Thread by @StefSimanowitz

PHOTO 1: US diplomat evacuate US from embassy via helicopter as the #Taliban enter #Kabul from all sides. #Afghanistan (2021)

PHOTO 2: US diplomat evacuate US from embassy via helicopter as the PAVN & Viet Cong capture of Saigon, Vietnam (1975)

"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." (George Bernard Shaw)

The Mechanics of History by Yoann Bourgeois. (video via @fguzfguz)
#Afghanistan #Kabul #Taliban #AfghanistanBurning #KabulHasFallen #Afghan_lives_matter

In 2005, I wrote a piece in a now defunct publication, arguing that those who believed that the invasion & occupation of #Iraq & #Afghanistan had been ‘an disaster’ were misunderstanding the thinking of those who took us to war

For them it was a success.
mediamonitors.net/disaster-what-…

The reason for the contradictory nature of this reality & perception lies in the gulf btw the professed reasons for the invasion & the real reasons that lay beneath

Did Bush & Blair care about creating a peaceful democracy?

Possibly

But they cared about other things far more

20yrs ago as the wreckage of the Twin Towers still smouldered, Bush talked ‘Axis of Evil’ (Iraq, Iran & N Korea) & laid out plans to invade #Afghanistan

This despite the fact that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis

Millions questioned the legitimacy & wisdom of these wars

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1372912515831754753

“We watch in complete shock as Taliban takes control of #Afghanistan. I’m deeply worried about women, minorities & human rights advocates. Global, regional & local powers must call for an immediate ceasefire, provide urgent humanitarian aid & protect refugees & civilians” @Malala

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1345663326437728256

#Taliban: Journalists will be allowed to criticize as long as it doesn’t turn into “moral assassination"

Women will be allowed to leave the house alone

Punishments - execution, stoning & amputation - will depend on court ruling

In #Kabul adverts are whitewashed
VIA @ragipsoylu

Follow @ragipsoylu of @MiddleEastEye👇for no nonsense updates from the ground. #Afghanistan #Taliban #AfghanistanCrisis

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1426945332261294080

“A popularity of invasion
Handed down through centuries
A force of arms called gentle persuasion
What have we learned from history?
Apparently nothin'”

(Drummer @iamgenevalondon playing Young Disciples)
#Afghanistan #Taliban #AfghanistanBurning #Kabul

“As a result of the US military, the Taliban no longer is in existence” (George W. Bush 2004)

“The war is over in #Afghanistan” (Taliban spokesperson, #Kabul, 2021)

Since 2001, around a quarter-of-a-million Afghans have been killed
#Kabul #Afghanistan

“Wake! For the sun, who scatter'd into flight
The stars before him from the field of night
Drives night along with them from Heav'n & strikes
The Sultan's turret with a shaft of light”

Sunrises on thousands of people stranded at Kabul airport #Afghanistan

Footage via former @nytimes journalist, @JawadSukhanyar, shows crowd at #Kabul's Hamid Karzai Intn’l Airport rushing towards the terminal this morning amid the sound of automatic gunfire. Terrifying! #Afghanistan #Taliban #kabulairport #AfghanistanBurning

“I don't want revenge on the Taliban, I want education for sons & daughters of the Taliban.” @Malala

Photo via journalist, @jawidomid, shows girls on their way to school in #Kabul on the first day of Taliban rule. #Afghanistan #Kabul2021

Sporadic automatic gunfire heard at #Kabul Intn’l Airport this morning

The US military say they’ve secured the perimeter of the airport

Footage taken by someone trying to get a flight to Turkey
#Afganistan #Taliban #Talibans #KabulAirport #AfghanWomen

Saigon on steroids!

“It’s too late to fly out,” one man who worked for Western organizations for years but had his UK visa application was rejected, tells @WSJ

He & his family are in hiding in Kabul trying to find people smugglers
google.co.uk/amp/s/www.wsj.…

“And on the pedestal these words appear
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my works, ye Mighty, & despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless & bare
The lone & level sands stretch far away”
(Percy Shelley)

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1386404932895526918

Sadly predictable

At least 5 people have been killed at #Kabul airport as thousands tried to get to planes in a bid to flee #Afghanistan

US troops fired shots into the air but it's unclear if those who died were hit by bullets or in the stampede
#Taliban

Tragic!

Afghans hanging onto the wing of a US military plane (Boeing C-17 Globemaster) as it prepares to take off from #Kabul airport

Unconfirmed reports suggest that at least two people were seen to fall to their death once it was airborne. #Afghanistan

The people👆appear to be holding on to the undercarriage bay, NOT the wing👇

This footage, via @morkazemian, appears to show half-a-dozen + young men there

Footage circulating shows ‘objects’ falling from a plane as is gathers height. #Afghanistan #Kabul

“They sold us for nothing”

Hard to watch, but do not look away

The scene outside #Kabul airport this morning(via @MuslimShirzad)

You don’t have to understand Farsi to hear the anguish in this man’s voice

#Afghanistan #Taliban #Talibans @aoc #Afganistan

“#Afghanistan was cool at first but those #Taliban evildoers just ran off into the mountains & are still popping our guys”

Just before @BarackObama took office, I wrote this imagined extract from George Bush’s diary (with a little help from Terry Jones).
newint.org/columns/essays…

“What we are witnessing in #Afghanistan is a tragedy that should have been foreseen & averted. Foreign govts must take every necessary measure to ensure the safe passage for all those at risk of being targeted by the #Taliban" @amnesty's @AgnesCallamard

amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

#TonyBlair is trending, not for anything that he’s said, but ‘cos he’s been so silent

Bush & Blair justified the invasions of #Afghanistan & Iraq not on anything they’d done or were about to do, but on what they might do: the idea of pre-emptive war or anticipatory self-defense

https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1392915083752267782

A US Boeing Globemaster C17 takes off from #kabulairport this evening with 640 people aboard

That’s more than five times its usual passenger limit.
(Photo by @mikelayestaran)
#Afghanistan #Taliban #Kabul #KabulHasFallen #KabulAirlift

“No one listened,” an anonymous US intelligence official told @ABC

Did the Biden & Johnson admins disregard assessments of several intelligence agencies that consistently predicted the rapid #Taliban takeover of #Afghanistan?

@Snowden: “if they’d started even one week earlier”

https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1427402046077014023

As #Afghanistan fell to the #Taliban, @JoeBiden, @BorisJohnson @DominicRaab & @PressSec were all on holiday

Was this a dereliction of duty, Raab is asked:

“You’re always measuring a very fluid constellation matrix of risk factors, & that’s the reality”

https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1427394619608797187