Good news for these families that were able to escape Afghanistan to South Korea:
Afghan co-workers and their families board a C-130J plane of the South Korean Air Force at an airport in Kabul during an evacuation operation to bring to the South a total of 391 Afghans from the war-torn country, in this photo provided by the Air Force on Aug. 26, 2021.
A total of 378 Afghans arrived in South Korea on Thursday as part of Seoul’s efforts to evacuate local co-workers of the country’s embassy and other facilities in the war-torn nation after the Taliban’s seizure of power.
A KC-330 tanker transport aircraft carrying the evacuees landed at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, at 4:24 p.m., after departing from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad early in the morning, the foreign ministry said.
Of a total of 391 people to be airlifted, 378 were on board.
The 13 others left Islamabad at around 7 p.m. (Seoul time) aboard a separate military plane and was expected to arrive in Korea early afternoon on Friday, the ministry said.
You can read more at the link, but great job the ROK getting these people out. Meanwhile back in Afghanistan things just continue to get worse:
A “complex attack” involving at least two explosions outside the airport in Kabul on Thursday killed 12 U.S. service members and injured at least fifteen others, the Pentagon said.
The attack also killed and wounded a number of Afghan civilians. An Afghan official told Associated Press that at least 60 Afghans were killed and 143 others were injured in the attack.
“Let me be clear, while we’re saddened by the loss of life both U.S. and Afghan [lives], we’re continuing to execute the mission,” Marine Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr., commander, U.S. Central Command, said at a press briefing on Thursday.
It looks like Korea is about to have a minority community of Afghans in it:
U.S. service members prepare to board evacuees onto a C-17 Globemaster lll at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Aug. 22. EPA-Yonhap
Korea is working to evacuate Afghans who helped the Korean government’s activities there, rescuing them from the Taliban-controlled country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, Tuesday.
The ministry said in a text message to reporters that “three military aircraft have been deployed to Afghanistan and neighboring countries on a mission to evacuate those who helped the Korean government’s activities in Afghanistan.”
The ministry added the Afghans to be rescued had worked for years at the Korean embassy as well as Korea-led hospitals and job training centers there, without elaborating further on the details of the mission.
I don’t think this is a mission that the Korean government is going to be very eager to support:
Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong speaks during a plenary session of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee at the National Assembly on Aug. 23, 2021. (Yonhap)
The top South Korean diplomat confirmed Monday the United States requested using American military bases here as a housing site for evacuees from war-torn Afghanistan, although there is no related discussion underway now between the allies.
“It is true that (the allies) did discuss the possibility at the very basic level. It, however, was not discussed seriously,” Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said, responding to a lawmaker’s query during a session of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee.
The foreign minister said that currently, however, “there’s no such discussion underway at all”, adding that the option of using American military bases on South Korean soil as a refugee camp would absolutely require consent from the South Korean government.
You can read more at the link, but from the ROK perspective a concern they must have is what happens to refugees that are denied entry to the U.S.? Do they get sent back to Afghanistan or linger in South Korea? Over time will the U.S. ask the ROK to take in some of these refugees? I am sure the ROK has a lot of questions they want answered before they sign up for this.
I figure once the Biden administration recognizes the Taliban government, that is when everyone else will:
Abdul Qahar Balkhi, an official of the group’s Cultural Commission, attends a press conference in this photo provided by him.
The Taliban wants South Korea to recognize it as a “legitimate” government of Afghanistan and hopes to strengthen economic cooperation and other exchanges between the two countries, a Taliban spokesman said Monday.
Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a member of the Taliban’s Cultural Commission, made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency, calling for Seoul to maintain “cordial” ties with the country “replete with untapped mineral resources.”
It marked the first interview a Taliban official has held with a South Korean media outlet since the Islamist movement took over Afghanistan as the United States withdrew troops from the war-torn nation.
The mess of the Afghan pullout may land on the front doors of Japan and South Korea:
This file photo taken Feb. 27, 2020, shows the U.S. Forces Korea’s Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.
The United States is considering using American military bases in South Korea as one of the housing sites for evacuees from Afghanistan, along with other overseas bases, including those in Japan, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The Pentagon is “looking at American bases in Japan, Korea, Germany, Kosovo, Bahrain and Italy” as existing housing sites in Qatar and elsewhere are filling up quickly, the paper reported Saturday (U.S. time), citing unidentified officials.
Afghanistan debacle surely affects Kim Jong Un's view of the value of any prospective deal with the U.S. He may conclude that the U.S., under any leadership, cannot keep a deal, and it only seeks capitulation. But, Kim also rejects becoming Xi's lackey in order for NK to survive.
At least it appears that the most of the ROK embassy was able to get evacuated before the current chaos unfolded at the Kabul Airport:
Sunday’s rushed evacuation of the South Korean Embassy staff in Afghanistan proceeded smoothly with the help of friendly countries, including the United States, a foreign ministry official said Monday.
South Korea has temporarily closed its embassy in the war-torn country and evacuated most of its diplomatic staff to a third country in the Middle East amid the Taliban militant group’s faster-than-expected advances to retake full control of Afghanistan.
You can read more at the link, but the ROK Embassy still has three personnel and a civilian stuck at the Kabul Airport because of the chaos. Here is what is going on at the Kabul Airport right now:
Chaotic scenes unfolded at Kabul’s airport on Monday as thousands of people rushed the tarmac in desperate attempts to flee Afghanistan following a takeover by the Taliban, which swept into the capital in a stunningly swift overthrow of the Western-backed government.
Videos posted to social media from Hamid Karzai International Airport showed Afghans clinging to a departing U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane. Others showed people falling from the wheel well of a jet just before takeoff.
Other planes were seen overloaded with Afghans who flooded across the runway to board them.
You can read more at the link, but people are literally being killed grasping the sides of C-17 aircraft that are departing. What an avoidable disaster.
It is amazing that it has been nearly a decade and half since ROK Army soldier, SGT Yoon Jang-ho was killed in Afghanistan. Well now the memorial to him and other Soldiers have been disposed of after the U.S. military shut down Bagram Airbase:
SGT Yoon Jang-ho’s memorial before being dismantled.
Much of the work done by several people during the final stretch was “sanitizing” Bagram.
“We pulled off stickers, signs went down,” said Kimberly Culverhouse-Steadman, who came to Bagram in February to close the USO and bring back its mementos. “They just didn’t want anything reminiscent of American presence.”
This effort was to “ensure consistency in appearance,” said Col. Jennifer Spahn, spokeswoman for U.S. Forces – Afghanistan, in a statement Friday.
Some objected to painting over the murals at Bagram, including James Von Holland, a contractor at Bagram who has photographed hundreds of murals during his time at U.S. bases in the Middle East.
“I didn’t like it at all,” Von Holland said. “It’s like going into the Louvre and destroying the Mona Lisa.”
It is tough to see these memorials being dismantled, but I think it had to be done. What would people think if the Taliban take the base over and we seem them defecating, blowing up, and doing other destructive things to these memorials.
By the way if you haven’t you should read up on SGT Yoon who has deep American ties and returned to Korea just to do his mandatory military service. He was the first Korean servicemember killed in action since the Vietnam War.
A U.S. Marine with Task Force Southwest moves through a village during a patrol near Bost Kalay, Afghanistan, in June 2018. The Trump administration says it has intelligence that China offered to pay militants in Afghanistan to attack American troops, but unnamed government officials are dismissing the evidence against Beijing as “very thin,” U.S. media reports published in December 2020 say.
The Trump administration is working to verify intelligence that shows China offered to pay militants in Afghanistan to kill American troops, a U.S. news website has reported, citing anonymous high-level sources.
“Administration officials across multiple agencies are currently working to corroborate the initial intelligence reports,” which is in the process of being declassified, the Axios news website, which broke the story, reported Wednesday.
National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien briefed President Donald Trump on the reports earlier this month, Axios reported.
But the intelligence the administration claims to have was “thinner even than reports that Russia offered payments to the Taliban to target U.S. and coalition troops, which were never corroborated,” another news website said, citing an unnamed government official.
You can read more at the link, but if the Russians and Chinese were offering bounties they were not very good at it considering there has not been a U.S. troop death due to combat in Afghanistan since February. It seems it would be in their interest to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan and thus out of their geopolitical backyards. If so encouraging the Taliban to comply with the peace terms instead of offering bounties would be in their interest.
I recently listened to the first two Serial Season 2 podcasts about Bowe Bergdahl. Just like Season 1, I have found the Season 2 podcasts to be very well narrated and easy to get into. After listening to the first two podcasts my opinion of Bergdahl has not really shifted. I always thought he was probably a little mentally off and possibly should not have been in the Army much less the infantry. With that said I don’t think he was crazy and he understood the repercussions of his actions. The podcast just reaffirms this for me because he is trying to spin a tale to defend himself about how he was going to walk over 20 miles from his combat outpost (COP) to FOB Sharana to inform his higher level leadership about the bad leadership in his unit. He says that by leaving his outpost it would cause a mass panic that would force higher level leadership in Afghanistan to take seriously his complaints when he showed up at FOB Sharana.
For those of us in the military that have been through Inspector General investigations, the IG is the best way to get the attention of higher leadership if the complaints are valid. Bergdahl supposedly did not know anything about the IG system. I find that hard to believe. Also he claims that after leaving his COP he decided he needed to gather intelligence on the Taliban to hand over to the battalion leadership at FOB Sharana to lessen his punishment. So he decided to divert his route and in the middle of the night look for Taliban setting up IEDs and follow them to their houses. Once back at FOB Sharana he could turn over the locations of these houses to the unit’s leadership. Once again this may all sound plausible to civilians, but for those of us with combat tours in Afghanistan this claim is ridiculous. How is this guy wandering around in the dark going to spot anyone much less follow them back to their house? He had no night vision and ultimately claims he got lost that night anyway. He claims after getting lost he found himself the next morning walking across open desert near a road where Taliban on motorcycles spotted him and detained him.
What was great about the podcast so far is how they were able to get the Taliban’s version of events of how he was detained. They claimed that some nomads contacted villagers to say that a foreigner wearing Afghan clothes was at their tent asking about police and a bus to Kabul. Word eventually got to the Taliban who went and checked it out and detained him. Here is what I think happened. Supposedly Bergdahl spent a lot of time talking with the Afghan policemen at his COP. Bergdahl supposedly had a lot of interest in foreign cultures and tried to teach himself some Pashtun. He was also one of these personalities that thought he was smarter than everyone else. With him hating life in his unit I could see him possibly working out a desertion plan with one of the Afghan policemen at the COP. He supposedly spent most of his time with them, so much time in fact that others in his unit were convinced he was either nuts or a secret CIA agent. So what were they talking about? If he did hatch a desertion plan with them that would explain the Taliban’s claims of him asking something about police and a bus to Kabul. Maybe the policeman was supposed to meet him to help him get to Kabul where he could then contact the international media with his bad leadership claims before turning himself in?
It seems Bergdahl suffers from delusions of grandeur; in the podcast he even says he wanted to be thought of like Jason Bourne by completing the hike to FOB Sharana. If he really wanted to make a huge story about himself, deserting and then appearing at the CNN affiliate in Kabul to air his claims would have been a way to do it. Even this theory is pretty nuts, but I think it makes more sense then wandering around in the dark looking for Taliban planting IEDs to follow them home and then walk over 20 miles in the desert with one Camelbak of water to turn in the intelligence.
Charles Robert Jenkins at his court martial.
No matter the truth of what happened I still hold Bergdahl in the same category of Charles Jenkins. He to was a little mentally off and deserted his post in South Korea to defect to North Korea misjudging the repercussions of that decisions. He spent 39 years in North Korea before being released. The Army still punished him with a month in jail before dishonorably discharging him. I think Bergdahl should get the same punishment. However, unlike Jenkins I don’t think Bergdahl is going to change much. Jenkins’ honest reflections on the stupid thing he did all these years later actually makes him kind of likable. Bergdahl seems like the personality type that will continue to believe he is smarter than everyone else and make excuses for what he did.
There is still a whole season of Serial podcasts to go that will delve deeper into this case so maybe my opinion will change. Has anyone else listened to the podcasts and have an opinion they want to share about Bergdahl?
