Page 620 - Bases News Today

As any army in the world and air force against something like 25,000 taliban. it is not inevitable. theres going to be no circumstance you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the united states from afghanistan. >> sean: 300,000 well-equipped and they have an air force as good as any military on the face of the earth. the exact opposite happened, joe. these are the images of people being lifted off the roof of our embassy over the weekend. when you said it wouldnt happen, your s...

Where were doing those kinds of operations. god help those pilots. he said this is unfolded faster than we expected. think carefully about what that means, sean. that means they expected this kind of thing to happen eventually, just not as fast. and he refused to take the very sage advice from the pentagon and the c.i.a., dont do it this way. the afghan military was supposedly 300,000 well equipped. not so. they started losing troops when he set a withdrawal date and the taliban does not have an...

Overwhelmed, as they tried to clear the airport, firing warning shots. the pentagon says american troops killed two armed afghans, some afghans were able to get out. on one flight so full, it may have set a record for the number of people can fit on an american c-17. afghans are running from the taliban now in full control, setting up check points with the weapons american taxpayers bought for the afghan army which clamsed instead of fighting after the u.s. pulled out of bases and left them with...

Ainsley: he was the former defense secretary under obama. how do you think we could have done this better? you mentioned earlier. you touched on it a little bit. leave a few thousand there, maybe? how could we have prevented this from happening? >> well, you know, brian is right. there are power projection platforms and bases there that we could have held on to. who knows if in perpetuity if the taliban controls the entire country and decides to start shelling a base where we have counter -- the...

Bases for up to 22,000 people in the next couple of weeks. if we have to go more, higher than that, well certainly do that because were not just talking about the special immigrant visa applicants themselves, but also their families. were committed to their families as well. >> 18,000 seems like a low number based on what we believe to be the need and the number of people and their families that helped the u.s. over the years. i mean that number "the wall street journal" gave a 50,000 number, bu...

Now. how much equipment, how much american equipment is around? is it all in taliban hands at this moment? >> its -- yeah, its all in taliban hands. you literally you drive around this city, john, endless hu humvees. american assault rifles, american on and on and on and on. i mean, there has been so much weaponry, ammunition, equipment, hardware plundered from these u.s. bases that have been taken over from afghan forces in the course of the last months, weeks, and of course days, and the talib...

Found themselves overwhelmed, suddenly battling crowds, firing warning shots. this was not the mission they came for. the pentagon says u.s. troops shot dead two armed afghans. but still the crowds didnt disperse. instead they ran along and clung to the undercarriage of a military transport plane as it taxied for takeover. one official told me it was worse than the humiliating american pullout from saigon. afghans are running from the taliban, now in full control, setting up checkpoints with the...

Ideology is not defeated? >> it is a very important question and i know its one with which the c.i.a., the pentagon and others are very much seized. we are going to stay riveted on any indications and warnings of al qaeda or now also the islamic state which has an affiliate in the region as well of them establishing the kind of sanctuary we went to afghanistan in the first place to eliminate. the sanctuary as you know from your time in the white house, the sanctuary in which the 9/11 attacks wer...

It is not necessarily about the decisions about afghanistan but how it is being done. many nato allies are saying theyre also desperately trying to get their people out of kabul. politicians saying they simply were not consulted on a policy decision that puts their own national security interests at risk effectively president biden abandoned the afghan people and allies. merkel speaking out made it clear the allies could not stand alone in afghanistan without the u.s. they were fundamentally dep...

Regional counter terrorism campaign. lets remember the most important raid of the entire post 9/11 period, the one that got bin laden in the few months i was commander in afghanistan was under the c.i.a., that that raid was conducted from afghan soil into pakistan where their military academy is and back to afghan soil. a number of operations were carried out over the years that employed that capability that was there. we dont not only have bases in afghanistan, we dont have them in pakistan or ...