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Afghan Interpreters, Others Fast-tracking to Canada

Apparently from the former anchor of Global National, Kevin Newman (unless there's another Canadian journo named Kevin Newman...)

To be fair, there hasn't been a peep about CANSOF elements deployed, or what they have been up to. As we all know, JTF2 is notoriously secretive about their operations, as is CSOR (minus some of their training partnerships, which they have been more public about.)

Just because we hear about British and French SOF elements going into the city to rescue people, doesn't mean CANSOF hasn't been doing the same - perhaps even a day or two before the British & French started doing so. <hint hint>


Some of JTF2's finest moments - successful operations that we as a nation are immensely proud of, and that the international SOF community is in absolute admiration of - have only come to light years after they happened. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if those types of things are also occurring now, during all of this.
 
You are all missing the point, Had the Taliban wanted to shut down the Kabul airport,
They're keeping it open in the hopes that we take the ANA with us so the Taliban don't have to deal with trying to train them.


The one that impressed me was when they hit us to exactly coincide with the regular Wednesday alarm test that everyone knew was coming. That was nicely done.
Yup! If only our INT "there could be an IED on this road" updates were as punctual.
 
To be fair, there hasn't been a peep about CANSOF elements deployed, or what they have been up to. As we all know, JTF2 is notoriously secretive about their operations, as is CSOR (minus some of their training partnerships, which they have been more public about.)

Just because we hear about British and French SOF elements going into the city to rescue people, doesn't mean CANSOF hasn't been doing the same - perhaps even a day or two before the British & French started doing so. <hint hint>
I like this approach. SEALS haven’t been honking their horn either.
White. Toyota. Corolla.
Don’t forget yellow, or white and yellow. 😉
 
Just because we hear about British and French SOF elements going into the city to rescue people, doesn't mean CANSOF hasn't been doing the same - perhaps even a day or two before the British & French started doing so.
There were mentions in the media up to about a week ago that elements of CANSOF were involved in the planned evacuation.
 
I wouldn't be surprised we suddenly had the route to the airport open up, and then in about 2040 have the files declassified that CANSOF and JTF2 were upto shit in the shadows
 
We’ll probably never get the stories… But in two years or so I suspect we’ll see a raft of citations from Rideau Hall reading “x members of CANSOFCOM were awarded y decoration. For reasons of operational security, further details cannot be disclosed.”
 
The Line has a distressingly accurate and likely too flattering view of the Government's response. We are no longer a serious country.

Kabul shows the unflattering truth: Canada is slow, risk-averse and selfish

Kevin Newman: Kabul shows the unflattering truth: Canada is slow, risk-averse and selfish While French commandos in buses got their people out, we sent texts (in English) telling our friends to head to the airport on their own




Note from The Line: Normally on Friday evenings we would send you our weekly dispatch. Due to the situation in Afghanistan, and the urgent need to get civilians to safety, we are delaying publication of our dispatch until Saturday morning to bring you this article by journalist Kevin Newman, who is currently active in efforts to get people safely out of Kabul.
By: Kevin Newman
It was a brazen move the first time, but twice?
Ten buses screamed out of France’s embassy in Kabul early this week, past every Taliban checkpoint along the way, and according to eyewitnesses, zipped confidently through a back-entrance gate and straight onto the chaotic tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport. Five hundred exhausted and terrified passengers were then loaded onto a French military aircraft which quickly took off.
And then it happened again on Thursday, four buses this time, under the guard of French special forces. As with the first convoy, Paris newspapers reported the buses carried French nationals stranded in Kabul, and hundreds of Afghans and their families the French embassy had given shelter to since before the Taliban roared into and re-occupied the city. Two ballsy airlifts took them to safety at a French military base in the United Arab Emirates, where hundreds of desperate people were given a hot meal, questioned about their identities and had their documents confirmed. Most were then sent on to Paris, where they received physical and mental-health support as well as cash, clothing, and places to stay as they begin their new lives.
On those same days in Kabul, another country tried to rescue its citizens and hundreds of Afghan interpreters and their families hiding throughout the city. I’ve pieced together what happened to them from texts and video Canadian veterans have been receiving every hour from people they know in Kabul, and I am sharing them with permission. I have verified each of these facts (from the peace of Canada) with multiple sources on the ground.

There were no buses, soldiers or escorts for these terrified people . Thursday they received a short text from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). They were instructed (in English only) to urgently head to the airport on their own, try to find a way through multiple Taliban checkpoints searching for them, and then if they survived that kilometres-long trip, figure out a way through thousands of desperate Afghans trying to flee. They were told by IRCC to carry documents to identify themselves to a gate agent, but because those same documents would be used to identify them by the Taliban, it was up to them to decide whether to carry them. With that, IRCC wiped its hands of responsibility. No direction on where to avoid Taliban checkpoints, no specific gates to head to (there are eight), and no Canadians on site to help. In fact there hadn’t been any Canadian officials in Kabul for a week, and when a few arrived hours after that text blast, reporters said they had travelled on an American military flight because their Canadian C-17 needed servicing somewhere else.
Needless to say, no one got through the airport, so they returned to their safe houses — wondering if their last flight to freedom had left without them.
It hadn’t. It never existed. Later that night another set of blasts went out again telling Afghans to move on their own to the airport. This time they were told to shout “Canada” and hope a soldier would hear them and help them through the airport gates. Taliban guards could hear them as well there, which would ensure that the target on their backs they had been trying to hide came completely into focus.
Two countries, two very different experiences for terrified Afghans, both on the same day. We’ll never know if some of those brave and desperate people didn’t make it through alive with all that futile moving back and forth to the airport in a city surrounded by Taliban. All we know for certain is none of more than one thousand people on the Canadian veterans’ list made it to freedom on Thursday, as France’s evacuees whisked past.


That very same day, Justin Trudeau blamed the Taliban for making it impossible to do better. “Unless the Taliban shift their posture significantly — which is something the international community and Canada are working on — it's going to be very difficult to get many people out,” the Liberal leader said.
But how did France do it? Well, it likely helped that they still had diplomats and military advisors in Kabul to negotiate (maybe bribe?) the Taliban to provide safe passage for their hundreds of refugees. All of our allies had eyes and boots on the ground this week at Kabul’s airport. Canada did not. It closed its embassy and withdrew all its diplomats and military by jet to Ottawa just as the Taliban was rolling into town. The government left no one behind to talk to the Taliban, or our allies, as they organized and negotiated the rescue of thousands.
Which left the handful of Canadian soldiers who finally returned late Thursday with little if any advance work to rely on. They started from scratch. Their only options were to ask for a lot of very large favours from the thousands of American and British soldiers who had been busy all week rescuing thousands of their own nationals and Afghans. Alliances are meant to share burdens. Canada, in Kabul this week, was only a taker.
We had already given up on about a thousand Afghans in Kandahar who had been allies during our military mission and were in various stages of completing the onerous and complex immigration paperwork for Canada. Those who escaped to Kabul for rescue tried to blend in, 800 of them in safe houses organized by Canadian veterans and funded with donations from concerned Canadians. Public appeals from retired generals and many other ex-soldiers to provide valuable intel they were receiving were largely dismissed, so as a country we had no situational awareness of our own to develop a plan, and rejected the only source of it — from Afghans we trained and veterans who still live and work there. We asked other countries to give us their homework instead.
These early days of this massive rescue effort by Western countries revealed some unflattering aspects of our national character. Canada has been slow to react, risk-averse and selfish. We’ve relied on our neighbours more than each other, turned our backs on thousands who’d proved their loyalty to us, and even blamed criminals for our inability to protect people we know are in real fear of being murdered. Our leaders have declared they wished they could have done more, but gosh, the Taliban won’t let us. Trudeau then batted aside suggestions the IRCC paperwork with its requirement for passport, biometric fingerprints and digital photographs had delayed everything. By Friday afternoon that nonsense was finally dropped. The airport chaos and confusion at the gates grew more alarming.

It was always going to be difficult to leave Afghanistan, but most other countries were a lot more successful at saving thousands of desperate people this week. Canada’s specific evacuation list from Kabul isn’t being revealed by the government, but veterans tracking it say as of Friday afternoon said those who defied the odds and made it onto a flight — any flight — could be counted on two hands. There are still days to try something else and hopefully better. But not many.

Kevin Newman is a retired journalist who reported from Afghanistan. He has been helping the veteran volunteer network trying to save their interpreters and families.
 
OK, let's see if this works, then ...
Canada will accelerate processing the families of interpreters and others who supported its mission in Afghanistan to quickly evacuate as many approved people as possible, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said Friday.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Mendicino said his department is ramping up processing Afghan refugees by adding resources to the operation.

He said the government is not requiring passports or COVID-19 negative tests from the Afghan passengers and is deferring biometric screening to a third country, where it's safe for evacuees and government officials to be screened ...
Putin doesn't like the idea of willing-host processing countries next to his, so let's see who steps up to accept Canada's wait line.
 
Canadian SOF teams could distribute those red Friday t-shirts to help.


While other nations send helicopters and armed escorts to rescue their citizens from the Taliban-controlled city, Global Affairs Canada’s advice for evacuees to “wear red” and identify themselves as Canadians apparently holds no sway with those tasked with gatekeeping the world’s most dangerous airport.



Don't forget to sew a Canadian flag on your backpacking bag.
 
It should only be Official GoC ‘Sunny Ways’ endorsed clothing…I think Hudson’s Bay has the contract. Red Canada mittens will really help them stand out!

F3CC5423-7F20-4B21-B90D-AC4577B55706.jpeg

The Canadian Government is quickly moving from ‘dithering’ and ‘pathetic’ to ‘outright shameful’ at pretty high speed… 😠
 
Canadian SOF teams could distribute those red Friday t-shirts to help.






Don't forget to sew a Canadian flag on your backpacking bag.

Red Shirts.... that always went well for the shore parties:

Im Out Season 1 GIF by Paramount+
 
It should only be Official GoC ‘Sunny Ways’ endorsed clothing…I think Hudson’s Bay has the contract. Red Canada mittens will really help them stand out!

View attachment 66142

The Canadian Government is quickly moving from ‘dithering’ and ‘pathetic’ to ‘outright shameful’ at pretty high speed… 😠
except they are all made in China and they are shipping to the Taliban
 
Canadian SOF teams could distribute those red Friday t-shirts to help.






Don't forget to sew a Canadian flag on your backpacking bag.
This ......
... Global News reported RCAF crews were limited in the numbers they could transport by available seatbelts on the C-17s, which by using side-mounted jump seats and pallet-mounted airliner seats are capable of carrying up to 188 people ...
🤦‍♀️
 
... Global News reported RCAF crews were limited in the numbers they could transport by available seatbelts on the C-17s, which by using side-mounted jump seats and pallet-mounted airliner seats are capable of carrying up to 188 people ...

WTF. Cram as many people on the plane as it can safely lift. I am pretty sure that the Afghans escaping are not going to launch a lawsuit over in-flight turbulence.
 
The risk of Taliban creating more problems for themselves by attacking aircraft directly is probably much lower than the risk of some renegades doing so in order to stir the pot. Whether they've realized it or not, the Taliban has an interest in securing the "footprint" all by itself. They'll get blamed, and they'll feel the heat, if anything happens.
 
The Line has a distressingly accurate and likely too flattering view of the Government's response. We are no longer a serious country.

Kabul shows the unflattering truth: Canada is slow, risk-averse and selfish

Kevin Newman: Kabul shows the unflattering truth: Canada is slow, risk-averse and selfish While French commandos in buses got their people out, we sent texts (in English) telling our friends to head to the airport on their own

cf

TangoTwoBravo

I was part of a NATO exercise in 2018 where we deployed a Bde HQ, a Light Infantry Battalion and associated support to Norway along with an air component and of course a maritime component. The troops flew in, but everything else for the land component went by ship.

We have a couple of mission sets that require rapidity of deployment where air will be the usual method of entry: non-combatant evacuation operations and humanitarian assistance disaster relief. NEO is not really the combat operation that some folks envision/dream about.


Kirkhill

TangoTwoBravo said:
I was part of a NATO exercise in 2018 where we deployed a Bde HQ, a Light Infantry Battalion and associated support to Norway along with an air component and of course a maritime component. The troops flew in, but everything else for the land component went by ship.

We have a couple of mission sets that require rapidity of deployment where air will be the usual method of entry: non-combatant evacuation operations and humanitarian assistance disaster relief. NEO is not really the combat operation that some folks envision/dream about.

With any luck at all. As a potential evacuee I would much rather not be dodging bullets on my way on board my aircraft or ship.

Infanteer

TangoTwoBravo said:
NEO is not really the combat operation that some folks envision/dream about.

How CJOC sees the NEO: Enough CAF personnel in civilian clothing to help GAC get CANCITS out of the country.

How the Army translates this: You need a Light Infantry Battalion ready to go, led by Samuel L. Jackson from Rules of Engagement.

TangoTwoBravo

Infanteer said:
How CJOC sees the NEO: Enough CAF personnel in civilian clothing to help GAC get CANCITS out of the country.

How the Army translates this: You need a Light Infantry Battalion ready to go, led by Samuel L. Jackson from Rules of Engagement.

True! As a planner for a couple of NEO certification exercises there was usually a bit of a gulf between what people think NEO is going into it (which included me) and what the mission actually entails.

Soldiers with what they can carry through the doors of an aircraft. 82nd Abn. USMC. 2 Para. French Special Forces. Commandeering or buying local transport.

And lots of brass.
 
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