L'intelligenza Artificiale ha restituito la sua vera voce ad un attore di Hollywood

 

AI gave Val Kilmer his voice back. But critics worry the technology could be misused.
Dalvin Brown 

“My voice as I knew it was taken away from me. People around me struggle to understand me when I’m talking,” said a voice, immediately recognizable as the actor Val Kilmer, in a video shared on YouTube last week.

© Ryan Miller/Ryan Miller/Invision/AP Actor Val Kilmer poses during the arrivals for the opening night performance of “November” at the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2012, in Los Angeles (Photo by Ryan Miller/Invision/AP)

The Hollywood actor lost his natural voice after a surgery for throat cancer in 2015, shattering his career and permanently altering the way he communicates. That is, until late last year when Sonantic, a UK-based software firm that clones voices for actors and studios, helped Kilmer to speak again.

Even the most widespread artificial voices based on real people, like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, sound fake. But a wave of start-ups are deploying artificially intelligent voice cloning services for digital assistants, video games and movie studios.

The generated voices have gotten more realistic in the age of deepfakes, a technology that uses AI to manipulate content to look and sound deceptively real. This media is so good it is sometimes tough to tell the difference between human voices and their synthetic counterparts.

Five years after Kilmer’s surgery, his representatives contacted Sonantic to digitally restore his lost voice.

“So that’s what we did,” said Zeena Qureshi, CEO and co-founder of Sonantic. “Val’s team wanted to give him his voice back so that he could continue creating.”

The project started in December 2020 after Kilmer finished taping “Val,” a documentary about his Hollywood career and battle with cancer.

Sonantic’s AI technology was not featured in the movie. However, the firm released a clip on YouTube that has more than 18,000 views.

Kilmer’s project comes a month after documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville revealed he used an unidentified voice-cloning software to imitate the late chef Anthony Bourdain in the commercial film “Road Runner.” Neville drew criticism from Ottavia Bourdain, the late actor’s widow, who disputed being approached about re-creating her husband’s voice through AI.

Sonantic would not reveal other actors they are working with. The three-year-old company works primarily with gaming brands, such as Xbox Game Studios’ Obsidian Entertainment and Remedy Games, and often licenses its synthetic voice service to studios, allowing them to edit and direct artificial voices similarly to how directors can influence human actors.

“We like to think of it as Photoshop for voice, where you can go in and touch up little areas,” said John Flynn, the firm’s chief technology officer.

The firm’s audio engineers typically require three hours of audio to re-create a voice within 24 hours. But due to movie licensing restraints, Sonantic had to re-create Kilmer’s voice with fewer than 30 minutes of audio.

The company says that engineers pulled samples from old footage and “cleaned” them to cancel out background noise. They created a script based on the material, linked the audio and text together in “short chunks” and ran the data through their “voice engine” algorithms, which learn to speak by listening to the recordings, said Flynn.

The voice engine derives meaning from the written words and can use these cues to “illustrate intense anger and emotional pain,” according to a statement. In April, Sonantic showed how the audio service can convey couples in the throes of a heated argument. In that demo, two voices have an ordinary conversation that quickly escalates into a shouting match. In real life, the scenario would preserve “actors’ vocal cords” and allow “them to earn passive income,” the company said in a release.

The firm says it created 40 versions of Kilmer’s voice and selected the highest quality option best capturing the actor’s expression. The result is a desktop-based text-to-speech program Sonatic says can mimic Kilmer’s projection levels and emotion.

The voice software can read lines of text aloud, supposedly capturing Kilmer’s former subtleties in speech, expression and tone. Kilmer, beloved for his role as Iceman in “Top Gun,” is free to use the tech however he wants, Sonantic says.

“It’s exclusively his model. He could use it for personal use or professional use if he wants to,” Qureshi said.Nobody can see your eyes when you wear a VR headset. Facebook wants to change that.

As in Kilmer’s case, the technology has possibilities for people who have difficulty speaking or actors needing to rest their vocal cords after long screaming sessions in the studio.

But the technology also sparks legal, ethical, and economic concerns, particularly among voice actors concerned about their livelihood drying up.

Deepfake technology has been used to make videos of politicians such as Donald Trump and Barack Obama, spotlighting the dangers of technology designed to make it appear as if people are saying things they never said.

“When I’m an actor, I get to decide whether I support the content,” said Jay Britton, a voice actor who plays animated characters in Nexflix’s “Go! Go! Cory Carson” and a long list of video games. “It would be a devastating thing to drop on a voice actor, that your voice is out there saying things that you might not necessarily support.”

Sonantic says its product is not meant to replace actors. The firm’s website touts that its product can “reduce production timelines from months to minutes,” promising “compelling, lifelike performances for games and films with fully expressive AI-generated voices,” premises that could cut down on the number of hours human actors are paid to perform in-studio.

There are no laws in the United States prohibiting companies from generating synthetic voices.

There is, however, a legal framework to deter those seeking to cash in on a famous person’s likeness. In a voice theft case from the 1990s, raspy-voice singer Tom Waits sued Dorito Lay for using a sound-a-like voice in an ad and was awarded $2.6 million in damages.Your tech devices want to read your brain. What could go wrong?

“If (companies) go around reproducing voices of recognizable people without permission, they may be violating the right of privacy and subjecting themselves to a lawsuit,” said Peter Raymond, an intellectual property lawyer at Reed Smith LLP in New York City. “If you’re doing it as a parody or an artistic routine, then it’s not a violation. If it’s for commercial benefit, it would be a violation.”

Sonantic’s software garnered praise from Kilmer, who said in a statement that the start-up “masterfully restored my voice in a way I’ve never imagined possible.”

Afghanistan: the fear of women's power

Your editor is an old man of poor culture.

I deeply admire those who, on the basis of deep and substantial intellectual foundations, manage to put their heads out of the pond at every flock of fronds expressing their definitive opinion on fundamental issues.

And so I admire the professional haters who are tearing their clothes off accusing the United States and that "doting" of their president who is managing America's final exit from Afghanistan with great determination.

In this planetary multitude stand out in a particular way the American Republicans who find no better opportunity than to criticize Joe Biden fighting to be impeached and thrown down from the throne he has occupied for eight months.

The sycophants of the former president in their amnesia do not remember or pretend not to remember that this unfortunate war in Afghanistan was started by George W Bush.

Apart from the tears shed in commenting on the tragic photos of the escape from Kabul, many point out a terrible fall in the image of the United States and Europe.

But few wonder how it is possible that 79,000 Taliban are able to counter an army of 300 thousand units, super prepared by American managers, an army that has not fired a single shot, and Taliban have been able to emerge from nowhere conquering an entire nation in a very short time.

The Afghan people suffered the 13-year occupation of the Soviets who returned to their homeland super junkies.

The Afghan people have been under occupation by Western troops, but above all by the Americans who have spent a trillion of dollars on it to create a modern army, health and education facilities, trying to get a political class elected that was not enmeshed in corruption.

In this damn afghan war the Americans have lost more than 2200 soldiers (we Italians 54 of which no one remembers).

Not to mention the scythe to which the people of this tortured country have been subjected.

Then there are those who have been taken in perplexity by the statements of the Taliban leaders who have told the population to be quiet, everyone must return to do their job, women will be guaranteed to be able to go out (as long as they are covered completely) and carry out the activities to which they previously dedicated themselves and so on citing a whole series of promises that, let's face it, conflict with their recent and past history.

A cunning move that will certainly not stop the professional killers who, according to reliable testimonies, are doing their job by going to look for those who have collaborated with the hated Americans.

Then a question arises: is it possible that a people like the Afghan people is manifesting its imperturbable acceptance of a political and social reverse that will bring the life of this nation back to that medieval level that is the highest aspiration of the Taliban leaders?

A probable answer is provided by a disenchanted friend.

"It is not correct to judge a situation like the one that is being created in Afghanistan with the filter of our Catholic - Lutheran culture.", he tells us while sipping a cold lemonade in the oppressive Washingtonian heat.

In front of our interrogative expression he adds: 

"The stay for 20 years of Westerners, but especially Americans, in that country has put a strain on the ideological religious foundations on which the life of this people has been set for centuries. 

Would you like me to believe that the majority of Afghan men of all ages are satisfied with their marginalization that has changed especially the new female generations? 

The Afghan man does not like the excessive schooling of women that puts him in further difficulty. 

The Afghan man wants to recover his centralism and puts in the account the loss of individual freedoms (assuming that in recent years he had been able to take advantage of it) in order to manage that role that is, moreover, amply confirmed by the religion that he follows."

"Therefore, concludes our friend, it may seem absurd to judge a complex situation like that of Afghanistan on the basis of elementary concepts. 

But it should not be forgotten that every society lives and supports itself on its own legs (culture and religion) even if someone has tried over time to amputate them...! 

As for women, for many Afghans it is good that they returns to the 'leash'. Let the Taliban come. It is not only the fear of Taliban. It is the fear of the fear of women's power."

Oscar

La donna afghana deve tornare al guinzaglio

Il vostro redattore e' uno in la' con gli anni e di scarsa cultura raccogliticcia.

Ammiro profondamente quelli che, sulla base di profonde e sostanziose esperienze intellettuali, riescono a mettere il capo fuori dallo stagno ad ogni stormir di fronda esprimendo il loro definitivo parere su tematiche di fondo.

E quindi ammiro gli odiatori di professione che si stanno squarciando le vesti accusando gli Stati Uniti e quel "rimbambito" del loro presidente che sta gestendo con grande determinazione l'uscita finale dell'America dall'Afghanistan.

In questa moltitudine planetaria si distinguono in modo particolare i repubblicani americani che non trovano  miglior occasione se non quella di criticare Joe Biden battendosi perché sia impicciato e gettato giù dal trono che occupa da otto mesi.

I manutengoli dell'innominabile ex presidente nella loro amnesia non ricordano o fingono di non ricordare che questa disgraziata guerra in Afghanistan è stata iniziata da quel George W Bush, noto alcolista e autodichiaratosi in un incontro con la regina Elisabetta d'Inghilterra: "Sono la pecora nera della famiglia Bush."

A parte le lacrime versate a commento delle tragiche foto della fuga da Kabul, molti sottolineano una terribile caduta di immagine degli Stati Uniti e dell'Europa.

Ma pochi si chiedono come sia possibile che 79.000 talebani siano in grado di contrastare un esercito di 300mila unita', super preparato dai gestori americani, un esercito che non ha sparato un solo colpo, e i Talebani siano stati capaci di emergere dal nulla conquistando un'intera nazione.

Il popolo afgano ha subito l'occupazione di 13 anni dei sovietici che sono ritornati in patria super drogati.

Il popolo afgano ha subito l'occupazione delle truppe occidentali, ma soprattutto degli americani che ci hanno speso un paio di triilioni di dollari per creare un esercito moderno, strutture sanitarie e scolastiche, tentando di far eleggere una classe politica che non fosse avviluppata dalla corruzione.

In questa dannata guerra afghana gli americani hanno perso più di 2200 soldati (noi Italiani 54 di cui nessuno si ricorda).

Senza parlare della falcidia alla quale è stata sottoposta la popolazione di questo paese martoriato.

Poi ci sono quelli che sono stati presi in contropiede dalle dichiarazioni dei supercapi talebani che hanno detto alla popolazione di stare tranquilla, ognuno deve tornare a fare il proprio lavoro, alle donne sarà garantito di poter uscire (purche' totalmente coperte) e svolgere le attività alle quali si dedicavano in precedenza e via citando tutta una serie di promesse che, parliamoci chiaro, confliggono con la loro storia recente e passata.

Una mossa astuta che non fermerà certamente i killer di professione che, secondo testimonianze attendibili, stanno facendo il loro lavoro andando a cercare coloro che hanno collaborato con gli odiati americani.

Allora sorge spontanea una domanda: è mai possibile che un popolo come quello afgano stia manifestando la sua imperturbabile accettazione di una retromarcia politica e sociale che ricondurrà la vita di questa nazione a quel livello medievale che è la massima aspirazione dei capi talebani?

Una probabile risposta ce la fornisce un amico disincantato.

"Non è corretto giudicare una situazione come quella che si sta creando in Afghanistan con il filtro della nostra cultura catto - luterana.", ci dice sorseggiando una limonata fredda nell'afa opprimente washingtoniana.

Di fronte alla nostra espressione interrogativa aggiunge: 

"La permanenza per 20 anni degli occidentali, ma soprattutto degli americani, in quel paese ha messo a dura prova le basi ideologiche religiose sulle quali è impostata da secoli la vita di questo popolo. 

Vorresti farmi credere che la maggioranza degli uomini afghani di qualsiasi età si dichiari soddisfatta per la emancipazione femminile che ha mutato soprattutto le nuove generazioni? 

L'uomo afgano non vede di buon occhio la eccessiva scolarizzazione delle donne che lo mette ulteriormente in difficoltà. 

L'uomo afgano vuole recuperare il proprio centralismo e mette nel conto la perdita delle libertà individuali (ammesso che in questi anni ne avesse potuto usufruire) pur di gestire quel ruolo che del resto è ampiamente confermato dalla religione che lui segue."

"Perciò, conclude il nostro amico, potrà sembrare un assurdo giudicare una situazione complessa come quella dell'Afghanistan sulla base di elementari concetti. 

Ma non si deve dimenticare che ogni società vive e si sostiene sulle proprie gambe (cultura e religione) anche se qualcuno ha cercato nel tempo di amputargliele…! 

Quanto alla donna per molti afgani e' bene che torni al guinzaglio. Vengano pure i talebani."

Oscar

____________________________________________________

Carissimo Oscar,

il tuo amico e interlocutore ha, io penso, disvelato il nocciolo del problema che gli hai posto. Poniamoci  due domande. La prima: la modernizzazione, nei paesi arretrati rispetto ai  valori della nostra democrazia, si deve perseguire invariabilmente con l’occidentalizzazione? Oppure, ed è la seconda, le credenze e i comportamenti religiosi e culturali dei popoli – del popolo  afgano in questo caso - è una questione propria e ‘interna’ di maturazione di quel popolo? Un popolo che si è, nella sua (non invidiabile) maggioranza, espresso per il mantenimento di quello status quo, arrendendosi infatti ai talebani con poca, quasi nessuna resistenza; e ciò naturalmente a scapito di quella sua parte minoritaria che l’aveva compiuta invece quella maturazione religiosa e culturale.

In sintesi, la questione afgana è una questione assolutamente  ‘interna’ a quei regimi e a quell’area del mondo in cui si trova: Pakistan, Iran, paesi limitrofi. E se in quell’area e in quei paesi non matureranno condizioni di democrazia meno ‘illiberale’ (per usare i termini dei signori Putin e Orban, che invece sono prossimi all’occidente), nessun intervento militare potrà mai imporre la  visione e i valori della nostra democrazia. Sono loro a dover compiere un loro proprio nuovo percorso. Il quale non potrà, per ragioni religiose e culturali, che essere diverso da quello che noi abbiamo compiuto in questa nostra parte del mondo (e che, in modalità diverse dovranno compiere anche il popolo russo, ungherese e polacco. E la parte di quello italiano incredibilmente  innamorata di due modestissimi demagoghi nostrani).

Grazie per aver posto, fuori delle solite righe, la questione e un abbraccio

Sandro P.

 

Un super ingegnere lascia Blue Origin per andare da Elon Musk

A lead engineer at Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has left to join Elon Musk's SpaceX. He was working on Blue Origin's moon lander.
kduffy@insider.com (Kate Duffy)

© MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty/Axel Springer Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty/Axel Springer

A top engineer at Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is leaving to join Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Nitin Arora was working on Blue Origin's moon lander.
It comes after NASA picked SpaceX, and not Blue Origin, for a major moon-landing contract.

A lead engineer on Blue Origin's moon lander project is leaving to join SpaceX.

It follows Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' space company, losing out to Elon Musk's SpaceX on a $2.9 billion NASA contract to take humans to the moon.

Nitin Arora on Monday announced in a LinkedIn post that he was leaving Blue Origin after nearly three years at the company.

Arora was working on Blue Origin's lunar lander, designed to carry different payloads to the moon's surface.

"Friday (August 13th) was my last day at Blue Origin," Arora wrote in the post. "It was one hell of a ride working on the lunar program. Really honored that I got a chance to work with and lead incredibly smart, passionate people over last three years ... Next stop, SpaceX!"

Blue Origin put forward its lunar lander for a NASA contract to take humans back to the moon by 2024. The agency initially said it would choose two winners out of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics - but instead it only selected SpaceX.

APOCALYPSE NOW

Taliban reign of terror begins as fighters go door to door in Kabul with ‘kill list’ as women face torture 

Henry Holloway (The US SUN)

THE TALIBAN'S reign of terror has begun as fighters are reportedly going door-to-door with a kill list and women face torture & execution under brutal new rules.

Disturbing reports are already emerging from Afghanistan as the government collapsed and the Taliban seized power once again nearly 20 years after being driven out by the West.

12Taliban fighters stand guard in a vehicle along the roadside in KabulCredit: AFP

12Taliban fighters are reportedly going 'door to door' hunting people on a 'kill list'Credit: AFP

12Afghan civilians flee from the advance of the Taliban in KabulCredit: Reuters

Taliban forces have already pledged to reintroduce the twisted laws which saw them brutalise women and gay people when they ruled Afghanistan in the 90s.

And there have already been reports throughout their advance of women being shot dead and girls as young as 12 being dragged from their homes to be "married".

It appears however their first mission is tick off victims who have made their way onto their "kill list" as they hunt down anyone who may have helped forces of the US, UK and other nations during the occupation.

And they are reportedly going door-to-door in Kabul as they hunt for soldiers, police, government officials and journalists.

Afghanistan's descent into chaos has seen unverified reports emerge of thousands gathering to witness an execution in Kandahar at a sports stadium.

And there are claims a woman has been sentenced to be stoned to death in Samangan.




Taliban officials have previously pledged to bring back these types of punishments, and the group's top spokesman said yesterday they will leave the punishments up to their "courts".

Thousands of Afghans have already tried to flee the city as horrifying videos showed them desperately trying to climb aboard planes out of Afghanistan.

The disturbing reports come as...
Taliban stormed Afghanistan’s Presidential Palace after ripping through Kabul
Afghans were seen falling from departing US planes as they desperately tried to cling on and escape Kabul
Boris Johnson blamed the US for Afghanistan’s ‘accelerated’ collapse to the Taliban
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he fled to ‘prevent a flood of bloodshed’
UK ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow to remain at Kabul airport to help Brits leave

Britain, the US and their allies are facing one of the biggest foreign policy embarrassments in decades as the country was overrun by the Taliban in a matter of weeks.

Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, a Radio Free Europe journalist trapped in Kabul, chillingly tweeted that Taliban are now roaming the streets on the hunt for their enemies.

He wrote: "Taliban started door to door search looking for govt officials, former police & security forces members & those who worked for foreign countries NGOs or infrastructures in Afghanistan.

"At least 3 journalists' houses were searched in the last hour. Kabul is now becoming deadly. This is a game changer for us all.

Taliban are going door to door looking for anyone who worked with the US militaryMatt ZellerNo One Left Behind

"Many have started counting their final hours of life in Kabul. Nobody knows what happens next.

"Pray for us."

Other reports stated people are now hiding in their homes as Taliban fighters are stopping and searching cars, while fighters are also reportedly compiling lists of women in the government and media.

It is claimed fighters beating musicians after destroying their instruments, and they are also disarmed any civilians with weapons as they say they "no longer need them".

12Women with their children try to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport in KabulCredit: Reuters

12

12US helicopters arrive to airlift out their last personnelCredit: AP

12A US soldier points his gun as chaos reigns in KabulCredit: AFP

12Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airportCredit: AFP

12Afghans crowd at the tarmac of the Kabul airportCredit: AFP

Australian not-for-profit Forsaken Fighters - that helps support those left behind - tweeted one of the interpreters it works with was last night executed in Kandahar.

They shared the man - a dad-of-four- had been "mutilated" as they found out he had worked for both the US and UK around ten years ago.

Matt Zeller, a US veteran of the Afghan war, said about 44,000 Afghans who helped Washington during the 20-year conflict need to be rescued.

Zeller, who co-founded No One Left Behind, a charity that helps Afghans settle in the US, told Al Jazeera the reports outside of Kabul are "horrific".

He said: "There are public executions in Kandahar in the stadium.

"Women have been told they cannot leave their homes in Herat and the Taliban are going door to door in Mazar-i-Sharif looking for anyone who worked with the US military."

Australian news outlet ABC previously reported Taliban fighters had sent chilling warnings to anyone it suspected of working with the West before its latest offensive.

"We have reports that you and other interpreters are in contact with infidel friends, to get you out of Afghanistan and get you a visa," one letter read.

"Therefore you will not be forgiven by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, neither will we accept any other excuse."

Afghan interpreters have previously said they fear being left behind under Taliban control will be a death sentence as they face being hunted down and executed.

It was reported one translator was stopped by Taliban militants and beheaded back in May - with witnesses saying the fighters told him he was a "spy for the Americans".

12Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palaceCredit: AP

12Taliban fighters stand outside the Interior Ministry in KabulCredit: Reuters

12Taliban use a captured Afghan security forces vehicleCredit: EPA

Brutality looks set to reign again in Afghanistan, with Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen saying punishments and executions are up to the "religious followers and the courts".

And when asked specfically about the horrific violence meted out in the 90s, such as chopped off hands and feet and stonings, he said: "I can’t say right now. It is up to the courts and the judges and the laws.”

It was reported by France24 that in July the Taliban issued an edict demanding local leaders to present lists of girls aged over 15 and widows under 45 so they could be married off the Taliban fighters.

Meanwhile, Taliban judge Gul Rahim bragged the barbaric violence would be making a return when he spoke to Bild in July.

He spoke proudly of handing down sentences featuring amputation and death - saying his favoured methods of execution are stonings or hangings.

And he said there can "only be two punishments" for gay people, either being stoned to death or being crushed by a 10ft high wall which is pushed down on top of them.

The speed of the Taliban's victory has shaken the world and came just weeks after troops from the US, UK and other Nato countries left Afghanistan.

Twenty years after they were ejected by the US and its allies in the wake of 9/11 they are now back in power.

Boris Johnson has blamed the US for the advancement of the Taliban in Afghanistan, claiming President Biden "accelerated" their control.

The Prime Minister said the "difficult" situation had been exacerbated by the President's decision to withdraw troops from the war-torn country.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country - saying he did so to "prevent a flood of bloodshed" and to stop the destruction of Kabul.

Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, described the Taliban victory "the biggest single foreign policy disaster" since Suez.

His colleague Johnny Mercer, who fought in the country, said it was "humiliating".

Timeline of Taliban victory

THE Taliban surged to victory quicker than anyone expected...

April 14 - President Joe Biden announces US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan starting on May 1 and ending on September 11.

May 4 - Taliban fighters launch a major offensive on Afghan forces in southern Helmand and at least six other provinces.

June 7 - Government officials say fighting is raging in 26 of the country's 34 provinces.

June 22 - Taliban fighters launch a series of attacks in the north of the country, far from their traditional strongholds in the south.

July 2 - American troops quietly pull out of their main military base in Afghanistan - Bagram Air Base, ending US involvement in the war.

July 21 - Taliban insurgents control about a half of the country's districts, according to the senior US general, underlining the scale and speed of their advance.

July 25 - US vows to continue to support Afghan troops "in the coming weeks" with intensified airstrikes to help them counter Taliban attacks.

July 26 - The United Nations says nearly 2,400 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in May and June in escalating violence, the highest number for those months since records started in 2009.

August 6 - Zaranj in the south of the country becomes the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in years and many more the ensuing days, including the prized city of Kunduz in the north.

August 13 - Four more provincial capitals fall in a day, including Kandahar, the country's second city and spiritual home of the Taliban. In the west, another key city, Herat, is overrun.

August 14 - The Taliban take the major northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and, with little resistance, Pul-e-Alam, capital of Logar province just 40 miles south of Kabul.

August 15 - The Taliban take the key eastern city of Jalalabad without a fight, effectively surrounding Kabul.

In scenes that echoed the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, helicopters were seen ferrying US embassy staff to safety at a secure area near the airport.

The Taliban appeared to offer an amnesty for government forces and said they want a "peaceful transfer of power".

"No one's life, property and dignity will be harmed and the lives of the citizens of Kabul will not be at risk," the Taliban said.

But questions remain about whether the Taliban leadership is able to control troops on the ground and prevent them taking revenge.

When the Taliban last entered Kabul in 1996 after first seizing power, they tortured a former President then dragged him into the streets and hanged him.

Hanno passato a Biden la patata bollente e lo accusano di essere uscito da una guerra ventennale persa

Analysis: Defiant Biden is face of chaotic Afghan evacuation
By JONATHAN LEMIRE (AP)


President Joe Biden returns a salute as he walks to board Marine One at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021, en route to Camp David after addressing the nation from the White House about Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Four presidents share responsibility for the missteps in Afghanistan that accumulated over two decades. But only President Joe Biden will be the face of the war’s chaotic, violent conclusion.

The president fought that reality Monday as he spread blame for the Taliban’s swift and complete recapture of Afghanistan. He pointed to a previous agreement brokered by then-President Donald Trump, expressed frustration with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and lamented the performance of Afghan national security forces. Republicans overwhelmingly criticized Biden and he found few vocal backers among fellow Democrats.

The collapse of the Afghan government is the biggest foreign policy crisis of Biden’s young presidency, recalling setbacks for past presidents such as the withdrawal from Vietnam and the botched Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. The reverberations of the Taliban’s success were startling, endangering Afghan women and girls, posing new security threats and threatening to undercut global views of America’s reliability.

In the face of such stark consequences, Biden admitted no fault for the chaotic drawdown and instead forcefully defended his move to leave a nation the U.S. has tried to safeguard since it toppled the Taliban regime after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when smoke still rose from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

“Here’s what I believe to my core: It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not,” said Biden. “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war? I will not repeat the mistakes we made in the past.”

When Biden took responsibility, it was more for ending the war than for the manner in which it happened.

“I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take that criticism than pass this on to a fifth president,” said Biden. “I am the president of the United States, the buck stops with me.”

His firm tone differed little from just five weeks ago, when he bullishly predicted what would happen as his August 31 deadline for withdrawal neared. He declared there was going to be no repeat of the humiliating U.S. evacuation from Vietnam nearly a half century ago and “no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.”

But Monday yielded devastating images from Kabul that rivaled anything witnessed in Saigon.

Thousands of Afghan citizens, many of whom worked as translators and other aides to American troops, thronged the Kabul airport, desperate to escape the Taliban. In heartbreaking footage, some tried to desperately board a U.S. military plane flying to safety, attempting to dash alongside as it raced down the runway.

A few managed to cling to the plane before it took off and video showed several falling through the air as the airplane rapidly gained altitude over the city.

The evacuation received condemnation at home and abroad, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel calling the latest developments “bitter, dramatic and awful.” And security officials warned that Afghanistan would soon provide safe harbor for terrorist groups again.

The Taliban seemed poised to have total of control of Afghanistan on Sept. 11, just as they did on the date two decades earlier when al-Qaida terror attacks plotted from its soil toppled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. The fallout from 2001 attacks reshaped America’s relationship with the Middle East, and more than 3,000 American and NATO forces died in the resulting combat in Afghanistan during the manhunt for Osama bin Laden and beyond.

Under the command of President George W. Bush, American forces stormed into Afghanistan soon after the terror attacks on a hunt for bin Laden while trying to disrupt al-Qaida’s ability to conduct further assaults on the West. There was immediate success: The Taliban were routed, the terror group disrupted.

But after that came the grinding second phase of the war and a surge of troops from President Barack Obama in 2009. Though Obama later moved to reduce the number of troops, the volume of insurgent attacks and civilian causalities prevented a full drawdown.

Trump mulled meeting the Taliban at Camp David on an earlier Sept. 11 anniversary, only to back away from the idea amid an uproar. But he announced that the U.S. would pull all its forces out by May 2021, an agreement Biden honored and delayed only slightly.

Efforts were made, at great expense, across all the administrations to train and arm the Afghan forces once the U.S. departed. But that investment of American blood, time and treasure proved useless as the Taliban conquered much of the nation without a fight and Afghanistan’s president fled the country as soon as the invading forces reached Kabul.

In the upper ranks of Biden’s staff, the rapid collapse in Afghanistan only confirmed the decision to leave: If the meltdown of the Afghan forces would come so quickly after nearly two decades of American presence, another six months or a year or two or more would not have changed anything.

His move to withdraw troops this summer, though polarizing in the national security community, had been praised by some on both sides of the aisle as timely and appropriate. But on Monday, Republicans were eager to slam Biden’s decision and blame him for the chaos, though many of them had supported a withdrawal when it had been proposed by Trump a year ago.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, however, had consistently advocated keeping troops in Afghanistan, and he said the military briefings he attended suggested the Taliban would be able to quickly regain power.

“I think the president felt strongly about this, obviously,” McConnell said. “He overruled his own military leaders to do it and he owns it.”

Biden has argued for more than a decade that Afghanistan was a kind of purgatory for the United States. He found it to be corrupt, addicted to America’s largesse and an unreliable partner that should be made to fend for itself. His goal was to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, not building a country, and his aides have pointed to polling — taken before the chaos of the last week — that shows that a majority of Americans favor bringing troops home.

But that political gamble could prove risky as the scenes of fear and violence from Afghanistan are broadcast around the globe, especially if the chaos in Kabul makes “Saigon look like Disney World,” warned Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a veteran who served in Afghanistan.

“The bottom line is that there’s going to be a lot of people that are very let down by the United States of America,” Kinzinger said in an interview. “We will inevitably, inevitably be in conflict again somewhere. How are we going to convince those locals that we’re going to follow through when we’ve abandoned those in Afghanistan?”

Lemire has covered politics and the White House for the Associated Press since 2013.
Associated Press journalists Zeke Miller, Darlene Superville, Ellen Knickmeyer and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.

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Alberto Galluccio

Una scelta in linea con l'interesse nazionale degli Stati Uniti. Ridicolo il balletto ipocrita di altri.

Biden defends Afghanistan policy amid mounting criticism of withdrawal

The president has faced bipartisan fire over his handling of the U.S. withdrawal following the Taliban takeover this weekend.


By Lauren Egan and Shannon Pettypiece

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday defended his administration's decision to continue with the U.S. military drawdown in Afghanistan, blaming the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military for allowing the Taliban to take over.

"Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country; the Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight," Biden said in a speech at the White House. "If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision."

The address marked the first time Biden publicly spoke since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital on Sunday following President Ashraf Ghan's departure from the country, bringing an abrupt end to the 20-year U.S. effort to restructure the Afghan government and its military.

Within hours of the Taliban takeover, chaos erupted at Kabul’s international airport as desperate Afghans raced to flee the country. A harrowing video captured Monday showed Afghans storming the military side of the airport and clinging to a U.S. Air Force plane as it attempted to move down the tarmac. In the video, some people appear to fall to their death as the aircraft takes off.

Over the past 72 hours, the number of U.S. military personnel on the ground has grown, with 6,000 troops ultimately expected in the coming days. The U.S. embassy, which the State Department had insisted Thursday would remain open, had been fully evacuated by Sunday evening.


Biden was at the presidential retreat at Camp David on Sunday when the Taliban took control of Kabul, and officials had said then they were unsure when he would return to the White House. Biden was initially planning to vacation at Camp David and his Wilmington, Delaware home this week.

The rushed evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel drew comparisons to images of Americans being airlifted from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon in 1975.

Democrats on Capitol Hill and former Obama administration officials joined Republicans in publicly criticizing Biden’s handling of the situation. While most agreed with the decision to remove troops, they attacked Biden’s failure to help the thousands of Afghans who assisted U.S. forces exit the country before the Taliban took over and the scramble to evacuate Americans from the country.

"This is a crisis of untold proportions," said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who had urged Biden to make an address to the nation. "This is an intelligence failure."

Ryan Crocker, who was ambassador to Afghanistan in the Obama administration, said the Biden administration had "a total lack of coordinated, post-withdrawal planning," and that the predicament was a "self-inflicted wound."


Former President Donald Trump negotiated a deal while in office with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. military personnel by May 1 of this year. After he was inaugurated, Biden said the withdrawal would be completed by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.

In July, Biden insisted that a Taliban takeover was not inevitable and said that the Afghan military was well equipped and trained to keep the Taliban at bay. "I trust the capacity of the Afghan military," Biden said at the time.

As U.S. forces began to withdraw earlier this year, the Taliban, facing little resistance from the U.S.-trained Afghan military, rapidly expanded their control, ultimately taking Kabul within weeks.