warning the united states gave advising americans in afghanistan to avoid traveling to kabul airport. as we ve seen from the pictures, there s still thousands of people outside the perimeter of the airport trying to get in, and based on courtney s reporting it s unclear who would be amongst them making the situation even more dangerous than it is now. john kirby, the pentagon spokesman, said that the mission still remains the same. let s take a listen to what he had to say and we can talk after that. the mission hasn t changed. the mission of the united states military in kabul is to secure that airport, keep it secure, conduct, manage and lead air operations so that we can continue to move people out. that s the focus of the military. reporter: what s interesting, alex, was that the other day after president biden s speech we learned that 169 americans were evacuated from a hotel
in the best interest of people. one other not related to this, there are reports that the afghan military and maybe some others who are rising up against the taliban, particularly some in the north, and i m wondering if there s been any request for u.s. military airstrikes to start them, and if so, is that the kind of thing the u.s. military would engage in? i don t want to anticipate or talk about the future. as you know, no current requests for that have come in, but we continue to maintain the current capability that we ve had on the ground and in the air since we began operations. the only thing i would add is the mission hasn t changed. the mission of the united states military in kabul is to secure that airport, keep it secure, conduct, manage and lead air operations so that we can continue to move people out. that s the focus of the military mission. a week ago there was a mission to support, and still to support the afghan military with air strikes. and that was suppose
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continue to have some influence. we got that sort of in the beginning, maybe, let s see. we saw how it works. the answer is it didn t. the beast is growing. look what happened in oklahoma. oklahoma! look what s happening in texas. the beast is growing. the beast is not satisfied with just that premise. the beast wants more. and i, to this point, don t know where the beast is going. it s unheard of that an abbott would be challenged from the right, that a langford would be castigated by a party chairman. these things i m seeing are just unheard of. we spent a segment debating the progressives and pragmatists in the democratic party. there should be a debate. there s not a debate on the republican side. he brought up greg abbott. yet, he s the moderate now compared to alan west. we ve really moved this. he s hardly a moderate. look what he s doing in texas.
he called time on other allies saying they need to step up and condemn these attacks. the international community has a responsibility to protect the global economy and international rules and norms. this announcement though came with a disclaimer. esper reiterating that the u.s. doesn t want more and never has. this afternoon the president complained he s making progress on his compliment to bring 5,000 home from afghanistan. we re slowly reducing in afghanistan as people know. we ve been very effective. he s keeping a whole range of options in his back pocket. if we wanted to do a certain method of war, we would win that quickly. many, many tens of millions of people would be killed. a pentagon spokesperson said the mission hasn t changed. he said troop levels have decreased. the department of defense has