Earlier Sunday, the White House said the U.S. had evacuated 7,800 people from Kabul in the previous 24 hours. Later Sunday evening, the White House added another 5,100 to the day’s total of evacuees. In all, the U.S. has evacuated 30,300 people in the past week, a White House official said. Since the end of July, about 35,500 people have been evacuated from Kabul.
A gunbattle broke out early Monday at Kabul’s airport, killing at least one Afghan soldier, with the security situation deteriorating as the U.S. and its Western allies consider extending an evacuation operation that has been engulfed in chaos for more than a week....No injuries to American and German soldiers were reported.
The firefight underscored the challenges facing the U.S. and its partners in Afghanistan as the Biden administration considers whether to extend the evacuation program past a deadline it has set for Aug. 31. It has pledged to end those efforts and withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by then.
The Taliban insists that the US keep to its August 31 deadline, which it calls a "red line." Staying beyond the deadline "will provoke a reaction," their spokesman said on Monday.
You'd think they would want everyone who hated them to leave. That way they would be left with the true believers to run their caliphate.
Why? They will just kill the people who they think are against their caliphate.
Sucks to be them. War is hell.
Nah, they need the skills of the people who hate them. At least until they train up true believer replacements and can shoot them.
Again, I know most of the people on this blog are blaming everybody but Biden. I know your opinions would be exactly the opposite if Trump were still president. I voted for Trump, not Biden, but would support impeachment if Trump presided over this debacle.
I blame every american president, military officer, civilian defense worker, contractor, and military person for the last 19.5 years for waging this war.
It's not a debacle. It's just what happens in war. Civilians always lose. That's why war is immoral.
+1
I ... agree with you. For once.
LOL, not a single American (either military or civilian) has been killed nor injured during this "debacle", and this is where you would finally say enough to Trump and would support getting rid of him?
The problem with Trump isn't that he is a mentally deranged madman, the problem is that he is the sane one compared to his followers.
@lisagerlich
Your comment assumes there should be blame, but the question is: for what?
The decision to withdraw?
That was made by Trump. Biden has honored the US commitment made in 2020, except he pushed out the date a few months.
The withdrawal itself?
So far, it's been a tense but relatively peaceful withdrawal. Tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans have been evacuated. Many more are on their way out. No American has died.
What do you want to blame Biden for?
Mr. Harbin, while I agree pretty much with what you said, I believe the date was pushed back by the trump contingent, in return for having the Afghani government release some 5000 Taliban prisoners.
The date was pushed out by the Biden administration. It was still May 1 when Biden came to office.
“March 25 — During a press conference at the White House, Biden says “it’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/
Please point me to your posts wherein you supported Trump’s impeachment for attempting to overturn the election and have himself appointed “President”. At this point I believe that you would support Trump if he murdered members of your own family.
I know you’re just here to troll, but even if you think Biden has screwed this up, incompetence is not grounds for impeachment. Trump wasn’t impeached for his gross incompetence, but for the “high crimes and misdemeanors” of soliciting a bribe from a foreign head of government, and for inciting an uprising against the US government.
Impeachment is for high crimes and misdemeanors; a failure to predict and process a strategy is not impeachable. If that were the case, you should have been in favor of impeaching Trump a dozen times over.
Better angle would 25th amendment.
No, I don't like bringing up either impeachment or 25th amendment for this incompetence.
Impeachment should be reserved for actual high crimes and misdemeanors, although I recognize that what that means is really up to congress. But congress even of the opposite party, need to show restraint in doing so or we end up with the chaotic politics we now are in. You cannot impeach a president lightly because you think he is incompetent or hate the policies. If they were elected democratically, then that is up to the people in the next election.
The democrats cheapened the whole process with two trump impeachment ( both of which were ridiculous for somewhat different reasons ). And does maybe serve them right of some Republicans are saying impeach biden now. But someone has to be the first side to stop this crap. One standard. If it is clear that you cannot get at least a decent chunk of the president's party to agree to impeach, do not do so.
Re 25th amendment, that should really be reserved for the most extraordinary circumstances whee the president is clearly unfit. Although I think biden might be somewhat senile now, not at that point yet .
And another point. Say biden really is too old worn down and senile now to be a good president. To the extent that might be true , it was evident that it was coming last year during the campaign.
For a good part of the in between voters last year, they did think biden was really too old and senile to handle the job. So they expected that, if biden win, he would just be a figurehead caretaker president being the face while being told what to say by those behind the scenes really making the decisions. And maybe that is what we have now.
But many of them, believing that, voted for biden anyway because they thought such an outcome was still better then trump.
And they were not voting to make Harris president.
I have not seen anything from biden so far re senility that was not anticipatable by the voters when they decided last year. So 25th amendment is just the cabinet substituting their will for the voters.
If that did happen now, I would be all for impeachment and conviction of Harris and somehow getting biden back.
Fuck off, troll. You need to be bounced and bounced _hard_. Even a like/dislike button would be nice.
Trump has been a salesman wheeler dealer his whole life. His management skills are null, as demonstrated by his numerous bankruptcies. One thing you can count on, whatever you think about the withdrawal under Biden, it would have been worse underTrump.
I’m meant to say “his management skills are nil”, but null works just fine too.
You should, Trump is 100% responsible for surrendering to the Taliban. Biden is just fixing his mess.
It's quite the political balancing act to both suggest that this chaos was always going to occur even while you're ratcheting up the response to address the chaos without admitting that you hadn't pre-planned for this expected chaos.
That is all.
Timelines. The hypotheical capture of Kabul was thought to be a year out. The Taliban didn't even want to capture Kabul, they were sort of forced too because the Afghan State collapsed and fled first.
So this chaos would have happened the moment the Taliban captured Kabul.
Biden officials admitted they got blindsided yesterday.
Who cares. August 31st the U.S. officially leaves. Deal with it.
Pretty sure we've already left.
Not the entire process. Evacuations and on the 31st.
Look where we are, not how we got here: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/23/1030235982/v-p-harris-focus-must-stay-on-evacuations-not-on-u-s-exit-from-afghanistan
More able bodied, military aged Afghan men have been 'evacuated' than the Taliban has actively fighting.