For many, the attack at Port Shuaiba has receded into memory as the war nears its eighth month. But to those there that day and their families, it showed the cost of a hastily drawn conflict. The planning had apparent flaws, and commanders did not take intelligence reports of the Iranian threat seriously enough, leaving wounded soldiers questioning Army leadership and the military medical system.

In the aftermath, many of the wounded — some with decades of service and combat experience — told The Associated Press that commanders had been warned that the facility, a rectangular building with wooden sides at a working seaport and industrial area south of Kuwait City, was particularly vulnerable to a drone strike.

That warning went unheeded, the soldiers say. Some also said higher-ranking officers pushed for an all-clear to be called, but it’s not certain from their accounts who ultimately made the decision to move soldiers out of a safer space in nearby bunkers. The wounded also would later say their serious injuries were not treated promptly or adequately in the weeks following the attack.

“We have the right to know what really happened,” Marzan’s widow, Tina Marzan, told the AP. “If somebody messed up, those people need to be held responsible.”

In a chaotic battle, clarity is elusive

Battlefield conditions are inherently chaotic and assessments drawn by those involved are often in tension. The AP’s account of the attack is based on interviews with 13 soldiers, primarily officers, serving in key positions of responsibility there or familiar with high-level briefings leading up to the strike.

Along with several Gold Star families — the military’s designation for relatives of a soldier killed while on active duty — many are raising their concerns publicly for the first time and calling for the Army to reconcile what they say are failures of preparedness.

Several soldiers spoke on the record, which is rare for troops still in the Army. Others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Some details of the attack have been reported by other news organizations, including The Washington Post and CBS News, but the AP is reporting other details for the first time.

In the early days of the war, Trump described it as a “little excursion” that would end quickly but now has no off-ramp in sight. The toll can be measured in 19 U.S. personnel killed, more than 800 wounded and at least $44 billion spent to wage the fight.

The Army declined to comment on the AP’s reporting on the Port Shuaiba strike, saying it had not yet briefed the families of those killed on the outcome of its investigation into the attack. The Pentagon also declined to comment.

“Out of respect for the primary next of kin who will be scheduled for briefs on the official findings of the completed investigation, we will not comment on specific details, individual accounts, or leaked portions of the report at this time,” the Army said in a statement.

The Army completed its investigation of the Port Shuaiba attack in June but has yet to release a report, citing the need to redact sensitive information, said an official familiar with the Army’s investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been released.

Commanding officers followed a familiar playbook

The story of the attack really begins in June 2025, when the U.S. bombed three nuclear sites in Iran. In anticipation of a counterstrike on U.S. troops in Kuwait, military planners relocated soldiers to Port Shuaiba, which the Army used for decades on the belief it was safer.

In the lead-up to the war in February, that was the same playbook followed by Major Gen. John Hinson, the two-star general overseeing logistics for U.S. Central Command in the Middle East, and Brig. Gen. Clint Barnes, who led the 103rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, an Iowa-based Army Reserve unit serving a nine-month deployment in Kuwait under Hinson’s command. All six soldiers who died, and many of the dozens wounded, were from the 103rd.

Hinson and Barnes chose not to deviate from the plan despite knowing that the port lacked defenses against drones and was seen as increasingly likely to be attacked, according to five officers and an enlisted soldier familiar with the U.S. intelligence and threat assessments. The generals were following orders made at U.S. Army Central, which oversees Army units in the Middle East, and Central Command to leave the nearby Army base, Camp Arifjan.

Hinson declined to comment on the record for this story. Barnes did not respond to text messages and telephone calls.

Even before the attack, the threat of a drone strike was well known. But the command team rejected proposals to move the entire logistics headquarters to other sites identified as safer locations outside Kuwait, farther away from Iran, according to Major Billy Key, an operations planner working for Barnes who has served in the Army for more than 20 years. Another officer confirmed the alternate plans were scuttled. The port was about 65 miles (104 kilometers) from the Iranian border.

“Kuwait was just too close, that’s the bottom line,” Key said. “Kuwait was in striking distance of low-flying drones.”

Senior leadership believed that a core group of the more than 200 soldiers who had been handling logistics at Camp Arifjan needed to remain in Kuwait. Two senior officers, including Lt. Col. Tim Halbur, told the AP that there were communications advantages to being there, so a small crew of about 75 soldiers was sent to the port to set up a temporary field headquarters for logistics in the region. Dozens of troops from other units were also present.

One enlisted soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the command team is facing unfair criticism for hard decisions to balance its ability to carry out a crucial logistics mission with the inherent risks of war.

But six officers told the AP that the logistics headquarters’ jobs could have been done from a safer site outside Kuwait, so long as they had access to a secure communications network.

“We did our work on a computer,” Key told the AP. “We could have been anywhere.”

During meetings, officers overseeing protection told Hinson and Barnes, among others, that Port Shuaiba would not be safe for troops due to the lack of air protection against drones, according to five soldiers who were present: Key, Maj. Stephen Ramsbottom and three others familiar with high-level briefings who insisted on anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

They said the generals were more focused on defending against missiles and were not prepared for drone warfare. “This type of fight has been going on for five years in Ukraine, and our excuse is we didn’t expect it to happen to us,” Ramsbottom said. “That’s preposterous in my mind.”

While the three major U.S. military bases in Kuwait had bolstered air protection heading into the war, the only U.S. air support for Port Shuaiba came from a Patriot anti-missile system in the vicinity of Camp Arifjan that was ill-equipped for shooting down Iranian drones.

While the system is capable of detecting the small aircraft, large numbers of drones are able to quickly deplete a battery, and the Patriot missiles cost vastly more than the drones. Using the system to down drones also then leaves the area vulnerable to far more deadly missile attacks.

Neither Hinson nor Barnes was empowered to change anti-air or drone defenses at the site.

“There was nothing that was going to intercept a threat coming at us other than ballistic missiles,” Ramsbottom said.

Just days before the relocation to the port in late February, a group of intelligence officers pressed Hinson and Barnes to not go there. Hinson asked whether Port Shuaiba was on a list of planned Iranian targets that had been obtained by U.S. intelligence before Operation Epic Fury and was told that it was not on the list but was considered a likely secondary target, according to two officers familiar with the meeting.

The officers said Hinson still made the call to go.

Lt. Gen. Patrick Frank, then leading Army Central, signed off on the plan to move to Port Shuaiba when Hinson briefed him, Halbur and another senior officer said.

“Obviously, somewhere at the two-star, three-star level, they knew the intelligence reports,” Halbur said. “We were just told, like, ‘Hey, yeah, we’ll be fine there.’”

One officer who was involved in logistics and was wounded in the attack said staying at the Kuwaiti port seemed appropriate. Lt. Col. Arturo Lincón of the Defense Logistics Agency said Port Shuaiba had existing infrastructure for secure communications that could accommodate their unit and Jordan, where U.S. military operations also are based and many soldiers were being relocated, was already getting crowded.

Captain was concerned about port’s safety the morning of the attack

At the start of the war, missiles from all sides lit up the screen inside the command post at the port. Soldiers rushed in and out of bunkers. They could feel booms shake the ground.

That night, at least five quadcopter drones hovered over the port and appeared to be surveilling the U.S. military site, according to Key, who said one was only about 40 feet (12 meters) above him. He said he told senior officers what he saw, and it was passed up the chain. “That was the last I heard about it,” he added. Intelligence briefings had warned that quadcopter drones were a sign of impending strikes.

The next morning, March 1, Capt. Cody Khork, who oversaw safety for the unit and had strongly advised against going to the port, confided to Ramsbottom that he felt they should not leave their bunker because of the barrage of missiles and drones coming in, according to Ramsbottom. Both Khork and Ramsbottom were concerned that the radar being used to issue all-clears was not picking up low-flying drones.

“We knew we were not safe,” said Ramsbottom, who would end up with a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his head and a traumatic brain injury. “No one knew the drone situation.”

In the hours before the deadly strike, higher-ranking officers pushed Khork to get troops cleared to leave the bunkers, said Ramsbottom, who was with Khork in the bunker. The team was under tremendous pressure to carry out its mission, which included tracking munitions levels and fuel across the region, and that could not be done from inside the bunker.

It remains unclear who ultimately made the decision to leave the bunkers, which were within several hundred feet of the operations center. Around 10 a.m., about 20 minutes after the final all-clear was issued, an Iranian drone smashed through the operation center’s roof.

Ramsbottom and Key recalled the drone struck seconds after Khork passed by them and said “good morning.” Key was blasted into a metal cabinet and knocked unconscious. When he awoke, his ears were ringing and he stumbled through the rubble, coming across Khork’s lifeless body. A group of soldiers helped take Khork’s body from the wreckage to ensure he could be buried with dignity.

Key later recounted the scene to Khork’s parents at his funeral in Florida several weeks later, telling them their son appeared to die instantly.

“I would have wanted someone to tell my family that if it were me,” Key said. “I felt compelled to tell them exactly what happened.”

Lincón, a West Point graduate, remained conscious but was severely wounded by shrapnel and briefly lost his eyesight. Another wounded soldier bandaged him and got him out of the burning building.

“Had it not been for those brave souls, there would have been a lot more, including myself, who probably (would have) burned there in place,” Lincón said.

Hinson and Barnes also suffered traumatic brain injuries from the blast, and Hinson’s hand was hit with shrapnel.

Planning was limited for a mass casualty event

The soldiers based at Port Shuaiba headed into war without having implemented a broad-based plan for a mass casualty event, seven soldiers, including senior officers stationed there, told the AP. Soldiers who still had their phones intact used Google to locate the nearest medical facilities. Some among the wounded would later say their serious injuries were not treated promptly or adequately in the weeks after the strike.

A medical service officer had prepared an evacuation plan that would have included setting up collection points for transporting wounded soldiers, but she was among the group sent to Jordan, and her plan was never briefed and put into place. She declined to comment.

“I’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve been in combat operations before. I know what right looks like, and this was not right by any means,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jonathan Tenbrink, who has spent 35 years in the U.S. military and was wounded by shrapnel in his forehead, face, neck, shoulders and right arm.

Relocating to Port Shuaiba, some soldiers acknowledged there was also a false sense of security.

“It was the farthest thing from my mind that we would get hit there,” said Lincón, who had deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times in his 27-year Army career.
A hospital sent wounded soldiers to barracks rather than inpatient care

Even for survivors, there was peril ahead.

Halbur had been among a group of about nine soldiers medically evacuated, and he was having surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland within a week, describing his care there as “excellent.” He said he was told by visiting top Army leadership that the Port Shuaiba soldiers were “the guinea pigs” for the medical system as Operation Epic Fury commenced.

But other wounded soldiers, including those with serious head injuries and shrapnel wounds, had vastly different experiences of delayed care after the attack.

One group, some of whom were treated at a Kuwaiti hospital for about 48 hours, holed up in residential homes in Kuwait for another week as Iran unleashed missiles and drones that made it risky for evacuation flights. Soldiers finally boarded a cargo plane flown to Germany.

There, they say, they were not admitted to inpatient care at the military’s main medical hub, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, but were sent to Army barracks because they had not been documented as combat-injured troops. About a week later they were placed into demobilization at Fort Hood in Texas, a process not focused on providing medical care.

A Pentagon official told the AP that Landstuhl’s mission is to stabilize patients to transfer them for specialized care at a military hospital in the U.S., rather than admit them. In a statement, the Pentagon said that all wounded troops who arrive at its medical facilities are evaluated and may be admitted based on the severity of the injury.
Families of the fallen received a briefing

In early July, Gold Star families received a briefing from Frank, who had just ended his rotation as head of Army Central Command, providing a broad overview of the investigation’s findings. Tina Marzan said there was no admission of error.

Frank did not say anything about Port Shuaiba’s vulnerabilities, only that soldiers were moved around because attacks on other bases were expected, according to Marzan. Frank also told her that there was proper medical treatment available to those at Port Shuaiba, she said.

“Whatever happened unfortunately does not bring my husband back,” Marzan said.

One senior officer filed a complaint against Barnes and Hinson to the Army’s inspector general. But in a July 20 letter reviewed by the AP, the watchdog concluded that Barnes had not engaged in misconduct or “ignored reliable intelligence” in this complaint based on “the limited evidence” provided by the officer.

The agency also noted this complaint against Hinson was withdrawn, which the officer disputed to the AP. The officer told the AP he relayed his conversations with Barnes discussing intelligence briefings but told investigators he had not directly interacted with Hinson.

A wounded soldier can no longer salute

Halbur, a father of two from Ankeny, Iowa, had been deployed as an Army reservist seven months earlier, hardly expecting to be on the front lines of a full-blown conflict.

He had served for nearly 30 years, but today he can no longer salute. His dominant right arm will likely never be able to bend past 90 degrees again after the blast shattered his forearm in four places, including his elbow.

“I can’t squeeze both arms around my kids because my one arm won’t allow me to do that anymore,” Halbur said. “I want to coach my son’s football team, but at the same time, I can’t show them how to throw a football.”

He says that his children, age 7 and 8, are coming to learn that “dad’s never going to be the same.”

He wears the names of the six soldiers who died at Port Shuaiba engraved in a metal wristband: Maj. Cody Khork, 35, an easygoing history buff; Master Sgt. Noah L. Tietjens, 42, a passionate martial arts instructor; Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, a father of three who loved playing the saxophone; Master Sgt. Nicole M. Amor, a 39-year-old mother of two with a knack for sarcasm; 20-year-old Sgt. Declan J. Coady, an avid outdoorsman and Eagle Scout; and Marzan, 54, a mentor to many younger soldiers. Khork, Tietjens, Amor and Coady received posthumous promotions.

Halbur said that he looks at the wristband whenever he feels depressed by his arm’s limitations.

“I know that there are six families who would give that up in a heartbeat,” he said. “So that always kind of gives me a little more motivation to not be so glum about the things that I can’t do in my future. I’m still here.”
___

Blah blah blah no one cares shitlib
The lives of American servicemen are like the national debt.
They only matter when a Democrat is in the White House.

>>1541322
Can anyone here translate this chudspeak?

>>1541303
we need to send more conscripted democrats onto the frontlines why risk real human beings when you can use terrorists instead

>>1541431
Democrat TRANNY here. My HRT is MAKING me VIOLENT and I'm having thoughts DARK thoughts.
Send me to the front. I'll EAT all the anti-LGBTQ tranpsphobes in Iran. I'll gorge myself on their FLESH until they change the country's name to Weran.

>>1541328
Politicians only care about the lives of soldiers so long as its politically convenient.
Soldiers dying in the Iran war is Trump's fault only until Dems get back into the office. Then they will send them to die for Israel/Ukraine to 'protect' """"democracy""""'

>>1541459
A Democrat hasn't started a war since Clinton. However, Obama ended Bush's Iraq war and Biden ended Bush's Afghan war.

>>1541460
What war are you pretending Clinton started?

>>1541460
>A Democrat hasn't started a war since Clinton.
They're still willing to throw away the lives of American soldiers to protect our """allies""" anon.

>>1541461
Kosovo and Somalia.

>>1541463
That's usually how military alliances work, Anon.

>>1541460
Obama bombed the fuck out of Libya.

>>1541460
>and Biden ended Bush's Afghan war.
1) I thought that Trump ended that war. Isn't that the leftwing talking point that he ended it without including the Afghan government? And that Biden was forced to follow the plan to leave (which he didn't)?
2) Biden royally fucked up a simple pull-out and got 13 soldiers killed by the ISIS bomber that HE let out of prison. Trump's plan to leave was to consolidate and evac out of Bagram by May 1st... A military base that's not in the middle of a fucking city, in a defensible location (I've been there), with two runways and the only airbase in the entire fucking country that can land C-5 galaxies. Biden ignored that plan, ignored Afghanistan completely until April, ordered the troop numbers to be reduced to 650 (from 2,500), then ordered every base to be abandoned and for everyone to consolidate at Kabul in July - because it was more fucking important to guard the embassy and maintain appearances than it was to have a bloodless evacuation, without telling our allies or the afghan government, then surged 6,000 troops into Kabul to help with the evac when Kabul fell to the Taliban, then had 13 soldiers get blown up by the ISIS bomber that escaped from the parwan detention facility in Bagram (which we abandoned), then drone-striked a bunch of civilians in 'retaliation', then snubbed the families of those 13 soldiers and fucked everyone who was wounded.

Yeah tell me more how Biden ended Bush's Afghan war.

>>1541464
So who actually was the last Democrat to start a war, LBJ?

>>1541468
Naah Italy and France bombed the fuck out of Libya, and that was a civil war there after quaddafi's death in the first place. At the time Obama got criticized by Republicans for saying we were "leading from behind". They wanted him to do more.

>>1541470
>tell me more how Biden ended Bush's Afghan war
Ok
https://abcnews.com/Politics/biden-afghanistan-withdrawal-time-end-americas-longest-war/story?id=77066766

>>1541473
>Naah Italy and France bombed the fuck out of Libya.
No, it was a US lead operation with USAF flying about 9,000 sorties.

>>1541474
>Trump negotiated a US exit that was slow and staged with total buy-in from the Taliban
>Biden breaks the deal because he wants to get out before 9/11
>Turns it into a total fiasco that gets 11 Marines killed for no real reason

>>1541471
I guess if you count the Gulf of Tonkin attack as false flag then he started it. It's debatable whether the North Vietnamese started it first.

>>1541475
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unified_Protector
>The operation began with a naval arms embargo, while command of the no-fly zone and the air strikes against Libyan Armed Forces remained under command of the international coalition, led by France, the United Kingdom and the United States, due to lack of consensus between NATO members

>>1541476
>>Trump negotiated
Nah he didn't.

>>1541480
>Denying basic reality now

>>1541477
If its not LBJ then its FDR. but I don't think anyone outside of Nazis are going to complain he got America into that one.

>>1541479
>and the United States, due to lack of consensus between NATO members
Read shit before you post it.

>>1541476
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFgmickTRCc
>President Joe Biden says he will withdraw remaining U.S. troops from the "forever war” in Afghanistan, declaring that the Sept. 11 terror attacks of 20 years ago cannot justify American forces still dying in the nation's longest war. (April 14)

>>1541474
Okay, and? Is there anything in this article that refutes what I just said?

>>1541483
The US didn't lead anything in the Libyan Civil War, Anon, you're confused.

>>1541485
Mostly that it says that Biden ended the war, which is the opposite of what you said.

>>1541487
By getting people killed, not following the timeline agreed upon, which forced him to leave earlier than he said he would, in a chaotic mess that got people killed - who didn't need to die, we had ZERO KIAs after the ceasefire - and an embarrassment of an evac that reminded people of Saigon.

Oh and speaking of your article, I love this part:
>"This isn’t President Trump waking up one morning and announcing some random withdrawal with generals scrambling," Schumer said Wednesday. "This will be carefully thought out."

Fun fact: Trump tried to pull out of Afghanistan twice, in 2018 and Jan 2021 before Biden would've taken office. Both times General Milley stopped him, because he wanted to keep Bagram and never pull out of Afghanistan.

But hey at least we got a "carefully thought out" plan to leave!

>>1541487
Its a weird path for the shill because Trump made all the important agreements in ending the war - giving Afghanistan back to the taliban by releasing all their troops for no reason and no gain, and setting an unrealistic date for Biden to leave that the newly released Taliban could exploit. But on the other hand, Biden actually did the work and ended the war.

>>1541489
What date did we end up pulling out and who was the President when that happened?

>>1541492
How many people died in combat after Trump signed the agreement? Zero. How many people died in combat when Biden took over? 13... by the ISIS bomber he let out when he abandoned Bagram and didn't tell anyone.

So congratulations, Biden pulled us out of Bagram in the most inept way imaginable. A fucking high school student could've done a better job planning that.

>>1541484
Trump signed the Doha agreement which set the deadline for US withdrawal as May 1st, 2021.
On 8 July 2021, President Biden announced that the official conclusion to the war in Afghanistan would be on 31 August 2021.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/8/mission-accomplished-us-speeds-afghanistan-withdrawal
>Biden delayed the May 1 withdrawal date that he inherited. But ultimately his administration pushed ahead with a plan to withdraw by Aug. 31
If he left on May 1st he would have been honoring the Doha Agreement, but he broke that agreement by delaying the withdrawal an additional 122 days

>>1541494
Biden pulled us out of *Afghanistan in the most inept way imaginable.

>>1541496
No, that still belongs to Trump releasing all the Taliban prisoners for nothing and giving the country back to terrorists

Remember when he brought them to America and agreed to everything they wanted? I can't wait until we have a president who doesn't bend over and sell out this country every day again

>>1541497
>No, that still belongs to Trump releasing all the Taliban prisoners for nothing
The Taliban prisoners that DIDN'T attack us? In fact, do you know if they were among the other Taliban that were helping the US evac by doing crowd control and keeping people from overwhelming the airfield?

Because that's how fucking incompetent Biden was. He had to rely on our enemies of 20 years to leave.

Also
>Biden ended Bush's war!
>No wait, It was Trump who gave the country back to terrorists!
Which is it?

>>1541497
Biden's withdrawal was a failure.
https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/fall-of-saigon/
Biden had his own Fall of Saigon moment
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-august16-2021-1.6142098

lmao, Trump invited America's enemies to the US, gave them the red carpet treatment, and gave them a country.
You'll never stop coping over how shitty of a President he's been

>>1541503
It's like how they blame Biden for Covid and try to memoryhole Trump being the president when it happened.

>>1541503
He's been great
>>1541504
What goes around comes around. The problem is I don't have billionaire media backing to tell the tale of how Biden mismanged COVID and why Democrats are foul and disgusting party.

>>1541505
>What goes around comes around.
Except for the fact that it's mostly in your head, sure.

>>1541509
You have deliberately been deafening your ears to people who compare Trump's acts to the prior administration. Like whenever someone brings up the number of files released by the guy you voted for vs the number of epstein files released by the guy I voted for.

>>1541512
you're literally not american

>>1541513
Why would comparing Trump to Biden be a Russian tactic?
Wouldn't it be a Republican tactic?
Why do you always assume people who are right of center aren't american?

>>1541514
gee, I dunno esl shill

>>1541515
Nobody knows why you use that nickname besides you

>>1541516
nah, I know its because you're a retarded shill who can't speak english
I don't know why they're using it

>>1541517
He calls everyone who disagrees with him esl shill, and then says you are talking to yourself if multiple people disagree with him
It's like he's turned everyone here into one boogieman

>>1541470
trump surrendered to the Taliban and sold out the Bush afgan government which is why instantly dissolved the second the Taliban applied the slightest bit of pressure.

>>1541512
>whenever someone brings up the number of files released by the guy you voted for vs the number of epstein files released by the guy I voted for.
Except no one does that but MAGA shills and Russian plants. Most people already know the case was still open until after Trump was president. Also you don't vote due to not being American.

>>1541519
And keeps getting banned for trolling/spamming.
Imagine not even being able to live up to 4chan's, insanely low, standards.

Haven't been around much today, has esl shill threatened to rape and murder anyone's entire family like he tends to do?

Late to the thread, has the liggeral posted footage from that charlottesville rally that was going to prove everyone there was a neo-nazi white supremacist?

>>1541525
>>1541526
Now kiss

>>1541526
Not him but who do you think the Charlottesville rally was for?

>>1541529
I think it is consolidating multiple events over a period of time with a single event
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/charlottesville-kkk-rally-confederate-statue-racism
‘Heritage, not hate’

While the KKK members in their garish regalia were greatly outnumbered, some white residents in the crowd agreed with the Klan that the statue of the Confederate general should remain in the park, and expressed frustration with the current way their children and grandchildren were being taught about the civil war.

“If you don’t like it, don’t look at it,” Printz, who lives in nearby Culpepper, said of the Lee statue, which he called “part of history” and a “war memorial”.

“The history that I was taught in school is nothing like the history the kids are being taught today,” said Joann McCracken, 52.

Printz and McCracken both said they were frustrated by the way that schools now taught children about the civil war with an emphasis on the Confederacy’s white supremacist ideology and its fight to preserve slavery. Printz, who attended a segregated high school, said the civil war was not primarily about slavery.
McCracken and her daughter Lauren Lloyd said they were not happy to have the “scary” Ku Klux Klan in town, and that they were glad that the town had publicly organized against the racists. At the same time, she said, she also opposed removing Lee’s statue from the park.

“If they want to get rid of it, I’d be glad to take it to my house and put it in my yard,” McCracken said. “It’s heritage, not hate.”

She added: “That statue has been here for years and years and years. Why worry about it now?

“You can’t change the past, and fussing about it is just going to ruin the future for kids.”

Printz, who said his ancestors fought for the Confederacy but did not own slaves, suggested constructing a building around the Lee statue, so you could go inside and look at it if you wanted to, or walk by if you did not. “That would kind of serve everybody,”

>>1541530
The 'Unite the Right' rally with the tiki torch guys chanting 'Jews will not replace us' is what everyone remembers, besides the guy who plowed through the crowd of counter protesters in his car.

>>1541532
I wonder why the media reduced a complex string of events into a simplified narrative where thought terminating cliches can tell you who is the good guy and who is the bad guy with any shades of gray or nuance eliminated

>>1541520
Quotes from President Ghani (before he fled):

Ashraf Ghani:

>As far as the state of war is concerned, we're ready. We have been ready for months. The U.S. withdrawal is a strategic decision that clarifies a lot of things. The war will become simpler, because their -- all their allegations of international conspiracy or international desire to stay permanently, et cetera, has now come to an end. We need to work together.

>DER SPIEGEL: Mr. President, the United States made peace with the Taliban without involving your government, and now it is pulling out of Afghanistan. Do you feel betrayed?

>Ghani: Where is the betrayal? The Biden administration has made a strategic decision. They have assessed and defined their interests. I respect that. Any expression of anger, resentment or disappointment would not be productive. I myself have never opposed a U.S. withdrawal – nor do I waste my time on regrets. The question now is where our common interests lie in the future and how we will reshape our partnership with the U.S.

>“Since then, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) have protected and upheld the republic and made it possible for the country to carry out two national elections. Today, our government and our security forces are on a much stronger footing than we were seven years ago, and we are fully prepared to continue serving and defending our people after American troops depart,” he wrote.

>If the Taliban choose the latter path, the ANDSF will fight them. And if the Taliban still refuse to negotiate, they will be choosing the peace of the grave, he says.

>“Our security is not the responsibility of the United States. It’s our own responsibility,” he said. “We need to be able to secure our future.”

And there's this. I had to delete some stuff cuz post limit:
https://www.npr.org/2017/09/21/552530548/afghan-president-is-in-favor-of-trumps-strategy-to-end-the-war