Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / President Biden To Speak on the Evacuation in Afghanistan (LIVE)

Reader Interactions

183Comments

  2. 2.

    debbie

    Ryan Crocker is a t*at. NPR has an hourlong program where he’s hogging all the time slamming Biden. Daniel Silverburg is pushing back, but Crocker only repeats his talking points.

    Some cyber sleuth needs to check Crocker out. I am convinced he’s on TFG’s payroll.

  4. 4.

    James E Powell

    For me, the biggest surprise is the amount of pushback against the USA in Afghanistan Forever people.

    I expected there to be zero.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    Whenever the US military is in the news for conflicts somewhere on the other side of world, I’m occasionally reminded of The The’s Sweet Bird of Truth (5:25). The lyrics don’t perfectly fit, of course, but the mood does, I think.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  8. 8.

    Elizabelle

    Thank you for this.  Please give a shout out when it starts.  Will watch.  I love me some President Biden, the sensible guy.

  9. 9.

    RaflW

    @germy: They all tried this “Biden is hiding in his basement” and “Biden is senile” stuff in the general election, and it failed because people can just see Joe out there speaking and meeting and doing his work.

    It’s utterly pathetic. It’s noise for the rube base. To the extent that it helps the moronic GOP continue to underestimate Biden, and fail to notice the 75% of us who are pissed as hell about the anti-mask and anti-vax bullshit, well, ok then, fall in that briar patch.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    @germy:   The problem I saw is that the WaPost and NY Times were shrieking just as loud.  The WaPost was egregious.  Disgusted with their immediate coverage.

    The LA Times was way better on headlines.  Rather than “Defensive” and another disparaging “D” adjective, they made it clear Biden was explaining his decision.

    It’s not just the conservative outlets that fall for the rightwing shit.  Sadly.

  11. 11.

    RaflW

    @WaterGirl:  re starting on time, I’ve been watching Borgen on netflix of late. The episode I just watched had a short scene where the reporters are camped out in front of a cabinet ministers office waiting, increasingly impatiently, for a press conference to start. It was kinda cute.

    I do recommend Borgen for people who enjoy political dramas. I found the dubbing to be poor, though, so I watch the subtitled version. I’m continually surprised by Danish. I’m used to hearing Swedish, and boy Danish is not the same! (As I’m sure Danes would like us to know. I certainly get that the scando languages aren’t all the same. But to my untrained ear, it’s like Dutch people tryna speak Swedish. ;)  )

  13. 13.

    Splitting Image

    From where I sit, Biden has handled the pullout about as well as anyone could have, but the TV bobbleheads have really showed everyone their asses. A lot of the same people who were cheerleading for the war 20 years ago are still running those shows and are determined to make sure that someone other than themselves gets blamed for the debacle.

    Incidentally, the 20-year anniversary of the World Trade Center bombing is coming up in about three weeks. It strikes me that the warmongers who have been resurfacing over the past few days to publish articles about their part in America’s Great Project were getting them ready to go with that in mind.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    This might just be close to the record for how late one of these starts.  Another 15, and it might just make a new record.

    I surely hope we don’t see an apologetic Biden today – even the Obama Bros were saying Biden probably needs an event where he eats a shit sandwich publicly in order to make this go away.

    Narrator: eating a shit sandwich publicly will not make this go away.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It does not matter a whit what OHJB actually says, the MSM will still be going nutso attacking him because Broderism DEMANDS it.

    I say we take off, and nuke the entire Village from orbit.  It’s the only way to be sure.

  17. 17.

    Peale

    It was ours, I tell you. Ours. Any day now, we were going to start mining things there and putting in that Khyber Pass Interstate rest stop. And what are we going to do now without our supply of lapis Lazuli? Have we thought about where we’re going to get that? And we were getting our own supply of poppies. Now there will be a heroin shortage and we’ll be at the mercy of Mexican drug lords for our supply. This is just awful on a human scale.

  18. 18.

    CaseyL

    @RaflW:

    @Catherine D.:

    My brother, after living in New Zealand for about 15 years, moved to Norway for a job.  At his age, learning a new language is a real challenge: after 3-4 years in Norway, he says he can sort of get by in normal conversation, but he works in a highly technical field and is nowhere near fluent for that (happily, everyone else speaks fluent English).

    I’ll know he’s really assimilated if he, too, starts making fun of Danes’ accents :)

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Splitting Image: Ah.  The Wallow.  I know it’s coming every year, and I’m sick and tired of it.  My parents did not wallow in the wake of Pearl Harbor.  They rolled up their sleeves and joined the Coast Guard and skippered a landing craft in the Pacific (Dad) or went to work for a defense contractor (Mom).  Early 21st Century: go shopping, per the instructions of the deserting coward.

  20. 20.

    frosty

    @Catherine D.: Many years ago a Spanish girl said the same thing to me about my accent when attempting to converse with her. We had a nice day together anyway.

  26. 26.

    RaflW

    Under way now. He doesn’t seem to be hiding under a table (a stupid claim made by the GOP in the past 24 hours).

  27. 27.

    MisterForkbeard

    I watched some of the facebook comments on this as it was scrolling. Our population is full of idiots. Things like “Why aren’t you incentivizing hiring of workers instead of getting people to stay home?” and “This guy couldn’t fix Afghanistan, worst president ever” or “Still not admitting he failed. This presidency is over”.

    Ugh.

  28. 28.

    RaflW

    @Catherine D.: As someone who fully embraces my 50% Swedishness, I embrace having potatoes in one’s mouth on a regular basis. Just maybe not while conversing.

  31. 31.

    Cacti

    Reminder:

    All of the media bobbleheads shrieking about the Afghanistan withdrawal had zero complaints about the invasion.

  32. 32.

    Wapiti

    @Catherine D.: I read that thing about Danes speaking like they had potatoes in their mouths in a webcomic*, of all things.

    *written by a Swedish/Finnish woman.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dr. bloor: You can tell he’s a bit stressed, he was having to really work around his stutter in his remarks. Which will, of course, lead to new screeching that he’s got dementia.

    Given that he’s taking questions, meaning he’s going to not have prepared remarks, they’re going to have to come up with something else to bitch about.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    He just made the best, clearest point in this whole 20 year adventure in Afghanistan. That if al Qaeda had attacked the US on 9-11 from Yemen and not from Afghanistan, would we have gone into Afghanistan? Would we have removed the Taliban? Absent al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, what is the US’s national interest in Afghanistan?

    The answer of course is no and little to none.

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    @Cacti:   Yep.  That they still have microphones and are seen as voices we need to hear from is cowardice from the MSM.

    Weekly, I wonder how our MSM would have covered Hitler’s rise.  Not well!

  45. 45.

    Yutsano

    @CaseyL:  Interesting, since Norwegian is considered to be the easiest of the four* Scandinavian languages for English speakers to learn. It has a rather simple grammar and phonology. Probably the hardest part is there is no standard Norwegian. There’s bokmål which has more Danish elements and then there’s nynorsk which is a compilation of “pure” Norwegian dialects. Interestingly enough the Nordmenn speak both interchangeably it seems. If I had to pick one to learn it would be Norsk.

    HEJA NORGE!!!

    *Yes I’m counting Icelandic. Sue me. :P

  46. 46.

    JWR

    BzZzt! Did not show enough compassion or empathy for the Afghan people. — political pontificaters of every damn political stripe.

  47. 47.

    Cacti

    @Elizabelle: The US media outlets of the time soft-balled Hitler much like they did Trump, and insisted he didn’t really mean all those over the top things he said about Jews.

  50. 50.

    Elizabelle

    The visual with VP Harris and Secretary Blinken in the background, in black masks.  Striking.

    Reminiscent of the Taliban and other jihadists, in years past.

  51. 51.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    @Elizabelle: The MSM then didn’t cover Hitler’s rise particularly well. Today’s would interview poor oppressed Hitler supporters at pogroms and describe it as a healthy, downhome Saturday night activity.

  52. 52.

    Chris

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The beating heart of AQ is in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and a few smaller Gulf kingdoms.

    But admitting that and acting accordingly would mean prepping for a far more difficult and painful realignment in foreign policy than the powers-that-be are ready for (especially given how the Saudi royals are dug in like ticks in Official Washington).  So we keep pretending Afghanistan or Iraq is where it’s at.

  54. 54.

    VeniceRiley

    Open thread? Yay on news that by Sept 30, everyone at work inside our brick and mortar locales, employees, contractors, and vendors, MUST be fully vaccinated. We have vaccinated 157,008 people. And we won a huge grant (1 of 2, the 2nd being awarded solely to LA Country) to do the big push in conjunction with community clinics in the rest of the state to ANDELE this vaccination bidness.

  55. 55.

    Elizabelle

    @Bluegirlfromwyo:   “And look at what messpots the Weimar leaders were.  Can’t pull a miracle out of a hat.  Hitler has a plan!  He is an electrifying speaker:  might even stroke out one of these days.  Got to massively cover him.  Besides, the business and wise men will be in charge.”

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    @brendancalling:   I know that, Captain Obvious.  But it was a thought.  Such a strange pandemic world we are in, where they are masked against a virus, but we’ve seen others mask to hide their identities.

  58. 58.

    Cacti

    @Chris: I think future scholars of the American Empire are going to marvel at the extent we allowed KSA and Israel to be the tail that wagged the dog of our post-cold war foreign policy.

  60. 60.

    Chris

    @Cacti:

    @Bluegirlfromwyo:  Yep.  It would be about why we needed to understand the economic anxiety of German Christians.

    You know, as much as we mock that narrative, it wasn’t until the last five years that I realized that, yes, in fact, that’s exactly the way we’re taught to think about the rise of Nazism in Germany.

    The popular shorthand explanation for Hitler’s rise is “temporary insanity induced by the Great Depression, with help from the WW1 losses and the Versailles Treaty.”

  62. 62.

    Kay

    “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al-Qaeda gone?”

    They are going to go crazy with anger :)

    Still defiant!

    This is the real straight talk express.

  63. 63.

    Subsole

    @Elizabelle: 

    You need not wonder. The NYT had accounts from inside the concentration camps, written at great personal risk.

    They spiked them. Buried it. After all, what if that nice mister Hitler didn’t take their calls anymore?
    Same reason they gave Trump kid-glove treatment.

    The 30s was a low, dismal decade made darker and more horrible by the utter cravenness of the media.
    Le Traison des Cleriques, indeed.

    I have seen precious little that suggests improvement in the Beltway.

  65. 65.

    Ken

    @Cacti: I keep expecting support for Israel to drop, once evangelicals realize that the Israelis don’t really buy into their end-times fantasies and have no intention of immolating themselves so Jesus will come back.  But that may require too much thought on the part of evangelicals

    The Saudis, obviously, have the Orb. No, wait, that’s not it. Some other three letter word, begins with “o”…

  66. 66.

    Leto

    @Elizabelle: @WaterGirl: @Adam L Silverman: tagging Elizabelle and WaterGirl because of the previous thread, and Adam because he’s previously posted about this, but last night on Maddow she had John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), on her show to talk about this. I understand everyone’s criticisms of her, but I personally think this worth the watch (should literally surprise no one here how closely Mr Sopko’s language is to Adams).

    ‘No One Should Be Surprised By This’: U.S. Afghanistan Watchdog On Mission’s Collapse

  70. 70.

    Ohio Mom

    I came in the middle of Biden’s speech (I’ll rewind to the beginning later) and only heard the first few questions, and I assume the reporters wrote their questions before the speech, but this is pretty much what I heard:

    Biden: we’re getting everybody who needs to get out, out

    Reporter: Are you going to get everybody out who needs to get out?

    It’s okay, many people need repetition to grasp new concepts.

  71. 71.

    Splitting Image

    @Adam L Silverman: 

    He just made the best, clearest point in this whole 20 year adventure in Afghanistan. That if al Qaeda had attacked the US on 9-11 from Yemen and not from Afghanistan, would we have gone into Afghanistan? Would we have removed the Taliban? Absent al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, what is the US’s national interest in Afghanistan?

    The answer of course is no and little to none.

    Good on Biden for saying this. As you say, this is the nub of the issue. David Frum didn’t even see fit to include Afghanistan in his Axis of Evil, and no one else would have either.

  74. 74.

    brendancalling

    @Elizabelle:

    “Captain Obvious?” Hey, no need to be rude, homie. Just seemed like a weird analogy to make, conflating apples and oranges.

  75. 75.

    M31

    uh oh, Biden referred to residents of Afghanistan as “Afghanis” — where are the Balloon Juice pedants to correct him that that’s the money!

    (Dick Cheney’s buddies at Halliburton perk up at the phrase “getting all the Afghanis out of the country” — “wait, there are some left? we didn’t complete our mission!”)

  79. 79.

    gene108

    I don’t know how old the reporter is who asked President Biden about how we can monitor terrorist activity in Afghanistan without an embassy, but President Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike against an al-Qaeda training base, in 1998, where Osama bin Laden was but the missiles landed after he left.

    President Biden has the patience of a saint to calmly answer all those stupid media questions.

  81. 81.

    Cacti

    @Subsole: 

    Here’s an excerpt from the Grey Lady’s first feature on Herr Hitler in November 1922:

    But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes.

    A sophisticated politician credited Hitler with peculiar political cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on anti-Semitism, saying: “You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you really are leading them.”

    All the serious people agreed. He wasn’t so bad.

  82. 82.

    Another Scott

    @Ohio Mom: +1

    That’s my overall take from hearing the speech and the first AP question.

    Sad.

    I think the press usually gets copies of the speeches before they’re delivered.  Maybe it didn’t happen this time for time constraints, but if they did have the remarks early and still asked those inane questions, well…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    M31

    even expecting the media to be clueless dumbshits with a war hard-on and to only present right-wing framing of everything, they still manage to exceed expectations

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    @Cacti:   Besides.  The businessmen were going to keep him in line.

    Don’t listen with your ears.  To, you know, his words to “excite and arouse.”

    We will tell you what you need to know.

  86. 86.

    Subsole

    @Ken:

    Eh, that’s not really the hook for most Evangelicals I’ve known.

    Basically, to them, Israel is THE favored son. If you don’t support the favored son, God will lock you out of heaven.

    What he does with the Jews, and what the Jews do themselves, is largely immaterial. They must be supported in all things, otherwise you are in rebellion against God’s will. If he fries them after, fine. The point is YOU obeyed.

    Very, very, VERY big on obedience, that church is.

    Which is a pretty effed up family dynamic, when you dig right down to it.

  88. 88.

    M31

    getting sick of the ‘compassion’ (for women, for those who worked with us, etc.) only being used when it helps cudgel Biden

    makes you wonder if it’s genuine?

    no wondering necessary, it’s not

  89. 89.

    Chris

    @cain:

    Well, right.  But this applied even back then.  Everybody forgets that fascism first popped years before the Great Depression, in Italy, a country that had won World War One…

  90. 90.

    JWR

    Question. How many infants were lifted over the wall to awaiting troops? Because to hear these reporters tell it, the number could’ve been in the hundreds, if not more.

    And I’m reminded of recently dead Donald Rumsfeld talking about a single vase being smashed, played on a loop, forever and ever Amen.

  91. 91.

    Leto

    @Elizabelle: I’m hoping Adam might do a brief write up on the SIGARs report, that they talk about in the video, but also know Adam has a million other things going on.

  92. 92.

    Cacti

    @Subsole:  What you said.

    Evangelical Christianity is fundamentally an anti-intellectual movement.

    You’re not ever going to see an evangelical minister ever write something like Summa Theologica.

  93. 93.

    Mary G

    I posted about this last night, and if I missed any discussion of it earlier today, please forgive me, but I find this egregious conduct by the FYFNYT.

    After midnight eastern, they put up this story:

    Trump’s Deal With the Taliban Draws Fire From His Former Allies

    I think it had a different headline, but I did not take note of it, but I had the impression it was more like “Biden screwed the pooch, but some disaffected TFG administration members say” but of course in different words. It’s on page A5 of the print edition, but not on the web landing page now.

    HR McMaster lets TFG have it:

    Some former senior Trump officials now call that agreement fatally flawed, saying it did little more than provide cover for a pullout that Mr. Trump was impatient to begin before his re-election bid. They also say it laid the groundwork for the chaos unfolding now in Kabul.

    “Our secretary of state signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban,” Mr. Trump’s second national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said of Mr. Pompeo during a podcast interview with the journalist Bari Weiss on Wednesday. “This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.”

    Esper is critical of both sides, as is John Bolton, Pompeo tells a pack of lies. The Times refutes them:

    Nor is there evidence that top Trump officials prioritized planning for the eventual evacuation of Americans, or of Afghans who might be subject to Taliban reprisals for working with the United States.

    Nikki Haley chimes in:

    On Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, took to Twitter to criticize the Biden administration for its improvised negotiations now underway with the Taliban, meant to ensure the safety of U.S. evacuation operations in Kabul.
    Ms. Haley, who played no role in the Trump administration’s talks with the Taliban, took aim at Mr. Biden. But, wittingly or not, she also incriminated Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo — all potential rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
    “Negotiating with the Taliban,” Ms. Haley said, “is like dealing with the devil.”

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    I do so miss* the days when Trump would concern himself with the all-important golferating and instead, trot out Possum Queen to handle the crisis du jour by lying, deflecting, and yelling at reporters not from Fox.

    *possibly not the case

  96. 96.

    Elizabelle

    @Mary G:

    But, wittingly or not, [Nikki Haley …]

    LOL.  That is some shade.

    Yeah.  The FTF NY Times is very slippery.  And they do change headlines, etc.

  98. 98.

    PST

    I realize we have moved past Danish, but I’ve always wanted to begin a comment by saying, “I was sitting in a cafe in Monte Carlo …” A man at a nearby table collapsed, and his wife began shouting in a language I could not recognize. “Can anyone translate?” a waiter called out. Two women at the next table stood up and started toward the fallen man. “We’re Danes,” one said. “We speak everything.”

  100. 100.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Wapiti: Some guy in Sweden when I was there in the summer of 2019 said something similar about Danish. I think he said they sounded like they were talking with marbles in their mouths. It all sounds the same to me because I barely speak a word of anything other than English and Portuguese. My dad has been taking Swedish lessons for years but he hardly used a word of it when we were there because everyone, and I mean everyone we met spoke better than passable English.

  102. 102.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    @Elizabelle: Yep. Just like the media and the RWNJs tell us all those things that Donald “Tells It Like. It. Is.” Trump doesn’t actually mean. Like you need the secret decoder ring from A Christmas Story.  How about just taking him at his word? I do.

  104. 104.

    cain

    I’ve been listening to this Q&A and my consensus is that these people actually do not actually listen to anything that was actually said. It’s like they are weaponizing the questions. I mean all their questions were actually answered. Instead of asking for details they are just asking questions they already should have the answer to.

    in other words,I have learned nothing from their stupid questions. Morons.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    Richard Engel
    @RichardEngel
    · 35m
    Biden says US in constant contact with Taliban to get safe passage to airport. So, US asking former enemy, the Taliban, to please allow us to get our people out while they take the country.

    I feel like he’s crossed a line and they should stop putting him on. I understand this is personal for him and I don’t doubt his sincerity but his insistence that the United States somehow has to act to fulfill his personal views is just way over the line. That’s not how this works.

  107. 107.

    Leto

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: When we lived in Italy, it was similar. We tried our best to speak the Italian we learned, but all of our Italian friends only spoke English to us because they wanted to practice it. When we visited Austria, they all spoke perfect English. Same in Germany. But I know that they all appreciated the effort we gave to speak in their native language.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Mary G: Haley is on public record approving of the negotiations with the Taliban last year, mentioning them by name.

  109. 109.

    Leto

    @Kay:

    That’s not how this works.

    It is how this works. The US gave their word that we would take care of these people. Not just individual Americans, but the US fucking government, in the form of legislation via the special visas. If you’d like to make the argument that the US government didn’t make this agreement, then by all means you need to start arguing that.

  110. 110.

    trollhattan

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    Grew up in a city with large Swedish, Norwegian and Danish (fewer of them) populations. The areas of agreement shared by the various pairs: Swedes are oversexed, Danes are snobs, Norwegians are hicks.

    IDK which people were considered to talk the prettiest.

  111. 111.

    germy

    @Kay: 

    A reply:

    hi richard, do you advocate the US retaking the city and country by force? would you rather they NOT communicate with the current entity in control of afghanistan?

    — Chris Lopez (@Kosmos412) August 20, 2021

  113. 113.

    Subsole

    @Kay:

    Agreed. Dude needs to go outside and smoke a bowl.

    I get that he’s worried, or whatever, but…dude, you ain’t gonna shame the man into dropping twelve regiments and five nukes on Kabul.

    It. Is. Done.

    Seethe if you must, but cope.

    Edit:

    He is more than welcome to buy an AR 15 and sign up with a local warlord if he feels that strongly about it.

  114. 114.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Elizabelle: Most of them had accents but were completely intelligible. We were there for two weeks – about a week in Stockholm and a week amongst various lakes – Mora, Bengstfors, Lidkoping and Vadstena. We met a guy in Bengstfors who saw my Grand Tetons hat and said he’d been there, and then asked us how the hell did a family of American tourists wind up in this little backwater? But even he and everyone else we interacted with in town spoke very good English.

    The answer for how we wound up there was my dad has a friend in the Swedish American heritage society who knew someone who had a summer cabin near Bengstfors and we decided to rent it for a couple days to get the real Swedish summer experience. It was nice though – very hilly and lots of picturesque lakes.

  118. 118.

    Hoodie

    @Kay:  He’s emotionally invested, has been for a long time. That’s fine, but makes for poor reporting. The Taliban have already taken over the country. We have to rely on them because they are the de facto government given that the prior government fled and we can’t take over the country (or even Kabul) with a few thousand lightly armed troops. I guess it’s stepping over the line but, above all, it’s just stupid.

  119. 119.

    Tazj

    @Kay: I guess he’d be ok with the alternative which would be sending US troops out beyond the perimeter and engaging with the Taliban? I’m thinking that would result in a lot more chaos and death.

    I don’t know they may decide to do something else later but I think it would be a good idea to get as many out as possible without any major violence.

    I have a lot of respect for him as a reporter and I’m very sympathetic to the fact that he has many friends in the country, but when you agree to surrender this is what happens.

  120. 120.

    gene108

    @Mary G:

    Nor is there evidence that top Trump officials prioritized planning for the eventual evacuation of Americans, or of Afghans who might be subject to Taliban reprisals for working with the United States.

    Trump administration stopped admitting refugees, after seriously curtailing refugee visas from the outset.

    I’d love to know how many allies in Afghanistan were granted visas during TFG’s term in office.

  121. 121.

    zzyzx

    @cain:

    I think the point of that is that this way they have THEIR face asking the question so when the NBC Nightly News airs, they don’t have to show the CNN reporter doing so.

  123. 123.

    OGLiberal

    @cain: They and their editors had their list of questions set before the whole thing started.  Question answered in the prepared remarks?  Question answered in response to another reporter’s question?  Still gonna ask because I’m not quick enough to come up with one on the fly and I’ve been waiting for this, especially if I think it’s the greatest gotcha question ever.

  125. 125.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    OT – with today’s announcement from the Bahamas (that everyone with a Bahamas connection has known was coming), I’m guessing that DeSantis’ handlers are scrambling to point fingers of blame  at each other about their “pander to every lunatic in rural Florida for an easy primary win” strategy.

    Maybe DeSantis can issue another EO declaring that Bahamas laws on vaccines are void.

    He can also declare that Caribbean resort properties scattered about Antigua, Anguilla, Jamaica and the like can’t impose mask and vaccine mandates, as they just did.

    ???

  127. 127.

    Another Scott

    @Leto: Engle is editorializing rather than reporting, there.

    Yes, the US made commitments and Biden is keeping them (as you say). TFG didn’t.

    Everything @OliviaTroye says is true. The SIV program was one of the first things Stephen Miller went after. I had Iraqi interpreters in the final stages and the entire thing was nuked almost immediately. The racist White House did everything they could to get our people killed. https://t.co/IcPsNIjxkT

    — Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) August 20, 2021

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  128. 128.

    StringOnAStick

    @Tazj: the what I saw on Twitter news, the problem now is finding destinations for the next batch of evacuees because the one they were using is maxed.

  129. 129.

    banditqueen

    @Kay:  @Leto:  Engel ‘reports’ that Biden said “please allow us to get our people out while they take the country.”–That isn’t at all what Biden said–he said he would respond with “overwhelming force” if the Taliban gov blocks those trying to leave Kabul.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @Tazj:

    I don’t know what he wants. Re-invade? It just seems the criticisms of the evacuation blend into what the real objection is- the US getting out. Will these people admit that their commentary on the evactuation is absolutely influenced by their opposition to ending this at all? Because to me it’s just infused with it.

  134. 134.

    Chris

    @Hoodie: 

    To this I would add that the Biden administration is almost certainly trying to avoid another Benghazi like situation where American soldiers or diplomats/contractors/wev end up dead (or as hostages) because of a dust-up between us and the Taliban, so they’re making sure to clear stuff with the latter so there’s no misunderstanding.

    The media, of course, is salivating at the idea of another Benghazi. Think of what they could do with four more years of endless bad faith committee hearings.

  135. 135.

    germy

    https://www.wlfi.com/content/national/575138972.html?ref=972

    Western news organizations are starting to head out of Afghanistan. Spokespeople for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CBS News, and NBC News all told me on Thursday evening that their reporters have exited the country as the security situation intensifies with the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

    The Journal said it no longer has “reporters on the ground in Afghanistan” but remains “committed” to its coverage. The Post said it is relying on “stringers on the ground” and has journalists assisting in nearby countries with “wide past experience in Afghanistan.” CBS said its correspondent, Roxana Saberi, had flown out to Doha where she continues to cover the situation. And NBC said Richard Engel and the rest of the network’s team are now out of the country.

    They should send Engel to cover the “Justice For J6” protests on September 18 if he’s looking for excitement.

    I’m sure he’ll see enough violent men in beards to satisfy his adrenaline needs.

  136. 136.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl: No idea, will guess somebody just discovered that several F-18s flying in formation and doing aerobatics, be loud.

    Have wondered since the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremonies just how loud that ginormous drone globe was. Just one can be pretty dang loud, depending on the model.

  138. 138.

    JWR

    @Kay:

    I understand this is personal for him and I don’t doubt his sincerity but his insistence that the United States somehow has to act to fulfill his personal views is just way over the line. That’s not how this works.

    Damn straight and very well said. And they (our media) are always looking for veterans of our various adventures precisely for their heavily invested hot take opinions. It’s almost as if the only way they can see military folk these days is as “our warrior class”, possessing of deep and abiding war wisdom.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @banditqueen:

    Right, I got the sarcasm. More completely unbiased reportorial work. He starts with criticism of the evactuation but he can’t even go a whole sentence without revealing his real objection.

  140. 140.

    trollhattan

    @Kay: ​The overarching mentality is “I may not know exactly what you did wrong, but know for certainty you did it wrong.”

    BBC has been shoveling this meme relentlessly, to their considerable discredit. Do better, Beeb!

  141. 141.

    WaterGirl

    email just now from Four Directions:

    It’s official: The Native American Voting Rights Act of 2021 has just been introduced during this legislative session.

    With the recent blows from the Supreme Court to the Voting Rights Act, it is now harder than ever before to protect the right of First Americans to vote. The Native American Voting Rights Act will give Indian Country hope for equal participation at the ballot box.

    We are advocating for this legislation every step of the way but we need your help. Please add your name to demand that Congress pass the Native American Voting Rights Act >>

    ADD YOUR NAME

    It has never been more important to pass federal legislation protecting our right to vote. Every day, states are introducing new legislation to suppress Native voices because of the historic voter turnout we had in 2020/2021.

    In order to keep turning out our Native communities in volume each election, we need Congress to take action. Please join us in demanding that the Native American Voting Rights Act becomes law.

  142. 142.

    Tazj

    @StringOnAStick: Yes, they paused evacuations for a while because Qatar said they were at capacity for processing any more refugees but evacuations have since resumed. Biden even said this at his press conference, that evacuations had resumed but he didn’t elaborate on what had happened. I read that flights were now going to Bahrain and maybe a few other bases.

    I don’t think Engel was referring to this but rather the difficulty people have getting to the airport and how chaotic and dangerous  it is there, but I could be wrong.

  144. 144.

    piratedan

    @Kay:  yeah, he’s not reporting anymore, this is a dialogue between him and the Biden Administration as to why he can’t get the people he specifically wants out… out.

    It’s good to know that NBC doesn’t really have any mechanism to understand when the people that it deems as reporters and their sources are in danger in another country that they have any responsibility at all to warn them or remove them… seems to me that the Taliban’s fait accompli caught them with their pants around their ankles much like the rest of us…

  145. 145.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: Sue, the T-rex at the Field Museum, has a twitter feed and a blog.  They’re run by the museum (unlike Mr. Nunes’ cow) and used to promote museum events, paleontology, and so forth.

    I think this tweet is a cross-promotion for the Chicago air and water show, which is being run a little differently because of COVID.

  149. 149.

    Subsole

    @JWR:

    Yep.

    Most of it is a transparent desire to bask in the reflected virility of The Men Who Kill.

    I mean, maybe they’re interviewing file clerks, helicopter mechanics and motor pool E-3s.

    (People without whom, I should note, your Tacticool Operators who operationally operate in operational operations ain’t gonna get much done).

    But mostly I see them going after combat vets. They want that killer mystique, baby.

  151. 151.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kay: Richard Engel (and everyone else parroting this) should tell us exactly what the alternative is.

    Give the Taliban the finger and massively up our military presence (in THEIR country, mind you) in order to secure access to the airport? When we’ve already pulled out the vast majority of our citizens?

  152. 152.

    cain

    @Subsole: ​
     
    Of which the press will only ask polite questions and not get all in a tizzy. I mean, sure leave em to be massacred. It’s not like they will give a shit – certainly there wasn’t that much outrage when the federal govt was separating children from their parents at our border – or doing other crazy shit to green card holders at our airport.

  154. 154.

    Subsole

    I’m tellin’ y’all.

    The media has spoken.

    The National Winkie has been disrespected.

    Steps Must Be Taken. Something Must Be Done. Something manly. With guns. And explosions. And big, burly, cornfed boys with big muscles and blond hair and blue eyes and really big, long, powerful guns.

    Did I mention the guns? Because the guns are very, very important.

  155. 155.

    WaterGirl

    @MisterForkbeard: Biden is giving the Taliban the chance to show that they can run a country and not just be the brutal pigs that we know they are.

    The stick Biden holds is that the Taliban wants to be treated as a serious government – Biden is giving them the rope to at least pretend to do that, all the while making it clear that there will be hell to pay if they attack us as we are leaving and getting our people out.

    Biden has nothing to lose and everything to gain by playing this out.  The worst that can happen is that the Taliban starts attacking us, which they would already be doing if we weren’t participating in the dance I just described.

  157. 157.

    JWR

    @WaterGirl:

    I missed this. What are you referring to?

    It was a female reporter on NPR, either just before, or immediately following Biden’s remarks. She noted all the babies lifted over the wall to demonstrate the chaos just outside the airport gates. I first heard about it yesterday, but just like the people falling to their deaths after clinging to the transport plane, it turned out to be one, maybe two actual incidents.

  158. 158.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: I was interested to see that Sharice Davids (KS-3) was joined in introducing this bill by a Republican, Tom Cole (OK-4). Davids is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, Cole a member of the Chickasaw.

    The principal Senate sponsor is Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico. He first introduced this bill in 2019, when he was still a Congressman. Sixteen other Democratic Senators are co-sponsoring the bill.

    A member of the talented House Class of 2018, Sharice Davids is 41 years old. Her seat is a prime target for Kansas Republicans in upcoming redistricting.

  159. 159.

    M31

    @WaterGirl: One of the few things that gives me, not hope exactly but a bit less fear that everything will be completely terrible, is that the very swift assumption of power by the Taliban means they have made deals with all kinds of local powers. (Some just paid off, some actual Taliban sympathisers, some in ‘solidarity’ against the corrupt gov’t, the foreign invaders, etc.)

    So the Taliban has to keep the peace with these local powers or there will be trouble, so maybe (maybe?) they’ll do some actual governing.

    Who knows?

  160. 160.

    Ksmiami

    Is it just me, or is it ok that Republicans have needlessly killed at least 500,000 Americans due to their disastrous Covid policies, but somehow a successful evacuation of troops etc is the worst thing ever. The media in this country is for-profit junk

  161. 161.

    M31

    and by “very swift assumption of power” I mean “after the 100% Trump consequence-free handover and promise that we’d leave” and “long-prepared ‘calm’ that was actually just getting ready for rapid takeover”

  164. 164.

    Ruckus

    @Elizabelle: 
    TFFTNYT is a conservative paper. It is written for the monied class in NYC and anywhere else they happen to be. That others read their crap or that it isn’t all crap is besides the point for the owners. They are part of the monied class that has always decided that money and how much of it they have is what makes them better.
    Having seen the monied class in action and words, it is obvious that most of them have confused the meaning of the two words, better and worse.

  165. 165.

    Elizabelle

    @Ruckus:   Truth.  FTF NY Times is money talking.  The $$$ view from 30,000 feet.

    With some good features.

    Although the fuckers put their recipes behind an extra paywall.  Not to mention the crossword.  Boo.

  166. 166.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @trollhattan: I’m Swedish on my dad’s side. German on mom’s. Don’t consider myself oversexed but maybe that’s the German side tempering things. I’ve known a couple Danes (like, actual Danish people not Americans of Danish descent) and they didn’t come off as snobbish. My dad grew up in the Southern Tier of NY in a town with a ton of Swedes – his older brother knows a fair bit of Swedish just from picking it up around town.

  168. 168.

    J R in WV

    @Yutsano:

    You speak as an expert on Scandinavian languages, yet have a Japanese(?) nym — very interestink, verry interestink indeeed!!

    . .   ;~)

    I myself can speak Hillbillian Old Anglisch, urban American English, and a touch of deep southern mushmouth after some exposure to bring it back to my mouth. I’m trying to avoid that exposure to the deep souf treason if at all possible!

  170. 170.

    J R in WV

    @Cacti: ​
     

    Here’s an excerpt from the Grey Lady’s first feature on Herr Hitler in November 1922…

    And the NYT covered American Nazis and their parades in New York City, and their conventions in Madison Square Garden with exactly that same love and affection.

    They continued to display their love affair with Mr. Hitler right up until Germany declared war on the US after the Nazis Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

    They still love their fascists, just look at their coverage of the American Fascist administration of the previous President!

  171. 171.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: Oh no, I suspected that Sharice Davids was involved. I was a little surprised to see Tom Cole, he being a Republican. Cole is on the more moderate side of his caucus, though, so I wasn’t too surprised.

  173. 173.

    topclimber

    @Another Scott: Yes, maybe they got the questions late. But the White House Press Corps if the cream of the crap. Are they too senile to extemporize with a new question when their first one has already been answered?

  174. 174.

    J R in WV

    @gene108: ​
     

    I’d love to know how many allies in Afghanistan were granted visas during TFG’s term in office.

    OMmmmm…
    Majik Eight-ball says…
    Ommmm, dim.

    Eight?

    Maybe Eighteen?

    Not very damn many, 8-ball says! Fucken fascist white-supremacists.

  176. 176.

    Ruckus

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    In 1972 I was in a shop in Copenhagen and the sales girl came up to my buddy and I to see if we needed any help. I asked her if she was English because of her accent and mannerisms of speech. No, she was born in Copenhagen and how did I know she had an Oxford accent? Told her accents were a hobby and her’s is pretty distinct. Her professor who taught her class was from Oxford, they all learned to speak like him. Every person I’ve met from Europe since knows several languages because they studied them in school. And they use them regularly so that helps. Me, I’m lucky to be understood by Americans…

  177. 177.

    Geminid

    @topclimber: I think the White House press corps is fixated on finding problems with the Biden administration. They’ve really gone off the deep end in this matter, but even before they were consistently focusing on the dark lining in every silver cloud. They are supposed to look at things critically, but objectively also.  More and more they seem to have an anti-Biden axe to grind. But I don’t pay them much attention and I think a lot of other Americans don’t either. People here sure do, though.

  178. 178.

    Captain C

    @Ruckus: When I was studying Russian in college, many of the Russians I met had English accents to go with their Russian accents, as most of the English teachers in the USSR at that time spoke British English.

  180. 180.

    Ruckus

    @What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    I owned a bicycle shop in a very touristy part of CA. I got visitors from many countries walk in my shop, which surprised me, and all of them spoke pretty decent English. I also, prior to that shop, worked in professional sports and dealt with participants from many parts of the world and most of them spoke at least 2 if not more languages. In this country we mostly speak English (of a sort) or, at least in my part of it, Spanish. But so many people that I’ve known, from many other parts of the world spoke at least 2 and very likely 4 languages. Fluently. The only time I found someone who only spoke one language was the Spanish girl I met in Mallorcia at a dinner party in 1972. Fun night, even without a common language.

  181. 181.

    sab

    @Ruckus: I only speak English, and read French, and a smattering of Spanish ( Florida elementary school.) My oldest sister speaks fluent Mandarin ( hardfought academic achievement) and pretty good French from school. She also knows a lot of Shanghai dialect, some Taiwanese ( Fujian dialect) and some Korean and Japanese. That was all due to seirous study on her part, and some marriages. My baby sister for some reason learned Danish and some Sioux. Danish is actually useful for talking to Swiss Germans, whom she works for (Pharma). Rumor has it my brother has French not quite on a par with mine.

    If you don’t live in the Southwest it is really hard and sort of pointless learning foreign languages. You may need them for academic requirements, but you will hardly ever use them.

    I used my French sort of in law school (Anglo- French from the Normans) but an afternoon with a good study list would have done the same. Spanish I only use in restaurants and watching tv.

    My granddaughter is taking ASL as her language, and in my city that may be her most useful option.

    I am learning Scots Gaelic because it is fun, pretty, and makes absolutely no sense grammatically or phonetically from anything else I have ever learned.

  182. 182.

    Another Scott

    @sab: 

    I am learning Scots Gaelic because it is fun, pretty, and makes absolutely no sense grammatically or phonetically from anything else I have ever learned.

    My understanding is that Hungarian is kinda like that – very, very different from most other European languages.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  183. 183.

    sab

    @Another Scott: Hungarian has about a billion cases. I am amazed their kids ever learn to speak. I would love to have started Finnish when I was young enough to learn it.

    Hebrew is actually quite lovely. My ex spoke it fluently, but with a Minnesota accent. Lilting yet crunchy consonants, kind of like Welsh or Arabic.

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