The news is so full of lies and mistakes it is hard to sort out what is real and what is not. Sitting behind your keyboard at home and just reading what news is commonly available, you can only deal in probabilities and you’ll never really know if you are right. But you can observe the behavior of the actors and adjust your thinking as you get new information.

In reply to your post, I’ll say I stand by my feeling that it was not a false flag attack. That sort of thing takes an effort to plan and execute, with the goal being to generate a reason to start a war, distract the public, generate sympathy, or something like that. But this attack didn’t seem to me to be aimed at any of those things. It was just someone who had it in for Taliban, the Americans or American collaborators, or maybe all three. It was an easy target and an unusual opportunity, and they took it.

I hadn’t heard about ISIS-K until now, either. What I’m suggesting is that the Biden admin was intent on leaving Afghanistan, but the war hawks were going to try and use the airport bombing as a reason to stay. So they quickly blamed it on ISIS-K, dropped a couple of bombs somewhere, and claimed victory so they could get out without more delay. I don’t know if I am right, it is just my read on their behavior.

You don’t seem to believe that the soldiers shooting into the crowd was panic. I’m not disputing that they fired into the crowd — they probably did — but the soldiers were either panicked and confused, or they were not. Do you really think that when that bomb went off some American officer gave an order to fire on the crowd just for kicks? Of course not. The simplest explanation is panic and confusion.

And that’s just the thing. Tense and chaotic situations in wartime often lead to violent and deadly outcomes. Violent and unpredictable events happen, and nobody is in control of jack shit when it does. The only way to avoid these situations is to stay out of wars.