Showing posts with label Allies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Allies. Show all posts

Friday, August 20, 2021

The Biden-Created Crisis in Afghanistan


 I have not been this enraged in years.  Wasn’t Biden touting how his administration would be bringing the “adults” back in the room and that they would be the ones that would “build back better”?  Now I think, and probably most Americans agree, that we needed to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and close that chapter in our history; however, the sheer incompetence, recklessness, and stupidity of the withdrawal that Biden has executed has endangered Americans, allies and NGO’s, and thousands of Afghanis that trusted and supported America whom are now being left behind to be slaughtered or worse by the evil Taliban bastards.   

“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said in his televised address after being reluctantly yanked from his Camp David vacation. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”  And so far, Biden has steadfastly stood by his decision for the hasty withdrawal while declaring that the “buck stops with him” right before going on to blame Trump, faulty intelligence, the Afghan president and army, and anyone else he could come up with for the horrific collapse of Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban.  On Monday, Biden blamed Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani for convincing him that the Afghan army would stand up and fight. 

Even Biden’s sycophantic allies in the Democrat Industrialized Media (DIM) like CNN’s Jake Tapper are seemingly turning on him as Tapper reported, "The president said that the buck stopped with him but, in fact, this speech was full of finger pointing and blame."

There are even some congressional Democrats, such as Mark Warner D-VA that are not pleased with Biden’s handling of the situation.

“As the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I hope to work with the other committees of jurisdiction to ask tough but necessary questions about why we weren’t better prepared for a worst-case scenario involving such a swift and total collapse of the Afghan government and security forces. We owe those answers to the American people and to all those who served and sacrificed so much.”

Only a month ago, when asked about intelligence services‘ warning that Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban, Biden denied that was likely the case.  Indeed, Biden vehemently insisted that we would not see a repeat of helicopters pulling hordes from a U.S. Embassy similar to Saigon in 1975.

“The Taliban is not the south—the North Vietnamese army,” Biden said. “They’re not—they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”

Exacerbating the matter, Biden seemingly had minimal consultation with his own Pentagon, let alone allies before rolling out this decision with such alacrity.  Consequently, many NATO allies feel misused by the Biden administration. Biden promised to consult with allies, yet he made a unilateral decision to retreat from Afghanistan. Many NATO countries saw their citizens’ lives put at risk and their efforts wasted. They blame Biden.  The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, was basically ghosted by Biden for over 36 hours as the chaos was ensuing.  This is not how the adults in the room should be treating our most loyal ally. 

Because of Biden’s callous neglect to inform our allies of the particulars of his retreat plan, on Wednesday, the British Houses of Parliament decided to hold Biden’s handling of the situation in contempt, with lawmakers condemning his withdrawal plan as “catastrophic” and “shameful,” according to The Telegraph.  Other liberal members of parliament, including Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer and Labour MPs Chris Bryant and Khalid Mahmood, denounced the president as well.

“The Biden government have just come in and, without looking at what is happening on the ground, have taken a unilateral decision, throwing us and everybody else to the fire,” Mahmood said.

Lord Howard, a former Tory leader, described Biden’s withdrawal as “a catastrophic mistake which may well prove to be the defining legacy of his presidency.”

Political scientist and foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead writes that the Biden administration will now have to deal with the “worst-handled foreign-policy crisis since the Bay of Pigs and the most devastating blow to American prestige since the fall of Saigon.”

At least President John F. Kennedy took “sole responsibility” for the Bay of Pigs disaster, rather than blaming his predecessor, President Dwight Eisenhower.

“It’s an utter disgrace and an extreme loss of prestige [for] the United States that President [Joe] Biden allowed this to happen,” says Luke Coffey, a veteran of the Afghanistan War who directs The Heritage Foundation’s Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy.

When Osama bin Laden first attacked America, he decried that the United States was nothing more than a paper tiger. Now, twenty years later, others will take up that rallying cry. After all, today the Taliban controls more territory in Afghanistan than it did on 9/11. The calls for the renewal of the global terrorist jihad will begin once again due to Biden’s foolishness and short-sightedness.  With our wide- open southern border, the opportunities for future attacks on our own soil have now become far more likely.

And it’s not just our adversaries in the Middle East that have been emboldened by Biden’s stupidity. Consider this editorial in China’s Global Times, the Communist Party’s main English-language propaganda mouthpiece, with a message to Taiwan: “From what happened in Afghanistan, they should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and the US military won’t come to help.”

Even former President George W. Bush, who has seldom uttered any criticism regarding his successors to the oval office issued a statement.

Bush said he was “afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm” as a result of the withdrawal.

“I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad. And I’m sad. Laura and I spent a lot of time with Afghan women. And they’re scared,” he said,

“I think about all the interpreters and people that helped — not only U.S. troops, but NATO troops — and they’re just, it seems like they’re just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people,” Bush said.

“And it breaks my heart.”

“The United States government has the legal authority to cut the red tape for refugees during urgent humanitarian crises. And we have the responsibility and the resources to secure safe passage for them now, without bureaucratic delay. Our most stalwart allies, along with private NGOs, are ready to help,” Bush added.

And yet, Biden’s administration has left thousands of Americans, allies, and Afghani supporters stranded outside of Kabul’s airport trying desperately to get past Taliban checkpoints.  Not only is this an utter disgrace, but it is morally repugnant and despicable to leave friends at the mercy of such evil people. 

My anger and disgust at Biden’s ineptitude and callousness was only intensified as I read reports and watched videos of people desperately clinging to an Air Force C-17 aircraft as it took off, showing people falling from the plane after it ascended into the sky.  The sheer fear and panic as the Taliban closed around innocent people in Kabul must have been overwhelming.  Indeed, there are even pictures of an Afghani woman raising her baby up to a U.S. Marine standing on a wall outside the Kabul airport in order that her child might be saved as she was presumably to be left behind.

Our Afghani friends that supported us in our war on terrorism in their country are terrified as they know what awaits them as the United States pulls out under Biden’s orders.

In Shir Khan Bandar, a port city on the border with Tajikistan, an order went out instructing local imams to provide a list of unmarried women and widows, beginning at age 15, so they can be “married” off to Taliban commanders. In Kandahar province, Taliban fighters tortured and then murdered a popular comic named Nazar Mohammad. When asked Sunday whether the Taliban would return to meting out medieval punishments like amputation and stoning, a spokesman for the terror group said it would be up to the Islamic courts.

In an official statement issued this week, leaders in the underground Afghanistan church told missionary group Frontier Alliance International that Christians are being targeted for execution:

“The Taliban has a hit list of known Christians they are targeting to pursue and kill. The US Embassy is defunct and there is no longer a safe place for believers to take refuge. All borders to neighboring countries are closed and all flights to and from have been halted, with the exception of private planes. People are fleeing into the mountains looking for asylum. They are fully reliant on God, who is the only One who can and will protect them.

“The Taliban are going door-to-door taking women and children. The people must mark their house with an "X" if they have a girl over 12 years old, so that the Taliban can take them. If they find a young girl and the house was not marked, they will execute the entire family. If a married woman 25 years or older has been found, the Taliban promptly kill her husband, do whatever they want to her, and then sell her as a sex slave.

“Husbands and fathers have given their wives and daughters guns and told them that when the Taliban come, they can choose to kill them or kill themselves—it is their choice.”

In the midst of the Vietnam War, during one of the many moments when America was potentially set to betray the South Vietnamese side, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned that if we did, “the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

This is the fatal legacy that Biden’s decision has wrought.

Yes, we needed to eventually withdraw from Afghanistan; however, it should have been done with in-depth consultation and coordination with our military commanders and our allies also in country there.  The loyal Afghanis, Americans, NGOs, and allies should have been largely evacuated prior to our military’s withdrawal.  We absolutely should have taken or destroyed any armament or vehicles so that they could not be captured by the Taliban.  And we should have done this process right as winter began so as to give us more time and slow down the movements of the Taliban.

Due to whatever senility-caused reasoning Biden used in forming this decision, he has condemned thousands of would-be friends to death or worse at the hands of the Taliban.  From wokeness to weakness, Biden has shown he is not fit to lead our nation.  Our people know it.  Our allies know it.  And the Afghani people we have betrayed sure as hell know it.  Biden has betrayed our standing in the world, turned his back on our allies, and made our nation far less safe in the long run by emboldening our enemies.  For these reasons, Joe Biden should be removed from office either by impeachment for failing to live up to his duties as commander and chief, or by invoking the 25th amendment due to his obvious cognitive impairment when it comes to making such tremendous life and death decisions.   

Either way, Joe Biden needs to take his sorrowful legacy and leave the oval office… NOW.