Afghanistan

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is prepared to keep its military personnel in Afghanistan after an Aug. 31 deadline set by the Americans for the withdrawal of their troops.

Trudeau made the announcement after meeting today in a virtual summit with fellow G7 leaders who were convening to discuss the crisis and the re-emergence of the Taliban as the country’s rulers.

“Canada is ready to stay beyond the Aug. 31 deadline if at all possible.

If at all possible? In other words not bloody likely but there’s an election so he’ll try to sound tough. No one trusts a word Justin says, not even Justin.

Here’s his out – US military has reportedly started pulling troops from Afghanistan — as Biden admin reportedly tells anyone left after 8/31 that they’re ‘on their own’

A desperate civilian trapped in Afghanistan under Taliban rule has slammed President Biden’s “ill calculation” for the chaos — as he stands beside two young siblings abandoned in Kabul after their parents lost them in the scramble at the airport, heartbreaking video shows.

The cowering and crying brother and sister were reportedly left behind when their parents entered the airport at the capital without them during the pandemonium, the distressing footage from ITV News shows.

A man who appeared to be caring for the children said that what has happened in Afghanistan after the Taliban recaptured the country was Biden’s fault.

‘I can feel death coming’: Ex-Canadian interpreter fears for life in long wait for Afghanistan evacuation

“… The Kandahar native says he is deeply grateful for what Canada has done so far in exchange for his perilous work a decade ago, and loves the Canadian people. But he warns that “your government put us in the line of execution,” and wishes it would find another solution for moving its Afghan allies out of Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday rejected pleas from G7 leaders to extend the Kabul evacuation and has insisted US troops will leave by August 31, after the Taliban issued a chilling warning to western forces who stay.

The move now gives the Biden administration just seven days to evacuate thousands of American citizens and Afghan allies still stranded on the ground and fighting to escape the chaos at the airport.

The US ramped up the airlift by evacuating 21,600 people in the last 24 hours, but they still don’t know the exact number that still need to be flown out – and now time is rapidly running out. Even Democrats including Adam Schiff have said it is ‘unlikely’ the mission to evacuate will succeed.

Canadian expats and Afghans trying to gain access to evacuation flights out of Kabul say they can’t find Canadian soldiers at the city’s airport and aren’t getting sufficient information from federal officials in Ottawa.

Complaints about a slow and ineffective Canadian response contradict assurances from government ministers and federal officials that everything possible is being done to assist Canadian citizens on the ground in Afghanistan, as well as Afghan nationals who are connected to Canada because they or their family members worked as support staff for the country’s military or diplomats. The situation in Kabul has grown increasingly chaotic over the past week as the Taliban have consolidated their control over the city.

Update: Defiant Taliban REFUSES to extend evacuation deadline despite secret talks with CIA boss: Regime issues chilling warning to westerners just minutes before G7 leaders plead with Biden to stay beyond August 31

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday they will not extend the August 31 deadline for all U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan – just 24 hours after Joe Biden sent his CIA director to negotiate with the militant group in a bid to get the remaining American citizens and Afghan allies out.

‘We will not extend the deadline for the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan,’ Myjahid said in a Tuesday press conference. ‘They are capable of evacuating their citizens and troops by August 31.’

This could get very ugly. Given the US does not seem able to account for all Americans in Afghanistan you have to wonder if the Taliban have begun hostage taking.

Taliban ‘will not extend 31 August deadline’

Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says he does not think that the 31 August deadline for evacuations from Kabul will be extended.

He adds there is enough time to get foreign nationals out before the deadline, and that the Taliban are “not in favour” of allowing Afghans to leave.

Afghans ‘no longer allowed to go to Kabul airport’

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the Taliban are no longer allowing Afghan nationals to go to Kabul airport because of the chaotic situation there.

At a news conference, he said crowds at the airport should go home and their security would be guaranteed.

But he said the US had kept on inviting people to the airport to board planes.

“We ask the Americans,” he said. “Don’t encourage Afghans to leave… We need their talent.”

He added that Afghan media outlets were now working again, as were hospitals, schools, university and local government.

Afghanistan is a mess, despite vain attempts by Democrats and the media to spin it otherwise. We left behind a trove of weapons and intelligence secrets in our abandoned airbases and embassy. This was a gift to the Taliban, overnight making them one of the best-equipped military forces in the world. They reminded America and the world of this fact by recreating the famous photo of US soldiers raising the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

President Biden’s shoddy withdrawal from Afghanistan has irrevocably sullied America’s reputation. Even opponents of continued occupation have been horrified at the indefensible manner in which this extraction was done.

But it’s also worth stepping back from the immediate Biden-orchestrated debacle to focus on the broader lessons we can glean from this unceremonious end to America’s longest-ever war: To wit, America must put aside the hopeless project of nation-building once and for all.

Our worthless elite were not always, and will not always be, in charge.

It wasn’t always like this. It didn’t have to go the way it did. There were in fact signs of early success when we started bombing the Taliban in October of 2001. This was a raw time. We were hurt and aggrieved. If you squinted, you could still see the smoke coming from the rubble of the Twin Towers. We put our best guys on the ground, a few hundred Delta forces to track down Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden—modest, but vital objectives. Righteous objectives.

KABUL/WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) – With thousands of desperate Afghans and foreigners massed at Kabul’s airport in the hope of fleeing Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to decide as soon as Tuesday on whether to extend an Aug. 31 deadline to airlift Americans and their allies to safety.

Biden warned on Sunday that the evacuation was going to be “hard and painful” and a lot could still go wrong. U.S. troops might stay beyond Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline to oversee the evacuation, he said.

… A Taliban official said foreign forces had not sought an extension and it would not be granted if they had. Washington said negotiations were continuing.

I think they’re keeping Joe in a closet most of the time.

Elite members of the Canadian military’s special forces unit are operating outside the perimeter of the Kabul airport as senior officials warn the situation on the ground is “increasingly dangerous.”

In a telephone briefing with journalists on Monday morning, senior government officials provided an update on Canada’s efforts to evacuate citizens and Afghan civilians from what one called the “volatile” and “chaotic” environment in the capital following the Taliban takeover last weekend.

Taliban fighters are reportedly flogging Afghan civilians in the streets for wearing ‘westernised’ clothing such as jeans as they cement their power in Afghanistan.

Several young Afghans posted on social media they had been beaten and whipped by members of the Taliban for wearing jeans after being accused of disrespecting Islam.

One social media post says the boys were ‘walking with friends in Kabul,’ when they were confronted by Taliban soldiers.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top national security officials assembled at the Pentagon early on April 24 for a secret meeting to plan the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. It was two weeks after President Joe Biden had announced the exit over the objection of his generals, but now they were carrying out his orders.

In a secure room in the building’s “extreme basement,” two floors below ground level, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with top White House and intelligence officials. Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined by video conference. After four hours, two things were clear.