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Afghanistan: Mission Accomplished

Petcha said:
The people couldn't get through. He tried his damndest. I've seen two live things with him on breakfast telly where he's been pretty much in tears about getting people out. He wasn't able to. He seems a genuinely caring person. There were empty planes leaving, he got a few a dogs and cats on them. Give him a break. He would certainly have prioritised his staff and their families over the animals.
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That’s not the point. The point that is every civil servant dealing with demands for his animals to be evacuated was one less dealing with people who could have been evacuated.
 
Sugar Kane said:
Do you think seriously think that 18, 19 and 20 yr olds in the Marines or the British Army or the IRA or ISIS or the Taliban are wholly responsible?
They FOLLOW orders.
They often dont have many choices in life. Some are coerced into war. Others see it as a way to earn a living. You might look at those people with some disgust but you've been lucky enough to have received an education and a qualification.

Every single death in Kabul is a reflection of the warped greed and twisted ideologies of a number of groups...not least of which are the conjoined fucked up governments in the west..the US and the UK.. but also the ideological mess that is extremism.

I am sorry a young 20 yr old man died.
I am sorry that nearly 200 people have died. That people who have lived in hell in Afghanistan are going to have even more hell dumped on them because their tribal leaders could turn on them at any moment. Or because a trigger happy UK and US could decide to commemorate 9/11 by blowing the fuck out of them again.

History is repeating.
And young kids are going to end up as cannon fodder just as they always do for the sake of war and fucked up people.
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I was objecting to someone saying it was 'particularly poignant' or whatever that this one solider bloke had died, out of the many others. I'm not gonna celebrate this guy's death but the fact is he willingly put himself in harm's way, while others who died did not. His death being singled out as especially tragic, I find that grotesque.
 
Elpenor said:
That’s not the point. The point that is every civil servant dealing with demands for his animals to be evacuated was one less dealing with people who could have been evacuated.
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The animals were waved through, there was little bureaucracy. He was demanding for his staff to be evacuated. He used his media and political connections to try to make that happen, yes. He is not thick and certainly not a prick from what I can make out. He did all he could for his people and stayed till the end. Yes, he's a former commando, and possibly middle class but he sure as hell did more for that country than you did.

His own wife was evacuated a couple of days earlier and posted a picture of an apparently empty plane which she thought was terrible. The defence secretary explained that many planes were leaving empty because of the traffic jam in the air and the Taliban outside blocking entry to the airport.
 
Elpenor said:
That’s not the point. The point that is every civil servant dealing with demands for his animals to be evacuated was one less dealing with people who could have been evacuated.
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He also asked for donations to try to resettle his staff in the UK as 'BNP types' would definitely complain about footing the bill
 
Spymaster said:
Pen is a contraction of Penny, and is his nickname. His real name is Paul.
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If his surname is Farthing and his army mates could only come up with Penny it is no wonder we lost our empire, and the war in Afghanistan.

Paul Farting, Parpman, Guffers and so on. I shall go to Camberley tomorrow to collect my commission and sort this shit out.
 
Petcha said:
The animals were waved through, there was little bureaucracy. He was demanding for his staff to be evacuated. He used his media and political connections to try to make that happen, yes. He is not thick and certainly not a prick from what I can make out. He did all he could for his people and stayed till the end. Yes, he's a former commando, and possibly middle class but he sure as hell did more for that country than you did.

His own wife was evacuated a couple of days earlier and posted a picture of an apparently empty plane which she thought was terrible. The defence secretary explained that many planes were leaving empty because of the traffic jam in the air and the Taliban outside blocking entry to the airport.
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Yeah I’m sure he is a great guy and naturally he’s done more for Afghanistan than I have and probably everyone else on this thread given he lived there for several years.

It doesn’t mean that the media tactics used to lobby the authorities are immune from criticism though.
 
Elpenor said:
Yeah I’m sure he is a great guy and naturally he’s done more for Afghanistan than I have and probably everyone else on this thread given he lived there for several years.

It doesn’t mean that the media tactics used to lobby the authorities are immune from criticism though.
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If I was being cynical it’s a bit “the squeaky wheel gets oiled”
 
He didn't mention what his charity did, let alone the name of it in the interviews I saw. I had to Google it to find out. He certainly wasn't talking about the animals, just his employees and their kids.
 
Petcha said:
The animals were waved through, there was little bureaucracy. He was demanding for his staff to be evacuated. He used his media and political connections to try to make that happen, yes. He is not thick and certainly not a prick from what I can make out. He did all he could for his people and stayed till the end. Yes, he's a former commando, and possibly middle class but he sure as hell did more for that country than you did.

His own wife was evacuated a couple of days earlier and posted a picture of an apparently empty plane which she thought was terrible. The defence secretary explained that many planes were leaving empty because of the traffic jam in the air and the Taliban outside blocking entry to the airport.
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Apologies in advance if you know of the actual process they went through but I'd be amazed if the c. 150 crates with cats and dogs were just waved through considering they'd just been through multiple Taliban checkpoints with multiple opportunities for bad people to put bad things in the crates. The 3 lorries I saw on the news must have been checked over as well?

That's c. 150 bags of people that could have been searched before getting on a plane. That is time and resources spent on not processing people.
 
spitfire said:
Apologies in advance if you know of the actual process they went through but I'd be amazed if the c. 150 crates with cats and dogs were just waved through considering they'd just been through multiple Taliban checkpoints with multiple opportunities for bad people to put bad things in the crates. The 3 lorries I saw on the news must have been checked over as well?

That's c. 150 bags of people that could have been searched before getting on a plane. That is time and resources spent on not processing people.
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I wasn't there. But crates of animals were allegedly being waved through a little quicker than Afghan 'collaborators'. That's coming from the guy himself.
 
Petcha said:
I wasn't there. But crates of animals were allegedly being waved through a little quicker than Afghan 'collaborators'. That's coming from the guy himself.
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So there was time spent on checking animal crates that could have been spent on clearing people then?

I'm no expert and am also not there but I can't imagine the security staff (military or otherwise) would be waving stuff through as it may bring down a plane. Way more likely than a jolly out of Stansted and we all know what that's like.
 
Oh please. Give the guy a break. He, from what I can tell, did absolutely everything he could to get as many people out as possible. He is not a dick. He had his staff ready to go, in the airport, when the bombs went off. They then had to return to their little office in the city centre, and couldn't get back. They tried, the fuckwits would only allow him and their animals through.
 
TopCat said:
It’s fucking ridiculous and his tactics to apply pressure to get the animals priority were shameful.
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His actions seem to be very divisive with some lauding him as a hero and some hating on him for it, though if he had got his staff and their families out then virtually everyone would be supporting Team Pen
Did he get his animals priority? Were any humans left behind to leave room for them? The nations running the evacuation (ie those with the military capability to do so) were aiming to evacuate 2 groups of people. Their own citizens including dual nationals (not a concept I think the Taliban buy into) and Afghans whose association with a foreign power (interpreters, embassy staff etc) put them at risk of Taliban retribution. I don't think any of those planes were there to evacuate anyone who simply wanted to leave. There are obviously tens of thousands of desperate people around the airport who want to get out of Afghanistan that aren't going to be evacuated because they don't (or can't prove) they are in the 1st two groups.
Pen seems to have gotten his staff visa's and permission to come to the UK and apparently managed to bankroll (or persuade others) it. The Taliban wouldn't let his staff leave by all accounts and unless he managed to persuade the paratroopers to come out of the airport and kill the Taliban to get his people through what could he do about that?
I would imagine that the people 'left behind' are those that didn't make it to the airport in time rather than sat in some hanger lacking a seat. The Yanks packed hundreds aboard a C-17 and the RAF has a fleet of those as well.
I could understand that people trying to get out friends and former colleagues are bitter about the fact he partially succeeded and they failedbut the two things aren't really connected.
 
Petcha said:
Fucking hell. You're aware most of his employees are not 'white'?

He has 60 Afghan employees, all with families that he's trying to get out.

His dogs and cats were allowed through the Taliban checkpoints, his employees and their families weren't. A lot of those planes were leaving empty as people weren't being allowed through and they had to make room on the airstrip. It's a clusterfuck but I'm not sure a guy helping animals voluntarily and employing local vets in a warzone is the one to blame here.
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Well fair play to those 60 Afghans lucky enough to land themselves a cushy job like like that as don’t suppose there’s many employment opportunities for them, I’d go as far to say that the incentive to work there was a cushy number rather than love of animals as l’d expect most of those people can just about feed their families

It’s only privileged white people that get to indulge another species
 
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