RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17656/america-intelligence-failures

Just as the most optimistic among our leaders believed that Afghanistan had the potential to become a fledgling democracy, our leadership insisted that…. China would become a “stakeholder in the international order” and a trusted trading partner. Increased political freedom would follow economic growth, and a huge new marketplace would be opened to the West.

Now, though, China’s role in the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has revealed undeniably just how hostile China is to the West, and how dismissive it is even of its supposed allies in the developing world…. Apparently, more than four million lives worldwide were a small price to pay for increasing China’s power at the expense of the U.S. and its allies. When will our leaders open their eyes to that fact and act decisively to counter China’s ever more obvious attempts to achieve dominance over the West?

For years, it has been evident for anyone to see that our Afghanistan and China policies were not only ineffective, but that we were courting disaster by our lack of effective response. Our leaders have refused to acknowledge the increasing, and increasingly compelling, signs that our policies toward Afghanistan and China were failing. That is the true intelligence failure.

Let us hope and pray–and demand–that our leaders respond more effectively against the emerging China fiasco. The horrific scenes of the last few days will pale in comparison to what the world will experience if we stand aside and watch while China succeeds in its goal of becoming the world’s preeminent superpower.

One major intelligence failure by our leaders every twenty years is already one too many.

The U.S. and the West are experiencing two unfolding intelligence disasters. Oxford Languages succinctly defines the two possible meanings of the word “intelligence:” (1) the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, or (2) the collection of information of military or political value. What we are experiencing today is not chiefly a failure to collect information, but the ever more tangible inability of our leaders to apply the information they have acquired.

The two debacles began to unfold around the turn of the millennium, within twelve months of each other. We are now seeing the fruits of the first failure play out 24/7 before our very eyes: the stunningly rapid fall of Afghanistan despite twenty years of sacrifice and investment. The second, the failure to understand and counter the growing threat posed by China, is set soon to prove itself just as disastrous as the first. In responding to each of these two challenges, our leadership has demonstrated a profound lack of insight and skill: a true failure of intelligence.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-afghanistan-taunt-joe-biden-withdrawal-11629236906?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

It’s too early to know the wider strategic fallout from America’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal. But there’s strong reason to doubt convenient claims that the retreat will help the U.S. balance a revisionist China. Beijing is more likely to see the display of fecklessness as an opening to exploit.

“Our true strategic competitors, China and Russia, would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely,” said President Biden in his defiant Monday speech.

Put aside that, because of the Taliban triumph, the U.S. now has more attention and troops devoted to Afghanistan than it did before the exit. Beijing is already using the debacle to taunt Taiwan and the U.S.

“Is this some kind of omen of Taiwan’s future fate?” said an editorial in the Global Times, a Communist Party organ. “Once a cross-Straits war breaks out while the mainland seizes the island with forces,” the paper added, “the US would have to have a much greater determination than it had for Afghanistan, Syria, and Vietnam if it wants to interfere.”

China’s Foreign Ministry also took a victory lap in a press briefing Tuesday. Its spokeswoman said the Afghanistan war shows that the U.S. shouldn’t “interfere in other countries’ internal affairs,” pointedly using the same language Beijing uses to object to America’s support of Taiwan’s independence. China says Taiwan’s status is an “internal” issue, though the self-governing democracy is a linchpin of security for Pacific states including Japan.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2021/08/17/welcome-to-the-post-american-world-n1470228

After the fall of Saigon, the Soviet Union began five years of aggressive subversion around the world, culminating in the invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979. Henry Kissinger and the elites in the US and Europe all predicted a Russian victory in the Cold War. The fall of Kabul is worse: In Vietnam, we faced a well-trained and equipped North Vietnamese Army; we were humiliated by 75,000 rag-tag irregulars in Afghanistan.

The big difference is that China’s economy is fifty times bigger than it was in 1975 — $11.8 trillion in constant 2010 prices, vs. $250 billion in 1975. That’s what happens when you grow at 8% a year for fifty years. China’s exports to the U.S.–now running at an all-time record–are just 3.5% of China’s $15 trillion GDP. But they comprise a fifth of all U.S. consumption of manufactured goods. It would take $1 trillion or more and perhaps a decade to replace most of America’s dependency on Chinese imports, especially electronics. Among other things, we would have to train hundreds of thousands of engineers and skilled workers.

You learned everything you need to know about Chinese foreign policy from “The Godfather” — keep your friends close and your enemies closer. China’s main concern is an Islamist insurgency in Xinjiang, and several thousand Uyghur jihadists trained in Syria and elsewhere who have returned to China. Russia’s main concern is jihad among its Muslim minority, a fifth of the population of the Russian Federation.

China’s “Godfather” move is to recognize the Taliban while admonishing them to stay out of Xinjiang and leave the Uyghurs to their fate. China and Russia are cementing their alliance with Iran, which provided weapons to the Taliban. Iran will join the Sino-Russian umbrella group, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China will invest in Iran’s oil and gas, while it builds pipelines frantically to secure hydrocarbon supply from places the U.S. can’t touch.

The Biden administration is now begging Beijing and Moscow for help in Afghanistan. That will be expensive, as the South China Morning Post reports this morning:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken picked up the phone on Monday to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for a discussion on how the two countries could work together to achieve a “soft landing” for Afghanistan. He was told Beijing was willing, but Washington would need to step back the pressure on its greatest rival, according to China’s state media.

Wang earlier had spoken to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, with both sides agreeing that Beijing and Moscow should step up their communication and coordination over the Afghanistan situation.

In a flurry of diplomatic phone calls, Blinken also spoke to Lavrov, as well as Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, the European Union’s high representative Josep Borrell and foreign ministers from Pakistan, Britain and Turkey, in the aftermath of the chaotic fall of the Afghan government as the Taliban took over Kabul and the presidential palace on Monday.

One reason that Blinken is so solicitous toward Moscow and Beijing is the presence of 10,000 American citizens in Afghanistan, all potential hostages.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/taliban-spokesman-afghan-women-will-be-happy-living-under-sharia-law/

Addressing the media at a press conference Tuesday in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid promised that the country’s women would embrace sharia law, the strict Islamic fundamentalist moral code the militant organization subscribes to and enforces for citizens.

“Our women are Muslim, they will also be happy to be living within our framework of Sharia,” he said, according to a translation from the Independent.

The group’s representative indicated that the rights of women will be recognized and respected under Taliban reign, insisting that nobody should be “worried about our norms and principles.” On Monday, the UN Security Council released a unanimous resolution, securing the agreement of all 15 member nations, calling for the establishment of a new representative and inclusive government in Afghanistan that guarantees the “full, equal, and meaningful participation of women.”

Given the Taliban’s treatment of women under its previous reign in the 1990s, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have expressed skepticism with the terrorist entity’s pledge to suddenly adhere to international standards of freedom, democracy, and human dignity. Prior to the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Taliban ruled the native population with an iron fist, prohibiting dancing, music, and most inter-sex fraternizing. Women were typically forbidden from working, attending school, and leaving the home without a burqa and male escort.

“This is a proud moment for the whole nation,” the spokesman commented. “After 20 years of struggle, once again we have emancipated our country,” he said referencing the two-decade span during which the United States military occupied the nation, forcing the Taliban operatives to retreat to the countryside. While Afghan women were repressed under the Taliban’s rule, they enjoyed many privileges and liberties to travel, study, drive, and wear makeup and attire of their choice during the twenty years of U.S.-secured peace.

Mujahid also ensured that the Taliban’s former enemies, including Afghans who collaborated with the U.S., would not be targeted under the new regime, despite conflicting reports from multiple outlets that some militants have already started going door-to-door in Kabul tracking down U.S. allies and sympathizers.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/a-rift-of-polands-making/

The diplomatic crisis unfolding between Jerusalem and Warsaw is unfortunate. Eastern European countries have been staunch supporters of the United States and Israel in a way that their counterparts in the Western continent have long ceased to be.

As a result, conservative columnist Amnon Lord is among those stressing that Israel needs to be smart, not just right, when it comes to its relations with Poland.

Despite its nationalism, he recently wrote, Poland “is a type of ally. … The cooperation with it in terms of military aviation is a cornerstone of our national security. The Poles also buy weapons and other systems from us. Poland is also an important potential partner for Israel, together with the member countries of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), with regard to Israel’s effort to crack the anti-Israel Western-European bloc.”

It’s more than a valid point. But let’s not kid ourselves.

Poland’s hysterical reiteration that it played no part in the Holocaust—other than being victimized by the occupation of their country first by Hitler and then by Stalin—is problematic. Though technically true, both in relation to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the reality where the former is concerned is more complicated.

For decades, any mention of the death camps in Poland has been pounced upon by Polish politicians and intellectuals as a lie, or at least, as misleading. German-occupied Poland did, however, house 457 Nazi camp complexes. The most notable of these, Auschwitz-Birkenau, is the site of the annual March of the Living, which attracts participants from all over the world, including Israel.

Warsaw’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge any role in or cooperation with the genocide of the Jews—let alone pursue and prosecute individual Polish collaborators—culminated in actual legislation. According to a law passed by the Polish parliament and then signed in February 2018 by President Andrzej Duda, “Whoever accuses, publicly and against the facts, the Polish nation, or the Polish state, of being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich … shall be subject to a fine or a penalty of imprisonment of up to three years.”

The outcry that ensued in Europe, the United States, and, of course, Israel, caused Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to amend the law, which he argued had merely been intended to “defend Poland’s good name.” He stated that the “correction” would be to switch violations from criminal offenses to civil ones.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chinese-media-threaten-taiwan-after-kabul-debacle-the-islands-defense-will-collapse-in-hours/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=fourth

Chinese media outlets carried threats to Taiwan and criticisms of the U.S. during the chaotic American withdrawal from Kabul.

An editorial by the Global Times, a Chinese state-run outlet, took aim at Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party and President Tsai Ing-wen.

“From what happened in Afghanistan, [the DPP] should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and the US military won’t come to help,” the editorial states. “As a result, the DPP authorities will quickly surrender, while some high-level officials may flee by plane.”

The editorial called on the DPP to “keep cross-Straits [of Taiwan] peace with political means, rather than acting as strategic pawns of the US and bear the bitter fruits of a war.”

Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin also commented on the Afghanistan withdrawal on Twitter.

“After the fall of the Kabul regime, the Taiwan authorities must be trembling,” Hu wrote. “Don’t look forward to the US to protect them. Taipei officials need to quietly mail-order a Five-Star Red Flag from the Chinese mainland. It will be useful one day when they surrender to the PLA.”

In a separate tweet, Hu wrote, “Chinese netizens joked that the power transition in Afghanistan is even more smooth than presidential transition in the US.”

The head of China Daily‘s E.U. bureau, Chen Weihua, encouraged CNN anchor Jim Sciutto to explain to his son that the U.S. clearly lost the Afghanistan War.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/europe/afghanistan-eu-us-credibility.html

Afghanistan’s rapid unraveling is already raising grumblings about American credibility, compounding the wounds of the Trump years and reinforcing the idea that America’s backing for its allies is not unlimited.

The Taliban’s lightning advance comes at a moment when many in Europe and Asia had hoped that President Biden would reestablish America’s firm presence in international affairs, especially as China and Russia angle to extend their influence. Now, America’s retreat is bound to sow doubts.

“When Biden says ‘America is back,’ many people will say, ‘Yes, America is back home,’” said François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst.

“Few will gang up on the U.S. for finally stopping a failed enterprise,” he said. “Most people would say it should have happened a long time ago.’’ But in the longer term, he added, “the notion that you cannot count on the Americans will strike deeper roots because of Afghanistan.’’

The United States has been pulling back from military engagements abroad since President Obama, he noted, and under President Trump, “we had to prepare for a U.S. no longer willing to assume the burden of unlimited liability alliances.”

That hesitation will now be felt all the more strongly among countries in play in the world, like Taiwan, Ukraine, the Philippines and Indonesia, which can only please China and Russia, analysts suggest.

“What made the U.S. strong, powerful and rich was that from 1918 through 1991 and beyond, everybody knew we could depend on the U.S. to defend and stand up for the free world,” said Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

“The sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years and so much investment in lives and effort will see allies and potential allies around the world wondering whether they have to decide between democracies and autocracies, and realize some democracies don’t have staying power anymore,” he added.