Pen Farthing - Afghan Animal Rescue

You've made your bias clear too. I'm not sure what that's really supposed to mean on a forum though. I'd formed an opinion before I first posted on here about it, as I'm sure you had when you replied... isn't that how it usually works?

Luckily, unlike Pen, I won't threaten to destroy you and invoke my Internet troll army to harass you if you won't come around to my point of view

 

Luckily, unlike Pen, you're not in a position where your personal safety, the safety of people you are responsible for or the safety of animals you've assumed responsibility for are at risk.

It's all well and good taking pot shots from the comfort of our La-Z-Boys, but you can hardly blame anyone for turning whatever dials they can when in a high-stress situation as bad as Kabul. He's quite clearly desperate.

 

It was clearas soon as Clive posted that this was part of a major Tory smear.
Anyway, I'm hearing he did bring a few Afghans out with him, along with many other species of hound.

 

Quisling Clive, the Tory 5th columnist?

 

I love animals but I'd happily drive this bunch to the knackers yard myself just to piss off this narcissistic terd.

Anyone called Paul who calls themself pen is a *****, there's no doubt about that.

In fact, most people called Paul are a ***** full stop.

 

Report: White House Declined Taliban Offer to Have U.S. Troops Control Kabul During Evacuation | Dan Bongino

If this is true it's beyond belief

 

The first clue that something is probably ******** is Dan Bongino is the source. He has no credibility whatsoever, in the realm of Alex Jones.

 

I get that and had thought about it. But for me it doesn’t absolve him of responsibility or the need to act responsibly. Especially given his background. Too many desperate people these days seem to think going loud, being abusive and threatening to tell everyone will mean they get their way. It’s bullying and a poison slowly destroying public discourse and the ability of public services to function in this country.

It’s also worth pointing out he followed through on his threat, insomuch as via Dominic Dyer and the Narwaz vet based in the UK the social media campaign kicked off against the man they blamed for their issues soon after that call. That obviously required some slow time coordination beyond a heat of the moment thing. And it wasn’t a gentle hippyish thing - a fair few people tweeting about it once the main people kicked it off were seeking out the home address of the man they named, for example.

 

No I don't.

Interestingly "Pen" is getting quite a bit of flak on ARRSE not for his animals taking up valuable space that 'could' have been used for humans but the valuable time (a very finite resource in Kabul) the various support aircrew and loadmasters should have been using dealing with humans - not literal strays.

 

Well I can only report on what the various service personnel (ex- and serving, many of whom have spent time in AFG) are saying.

Just how do you think those animals got on to the plane? Farthing turned into Dr Doolittle / the Pied Piper and they calmly left their cages (left for 24 hrs on a truck outside the airport) charmingly walking in single file and entering and keeping to their allotted spaces in the aircraft's hold?

ARRSE thread on Nowzad.

ARRSE thread on Farthing.

 

The UK airlift finished Saturday night.

The nowzad flight was the last one.

There were no queues of people in the airport waiting for UK flights. Yes there were queues outside the airport, but the TB and US weren't letting them in because Joe Biden changed the rules so that everyone had to have a VISA and passport to get in.

The idea that AF loadmasters were distracted is complete nonsense, they had no other civilians to load, there were no queues, there were no civilians left. UK troops had already started flying home.

Pen himself has said UK and US servicemen off duty came over, asked 'are you that dog guy? How can we help?' and did.

 

What absolute cobblers. You think it would have been as simple as that? The Taliban welcoming the US bringing more force in when they were supposed to be withdrawing?

Get a source for it who isn’t a Fox News prat and then it might be worth a conversation.

 

This bit especially isn't true:

 

... except that its (ARRSE) membership is almost uniformly (ho! ho!) made up of serving and ex- military personnel - many of whom have first hand experience of AFG. I think that that fact differentiates it as better informed than the WFC masiv....

 

But they bought in more troops anyway, 6000 of them. Plus 1000 UK Para.

 

That Netflix series "don't f*** with cats", (which is excellent by the way), springs to mind every time this thread is updated.

 

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/30/britain-dogs-afghan-people-pen-farthing?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a6&usqp=mq331AQIKAGwASCAAgM=#amp_tf=From %1$s&aoh=16303466031613&csi=0&referrer=https://www.google.com&ampshare=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/30/britain-dogs-afghan-people-pen-farthing

I'm not sitting on the fence, I think this whole episode is horrific and should never have happened.

 

It’s like the glory days of the Politics subforum on here! Who would have guessed?

Has Kelso/Cley/HighStHorn been banned again? Would have expected him to have weighed in by now.

 

I don’t think it has the traction that the piece is making out though. The World will judge the West for its bombs and drones and for the corrupt Governments it supports, not because of a fruitloop with pack of dogs.

 

Yes, to secure the airport and complete the evacuation.

 

Slightly unfair. That’s genuinely not my intent. You’ve been (uncharacteristically but perfectly fairly) spiky about this topic ever since I first raised it and that was just a very gentle bomb thrown back. This place would be super dull if it was just a string of ‘this is my opinion, this is your opinion, jolly good show, thread over’. I’d rather you just called me a cynical idiot who’s wrong more than he is right about these sorts of things than accusing me of patronising you, mainly because the former is true.

 

But I’m not wrong on this

 

I thought this was supposed to be lies from the Daily Mail, but now I find that their doppelganger The Guardian is in on the conspiracy.

 

Tomato potato

 

Sorry, but I think telling people they are being ‘patronising’ in a forum dispute is a bit off. You simply don’t agree, that’s all.

 

At the end of the day it boils down to whether you believe in anthropocentrism - the belief that nature exists for humans, we are the only thing that matters, and our rights take priority over other species; or you believe in biocentrism - equal moral consideration.

I am proudly biocentric. Wipe out the bees and watch humanity die. Wipe out plankton and see how long we last. There are many species more important than humans. We survive only because of the 90-odd different bacteria living in our stomachs. It is anthropocentrism which will lead to the destruction of this version of planet earth.

‘People over pets’ is about as conceited, arrogant, ecologically ignorant and delusional as humans can be.

Feel free to disagree, but you won’t change my mind.

 

No worries HH, it's a forum, we're all pretty anonymous and all of us behave differently as we would face to face, (including myself), so I'm really not bothered in the slightest.

 

Totally agree. I would argue that our obsession with anthropomorphism when it comes to our pets and other certain species is equally damaging.

I applaud the fact the these animals that are dependent on humans have been rescued. But they are no more important to biodiversity and the well being of nature (including us) than the literally thousands of species that are lost every year.

We need to value all life, not just us and the fluffy cute animals, because, as you point out, we need them to survive.