.
That wasn't so hard...
Scott Adams mentioned this just now, but I've yet to see actual video of people falling from any airplanes.
If it exists, and if it's not immediately censored like the people jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Center, then it will be devastating.
For the love of God, bring back the mean tweets.
The airport is - or was - the linchpin. There’s chaos and someone should explain how you fly in troops when thousands are desperately trying to flee for their lives.
ChiComs say, “thanks, Joe Biden!” for helping to make the U.S. look as weak and ineffectual as you possibly could.
well, they were right; it's Nothing like Saigon... It's a Thousand Times Worse
Just saw a video...'something' is falling from a plane...maybe two somethings. But even if the specks are people, it is too indistinct to really tell, unlike the close-up shots of people jumping from the twin towers.
I have a friend still there. A kind soul. He worked for the U.S. Army because he thought we were offering his country a chance at something better than what they'd had all his life (he was seventeen when our Army arrived).
A few weeks ago he wrote me of the death threats, by phone and in person. His little girl asked if the bad men were going to kill them and he said no, the Americans will protect us. Now he's in hiding, and the people who swept into his city yesterday are asking for him by name.
I wrote him an e-mail with no hope he'd see it soon. He wrote back yesterday. Thanking me.
Well maybe the happy looking ones think they have a better chance of getting on if they seem cheerful.
Whether or not they're frantically trying to stop us so that they can get on or acting out an Afghan version of the Na Na Na Na song (hey hey hey goodbye...) it looks crazy and chaotic and incredibly dangerous.
I hope the Dems and Fake News are happy they stole the election for Biden.
There are people who helped steal the election and they know how it was done. But they remain quiet.
You know Biden could have framed this along the lines of: “If you’re a US client state, we’ll give you a generous amount of time - like around 20 years - to get your act together. After that, you’re on your own. If that means you’re a dysfunctional country at the mercy of really bad people, then oh well.” And all these scenes would be cautionary tales, not of what happens to you when you don’t trust the US, but of what happens to you when you don’t fully ally yourself to the US. Might actually help us in our relations with the mullah-footsie-playing Iraqi regime, South China Sea countries, even Israel.
Ironically, this is also the Trump message. Not only to 3rd world clients, but also to NATO, OPEC, and other much more developed countries. Trump’s businessman’s eye saw thru the sunk-cost fallacy, and he tried to stop throwing good money after bad. His marketer’s mouth would have found a better way to package it all.
Since the Dems don’t believe they were hired to advance US self-interest, they can’t appeal to US self-interest to justify their policies, even when that’s the most obvious argument.
JSM
Optics. The Democrats and their media and tech friends are all about how to present the story. In this case they've been presenting it as a 'both sides were wrong' on this. And in the big picture, they are correct. But on the so-called plan to leave, giving dates and then proceeding to do nothing? This has the current administration- Joe, Kamala, and the hierarchy of our military and State Departments hands all over it. What they've shown is complete incompetence, indifference to the result of their actions (or inactions), and a refusal to step up and take responsibility followed by taking command.
Instead they are doing as predicted: massaging the message. Trying to find a way to pin some (or all) of this on Trump or the other party. Trying to say they've always said it was going to be 'messy'. Trying to create a larger than this one situation picture of it, so that people will know that the important thing is that we're out of there. There are even articles already talking hopefully about how the 'new' Taliban will lead and govern in peace now that they've got their country back. Which makes me see that there are John Kerry's all over the world. The Taliban are who they are.
This is chaos, pure and simple. And there are these optics which cannot be massaged, coming from videos sent from multiple sources, going out all over the world. The horror is real. It cannot be massaged.
And one more thing. If you act as if this is a one-off for this President and his administration all the way up and down the line, you are flat-out ignorant of the truth on the ground. From energy blunders, to our wide openBorder, Covid handling, race-baiting, tax hiking, inflation growing, and on and on, this incompetence we're seeing in Afghanistan is very much par for the course.
These are the least impressive leaders- all across the board- that we've had in decades. To say a house cleaning is in order is an understatement. It cannot happen soon enough.
Saigon Joe will return to fire the only rhetorical arrow left in his ever emptier quiver: He will follow the lead of Baghdad Bob Blinken over the weekend and put all the blame on Trump.
This will not succeed of course. It will be pathetic. In fact it will make it worse.
But then, anything he says will make it worse and its possible this is the least worst thing he can vomit up. At the very least, blaming Trump explicitly will signal to the LLR's and NeverTrumpers and media that this is what we are going to run with cuz we got nuthin' else.
And they are right about that.
Over the weekend, some of the "journalists" within State TV accidentally committed a tiny bit of journalism and held the feet of admin flunkies to the fire...just a little bit. And that, my friends, cannot be allowed. That alone is what is getting Biden off the chemical infusion table to come on in to rally the dem/LLR/NeverTrump/media troops.
The Beeb reports that Kabul airport is not operating at this time. The crowd seen in the video is a mix of the terrified and desperate, with some celebrants thrown in.
If there are Westerners left on the ground, they are screwed. Terrified and desperate people who see they have no hope can turn dangerous quickly.
Are you kidding? Those people are cheering the Biden Administration's exquisitely designed and executed withdrawal from their now free and totally improved country.
"Thanks to America! Thanks to President Biden! The most excellent President America has ever had!"
Give it two weeks of sustained effort and the media can have half the country believing it.
They're probably typing up the subtitles right now.
People falling from aircraft.
Not to worry, in about 24 hours, after the dems coordinate communications with social media and their State TV allies, these pictures and stories will die suddenly.
I wouldn't be surprised if in 6 months the dems/LLR's/NeverTrumpers will be saying the entire Afghan withdrawal was "a myth" and something only conspiracy theorists put out there.
From Twitter
@AlinejadMasih
·
“You have to be from Afghanistan or Iran to understand the fear of Islamic regimes that you prefer trying your luck hanging onto the wheels of a military plane than living under sharia laws. Our fear is rational.”
I just spent (wasted) a few minutes glancing at the lead stories at the ABC, CBS and NBC websites. Afghanistan was the lead at all three networks.
The predominant word in use at all three was "chaos".
Other key words and phrases were:
intelligence failure
desperate
mounting criticism
end of all hope
what went wrong?
Joe's press conference should be fun to watch. I'll bet there will be either zero questions allowed or only a few planted questions.
"Our fear is rational."
Islamophobia, straight up.
Too easy a serve to resist.
https://www.lucianne.com/2021/08/16/overloaded_but_airborne_incredible_photo_shows_640_afghans_on_a_us_c-17_cargo_jet_-_designed_to_carry_150_-_after_they_ran_on_before_soldiers_could_close_ramp_and_pilot_decided_to_take_off_from_kabul_and_save_them_all_66682.html
Islamoclaustrophobia.
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