Several European leaders had openly lobbied Joe Biden to extend the August 31 deadline that the US president imposed for the total withdrawal of American forces, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who acknowledged after the summit that he wasn't able to sway his American counterpart.
“We will go on right up until the last moment that we can,” he said after the summit. "But you’ve heard what the president of the United States has had to say, you’ve heard what the Taliban have said."
Earlier in the day, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned that "we’re not going to get everybody out of the country" in time. There have been similar statements from German and Spanish ministers.
But the Taliban have insisted that Western forces must complete evacuations by the end of the month.
A senior French official, speaking anonymously in accordance with the French presidency’s customary practices, said President Emmanual Macron had pushed for extending the Aug. 31 deadline but would “adapt” to the American sovereign decision. “That’s in the hands of the Americans,” he said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday he was "concerned (about) the cutoff date. An extension is necessary to see through the operations that are underway".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a press conference after the virtual meeting that "of course the United States of America has the leadership here"
"Without the United States of America, for example, we — the others — cannot continue the evacuation mission," she added.
Her foreign minister, Heiko Maas, had said on Monday that Berlin was in talks with the US, Turkey and other allies to keep Kabul airport open for evacuations beyond the deadline.
Also it's very likely that the US will now avoid any international operations. — ssu
We are going to get everyone possible out,” said Defense Minister Margarita Robles this morning, during an interview with the Cadena SER radio network. “There will be people that will have to stay for reasons that are beyond our control.” The minister added that it will be very difficult for those who are not already in Kabul to board a Spanish aircraft.
if the US would withdraw from the country it has occupied, it will create a safe haven for terrorists to strike mainland US from the safety of having camps in Afghanistan. — ssu
Everyone on the conference call stopped talking. “It got real quiet,” the official recalled.For the Scan Eagle pilots, their macabre duty now transitioned to watching the bodies of the Afghan civilians, including the dead child as they were loaded on a truck and hauled off. It was common practice for them to watch the bodies, see who showed up to claim them, and where they were taken. “We killed two innocent men and a charger,” the U.S. official wrote in a personal journal that day, using the military jargon “charger,” which means child.
...A military source that worked with Task Force South West told Connecting Vets they felt their drone strikes served little purpose when the Marines had essentially given up on Helmand, feeling that this would be their last deployment before the province, if not the country, was abandoned to the Taliban. At that point, “the drone strikes were punitive. Killing for the sake of killing,” he said. “It’s nihilistic, there is no point,” a second source, one of the drone operators supporting Task Force South West described. “It was clear that we were not making a difference.” For some of those involved in these operations, they saw it as the return of Vietnam War-era body counts used as a metric for success.
...“The only plan was to stack bodies,” an intelligence official working with the Special Operations Task Force said. “Task Force ODIN used metrics of how many targets were hit. There was no real measure for success that intersected with strategic level goals. How does Afghan stabilization intersect with 300 strikes this week? They are not the same thing." Schroden notes that if you are incentivizing body counts as a metric then at some point the veracity of the data being reported by units conducting lethal operations becomes questionable.
Refugee and humanitarian problems are likely to go haywire. — jorndoe
Do notice that I was questioning the reasoning itself.Then they shouldnt have put the first domino brick upright in the first place. Why is a first stone put up? — Prishon
the de facto but illegal occupying Power, South Africa, and the United Nations, in which de jure authority reposed but which had not previously been able to establish effective administration in Namibia, were to work together to enable the Namibian people to exercise their right of self-determination. The central objective of the United Nations operation was to create conditions for the holding of free and fair elections for a Constituent Assembly which would draw up a Constitution under which Namibia would proceed to independence as a free and sovereign State. The process, all of which was to take place under United Nations supervision and control, would move step by step from a ceasefire in a long and bitter war to the final moment of transition, that of independence. Every step had to be completed, in a democratic manner, to the satisfaction of the Secretary-General's Special Representative.
At its height, nearly 8,000 men and women - civilians, police, military - from more than 120 countries were deployed in Namibia to assist this process. Every step was followed with the closest attention, not only by the people of Namibia themselves but by the members of the Security Council, who had set the process in motion, by the international community at large, by the media and by a multitude of non-governmental organizations.
In May 1988, a US mediation team – headed by Chester A. Crocker, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs – brought negotiators from Angola, Cuba, and South Africa, and observers from the Soviet Union together in London. Intense diplomatic activity characterized the next 7 months, as the parties worked out agreements to bring peace to the region and make possible the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 435 (UNSCR 435). At the Ronald Reagan/Mikhail Gorbachev summit in Moscow (29 May – 1 June 1988) between leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union, it was decided that Cuban troops would be withdrawn from Angola, and Soviet military aid would cease, as soon as South Africa withdrew from Namibia.
Since independence Namibia has successfully completed the transition from white minority apartheid rule to a democratic society. Multiparty democracy was introduced and has been maintained, with local, regional and national elections held regularly.
The idea that any involvement in wars and crises is a doom attempt and will bring only more chaos and destruction is simply wrong — ssu
It's not about speed. It's about having some sanity in what your objectives are and taking into account the objectives of the participants.Yes you are right that it can bring chaos and war. And there are situations where its better. One has to be careful though not to introduce western democracy too fast. — Prishon
Good afternoon. On my orders the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.
Ministers have been warning in recent days about the risk posed by Islamic State Khorasan - or ISIS-K - to British, US and other forces involved in evacuating tens of thousands of people.
The security system is trembling due to... — javi2541997
...American presence fucking up the region, and directly precipitating the rise of terrorism. — StreetlightX
And a new Mexican government is installed with Mexicans that have made their life in Washington, so they are trustworthy and fluently speak English. Because, that's more easy. — ssu
It's very well documented how Cheney and the neocons pushed for the war in Iraq.But then Cheney said straight out that Afghanistan wasn't a big enough target, they had to go bigger. That was the beginning of the 'Sadam's nuke's' fiasco and the invasion of Iraq. The whole thing was driven by machismo and wounded pride. They would put together whatever rationale they needed to get what they wanted. Like the roaring of a demented and crazed lion. — Wayfarer
You would have still gone in to Afghanistan. Madeleine Allbright, who had a prominent position in the Clinton/Gore team, admitted that they would have gone in too.Remember that W only beat Al Gore by a couple of hundred hanging chads in Florida. WHat might have been, we'll never know, of course...... — Wayfarer
Madeleine Allbright, who had a prominent position in the Clinton/Gore team, admitted that they would have gone in too. — ssu
giddy
Yes, but as I've pointed out earlier, you had a lot of same Republicans that managed the Gulf War quite decently: objectives were met, UN and Soviet Union showed green light, not only NATO participation, but a large coalition of muslim countries participated (even Syria). Above all, the US listened to it's Arab allies and didn't invade Iraq.Still I think the hubris of the Bush neo-cons was disastrous. It was far too macho, too aggreived, too driven by rage. Unlike others here, I don't see the USA as an evil power, but I do wish they could be better than what they often are. — Wayfarer
Then somehow what earlier was brushed off as "would be a quagmire" became the line that "Iraqis would greet the US with open arms". — ssu
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