sorry to hear it
i lost some friends in the early 2000s, and it still hurts
some think the colossal obscene tragic failure was justified because taliban = bad and this also absolves us from any culpability, reparations or future engagement, a metric they hypocritically don't apply to any other regimes, at least, those willing to buy british goods, or their own government who invades countries and kills thousands of civilian on pretexts exposed as invented. As stephen fry pointed out in the video recently posted, a lack of understanding of the complexities of moral relativism and simplistic perspective is something they share with the fundamentalist people they've demonised, and helped allow this highly predictable failure to go ahead
As to the plane, I saw a pic this morning and to my visual estimation was well short of 800, so you were spot on with your assessment of its packing limitations
(
cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 17 Aug 2021, 3:48,
Reply)
sorry to hear it from you too...
I quite agree. I'd add how the only folk who really know the pointlessness of it - and learn from it, are the normal folk at the sharp end. It's only positive is for supportive politicians and shareholders of the like of Halliburton.
The Grauniad pegs it at 640. See: www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/afghanistan-striking-image-appears-to-show-640-people-fleeing-kabul-in-packed-us-military-plane
(, Tue 17 Aug 2021, 11:16, Reply)