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The Pineapple Express, a network of special operations veterans and contacts on the ground who came together to evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies, is moving to the next phase of their operations — getting the hundreds of Americans left behind in Afghanistan to safety. “We’re having to move from what was a very network-centric starfish kind of thing to way more of a deliberate recovery. That focuses on two things, moving people to safety, getting them immediately out of harm’s way from retribution and targeting and then ultimately some of them to freedom,” said Scott Mann, a retired Green...

President Joe Biden wanted the now-departed Afghan president to create the 'perception' that his government was capable of holding off the Taliban - an indication he knew it was only a matter of time before the US ally fell to the Islamic group even while reassuring Americans at home that it would not happen. In the last phone call between Biden and his Afghan then-counterpart Ashraf Ghani, the American president said they needed to change perceptions of the Taliban's rapid advance 'whether it is true or not,' according to excerpts published on Tuesday. Four weeks before Kabul collapsed, Ghani pleaded...

President Joe Biden received praise from an unlikely source on Tuesday: Ann Coulter. Biden had just concluded his address to the nation on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a war that had lasted 20 years. The president has been criticized for failing to anticipate the rapid crumbling of Afghan security forces in the face of the Taliban’s advance.

A defiant President Joe Biden defended his tumultuous exit from Afghanistan on Tuesday, refusing to admit mistakes or accept blame for lives lost or Americans left behind. “Some say that the evacuation from Afghanistan could have been started sooner and completed in a more orderly fashion,” Biden said. “I respectfully disagree.” Biden began by describing the military evacuation as a success, defying critics of his rushed exit from the country after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on August 15. “The extraordinary success of this mission is due to the incredible skill bravely (sic) and selfless courage of the United...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday blocked the names of the 13 US service members killed in the Kabul blast from being read after a moment of silence on the House floor.“How badly do Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats want to cover up this Afghanistan debacle? They just blocked Members of Congress from reading the names of the service members who sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan last week.” Congressman Gimenez said on Tuesday.“Don’t you think our military deserves better?” he added.https://twitter.com/RepCarlos/status/1432751530516652033Rep. Brian Mast told the Floridian Press Pelosi refused to recognize the fallen Marines.Rep. Brian Mast (R), a...

Thirteen years ago, Afghan interpreter Mohammed helped rescue then- Sen. Joe Biden and two other senators stranded in a remote Afghanistan valley after their helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm. Now, Mohammed is asking President Biden to save him. Mohammed and his four children are hiding from the Taliban after his yearslong attempt to get out of Afghanistan got tangled in the bureaucracy. They are among countless Afghan allies who were left behind when the U.S. ended its 20-year military campaign in Afghanistan on Monday. As a private security team with the former firm Blackwater and U.S. Army...

The 31 August deadline to evacuate troops was not "arbitrary" and was "designed to save lives," Mr Biden says, adding that America had "succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan more than a decade ago and we stayed for another decade". [snip] It comes as details emerged of the last call between President Biden and his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani. During the call on 23 July, neither of the leaders appeared to be prepared for the Taliban's surge across Afghanistan and the collapse of its government 23 days later. "We are going to continue to fight hard,...

Fox News host Sean Hannity demanded President Joe Biden resign Monday on his show “Hannity” for abandoning his pledge to stay in Afghanistan until every American citizen was evacuated. Referencing reports that roughly 200 Americans are still left in Afghanistan, Hannity said, “Apparently Joe Biden was telling all of us an outright lie, every American. This transcends politics. This is a Democrat, Republican, conservative, or liberal.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Joe Biden tried to “turn the page” from a month of chaos and death in Afghanistan and, more broadly, from 20 years of ultimately futile US attempts at occupation and nation-building. He spoke of the “extraordinary success” of the US evacuation mission over the past few weeks, with more than a hundred thousand Americans and Afghans airlifted out under extreme duress. At times he seemed defensive, noting that Americans were warned 19 times to exit Afghanistan before the August US military withdrawal. He accused Afghan leaders, allies on whom the US had depended, of “corruption and malfeasance”....

House Republicans are holding President Biden accountable for stranding up to 200 or more Americans while abandoning U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) held a press conference to announce that House Democrats blocked a vote to “require” Biden to recover the military gear and Americans. “Democrats just blocked a vote to require a plan from President Biden to bring Americans home and to account for all the military equipment he left behind,” McCarthy tweeted. “Republicans will not stop until every American is home safely.”

Former President Trump slammed President Biden’s botched U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, telling "Varney & Co." during an exclusive interview on Tuesday that America has been "humiliated." He argued that "the single worst decision ever made in our country’s history" is for the U.S. "to go to the Middle East." Trump said that the Biden administration cannot do "a simple withdrawal from a country that we should have never gotten into in the first place." "The level of incompetence on this withdrawal is even far greater than the level incompetence at the southern border," Trump said, adding that "what’s happened...

Of all the disturbing and heartbreaking stories coming out of Afghanistan this weekend, this might be the most infuriating of all. Unexplainable and Unforgivable Two highly trusted sources, investigative reporter Lara Logan and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, are independently reporting that over the past few days, Americans have been turned away from entering the Kabul airport. Logan tweeted this on Saturday: Most Americans don’t understand what’s happening in Kabul — been on this all night with no end. U.S. citizens are fighting through enemy lines to...

Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, and Ambassador Ross Wilson, charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, were the final Americans to step aboard the last U.S. military C-17 cargo jet shortly before it lifted off from the Afghan capital’s sole international airport Monday. All told about 6,000 U.S. citizens were evacuated from Afghanistan. They represent the “vast majority” of those who wanted to leave the war-torn country, Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters Monday. “There’s a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure. We did not get...

President Joe Biden will address the nation later today – nearly 24 hours after the final American troops departed Afghanistan in a frantic exit that left hundreds of stranded US citizens in the Taliban-run nation. Soon after the final US transport planes left Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport – marking the end of America’s longest war – Biden issued a written statement saying he would address the nation at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Biden later pushed back his speech to 2:45 p.m. The president has drawn fierce criticism for the chaotic withdrawal, which resulted in the deaths of 13 US service...

The first estimate I saw from an administration spokesman was that there were between 5,000 and 10,000 Americans in Afghanistan. Just two weeks ago, Jen Psaki told us with seeming specificity that there were 11,000, or perhaps more: We are — there have been — how the process works, I should say — I’ll tell you — is that there are individuals who will self-identify as American citizens — that number is around 11,000. Beyond that — around the country — beyond that, though, there are individuals who may not have self-identified, who may come and request assistance and come...

#breaking US official to me: “final plane is wheels up. War is over.”— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) August 30, 2021

All US military left last night. Taliban in control of Airport

U.S. military planes at Kabul airport, file screen image, August 26, 2021. “Taliban commander: last US military planes – four in all – have departed from Kabul airport – airport is now under Taliban control” Taliban commander: last US military planes – four in all – have departed from Kabul airport – airport is now under Taliban control — علی مصطفی | Ali Mustafa (@Ali_Mustafa) August 30, 2021 Translation: “Now congratulations to you. The last American plane has also left.” اوس مو.نو مبارک شه د امریکایانو اخیرنۍ طیاره هم لاړه نور د کابل هوای میدان ددې نجسو پاک شو الحمدلله...

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