Fall of Afghanistan the fruits of years
of US miscalculations
Posted By: Dreadnought, 8/16/2021 12:11:07 AM
US president Joe Biden’s top advisers concede they were stunned by the rapid collapse of the Afghan army in the face of an aggressive, well-planned offensive by the Taliban that now threatens Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. The past 20 years show they should not have been. If there is a consistent theme over two decades of war in Afghanistan, it is the overestimation of the results of the $83 billion the United States has spent since 2001 training and equipping the Afghan security forces and an underestimation of the brutal, wily strategy of the Taliban. The Pentagon issued dire warnings to Biden even before he took office
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Gov. Greg Abbott tested positive Tuesday for COVID-19, according to his office.
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Americans who requested to be evacuated from Afghanistan received a note from the State Department informing them that the U.S. can’t “guarantee” their security on the way to the Kabul airport, CBS News reported on Tuesday.
The State Department has a list of roughly 5,000 Americans who have requested to leave Afghanistan and roughly half of them received the note, according to CBS.
“Thank you for registering your request to be evacuated from Afghanistan….Please make your way to Hamid Karzai International Airport at this time,” the note reads.
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Mask Mandates Fail in California’s Bay
Area as Coronavirus Hospitalizations
Match 2020 Summer High 16 replies
Area as Coronavirus Hospitalizations
Match 2020 Summer High 16 replies
Coronavirus hospitalizations have matched the 2020 summer high in California’s Bay Area, despite the area re-imposing mask mandates — even among vaccinated individuals — this month.
ABC 7’s Bay Area COVID-19 Tracker shows the Bay Area’s case peak exceeding the figures seen in the summer of 2020, despite a year of mitigation measures and strategies, including the recent reimplementation of mask mandates.
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Biden’s Failure on Afghanistan Has Been
So Bad That Even a Friendly Press
Corps Has Bailed on Him 15 replies
So Bad That Even a Friendly Press
Corps Has Bailed on Him 15 replies
The Taliban taking over most of Afghanistan, including Kabul and the presidential palace — where they posed with U.S. guns.
A helicopter rushing U.S. personnel from the embassy in Kabul.
Afghans running to and on the Kabul airport runway to flee the country.
Afghans hanging onto and falling out of U.S. military planes.
The pictures and reports of these events show the inevitable consequences of a withdrawal that President Joe Biden dismissed or disregarded. The first two being examples of the former and the last two as examples of the latter.
The U.S. efforts in Afghanistan have been undone so quickly after Washington spent trillions of dollars there over almost 20 years after 9/11.
Perhaps Joe Biden’s speech turned out to be more inspirational than first thought. His incessant finger-pointing over the incompetent and catastrophic bug-out in Afghanistan certainly got everyone’s attention, even for a period of time on CNN’s home page (via Twitchy): CNN later changed the headline to a more anodyne “Biden stands behind his decision,” but the theme has clearly resonated — even within Biden’s own administration. CNN reports this morning that White House “factions” are doing some finger-pointing of their own in an attempt to scrub the stain of this shameful episode off of them:
Factions within the Biden administration are embroiled in a blame game
Joe Biden will be haunted by those images of U.S. helicopters beating a hasty retreat from Afghanistan. But his Afghanistan nightmare is only beginning.
There are between 5,000 and 10,000 Americans still stuck in Kabul, according to the Pentagon. And the military apparently has no plan to evacuate them. The possibility, indeed, the probability, that the Taliban or one of its rogue offshoots will start snatching Americans has always been there. The reason is that the Americans will be huge bargaining chips — not just with the U.S. but with whatever government emerges in Afghanistan. Hostage takers will be able to barter for power
Yesterday, a disturbing video emerged from Kabul airport showing thousands of Afghans storming a C-17 transport aircraft. AH-64 Apache helicopters were being used to swoop down and clear a path so the plane could take off. That’s how ill-prepared the evacuation was. Other videos showed the scene after the plane rotated and began climbing, with at least two individuals falling to their deaths. Now, we are learning more about what transpired, including the fact that the deaths didn’t stop there. This is an inexplicable situation, not because the pilots did anything wrong, but because they were put in this position in the first place. They had to make
During his speech yesterday, Joe Biden angrily blamed everyone else for the collapse in Afghanistan, including his predecessor, President Donald Trump, saying that he had to comply with the deal Trump had worked out, despite the fact that the Taliban had breached the agreement and despite the fact that Biden himself had tossed aside so many other deals that Trump had worked out.
But Politico has a great story that completely blows all this apart. The story basically indicates that this debacle was intentional — that Biden always intended withdrawal, nothing to do with Trump, and to heck with our allies.
They noted on the Afghanistan pullout, for example, Biden overruled
Defense Officials Sidestep Concerns over
Taliban Blocking Off Airport,
Beating Would Be Evacuees 4 replies
Taliban Blocking Off Airport,
Beating Would Be Evacuees 4 replies
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Tuesday sidestepped questions about how the U.S. plans to respond to reports that the Taliban is stopping and beating people who attempt to acccess the airport in Kabul, where the U.S. military is facilitating evacuations from Afghanistan in the wake of a Taliban takeover.
Kirby said during a press briefing that U.S. military commanders at the Kabul international airport are in communication with Taliban commanders on the ground outside the airport. He declined to further detail those discussions, saying only that he would “let the results speak for themselves.”
Asked by a reporter if those discussions include talk of allowing Americans and
Number of Americans Trapped in Afghanistan
May Be Even Worse Than the Biden
Team Is Telling Us 7 replies
May Be Even Worse Than the Biden
Team Is Telling Us 7 replies
As we reported earlier, the Biden team is saying that there may be up to 10,000 Americans who still need to be rescued from Afghanistan. I wrote previously about how they were begging people like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) for help because our government wasn’t responding and had just told them to shelter in place and fill out a form.
But it may be even worse than that, according to Bush Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles. According to Charles, he said there was a tally and it was between 15,000 and 40,000 people still waiting to be told when they’ll be saved.
The Incoherent Biden Administration
4 replies
Once in a while during the Obama Administration some people liked to say that a re-run of the Carter presidency was a best-case scenario, but that is really coming true under President Biden. As mentioned previously, it took Carter three years to finally hit bottom, with the famous “Malaise” speech of July 1979 (which never actually contained the word “malaise,” but his press secretary accepted that characterization the following day in a press conference).
It was right after that astoundingly bad speech that Ken Bode wrote in The New Republic an assessment
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Despite the Taliban's long history of oppression of women and iron-fisted rule, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price Monday urged Afghanistan's new leaders to form an inclusive government that had women in it.
Price cited a United Nations declaration calling for "an immediate cessation of all hostilities and the establishment, through inclusive negotiations, of a new government that is united, inclusive and representative – including with the full, equal and meaningful participation of women."
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John R. Bolton says the calamitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will go down in history as “the Trump-Biden policy.” Mr. Bolton, who served as former President Trump’s national security adviser, said in a Daily Telegraph op-ed that Mr. Biden’s approach to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan was “virtually indistinguishable from Donald Trump’s.” The former adviser, though, said Mr. Biden’s insistence that Mr. Trump left him with only two bad options—“follow Trump’s blueprint or else considerably increase US combat forces in Afghanistan”—is a “strawman argument” and “palpably false.” Mr. Bolton, who has been an outspoken Trump critic since he was pushed out of the White House
President Joe Biden delivered a speech of quiet fury at the White House on Monday, defending his decision to bring home U.S. troops before blaming Afghan leaders for their failure to prevent the country collapsing. 'I stand squarely behind my decision,' Biden said. 'After 20 years I've learned the hard way. That there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.' It was the first time the president had spoken publicly about the unfolding crisis in six days. He was forced to return from Camp David amid hostile headlines about his absence from Washington while Americans were being rescued from Kabul airport.
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President Joe Biden will remain hidden at his presidential retreat at Camp David through Monday, according to the White House, as the Taliban swiftly seized control of Afghanistan.
The president’s daily guidance for Monday indicated Biden would remain at Camp David for at least one more day, with no public events scheduled.
But a senior administration official indicated to reporters Sunday evening that Biden might address the country “in the next few days,” according to reports.
It remains unclear whether Biden will speak from Camp David or return to the White House to deliver his speech, the reports noted. He was previously scheduled to remain at Camp David until Wednesday.
Joe Biden and his media acolytes call him Mr. Empathy and Mr. Compassion. His Afghanistan speech yesterday told a different story, and should end that phony spin forever.
My takeaway was how cold, and hard, and compassionless Biden was as he sought to extricate himself from the catastrophe of his own making. He blamed everyone but himself for his failure, particularly the Afghan army. He smarmily assured terrified Afghanis left behind he'd now speak out for their human rights instead of actually protect them. He effectively told U.S. servicemembers their service was for nothing. It was appalling.
The embarrassment that is Joe Biden
38 replies
Although the White House had intended to keep Biden under wraps for as long as possible, the demand that he say something – anything – about the unfolding debacle in Afghanistan forced him to leave Camp David for a 20-minute statement, after which he refused to take any questions. The important part of what he said boils down to one sentence: We had to leave and everything that went wrong was Trump’s or the Afghans' fault. Biden is a craven coward, a feckless fool, a dismal dummy, and a man who will soon have more blood on his hands than a thousand Lady Macbeths.
Thousands of people were seen running for planes in countless videos posted to social media at the airport in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, as the Taliban takes control of the country.Some of the videos were posted late on Sunday night and during the early morning hours on Monday local Afghanistan time.“Witnesses at the civilian domestic terminal said they had heard occasional gunshots and said thousands of people had crammed into the terminal and filled the parking lots, desperately seeking flights out,” The New York Times reported. “Late Sunday, the State and Defense Departments issued a statement saying the U.S. was working to secure control of the airport
The incoming. It’s coming fast and furious for (at) Joe Biden.So much so that as I begin this article, the suddenly embattled president is about the speak to the nation, having cut short his Camp David “vacation” solely because his administration is at least “smart” enough to finally recognize they better do their damnedest to attempt to stop the bleeding — ASAP.They — he — will not succeed. It’s not just conservatives who continue to skewer the ever-loving crap out of the hapless Biden for his disastrous decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan — not because he withdrew them, but because of how he did it.
Obama’s Former Ambassador to Afghanistan:
I Question Biden’s ‘Ability
to Lead Our Nation’ 36 replies
I Question Biden’s ‘Ability
to Lead Our Nation’ 36 replies
The fall of Afghanistan has shocked Obama’s former ambassador to such a degree that he is now questioning President Joe Biden’s ability to lead the nation.
Speaking with The Spokesman-Review, Ryan Crocker, who served as Obama’s ambassador from 2011 to 2012, lamented that the Biden administration failed to see the Taliban’s swift takeover when preparing for the withdrawal from Afghanistan.“I think the direction was predictable; the trajectory was not,” he said. “What President Biden has done is to embrace the Afghan policy of President Trump, and this is the outcome.”Just a little over a month ago, Joe Biden rejected assertions that U.S. withdrawal would lead to