RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/matt-palumbo-video-mind-behind-iron-curtain-bongino-report/

In this new video, author Matt Palumbo talks about his new book: The Man Behind the Iron Curtain. It explores the domestic and international far-reaching influence of leftist financier George Soros, backed by his tens of billions of dollars. Don’t miss it.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/forever-war-islams-war-west-don-feder/

Imagine after Pearl Harbor, FDR announcing, “We’re getting into this to bring human rights to Japanese women” or “Our goal in this war is give Germany a democracy.” He would have been laughed out of office.

There was only one legitimate reason to go into Afghanistan after 9/11 and it’s the same reason that should have impelled us to stay – not human rights, democracy or nation-building – but saving our nation.

We went to Afghanistan to root out terrorism, to destroy Al Qaeda’s infrastructure, to disrupt its network – and, quite frankly, to kill as many terrorists as possible.

The goal was to kill them there so they wouldn’t kill us here, as they did on 9/11. Everything else was extraneous. That the mission failed may be seen in just how quickly the Taliban made a comeback, except now, with the most modern weapons in the region – thanks to Quartermaster Joe.

The cut-and-run crowd called it “the forever war.” Rubbish.

You want to hear about a forever war? Afghanistan was the latest chapter in a conflict that’s been going on since the 7th century.

At one time, Islam engulfed much of the known world – from the Arabian Peninsula west to the Pyrenees and east to the Indian subcontinent and beyond.

In his book “The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of World Order” (1996), Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington spoke of “Islam’s bloody borders,” alluding to the fact that almost all of the religion-based conflicts in the world involve Islam versus someone else.

America’s longest war, they call it. Really? Through April, 2,448 Americans died in the 20 years we’ve been in Afghanistan – fewer than the number of Americans who died in one day in the attack on the World Trade Center (2,996).

The Vietnam War, which started under the French, went on for 21 years (1954-1975). Over 58,000 Americans died when we fought there. Was it worth it? I believe it was. South Vietnam fell. But due to our involvement (and the price we paid in blood), communism is no longer a potent force in Southeast Asia.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/03/sorry-afghan-war-isnt-over-until-those-we-left-behind-can-return/

In what can only be called a shocking lack of self-awareness, President Joe Biden this week bragged about his “extraordinary success” in Afghanistan. Now his handlers and the Democratic Party are urging Americans and, of course, the media to “move on.” But there is no moving on from his botched departure from Kabul, whose ill effects will be felt by Americans for decades.

Far from a success, the “evacuation” was in fact an ill-planned, incompetently executed, chaotic dash to cram as many human beings as possible onto planes and transport them away from Kabul. The new talking point is that “only” 100 or so Americans may have been left behind, despite Biden’s explicit promise that none would be.

The media, which for several days seemed actually to be doing their job, are now falling in line with the new White House-Democratic Party spin. Afghanistan is now a yesterday story.

As National Review noted on Thursday:

“Today is the day that the U.S. media begins its pivot away from Afghanistan. The front page of the New York Times features Hurricane Ida’s rains hitting New York City, and the Supreme Court’s declining to block Texas’ new abortion law. Those are the same two top stories at the Washington Post, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.”

While the administration, in one of the epic political spin jobs ever, lauds itself for its evacuation efforts, the truth is it likely left far more Americans and deserving Afghans in Kabul than estimated. That means victims and/or hostages for the now-jubilant, victorious Taliban, an intolerable situation.

Data from earlier this week estimated 116,700 people were evacuated from Afghanistan. “In fact, while only 5,400 or so Americans were brought to safety, only about 8,500 SIV holders were rescued, with the vast majority left behind,” RedState reports.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-reconciliation-entitlements-global-competitiveness-corporate-tax-hike-income-death-11630619861?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

Joe Biden this week completed the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, in a humiliating military surrender to the Taliban. The president is more interested in working on a second capitulation—a wholesale economic surrender to China and other rivals.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee were notified that markup will begin as early as next Thursday on Democratic plans for the largest tax increase in at least 50 years. House leaders have yet to provide any text for the committee work, since they continue to negotiate the details. But the White House and Democratic lawmakers have made clear the broad contours, which are best read as an exercise in U.S. self-sabotage—a gift to foreign companies and foreign workers everywhere.

Washington excels at spin, but few lines may prove more economically destructive than the continued Democratic claim that the 2017 tax law was about cuts for the “rich.” Even critics at the time acknowledged the law’s real highlight—its central focus—was its overdue and comprehensive reform of the corporate tax system. As this page’s editorial columns noted, the cuts on the individual side weren’t nearly “as ambitious,” making only marginal trims to top rates.

The corporate changes were specifically designed to restore America’s global competitiveness, which had eroded over decades. It cut the top corporate rate, which at 35% was the highest in the developed world. It got rid of a backward “world-wide” tax system, in which U.S. companies paid taxes in countries where they earned income and again if they returned money here. This was fundamentally a “pro-America” reform.

And it worked. An estimated $1.6 trillion flowed back into the U.S. from 2018 to 2020, which businesses poured into American factories, American jobs, American wages.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ida-remnants-hit-northeast-with-rain-flooding-tornadoes-11630554939

States in the Northeast began recovery efforts Thursday after the remnants of Hurricane Ida unleashed record-breaking rainfalls, flash floods and tornadoes in a powerful burst that blindsided some in the region and killed at least 45 people.

The death toll doubled late Thursday afternoon, when New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy reported the tally in his state. At least 23 people died there, the majority caught in vehicles by floodwaters, Mr. Murphy said. Some people were missing since the storm, but he didn’t say how many.

“We are still very much in the midst of the impacts of Ida,” he said at a news conference.

The storm cut a path from Maryland to Connecticut on Wednesday night, trapping some people in basements in fast-rising water and others in cars on flooded roads. In southern New Jersey, tornadoes tore through homes, farms and trees.

Thousands of people across the region had to be rescued by first-responder crews traversing waist-high waters in boats and other vehicles, according to officials in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/taliban-better-armed-nato-afghanistan/

It was quite the handover at Kabul airport this week. The last American troops to exit Afghanistan reportedly left facing an ‘elite unit’ of the Taliban. In a season finale that the most dystopian screenwriter would have struggled to invent, the elite Taliban unit was itself bedecked in US military kit. That is, they were not only wearing uniforms and protective kit provided by the fleeing US army, but were parading the airport with US-provided guns in US-provided vehicles.

This was the culmination of a two-week period that the White House is still trying to present as a success. One of the biggest airlifts in history, they insist. In reality the Biden administration has pulled off a feat few of us thought possible. A military-political defeat that gets worse the more you look at it.

Take the issue of the kit that the Americans have left behind. I’m sure by now everyone has seen the lists of armaments that the US left with the swiftly dissolved Afghan army that America and its allies struggled to train for two decades.

The Taliban inherited that defeated army’s kit in its entirety. That entirety includes 33 Black Hawk helicopters, 43 MD 530 helicopters, 32 Mi-17 helicopters, 23 A-29 light attack planes, at least 33 other attack planes and three gigantic Hercules aircraft thrown in for good measure. Thanks to the largesse of the American taxpayer, the Taliban now has more attack helicopters than the UK, and is better armed than almost every Nato country, apart from the US.

When these facts emerged this week, a portion of the commentariat tried to pretend this was no great shakes. These last defenders of the President insisted it didn’t matter that the Taliban had control of all these Black Hawks. For how could a group of goat-herders, who have barely learned to operate their rusty old Soviet motorcycles, be expected to retrain as helicopter pilots? As if they were listening, right on cue, the Taliban began flying one of their new Black Hawks over the skies of Kabul. That was quite the F-you: top kit, in new hands, only one previous owner, hardly used.

Perhaps aware this does not look great, the US military is claiming to have disabled some of the kit they left behind. On Monday, Gen. McKenzie said that before leaving Kabul airport the US military permanently disabled 150 vehicles and aircraft so they can ‘never be used again’. The rocket air defense system was reportedly kept online until the last minute and then demilitarized.