Shocking images of US military dogs seated on aircraft intended to evacuate Afghans are making rounds of the internet. Amid the collapse of Afghanistan’s government and the subsequent take over of the Taliban, residents have desperately been trying everything to escape the nation. People were seen flooding runways and running towards departed planes just to get themselves somewhere safer.
Chilling videos captured the moment when residents held onto planes even as they took off, ultimately falling to their deaths. Yet another tragic image showed 640 people squeezing themselves onto a cargo jet which is designed to hold just 150 in a bid to escape Taliban rule. With all this happening, it was surprising to see how the previous seats on an airplane were reserved for American canines who were leaving the country with their owners.
Images showing dogs comfortably seated on the plane as hundreds of desperate citizens of Afgan descended upon Kabul Airport reportedly broke the internet.
The latest images left social media furious as they criticized the American passengers for not using the seats to get more Afghan staff and their families out of the country. They pointed at the heartbreaking footage of the residents’ desperate attempts to leave and how many lost their lives in the process.
“The US military has managed to evacuate their Service dogs in Afghanistan. They all got seats in the plane, but innocent Afghanis hang onto the tyres of the same plane and fell thousands of feet to their deaths. Let that sink in!” shared one Twitter user. “US military dogs evacuated ahead of human collaborators. Good idea to avoid collaborating with the US occupation forces unless you’re a dog,” wrote another.
A third chimed in, “The evacuation of US military dogs from the Kabul airport is more important than the Afghans who worked with the US military.” However, there were others who noted that the dogs “are military personnel and are treated as such. They are booked on flights & allocated seating (when available). This is STANDARD procedure. It does NOT mean dogs are being put before people.” As countries like the U.K., Australia, the US, and other allied nations continue their evacuation efforts, Biden continues to face intense criticism for withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan and for his response to the crisis in Afghanistan.
While Biden defended the decision to exit its soldiers from the fallen nation, he admitted that it was a “messy” pullout. “If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” said Biden. “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”
