RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/20/france-deploying-special-forces-to-evacuate-french-civilians-from-afghanistan/

The French military has deployed their special forces to the crumbling nation of Afghanistan to evacuate their citizens, even as the leadership of the American military claims that they are incapable of doing the same, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

French special forces have already succeeded in evacuating at least 400 civilians from the capital city of Kabul, including both French citizens and Afghan civilians who aided French forces in the war. The successful rescue efforts took place just outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport, the city’s main airport which has been secured by the Taliban, and thus has become a scene of pure chaos after the fall of the nation’s Western-backed government.

In addition to French efforts, British special forces have been similarly evacuating their citizens from the besieged capital city in the days since Sunday, when Kabul fell to the Taliban.

These successful European efforts have been carried out even as American military leaders have claimed that the United States is incapable of conducting such operations. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at a press conference on Wednesday that “the forces that we have are focused on the security of the airfield…we don’t have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people.”

There are currently thousands of American citizens still trapped in the Taliban-controlled nation, in addition to thousands of Afghan civilians who assisted the American military over the course of the 20-year war. The sudden collapse of the nation to Taliban forces directly contradicted Joe Biden’s prediction back in July that it was “highly unlikely” that the Taliban would overrun the country prior to the final departure of American forces, which was set for August 31st.

Following the fall of Kabul on Sunday, which led to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country, thousands of Afghan civilians stormed the airport in a desperate attempt to escape Taliban rule. Stunning videos showed hundreds of Afghanis surrounding an American Air Force jet as it was taxiing on the runway, with several men clinging to the landing gear. Shortly after the aircraft took off and reached an altitude hundreds of feet in the air, some of the men who still held on could be seen falling to their deaths.

The chaos has led to universal condemnation of the Biden Administration, from across the political spectrum in the United States as well as within the international community. Many have likened the disaster to the Fall of Saigon in 1975, which marked the end of the Vietnam War, with some even declaring the Fall of Kabul to be even worse.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17673/afghanistan-dreadful-consequences

Most of the Afghan army, after they saw the American military pulling out of the Bagram air base, might understandably have decided not even to try to fight. The “trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Security and Defense Forces” with “advanced weaponry” has led to that US-provided “advanced weaponry” falling into the hands of terrorists it was meant to fight — a donation from US taxpayers to what is now the world’s best-armed terrorist state.

[T]he US has had troops in Germany and South Korea for about 70 years – a relatively modest “insurance policy” that never seemed “forever.” Ironically, by handing over Afghanistan to the same Taliban that hosted Al Qaeda, which murdered nearly 3,000 people on 9/11, the US is not only making a mockery of these victims; it will soon find itself having to fight at an even greater cost in life and treasure as countries trying to eliminate America can now do it without American troops nearby, and with America’s military equipment.

The French, British, Germans, Australians and Czechs have been venturing behind enemy lines to rescue their stranded citizens hiding there; Americans have not. The Pentagon and the State Department have admitted that they do not even know how many Americans are in the country; how could they know where they are?

Trump reportedly expected to leave a residual troop force in place, and apparently had a plan for an orderly military withdrawal — based strictly on conditions on the ground. These presumably included not departing in the middle of the Taliban’s summer fighting season, but in winter, when they shelter in Pakistan; not neglecting to consult with America’s European allies, and not surrendering the main US air base, Bagram, before evacuating Americans and their allies, whom they had promised to rescue should plans not work out.

Trump seems to have understood what the Biden administration ignores: that terrorists are probably not all that susceptible to diplomacy, but to strength — as Osama bin Laden put it… to “the strong horse”.

After days of silence, Biden read a 19-minute speech saying that he stood behind his decision to leave Afghanistan, and even accused he Afghan security forces, which had sacrificed an estimated 66,000 men. Biden left the press conference without answering questions and returned to Camp David where he resumed his vacation”. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi praised his “strong leadership”.

Pakistan is more deeply linked to the Taliban’s victory than the United States might care to admit.

“Of all the foreign powers involved in efforts to sustain and manipulate the ongoing fighting, Pakistan is distinguished both by the sweep of its objectives and the scale of its efforts, which include…. soliciting funding for the Taliban, bankrolling Taliban operations, providing diplomatic support…, arranging training for Taliban fighters…, planning and directing offensives, providing and facilitating shipments of ammunition and fuel, and on several occasions apparently directly providing combat support.” — Human Rights Watch.

China, Pakistan, Russia, Iran, and the Taliban have different worldviews, but do possess three things in common: they are enemies of the United States and the Western world, they want to see the United States humiliated and defeated, and they want to eliminate the United States from the region. The United States has been humiliated, defeated and eliminated from the region. Its enemies have won.

Those who love the United States, however, believe that without its strength and power, American liberty and freedom would quickly vanish from creation. Seeing what the Biden administration has done in just seven months to weaken America and strengthen its enemies has been nothing short of shattering. One can only hope for a change of course, a return to real leadership, before more damage is done.

The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is a debacle for the United States; the consequences will take shape fast. The Biden administration and President Joe Biden himself have an overwhelming responsibility for what is taking place and what will follow; they have shown a degree of incompetence unseen in the United States since the calamitous Carter years.

On July 8, President Biden said, “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”. A Taliban takeover of the country, he added, was “not inevitable”. He was wrong. Most of the Afghan army, probably after they saw the American military pulling out of the Bagram air base, understandably decided not even to try to fight.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/us-out-afghanistan-will-iran-move-hugh-fitzgerald/

Analysts now suggest that with the American forces completely out of Afghanistan, Iran’s forces may be tempted to move in. This was the subject of speculation several weeks ago, before anyone contemplated the magnitude of this weekend’s debacle in Afghanistan: “Experts fear Iran will move in after US leaves Afghanistan,” by Tara Kavaler, The Media Line, July 16, 2021:

With the US set to complete its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of August, regional analysts fear Iran will fill the void.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies already exercise a powerful influence in the region, be it in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or the Palestinian territories.

In all of those countries, however, the Shi’a are much more in evidence than they are In Iran. In Yemen, the Shi’a are 50% of the population; in Iraq they are 70%; in Lebanon they are 40% of the population; in Syria the Shi’a are close to 15% of the population, and in addition, they also control the Alawite-officered army. But in Afghanistan, the Shi’a are only 10% of the population and, unlike the Shi’a (Alawites, Ismailis, Twelvers) in Syria, do not control the military. The Shi’a in Afghanistan are ethnically distinct: almost all of them belong to the Hazara tribe, while the Sunni population consists of Pashtun, Tadjiks, and Uzbeks.

Iran is trying to use the situation in Afghanistan both to present itself as a mediator between the Afghan groups, and in the future, as Iran has always done, trying to turn every threat into opportunity,” Dr. Raz Zimmt, an Iran specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told The Media Line.

“And if we see what happened in the Arab Middle East over the last decade, where the chaos and the civil wars actually provided Iran with opportunities to be more engaged and more involved, I can’t rule out the possibility that this will happen as well in Afghanistan,” Zimmt said.

The Taliban and the Iranian leadership are not obvious bedfellows, as the former are Sunni extremists, and the latter are radical Shi’ites.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/after-america-melanie-phillips/

Much deserved opprobrium has been heaped upon US President Joe Biden for his shameful recent remarks justifying his decision to cut and run from Afghanistan. He blamed everyone but himself for the Taliban’s expedited return to power, and accused the Afghan army — who have lost almost 70,000 soldiers fighting the Taliban — of having 

collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight… American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves… We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.

The Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat subsequently made an emotional and blistering speech in the House of Commons emergency debate. You can watch his speech here.

Tugendhat served in Afghanistan both as a soldier and as an adviser to the governor of Helmand province. He spoke about the soldiers who had died in Afghanistan, the good men he had watched going into the earth and who had taken with them “a part of all of us”. He said how proud he had been to be decorated by the American 82nd Airborne Division after the capture of Musa Qala in 2006. Making an effort to compose himself, he went on:

To see their Commander-in-Chief call into question the courage of men that I fought with, to claim that they ran; it’s shameful. Those who have never fought for the colours they fly should be careful about criticising those who have.

He went on to raise the issue that must now be preoccupying all who have depended upon the United States as the principal defender of the free world. For as I wrote here, the US has now shown itself to be a faithless ally and the weak link in that defence. 

As a result, said Tugendhat, there was now a need to 

reinvigorate our European NATO partners, to make sure we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader, but that we  can work together with with Japan and Australia, France and Germany, with partners large and small and make sure that we hold the line together.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/australia-begins-mass-vaccination-children-katie-hopkins/

The video clip below is hard to watch. It is the Prime Minister of Australia giving a press statement regarding the ‘mass vaccination’ of 24,000 Australian children.

Scott Morrison is talking about children in Year 12 — usually aged 16 and 17.

You will hear him say they are planning to “get through” 24,000 kids “this week.”

You will hear him say that mums and dads are NOT permitted to be present.

You will hear him say the children will be ushered to their jabs by members of the Youth Command and Police.

And he goes on to liken this mass injection of children as an opportunity — an opportunity to be grasped with both hands. He even tries to draw a parallel with Olympic athletes (presumably because this mass event is happening at the Olympic Park), inferring that Olympic athletes would also tell parents to grab this opportunity, like their child might win a gold medal for compliance.