Afghan government collapse.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

https://twitter.com/aahmady/status/1427883011207467009

The new regime will struggle to access money and assets.

Kind of hilarious that the Taliban expected to find an Afghan version of Fort Knox somewhere in Kabul.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9905093/Former-Afghan-President-Ashraf-Ghani-fled-169MILLION-cash-stuffed-helicopter.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

A council of Islamic scholars will decide on the future role of women in Afghanistan, including what they will wear and whether they will be allowed to work and study, a Taliban leader has said.

Waheedullah Hashimi told Reuters that the extremist group’s ulema (theological scholars) will decide whether or not women must have their faces covered in public and if they will have access to employment and education.

His remarks seemingly contradict spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid’s assurance at a news conference shortly after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul that women can work and study and will be “very active in society”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/taliban-womens-rights-hijab-afghanistan-b1904781.html

[It’s so Joever]

A council of Islamic scholars will decide on the future role of women in Afghanistan, including what they will wear and whether they will be allowed to work and study, a Taliban leader has said.

Waheedullah Hashimi told Reuters that the extremist group’s ulema (theological scholars) will decide whether or not women must have their faces covered in public and if they will have access to employment and education.

His remarks seemingly contradict spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid’s assurance at a news conference shortly after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul that women can work and study and will be “very active in society”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/taliban-womens-rights-hijab-afghanistan-b1904781.html

Wow shocking.
Anyways, considering how we so blatantly prop up the Saudis, I doubt America will have trouble turning a blind eye to this.

[Silent Hunter]

Anyone else find the Taliban media conference with commentary about the treatment of women super-cringeworthy.

They were out of their depth on the PR front.

To quote Commander Fred from The Handmaid's Tale:

"We only wanted to make the world better. Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some."

I'm half wondering who's the Taliban's Serena Joy...

[NOVA Green]

Ahmad Massoud is already courting American public policy makers and influencers within the beltway with an Op-Ed published in the Washington Post today:

Opinion: The mujahideen resistance to the Taliban begins now. But we need help.

....I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban. We have stores of ammunition and arms that we have patiently collected since my father’s time, because we knew this day might come.

We also have the weapons carried by the Afghans who, over the past 72 hours, have responded to my appeal to join the resistance in Panjshir. We have soldiers from the Afghan regular army who were disgusted by the surrender of their commanders and are now making their way to the hills of Panjshir with their equipment. Former members of the Afghan Special Forces have also joined our struggle.

But that is not enough. If Taliban warlords launch an assault, they will of course face staunch resistance from us. The flag of the National Resistance Front will fly over every position that they attempt to take, as the National United Front flag flew 20 years ago. Yet we know that our military forces and logistics will not be sufficient. They will be rapidly depleted unless our friends in the West can find a way to supply us without delay.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/18/mujahideen-resistance-taliban-ahmad-massoud/

[Middle-aged Europe]

No sh**t.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Wednesday said the U.S. is aware of reports that the Taliban are blocking Afghans from reaching the Kabul international airport, and that it contradicts public promises made by the group to allow safe passage for those wishing to leave the country.

“We have seen reports that the Taliban, contrary to their public statements and their commitments to our government, are blocking Afghans who wish to leave the country from reaching the airport,” Sherman, the second ranking diplomat at the State Department, told reporters in the briefing room.

“Our team in Doha, and our military partners on the ground in Kabul, are engaging directly with the Taliban to make clear that we expect them to allow all American citizens, all third country nationals and all Afghans who wish to leave, to do so safely and without harassment,” she said.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/568446-us-official-acknowledges-harassment-at-taliban-checkpoints-on-road

[NOVA Green]

Update from the BBC liveblog

Afghan cities see anti-Taliban protests

The BBC's Pashto Service reports that anti-Taliban protests are taking place in the cities of Jalalabad, Kunar and Khost, with demonstrators waving Afghan flags.

It is too early to say if it will spread nationally, but things are changing fast and the Taliban are tense, our journalists say.

In the Panjshir Valley there are unverified videos of a huge caravan of motorbikes with flags of the former Northern Alliance. They are being called the “resistance army” of former Vice-President Amrullah Saleh, who has proclaimed himself acting president.

Officials at the Afghan embassy in Tajikistan have already put up pictures of Mr Saleh, naming him as their president.

The Taliban have not yet commented on any of these developments.

Interestingly enough these "urban uprisings" (Although that might be a stretch of a term to use at this point), were actually in provinces which experienced some of the most sustained guerrilla combat activities against the US / Allied Foreign Military Forces, as well as the Afghan National Army.

This perhaps makes this development even more remarkable....

So here is a brief summary of just one of these Provinces, which contains one of the largest Cities in Afghanistan....

I strongly doubt that many reading this will have the stamina to read even my entire post, let alone some or all of the documentation referenced at the bottom of the post, but hey Afghanistan is a complicated country and anybody who believes simple sound bites and slogans tell a story are obviously not interested anyways...

Jalalabad (Nangarhar province) has long played a critical role in political developments within Afghanistan over the decades (and longer) because of it's strategic location as a trading city with the border cities located in nearby Pakistan, it's fertile agricultural industry (including until fairly recently one of the largest poppy producing areas, as well as effectively the highway pipelines that connect to Kabul from the East of the Capitol.

Interestingly enough, despite ~90% of the population being Ethnic Pashtun, it was never historically a major Taliban stronghold, perhaps because of the significant influence of local Tribal leaders, as well as relative proximity to the Capitol of Kabul, where the Central Government would dispense significant $$$ to the province because of it's history as "Afghanistan's breadbasket", not to mention control of key trading routes into Pakistan (Including "informal" border crossings / smuggler routes.

Many of the insurgents fighting in Nangarhar would traditionally come over the border during the traditional "fighting season", and retreat back over the Mountains before the first snows would shutter the passes, with some of major exceptions being within the SW portion of the district, especially the heartlands of the Khogiani Tribe.

This would change dramatically between 2010 and 2015, with only (5) districts being considered under full Government control and the vast majority of the rest considered "contested".

In many ways Nangarhar province was best known as one of the few provinces in Afghanistan where the Islamic State (IS-KP) heavily composed of former Pakistani Taliban members established strong enclaves within the Eastern part of the province and were effectively engaged in a war against the regular Taliban insurgents starting around 2015, with the "Daesh" (Islamic State) militants mainly taking over those districts within the province with a significant Taliban presence.

The Taliban reportedly relocated ~3,000 cadres from other provinces within Afghanistan in an attempt to retake control from the Islamic State.

At some point, one might wonder to what extent the success of the Poppy Eradication program in Nangarhar province (90% reduction from early 2000s to 2020), helped fuel the growth of indigenous and local support for the Taliban over time, especially among agricultural laborers and subsistence farmers in rural districts within the province.

Despite the source (RAND Corp) this is a really detailed (30) page chapter of a book published in 2010, which provides an excellent and detailed summary of the province:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg870osd.12?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Here is a (32) page assessment published by a Norwegian Government agency which is an independent body within the Norwegian Immigration Authorities in 2016 which focuses on the security situation within Nangarhar Province including very detailed district level breakdowns and analysis:

https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5a6af7d24.pdf

An actually pretty well sourced article from USA Today of all places (!!!) which talks about the "Road Building Program" in Nangarhar in 2007, which was primarily a counter-insurgency initiative (See RAND article above), including how rural poppy farmers might view that road as a threat to their livelihood.

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-06-19-afghan-road_N.htm

Here is a (20) page Brookings Institute Study from 2016, which although it does not focus solely on Nangarhar Province, naturally addresses the Province as well in a bit of detail:

Alarmed by the spread of opium poppy cultivation, some public officials in the United States in 2004 and 2005 also started calling for a strong poppy eradication campaign, including aerial spraying.

Thus, between 2004 and 2009, manual eradication was carried out by central Afghan units trained by Dyncorp, as well as by regional governors and their forces.  Violent strikes and social protests immediately rose up against it. Another wave of eradication took place in 2005, when reduction in poppy cultivation was achieved. Most of the reduction was due to cultivation suppression in Nangarhar province, where, through promises of alternative development and threats of imprisonment, production was slashed by 90 percent.

However, alternative livelihoods never materialized for many. The Cash-for-Work programs reached only a small percentage of the population in Nangarhar, mainly those living close to cities. The overall pauperization of the population there was devastating.  Unable to repay debts, many farmers were forced to sell their daughters as young as three years old as brides or abscond to Pakistan. In Pakistan, the refugees have frequently ended up in the radical Deobandi madrasas and have begun refilling the ranks of the Taliban.

Apart from incorporating the displaced farmers into their ranks, the Taliban also began to protect the farmers’ opium fields, in addition to protecting traffic. In fact, the antagonized poppy farmers came to constitute a strong and key base of support for the Taliban, denying intelligence to ISAF and providing it to the Taliban. Just like interdiction, eradication has been plagued by massive corruption problems, with powerful elites able to bribe or coerce their way out of having their opium poppy fields destroyed or able to direct eradication against their political opponents; and with the poorest farmers, most vulnerable to Taliban mobilization, bearing the brunt of eradication.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/FelbabBrown-Afghanistan-final.pdf

Slight side note, for anyone interested in how the Islamic State was able to develop a foothold in Nangarhar, here is an article worthy of a read from September 2016:

https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/war-and-peace/descent-into-chaos-why-did-nangarhar-turn-into-an-is-hub/

I really doubt any of you will spent the Hour or so it takes to digest all of this information, but sometimes simply by looking at the History of just one province in Afghanistan over the past (20) Years can help provide some understanding about how flawed the initial project was from the early 2000's onwards.

[CumbrianLefty]

Another triumph for the War On Drugs, then?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Meanwhile in Afghanistan (source: BBC liveblog)

National flag-waving Afghans have been seen protesting in several cities on Thursday, which marks the 102nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence and falls at a time of great uncertainty and upheaval for the country.

One clip shared on social media appears to show a crowd in Kabul chanting "our flag, our identity" about the black, red and green tricolour national flag.

The Reuters news agency, citing witnesses, reports that several people may have been killed at a similar protest on Thursday in Asadabad - either by gunfire or in stampedes the firing triggered.

The reports of casualties come a day after several deaths were also reported at flag-related demonstrations in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Videos on social media have shown some protesters appearing to remove and replace Taliban flags in places - pocket displays of defiance against the group's swift rise to power.

A UN document says the Taliban are intensifying their hunt for people who worked for and collaborated with Nato and US forces.

The confidential paper was produced by the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, which provides the UN with intelligence information.

“The Taliban are arresting and/or threatening to kill or arrest family members of target individuals unless they surrender themselves to the Taliban,” the document, seen by the BBC said.

It said that those at particular risk were people with positions in the military, police and investigative units.

“The Taliban have been conducting advance mapping of individuals prior to take take-over of all major cities,” it said.

It added that the militants were screening for individuals while permitting some evacuation of foreign personnel from Kabul airport but the situation there remained “chaotic”.

According to the report, the Taliban are recruiting new informer networks to collaborate with the new regime.

[jaichind]

https://www.aninews.in/news/world/us/biden-administration-freezes-usd-95-bn-of-afghan-reserves-to-block-taliban-access-to-funds20210818145550/

"Biden administration freezes USD 9.5 bn of Afghan reserves to block Taliban access to funds"

Make sense.  But one problem.  After all that aid over the years the Afghan reserves are only $9.5 billion?  Wow, the scale of corruption which I am sure includes the USA military industrial complex is greater than what I imagined.

Unless the Taliban can get a fresh source of credit they will have significant economic problems.

[Stranger in a strange land]

https://www.aninews.in/news/world/us/biden-administration-freezes-usd-95-bn-of-afghan-reserves-to-block-taliban-access-to-funds20210818145550/

"Biden administration freezes USD 9.5 bn of Afghan reserves to block Taliban access to funds"

Make sense.  But one problem.  After all that aid over the years the Afghan reserves are only $9.5 billion?  Wow, the scale of corruption which I am sure includes the USA military industrial complex is greater than what I imagined.

Unless the Taliban can get a fresh source of credit they will have significant economic problems.

Almost none of the aid was given directly to the Afghan treasury, for this exact reason. For the most part it was paid out directly from the DoD, USAID, or State Department to contractors or it went through other channels.

[Blair]

I don’t know why you’d think the aid money would go right into the Treasury in the forms of bonds or gold?

[Middle-aged Europe]

A bit of a fun story from Afghanistan at last:

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afghanistan-deutscher-kommt-mit-spd-parteibuch-durch-taliban-kontrolle-a-2dd804cb-9330-4f74-94c2-1612bac6db0e

A German citizen of Afghan descent sucessfully bluffed his way through Taliban checkpoints at the Kabul airport by passing off his SPD membership book as a passport.

[Mr. Morden]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/at-the-pentagon-us-military-officials-bitter-as-they-watch-chaos-in-kabul/ar-AANouoi

Biden decided in mid-April that all US troops must be out of Afghanistan by September 11, though he later moved that date up to August 21.
.
.
.
As soon as Biden announced the withdrawal, the Pentagon said it was making preparations for a mass evacuation.

But by mid-June the administration still did not consider an evacuation necessary and favored the granting of special visas -- a process that can take up to two years. 

It was only at the end of June that the White House raised the possibility of evacuating the Afghan interpreters before the end of the military withdrawal, and asked for the Pentagon's help.

More on this fiasco here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/17/biden-afghan-evacuation-505590

And in late July, two weeks before the Taliban captured their first provincial capital, a coalition of groups that work with special visa applicants wrote multiple emails to the State Department’s Afghanistan Task Force offering their assistance. Those emails were never returned.

These instances, detailed to POLITICO by five U.S. officials and people familiar with the situation, are indicative of how the administration wasted precious time and failed to prepare to evacuate thousands in danger as the Taliban plotted their comeback. Flaws in the planning and execution of the withdrawal have led to wrenching scenes of Afghans clinging to U.S. military cargo planes as they race out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where President Joe Biden has dispatched up to 7,000 troops to handle the chaos.
.
.
.
“They were sitting on their hands,” said a congressional aide who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “They only started surging three to four weeks ago.” In fact, it was only on Saturday that the State Department task force approached those same activist organizations and sought their help to fill out a list with names of people needing relocation.

[President Johnson]

A bit of a fun story from Afghanistan at last:

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afghanistan-deutscher-kommt-mit-spd-parteibuch-durch-taliban-kontrolle-a-2dd804cb-9330-4f74-94c2-1612bac6db0e

A German citizen of Afghan descent sucessfully bluffed his way through Taliban checkpoints at the Kabul airport by passing off his SPD membership book as a passport.

Fortunately I have such one in my cubboard. Lmao.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/at-the-pentagon-us-military-officials-bitter-as-they-watch-chaos-in-kabul/ar-AANouoi

Biden decided in mid-April that all US troops must be out of Afghanistan by September 11, though he later moved that date up to August 21.
.
.
.
As soon as Biden announced the withdrawal, the Pentagon said it was making preparations for a mass evacuation.

But by mid-June the administration still did not consider an evacuation necessary and favored the granting of special visas -- a process that can take up to two years. 

It was only at the end of June that the White House raised the possibility of evacuating the Afghan interpreters before the end of the military withdrawal, and asked for the Pentagon's help.

More on this fiasco here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/17/biden-afghan-evacuation-505590

And in late July, two weeks before the Taliban captured their first provincial capital, a coalition of groups that work with special visa applicants wrote multiple emails to the State Department’s Afghanistan Task Force offering their assistance. Those emails were never returned.

These instances, detailed to POLITICO by five U.S. officials and people familiar with the situation, are indicative of how the administration wasted precious time and failed to prepare to evacuate thousands in danger as the Taliban plotted their comeback. Flaws in the planning and execution of the withdrawal have led to wrenching scenes of Afghans clinging to U.S. military cargo planes as they race out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where President Joe Biden has dispatched up to 7,000 troops to handle the chaos.
.
.
.
“They were sitting on their hands,” said a congressional aide who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. “They only started surging three to four weeks ago.” In fact, it was only on Saturday that the State Department task force approached those same activist organizations and sought their help to fill out a list with names of people needing relocation.

It was virtually the same story in my own country. Our leaders love the big talk about how valued the Afghan support staff is and how they want them get all out, but at the end of the day they're still just... Afghans.

[Middle-aged Europe]

So much for the "general amnesty" that was declared the day before yesterday. Every assurance the Taliban give is a lie.

Taliban 'carrying out highly organised manhunt'

The Taliban are carrying out a highly-organised door-to-door hunt for people on their wanted list, says the head of the group providing intelligence to the UN.

"What we have seen is that the Taliban, in advance of moving into all major cities in Afghanistan, not just Kabul, is that they have a more advanced intelligence system," Christian Nellemann, of the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses, told the BBC.

"They have lists of individuals and even within the very first hours of moving into Kabul they began a search of former government employees - especially in intelligence services and the special forces units."

He said that, not only could this lead to mass executions, but also a "mass revealing of our methods and the intelligence networks that the West has provided. So this could undermine severely a number of our Western intelligence services."

As we reported earlier, the Norwegian Centre for Global Analyses’ report to the UN also said the Taliban are recruiting new informer networks to collaborate with their regime.

Taliban kill relative of journalist

Taliban militants have shot dead a relative of a journalist they were hunting and seriously injured another.

The militants were carrying out a house-to-house search in the western city of Herat to try to find the journalist from Deutsche Welle, who now works in Germany.

Other relatives managed to escape and are now on the run.

"The killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban in Herat yesterday is inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves," DW's director general, Peter Limbourg said.

It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organised searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time!"

The Taliban have raided the homes of at least three DW journalists in recent weeks.

The news of the killing comes as a UN document said the Taliban are intensifying their hunt for people who worked for and collaborated with Nato and US forces.

Source: BBC

[NOVA Green]

A bit of a fun story from Afghanistan at last:

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afghanistan-deutscher-kommt-mit-spd-parteibuch-durch-taliban-kontrolle-a-2dd804cb-9330-4f74-94c2-1612bac6db0e

A German citizen of Afghan descent sucessfully bluffed his way through Taliban checkpoints at the Kabul airport by passing off his SPD membership book as a passport.

Fortunately I have such one in my cubboard. Lmao.

Hopefully this getting posted in a major German news magazine doesn't prevent others from successfully using such a tactic.

I would imagine in a country with a 57% illiteracy rate there could likely be a black market for official looking documents to make it through various checkpoints for those looking to find a way out.

[NOVA Green]

Meanwhile in Afghanistan (source: BBC liveblog)

National flag-waving Afghans have been seen protesting in several cities on Thursday, which marks the 102nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence and falls at a time of great uncertainty and upheaval for the country.

One clip shared on social media appears to show a crowd in Kabul chanting "our flag, our identity" about the black, red and green tricolour national flag.

The Reuters news agency, citing witnesses, reports that several people may have been killed at a similar protest on Thursday in Asadabad - either by gunfire or in stampedes the firing triggered.

The reports of casualties come a day after several deaths were also reported at flag-related demonstrations in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Videos on social media have shown some protesters appearing to remove and replace Taliban flags in places - pocket displays of defiance against the group's swift rise to power.

Additionally, there were protests in Kabul with folks waving the Afghan National Flag, while meanwhile the Taliban provided security for the Shiite population to celebrate the Ashura Holiday in the City (Possibly to prevent a terrorist atrocity from more hardline Sunni factions?).

The protest in Kabul included one near the Presidential palace, with another demonstration of about (200) broken up by the Taliban shortly after people had begun to assemble.

The Taliban also announced a curfew in the city of Southeastern city of Khost after protests there.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/taliban-kabul-protest/?itid=lk_fullstory

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/19/world/taliban-afghanistan-news

[NOVA Green]

I am seeing reports that Twitter suspended Saleh's account claiming "violation of guidelines"?

Does anybody have an easy way to verify, since I don't necessarily trust the sources at this point?

Doesn't look as if he provided any updated Tweets within the past (17) hours.

[Middle-aged Europe]

German opinion poll on the Afghanistan mission of the German military (2001-21), conducted August 17-18.





Mission was a mistake from the start: 40%
Mission and withdrawal were correct decisions: 10%
Mission was the right thing to do, but should have been continued: 41%

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/Oriana0214/status/1428445114762997765

[Middle-aged Europe]

Afghan authorities have confirmed that a young footballer fell to his death after trying to stow away on a US military plane leaving Kabul airport.

Zaki Anwari, 19, had played for Afghanistan's national youth team.

Further details of when he died have not been disclosed.

Since the Taliban's recapture of Afghanistan, thousands of people have scrambled to Kabul's airport as Western countries rush to evacuate their citizens and Afghan colleagues.

Images emerged on Monday showing hundreds of people running alongside a US air force plane as it moved down a runway. Some people were seen clinging to its side.

Local media reports said that at least two people fell to their deaths after it took off. The US air force has also confirmed that human remains were found in the landing gear of an aircraft after it arrived in Qatar.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58272740

[NOVA Green]

German opinion poll on the Afghanistan mission of the German military (2001-21), conducted August 17-18.





Mission was a mistake from the start: 40%
Mission and withdrawal were correct decisions: 10%
Mission was the right thing to do, but should have been continued: 41%

Wowzers!

Looks like support for the German military engagement in Afghanistan might even have higher level of support than US support for the American engagement in Afghanistan.

Granted the character and scale of both countries military involvement is substantively both quantitatively and qualitatively different, but for many Germans my understanding is that this mission was arguably and effectively the first "True" combat mission since WW II.

I was in Hungary for a week travelling with a friend of mine whose Father was Donauschwaben, along with a French-Vietnamese friend between Christmas and New Years back in '94, visiting some of his Hungarian family members who he had never met until nach dem wende, watching parades of NATO military vehicles on a Highway some 20-25 km weg from the border with Serbia, where debate around what role if any Germany should play in the upcoming conflict was being fiercely debated within Germany.

I also remember how Joschka Fischer, former APO / Sponti leftist activist from the late '60s / early '70s, later to become a more prominent figure within Die Grünen as the Junior partner with Schroeder's SPD GVT, and German Foreign Minister in 1999 supported the NATO bombing campaign in Serbia...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/may/14/greenpolitics

It is strange to see these types of poll numbers in 2021 from Germany and am curious if we have any idea of regional breakdowns, party positions on the former and current German role within Afghanistan.

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/Oriana0214/status/1428445114762997765

Hmm... if true not cool.

I mean, it's not like the US Gvt and US Military are Travel Agencies or Airline Companies, where you have to pay up front and have a ticket to get on the plane in a "for profit" corporate scenario.

Sounds like basically they're saying more like "Here's the cost and we'll collect later" type deal.

I would imagine at some point there will likely be a line item in the budget to cover the cost for those airlifted so nobody has to pay out of pocket, but last thing you want people just trying to get out is to hear is that "You'll have to at some point pay the cost of a last minute one-way ticket".

So let's say hypothetically, the US ends up doing helicopter evacs of US Citizens in remote areas not able to make it to Kabul, would they then have to pay an add-on cost something like what you might have to pay for a Med-Evac bill without insurance if you had to get lifted out of some remote wilderness area in the US to make it to a major regional Hospital after getting in a car wreck???