Chaotic scenes at Kabul airport as thousands flee Taliban CNBC's 'Squawk Box' team reports on the Taliban entering Kabul and those trying to flee Afghanistan. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC ...
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Chaotic scenes at Hamid Karsai International Airport after the Taliban captured Kabul.
In the old-1987-movie, "The Right Stuff", about the seven fighter pilots chosen as members of NASA's Mercury astronaut space program, there's a scene between Gus Grissom played by Fred Ward and Gordon Cooper played by Dennis Quaid where Cooper says to Grissom, "You know something Gus? I got a new house, new furniture. Got me $25,000 a year on a magazine contract. Got me a Corvette. Got free lunch from one end of America to the other-an I ain't even been up there yet". Grissom replied, "Yeah, I noticed that." Said Cooper, "Oh, you noticed that did you? Well I guess they're just saving the best for last." Whereby Grissom replied, "Yeah I guess so Hot Dog. Just be sure you don't screw the pooch", meaning don't screw up when it's your turn going up in that space capsule and returning to Earth splashing in the ocean.
Well let's face it. The American military evacuation taking place at Kabul Afghanistan's Hamid Karsai airport has been a "screwing the pooch" fiasco of the first order.
It's all been brought to us by President Biden and his US military that had to know the Taliban would take over the country including the capital Kabul weeks before it happened on Sunday August 15.
Why? The Taliban had secured other major cities and the border crossings into Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. They were in control some 40 miles south of Kabul when they suddenly took over the capital two weeks ago. By June Biden had the military in Afghanistan reduced to 600 to 700 men focused on securing the US embassy in Kabul. That meant the huge US military's Bagram Airforce base located some 40 miles north of Kabul couldn't be defended with so many fewer troops. So on July 6th the US military abandoned it.
Now after the K-ISIS suicide bombings last week at the Karsai airport killing some 12 US military personnel along with scores of Afghan civilians and some 20 of the Taliban Biden chose to send 5,000 more US military to assist with the evacuation that must be completed by tomorrow-which Biden pushed ahead to August 31 after being initially agreed to by the Trump administration and the Taliban in February 2020 to be by May 2021.
The Taliban has said the US military must be out by tomorrow with no extension permissible.
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