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.

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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.