He's embarrassed, as should be anyone who voted for Biden. I can't help but think that if the internet wasn't forever and if he didn't have his words from seven months ago hanging in the air as if he had just uttered them, he wouldn't be owning up to his colossal error in judgement.

Also, he knows that Biden's condition worsens each day and even if there is not another Afghanistan for Joe, there's still no way Biden doesn't eventually come to a point in his term where he is unable to maintain the office of the presidency.

He's waiting for the other shoe to drop, and he is dreading it.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
The media will do what the media does, put out 'news' in an effort to make themselves appear as the portal of information. Revealing rescue operations is the work of the State & DoD's PR teams in an effort to put out 'any good news'; naturally they completely overlook the fact that there's still more to do and danger continues.

That's a good point, and one that I had thought about. I get the SoS/ DoD PR angle... but the aspect to it that didn't add up for me, was why would these veteran and active duty operators agree to the risks associated with having ABC news reporters watching their operation in real time? The more I consider this question, the best I can come up with is either the 'green light' was contingent on media presence or Congressman Mike Waltz's cooperation/ coordination was essential to the operation and either he, or they, needed the media angle.

Either way, while I'm glad the operation was a relative success, it was still reckless to include the media or allow them to publish before all evacuees were rescued.

Taliban test drive a Blackhawk



https://rumble.com/vlpmxh-vide...ptured-by-the-t.html

With all the absolutely outrageous bunglings and sheer stupidity involved in this debacle, and remembering those souls who have been lost... a small story of hope and inspiration.

I'm not sure I would've chosen this name, but hey, at least they didn't name the baby Biden, Blinken, or Milley.

[note: Tweets, hyperlinks and pictures at linked article]

----------------------

Afghan baby named after US military evacuation plane where she was born

KATIE KINDELAN
Thu, August 26, 2021, 11:48 AM

Good Morning America
Afghan baby named after US military evacuation plane where she was born

The baby's parents named their newborn daughter Reach, after the C-17 aircraft's call sign, according to Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of the U.S. military's European Command.

"That child's name will forever be Reach," Wolters told reporters Wednesday. "And if you can well imagine, being an Air Force fighter pilot, it's my dream to watch that young child called Reach grew up and be a U.S. citizen and fly United States Air Force fighters in our Air Force."

Wolters said U.S. military officials had "further conversations" with the baby's mother and father after the birth and confirmed the name.

The baby's mother, who was not named, went into labor mid-flight Aug. 21 while on a U.S. Air Force C-17 that was flying from Qatar to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

As the woman's contractions got heavier and she progressed further into labor during the flight, the aircraft's commander made the decision to decrease altitude, which increased the air pressure inside the plane, the U.S. military shared in a series of tweets.


PHOTO: Medical support personnel from the 86th Medical Group help an Afghan mother and family off a U.S. Air Force C-17, after she delivered a child aboard the aircraft upon landing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Aug. 21, 2021. (U.S. Air Force)


The action "helped stabilize and save the mother's life," according to the military. Once the flight landed at Ramstein Air Base, additional U.S. troops boarded the plane and delivered the baby in the plane's cargo bay.


PHOTO: Airmen assigned to the 86th Medical Group provide post labor care to an Afghan mother who gave birth aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III upon landing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Aug. 21, 2021. (Airman Edgar Grimaldo/U.S. Air Force)


"The baby girl and mother were transported to a nearby medical facility and are in good condition," according to a U.S. military tweet.
Although the baby born at Ramstein Air Base was born on an Air Force plane, she will not automatically acquire U.S. citizenship.



PHOTO: Medical support personnel from the 86th Medical Group help an Afghan mother and family off a U.S. Air Force C-17, after she delivered a child aboard the aircraft upon landing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Aug. 21, 2021. (U.S. Air Force via AFP/Getty Images)


The U.S. State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) states that, "A U.S.-registered aircraft outside U.S. airspace is not considered to be part of U.S. territory. A child born on such an aircraft outside U.S. airspace does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of the place of birth."

Over the past week, the U.S. has evacuated tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan, where chaos has erupted after the government collapsed and the Taliban seized control.

The evacuees are being taken to temporary safe haven locations across Europe and the Middle East. Four military installations in the U.S., as well as Washington Dulles International Airport, are also now receiving Afghans, according to Pentagon officials.

Three babies, including the baby born on the C-17, have been born during the evacuation efforts, according to Wolters.

All three babies are doing well, he said, noting the other two babies were delivered at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. Army hospital in Germany.

Afghan baby named after US military evacuation plane where she was born originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com

Hope and inspiration on one hand, but on the other, I simply cannot imagine the stress on those mothers. What horrible circumstances to give birth in.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
As if you needed a freaking crystal ball to see the inevitable disaster of putting a turnip in the White House

Clear enough now for you, genius?



https://mobile.twitter.com/Sam.../1430995280703328256

Will be interesting to see Harris unpack and figure-out what's happening with the Executive branch and the Dems. He's the most leftist of the Intellectual Dark Web, his schooling of Ben Afleck on Maher's show several years ago was fun stuff.

German contingent returned home last night except for the MEDEVAC A400M which remains on call in Tashkent for possible support of ongoing allied operations. It has been clarified that when that aircraft landed in Kabul after the suicide attack, help was offered to the Americans, but their WIA were treated in place instead. Rather it took on two German soldiers who had been left behind in the previous emergency departure of the already-boarding contingent as they had taken cover in shelters with US troops during the attack.

It's not often you see a general giving a press statement with slung rifle after getting a hug from the defense minister. Having the troops disembark with their weapons in view of the press was probably a purposeful statement in a country which tends to treat its armed forces with at best "friendly disinterest", as a former president once said; and a good one IMO (though the upcoming elections likely played into it, too).

An opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal.

Although a fairly long read, I recommend it to anyone who is under the impression that the U.S. presence there was to “fix” Afghanistan or even to “conquer” the country. It explains that the purpose was to keep it from being a breeding ground and sanctuary for the types of terrorists who were responsible for 9/11—and until recently that was being accomplished. Had we, for example, simply left after it was decided that Usama bin Laden was no longer there, he could have simply walked back in and started over rather than being forced to run into secluded hiding for the following decade.

=========================

The ‘Forever War’ Hasn’t Ended

By Paul Wolfowitz

President Biden, like his two immediate predecessors, seems to think you can end “forever wars” simply by leaving them. But Thursday’s unprovoked attack, on people who were fleeing and those who were helping them, demonstrates the truth of the soldier’s adage that “the enemy always gets a vote.”

On the day Kabul fell to the Taliban, the president declared that he wouldn’t ask “our troops to fight on endlessly in another country’s civil war, taking casualties, suffering life-shattering injuries, leaving families broken by grief and loss. This is not in our national-security interest. It is not what the American people want.”

The appeal is easy to understand. Even as a civilian, I’ve seen enough of those life-shattering injuries, enough of the grief and loss of Gold Star families, to know that I don’t want it to continue for one day more than necessary.

But what is necessary? Those who complain of “forever wars” seem to ignore the reason we were in Afghanistan in the first place, or they misstate it, as Mr. Biden did in this instance. We were never in Afghanistan to participate in its civil war. We went there to prevent a murderous gang from regaining control of Afghanistan, where they ruled 20 years ago and where they enabled an attack that killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil.

The war with that gang and its affiliates won’t end because the U.S. has quit. Nothing we know about the Taliban, much less anything that we have seen in the last month, suggests that they are ready to quit. Thursday’s bombings appear to have been the work of a rival gang, ISIS-K. Mr. Biden called it “an archenemy of the Taliban,” but the two groups both hate the U.S. and believe it’s glorious to kill Americans. It’s a shame they can’t both lose, as someone said in a different context—but whoever wins will make Afghanistan a haven for anti-American terrorists.

The Taliban feel inspired by their victory over the U.S., which they portray as replicating the historic victory of the Afghan resistance over the Soviet Union in the 1980s—even though the group didn’t exist until after the Soviets had left. Almost all the leadership of the anti-Soviet resistance supported the U.S. after 9/11. The Taliban— which was strongly supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence beginning in the early 1990s—drew on a new generation of fanatics who had been educated in Pakistani madrassas.

When Americans were asked in a poll last May whether they favored withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, without any context or qualification, 69% said yes. Had that same poll asked whether they favored withdrawing American troops and handing Afghanistan to a terrorist regime that could permit al Qaeda (and others) to re-establish terrorist bases and training camps, support for withdrawal would surely have been considerably less. As Americans watched that outcome unfold in the past few weeks, support for withdrawal had already plummeted by 20 points as of a week ago.

The terrible recent events in Afghanistan will hang like a dark cloud over the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. But it should also be an occasion for defiance, and for pride in the Americans who fought, sacrificed and successfully protected our country for two decades from further mass-casualty attacks—something that seemed impossible 20 years ago, when people talked about having to adjust to a “new normal” of persistent large-scale terrorism.

The coming anniversary should also be an occasion for the president to declare his determination to sustain that record for the years ahead. To do so convincingly, Mr. Biden will have to put aside the excuse making and blame shifting of recent weeks and talk to Americans with the candor we deserve. He needs to restore his credibility for his own sake and for the sake of our country.

The candor this moment requires would be difficult for any occupant of the White House, but here are four things that he and his team should acknowledge: First, the war against terrorists is going to be very long. It won’t end with the capture of a capital or a surrender ceremony on an American battleship. But long wars aren’t the worst kind. The wars with Japan and Germany, which started nearly 75 years ago, each lasted less than four years, but ended with more than 400,000 U.S. military deaths and the first uses of nuclear weapons in war. Decisive victory isn’t necessarily better than “forever war” if a long commitment can keep America safe at a much lower cost in American lives.

Second, it was a mistake for Donald Trump to trust the Taliban and for Mr. Biden to ignore the Taliban’s aggressive opposition to a peaceful outcome. The rush to get out and the failure to respond to Taliban aggression hastened the collapse of the Afghan army and the chaotic rush for the exits, which created the conditions for Thursday’s attacks.

Third, choosing to avoid “forever war” by abandoning our Afghan allies was both costly and dishonorable. Exactly as Churchill said to Neville Chamberlain after the betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich: “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” And now we have lost the Afghan army, which, whatever its failings, helped keep the Taliban at bay with much-reduced costs in American lives and money.

Mr. Biden should have known to expect this because something similar happened 10 years ago when we withdrew our forces from Iraq. Lacking U.S. air support and advisory capabilities on which the Iraqi army had grown to depend, it collapsed under an assault by Islamic State. Three years after the withdrawal, President Obama had to rush 1,500 troops back to Iraq to assist in the fight to drive out ISIS. By 2016 that number had grown to 5,000.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was far more damaging and abrupt because it began on short notice at the height of the summer fighting season. When the Taliban began its major offensive on schedule in May, the U.S. and its coalition partners were too busy dismantling bases in Afghanistan to provide the air support and intelligence that had enabled the Afghans to repel Taliban attacks for the previous seven years. That was undoubtedly a major factor in the collapse of the Afghan will to fight, something that has happened to more-capable armies elsewhere in past conflicts.

Fourth, the president was wrong to disparage the bravery of the Afghans, 66,000 of whom have died defending their country—nearly 30 times the number of American combat deaths in Afghanistan. Giving the impression that the U.S. has borne the brunt of the fighting is virtually designed to make Americans say it’s time to quit.

So too is exaggerating the cost to the U.S. of keeping the relatively small presence needed to provide that backbone of air support and intelligence on which the Afghans came to depend. Americans could have been told that U.S. combat deaths had been averaging around 20 a year since we switched to a largely advisory mission in 2015, and that the financial costs were a fraction of what they have averaged over the past 20 years. Then they would have seen those 20 years of human and financial costs in a different light, especially compared with the costs of mass-casualty terrorist attacks. Now the Taliban victory could reverberate far beyond Afghanistan’s borders and inspire terrorists around the world.

The president was right to say we shouldn’t remain in Afghanistan to do “nation building,” but wrong to imply that we still were. No one should have expected Afghanistan to become a modern democracy overnight. There may well have been overly ambitious hopes for our mission in the past, but a small presence of 3,500 U.S. troops, which could have made an important difference for the Afghan army, would have no such mandate. Instead, like a gardener who pulls up weeds to allow plants to grow, keeping the Taliban off the backs of the Afghan people would have enabled them to continue some of their impressive successes, particularly in educating girls and women, successes that are being extinguished under the Taliban’s medieval tyranny.

Nations aren’t built by outsiders; they need to grow organically. But that growth requires the kind of secure environment that the U.S. helped to provide South Korea. As late as the 1960s, South Korea was described by knowledgeable observers as a hopeless basket case with no natural resources, riddled with corruption and burdened with a Confucian ethic that teaches that gentlemen don’t work. Half a century of American support helped the South Korean army defend the country from the North while South Koreans transformed their country into a modern state.

Even if Mr. Biden finds the courage to acknowledge these hard truths, words aren’t enough. The administration also needs to speak with action. Three kinds of actions are particularly critical to get the U.S. out of this hole: First and most urgent, attend to the safety of Americans, citizens of allied nations, and Afghans now endangered in Afghanistan because they assisted in the fight against the Taliban. The Taliban shouldn’t be permitted to dictate the terms under which we conduct such a morally and strategically vital mission— not when we have 6,000 troops and the air power to back them up, and not when the Taliban’s chief backer, Pakistan, depends on subsidies from the West and the Arab Gulf states to keep its economy afloat. Pakistan and the Taliban should be put on notice that they will pay a price for obstructing the peaceful evacuation of Americans and our friends.

Even better would be to get an emergency United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing support for the creation of safe exit routes, as suggested in these pages by Paula Dobriansky and Paul Saunders. That would also require the president to extend the evacuation for as long as necessary to permit orderly departures, which would reduce the opportunities for terrorist attacks like Thursday’s.

Second, with official Chinese media boastfully warning that “once a war breaks out” the U.S. will abandon Taiwan (among others), as it did the Afghans, there needs to be more visible action and coordination with Japan and our other allies to strengthen deterrence— economic as well as military— to forestall an attack on Taiwan.

Third, in the wake of the Taliban victory, more needs to be done to assure the weaker Persian Gulf countries that the U.S. will protect them against Iran. That won’t be easy, particularly for a president who is known in the region for his opposition to the 1991 Gulf War, his eagerness to leave both Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan now, and his opposition to the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout.

At the same time those states, along with Pakistan, must be held to account for the support they have provided the Taliban over the past decades. Pakistan, which was able to manipulate the U.S. for years because of our need for its logistical support, is attempting to wean itself from the U.S. by kowtowing to Beijing on everything from concentration camps for Muslims in Xinjiang to port facilities in Gwadar. But there is still much that Islamabad needs from the U.S. and other advanced economies. Continuation of that support should be linked to the Taliban’s behavior in the present emergency.

The U.S. faces a challenge that is daunting and difficult. But Mr. Biden and his national-security team shouldn’t underestimate the resilience of the American people when they’re addressed with candor and with a clear sense of purpose.

The fall of Kabul has been a wake-up call for many Americans. We can’t afford to hit snooze now and go back to sleep. If we do, the next alarm may sound like the one that roused us on Sept. 11, 2001.


Mr. Wolfowitz, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, served as deputy defense secretary, 2001-05.

LINK

Wolfowitz thinking got us into this mess.

Doesn’t take much effort to link together what’s happening and why.

During a news conference about Thursday’s deadly terror attack at the Kabul airport, Biden acknowledged unspecified “occasions” on which the US military had contacted the Taliban to say, “for example, this bus is coming through with ‘X’ number of people on it, made up of the following people.”
Link


The situation:

•Several busses carrying Afghan visa/permit holders, were denied access to the airport by the Taliban
•US citizens were warned by the Sate Dept to avoid all Kabul Airport gates
•Multiple intel reports that IS is planning to carry a bigger attack on the Airport
Link

Taliban supreme leader

Hibatullah Akhundzada — the so-called commander of the faithful — has shepherded the Taliban as its chief since 2016 when snatched from relative obscurity to oversee a movement in crisis.

After taking the insurgency’s reins, the cleric was tasked with the mammoth challenge of unifying a jihadist movement that briefly fractured during a bitter power struggle

The infighting came as the group was hit with successive blows — the assassination of Akhundzada’s predecessor and the revelation that its leaders had hidden the death of Taliban founder Mullah Omar.

Little is still known about Akhundzada’s day-to-day role, with his public profile largely limited to the release of annual messages during Islamic holidays.

Apart from a single photograph released by the Taliban, the leader has never made a public appearance and his whereabouts remain largely unknown.

Since taking control of Kabul in mid-August, the group has remained tight-lipped about Akhundzada’s movements.



https://guardian.ng/news/where...bans-supreme-leader/

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Wolfowitz thinking got us into this mess.

I completely agree. The Neocon hawks that wanted to fill the bankrolls of their defense contractor benefactors are precisely why we have entered one nation building failure after another.

quote:

Originally posted by Lt CHEG:

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Wolfowitz thinking got us into this mess.

I completely agree. The Neocon hawks that wanted to fill the bankrolls of their defense contractor benefactors are precisely why we have entered one nation building failure after another.

Was it Neocon hawks or, simply the weak-willed within that admin who pushed the we have to be nice notion?

Wolfowitz I will blame for Iraq, he pushed hard and got Rumsfeld to go along. We were going into Afghanistan period. 9/11 originated out of there, the UN voted to go after them, NATO invoked Article-5, and Congress voted near unanimously; we were going in and stomping heads, our allies were lined-up at the door willing to follow us in. Guys like Powell (remember he was SOS then) spit-out the infamous 'you break it, you own it' mantra, which the Left and gleeful press gobbled-up. Laura Bush, entertainers and all the academic feminists couldn't believe that a thing like a burqa existed and pushed to make gender rights a top-priority...in a country/land where clean water was a foreign concept.

Going into Afghanistan was the right move, the mission should always have been punitive, nothing more. The Afghans would've been fine sorting things out on their own post-Taliban, they were in the midst of it anyways.

The hubris of the Wolfowitz article is about what we might expect.
Every article from any source I have been able to get my hands on points to abject failure from national leadership including top military.To have given up Bagram Air base as pointed out time and time again was a strategic mistake - tying us to one spot, no fallback.
Letters and emails to Senators from Ky will be futile, I’m almost certain. Accountability??
Second time in our lives we’ve seen choppers over embassies. Ironic.
God protect our valiant troops, and prayers for the families of those troopers who, yet again, lost their lives to a stupid man’s failures.
Regards to all here.
Blackhorse4

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

I see the face of the7th century looking at me.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this opinion, but the world really would be batter and safer place if he was located and got to head-butt with one of those spiffy new missiles that chops you into greasy little callops.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

Going into Afghanistan was the right move, the mission should always have been punitive, nothing more. The Afghans would've been fine sorting things out on their own post-Taliban, they were in the midst of it anyways.

We actually agree. We absolutely needed to clean house in Afghanistan. Going in there needed to be done. But it was the Neocons like Wolfowitz that kept us there to nation build. We should have cleaned house in Afghanistan in much the same fashion as we fire bombed Dresden and other cities in WWII. Completely and indiscriminately wipe out the training camps and all areas around them, without thought or worry about trying to make friends or try to look like the bigger person. After 6 months we should have had a minimal compliment in the area to remain able to perform strikes at a moments notice but not maintain a footprint like we did or try to win hearts and minds. Afghanistan should have been an intel led initiative where we kept CIA type assets in to learn when another camp was about to set up or try to find the next heavy hitters. Once that was determined then the minimal support in the area would be utilized to destroy those areas. All intel should have been overseas and not amalgamated with CONUS sources, to insure that the Afghans were not subject to the same 4th Amendment protections that anyone in the states would enjoy. Yes it would have been a constant game of whack a mole, but it could have been done with a much smaller footprint, at much less expense, and it likely would have produced similar results. We didn’t screw up by going to Afghanistan, we screwed up by trying to bring democracy to an area that is incongruous with democratic government, as well as trying to unify a group of people who really don’t want to be unified. We should have treated each area and tribe as their own entity instead of looking at Afghanistan as a single nation, when it only exists as a nation on paper and not in reality.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
Taliban test drive a Blackhawk

Wimps! They didn’t even attempt a hover taxi. Now that could have been an entertaining video.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:...

It's not often you see a general giving a press statement with slung rifle after getting a hug from the defense minister. Having the troops disembark with their weapons in view of the press was probably a purposeful statement in a country which tends to treat its armed forces with at best "friendly disinterest", as a former president once said; and a good one IMO (though the upcoming elections likely played into it, too).

Whether or not it was done as a deliberate "subliminal" message, I cannot know, but my "gut" reaction, is that "American allies" got a slap in the face and many of them have realized that they need to stand on their own feet.

I think we will see and hear of changes concerning defense and world affairs.

There is change of dealers and shuffling of cards happening, ,and the game is going to be different.

History tells us this.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
There is change of dealers and shuffling of cards happening, ,and the game is going to be different.

And something tells me none of that will be advantageous to the US or its ongoing safety.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
And something tells me none of that will be advantageous to the US or its ongoing safety.

Or for the rest of the western world for that matter.

The reason why all our so-called European friends can spend so much of their money on social programs, universal Healthcare, and yadda yadda yadda instead of spending that money on their military and the defense of their nation is because they know that the United States already spends a lot of her own money on a huge, badass military and will come to their defense for them. Well, that will soon be changing if the democrats get their way.

What were the democrats and Pelosi doing while Americans were being blown up in Afghanistan? They were prioritizing and celebrating that massive $3.5 trillion huge expansion of the federal government with no way to pay for it. Ultimately our military will have to take a huge hit. And then? We're just another European style nation. Shangri-la. That is until China realizes its imperialistic goals and becomes a world empire.

America's century is over. We've been the big dog since WWI and WWII, and now we are witnessing in real time the end of that chapter. We will have another century, or certainly can, but the question is what kind of story will America have in this next chapter. It could be good or it could be bad. I can't predict either way. But I will say this. The democrats screwed this up unbelievably in Afghanistan. Whether they planned on arming the terrorists, the military industrial complex, and later having to go back into Afghanistan...whatever; what they obviously didn't plan was the speed at which the Taliban took over the country. And as a result, the democrats' unmatched incompetence is now on full display. It is my belief that they will not recover from this and will be removed from power for at least a generation. America will have a chance in that case. I pray daily that I'm right.