RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-afghanistan-surrender-withdrawal-ashraf-ghani-kabul-saigon-jihadist-9-11-11629054041?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden’s statement on Saturday washing his hands of Afghanistan deserves to go down as one of the most shameful in history by a Commander in Chief at such a moment of American retreat. As the Taliban closed in on Kabul, Mr. Biden sent a confirmation of U.S. abandonment that absolved himself of responsibility, deflected blame to his predecessor, and more or less invited the Taliban to take over the country.

With that statement of capitulation, the Afghan military’s last resistance collapsed. Taliban fighters captured Kabul, and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country while the U.S. frantically tried to evacuate Americans. The jihadists the U.S. toppled 20 years ago for sheltering Osama bin Laden will now fly their flag over the U.S. Embassy building on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

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Our goal all along has been to offer constructive advice to avoid this outcome. We criticized Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban and warned about the risks of his urge to withdraw in a rush, and we did the same for Mr. Biden. The President’s advisers offered an alternative, as did the Afghanistan Study Group. Mr. Biden, as always too assured of his own foreign-policy acumen, refused to listen.

Mr. Biden’s Saturday self-justification exemplifies his righteous dishonesty. “One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country,” Mr. Biden said. But the Afghans were willing to fight and take casualties with the support of the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially air power. A few thousand troops and contractors could have done the job and prevented this rout.

Worse is his attempt to blame his decisions on Mr. Trump: “When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/running-away-afghanistan-jamie-glazov/

The Biden administration’s feckless withdrawal from Afghanistan is sending the worst possible message to our enemies across the world. Our rivals are already convinced of our lack of morale and our fear of the consequences from a response serious enough to concentrate their minds. Twenty years after 9/11, and we still haven’t figured out the nature and aims of those who for decades have in word and bloody deed told us we are an enemy they want to destroy.

Instead we cling to our shopworn belief that “diplomatic engagement” can deter and stop a fanatic enemy, hoping words can substitute for deeds. But all we’ll achieve is further damage to our already fraying national prestige.

The plans to withdraw the last of our forces began during the Trump administration, which thought it could negotiate in good faith with a foe that has already demonstrated that agreements and covenants are mere “tactical adjuncts,” as Robert Conquest said of the Soviets, to their actual strategic intentions to be realized with violence. Here’s failed lesson number one: “diplomatic engagement” works only when those sitting across the table truly believe that if they violate the terms, as the Taliban have done with the Trump agreement, they will suffer serious consequences.

But in just six months Biden has shown that his team has no interest in any response other than timid diplospeak and maybe some showy cruise-missile fireworks. His cringing solicitude for the Iranians and obvious desperation to rewrite the nuclear deal––signaled by his removal of some sanctions without any reciprocal concessions––have made it clear throughout the region that he, like his boss Barack Obama, can be had. No one in the Khamenei cartel or among the Taliban fears or respects this administration or our power.

Why should they? Biden announced a date-certain withdrawal without any conditions, the same error Obama made when he skedaddled from Iraq in 2011. Worse, Biden abandoned our military bases and withdrew the in-country air support that gave the government in Kabul a fighting chance against the Taliban. Pocketing these gifts, the Taliban started their march through the country two weeks later, and since then have been rolling up region after region and city after city. According to the Pentagon, they could be in Kabul in a month. (In fact, on Sunday Taliban fighters were seen in Kabul, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and the Afghan National Reconciliation Council was left to negotiate the transfer of power to the Taliban.)

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

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has insisted that the Afghan situation is “manifestly not Saigon.”  This has been suggested because helicopters are being used to evacuate embassy personnel.  Perhaps it is more like Benghazi.  In both cases, the commander-in-chief left the scene: Obama to bed and Biden to Camp David.  Americans have been advised to “shelter in place” and fill out a Repatriation Assistance Request.  Civilians are advised not to come to the embassy or airport.  There has been no mention of the archaic notion of “women and children first.”

The president was confident that Afghanistan would not fall to the Taliban.  He claimed this because the Afghan government has “300,000 well-equipped” troops. He said they were “as well-equipped as any army in the world.” The United States spared no expense in equipping the Afghan army:  Airplanes, helicopters, drones, armored vehicles, night-vision goggles, a flight simulator, and even the latest Black Hawk attack helicopters.  The president claimed, “I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more—more competent in terms of conducting war.”  With the rapid surrender of government forces it now seems that the Taliban is “as well-equipped as any army in the world.”

The first explanation for this fiasco is that it was a total surprise.  The AP reported Biden was “stunned.” “This Week” co-anchor and chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz said Sunday that the U.S. was “caught unaware and completely off guard” by the Taliban’s rapid advance in Afghanistan. She said that there was a “massive intelligence failure.”  A earlier U.S. intelligence assessment said Kabul could be encircled in 30 days and could fall to the Taliban within 90 days, but the insurgents captured most of Afghanistan’s major cities in less than a week and entered the capital on Sunday.  NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel disagreed.  Engel was asked whether it is surprising “not that it is happening, as much as how fast it is happening,”  “No. everyone keeps saying that. I’ve been listening all day: ‘oh my God, we’re shocked at how fast’ — I’m not shocked at all! I thought Kabul was going to fall about now. And lots of people I spoke to believed that . . . It was well known that the security forces were collapsing, a month, two months, three months ago.”

The administration is attempting to spin that as a victory.  The president stated, “We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. [Osama] Bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaida is degraded in Iraq — in Afghanistan. And it’s time to end the forever war.” Secretary of State Blinken claimed, the United States’ original mission in Afghanistan, launched to oust al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been fulfilled.  Washington had prevented further attacks by militants harbored by the Taliban.  Richard Engel viewed the situation differently.  Engel reported that “many will see this as a humiliating exit” for the United States. My only quibble would be to ask, “many”? Who doesn’t see this as a humiliating exit?”