@rigmarolo
It will contribute to an already dreadful lack of trust from other nations towards the British. How can we persuade our allies in future that we are serious allies, when we have demonstrated that when the shit hits the fan, we actually think their lives are worth less than the life of a pet? It was bad enough that we were leaving the country in such a disorganised way. But this just rubs it in.
This.
The problem is that it doesn't actually matter the ins and outs of the truth. Thats the thing with politics ultimately. Its what impression and perception people are left with.
And it looks to a lot of people as if the animals were prioritised over people who had risked their lives - both British and Afghan. If you are an army family or solider yourself, the idea that anyone was spending time at the gate, in the airport or otherwise faciliating this rescue when there was such a security risk, whether it be on breaktime or not does not look good. That time could have been used destroying equipment if nothing else. If you are a refugee who left and still has family left in Afghanistan or you were an Afghan helping the Brits or a Brit trapped there, seeing dogs and cats being transported by not you, is going to massively distress and anger you. If you've seen hours of footage of ministers trying to deal with the press over this, you would feel that could have been better spent opening some of the thousands of unopened emails?
It doesn't help now that there is a row over the Abbey Gate between the British and Americans, with speculation that the British requested that the gate be left open rather than closed as some of the Americans had wanted. Remember this was the gate that the animal rescue had been sent to that morning and had got stuck at. In the context of everything, some people will percieve the decision being in part driven by the desire to get the animals out before closing the crucial gate.
The fact that the Americans didn't evacute working dogs (who were used by contractors and weren't classified officially as service dogs) and instead were left to animal rescue with the apparent intention of arranging collection later, does not help either.
It all adds up to an optic which looks terrible in terms of diplomacy, how white well connected Brits were given a platform over desparate Afghan voices and more resources were poured into facilitating their rescue - at extra risk to everyone involved. It has implications for trust in the British in future. The danger is we will be percieved as racist as well as betraying friends who were keen to assist, even though there was risk attached.
I personally find it hard to swallow given what I know of army logistics. And its a total PR disaster internationally. The idea that its some kind of Tory cover up domestically for a fucked up withdrawal is one that doesn't hold as much water as some of this thread suggest. This was a foreign policy decision - you have Tories with a vested emotional interest in Afghanistan and a background in the army being amongst some of the most upset. These are people with a long history of being well informed and advocating for service personal (rather than politicians) and not normally prone to engaging with this type of bullshit in their politics. Its just not their style. It would be massively out of character for them to be putting a domestic PR stunt ahead of concerns about international reputation and foreign policy. They understand the importance of how this looks to the rest of the world and how bad its gone down outside the uk. This should have been considered, even if it upset people in the UK, because it has far reaching implications which have the potential to pose a future security risk.
The truth is irrelevant to many people who feel directly impacted or involved in the withdrawal - and they actually matter more than Joe Bloggs from Tonbridge thinks about animal welfare. Keeping in mind the current government have a 80 seat majority and don't seem to be too threatened by opposition any time soon. Domestic perceptions were not as important...
It is something that rubs in the very worst aspects of how the whole withdrawal has been handled.
The truth will come out eventually, but by then the people this matters too most will have moved on or have long since made up their minds and formed opinions on how they were hung out to dry in various ways.