THE NEW YORK TIMES: The effort to evacuate people from Afghanistan, hampered by mayhem in Kabul and delays in Washington, stood in sharp contrast to President Biden’s reassurances on Friday.
With thousands of people inside the Kabul airport waiting for flights and thousands more outside the walls trying — and usually failing — to get in, fear reigned among Afghans who feared being stranded in the country after the Taliban takeover.
The United States has rushed troops and diplomatic reinforcements to the airport in recent days to speed up visa processing for Afghans. American commanders are negotiating daily with their Taliban counterparts — the former insurgents they battled for nearly two decades — to ensure that evacuees can reach the airport.
But crowds are still waiting fearfully outside the airport gates, where Taliban soldiers have attacked people with sticks and rifle butts. As Afghans clutching travel documents camped amid Taliban checkpoints and tangles of concertina wire, anxious crowds were pressed up against blast walls, with women and children being hoisted into the arms of U.S. soldiers on the other side. » | — Shashank Bengali, Lara Jakes, Annie Karni and Kenneth P. Vogel | Friday, August 20, 2021
What a cock-up! What a mess! Such chaos! Such confusion! Twenty years of war, many lives lost, and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money wasted. And for what? For this manifest demonstration of utter failure. So much for US foreign policy! If this is the best the US can do, the country must surely be on the skids. Shameful! No sweet, comforting words from Biden, or anyone else, can change that fact. It is utterly disgraceful! – © Mark
Afghanistan: à Kaboul, les évacuations se poursuivent dans le chaos »
