Another witness:
Narrator: “Noor Mohamed had been deployed alongside American forces.”
A man holding up an identity card of a friend talks about his death in English.
A: “The guy has served U.S. army for years. And the reason he lost his life – he wasn’t killed by Taliban, he wasn’t killed by ISIS, he was (unintelligible).”
Q: “How can you be sure?”
A: “Because of the bullet. The bullet went inside of his head. Right here.” (Points to the back of his head.) “He doesn’t have any (other) injury.”
A bullet in the back of the head of a demonstrator is a classic Maidan characteristic. If you are responding to an unexpected explosion in irrational panic you don’t shoot people in the back of the head – you go for a larger target like the chest that is easier and faster to target. How many of these victims were shot in the head? If the answer is many, then that would be a very clear sign that all the shooting was pre-meditated by the US, and that snipers had been pre-positioned.
Motive? There are most probably several objectives of the attack, but the timing – just as the US want to end evacuation of Afghans and evacuate their own military in the final days – suggests that it was intended as a signal to discourage these “inconvenient” Afghans from coming to the airport and creating a nuisance just as the US soldiers want to bugger off. Or, “Afghans go and get lost” in other words. The attack was likely intended to fulfill other objectives at the same time, such as shifting the focus on ISIS as the US’ new local agents, etc. But the timing seems to be compelling: they didn’t want all these unwanted crowds of discarded third world Afghans messing up their escape plans. The extra soldiers were sent to protect the US forces from the crowds of discarded condoms; now that they they are wrapping up and shipping out their used-condom-defenders, they want to discourage more discarded condoms from soiling the runways as they are trying to leave.
Just about sums up the US attitude to human life, doesn’t it?

Posted by: BM | Aug 29 2021 12:50 utc | 303

Peter AU1@220 –
What a brilliant response! Because a MSM newspaper who has never told a lie makes a statement we can accept it as a veritable fact, unquestioningly.
How do you determine when the MSM is telling the truth and when they are lying? I really want to know. Do you think it might be related to confirmation bias?
The fact that you believe everything you read, or at least what you want to believe, tells me that you are not a critical thinker. Only a complete and utter fucking moron, or a fool, will continue to believe anything from a source that has a proven record of lying to them.
Which one are you?

Posted by: David F | Aug 29 2021 13:08 utc | 305

It is also highly suspicious that the US used a helicopter to “evacuate refugees” from a hotel just 200m from the airport perimeter, and already inside the Taliban security cordon. How did the alleged “refugees” get inside the security cordon if they were so “at risk”, and why couldn’t they get the extra few meters to the airport perimeter. Why were the US (diplomats for example, with armed escort to protect the diplomats) unable to escort them to the airport when they were already inside the security cordon?
Was the helicopter instead used to INSERT the ISIS suicide bomber inside the Taliban security cordon, complete with explosive vest and communications?

Posted by: BM | Aug 29 2021 13:17 utc | 307

Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2021 12:56 utc | 302
Last video; the gunfire continued at a measured pace. Deliberate targeting by one or two gunmen?.
In the second video; you can hear a lot of firing – more than would be necessary to “frighten” the population away. PLUS, 28 Taliban dead – at what point in time? Not from the explosion as they were not there, but further towards the start of the canal where the first checkpoint was situated.

Posted by: Stonebird | Aug 29 2021 13:36 utc | 309

forgot to say, the journo is France 24 Cyril Payen
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210828-our-priority-is-the-return-of-security-to-afghanistan-says-taliban-spokesman

Posted by: Mina | Aug 29 2021 13:45 utc | 311

Posted by: BM | Aug 29 2021 12:50 utc | 301
Posted by: BM | Aug 29 2021 13:17 utc | 305
Sorry, hadn’t read pages 2/3. Some issues already addressed.
Also note that the pineapple team issue was no doubt published so that whoever comes to the airport flashing pineapple pics can be dismissed as a copycat and ignored. It is a way of deliberately switching off the pass-code as they don’t want any more takers (in particular the real US collaporators who could otherwise have flashed a valid pass-code).
Their most important priority for evacuation was no doubt not those in danger of persecution, but those who would be most useful for future operations.

Posted by: BM | Aug 29 2021 13:49 utc | 313

I confess that the posts on the thread of the 28th for the most part seemed as much above my head as I think the response of the US military to the suicide bombing was meant to be as they opened fire above the crowd. They were afraid that the chaos would bring people en masse towards them when instead they were fleeing away – and in doing so they ran into the fire that they were fleeing. Witness was given of a friend having been shot in the back of the head; it was not deliberate, but it was fiendishly orchestrated. An agony to contemplate. The play’s the thing…
What was the play? There was an attempt ongoing, mindless perhaps, inhuman for certain, maybe even demonic, to replay 9/11. That was the theme, exemplified by the one post in yesterday’s chaotic thread I could recognize – that of Circe. The caliphate fear, writ large then and resurfacing now.
It runs deep, that theme, and the name Circe goes with it. The Odyssey,that ancient Greek poem taking place poetically after the Trojan war opens with Odysseus, a man of many ways, held spellbound with the remainder of his troops on Circe’s island, Calypso. No, not the dance; rather, harbinger of apo-calypse, ‘from the island’. She, Circe, turns men into pigs. All that Odysseus, man of many ways, wants is to bring his soldiers, his friends, home from a never-ending war. Spoiler alert: he gets there; they don’t.
The play’s the thing…
Who are the heroes here? 9/11 had them. The firefighters and others who entered the buildings – we don’t know their names but we remember that even if they had survived the miasma of building collapse got into their lungs and they too died. Is that covid for us?
Add to the mix that our present heroes are standing off, firehoses at the ready. The 28th, date of the next post above, is a great feast for the Orthodox, that of the Dormition of the most holy mother of Christ who is called Theotokos, bringer through the process of birthing, of God in human flesh. The expostalarion hymn of the feast asks the apostles assembled around her deathbed to bury her in Gethsemane, and for her son to bring home her soul. All the terms here are gentle ones – ‘dormition’, falling asleep; ‘Gethsemane’, the memorable garden of olives; ‘son’, ‘soul’, our human, inner child. The feast is popularly called Little Easter. The whole world is made one with this feast, it being springtime in the Southern Hemisphere. Echoes of Odyssey, return from war.
Apo-calypse means ‘from the island’. Time to leave. I cannot assemble them properly, but there are truths here that need to be saved. God have mercy on us all.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 29 2021 14:06 utc | 315

@Bemildred, 298
The use of extravagant violence has been a tactic of US forces since the eighteenth century.

Posted by: cirsium | Aug 29 2021 14:10 utc | 317

Sorry, I left out a comma after ‘the Trojan war’,

Posted by: juliania | Aug 29 2021 14:18 utc | 319

Re the Taliban bloke who was released from the american gulag having a part in the bombing. That would also require a number of other taliban members at various checkpoints also working for the CIA. Taliban didn’t survive his long by being fools.
Far easier for five-eyes with their various pineapple operations to get the bomber through.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2021 3:41 utc | 263
Agreed. The Americans are bound to have tried to turn Baradar while he was imprisoned, and it is possible Baradar might have given ambiguous noises with the intention to use those noises to other ends. Even supposing he might genuinely have been turned, that would create an exceptionally high-value mole, who would then be protected at all costs. He would not then be blown on such as strategically trivial event (in terms of US strategies) as this bombing. It is a non-starter.
On the other hand, if Baradar resisted all attempts to turn him, then it is not only possible but highly probale that the US would try to create doubts about him in the minds of other senior Taliban. They could even hope to try to use as a complex tool to try to manipulate Taliban policies in the future – by at critical decision-making moments – planting “information” that appears to impugn him, thereby influencing the perceptions of particular doubters. Such doubters would probably be targetted specifically using behavioural profiles and behavioural psychology that the CIA specialise in. Probably they’d have little success but they would certainly try.

Posted by: BM | Aug 29 2021 14:36 utc | 321

Paco @306
I have not tracked your entire discussion so my apologies if this out of context, but Afghanistan had issues pre-Operation Cyclone. Not to say that Cyclone didn’t make a fraught situation into a 40 year conflict.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/afghan-president-is-overthrown-and-murdered

Posted by: schmoe | Aug 29 2021 14:48 utc | 323

This explains one of the explosions. Make of it what you will
“American forces on Thursday destroyed the last CIA outpost in Afghanistan outside of the Kabul airport in order to keep sensitive equipment and information away from the Taliban, US officials told The New York Times.
A controlled demolition was utilized to blow up Eagle Base, a former brick factory repurposed into a facility employed to train counterterrorism forces of Afghanistan’s intelligence agencies, according to The Times.”
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/us-destroys-cia-outpost-outside-140705199.html

Posted by: dh | Aug 29 2021 15:04 utc | 325

@324 On the other hand ISIS may be on the wrong side of history. From photos I’ve seen of the rank and file they don’t look like a terribly bright bunch. Could be the average Afghan will be happy to see them gone.

Posted by: dh | Aug 29 2021 15:25 utc | 327

BM
I thinking of how the bomber got past the Taliban checkpoints when they were alert to and impending attack. A big part of Taliban’s current dealings with other countries, not to mention their deal with the US is that they will not provide a safe haven for terrorists and I think they do want the diplomatic recognition of Russia and China.
Plenty of options there, perhaps the bomber did manage to sneak through. A few countries were running their ops to get people past Taliban checkpoints. US in particular though seemed to be sneaking people through in the night if US media can be believed at all, but it sounds US style.
That ‘pineapple’ crew are the most interesting group though. According to the media there to ‘rescue’ and Afghan that took part in seal team six ops. They go under a different moniker now but apparently still referred to as seal team six. These are the people that do the CIA black ops. No daylight between them and CIA. The sort of jobs like flying into ISIS Iraq and Syria to pick up passengers (the Iraq flights reported by several Iraq groups on the frontlines, and the operations in Syria reported by the french 24 ‘rebel’ media in Syria). The sort that caused Lavrov to ask what US was doing flying helicopters into ISIS held territory in Afghanistan.
These types were hanging around the gate at the time of the explosion and shooting but none killed.
Likely involvement based on who they are, but this no doubt will be like many other incidents, MH17 and so forth that we will never see anything solid on.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 29 2021 15:28 utc | 329

Pepe Escobar has a new article on The Cradle exposing how the Taliban are taking down the CIA’s stay-behind army:
Blowback: Taliban target US intel’s shadow army
It seems they got their hands on complete lists of oparatives for all the stay-behinds in two secret CIA armies, and that is what all the Taliban check-points and door knocking is all about: they are specifically looking for those operatives and nobody else.
Why was the evacuation all in such chaos? Why did they suddenly pull the plug by publishing the pineapple dessert recipe and using the suicide bomberpre-positioned sniper massacre to scare off more crowds of discarded ex-collaborators? Because they were never interested in rescuing any Afghans at all, it was just a cover for their stay-behind armies. Just to make it appear that the stay-behinds had already been extracted.

Posted by: BM | Aug 29 2021 15:36 utc | 331

@ Peter 327
their deal with the US is that they will not provide a safe haven for terrorists
That’s a standard US claim with no backing.
. . .from the Agreement–PART TWO

In conjunction with the announcement of this agreement, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will take the following steps to prevent any group or individual, including al-Qa’ida, from using the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies:
1. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qa’ida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.
2. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will send a clear message that those who pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies have no place in Afghanistan, and will instruct members of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies.
3. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will prevent any group or individual in Afghanistan from threatening the security of the United States and its allies, and will prevent them from recruiting, training, and fundraising and will not host them in accordance with the commitments in this agreement.
4. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban is committed to deal with those seeking asylum or residence in Afghanistan according to international migration law and the commitments of this agreement, so that such persons do not pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies.
5. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will not provide visas, passports, travel permits, or other legal documents to those who pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies to enter Afghanistan. . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 29 2021 15:48 utc | 333

Peter AU1 @Aug29 15:28 #327
Its a solid theory. But the ‘Pineapple’ Crew didn’t necessarily known that they were ferrying a terrorist bomber. The CIA may have organized that capability and guided it but the crew itself just went where they were told to go and picked people up.
They wouldn’t necessarily be very concerned about patting people down and searching through their luggage either. They’d more concerned about avoiding the Taliban than their own security so they’d wan to quickly do a pick-up and get in the air ASAP. They knew that the people they ferry to the airport would be properly checked before getting on a plane.
Even after the bombing, they wouldn’t know. They simply dropped some people at the hotel and an hour or so later, a bomb goes off.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 29 2021 15:57 utc | 335

I second migueljose @ 299, and thank Norwegian who reposted the Mercouris link from March. It needs to be followed to the end of the broadcast, as it gives a stellar comparison to the involvement in Vietnam, with a chilling prediction as to the present outcome of US involvement in Afghanistan.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 29 2021 16:03 utc | 337

Are we to believe that US troops start shooting indiscriminately every time they feel at risk of being attacked?
Yes, that is exactly what happens…..
INDY

Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Aug 29 2021 16:05 utc | 339

The Pentagon provides people to make comments on social media that make the US look innocent, and good. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. . . .like Me2

Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 29 2021 16:20 utc | 341

Peter AU1
My corollary to your theory:
Burns got Baradar to agree to the Pineapple operation.
No on one the Taliban side will raise questions about Pineapple after Baradar personally approved it.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 29 2021 16:33 utc | 343

A tangled web.
I heard bbc interview Sarah Chayes yesterday and she discussed some of the material in her post here:
https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august
In the interview, but not in the post, she mentioned the CIA links to the Pakistani ISI. Exactly what is afoot is not clear to me, but the USA is not just giving up and going away quietly, but is changing tactics it seems.

Posted by: the pessimist | Aug 29 2021 16:40 utc | 345

Peter AU1
I’m not suggesting that he’s CIA. He doesn’t have to be a CIA asset to be hoodwinked by what seems like a worthwhile effort – but one that could be misused.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 29 2021 16:53 utc | 347

John@ 332
Seems we are pretty much in agreement.
One analytical point. If the bomb had killed only Afghanis there would be no story. Wouldn’t matter if a thousand Afghanis and 200 Brit/Afghanis had perished. For US media there would be no story. The narrative requires that real humans – Americans – die for this to be a story. The story can and will be peddled with or without anyone really dying. There is just no need to be sacrificing real service members to make this fly.
When it is all theatre assume it is all theatre. Of course our lords and masters are completely indifferent to death so just maybe once in a while there will be real deaths. Is this such a case? I have no idea. But I will analyze this as if it is all scripted by Langley. And with awareness that Langley is past it’s best days. And I am grateful that b and some of the more astute commentariat here are so dogged. The script always comes apart when examined closely.

Posted by: Oldhippie | Aug 29 2021 17:03 utc | 349

I wonder how the rules of engagement could make the people in the guard towers decide to kill many innocent bystanders, and the ‘american lives’ part could be important. If a bomb explodes near american soldiers and then a crowd moves towards more soldiers then it is possible that someone in that crowd has a second bomb. So if we kill that crowd they will not be able to come too close.
This emphasis on ‘our people are not allowed to die’ is very strong and increases the danger to civilians.

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Aug 29 2021 20:33 utc | 351

Posted by: m | Aug 29 2021 11:24 utc | 296
“…Soviet Union invading because otherwise their puppets..”
And your evidence for the Afghan Government of the time being a “puppet” of The USSR, rather than a government that to some degree shared an ideology and a socialist leaning theory and practice of governance; one which asked for economic and eventually military support when they were experiencing terrorist attacks from the US cultivated and supported, both militarily and financially, Mujaheddin, another Muslim extremist terrorist group supported also by our close ally, Saudi Arabia??

Posted by: Doesitreallymatter | Aug 29 2021 23:28 utc | 353

By the way, I do think that the retreat itself is worth an 800-page book, and I look forward to seeing a good journalist putting such a thing together.
The “suicide attack” at the airport is worth a chapter in itself, and we can only pray that someone has read Oldhippie’s priceless remark and titles the chapter “Shootout in the Hall of Mirrors”.
There will be another chapter later in the book outlining the entire country context for the death squads as the Taliban hunt them down, and referring back to the fraught plea from Burns to Baradar, about which hopefully we know more by later in the book 😉
And this thick book will be merely about the retreat from Afghanistan and the drama of the airport fiascos, as money changed hands, loyalties switched sides, assets were primed and the unlucky were eliminated.
~~
The book will be merely a thin slice of the tales of Afghanistan that history will mark with special care at this time. An entire era is yielding to a new one. And I have to say that in this context, the death count has so far been remarkably light. No matter what we see of the massacres and the atrocities – which we could see on any day, anywhere the Ziocon curse sets down its boot – there is a restraint that is more difficult to discern, but it is very present.
History will contrast the arising of Afghanistan with the bloody passages of other places at other times, and remark how relatively peaceful it was, especially considering the enormity of the change in global terms. Discerning historians will see Russia, and China and Iran – and Afghanistan itself, with a Pashtunwali code so unbreakable that it could afford to adapt – tamping down the mad fires, and changing the world in a relatively quiet way.
My prediction.

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 30 2021 4:01 utc | 355

RE: Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Aug 29 2021 16:05 utc | 339
“Are we to believe that US troops start shooting indiscriminately every time they feel at risk of being attacked?
Yes, that is exactly what happens…..”
To be “exact” I suggest you would need to be more expansive in data-streams analysed.
For example it would be wise to outline that they are “socialised” in competitive, coercive social relations and hence mostly feel at risk and hence there is a level of perception that they are always being “attacked”, an aspect which is encouraged and enhanced by “military training” ,working and reading credit card bills, there-by increasing the propensity of present and former “military personnel” to “mental illnesses” with contingent effects.
This also aids the addition of disciminate shooting (blue on blueness – possibly with connotations of colour as euphemism to differentiate from shooting at “we the people”) to indiscriminate shooting, both as a consequence of endemic fear and loathing of which there have been many examples in “military personnel” incorporating many of the population not restricted to those who wear or have worn “uniforms” not limited to the miltary variant.

Posted by: MagdaTam | Aug 30 2021 15:21 utc | 357

@341 The Pentagon provides people to make comments on social media that make the US look innocent, and good. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. . . .like Me2
lol I can understand not having evidence to put forward since what you claimed is nothing more than a speculative hypothesis. But at the very least you can disagree in good faith. Assuming that my intentions are bad because I dont share your view is a strange psychological problem that is unfortunately not confined only to you. But it is what it is.

Posted by: Me2 | Aug 30 2021 19:25 utc | 359

RE: Posted by: Asha K. | Aug 30 2021 20:06 utc | 360
“In this interview with Andrei Fursov, explainig really what is going on ..”
Omniscience is never a possibility so your framing is a form of self-obfuscation as is most of what you have ever read/seen about the Russian Federation and “The Soviet Union” which was never a union of soviets, but not all that you have read if you read various “authors/collectives” on “convergence theory” that informed and predicated to some degree the “detente movement” including Mr. Cohen and Mr. Mearsheimer in “The United states of America” from the late 1960’s, which were mostly academic tomes in “political economy” written/published in “the Soviet bloc” from 1954 onwards, sometimes translated into English primarily from Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish and Russian..
The various politburos/poltical nomenklaturas sought to “correct” notions of convergence which didn’t qualitatively (laterally ) converge by virtue of being emulative from inception, as became more apparent to some from 1928 onwards including through implementation of “Taylorism”, by publishing works with a more “mathematical focus” such as Mr. Federenko and Mr. Leontiev’s “Optimal functioning system for a socialist ecomony” in the hopes that logicians/mathematicians would not read and comment on it, based upon an ignorance of the networks/networking of the “Soviet” scientific nomenklatura from circa 1953 onwards, having been “discouraged” from circa 1928 onwards except in the “Special Gulags”.
This attempted practice of using mathematics as a tool of obfuscation was a contributory factor in facilitating Mr. Marshall’s publication of 1891 in “Great Britain” after the “capitalist” waves of depressions from circa 1870 until late 1880’s.
Mr. Marshall’s book was/is called “Principles of Economics” in English, or “Illusions by diagram” by some..
This attempted practice is still resorted to in “statistics” and “hopes represented as strategies” where choice of evaluation horizons condition outcomes/perception, as understood by Gosplan in their narratives of myth which for their own interests they continued, contributing to the undermining of “Perestroika” and the ongoing process of the transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by The Russian Federation with the complicity of “The United States of America”.
In any lateral interaction point of initiation, and hence valid evaluation horizons/”frames”, are always hard to determine – as the linearly framed – an oxymoron since framing is a linear practice – what came first the chicken or the egg ? – A paradox for some enmazed in linear perceptions encouraging “Alexandrine solutions” to perceived Gordian knots, whilst the existence of omniscience is encouraged throughout coercive social relations as in “Trust us. We are the NSA, we know” facilitated by “we the people hold these truths to be self-evident, so why go to the trouble of questioning them?”
Mr. Fursov’s “work” is even less omniscient than some work of others, but has utility which can be interpreted by reading it – television being the least effective mode of communication as established by various scientific projects and hence the media/mode of preference for some – the extent of reading’s utility being a function of the facility of the reader, including possibilty of testing the hypotheses by implementation, to which many do not have access by design, whilst some who do have the facility self-sabotage this facility by assumptions including framing, whilst others reliant on “guessing” statistically have the possibility of achieving some level of perception/representation..

Posted by: MagdaTam | Aug 31 2021 1:50 utc | 361

“He also mentions that all the countries agreed in the ultralgobalist agenda, except Sweden and Belarus…If that is so, why is Sweden spared of reprisals while Belarus suffered several color revolution intends and sanctions?!
@Posted by: MagdaTam | Aug 31 2021 1:50 utc | 361
On the other hand, the attitude of Sweden during the “Navalny poisoning” affair would point at why it has been spared…
P.S: Off topic, I am thinking of reciclating myself with view of abandoning this country in which I do not see any future at all, as it unveils increasingly clearly as willing doormat of the EEUU/Germany, and since I do not feel like to continue exerting my current profession due what it has become…What kind of studies do you recommend me with view of finding a place in labor market abroad?
I am considering Syria as emerging country and which I knew before the war finding myself quite at ease amongst such warmfull people…

Posted by: Asha K. | Aug 31 2021 10:41 utc | 363

In this video at about 2h:13min Scott Ritter explains what may have happened in the event of the explosion in Kabul and how so many people got hit by bullets : https://youtu.be/7rB4t8WqLKU?t=8002
He does not assume any premeditation but things getting out of hand with quite a few parties with guns who all have their own logic of handling things: marines, Taliban, Turks, Afghan commandos, British . Several marines have been shot .

Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Sep 2 2021 21:16 utc | 365