RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/detached-from-afghanistan-reality-joe-biden-lloyd-austin-taliban-11629496129?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“A nation that hesitates to rescue its people for fear of the Taliban is behaving like a pitiful, helpless giant.”

President Biden provided an update Friday on the emergency evacuation effort in Kabul, and as usual he was his own worst advocate. The President’s optimistic view doesn’t fit the chaos on the ground or the fact that the mission continues to be hostage to the goodwill of the Taliban.

“We’ve made significant progress,” Mr. Biden said, taking credit for “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.” If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was describing a humanitarian airlift in Haiti rather than the desperate rescue of Americans trapped behind enemy lines.

***

It’s good news that U.S. troops finally control the Kabul airport and its single runway, though that’s all the allies control. It’s also good that 18,000 people have been evacuated since the Taliban took control of the capital. But the U.S. still doesn’t know how many Americans are in the country, and the U.S. Embassy warned this week that “the United States government cannot ensure safe passage to the Hamid Karzai International Airport.”

Mr. Biden said Friday that “we’re in constant contact with the Taliban,” who he says are letting Americans with passports through their checkpoints. But it’s distressing to hear a Commander in Chief admit that he’s relying on the promises of jihadists who have spent years killing Americans. Mr. Biden even suggested they’ll let Americans pass because, well, they need to make a good impression on the world community. Lovely.

The situation is worse for the thousands of Afghans who have applied for entry to the U.S. through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. Including families, they total 50,000 or more. Mr. Biden vowed to evacuate them as well, as a matter of national honor.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/freedom-man-ii/91627/

The image of the United States Marine reaching over the razor-wire-topped wall outside the Kabul airport to lift to freedom an Afghan infant from its parent’s hand is no doubt going to become one of the most famous photographs in the history of the Corps — not to mention our country. Even in the depths of our national humiliation, it turns out, millions still want to hand up their children to the arms of the United States military.*

That is something to cherish and remember amid the scramble to rescue Americans and their allies from the revenge of the Taliban. No matter how many mistakes Americans have made, our national motives have always been animated by high ideals and friendliness. It’s a point on which President Reagan launched his 1980 campaign, when he spoke to war veterans about Vietnam.

“It is time we recognized that ours was in truth, a noble cause,” he said at a time when almost no one else was saying it. The declaration about a war that America’s Congress had turned against helped him carry 44 states and win the White House. The idea clearly stayed with him, almost like a refrain, throughout his eight years in office. So much so, that he offered an echo of it in his farewell speech.

Reagan delivered his farewell remarks in January 1989. “I’ve been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant and mean,” Reagan said, “And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one — a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea.”

“The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/19/a-life-destroyed-for-parading-at-the-capitol/

After Robert Reeder was arrested in February and charged with four misdemeanors for his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, he lost his job as a truck driver for FedEx. “As a result of his arrest in this matter, he has been placed on administrative leave/has been terminated,” Reeder’s attorney wrote in court filing. “He has not been able to secure steady employment since being charged in this matter.”

Reeder, like many Americans who attended Donald Trump’s speech then walked to Capitol Hill, went alone. He is a registered Democrat but supported some of Trump’s policies. The Maryland resident decided to travel to Washington on the morning of January 6, a “spur of the moment” decision, according to his attorney.

After suffering the effects of tear gas and sting balls launched by police officers outside the building—a reality the news media still refuses to cover—Reeder went inside the building to look for water to rinse his eyes. From all accounts, he was allowed into the building. While inside, Reeder marveled at the beauty of the Capitol and urged others “do not destroy anything.” He asked police how he could get out of the building as the situation between law enforcement and protesters escalated.

Reeder took selfies and videos of his experience. “I’m leaving now . . . I got tear gassed at least four times inside the Capitol . . . I saw the lady they say got shot, I walked right past her in a pool of blood,” he said in one video. “And it’s just . . . completely crazy in there.” After he entered a second time—police were not allowing protesters to exit the grounds so Reeder was looking for a way out through the building—he said in another post that he was “gassed several times . . . and shot with pepper balls.”

Although Reeder has no criminal record and prosecutors admit he did not commit any violent crime on January 6, Biden’s Justice Department wants Reeder to go to jail for two months. He pleaded guilty to one count of “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol Building,” a common low-level charge levied against hundreds of Americans who entered the Capitol building on January 6. Prosecutors want to make an example of Reeder despite the fact he essentially turned himself in to law enforcement and quickly negotiated a plea arrangement.

Guilty of Sharing Memes

But as is the case in all January 6 prosecutions, the government is showing no mercy; Reeder, not charged with anything close to “rioting” or mob activity, nonetheless is branded a criminal by Joe Biden’s Justice Department. “[I]t is important to convey to future rioters and would-be mob participants—especially those who intend to improperly influence the democratic process—that their actions will have consequences,” assistant U.S. attorney Joshua Rothstein wrote in the government’s sentencing memo. “Picketing, demonstrating, or parading at the Capitol as part of the riot on January 6 is not like picketing at the Capitol some other day, without other rioters present.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/19/after-afghan-debacle-stop-the-nation-building-crusades-once-and-for-all/

Joe Biden’s haphazard, poorly executed troop withdrawal from the morass of Afghanistan has irrevocably sullied America’s reputation. Even those of us who have long supported drawing down the decades-old American military footprint from this strategically unimportant Third-World backwater have been horrified at the indefensible manner in which this extraction was done. Kabul is, unquestionably, now the younger generations’ Saigon moment.

From pushing back the withdrawal time frame Biden inherited from former President Donald Trump to coincide with the peak Taliban fighting season, to the obtuse overnight surprise evacuation of Bagram Air Base, to the impetuous and uncoordinated pulling out of ancillary air support that the Afghan military relied upon, to the images of Afghans falling to their deaths off hastily departing U.S. military planes, to the wholesale stranding of more than 10,000 American citizens on the ground with little exit strategy for them other than reliance upon the magnanimity of an internationally recognized jihadist outfit, this withdrawal was botched in every possible way. In a sane and just world, the U.S. House would already be drafting articles of impeachment.

But it’s also worth stepping back from the immediate Biden-orchestrated debacle in the Afghan “graveyard of empires” to focus on the broader lessons we can glean from this unceremonious end to America’s longest-ever war.

The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan—the earliest and initially highest-profile theater of the sprawling President Bush-era “war on terror”—commenced in October 2001, less than a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The invasion was supported overwhelmingly in the aftermath of the then-ruling Taliban’s harboring of al-Qaeda and refusal to extradite 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, signed into law on September 18, passed 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House. The AUMF granted Bush (and subsequent presidents) the authority to deploy “necessary and appropriate force” against those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/19/money-power-and-revenge-the-truth-about-critical-race-theory/

Nearly six decades ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for a better world, imploring us to judge others by “the content of their character.” He offered a vision of an America that united people across racial, political, and economic lines — a vision that we can all believe in.

The proponents of “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) offer no such vision. They only propose a world of endless grievances and revenge, petty cons, and abusing their power to ruin lives.

Where Dr. King saw a world of equals, CRT envisions only victims and vengeance. Where Dr. King called upon Americans to see the content of each others’ character, CRT calls for acts of theater and human sacrifices to cancel culture. Where Dr. King offered equality before the law — the only true, objective equality — CRT proposes only “equity,” the subjective decisions of petty tyrants over who gets what, when, and how. 

CRT is an enrichment scheme perpetrated by self-proclaimed “victims.” It is a sham that makes money for CRT’s rabid proponents, granting them power over the lives of others and exercising revenge for a seemingly endless stream of slights — real or imagined. CRT doesn’t solve problems; it shreds the social fabric of a nation by perpetuating an “us” versus “them” mentality.

While the proponents of CRT insist their platform only serves to expose America’s racist past, nothing about it offers a way to shape a better future. The evidence of CRT’s do-goodery is strikingly scarce. It lays the blame at the feet of all white Americans, no matter their thoughts or actions. If “whiteness” is inherently oppressive and evil, then America is a morally bankrupt entity that deserves nothing but reproach — then America is evil and so are all patriotic Americans, white or otherwise.

At the heart of CRT is the concept of “equity” (not “equality,” which is an important distinction). The proponents of CRT believe in equality of outcome, with all Americans ending up at the same place, rather than the meritocracy implied by equality of opportunity.

Which brings us to the fundamental question: What does CRT’s better world look like? I can see Dr. King’s vision of a world in which we are all equal before the law, treat one another as we wish to be treated, and succeed or fail based on our own merits. But CRT’s world of equity is indescribable at best and insidious at worst. What makes that world better for everyone?

In effect, CRT only exists to empower a select few in acting out their perceived sense of grievance through racist vengeance against those whom they determine are — always undeservedly, of course — better-positioned in life. CRT seeks to control the allocation of money — other people’s money — with its proponents grifting their way to success through seven-figure consulting contracts. It is a revenge-based form of propaganda embodied by the woman wishing death on parents who don’t buy into it. CRT’s proponents are in the business of punishing children who don’t bow down to them.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/lesson-afghanistan-debacle-no-more-nation-building-jeff-crouere/

As the nation sees Americans fleeing our embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, it is reminiscent of another painful memory of the past, the fall of Saigon, Vietnam in 1975.

In that war, America lost over 58,000 brave military service members during the eleven years of the conflict, 1964-1975. When our troops mostly left in 1973, the responsibility fell to the South Vietnamese to fight the communists from the North.

The ultimate end to the war came after the Democratic Congress refused to provide needed supplies to the South Vietnamese military. Soon after that fateful decision, the North Vietnamese prevailed, installing a brutal communist dictatorship over the entire country. 

One of the reasons we fought in Vietnam was to prevent the expansion of communism throughout the world. We were following the “Domino Theory,” which feared that as one country fell to communism others would fall as dominos. 

In the years since Vietnam, communism continued to expand until the American military won a victory in Grenada in 1983, pushing out Cuban troops from the country. At the same time, tragedy struck in Lebanon and 241 American troops were killed in the bombing of our barracks. Soon thereafter, our troops left the country. 

Under President George H. W. Bush, the military was used in Panama to remove dictator Manuel Noriega. He also launched the successful Gulf War I, known as Desert Storm, which quickly forced Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

When Bill Clinton was President, he ordered an escalation of military personnel in Somalia, which led to a failed raid and the death of 18 American soldiers. It was a humanitarian mission gone awry. His other major military operation was an intensive bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/no-american-military-leader-should-ever-say-what-lloyd-austin-said/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-in&utm_term=fourth

Can you imagine Norman Schwarzkopf — to say nothing of Dwight Eisenhower or Douglas MacArthur — making this statement?

T here are an estimated 10,000–15,000 Americans in Afghanistan now who need to be evacuated as the Taliban seize control of the country. Anyone left behind could find themselves reliving the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis or the hostage crisis in Lebanon shortly thereafter. The Taliban are undoubtedly well aware of the leverage they could obtain by holding Americans hostage. Evacuation is therefore not just a pressing humanitarian matter; it is essential to preventing a bunch of Stone Age barbarians from dictating terms to the United States of America.

The Biden administration has not exactly exuded confidence in the face of this threat. On Tuesday, the State Department sent a cable to thousands of Americans in the country telling them to make their way to Kabul’s soon-to-be-renamed Hamid Karzai Airport (we already abandoned Bagram Airfield) but warning them, “Please Be Advised That The United States Cannot Guarantee Your Security As You Make This Trip.”

Then, in a briefing this morning, Defense Department spokesman John Kirby admitted that the administration not only does not know how many Americans are trapped in Afghanistan, they do not even know how many have been evacuated:

Worst of all, at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was asked about the U.S. military’s capability to get its citizens out of Afghanistan, his answer was jaw-dropping: “We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people.” You have to watch Austin deliver this line to grasp its full air of defeatism about a place where our military has moved about with some impunity for two decades, while General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a fellow Army lifer, stood by looking as if someone had just shot his dog:

The best Austin could offer was a promise to try, at least for a while: “We’re gonna get everyone that we can possibly evacuate evacuated, and I’ll do that as long as we possibly can, until the clock runs out, or we run out of capability. . . . I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/a_newly_revealed_state_department_memo_has_explosive_news.html

During his interview with George Stephanopoulos, Biden reiterated his July 8 claim that he had no idea the Taliban would move so quickly. However, according to a Wall Street Journal article, the administration has known for over a month about the speed with which the Taliban were moving. There was time to get people out safely.

On July 2, the American military abandoned Bagram Airfield, the most important base of operations still in Afghanistan. They didn’t inform the Afghans and the State Department made no effort to get Americans and their allies out of Afghanistan before the military left.

Six days later, Biden gave his boastful July 8 Afghanistan press conference, which will go down in infamy in the annals of American history:

Q    Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

THE PRESIDENT:  No, it is not.

Q    Why?

THE PRESIDENT:  Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban.  It is not inevitable.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/18/paying-yesterdays-bills-in-afghanistan/

Let’s get one thing clear: withdrawing from Afghanistan and ending America’s longest war was the right policy. It was Trump’s policy, but one he was blocked from implementing by the bipartisan war caucus in Washington. The fact that the Biden Administration executed this policy with staggering incompetence does not compromise the policy itself. In fact, it underscores the necessity of leaving Afghanistan and ending the two-decade fantasy that cost $2 trillion, more than 4,000 American dead in combat, 20,000 Americans wounded, and a much larger—but still unknown—amount of death, destruction, and misery on the people of Afghanistan.

On July 8, Biden was asked by a reporter if a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was inevitable. Biden responded, “No, it is not. Because you have—the Afghan troops have 300,000 [sic] well-equipped, as well-equipped as any army in the world and an air force against something 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.” The video of this press conference is now infamous.

 Then on August 9, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who was last seen testifying in front of Congress defending the military’s new woke curriculum for its recruits and professing his profound interest in systemic racism and white supremacy, said that “Afghan security forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country, and we will continue to support the Afghan security forces where necessary in accordance with the guidance from the president and the secretary of defense.” This was posted on the Twitter account belonging to the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-8-18-requiem-for-afghanistan

In the Archive section of this blog, I actually created a tag for Afghanistan. There are four posts under that heading, the first one on July 1, 2017, and the most recent on December 22, 2019. Thinking I might write something about the subject today, I went back and looked over those posts. The truth is that I don’t have much to say that I didn’t already say in one or another of those posts.

So most of this post will consist of excerpts from those earlier posts. But think of Afghanistan as the perfect metaphor for the main theme of this blog, which is the absurdity of a highly-credentialed American elite that thinks it can solve all human problems and bring the world to an egalitarian progressive utopia through unfettered access to the infinite resources of the American taxpayer. This one small piece of the grand enterprise has just fallen to pieces. The rest of the grand enterprise continues. It too will eventually suffer the same fate, but the process could take a long time.

From “What’s Going On In Afghanistan?”, July 1, 2017:

How could it be possible that things are going so badly? Amazingly, almost nothing you read on the subject addresses the fundamental issue, which is that the people are just never going to support a regime imposed from outside that intends to take away the major source of their income. The major source of their income is opium. How much of their income? Unfortunately, there are no trustworthy numbers from Afghanistan. The UN Office of Drug Control did a big survey of Afghan opium production in 2014, which claims to show that opium exports declined from close to 100% of Afghan GDP in 2002 to maybe 15% by 2014 (page 16). I’m highly dubious that the recent figure could be so small. For one thing, the same report shows opium production increasing from 3400 tons annually to 8400 tons over the same 2002-2014 period (page 17). And then, what is supposedly the rest of the Afghan economy that has grown so rapidly? They don’t say, but the likely answer is foreign aid and contractor disbursements from the U.S. and other countries, counted at 100 cents on the dollar as they tend to do with these things. But when the foreigners withdraw, all of that goes away, and the people who have been working for the foreigners become unemployed. The thing that is left on which they can rely is the opium.