Tag: Afghanistan

Conditions Exist For A Massacre At the Kabul Airport


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The U.S. Military needs to get its shit together at the Kabul Airport. As I understand it, at the moment, the only place anyone can get out of Afghanistan is the military portion of that airport.

Ugh.

When you’re dealing with bloodthirsty theocratic maniacs, there’s only a certain amount of time before things grow even more dire than they already are. At the moment, we’re relying upon the patience of the Taliban. At some point, the Taliban is going to grow impatient and they’re going to swoop in and end this particular problem once and for all.

The question is, how long do we have? I have no idea. I do think every moment the Taliban doesn’t attack is borrowed time. All I know is, the conditions remain for a catastrophe.

A Potentially Dark Scenario At The #Kabul Airport


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is just a scenario, but the conditions now exist for a catastrophe at the Kabul Airport. You have about 6,000 American troops there with a huge mob of people trying to flee the country — and nearby you have the Taliban lurking out in the darkness.

It’s very easy to imagine a situation where the Taliban attack the airport ASAP and there’s a pretty sizable massacre. Historic, even.

And because of social media, we would see it happen in real time.

But, let me note — I’m always wrong. So, I’m probably, thankfully, wrong this time, too. Hopefully, the Taliban will simply wait until everyone gets out and swoop in once they can avoid any bloodshed.

My Hot Take On The Afghanistan Clusterfuck


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The next few hours in Kabul are going to be pretty shocking, it seems. History has shown that once things get rolling in Afghanistan, they happen really fast. I remember 20 years ago how quickly the Taliban were overthrown with far fewer troops than anyone expected.

Afghanistan, August 2021

And, now, it’s our turn.

My biggest concern is, of course, we’re going to have a Saigon 1975 meets Teheran 1979 type situation with maybe a little bit of America’s involvement in Somalia thrown in for good measure.

The key issue for me is as many of the American support staff in Kabul (and beyond) get pulled out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We’re a big country, we can afford to bring in a few hundred thousand Afghani allies if need be. If I was in charge — which I’m not — I would make sure to snatch as many women and girls as I could from the situation. Grab everyone available and then sort them out in Guam, if need be.

This is a crisis and in such situations we need to stop fucking around with visas and just make sure as many people are as possible are safe.

Again, my fear is the Kabul will fall so fast that the American troops in the city sent to get people out will get trapped themselves and, I don’t know, something really, really bad will happen to them.

I guess we’re just going to have to wait and see.