re: Taliban has taken Kabul. Terrorist attack at Airport at least 12 marines confirmed killed

quote:

---

I cannot believe we accept this shite

---

quote:

---

@elizabethcrisp
Per White House official: An operational update: About 13K people on US military aircraft since Saturday, 5K the two prior weeks. US military evacuated 5,700 people in last 24 hours.

---

quote:

---

Disbelief and betrayal: Europe reacts to Biden’s Afghanistan ‘miscalculation’

---

quote:

---

‘This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West,’ says senior German lawmaker.

---

quote:

---

While Merkel has not yet directly criticized Biden’s actions, behind the scenes she has made it clear that she considered the hasty withdrawal a mistake | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

---

quote:

---

BERLIN — Until Sunday, Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.

---

quote:

---

Now, the American president’s decision to allow Afghanistan to collapse into the arms of the Taliban has European officials worried he has unwittingly accelerated what his predecessor Donald Trump started: the degradation of the Western alliance and everything it is supposed to stand for in the world.

---

quote:

---

Across Europe, officials have reacted with a mix of disbelief and a sense of betrayal. Even those who cheered Biden’s election and believed he could ease the recent tensions in the transatlantic relationship said they regarded the withdrawal from Afghanistan as nothing short of a mistake of historic magnitude.

“I say this with a heavy heart and with horror over what is happening, but the early withdrawal was a serious and far-reaching miscalculation by the current administration,” said Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee. “This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.”

Röttgen, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, is no flamethrower. He has known Biden for decades and was optimistic about his prospects.

While Merkel has avoided direct criticism of Biden, behind the scenes she has made it clear that she considered the hasty withdrawal a mistake.

“For those who believed in democracy and freedom, especially for women, these are bitter events,” she told a meeting with officials from her party late Monday, according to German media reports.

In the U.K., which like Germany supported the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan from the beginning, the sentiment was similar. “Afghanistan is the biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez. We need to think again about how we handle friends, who matters and how we defend our interests,” tweeted Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the U.K. parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

At a time when some European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, have been pushing for the bloc to pursue a security policy less dependent on America, Afghanistan is bound to be used as evidence for why “strategic autonomy” is necessary.

“Naturally this has damaged American credibility, along with that of the intelligence services and of the military,” said Rüdiger Lentz, the former head of the Aspen Institute in Berlin.

“One can only hope that the damage to America’s foreign policy leadership can be quickly contained.”

---

quote:

---

BIDEN ON AFGHANISTAN: “I cannot promise what the final outcome will be.”

---

quote:

---

Per White House official: An operational update: About 13K people on US military aircraft since Saturday, 5K the two prior weeks. US military evacuated 5,700 people in last 24 hours.

---

quote:

---

The International Public can and the final outcome ends in Bodybags.

---

quote:

---

Kambree
@KamVTV

Outgoing Border Patrol Chief: suspected terrorists crossing border ‘at a level we have never seen before.’

---