==State Dept Sends Security Alert, Due to Threats Do Not Come to Kabul Airport

August 21, 2021 | Sundance | ==

Yesterday, while responding to reports of American citizens not being able to get to the Kabul airport for evacuation Joe Biden said:

“We have no indication that they haven’t been able to get — in Kabul — through the airport. We’ve made an agreement with the — with the Taliban. Thus far, they’ve allowed them to go through. It’s in their interest for them to go through. So, we know of no circumstance where American citizens are — carrying an American passport — are trying to get through to the airport. But we will do whatever needs to be done to see to it they get to the airport.”

Today the U.S. State Dept. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan issues a Security Alert:

“Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so.”

[SECURITY ALERT INSERT HERE - CAPPED

Something sketchy is going on…

The State Dept. Public Relations firm, CNN, stopped Clarissa Ward (journalist) from reporting outside the gates of the Kabul airport. Now the embassy says don’t go to the airport at the same time the Associated Press is reporting on al-Qaeda and Islamic State elements threatening the area:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Potential Islamic State threats against Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the airport in Kabul, a senior U.S. official said Saturday, adding a new complication to the already chaotic efforts to get people out of the country after its swift fall to the Taliban.

The official said that small groups of Americans and possibly other civilians will be given specific instructions on what to do, including movement to transit points where they can be gathered up by the military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. (read more)

Question everything.

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>>14417854

Unfortunately this situation is very complex and with journalists now exiting the Kabul airport the American people are blind to what is taking place. We now have to rely on the government for information about what is taking place on the ground. Given the lack of credibility in government due to their lies, manipulations and documented efforts to control perception, we are in a precarious place.

The White House is saying all is safe. The State Department is saying the opposite.

We must be cautious in reviewing any/all media articles about the fluid situation in Afghanistan, as both Leftist and NeoCon media are framing the crisis story to fit their preferred narrative. All DC media reporting should be viewed through the prism of cynicism and skepticism.

When we review a State Department position (DoS) on anything, it should be noted that DoS personnel are, by ideological tribe, very dramatic, tender and pearl-clutching leftists in their worldview. State Department officials are the wokeist of the international woke community. As a consequence of their alignment and role, CNN is almost identically predisposed to the dramatic flair.

There is also an effort by media to parse the Biden administration into segments, and position blame according to their ideological unit inside the tribe. Watch for this to appear in the reporting, and we should not allow it.

The U.S. State Department, the U.S. Defense Department, The White House, the National Security Council and all officials in positions of leadership within the entirety of the Biden foreign policy establishment are equally to blame and all attached to this failure.

Their foreign policy ship is sinking and they were all on board.

Do not allow them to reach shore and excuse themselves from their crisis.

U.S. Military leadership was wrong in their claims, plans and risk assessments prior to the collapse of Afghanistan. The U.S. State Department was wrong and inept in their planning to secure the Embassy mission in Kabul for all Americans. The White House failed to organize, coordinate and manage the draw-down of military action in Afghanistan. The President made the wrong decisions. Those in political position advising the President were inept.

The Biden administration and foreign policy team is weak, ineffective, ideological and functionally flawed. Everything they do is exactly the opposite of what should be done.

Just like Obama before him, the Biden foreign policy is a joke.

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>>14417856

Islamic State threat forces US changes to evacuations at Kabul airport

By: Ahmad Seir , Rahim Faiez, The Associated Press , Kathy Gannon, The Associated Press , and Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Potential Islamic State threats against Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the airport in Kabul, a senior U.S. official said Saturday, adding a new complication to the already chaotic efforts to get people out of the country after its swift fall to the Taliban.

The official said that small groups of Americans and possibly other civilians will be given specific instructions on what to do, including movement to transit points where they can be gathered up by the military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

The changes come as the U.S. Embassy issued anew security warningSaturday telling citizens not to travel to the Kabul airport without individual instruction from a U.S. government representative. Officials declined to provide more specifics about the IS threat but described it as significant, and said there have been no confirmed attacks as yet.

Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, told Pentagon reporters on Saturday that of the 17,000 people evacuated since Aug. 15, just 2,500 have been Americans. U.S. officials have estimated there are as many as 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan, but acknowledge they don’t have solid numbers.

Time is running out ahead of Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw most remaining U.S. troops, and the president on Friday night did not commit to extending it. He faces growing criticism as videos depict pandemonium and occasional violence outside the airport, and as vulnerable Afghans who fear the Taliban’s retaliation send desperate pleas not to be left behind.

Crowds remain outside the Kabul airport’s concrete barriers, clutching documents and sometimes stunned-looking children, blocked from flight by coils of razor wire.

Tens of thousands of translators and other Afghan wartime helpers, along with their close family members, are seeking evacuation after the Taliban’s shockingly swift takeover of Afghanistan in a little over a week’s time. The fall of Kabul marked the final chapter of America’s longest war, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

SEE CAP

https://www.defensenews.com/flashpoints/afghanistan/2021/08/21/islamic-state-threat-forces-us-changes-to-evacuations-at-kabul-airport/

>>14417870

Remember those 169 evacuees mentioned by botus yesterday? Here's the story:

Inside the mission to rescue 169 Americans from a hotel outside the Kabul airport

A group of 169 Americans were airlifted from a hotel outside the Kabul airport on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed to reporters Friday, one of a very limited number of actions that U.S. troops have undertaken outside of the Hamid Karzai International Airport walls since a contingent of 6,000 began deploying last week.

President Joe Biden first spoke of the mission during an address on Friday, in which he described “military assets” bringing Americans “over the wall” of the airport.

“… the original plan was for the Americans to gather themselves up at the Baron [Hotel] and walk through the Abbey gate. The gate is right here. So you can see from the hotel to the gate,” Kirby said. “… but there was a large crowd established outside the Abbey gate ― a crowd, that, that not everybody had confidence in, in terms of their ability to walk through it. And so, local commanders on the scene took the initiative and flew these helicopters out there to pick them up.”

Three Army CH-47 Chinooks fetched the Americans from a landing zone at the hotel, Kirby said, then dropped them at the airport for processing. He could not confirm whether they had since been flown out of Afghanistan.

The extraction was the first time U.S. officials have confirmed that troops have been operating outside the walls of the airport. ….

https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/afghanistan/2021/08/20/inside-the-mission-to-rescue-169-americans-from-a-hotel-outside-the-kabul-airport/

>>14417874

This article used a video of an unrelated but important event - the rough handling of people outside the airport. Not just by the locals but by German and American troops, according to one witness.

Outside the Hamid Karzei Airport - VID

ttps://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/afghanistan/2021/08/20/inside-the-mission-to-rescue-169-americans-from-a-hotel-outside-the-kabul-airport/

>>14417854

State Dept Sends Security Alert, Due to Threats Do Not Come to Kabul Airport

August 21, 2021 | Sundance |

red text fail, kek

Covid-19: FDA set to grant full approval to Pfizer vaccine without public discussion of data

BMJ 2021; 374 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2086 (Published 20 August 2021) Cite this as: BMJ 2021;374:n2086

Transparency advocates have criticised the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision not to hold a formal advisory committee meeting to discuss Pfizer’s application for full approval of its covid-19 vaccine.

Last year the FDA said it was “committed to use an advisory committee composed of independent experts to ensure deliberations about authorisation or licensure are transparent for the public.”1

But in a statement, the FDA told The BMJ that it did not believe a meeting was necessary ahead of the expected granting of full approval.

“The FDA has held numerous meetings of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) related to covid-19 vaccines, including a 22 October 20202 meeting to discuss, in general, the development, authorisation, and licensure of covid-19 vaccines,” an FDA spokesperson said.

“The FDA also has held meetings of the VRBPAC on all three covid-19 vaccines authorised for emergency use and does not believe a meeting is needed related to this biologics license application.”

The spokesperson added, “The Pfizer BioNTech covid-19 vaccine was discussed at the VRBPAC meeting on 10 December 2020.3 If the agency had any questions or concerns that required input from the advisory committee members we would have scheduled a meeting to discuss.”

The vaccine has already been rolled out to millions of Americans through an emergency use authorisation. Companies typically apply for full approval after a longer period has elapsed so that more data are available for review.

But with the US government indicating this week that it plans to start making booster shots widely available next month, experts said the decision not to meet to discuss the data was politically driven.

Data scrutiny

Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who serves as a consumer representative on the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee,4 said the decision removed an important mechanism for scrutinising the data.

“These public meetings are imperative in building trust and confidence especially when the vaccines came to market at lightning speed under emergency use authorisation,” she said. “The public deserves a transparent process, especially as the call for boosters and mandates are rapidly increasing. These meetings offer a platform where questions can be raised, problems tackled, and data scrutinised in advance of an approval.”

Witczak is one of the more than 30 signatories of a citizen petition5 calling on the FDA to refrain from fully approving any covid-19 vaccine this year to gather more data. She warned that without a meeting “we have no idea what the data looks like.”

“It is already concerning that full approval is being based on 6 months’ worth of data despite the clinical trials designed for two years,” she said. “There is no control group after Pfizer offered the product to placebo participants before the trials were completed.

“Full approval of covid-19 vaccines must be done in an open public forum for all to see. It could set a precedent of lowered standards for future vaccine approvals.”

Public discussion

Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, who has also spoken at recent VRBPAC meetings, told The BMJ, “It’s obvious that the FDA has no intention of hearing anyone else’s opinion. But if you make decisions behind closed doors it can feed into hesitancy. It’s important to have a public discussion about what kind of data are there and what the limitations are. As we think about risk versus benefit, we need to know.”

Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and former FDA deputy commissioner during the Obama administration, said that advisory committee meetings were more than just a way of receiving scientific input from outside experts. “It’s also an opportunity to educate the public about the important work that the FDA has done reviewing an enormous amount of data about a product,” he told The BMJ. “It’s a chance for questions to be asked and answered, building public confidence.

“If there are no advisory committee meetings prior to licensure, the FDA should consider taking extra steps to explain the basis of its decisions to the public.”–

On 18 August, before the news that the FDA would not be holding a formal committee meeting, the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Barbara Alexander praised the impact of the VRBPAC meetings as “a critical and necessary part” of the process for assessing whether to give booster doses.6

https://archive.ph/36tav#selection-943.0-1251.1

>>14418063

To find out more about supply chain problems:

https://t.me/iceagefarmer