Afghanistan: From Very Bad To Incredibly Worse
Yesterday (8-26-21), marked the return to the international stage of the suicide bomber. Far worse yet, this imbecile chose to reduce himself to putty at the Kabul Airport amidst U.S. service members and Afghan citizens, the latter hoping to escape Taliban control. Tragically, 13 courageous American military members, male and female (Marine, Army, and Navy), were killed in the blast, with many others injured, along with 150+ Afghan residents also slaughtered). The now-rejuvenated ISIS contingent within Afghanistan took credit for the massacre, with or without the assistance (we’ll never know) of Taliban insurgents supposedly guarding the airport area.
These suicide fanatics are no better than rodents; rotten-to-the-core, brutal, dark-age savages, coughed up from centuries past; donkey-dung in human form, whom we can only hope will be committed for eternity to the lowest level of Hell. If that doesn’t sound like Christian forgiveness and cheek-turning, it wasn’t; and wasn’t meant to be. Illiterate, useless, scum-rogues like those who slaughtered our military members and have carried out other such heinous acts in the past, simply do not deserve to exist on this earth.
But back to the core issue before us. This administration, and primarily that part-time candidate, now our part-time president, has managed to turn what could’ve been, and should’ve been, an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan into a chaotic disaster, impacting not only that nation, but the future safety and security of America; likely other European nations, as well. With our carelessness and stupidity, we’ve very likely uncorked another, perhaps unending, pent-up round of terrorism, one day soon to devastatingly impact the innocent citizens of our country, and perhaps others. Lest we forget that the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 is fast approaching. The perfect time in the minds of savages for a dose of renewed mayhem. May that, we pray, not happen.
The blame, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but rests where it should, and must, squarely on the shoulders of America’s commander, Mr. Biden. Despite his continuing effort to cast blame on President Trump, Biden’s favorite fall-guy, as well as on his intelligence and military advisors, the fact is, as far as has been revealed by media to date, Mr. Biden stubbornly ignored the wisdom of others, choosing instead to go with his own thinking and now-deadly desire to get out of Afghanistan no matter what. His apparent clouded thinking and stubbornness were seriously flawed, resulting in the disaster we see paraded before us. His advisors, at least as we’re being told, were right. And Mr. Biden was totally wrong to ignore them. Thus, this mess appears, with the knowledge we have now, to rest totally with him.
Wrote the New York Post Editorial Board: “Biden claims his military advisors, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff down to the commanders in the field, offered no other options: there was complete unanimity. That seems impossible – and if so, then damning to the entire chain of command.” And the Post’s veteran columnist, Michael Goodwin, weighed in on the issue of ignoring reasoned advice and blame-shifting: “His obscenely shameful effort to shift the blame to former President Donald Trump and even (failing) to take his own military commanders seriously. Biden says the buck stops with him, but he doesn’t really mean it. When the enemy strikes with deadly results, it’s somebody else’s fault. That’s not leadership and it certainly isn’t presidential.”
The fundamental withdrawal error was removing our troops before our citizens and Afghan military-assist friends. As the old slang saying goes, the order of our withdrawal was bass-ackwards. American citizens and friends of our nation should have been alerted to leave, beginning back in February, when the troop drawdown began in earnest. But that didn’t happen. Also, as had been advised, we should have left about 3,000 U.S. troops, and held onto Bagram Air Base (with our billions of dollars-worth of invaluable military equipment), in order to maintain peaceful control between the Afghan government and the then far-more-limited Taliban.
But once the military was drawn down, and we lost control of the country, it was too late for meaningful, thorough, orderly, and safe evacuations. Thus, too many of our fellow citizens, and Afghan guides/advisors/interpreters (and their families), whom we promised to take care of, and to get out safely, will likely suffer greatly, perhaps terminally, from our broken promise. And speaking of all of that valuable and sophisticated military equipment now in the hands of the Taliban, here’s a really negative thought for you. How about the likelihood that China (or even Russia, Iran) will purchase and take possession of the more sophisticated equipment, then reverse-engineer and copy our precious military armament technology. That becomes a longer term severe competitive result of our disastrous foolishness of, not only properly protecting our citizens and friends, but doing so for our classified military equipment, as well.
Said Mr. Biden from the podium in D.C. yesterday, in a warning to the presumed (and future) ISIS bombing perpetrators, before appearing to physically cringe or crumble from reporter questioning: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” How will we do that now, pray tell? With help from the pro-terror Taliban? As one former defense secretary likely correctly stated, the only way to do that is to send in a whole lot of troops and resume combat against the Taliban, ISIS, and others of their ilk. While our ground and air power would very likely, in time, be successful doing such, it would also be guaranteed to produce even more American casualties. Will the nation stomach that? Doubtful. Unless we have some stand-off military magic up our national sleeve, the threat of retaliation from Mr. Biden is likely to remain hollow. (NOTE: One ISIS planner now said to have been killed by U.S. drone vs. thirteen American Marine, Army, & Navy military heroes).
Commenting on Mr. Biden’s news conference, following the death of American service members, and that subsequent threat issued to ISIS, Fox News host, Sean Hannity, put it this way: “He looked like a deer in the headlights and completely and utterly clueless. And now, someone other than Joe Biden appears to be calling the shots inside the White House. This is an unmitigated foreign policy disaster. Total humiliation for the United States on the world stage, and the saddest part of all is that every single bit of this was preventable.”
‘Depending on the Taliban to allow a peaceful evacuation was foolish in the extreme,” wrote James Jay Carafano. “The more weak the Americans looked, the more the Taliban exploited developments to humiliate the United States.” And the concern now that a re-emboldened ISIS and, lest we forget, al-Qaeda, could very well result in future terroristic threats to America, overseas and/or here at home. And how well prepared for that probability would we actually be, under this administration with a State Department at the moment in apparent disarray, our intelligence people seemingly ignored, and our military being somewhat distracted by woke-inspired and imposed stuff, like “inclusion.” None the less, of the three (executive-state-military), thankfully, our money’s still on the readiness, power, and decisiveness of America’s military.
Among other potential blunders in all of this chaotic, murderous withdraw, word now that U.S. “officials” (State Department?) actually “gave the Taliban a list of names of U.S. citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies to grant entry into the outer perimeter of the city’s airport.” Now, for those trusting the Taliban to assist us with evacuations, that might seem like a very good idea. Let’s clearly identify those who need to leave the country, to expedite that effort. Or, as you’re probably now thinking, could giving up that precise information on desired individuals not become, rather than an expediter, a very convenient “kill list” for the Taliban? How much trust in what is basically a terrorist organization is likely too much?
Combat veteran and Republican Representative from Texas, Dan Crenshaw, did not mince words following the terror attack on our Kabul airport-based troops. Wrote he: “Mr. President, fix the mess you created. Stop running from it. We are still at war. You didn’t ‘end the war,’ you just gave the enemy new advantage. Go on offensive, establish superiority, and don’t leave until all our citizens and allies are safe.”
And two additional reactions to conclude this tragic event, with hopes that we’ll suffer no further military personnel or American citizen losses with this, for now at least, disastrous situation in Afghanistan. First, again, from James Jay Carafano: “Let’s be honest with ourselves. Things are not going well, to put it mildly. This is not the best of all possible outcomes. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Taliban will control more territory, have more money, more friends, and more arms, than they did on 9/11!” And finally, with an eye toward America’s future, and the continued safety & security of our borders, and especially for all of our citizens within: “The catastrophic consequences of this delusional American leadership debacle should matter greatly to all who value freedom, and security from tyranny.” Pray that this can all somehow be defused without the subsequent loss of additional terrorism-caused American lives, both in Afghanistan, and certainly here at home.
ADDENDUM: To America’s credit, in addition to flying out from Kabul a yet unknown number of American citizens, we will be taking into our nation many thousands of Afghan refugees, both those who assisted our military there (who were thankfully able to escape), and equally-terrified regular Afghan civilians who rushed to the airport and, amidst the crush, were able to board evacuation flights. With all of those Afghan citizens, now coming into the United States, it is imperative that each and every one be thoroughly vetted to insure, as much as humanly possible, that none of these new arrivals have any connection to terrorism. It is now known that some such arrivals to initial military bases have already been identified as having terrorist indicators. For the sake and security of our nation, all such individuals must be identified and, without exception, shipped out without delay to destinations well away from our homeland. The same terror checking must also be heightened now at our southern border. This may well require significantly increasing the numbers of our border control personnel, to include National Guard, if required. All of this on top of the need to check for any COVID virus carriers, both at the border and especially among the new Afghan arrivals, with subsequent mandatory inoculations, where identified.
Another issue no one is mentioning yet: the new, large, unplanned-for expense (social and financial) involved with caring for and maintaining thousands of Afghan immigrants, in addition to the already existing huge financial burden we’ve taken on with the continuing rampage of illegal migrants, due to this administration’s damaging insistence on an open southern border with Mexico.
(Post Editorial Board quote via nypost.com, Post Editorial Board, 8-26-21; Blame shifting quote via nypost.com, Michael Goodwin, 8-26-21; Biden’s threat to ISIS via powerlineblog.com, Paul Mirengoff, 8-26-21; Hannity quote via foxnews.com, Yael Halon, 8-27-21; Depending on the Taliban quote via nypost.com, James Jay Carafano, 8-26-21; “Kill list” quote via dailycaller.com, Michael Ginsberg/Lara Seligman, 8-26-21; Crenshaw quote via dailywire.com, Hank Berrien, 8-26-21; Taliban quote via foxnews.com, James Jay Carafano, 8-27-21; All who value freedom quote via newsmax.com, Larry Bell, 8-20-21)