Afghanistan

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More US troops killed today than over the last 4 years . Pulling put has cost more deaths of US troops than staying there.
Afghans now being slaughtered.
Massive fail from Biden following Trumps pull out.

Very, very 😔

It's like they see the emails from people desperately worried about their loved ones in Afghanistan as junk mail. Disgusting.

[quote Campingcarryon]Frankly, Ben Wallace is an absolute c**t and should resign over his unprofessional behaviour - and there is also a damning news night video of Boris and Raab circulating today that they are clearly trying to cover up- watch this:
mobile.twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1431551335158198281[/quote]
Good to know "all the emails" are touching their hearts.

Here here. Well said @username5786

*1. You need to take a history lesson the US have been meddling with Afghanistan much longer than 2001.

1. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11 and should never have been invaded. Bush and Blair should be tried for war crimes.

1. I don't get how it's one or the other we can help refugees and veterans.

1. We have the NHS, benefits and a housing system.

The racism I have seen online is appalling. Imagine for one second being in their position. Many do not seem to realise these are humans with thoughts/feelings/lives/families.*

i get fed up of animals lives being denigrated to nowt against humans , when i feel a lot of the time theres not a lot positive about us as a species compared to animals , i will happily chuck a random person under a bus if it meant saving one of my rabbits ,thats a fact , but all these arguments belong on a different thread and not this one , . otherwise its derailing what the op started

Please don't be one of those kinds of people. It's not healthy to be this detached and I speak as someone who believes in overpopulation and environmental issues. All life is valuable but prioritising animals over innocent people is unhinged

Dangerous idiots the pair of them. Totally clueless. The joking, the smiles, the buffoonery.

"It was extraordinary that they didn't leave after the attacks!"

"Amazing, amazing"

Absolute arseholes.

Yes @snowballer I've heard that the government are worried, because military big wigs, establishment types who'd normally be pro-Tory, are extremely upset that their interpreters didn't make it out; and foreign office staff have carelessly left details of Afghan staff behind, putting them at extreme risk.
So maybe the government are panicking totally, and blaming Pen Farthing. That's awful if so. I'd hope they wouldn't be so immoral. Even by Tory standards, that's really low.
Re Tom Hugendhat - I heard him on the news earlier, and am fairly sure he said his interpreter lives very far from Kabul, and it was impossible for him to get to the airport. So, the evacuation of the animals wouldn't have had any impact on that at all.
Anyway, I must go to bed. Absolutely whacked. Whether I sleep or not, with all the Afghanistan worry is another matter. I know I'm not the only one. I can only begin to imagine how restless tonight will be for the left behind in Afghanistan. Poor souls

The animals may be need to be destroyed due to disease

twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1431709638135894019?s=20

CDC acknowledgement

wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/afghanistan

Pen adding a few extra chapters to his inevitable memoirs and tv adaptation that will be lapped up by some

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/28/pen-farthing-said-have-left-voicemail-ben-wallaces-adviser-going/

@Refreshpage

More US troops killed today than over the last 4 years . Pulling put has cost more deaths of US troops than staying there. Afghans now being slaughtered. Massive fail from Biden following Trumps pull out.

Very, very 😔

Well, this is untrue, as far as the American casualties. If you’re going to use dead soldiers, from any country, to make your argument, you better get it right. 11 of them died in Afghanistan in 2020, another 26 in 2019, 19 in 2018, and 17 in 2018. icasualties.org/

You’ve used dead men (and 18 injured) as a completely blatant lie. Also, the fact you didn’t even know there hasn’t been a year without casualties means they can’t have mattered much to you until you thought it helped you make your point.

As for the rest, I don’t get involved in arguments about Afghanistan on MN anymore. We wanted our troops out in 2014. We got what we wanted. If we wanted America to withdraw differently, we could have been there.

The animals may be need to be destroyed due to disease

Part of the rescue was treating and vaccinating the dogs so that would be "surprising" if that were the outcome.

Sky news are reporting Pen and his animals got out?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9935789/Pen-Farthing-went-foul-mouthed-tirade-MoD-official-demanding-flight-allowed-Kabul.html

Pen is such a lovely guy .

He could have offered up his plane for the govt to use for people rather than a bunch of feral mongrels. The man is a joke.

The grim and exhausted expressions on the faces of you soldiers returning home...tells a tale. No triumph or celebration for the thousands they've rescued, but sadness and a sense of failure for all those they've lost and left behind.

Those on the ground will be forever haunted, as highly trained as they are, they will never have been prepared for the horrors of being handed babies across barbed wire by desperate parents.

They've seen the carnage they are forced to leave behind is horrific and harrowing. It goes against everything they must hold important as soldiers. I have never felt more pride and compassion for our servicemen & women.

The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph are very right-wing Tory rags. It's in their interest to protect the current government by any means possible.
Pen Farthing wanted to, and desperately tried to, save as many innocent Afghan people as possible. He tried.
He cares about both vulnerable animals and people. As is right. He doesn't deserve all this vitriol at all. But maybe it's human nature to an extent to find a scapegoat at times of intense pressure. Wrong and unfair, but possibly what humans often do.
In a way, the whole of Afghanistan was scapegoated after 9/11. How those poor innocent people have suffered as a result.
I respectfully ask that those of you who are attacking Pen Farthing, take a step back, pause, and think critically about what the actual facts may be. Because it's turned into a bit of a witch hunt, and it's painful reading.
I'm sure PF is far from perfect, as he's human, and we all are. But he doesn't deserve this level of vitriol at all. It's unfair. Not as unfair as the way Afghanistan has been treated, and the people abandoned of course

[quote Campingcarryon]Frankly, Ben Wallace is an absolute c**t and should resign over his unprofessional behaviour - and there is also a damning news night video of Boris and Raab circulating today that they are clearly trying to cover up- watch this:
mobile.twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1431551335158198281[/quote]
Gosh @Campingcarryon I've only just watched this video you posted. Shocking. I'm a Green Party voter, and so obviously no fan of the current government. But I believe everyone has some goodness in them. So, re this situation, I thought maybe as individuals they really did care? (how could anyone not) But I see now. The way they react to the pleas of those desperate Afghan people. As if they're irritated by nuisance calls from a double glazing company or something. No empathy at all for the fact that these people are FEARING FOR THEIR LIVES! What happened to Boris Johnson and co to leave them with such an empathy deficit? It's very sad actually.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this. I see things much more clearly now; and do now agree that PF is being deliberately smeared to make the government look good. I also think his anger was and is justified.
As an aside, apparently Ben Wallace likes hunting, and is in favour of hunting with dogs. So, he probably doesn't like people who rescue defenceless animals, and probably had it in for PF and Nowzad from the start

WanderingFruitWonderer:
The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph are very right-wing Tory rags. It's in their interest to protect the current government by any means possible

Yes, but the Guardian couldn't be described as right-wing so I'm surprised it's reporting the story. Any news that can't be spun as ant-govt is usually ignored.

@Mookie81

He could have offered up his plane for the govt to use for people rather than a bunch of feral mongrels. The man is a joke.

and im afraid your comment is a joke , animals were in the cargo hold which just to spell it out for you is the bit of the plane where people arent able to go normally , also he planned to take his staff and as many afghans of any spare seats left , if you actually read a paper ,his staff were prevented from leaving and lots of people who were eligible to leave were either not being let through to the airport or had not been able to get there , the goverment has already decided to fuck off outta there as of yesterday addmitting they know they are leaving lots behind who were eligible to come here .

also the plane was private charter in part paid for with donations to the charity , sorry if it fucks you off ,but most people dont donate to a charity for a specific cause like animal rescue to see their money used for something different entirely . like the plane being given to the goverment rather than being used for animals and nowzad staff ,

@snowballer

I'm surprised more people don't see this for what it is - a massive distraction from the government's failings.

Enough spin and everyone is talking about nasty man with his pets distraction, and not the monstrosity of the UK leaving so many people behind.

I think Pen's heart was in the right place, his intentions were good and - I suspect - he used the animals to tug heartstrings to get his people out. He very nearly succeeded. But it got to the point where he was damned whatever he did, and the government will milk this temporary support for them/hatred for him for everything it has.

I think many, maybe most, people can condemn the govt for their mistakes and condemn the misguided campaign to rescue stray animals before people.

I'd never heard of him until the last couple of weeks, he might have good intentions but that doesn't mean it was OK for soldiers to spend time looking after his animals and loading them onto planes. Imagine how those young people feel, they have stood there watching terrified people, had women trying to get them to take their babies as they are so frightened for them and then when they are totally exhausted physically and mentally they start loading animals onto a plane. I think there are going to be a lot of very serious mental health issues in the coming months.

God help the people left behind.

I just heard on the BBC World Service that according to the UN World Food Programme Afghanistan is in all likelihood going to run out of food by September.

I'm so shocked that there is this on top of everything else so I wanted to post informing people.
Not expecting anyone to have any solutions to anything; just thought the more people know about this aspect too the more it's possible the world community might find a constructive way forward.

@Wannakisstheteacher

Why were Farthings staff more ‘deserving’ of evacuation than any other Afghans though? Surely working in animal rescue isn’t going to bump you to the top of any Taliban hit list? We also aren’t evacuating the millions of people literally being starved to death in North Korea, are we?

But anyway, he left them, as I knew from the start he would. You could see from the beginning what a thrill he was getting from the attention.

Well said

ancientgran:
I think many, maybe most, people can condemn the govt for their mistakes and condemn the misguided campaign to rescue stray animals before people.

Very true, it doesn't have to be either/or.

Wake up this AM and I see yet another thread has gone off track again to facilitate grumbling about one man.

This despite the fact that 15000 ish people have been evacuated by HM Forces no no casualties to them, under the auspices of a UK government that it seems some think have no empathy….

The real tragedy here is that more of those who had legit connections with Uk Gov/UK Forces couldn’t be extracted.

chaosrabbitland

It doesn't matter how many times you explain Pen Farthing's good intentions, to those who believe the smears against him, they will still come out with vitriolic rubbish like " You could see from the beginning what a thrill he was getting from the attention."
The man was desperate to get his work force out. He looked completely broken in that last interview after he returned back to his base, because Biden had changed the rules on paperwork, and his Afghan workers were not allowed through.

@heldinadream

I just heard on the BBC World Service that according to the UN World Food Programme Afghanistan is in all likelihood going to run out of food by September.

I'm so shocked that there is this on top of everything else so I wanted to post informing people.
Not expecting anyone to have any solutions to anything; just thought the more people know about this aspect too the more it's possible the world community might find a constructive way forward.

Yes, and the IMF have flagged that the country will run out of cash in September also.

Between that and ISIS K, we're going to see floods of refugees, plus famine, plus unrest and this will be why Russia abruptly withdrew (after intially appearing triumphant and speaking of staying).

I think one key issue is that the faster the country becomes ungovernable, the more foothold that ISIS K can gain simply by providing employment in their army to starving men - and promises of food for their families. This would explain why the west is now offering cooperation with the Taliban.

There is an old saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

I think it is possible to accept that Farthing had good intentions but the result didn't balance out as good. He might think whatever damage has been done to other people is worth it because he got the animals out, others disagree.