Biden Goes Full America-Last, Won’t Prioritize Getting Americans Out of Kabul Over Afghans

Whatever the main concerns may be of the obscure, rudderless, far-Left muddle known as the Biden administration, acting to safeguard the well-being of the United States and its citizens most certainly isn’t one of them. Back in February, according to the Associated Press, “Joe Biden made clear in his first major foreign policy address since taking office that he rejected the ‘America First’ and transactional approach of his predecessor and urged cooperation among Western allies.” And so it comes as no real surprise that in determining who will be helped out of the pit of desperation and fear that is Kabul today, Biden’s handlers have announced that Americans will not be given priority.

More at link
https://pjmedia.com/columns/ro...ver-afghans-n1470108

"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up".

quote:

Originally posted by LoungeChair:
Say what you want about Biden's poor understanding of the actual security situation, he was just executing the deal Trump made with the Taliban.
As far as keeping troops in the country, that ship had sailed a long time ago when Trump inked the deal with the Taliban.

Biden had no problem reversing Trump-admin policies such as ceasing construction of the southern border wall, reinstating the DACA program, reversing policies on oil & gas leases, and halting an immigration ban on select Islamic countries yet, the drawn-down and evacuation of US people and assets out of Afghanistan is being done exactly as the last admin outlined? GTFOH!

Sorry, not sorry, this is a slapdash, haphazard disaster due to hasty and flippant ideologues in office and giving him advice.

Biden learned this behavior. Obama was constantly blaming the previous administration.
Nobody is surprised by this behavior.

As Chamberlain has been mentioned, another (yes, long) opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal.
=============================================

Biden’s Chamberlain Moment
The fall of Kabul has been heard around the world, to the dismay of our allies and delight of our enemies.

‘You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” Winston Churchill’s words to Neville Chamberlain following the Munich agreement echo grimly across Washington this week as the Biden administration reckons with the consequences of the worst-handled foreign-policy crisis since the Bay of Pigs and the most devastating blow to American prestige since the fall of Saigon.

Joe Biden believed three things about Afghanistan. First, that he could stage a dignified and orderly withdrawal from America’s longest war. Second, that a Taliban win in Afghanistan would not seriously affect U.S. power and prestige worldwide. Third, that Americans were eager enough to put the Afghan war behind them that voters wouldn’t punish him even if the withdrawal went pear-shaped. He was utterly and unspinnably wrong about the first. One fears he was equally wrong about the second. We shall see about the third, and his Monday afternoon speech staunchly defending the pullout indicates that he believes he can carry the country with him.

The bipartisan scuttle caucus of which President Biden is a founding member—and former President Trump an eager recruit—argued that withdrawal would enhance rather than undermine American credibility. Ending a war in a remote country of little intrinsic interest to the U.S. does not, one can argue, make America look weak. If anything, the two-decade U.S. intervention testifies to an American doggedness that should reassure our allies about our will. At the same time, cutting our losses after 20 years of failing to build a solid government and military in Afghanistan demonstrates a realism and wisdom that should reassure allies about Washington’s judgment.

Defenders of the withdrawal argue this is one way that America can reduce its footprint in peripheral theaters to focus on the principal threat in coastal East Asia. Why should the U.S. government pay the heavy price—in military resources and in the political costs at home of defending an endless engagement in a remote part of the world—required to contain the Taliban? Isn’t the jihadist group a more direct threat to both Russia and China than to America? Why are U.S. soldiers fighting and dying so that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have one less headache to worry about?

A well-executed withdrawal that visibly served a coherent national strategy might have accomplished what Messrs. Trump and Biden hoped. But that is not what we have, and the Biden administration is facing a major test of credibility. The president’s tragically misguided press-conference remarks of July 8, in which he doubled down on naively optimistic predictions that would have embarrassed Baghdad Bob, cast a shadow over the president’s judgment that will not be easily or quickly dispelled.

The Taliban’s sweeping military victory should not have surprised Mr. Biden. The core of the argument for withdrawal, an argument he has embraced for more than a decade, is that the Afghan government and military are so irredeemably weak and corrupt that it is pointless for America to support them. To expect that such a government and such an army would cohere long enough to provide its vanishing betrayers a dignified retreat is magical thinking of the silliest kind.

The fall of Kabul has been heard around the world. In Europe, where allies had no say in either the substance or the timing of the president’s decision this looks like yet another instance of the incoherent U.S. unilateralism that marked President Obama’s reversal of his Syrian red line and much of Mr. Trump’s policy. It is not just that America’s scuttle threatens to produce a massive refugee crisis in Europe. After 9/11 our allies invoked Article 5 of the NATO mutual defense treaty to come to the aid of the U.S. They deserved some real input into the decision and the planning of any end to the war and are right to resent the arrogant incompetence that presented them with a disastrous fait accompli. In the future, Mr. Biden must expect even less European deference and respect than he has so far received.

China, Russia and Iran surely interpret this shambolic performance as a sign of exploitable weakness and poor judgment. From the peaks of Pakistan to the sands of the Sahel, fanatical jihadists discouraged by the failure of ISIS sense a fresh and favorable turn of events with the arrival of their greatest victory since 9/11. Recruitment will prosper and resources will flow—fed by the sophisticated weapons and tech we left in the field. The president may be finished with Afghanistan, but Afghanistan may not be finished with him.

A multitude of cooks collaborated to spoil this broth. The George W. Bush administration invaded Afghanistan with no clear idea of what to do next. Through the Bush and Obama years, American war aims inexorably and witlessly widened as Congress and private advocacy groups got into the act. Afghanistan was going to be a modern democratic country. Its women would have equal rights. Religious freedom would be guaranteed by a U.S.-inspired constitution. Pride flags floated in the Afghan skies. Kabul University opened a master’s degree program in gender studies.

As America’s war aims reached ever loftier and less feasible heights, the U.S. military studiously ignored the gaping flaw in its strategy: unrelenting support for the Taliban from our “ally” in Islamabad. As long as the Pakistanis offered the jihadist group sanctuary and support, it could not be destroyed. Worse, after any American departure, the Taliban’s Pakistani backing would give it an insurmountable advantage over the democratic Afghan government.

The U.S. security establishment dithered for 20 years, unwilling to confront Islamabad effectively or to recognize that failure and change its Afghan policy to accommodate its consequences. As it is, Pakistan— a nuclear power with a record of promoting proliferation and deep ties both to China and to the most hate-filled and murderous jihadist groups— has faced down America and achieved its long-term goal of reinstalling a friendly regime to its north. Whether Pakistan will be happy with its radical neighbor in the long term remains to be seen, but for now Pakistani hardliners are celebrating the greatest single win in their history.

Nothing is more vain than the hope that somehow this debacle will help the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific. For more than 70 years India, whose massive population and economy make it a linchpin of any American strategy in Asia, has seen the world through the lens of its competition with Pakistan. Now, as Islamabad cements its ties with Beijing, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan hands Pakistan a strategic victory and strengthens the most radical anti-Indian and anti-Western forces in its government. Few in New Delhi will perceive this catastrophe as a sign of Washington’s competence or reliability. If a third-tier country like Pakistan can tie the U.S. in knots, Indians will ask: What chance does Washington have against China?

Perhaps the biggest winner in this dismal week was former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who wrote in his 2014 memoir that then Vice President Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Those lines may not have the Churchillian flair, but they are unlikely to be forgotten now. We must all hope that Mr. Biden can claw his way out of this hole into which he so heedlessly and unnecessarily leapt.

GLOBAL VIEW

By Walter Russell Mead

LINK

On the positive side, for Biden, no one is talking about Hunter this week.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
As Chamberlain has been mentioned, another (yes, long) opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal...

Yes, Chamberlain, indeed. This hadn't occured to me, but it's spot-on.

The Mark Dice video- I'm glad to see Mark getting his claws and fangs into Incompetent Joe and his administration over this. I don't watch any cable news anymore, so I was unaware that the jackals had turned on Biden. The subtext, though: "Clearly, we need Kamala, don't we?"

BTW, I don't know what Don Lemon has been doing but he's aged 10 years in 10 months.

Yes, time to bring Kamala in from the bullpen.
After all, she's handled the border unpleasantness so well.
I'm not so sure at this point that Nancy Pelosi could be any worse and she's next up if they do it quickly enough.
One beneficiary of this, Jimmy Carters legacy moves out of the basement and there's still 3 years and 5 months before the 2024 winner will be sworn in.

I'm certain if the Afghan forces had just five more years of training, this would have turned out differently.

Those are some purty M16 type weapons the tallyban is sporting

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...-to-airport-n2594268

Speaking to CNN, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby admitted he didn't even know the number of Americans currently trapped inside Afghanistan due to Taliban checkpoints—only giving his “best guess” of between 5,000 and 10,000 near Kabul. He then acknowledged there’s no plan for getting those Americans to the airport safely.

“What is the plan to get these people to the airport?” CNN’s John Berman asked.

"From a military perspective our focus is at the airport,” Kirby said. “Right now though I don’t want to set the expectation that we are equipped and able to go out into the countryside and physically move people into Kabul. Our focus right now, the troops that we have there, are at the airport. The idea is that we can get the air operations, not only have they resumed, but to keep them in place for as long as possible.”

Berman then pointed out the obvious: "If they can’t get to the airport what does it matter if you have the capabilities to get them out from the airport?”

Kirby had no answer for Berman—only acknowledging the security situation is “not ideal.”

Would it surprise anyone if say six months from now some of those USGI weapons show up back in the US, in the hands of criminals, sold and trafficked across our wide open Southern border?

Fast and Furious in reverse...

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
Those are some purty M16 type weapons the tallyban is sporting

Let's not get silly, please.

I wonder how the big guy is gonna explain this....

‘F**k that’: What Biden told Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan over US obligations there adding ‘we did it in Vietnam’

-A diary entry from Richard Holbrooke suggests that Biden was intent on pulling out of Afghanistan more than a decade ago

-Biden compared pulling out of Afghanistan with the US exit of southeast Asia in 1973
The now president reportedly said: 'F*** that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it'

-Biden on Monday defended his decision to bring home U.S. troops despite widespread claims that intelligence knew the Taliban would quickly regain power

The rapid US withdrawal from Afghanistan that has left the gate open for the Taliban to surge to power may come as a surprise to some, but President Biden has been in favour of pulling out for years.

In 2010, Biden reportedly told Richard Holbrooke, then Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that the US had to leave Afghanistan regardless of the cost for the Afghan people.

According to Holbrooke, when Biden was asked about America's obligation to maintain their presence in Afghanistan to protect vulnerable civilians, he scornfully replied by referencing the US exit from southeast Asia in 1973.

‘F*** that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.'

Despite widespread claims that the intelligence community knew Kabul could fall to the Taliban within weeks if the US quickly withdrew the bulk of its military assets, Biden went over the heads of his military advisors and oversaw a hasty evacuation of US personnel.

Holbrooke was appointed as a special advisor on Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2009 and was one of the Obama administration's principle advisors on US policy in the countries until his death in December of 2010.

According to his diary, much of which was turned over to his official biographer George Packer following his death, Biden made his ruthless comparison between pulling out of Afghanistan and the withdrawal of US troops from southeast Asia just months before Holbrooke's died.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I'm certain if the Afghan forces had just five more years of training, this would have turned out differently.

Of course. Why who needs focus, resolve, or motivation when you have enough training?

Well, the Afghani Army

The Afghans never really wanted a republic and now they're free to get back to being ruled by psychopathic barbarians.

Yes, if only a small percentage of the all the military age males I have seen on the planes, trying to get on the planes, at the airport, had fought back, the Taliban could have been defeated. But it didn't happen, they ran faster than Antifa slugs do when Riot Police are allowed to do their jobs.

I can almost guarantee we will never hear the true numbers of any Americans left behind from this administration, besides those that might be ransomed (the new/old Afghan "government" will need cash right away). If the numbers of Americans cut off from the airport is 5,000 to 10,000 are true, the death toil wili exceed the total number of troops killed in Afghanistan for the entire "war" (2448 troops killed).

The best description of Afghanistan is it is a country of Alamos. the Afghans are extremely xenophobic and each village/city has a wall around it. Each clan within the walled village, has their own wall, and then each family within the clan has a wall round them. it would take a long term commitment to change them...even Alexander the Great knew it wasn't worth it.

I'm getting damn tired of hearing how Slo Joe was following Trumps plan.

From a few pages back:

quote:

Some of the highlights of this agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban were:
1) All Taliban prisoners released by June 1, 2020
2) Removing all sanctions against the Taliban by Aug 27, 2020
3)Engaging with with UN Security Council to remove all UN sanctions against the Taliban.
4) Withdrawing all US and coalition forces from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.

Ya know what this isn't? May 1, 2021

Ya know how many of the Taliban would have still been in Pakistan where they spend the winter? A majority of them. My understanding is that they are just starting to return to AFG during that time frame.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
The Mark Dice video- I'm glad to see Mark getting his claws and fangs into Incompetent Joe and his administration over this. I don't watch any cable news anymore, so I was unaware that the jackals had turned on Biden. The subtext, though: "Clearly, we need Kamala, don't we?"

BTW, I don't know what Don Lemon has been doing but he's aged 10 years in 10 months.

Biden is expendable. Still, it's amusing to watch them turn on Biden after protecting him for the last 18 months or so.