To ask if you think ben wallace has done a bad job?

[Needapoodle]

Loads of people on social media calling for Ben's (defence secretary) resignation over pen farthing and his operation ark.

I think ben and his department have suddenly been thrust into a highly volatile and constantly changing dangerous situation in which he has to make decisions for the good of the most amount of people possible. I also think that the insistence on evacuating hundreds of animals will undoubtedly have taken resources away from getting people out of Afghanistan and prevented human lives from being saved. I don't think that calling for ben's resignation over some animals not being able to be evacuated is reasonable at all. Or have i missed something?

They won’t be going to the sort of ‘rescue’ that kills healthy animals

I’ve seen the “we have so many pets in rescue put to sleep” rubbish pop up on these threads before. And it is rubbish. Bad rescues not worth the name may do that. Decent rescues won’t.
Does anyone seriously think those animals will just be dumped in a cardboard box outside the nearest RSPCA shelter when the plane lands

The Taliban are notorious for their cruelty towards dogs. They have also physically punished people for having pet dogs (not unique in extremist countries). I wonder if being a vet or running an animal shelter would be seen as worthy of reprisals in itself. I'm worried about the staff of this and other animal charities. Pen's staff would not have been a priority for evacuation. He got them the paperwork to leave, he got them to the airport, but the US seem to have endorsed the Taliban decision to deny entry to Afghan passport holders. The Americans also gave the Taliban lists of their Afghan staff and their biometric data. The incompetence is unbelievable. I think the British have also stupidly handed lists of Afghans to the Taliban.

US seem to have endorsed the Taliban decision to deny entry to Afghan passport holders.

Yep, bit of a screw up that, The US should have sat down with the Taliban at a meeting and raised serious objections.

Strangely enough this has drifted into a Pen 3 thread…..

I’m glad he got out, but he’s just one of what’s now reckoned to be 100,000 people who have got out of Afghanistan in the last fortnight..

Hopefully in a few days people will step back, stop concentrating on one individual, actually look at the big picture here and consider than Pen was one of roughly 99,999 people who got out.

To try and drag this back towards the thread title: Given the UK were responsible for evacuating maybe 15000 plus people, no, Ben Wallace has objectively not done a bad job.

@Saucery

They won’t be going to the sort of ‘rescue’ that kills healthy animals

I’ve seen the “we have so many pets in rescue put to sleep” rubbish pop up on these threads before. And it is rubbish. Bad rescues not worth the name may do that. Decent rescues won’t.
Does anyone seriously think those animals will just be dumped in a cardboard box outside the nearest RSPCA shelter when the plane lands

animal rescues may not routinely put them to sleep… but they do routinely say they are too full to accept any more (even if they are full of long termers that never get rehomed) so the putting to sleep happens by proxy, in council kennels or in the community by people who can’t keep them and can’t arrange a private rehoming.

A lot of it depends on the criteria set by the rescues, U.K. ones are notoriously strict on who can adopt, hence why the imported strays charities do so well over here (Romanian dogs for example).

I’m sure there will be a high publicity scramble to adopt these dogs and cats.

The exotic disease risk to U.K. animals and humans from these dogs coming in is a whole other issue.

KeflavikAirport

You clearly do not know much about Nowzad. Pen has dogs and cats not just linked to UK troops but also US. Until the CDC ban he was making trips to the US to reunite animals and soldiers. They also have animals belonging to embassy staff who have left over the years and are always working to get the necessary paperwork to reunite people with their animals. And yes, they have some street dogs and cats ....and some donkeys.

Have a read on their website, YouTube etc if you’re actually interested.

I’ve followed this charity for many years and they have done so much good for Afghan people and animals. They go into schools to educate children on animal welfare and partner with various institutions to help train new vets. They’re passionate about educating young women.

"US seem to have endorsed the Taliban decision to deny entry to Afghan passport holders."

What choice do the US have here?

If they are told - we will facilitate safe passage through Kabul and to the airport for anyone with a passport, but we will no longer allow Afghans to leave. If you continue to encourage Afghans to leave, we will withdraw all security and tacit support for this operation.

Let's not forget every government with troops, civilians, allies, families and pets knew about the May deadline from two years ago and then the 31st July one.

So they had time to get early civilians out including interpreters. Process passports and visas, decide who would come in and get them on normal flights. Quarantine them.

Leave the army for the last diplomats and the army itself on the last planes.

How did they not think that the Taleban and more extremists wouldn't be down like a pack of wolves? They'd had two years to plan it.

Nobody predicted the speed at which the Taliban would regain control of the country.

That's why we have British people trapped over there - people who went over for a wedding or to visit family last month, never dreaming that this could happen.

We are only able to evacuate people now because the Taliban are allowing it.

How did they not think that the Taleban and more extremists wouldn't be down like a pack of wolves? They'd had two years to plan it.

There’s a saying…

“ no plan survives first contact with the enemy…”

As fourminutestosavetheworld has pointed out there are people with family in country (i.e. who you expect to know the reality) who have gone back to Afghanistan very recent. and have ended up being caught up in this.

@HollyGrail

Why is Pen farthing going - I'm sure I read he is going to return. There were dogs homes in China when I was there, they self funded and got on with it, nothing to do with the Gov. Are the Taliban going to start shooting all stray dogs - if so why isn't it a known event already, Taliban kill animals would be regularly in the headlines - they should all have just stayed. Who the heck would have cared.

The only time I saw he was going to return was in his tweet to the Taliban high up on Thursday. I took it with a pinch of salt. Previously he’d been criticising the MOD saying no call sign for his plane, he had everything else in place. Referred to ‘Taliban Taxi’ even. It seems he’s said what he’s needed to say to whomever he’s needed to say when he needed to say it. He’s done what he can to get his animals and people and his gamble has failed. If he had euthanised the animals and taken his people to the advised location earlier in the week just maybe some or all would have got through.

If he had euthanised the animals and taken his people to the advised location earlier in the week just maybe some or all would have got through.

Except his people were not cleared til Wednesday despite people insisting they were cleared before. They left for the airport soon after getting the approval from the foreign office. And they all decided together that they wanted to take the animals with them, not euthanise, it was a decision they were all a part of.

The Americans also gave the Taliban lists of their Afghan staff and their biometric data. The incompetence is unbelievable. I think the British have also stupidly handed lists of Afghans to the Taliban
This is just so unbelievable, how could they do that?

The Americans also gave the Taliban lists of their Afghan staff and their biometric data. The incompetence is unbelievable. I think the British have also stupidly handed lists of Afghans to the Taliban

The Times reported that there were CVs left lying around of people who had applied to work with the foreign office too

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-embassy-left-details-of-afghan-staff-for-taliban-to-find-pr7vh5db0

I think we need an inquiry into how much time the soldiers and diplomats spent processing those animals and extra plane , and what that lost time cost in UK nationals who could have been evacuated.

The British were open that they were limited by time in the airport - so they couldn't process everyone who needed evacuating even though they had plenty of planes. They had to decide who to process and who to leave behind (or in this case whether it was better to process cats and dogs or process British families and children).

They had enough planes to fly everyone out and had no need of any planes, they said they did not want a charter flight as the time taken to process it could have been used processing more desperate families and children.

All Pen and his staff were offered places on military planes, the charter plane was solely required for his animals. If it was just staff plus Pen being evacuated it would have not been needed.

Now we have left behind human beings because we could not process their paperwork in time, whilst instead spending that limited time processing the paperwork for dogs, cats and an extra plane required for those dogs and cats.

It is no good people on the internet speculating, we need a formal inquiry. I know if my mum, dad or child were left behind, I would be calling for an investigation. Not one second of time should have been spent processing the animals, when that meant one second less on getting Uk citizens out of danger.

'I'm also curious as to how many of the dogs were street dog rescues rather than military support animals given the UK withdrew combat troops in 2014 and what will become of them in the UK where unwanted dogs are routinely put to sleep.'

I didn't think they were ex service dogs, hasn't the MOD said service dogs were returned home, as you say troops withdrew in 2014. Stray dogs of course deserve kindness and compassion but this Twitter spin that they are the service dogs of deceased soldiers adds another layer to the emotional manipulation that has been rampant on twitter. As a pp said are the 70 odd cats 'service animals' too? Soldiers may well have become attached to stray dogs while there and then rehomed them via NOWZAD but they aren't and weren't service animals.

People are fleeing with one small bag yet he's bringing 200 crated pets/strays/ rescues (whatever the acceptable term is) back. It is not right yet seems all that some of the very privileged people in the UK care about. Easier to ignore the real tragedy in Afghanistan with displaced and desperate people, just focus on dogs and cats..the loudest someone shouts the more they get it seems. I wonder if he'll live to regret this, it all seems so self indulgent.

Stray dogs of course deserve kindness and compassion but this Twitter spin that they are the service dogs of deceased soldiers adds another layer to the emotional manipulation that has been rampant on twitter.

Pen is very open about where the dogs are from. Look on the website, many of the animals stories are on there. Pen can’t help what random people are tweeting but it’s easy enough to find the info directly from Nowzad.

I think we need an inquiry into how much time the soldiers and diplomats spent processing those animals and extra plane , and what that lost time cost in UK nationals who could have been evacuated.

In time there will hopefully be an inquiry into it all. Somehow I don’t think this government will be too keen as it’ll show up to many failings and missed opportunities.

I think the actions of the US govt in blocking paperwork says all we need to know about who didn’t want Afghan people on planes out of there.
Plenty of room for humans, humans the ones who won’t allow other humans to leave.

Hope this silly idea of empty planes being filled with pets fades out on social media sites like this one. To keep labouring this point when it has been proved to be wrong starts to look very much like goading when the evidence of adequate seating on planes is there.

Hope this silly idea of empty planes being filled with pets fades out on social media sites like this one. To keep labouring this point when it has been proved to be wrong starts to look very much like goading when the evidence of adequate seating on planes is there.

I agree. Thankfully I don’t know anyone in real life stupid enough to believe it.

@DogsAreImpawtant I don't either, though given what some people believe about matters such as Covid vaccines, some people will believe the idea of planes filled with animals.

I stand by opinion that Ben Wallace is one of possibly only two competent cabinet ministers. Imagine if Dominic Raab was Defence Secretary for example.

I think we need an inquiry into how much time the soldiers and diplomats spent processing those animals and extra plane , and what that lost time cost in UK nationals who could have been evacuated.

I think fundamentally not a lot, ultimately he pretty much did what he was advised to do several days ago - got himself to the airport…and I don’t think the animals took any processing though I’ve heard talk some of the troops did help Mr Farthing with some of the lifting of crates etc.

As for the aircraft I suspect his self funded flight left so late in the evacuation process it won’t have denied anybody else a slot.

I’m sure MOD will be a look at what can be learnt from their successful evacuation of almost 15000 people, but TBH not sure there’s any point in a specific examination of Mr Farthings evacuation with the results being made public, it sounds to me as if most people’s’ minds are already made up…..but inside MOD/Whitehall there will discussions about how to handle outrage on Social Media in the middle of operations.

I stand by opinion that Ben Wallace is one of possibly only two competent cabinet ministers. Imagine if Dominic Raab was Defence Secretary for example.

I don’t rate either of them. Wallace’s behaviour has seemed child like over this issue. Then the swearing in an interview. It’s just not professional. Rash, well, what can I say. We should feel reassured by ministers actions at times like these and I’m certainly not. I’m not saying anyone else, including labour could necessarily have done better, most politicians seem useless with no care for people. I wish we could have some decent people in government. The Boris and Raab video I’ve seen today makes them look so uncaring, setting completely the wrong tone. I think by the end of it after the woman spoke, Boris was finally a bit more somber.

and I don’t think the animals took any processing though I’ve heard talk some of the troops did help Mr Farthing with some of the lifting of crates etc.

The troops wouldn’t have had to help if the staff were allowed to leave as they would have done much of the loading.
There was a thread on twitter with a few people saying they worked at an airport loading baggage/cargo/animals. According to them animals are quickly processed and put on planes, they didn’t seem to think it would take long at all.... but very aware that’s twitter so take with a helping of salt.
Ultimately, without Bidens rule change, I think it’s likely no one would have been left behind who was eligible. But that would still leave so many Afghans who were never going to be able to leave, to a regime that they don’t want and that is very distressing.

Raab not Rash..... although ...😬