Kabul Afghanistan is Falling to the Taliban

[Magical Realist]

(CNN) -- "Airbnb has pledged to provide free housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees.

CEO Brian Chesky said Tuesday that the program would begin immediately, and that Airbnb would pay for the stays.

"The displacement and resettlement of Afghan refugees in the US and elsewhere is one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time. We feel a responsibility to step up," Chesky said in a series of posts on Twitter.

Chesky said the company would work closely with NGOs and its nonprofit arm, Airbnb.org, which provides housing to people in need following natural disasters and other crises.

Chesky did not say how long refugees would be housed, or how long the company would fund their stays. The company did not immediately respond to a request from CNN Business for further information.


Tens of thousands of people have been attempting to leave Afghanistan in recent days after the country's capital, Kabul, fell to the Taliban. Many Afghans have come to the airport in Kabul in hopes of departing on evacuation flights operated by the United States and other governments.

Decades of conflict in Afghanistan has already produced an acute refugee crisis. There are almost 2.5 million registered refugees from Afghanistan, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, comprising the largest protracted refugee population in Asia.

NGOs, religious groups and local governments in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries have pledged to help Afghan refugees. Chesky called on the business community to follow suit.

"I hope this inspires other business leaders to do the same. There's no time to waste," Chesky said on Tuesday.

https://www.azfamily.com/news/us_world_n...v1lGFviNpo

[Magical Realist]

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacif...021-08-26/

WASHINGTON, Aug 26 (Reuters) - "12 U.S. Marines were killed and 15 wounded in Thursday's explosions at Kabul airport, U.S. sources told Reuters, in what the Pentagon said was a "complex attack" during its evacuation mission from Afghanistan.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed multiple U.S. fatalities but did not give details. The U.S. servicemembers were among those killed when at least two blasts tore through crowds thronging the airport gates. read more

A U.S. official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters 12 U.S. personnel were killed and 15 wounded. Other U.S. sources gave the same figures.

A Taliban official said at least 13 people, including children, were killed. Video from the scene showed what appeared to be dozens of bodies and wounded civilians."

[Syne]

Blood on Biden's hands.

[Yazata]

They are saying now that 12 American military were killed and as many as 60 Afghans. Something like 15 American wounded. Unknown number of injured Afghans.

https://news.yahoo.com/france-stop-kabul...21850.html

They are also saying that there was a simultaneous suicide bomb attack at a Kabul hotel where Americans had been gathering prior to transport to the airport. Casaulties unknown there.

There are indications that at least 100 members of the local ISIS affiliate are located around the airport and US citizens at the gates waiting to get in have been told to stay away for the time being, since more gunfire and suicide bombings are expected.

https://af.usembassy.gov/security-alert-...t-26-2021/

Canada and several European countries have halted their evacuation flights. The stouter UK has very pointedly said that British evacuation flights will continue for as long as possible. (There are still some 600 British soldiers at the airport that need to be extracted, so they can't just throw up their hands and say "We're out".)

The Chief of the Canadian Defense Staff said, "We wish we could have stayed longer and rescued everyone who was so desperate to leave that we could not is truly heartbreaking, but the circumstances on the ground rapidly deteriorated."

[Image: 5d93400d3434b0dc16c3ab7bd4d18d38]

[Zinjanthropos]

Joe will be the weakest CIC in American military history. I think the pic in the following shows Sleepy trying to figure out how to use the remote so he can watch The Wiggles.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/18/damning-pi...er-devine/

[C C]

Joe will be the weakest CIC in American military history. I think the pic in the following shows Sleepy trying to figure out how to use the remote so he can watch The Wiggles.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/18/damning-pi...er-devine/

I can see Biden eventually paying the Taliban to be more efficient at keeping their rivals out of Afghanistan. So to prevent ISIS from turning a part of the country into a terrorist state.

Maybe this incident actually is the Taliban setting up a preliminary bargaining chip for that professional service. When you've got a dotard for a potential client, go all the way in bilking him...

[Zinjanthropos]

Joe will be the weakest CIC in American military history. I think the pic in the following shows Sleepy trying to figure out how to use the remote so he can watch The Wiggles.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/18/damning-pi...er-devine/

I can see Biden eventually paying the Taliban to be more efficient at keeping their rivals out of Afghanistan. So to prevent ISIS from turning a part of the country into a terrorist state.

Maybe this incident actually is the Taliban setting up a preliminary bargaining chip for that professional service. When you've got a dotard for a potential client, go all the way in bilking him...

I may have misjudged Joe because when he either drops dead or goes senile while in office, Kamala will take the honor of weakest CIC in American history. Maybe we Canadians should be worried, else the Taliban show up for breakfast one day.

[Magical Realist]

Blood on Biden's hands.

Why is blood on Biden's hands? He's evacuating tens of thousands to avoid execution by the Taliban. And he's ending a 20 year war with no clear mission. I'd say he's saving lives.

[Syne]

Blood on Biden's hands.

Why is blood on Biden's hands? He's evacuating tens of thousands to avoid execution by the Taliban. And he's ending a 20 year war with no clear mission. I'd say he's saving lives.

You're kidding, right?

Biden set the Aug 31st deadline. He owns that. And while he has tried to blame Trump, he's admitted that he would have done so, reagrdless of anythign Trump did. And he's refusing to extend his own deadline, to make sure all US citizens and allies are evacuated, because the Taliban threatened "consequences." It's a crisis wholly of his own making. US troops haven't been engaged in combat, other than in a purely support role, have only suffered double-digit deaths, and haven't seen the same single-day death count as the latest bombing since 2014. We have far more troops in plenty of other countries with no one pretending we're still at war. 2,500 troops is an advisory contingent, not a war effort.

Biden's State Department is currently writing off US citizens who have failed to return their calls as "wanting to stay in Afghanistan." That's moronic. And Biden set up the entire circumstances of not only people being trampled trying to flee the Taliban but also amassed for the suicide bombing, by prematurely abandoning US-held air bases with more capacity than the Kabul airport.

He might be saving some lives, but he's the one who put all those lives at risk, and he's definitely not saving all of those. That means there's a net loss of life that he is personally responsible for. Hell, while the UK, France, and Germany were sending out soldiers to evacuate their people and allies, Biden would not order the US military to do so.

[Magical Realist]

Biden set the Aug 31st deadline. He owns that.

And so? What's so bad about this deadline? If anything it hurries the evacuation to go faster and so prevents exposure of crowds at the airport gates to possible attacks by Isis. It also averts any possible interference by the Taliban since they agree with it. Again he's saving lives.. Nobody knew the Afghan military would surrender. Nobody expected the Taliban to take over Kabul so quickly. He's making the best of a bad situation. He's not in any way responsible for those deaths from that bombing. Isis is.