Tag: afghanistan

Where are All the Americans Returning Home from Afghanistan?

President Joe Biden and his team of military, intelligence, and diplomatic advisors oversaw America’s most epic surrender, on the world stage, under the lights and cameras of international media recording it for posterity, spinning the news to mitigate American failure.

One of many failures was the abrupt departure of American military and security forces, necessary to evacuate thousands of Americans and Afghan allies who placed themselves and their families at great risk by helping the Great Satan against the Taliban, the latter being the new boss, replacing the old boss.

How many Americans were left behind? Official government numbers are all over the map. The military, tasked with evacuating stranded Americans, was vague on the exact number.

US defense officials in charge of evacuating Americans from Kabul claimed on Tuesday morning they would fly 5,000 a day out despite only managing to rescue 1,400 in the three days since the city fell, while as many as 40,000 may remain stranded – some in remote parts of the country.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday morning that between 5,000 and 10,000 are in Kabul, but earlier admitted he had no idea how many there were or where they were. George W. Bush’s former Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Charles, says there are between 15,000 and 40,000 ‘scattered’ across all of Afghanistan. 

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that there were at least 11,000, including American journalists, translators, contractors, aid workers, NGO and government workers.

In other words, the U.S. government has no idea how many Americans remain in Afghanistan. The same government had no trouble rounding up hundreds of “insurrectionists” strolling the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but in a country occupied by American forces for the past two decades, they have no idea how many Americans are in that country, most being paid in some form by the U.S. government, who they are and where they are.

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The Pentagon’s filtered version of the Kabul rescue mission looks nothing like what really went down

More than 1,000 photos and 60 videos were taken by U.S. military photographers during the evacuation of Afghanistan, but few captured what those chaotic days and nights must have been like for American troops as they attempted to rescue as many people as possible from a seemingly never-ending crowd of desperate Afghans outside the walls of Kabul’s airport.

Now, thanks to a U.S. Marine’s GoPro-shot deployment video, we can see the other side.

The appearance of an orderly and “responsible withdrawal” from Afghanistan comes as no surprise since military photographers are trained on what not to make public and are often told to avoid showing the uncomfortable parts of war. And even when they do capture the realities of combat operations — with the swearing, the unbloused boots and ripped trousers, the shaggy hair and gallows humor, to say nothing of the anger, confusion, and aggression — that version of events rarely makes it through the gauntlet of public affairs officers reviewing outgoing stories, photos, and videos to ensure they align with the “command message” of the day. The visual record of Iraq and Afghanistan has long been filtered through a Department of Defense website where very little goes against the “very specific narrative” the government wants to promote, as one public affairs soldier put it. No profanity or smoking, stick to the hearts and minds stuff, and absolutely no casualties.

“It is easy to get a pulse on what story the military hopes to tell by looking at what images and videos it produces,” military journalist Kelsey Atherton recently noted after studying the “visual canon” of a war propped up by a web of lies spun by top military and political leaders over two decades. The carefully curated gallery of Afghanistan evacuation images, Atherton wrote, showed the “same outward look of calm present in the ‘Afghanistan Withdrawal’ images, of calm established by military order. The reality of this war — its rapid end and live aftermath —  is missing. There’s nothing here about the drones used for a ‘self-defense unmanned over-the-horizon airstrike,’ the euphemism given by the Pentagon for an attack on a suspected suicide bomber. That attack reportedly killed ten civilians, including six children.”

Yet U.S. Central Command released images of a “ramp ceremony” at the airport in which service members carried the caskets of 13 service members killed in the terrorist attack at Abbey Gate on Aug. 26 to the planes that would fly them home. Some journalists were surprised since such images are rarely seen publicly without a lawsuit. There was a good reason for skepticism: They were uploaded by mistake.

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6 lies Joe Biden told about Afghanistan

How can any American believe anything President Biden says after he’s lied so blatantly about an Afghanistan evacuation he claims was an “extraordinary success”?

LIE: “Americans understand we’re going to try and get it done before Aug. 31,” President Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos Aug. 19. “And if there are American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.” He reiterated the promise the next day at the White House: “But let me be clear, any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.”

TRUTH: Even Biden himself admits Americans remain stranded in Afghanistan as he withdrew the last US forces before getting them home. “Ninety percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” he said Tuesday. US Central Command head Gen. Frank McKenzie confirmed the day before that some Americans trying to escape couldn’t get to the Kabul airport — and the last five jets left without a single American on board.

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‘Fact-Checkers’ Rush to ‘Correct’ Grieving Parents

America’s leading “fact-checkers” describe themselves as “independent.” But watching their energetic defenses of President Joe Biden’s politically damaging behavior reveals they are taking a side. In the first 100 days, I found PolitiFact evaluated Biden’s critics eight times more often than they “fact-checked” the president.

It was truly shocking when Biden was caught on video checking his watch at Dover Air Force Base on Aug. 29 as the caskets of American soldiers were unloaded into vans. Both Snopes and USA Today felt the urgent, throbbing need to claim that the grieving family members who complained were wrong.

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Biden Administration Erased Afghan Weapons Reports From Federal Websites

The War in Afghanistan has always been a black box, but the Biden administration just made matters worse.

According to an admission obtained from the State Department, Biden officials recently directed federal agencies to scrub their websites of official reports detailing the $82.9 billion in military equipment and training provided to the Afghan security forces since 2001.

The scrubbed audits and reports included detailed accounting of what the U.S. had provided to Afghan forces, down to the number of night vision devices, hand grenades, Black Hawk helicopters, and armored vehicles.

Reports further quantified 208 aircraft and helicopters; 75,000 war vehicles – including 22 Humvees, 50,000 tactical vehicles and nearly 1,000 mine resistant vehicles; and 600,000 weapons – including 350,000 M4 and M16 rifles, 60,000 machine guns, and 25,000 grenade launchers.

The State Department admitted to removing the reports but justified the move as a way to protect Afghan allies. According to a spokesperson:

“The safety of our Afghan contacts is of utmost importance to us. The State Department advised other federal agencies of to [sic] review their web properties for content that highlights cooperation/participation between an Afghan citizen and the USG or a USG partner and remove from public view if it poses a security risk.”

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