Parliament to be recalled re: Taliban in Afghanistan

[1andrew1]

Remarkable speech by former serving soldier Tom Tugendhat, also Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Worth watching in full.

“This doesn’t need to be defeat, but at the moment it damn well feels like it,” he told MPs. “Like many veterans, this last week has been one that has seen me struggle through anger, grief and rage.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbMp7GHhdqs

Originally Posted by Hom3r

"Instant Sunshine" wouldn't affect people under a mountain, that why NRAD is under a mountain.

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is built on giant springs and has blast-proof doors - pretty sure the Afghanis/others in that country wouldn’t have those…

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Hugh

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is built on giant springs and has blast-proof doors - pretty sure the Afghanis/others in that country wouldn’t have those…

Sounds like my bike seat

Originally Posted by Hugh

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is built on giant springs and has blast-proof doors - pretty sure the Afghanis/others in that country wouldn’t have those…

Also, if it gets really dicey, they can always dial out to the Alpha site.

Originally Posted by Chris

Also, if it gets really dicey, they can always dial out to the Alpha site.

Wouldn’t know about that - I just remembered what I was told about it* when I visited HP Storage Solutions in nearby Colorado Springs in the early 2000s.

*They were talking about the region, including the US Air Force Academy and Pikes Peak…

[jfman]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...rt-within-days

The old special relationship ain't up to much these days.

Shots fired and tear gas by the looks of Twitter. The situation won't be sustainable for long.

[1andrew1]

Does the Mail have a point?

Dominic Raab was 'too busy' on holiday to help brave translators: As Kabul airport descends into hellish anarchy, damning admission over Foreign Secretary's missed call

Senior officials in the Foreign Secretary's department advised last Friday that he should make immediate contact with Afghan foreign minister Hanif Atmar as the Taliban advanced on Kabul.

The officials said Mr Raab, who was on a luxury break with his family in Crete, needed to urgently request assistance in rescuing interpreters who had worked for the British military. They said it was important the call was made by him rather than a junior minister.

But Mr Raab did not make the call. Officials were told he was unavailable and that Lord Goldsmith, the Foreign Office minister on duty, should speak to Mr Atmar instead.

The Foreign Office said last night: 'The Foreign Secretary was engaged on a range of other calls and this one was delegated to another minister.'

However, the Afghan foreign ministry refused to set up an immediate call between Mr Atmar and a junior minister who was not his direct counterpart. As a result, they did not speak until at least the next day, with crucial time lost before the Taliban seized control of Kabul on Sunday.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...anslators.html

[jfman]

Ach Andrew I'd not worry about the detail. We're (not on a personal level, I'm invoking that to represent the United Kingdom) an irrelevance on a global stage. They'd only be asking if we could get the United States to do something and the bold Biden has gone full Don "America First".

As we followed America in like a lap dog we are racing them out like a greyhound. We've no vested interest in Afghanistan. We didn't 20 years ago either, but as long as the incoming terrorist training camps admire the fact we tried we should be fine.

---------- Post added 19-08-2021 at 00:37 ---------- Previous post was 18-08-2021 at 23:56 ----------

It's funny listening to those scared of the war on wokery suggesting people stay in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

I mean, it might have been easier had we not armed them to the teeth.

As I said earlier if they rationally decide to bomb us I'm not sure that'd be entirely unexpected.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

When the Americans were fighting the Japanese holed up in caves in the Pacific, they didn't try to go into the caves, they just sealed the entrances up with explosives.

I would have thought these days with long range drone, spy plane and satellite surveillance it wouldn't be that difficult to see which caves are being used and then use guided bombs and missiles to seal them up.

And what a tough time they endured getting to those cave entrances, plus of course the problem with caves is they often have another way out. Look at the trouble they had in a much more up to date conflict in Vietnam with the tunnels and the trouble Israel has in the present day with tunnels

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by jfman

Ach Andrew I'd not worry about the detail. We're (not on a personal level, I'm invoking that to represent the United Kingdom) an irrelevance on a global stage. They'd only be asking if we could get the United States to do something and the bold Biden has gone full Don "America First".

Let's face it, if I was on a £36k holiday, I'd be wanting to get my money's worth from it and wouldn't want to be working so I do have some sympathy for Raab.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Let's face it, if I was on a £36k holiday, I'd be wanting to get my money's worth from it and wouldn't want to be working so I do have some sympathy for Raab.

Like he paid for it...

[1andrew1]

Not a good look.

Ministers never made key call to help stranded Afghan interpreters

The government is coming under pressure after it emerged ministers did not make a phone call about evacuating Afghan translators who had helped UK forces.

It had said Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was too busy to speak to his Afghan counterpart, with a junior minister being asked to do so instead.

But the Foreign Office now says it "was not possible" to arrange the call before the Afghan government collapsed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58277008

Yeah, that was some very careful weasel wording from the FCO about the junior minister being asked to make the call. I guess it was only a matter of time until a curious hack asked for confirmation that the call actually was made. A good point from an ex-military MP on the radio this morning is that an Afghan in high office would only be prepared to discuss matters with an opposite number of equal status. That’s a cultural detail the officials advising Raab probably knew, and would have formed part of the rationale for disturbing his holiday. Whether they pressed the point with him, and whether he took it on board, is a mystery.

BREAKING: Reports emerging from Afghanistan that the Taliban have set a woman on fire due to “bad cooking” Source Sky News.

https://news.sky.com/story/afghanist...inues-12385846

[Mad Max]

Lessons for the woke left: (1) Not all cultures are equal. Some are utterly abhorrent. Uncritical multiculturalism is a death sentence. (2) This is what homophobia and misogyny REALLY look like, not believing in traditional marriage or family life (3) Being a patriot and defending a way of life is not jingoism but essential if you really care about protecting the weak and vulnerable from the nasty people who are out there (4) “Islamophobia” is not bigotry, it is actually recognising REAL fascism when we see it. (5) The fact these loons want to export terror to the West is why we need a secure, sensible, and robust immigration policy and to stay out of the EU.