North Korea said on Sept. 13 that it had launched new long-range cruise missiles. These missiles can likely carry nuclear weapons. The missile tests were the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s first since March, and highlight the continued danger that China, Russia, and their totalitarian ally, North Korea, hold for truly democratic countries in Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the United States.
North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, and has since frequently tested additional nuclear weapons and the missiles that carry them. The technological sophistication of these weapons has increased markedly in the last six years. The DPRK started testing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) in 2015. In 2017, North Korea tested three intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and a sixth underground nuclear weapon. Afterward, North Korea claimed the ability to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon.
In October 2020 and this January, North Korea paraded newly-developed ICBMs and SLBMs. North Korea’s March tests included a new ballistic missile that carries a 2.5-ton warhead. In August, the United Nations claimed that North Korea apparently restarted one of its main nuclear reactors. Earlier this month, South Korean media reported that North Korea was developing a short-range ballistic missile with a three-ton payload.
China has provided finances, high technology, front companies, and diplomatic cover to North Korea during its nuclear weapons development. Beijing protected North Korea diplomatically at the U.N. from tougher sanctions necessary to augment existing sanctions since 2006. U.N. sanctions weakened by Beijing have as a result failed, making the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) responsible for North Korea’s continued transgressions, and any of the massive harms that could result.
In 2005, the United States effectively sanctioned a Chinese bank for the facilitation of North Korean money laundering. Xi Jinping, in 2011, approved the arguably illegal sale of 16-wheel trucks that North Korea needed to transport nuclear-capable missiles to launch pads. In 2016, North Korean Kwangmyongsong-4 rocket parts that fell into the Yellow Sea, and were retrieved by the South Korean navy, revealed that motor parts, wiring, and other essential components came from China.
Monday’s North Korean cruise missile tests included targets that were 932 miles away. They were hit, according to North Korea’s official media, after the missiles changed trajectory and circled their targets, making counter-missile defense more difficult. The missile strikes are implicit threats against South Korea and Japan’s five main islands, all of which are within range of the new missile. North Korea announced on Monday that the new cruise missile was “a strategic weapon of great significance” and a goal of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, announced in January.
The missile test highlights the weakness of current U.N. sanctions against North Korea, which ban the country from developing or testing ballistic missiles that can reach the United States, but not the cruise missiles that can reach Japan and South Korea, including the U.S. forces on those islands.
As a result of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, all three countries are increasing their investment in missile and other military defenses. These costly military expenditures in democracies are the fault of China, Russia, and the rogue regimes they support, including North Korea. Without these offensively-oriented dictatorships, the United States and its allies would be able to devote more spending to social services.
American nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea are stalled, and successive American administrations have unfortunately been unwilling to take the necessary action, including tougher economic sanctions on China and North Korea, to remove the threat. This failure to take action against China and North Korea puts American and allied lives at risk.
Given the CCP’s influence over North Korea, the country could be used to launch a proxy war that includes nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies. This could allow Beijing to facilitate nuclear strikes without suffering retaliation, which would effectively remove American deterrence of a nuclear war.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, is scheduled to meet the South Korean foreign minister on Sept. 15. The latest DPRK missile test will give Beijing more bargaining leverage over South Korea during these talks. South Korea increasingly needs the CCP’s assistance in decreasing the threat from North Korea. Indeed, the Sept. 13 test may have been timed by Beijing to assist it in the Sept. 15 negotiations.
China has been implicated in the provision of funding, technology, and diplomatic support for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and in turn, benefits from the North Korean program due to its close alliance with the country. The CCP regime must therefore be held fully responsible for any harm that results from North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
With the launch of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) five-year “sinicization campaign” in 2018, the regime has been working to “re-create” spiritual beliefs that are compatible with its ideologies, according to a Chinese American pastor.
Bob Fu, the founder and president of the U.S.-based Christian nonprofit China Aid, told The Epoch Times in an email that his organization has “clearly detected intensified persecution every year” since the first year of the campaign.
“The Chinese government under the guidance of President Xi Jinping has escalated the persecution of people of faith with the ‘sinicization’ campaign, or to re-create religion to better align with the CCP ideals,” said Fu, who was a student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and a house church leader in Beijing. Fu and his wife fled to the United States as religious refugees in 1997.
Fu added that the sinicization campaign has “impacted those of all faiths in China.” “Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners, house church Christians, and Catholics have all been targeted by the Chinese government because of their religious beliefs,” he said.
With only a few months left until the 2022 Winter Olympics, Fu says it is “egregious” that China will be hosting the Games despite its record of “gross human rights abuses.” He said the 2022 Beijing Olympics “will be a test of the world’s conscience to see how we respond.”
A Three-Self Church in Shuyang County was converted into a place to commemorate the Red Army, and Mao Zedong’s statue was placed near the entrance. (Courtesy of Bitter Winter)
Sinicization of Christianity
According to Fu, the sinicization of Christianity is “directly linked” to the escalated persecution of house Christians. He said the act of sinicization is centered on gaining “control”—the key goal that the CCP “desires the most.”
“Sinicization gives the CCP a chance to re-imagine Christianity with the government at its center. That’s why we see portraits of Jesus being replaced by Mao and Xi in state-sanctioned churches,” Fu said.
However, Fu added that despite the communist regime’s “best efforts” to persecute Christians, “Christianity continues to grow rapidly.”
The Hancheng Church in Hanshan County had its cross removed on April 28, 2020. (Courtesy of Bitter Winter)
A week after the CCP marked its 100-year anniversary, the state-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement held a national conference on July 8 where churches were provided with “a model sermon” based on Xi’s centenary speech of July 1.
The pastors were instructed to hail “Long live the great, glorious and correct Chinese Communist Party,” and Christians were required to “trust the CCP,” reported Bitter Winter, an online magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China. A few days later in another conference on July 13 in Shanghai, the participants discussed speeding up the “sinicization of Christianity,” according to the magazine.
The communist regime has reached this key phase of distorting the Christian faith over the long years of persecution. Just in the year 2020, over 900 crosses were removed from churches and Bibles were confiscated. Apart from demolishing the crosses, the CCP also raided and closed down many house churches, including state-run churches.
“In 2020, we saw a rise in cases involving authorities threatening or detaining Christians, outlawing house churches, as well as increases in demolishing church buildings and crosses,” Fu said. “2020 is the worst year in persecution since the end of the Cultural Revolution.”
In the same year, it was reported that a state-owned university in China distorted a biblical story from John 8 about how Jesus forgave a woman who had committed adultery. The altered version, published by the University of Electronic Science and Technology Press, states that Jesus stoned the woman, saying “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead,” reported Bitter Winter.
According to UCA News, Catholics in China are “upset” over the incident. An anonymous priest said in the report that such distortion of the original text “is against morality and the law.” Another Catholic in China said that events distorting Christian faith and history have been “repeated every year,” but the Church has never received the “respect and apology it deserves.”
Fu doesn’t find it surprising, either. “It is sadly unsurprising to me that the CCP would go through such lengths to alter the Gospel,” he told The Epoch Times, adding that the true teachings call for “sacrificial change” and for one’s life to be centered on the Divine, “not the CCP.”
Some of the other instances of Christianity being sinicized include the following: the replacement of a painting of Mother Mary and the Christ child with a portrait of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, religious believers being forced to attend compulsory training to memorize Xi’s quotes, and the portraying of Jesus and Mary in ancient Chinese attire, reported Bitter Winter.
“My eyes widened when I saw Mary with her hair tied in a bun like an ancient Chinese woman. It’s so bizarre,” a Three-Self churchgoer told Bitter Winter after seeing the illustrations of Jesus and Mary published in Tian Feng, a monthly Christian magazine.
Another 70-year-old Christian said: “The CCP has always talked about de-Westernization; it doesn’t allow Chinese people to believe in the God of foreigners, but I never expected that the Lord Jesus and saints through the ages would be transformed into Chinese people. The CCP has gone totally crazy.”
According to a 2019 report by Bitter Winter, a Three-Self church in Jiangxi province was “completely altered.” One house church leader said in the report that sinicization aims at “eliminating pure religious beliefs.”
“The ultimate goal is to eliminate Christianity, and also to eliminate Taoism, Buddhism, and Islam, with only communism remaining in the end,” the anonymous leader said.
In the first half of 2020, crosses were removed from many Three-Self churches across Anhui province. (Courtesy of Bitter Winter)
Sinicization of Other Religions
The CCP’s sinicization campaign is multi-targeted; Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims aren’t spared either.
For instance, the China Islamic Association in Puyang County, Henan province, issued a notice in 2019 that the mosques’ Arabic-style domes and structures must be changed to ancient Chinese-style architecture to fit in well with the rest of the buildings located on the South Ring Road, reported Bitter Winter. The dismantling of the domes and minarets began thereafter.
“This is nationwide. Anything with these symbols must be altered. If you obstruct [the dismantling work], the mosque will be torn down,” an officer from the Religious Affairs Bureau told local Muslims, according to the report.
To force religious leaders to conform to the CCP’s ideologies of Marxism and atheism, they are required to undergo training at the Ningxia Academy of Social Sciences in Yinchuan City, an imam told the magazine in another report.
“The regime doesn’t allow us to preach in accordance with the teachings of the Quran and requires us to talk about state policies before expounding scriptures,” the imam said, adding that their preaching has to be recorded and sent to the authorities.
The sinicization campaign has equally impacted Tibetan Buddhism since the campaign’s beginning. According to Bitter Winter, the CCP has since intensified the demolition of temples and the removal of symbols related to Tibetan Buddhism.
In June 2020, the authorities in Qingdao City, Shandong province, issued an order to hide a white Tibetan Buddhist stupa on the Xiaolong Mountain because the stupa distracted the drivers and “affected the traffic on the nearby highway.”
According to the same report, other elements or words related to religion were also removed. The “wisdom eyes” that were painted on a signboard, which hangs at the entrance of a temple in Shandong province, were painted over in red color.
In the same year, authorities in Hebei province instructed Tibetan words to be removed from the Xingguo Temple, which was built in the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234), according to the report.
Laura Loomer has had street art of Jack Dorsey plastered all around Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.
The posters feature Dorsey as a member of the Taliban, as they allow them to remain on Twitter while banning conservatives — including Loomer.
The art was designed by Loomer and drawn by Bosch Fawstin, a former Muslim who won the “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” that was attacked by ISIS in Garland, Texas.https://www.youtube.com/embed/g9jScXWr8BQ?feature=oembed
“For years, I have been raising awareness about Twitter’s alliance with Islamic terrorist organizations and their willingness to platform enemies of America. This is a concept I have referred to as Silicon Sharia, as Twitter has shown they have no problem banning millions of Americans for their constitutionally protected speech, including myself and sitting President Donald Trump during our elections, while they happily provide a platform for recruitment and propaganda for actual terrorists,” Loomer said in a statement provided to the Gateway Pundit.https://www.youtube.com/embed/CQNmpVU4xw0?feature=oembed
“OPERATION TaliBANNED was created to highlight this absurdity and how Big tech tyrants like Jack Dorsey continue to wage digital jihad on free speech in America with widespread bans rooted in the false Left-wing notion that conservatives and Trump supporters are the real terrorists,” Loomer continued. “Twenty years ago, Twitter did not exist, but it would have been unfathomable to every American that someday in America, the leader of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world would aid and avert Islamic terrorists in the digital public sphere. Jack Dorsey has made it clear that thanks to people like him, Americans are less safe than they were 20 years ago.”
Fawstin pointed out that the issue, for him, is not that Twitter bans people — but who they ban and who they don’t.
“The issue with leftist-run tech companies like Twitter is not about whether they have the right to ban people from their platform, it’s about who they consistently target for banning and why, and who they don’t ban, no matter what. They banned a sitting president, Trump, over the lie that he was the leader of an ‘insurrection’, which the FBI now admits there was no proof of,” Fawstin said.
Fawstin said that Twitter acts “in full accordance with Shariah blasphemy laws” by banning critics of Islam from the platform.
“Twitter bans Islam critics like me and Laura, acting in full accordance with shariah blasphemy laws, while allowing Islamic terrorists who murder Americans to spread their propaganda on their platform. That’s evil, whether or not they have the technical ‘right’ to ban whomever they want. And I do wonder that if our government ever were to officially declare war on the Islamic terrorist enemy, if this aiding and abetting of an enemy in a time of war that Twitter engages in would be legally recognized as such.”
Those who wish to contribute to Loomer’s activism can do so here.
The estate of a man who was shot dead in Portland, Oregon last year is suing the city over its approach to public safety.
Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler, Multnomah District Attorney Mike Schmidt, and other city officials “created a vacuum where peacekeeping efforts and criminal accountability should be; in its place, an environment of vigilantism emerged that ultimately led to the death of Aaron Danielson,” states the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Portland, and obtained by The Epoch Times.
Danielson was killed in Portland on Aug. 29, 2020. Michael Reinoehl, a self-described member of the far-left, anarcho-communist Antifa network, later admitted to shooting Danielson, who was wearing a hat with the logo for Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group, and has been described as a Patriot Prayer supporter.
The two groups clashed in Portland before the shooting, with little intervention by police officers.
The Portland Police Bureau, overseen by Wheeler, chose to let rioters attack a federal courthouse in the city during the spring of 2020, triggering a deployment of federal officers to protect the building and leading to nightly clashes that drew nationwide attention.
Rioters, including members of Antifa, later turned their attention on other facilities, such as police precincts and the headquarters of the Portland police union. While some arrests were made, many of those arrested saw their charges dropped or their cases not pursued by prosecutors, under an unusual policy implemented by Schmidt’s office shortly after he became the district attorney.
The new suit says the approach used by police and prosecutors also included delegating the authority to engage in crowd control and crime prevention to individuals who provided security services for Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and right-wing groups like Patriot Prayer.
Aaron “Jay” Danielson in an undated photograph. He was shot dead in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Danielson family via AP)Chandler Pappas and Aaron Danielson, top left, walk down Southwest Alder Street as Michael Reinoehl, right, conceals himself from them, in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 29, 2020. (Portland Police Bureau)
The defendants knew that a large-scale demonstration was planned the night Danielson was killed and was aware that members of Antifa and others planned to confront demonstrators but chose to deploy a minimal police presence while also ordering officers to “stay out of sight” and allow the demonstrators and protesters to “express their emotions,” the suit also alleges, quoting Wheeler.
Danielson was deprived of his constitutional rights to assemble peacefully and to have equal protection under the law, his estate’s lawyer said.
“This case is about accountability. We are seeking justice for the preventable death of a young man, gunned down in a city with a dangerous and deadly hands-off approach to public safety,” Christopher Cauble, the lawyer, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Time and time again, city leadership and law enforcement has failed to find an effective response to clashing groups of protesters. For well over a year, they have known when and where these rallies would occur and the likelihood of escalating violence. Yet no strategy of protective intervention has been utilized to this day. This reckless dereliction of duty cost Aaron Danielson his life. We seek justice for the Danielson family and for a community that deserves far better safety and responsibility from those sworn to protect and serve,” he added.
The suit is seeking $13 million in damages.
Wheeler’s spokesman and Schmidt’s office did not return requests for comment.
Reinoehl was shot dead by law enforcement officers carrying out a warrant days after the Danielson killing. William Barr, the attorney general at the time, said what unfolded was “a significant accomplishment in the ongoing effort to restore law and order to Portland and other cities.”
Wheeler, a Democrat, initially defended the strategy despite the firefight, but on Wednesday, during a City Council hearing, said the tactics needed to be rethought.
“It is clear, based on the public outcry, on the media outcry, on the national front, that that strategy was not the right strategy. I think we can all acknowledge that. I take full responsibility for it,” he said.
“I think we all acknowledge we want to do better. So for me, it’s about proper training, it’s about clear directives, it’s about making sure the community feels safe to express their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly, but also to hold anybody—and I mean anybody, regardless of their politics—hold anybody accountable who thinks violence or criminal destruction is the right answer.”
The newly-released document details a 2015 FBI interview with a staffer who worked at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles prior to the 9/11 attacks
The man is only referred to in the document as PII
PII is accused of helping 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar shortly after they arrived in the United States
Families of 9/11 victims are eager to probe potential Saudi government links to the attack
The FBI has released its first declassified 9/11 document exactly 20 years after the deadly terror attack which claimed the lives of 2,996 people.
The document was published Saturday evening, a week after President Biden signed an executive order directing the agency to make the secret files available to the public for the first time.
The order to release the documents came amid significant pressure from the families of 9/11 victims, who are eager to probe potential Saudi government links to the attack.
The FBI file that is significantly redacted details a 2015 interview with an official who worked at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles.
He admitted that he allowed two hijackers to use his apartment and helped them travel around LA. He was found to be an al-Qaeda ‘facilitator’ by the FBI and the Saudi Consul General wanted to fire him for distributing extremist Muslim literature.
He was also a close associate of two other Saudis, Omar al-Bayoumi and Fahad al-Thumairy, who the helped the hijackers.
The new FBI file reveals that al-Bayoumi, who has admitted befriending them, worked as a ‘ghost employee’ at a Saudi aviation firm in the US.
And it details how al-Thumairy gave the hijackers money, travel assistance and lodging.
The Saudi official, who is only referred to as PII and who applied for US citizenship in 2015, is thought to be Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah who worked at the Saudi Consulate in Washington, DC.
Al-Jarrah’s name was accidently left unredacted in separate court papers penned by an FBI official. However, he has vigorously denied any involvement and insists he did not know any of the hijackers.
Of the 19 hijackers on board the four doomed 9/11 planes, 15 were Saudi nationals.
Last Wednesday, Saudi Arabia released a statement maintaining its innocence, saying ‘it is lamentable that such false and malicious claims persist’.
The FBI has released its first declassified 9/11 document exactly 20 years after the deadly terror attack. The document was published Saturday evening, a week after President Biden signed an executive order directing the agency to make the secret files available to the public
It is theorized PII may be Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, who worked for a time at the Saudi Consulate in Washington, DC. However, he has vigorously denied any involvement and insists he did not know any of the hijackers
The hijackers are identified in the document as Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. Both of the men were on board American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon on September 11.
The pair were reportedly already long-time affiliates of al-Qaeda with extensive fighting experience, and were chosen by Osama bin Laden to be a part of the ambitious 9/11 terror plot.
The FBI document states that PII admitted showing al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar the location of a Mediterranean restaurant in Los Angeles that was frequented by others suspected of providing logistical support to the terrorists.
PII ‘denied being tasked to do so’ and stated that he simply ‘assisted al-Hazimi and al-Mihdar because he is a good Muslim and helping two new students in town is the Muslim way’.
The document also states that PII had his own sister move out and stay with another sister for a couple of weeks ‘because he was having al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar stay with him’.
It also states that PII ‘worked as a facilitator for the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and was associated with members of the Salafist Group For Preaching and Combat.’
It importantly notes that GIA and the GSPC ‘have evolved into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’.
Additionally, sources allegedly told the FBI that PII was ‘very very vocal against Christians, Jews and enemies of Islam.’
Another stated that ‘the Saudi Consul General in LA wanted to fire PII for storage and and distribution of extremist Muslim literature at the consulate’.
PII was suspected of helping hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi (left) and Khalid al-Mihdhar (right). Both of the men were on board American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon on September 11
55 military personnel and 70 civilians were killed when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar were two of the hijackers on board the plane
According to the FBI’s newly released document, ‘PII was forthcoming with numerous specific details regarding his … employment with the Consulate of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Los Angeles, [and] anecdotes of personal interactions with Consular leadership.’
During his FBI interview, PII described his duties at the Consulate ‘providing assistance to Saudi college students studying in the US, providing translation assistance, executing administrative tasks, and distributing literature on Islam’.
Interestingly, the FBI notes that the two hijackers PII is suspected of helping originally traveled to the US as college students.
It is unclear whether PII was ever granted US citizenship following his 2015 interview with the FBI, or whether he is still connected to the Saudi Consulate.
PII worked at the Consulate of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Los Angeles
New document also reveals PII’s links to ‘suspected Saudi intelligence agent’ Omar al-Bayoumi
PII was an associate of Omar al-Bayoumi, who admitted to befriending the two hijackers before 9/11
The newly-released document also states that PII was an associate of Saudi man Omar al-Bayoumi.
Al-Bayoumi has previously admitted to befriending al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar, but denied ever working officially with them as part of a terrorist plot.
Documents declassified in 2016 reveal that the FBI believed back in 2003 that it was ‘possible that al-Bayoumi was an agent of the Saudi Government and that he may have been reporting on the local community to Saudi Government officials’.
He has also been described as a ‘suspected Saudi intelligence agent’.
Al-Bayoumi was arrested in London the week after the September 11 attacks and his phone calls and bank accounts were researched before he was released without charge.
The final 9/11 Commission report, published in 2004, concluded that there ‘was no credible evidence that al-Bayoumi believed in violent extremism or knowingly aided extremist groups.’
However, the newly-released document appears to say otherwise, and reveals that he had odd ties to the two terrorists.
It states: ‘al-Bayoumi’s logistic support to al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar included translation, travel assistance, lodging and financing. Anomalous money transfers within al-Bayoumi’s bank accounts coincide with transactions wherein al-Bayoumi provides assistance to al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar.
The report also states al-Bayoumi’s ex-wife told him they were ‘at Jihad’.
Interestingly, in his 2015 interview, PII recalled al-Bayoumi receiving special treatment at the Saudi Consulate in LA prior to the 9/11 attack.
According to the newly-released FBI document: ‘PIl described al-Bayoumi as a Saudi citizen treated with great respect inside the Saudi Consulate, well regarded by Consulate personnel who held a ‘very high status’ when he entered the building.
He alleged that stated al-Bayoumi’s status was even higher than many of the Saudi persons who were in charge of the Consulate.
The reason for his high status among Saudi officials remains unclear.
al-Bayoumi told investigators in 2003 that ‘he came to the US to study work for a Saudi aviation company named Dallah AVCO. Regarding his employment, however, witnesses at AVCO described him as a ‘ghost employee’ who was ‘one of approximately 50 individuals paid at the company who did not show up for work’.
It is reported that al-Bayoumi now lives back in Saudi Arabia.
PII was also ‘a close associate of Fahad al-Thumairy – ‘a hardcore, militant individual who supported the events of 9/11’ and had ‘had an office in the Saudi Consulate
The new FBI file also highlights PII’s links to Fahad al-Thumairy
The new FBI file also highlights PII’s links to Fahad al-Thumairy.
Al-Thumairy was reported to the the Imam of the King Fahad Mosque in Los Angeles.
Interestingly, al-Thumairy also served as an administrative officer at the Saudi Consulate and had an office there.
The newly-released document also notes that al-Thumairy held extremist beliefs and was ‘removed from his mosque for un-Islamic activity’.
He reportedly left the United States just before the September 11 attacks.
However, in his 2015 interview with the FBI, PII admitted to still being in contact with al-Thumairy. His current whereabouts has not been disclosed.
The families of roughly 2,500 of those killed, and more than 20,000 people who suffered injuries, businesses and various insurers, have sued Saudi Arabia seeking billions of dollars.
However, newly-released FBI document does not confirm claims Saudi Arabian officials were involved in the planning of the September 11 attacks.
But a statement on behalf of the organization 9/11 Families United, Terry Strada, whose husband Tom was killed on Sept. 11, said the document released by the FBI on Saturday put to bed any doubts about Saudi complicity in the attacks.
‘Now the Saudis’ secrets are exposed and it is well past time for the Kingdom to own up to its officials’ roles in murdering thousands on American soil,’ the statement, published by Reuters, read.
Biden’s executive order for the FBI to release the files came amid significant pressure from the families of 9/11 victims, who are eager to probe potential Saudi government links to the attack. Saudi Arabia has maintained their innocence
The FBI over the weekend released the first previously declassified document about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack hijackers, responding to an order handed down by President Joe Biden days earlier.
On Saturday night, a 16-page heavily redacted document (pdf) that was written in 2016 sheds light on the logistical support that was given to some of the Saudi Sept. 11 hijackers. Families of victims who died during the 2001 attacks have long sought the declassification of the report, as well as other documents related to the incident.
According to the document, the FBI did not find evidence that linked the Saudi government to the terror attacks, although 15 of the hijackers were Saudi nationals. Previously, a U.S. commission said it had no evidence Saudi Arabia directly funded al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that was long suspected of directing the terrorist attacks.
The families of about 2,000 people who died in the attacks as well as thousands more who were injured or suffered financial losses have filed lawsuits against Saudi Arabia seeking billions of dollars.
The newly declassified document reveals the FBI’s work to investigate the logistical support that a Saudi consular official and a suspected Saudi intelligence agent in Los Angeles had provided to two of the terrorists who hijacked planes. It details several connections and witnesses’ testimonies that prompted the FBI to investigate Omar al-Bayoumi, who was suspected of being an intelligence agent and allegedly provided “travel assistance, lodging, and financing” to help the two hijackers.
Photos released by the FBI of 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi (L) and Khalid al-Mihdhar (R), who lived in San Diego the year prior to the attacks. (FBI)
Hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar were assisted by al-Bayoumi when the pair first arrived in the United States in 2000. They met via a “chance encounter” at a restaurant before he helped them.
Family members of the Sept. 11 attack victims released a statement saying that the Saudi government was most likely complicit.
“Even with the unfortunate number of redactions, the report contains a host of bombshell new revelations, implicating numerous Saudi government officials, in a coordinated effort to mobilize an essential support network for the first arriving 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar,” 9/11 Families United said in a statement over the weekend. “The range of contacts at critical moments among these Saudi government officials, al-Qaeda, and the hijackers is stunning.”
But the Saudi government, ahead of the release of the document, denied that it was connected to the attacks. The United States and Saudi Arabia have long been allies and even coordinate with one another on counterterrorism issues, with the United States having sold the kingdom tens of billions of dollars in weapons in recent years.
“As past investigations have revealed, including the 9/11 Commission and the release of the so-called ’28 Pages,’ no evidence has ever emerged to indicate that the Saudi government or its officials had previous knowledge of the terrorist attack or were in any way involved,” said the Saudi embassy in a statement last week.
The document was released after an executive order was handed down by Biden earlier this month directing the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, to review classified information. It came after Sept. 11 victims’ families called on the president to do so and said that if he did not, Biden shouldn’t attend any of their memorial events.
Robert O’Neill, the former Navy SEAL credited with killing Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, said that the biggest threat to America comes not from outside but from internal strife and division.
O’Neill made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on the eve of Sept. 11, as the nation prepared to honor victims of the terror attack on the World Trade Center 20 years ago that killed at least 2,977 people and injured thousands more.
“My biggest concern is the division in this country,” O’Neill told the outlet. “Most people are good to each other. But the anger and the division gets the ratings, and that’s what people hear. A lot of people know if they keep people divided they can stay in power and it’s wrong.”
“We can disagree with each other but we’re on the same team when it all comes down to it,” O’Neill added.
Smoke billows from one of the towers of the World Trade Center as flames and debris explode from the second tower, in New York City, on Sept. 11, 2001. (Chao Soi Cheong/AP Photo)
O’Neill was part of the 2011 raid in Pakistan targeting the Al-Qaeda leader and says he was the one who fired the fatal shot.
In a separate interview with CBS News, O’Neill recounted the daring mission that left bin Laden dead.
“When I turned the corner, I saw Osama bin Laden standing there,” he said, adding that he thought the Al-Qaeda leader may have been preparing to detonate an explosive.
“He’s a threat, he’s going to blow up, I need to treat him like a suicide bomber and that’s why I had to shoot him in the face,” O’Neill said.
Copies of a newspaper are seen outside the World Trade Center site after the death of accused 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama, in New York City, on May 2, 2011. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
O’Neill said the mission to get bin Laden was a testament to the ability of people holding different political views to join forces to counter threats against the homeland.
“We proved that we can work together,” he said, adding that he hopes events like the anniversary of 9/11 are seized as an opportunity by both the right and the left to bridge divisions in the pursuit of common objectives.
“When all is said and done, we’re all Americans and we should be on the same team,” he said.
O’Neill’s remarks about the need for Americans to bridge political and ideological divides was echoed by President Joe Biden, who in a recorded video released on Sept. 10 recalled the heroics seen in the aftermath of the terror attacks and how America saw “a true sense of national unity.”
Biden, who on Saturday was set to visit three sites attacked on 9/11, added in the video that “unity makes us who we are” and called for people to “have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation.”
Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, told Fox News that he planned to visit Ground Zero in New York City on Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks.
A number of flags placed above a freeway overpass in Riverside honoring the 13 U.S. marines killed in the recent Afghanistan attack have been purposely damaged and stolen for unknown reasons.
It began with a set of 13 American flags and one marine corps flag that was set up during Labor Day weekend over the Ivy overpass on the 91 Freeway.
Shortly after they were installed, all of the flags were completely shredded, Riverside Police Department spokesperson Ryan Railsback told The Epoch Times.
On Sept. 7, a family went to the Ivy overpass to replace the damaged flags with a fresh set of 13 American flags and one marine flag when another family showed up at the same time with another 13 American flags, which were installed on the other side of the overpass, Railsback said.
Unfortunately within 24 hours, all 27 flags were stolen, the reason unclear.
At the same time that the 27 flags were being put up, the Riverside Chamber of Commerce put up 13 American flags and one Marine flag on the 14th street overpass, and the marine flag was stolen the following day.
The police department is following up on slim leads as to who might committing the vandalism, but at a time when there are no suspects, given that the area around the Ivy overpass is between residential neighborhoods with few security cameras.
It is also unclear if there is one person or multiple people destroying the monuments.
Railsback speculated that whoever damaged the first flags could have had a mental illness; but whoever purposely stole all 27 flags likely was intentional in their actions.
“We do have homeless people in these areas, but the one who cut the first flags, it could have been some kids, some angry person, some mentally ill homeless person walking by and decided to cut them and rip them. Whoever did that maybe wasn’t in their right mind,” Railsback said.
“But when you steal 27 flags the next day, you know what you’re doing. That’s not someone coming by deranged, that’s behavior of someone who’s more intentional and probably in their right mind to some extent. But we won’t know for sure [unless we catch them].”
Railsback said that if the person was looking to divide the community, the opposite effect actually happened, with people buying up flags to unify over both the 13 soldiers killed in the Kabul attack as well as the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks coming.
“Right after 9/11, it was this sense of everybody coming together and talking about what they have in common more than what they don’t, and just a sense of unity and support for many different things, but back then it was the military and the people who were lost that day. So, you kind of get a little sense of that [here], with part of it relating to the 13 [service members] who were killed, but also having the 20th anniversary of 9/11 tomorrow. It’s kind of a combination of both that we’re starting to see people come up.
Residents in Riverside are starting to place 13 flags around their houses in support of the soldiers, and due to the ones on the overpass being ruined, another group has put 13 more flags on the Adams Street overpass. Two of the 13 soldiers killed were from Riverside, something that Railsback said really hit close to home for the community.
During the 2020-2021 school year, most students attended their schooling from home on their computers. This allowed parents, who were forced to work at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, to get an inside look at what is being taught in our classrooms.
Mrs. Gonzalez is one such parent. She noticed her child was being taught the Islamic faith against her wishes. When she emailed the teacher about this and requested her child be exempt from this specific course due to her religious values, she was denied. Undeterred, Mrs. Gonzalez took this up to the school principal, Suzzete Ruiz. Gonzalez recounted a fascinating conversation.
Recently, concerns over “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) being taught in schools across America have been publicly spoken about; However, there has been little attention given to another controversial topic that is being forced onto students in America: Islam.
Here’s what Mrs. Gonzalez told the school on 10/19/20:
“So, to hear Islamic teaching is being taught and it is part of the Miami Dade schoolboard curriculum, I find, is not aligned with ethical and moral values that we have here in the United States of America. Islamic teachings and religion target the Jewish and Christian community and anybody that does not follow their faith and is not a Muslim. They behead there, they target homosexuality, there’s about 52 terrorist organizations from Islam. ‘Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism,’ said Secretary Pompeo. Just this weekend a Paris teacher was beheaded for teaching. So, I whole-heartedly understand that yes, this is given to you and you’re supposed to teach it, but everybody has moral values and to teach something that is so extreme… and they have no tolerance for anything else, I find troubling. Just because somebody says ‘Hey, go walk over there’ you’re going to walk over there? No. I have a very difficult time with this being taught to my son. That’s why I had asked Mrs. Fernadez [her son’s teacher] if my son can be exempt from these teachings because of my culture, my religion, and my moral and ethical beliefs which do not align with Islam. “
Mrs. Gonzalez, a Jewish mother of a child who attends a charter school at Somerset Silver Palms in Miami Dade, Florida, was faced with the tough choice of having her kid fail a class or learn about Islam, a religion and political ideology that is against her beliefs and Jewish values. Previously, her child was in public school; however, due to the curriculum, she chose to send him to a charter school where he can learn reading, writing, mathematics, history, etc., and not about Islam or Critical Race Theory. She was extremely surprised when her child came home with “Islam” on the course syllabus.
Mrs. Gonzalez immediately addressed this with her child’s teacher, Ms. Medley, who informed her that her child could choose not to log in for this part of the course, but he would subsequently fail the class. This led Gonzalez to urge a further discussion with the school principal and her son’s teacher.
During this discussion, some shocking statements were made by the school principal. According to Mrs. Gonzalez, Principal Ruiz told her:
“We as administrators, we follow a curriculum that is FUNDED by the State and Federal government as a charter school. And we are following a curriculum that is given to us through the public school system.”
The school principal, Suzette Ruiz, admits that Florida’s education system is funded by the State and is forcing kids to learn about Islam, whether they like it or not. These are state-sponsored religion classes promoting religious beliefs, which is specifically against the law.
“While it is constitutionally permissible for public schools to teach about religion, it is unconstitutional for public schools and their employees to observe religious holidays, promote religious belief, or practice religion. School officials and parents must be extremely careful not to cross the line between “the laudable educational goal of promoting a student’s knowledge of and appreciation for this nation’s cultural and religious diversity, and the impermissible endorsement of religion forbidden by the Establishment Clause.”
It is legal to teach about religion, but, with the packets provided below, it’s clear that these Florida educators are teaching the religion of Islam, not about it. It is done in a sneaky way to deceive the eyes of those who do not know much about Islam. (I will provide examples of this later.)
As mentioned by the student’s parent, Principal Ruiz clearly stated that her opinions on the matter make no difference. They are told to teach about Islam in the classroom, and they will abide by the rules set by the state of Florida.
Mrs. Gonzalez had many valid points while disagreeing with the school principal on the fairness of the situation. One should not be forced to learn what goes against their ideology, morals, ethics, or beliefs. The school isn’t religious in nature. An alternative lesson is an appropriate course of action in this case; however, the school didn’t seem to understand that. In fact, the school principal doesn’t seem to fully grasp what she is forcing her staff to teach. Principal Ruiz went on to talk about why it doesn’t matter what she thinks or knows, telling Mrs. Gonzalez,
I understand that, but I don’t make the rules in the state of Florida. And the state of Florida, Mrs. Gonzales, they require us to pass the benchmarks for these in order to take this course. My suggestion to you would be when the Islam pieces are taught, not to log in but he is going to fail those assignments.
Mrs. Gonzalez provided me with the pacing guides and assignments that were given to her child:
Further statements were made by Principal Ruiz, who, according to Mrs. Gonzalez, made it overly clear that her “hands were tied behind her back,” the course must be taught, if Mrs. Gonzalez pulls her child out of the course, he will fail, and that they were only there to teach the facts.
We will have to agree to disagree. You have a right to keep him out of class on the days that that topic is being addressed, it’s fair if that’s how you feel. The truth of the matter is my hands are tied. I am an educator providing facts.
Ultimately, Mrs. Gonzalez chose to have her son exempt from the class with a failing grade. She felt that she went to every avenue she could to correct this situation; no one listened. She then told me her story after the school year, and I am happy to tell it for her.
While taking a closer look at this controversial lesson plan, here are a few excerpts from the packets Mrs. Gonzalez’s child received and some of the “facts” being taught to our youth.
To the unknowing eye, this seems like it is just a simple fact about those who practice Islam. It is not.
The reality is, the Qur’an teaches Muslims to give kaffirs (non-believers) three options: convert, die, or if you are a Christian or Jew, you can pay jizya (a tax.) If you choose the third option, you are “protected” and become a dhimmi (a second-class citizen). None of this has to do with sharing the same beliefs. If the Muslims conquer your land in war, they then enslave those they conquer. This can be seen even today in places like Nigeria where non-Muslims are being hunted down and slaughtered by the government backed Islamists.
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).
Another excerpt in the curriculum blatantly lies about what Islam does to those who choose to leave Islam. It also lies about the meaning of jihad, warfare against non-Muslims.
Those who leave the Islamic faith are considered apostles, and the Qur’an mandates that practicing Muslims punish those who commit apostasy by killing them.
Say, “The truth is from your Lord”: Let him who will believe, and let him who will, reject (it): for the wrong-doers We have prepared a Fire whose (smoke and flames), like the walls and roof of a tent, will hem them in: if they implore relief they will be granted water like melted brass, that will scald their faces, how dreadful the drink! How uncomfortable a couch to recline on! (Qur’an 18:29).
Muslims who believed in the faith and then reject it will be subject to an enclosed fire. If they cry for relief, they will melt brass and pour it on their face.
This is just another deliberate misinterpretation of the Qur’an that is being taught to children in Florida
The packet deceptively says Jihad means “struggle against evil.” Here is what the Qur’an says:
“When the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush.” Qur’an 5
“O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, an evil refuge indeed” (Qur’an 9:73).
“When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly”(Qur’an 47:4).
“Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate” (Qur’an 9:73).
“Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah and those who reject the faith fight in the cause of evil: so fight ye against the friends of Satan” (Qur’an 4:76).
In his book “The Politically Incorrect Book of Islam,” Robert Spencer explains what Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, the most perfect Muslim, had to say about Jihad.
“… there is no mistaking the centrality of violent jihad in Islam. In fact, the Prophet of Islam repeatedly emphasized that there was nothing better his followers could do than engage in jihad warfare. When a Muslim asked him to name the “best deed” one could do, besides the act of becoming a Muslim, the Prophet responded, ‘To participate in Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah’s Cause.’ He explained that “to guard Muslims from infidels in Allah’s Cause for one day is better than the world and whatever is on its surface.” For ‘a journey is undertaken for jihad in the evening or morning merits a reward better than the world and all that is in it.’”
In the same book, Robert Spencer quotes a few hadiths, a collection of traditional sayings by the Prophet Muhammad, explaining the act of jihad further.
In another hadith repeated several times in the collection of traditions that Muslims consider most reliable, Muhammad says that he has been “commanded to fight against people” until they become Muslim and that those who resist risk forfeiting their lives and property: “The Prophet spoke clearly about his own responsibility to wage war for the religion he had founded: ‘I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform As-Salat (prayers) and give Zakat, so if they perform all that, then they save their lives and properties from me except for Islamic laws, and their reckoning (accounts) will be with (done by) Allah.’”
Imagine Mrs. Gonzales’ shock to see these religious teachings, picked out of the Quran, on the syllabus and taught to her child during Jewish holidays.
You might be asking yourself, how is this happening in Florida?
Upon further investigation, the state of Florida gets its lesson plans from a company called C-Palms, whose founder, Rabieh Razzouk, attended Lebanese American Univerity from 1995 to 1998. Razzouk has programs in Lebanon as well. The coincidence isn’t surprising. Lebanon is known to push Islamic jihad on its students and lies about Islam given that the country is under the control of Hezbollah Islamic terrorists.
Florida is sponsoring religious teachings in our children’s schools. Teachers refuse to question the curriculum and have a profound lack of knowledge and understanding of what they teach. No child should be forced to learn religion in school, especially one that does not align with our American values. Florida and the teachers within the state have some explaining to do for their negligence and indoctrination of children into the violent political ideology of Islam.
President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has ruined, perhaps for decades, America’s most important bilateral relationship of this era.
If Washington is going to deter a militant China, it needs the support of democratic India. Unfortunately, India looks like the country most immediately—and perhaps most adversely—affected by the Biden-created debacle. As a result, New Delhi could decide to side not with America but with a Chinese ally, Moscow.
New Delhi was one of the staunchest supporters of the American-backed Afghan government and was working alongside Washington in the war against the Taliban and other insurgents. For instance, Indian intelligence was instrumental in breaking up an Afghan ring of Chinese spies working with the Haqqani Network. The Trump administration believed that the Chinese members of that ring, taken into custody last December, were, among other things, offering cash to kill American troops in-country.
India saw the Afghan government as a friend in blunting extremism in neighboring Pakistan, which has always defined itself as India’s enemy. Islamabad continually foments trouble in India-controlled Kashmir and has continually backed insurgents targeting India. The Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists who attacked targets in Mumbai in November 2008, for instance, came from Pakistan and relied heavily on Pakistani government resources.
The fall of the Afghan government was, therefore, a blow to New Delhi. Worse, the inability of the Biden administration to orchestrate an orderly withdrawal resulted in compounding the damage to Indian interests.
“The U.S. left behind reinvigorated jihadist networks, tens of billions of dollars in weapons and communications systems, critical strategic infrastructure, and even, reportedly, intel not only on who was working with the U.S. but some who were working with India,” Cleo Paskal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Gatestone. “Physically, the closest target for this massively armed and confident jihadist resurgence is India. As a result of decisions taken in Washington, India is dramatically less secure today than it was a few months ago.”
To obtain security, New Delhi had been looking toward the United States. Consequently, Russia’s and China’s friends in Indian policy circles were losing influence, a trend especially evident after the Chinese incursions in Ladakh beginning in May of last year. Russia’s friends were delegitimized by that event because Moscow had assured New Delhi that the movement of Chinese forces in Tibet, which occurred immediately before the invasion, was only a drill.
As a result of Ladakh and other incidents, the government of Narendra Modi had been working fast to build military ties with the United States. In the wake of the fall of Kabul, however, relationships with Washington have been put on ice. “Indian strategists who have been saying that the way forward is working more closely with the U.S. are being openly taunted by those who have a more pro-Moscow bent,” Paskal, also associated with Chatham House, reports.
“There is a reassessment going on,” she added. “One possible outcome is that Delhi works more closely with Tokyo, and possibly Canberra and Taipei.” Japan, Australia, India, and the United States form what is known as the Quad, which up until the fall of Kabul was coming together as an effective grouping. Now, all bets are off.
Another scenario is that New Delhi decides to work more closely with Russia, reviving decades-old ties. Russia, of course, is increasingly aligned with China.
In the wake of the fall of Afghanistan, Taiwan has become the critical test of American resolve, especially as President Biden has justified the withdrawal as a strategic move to counter Russia and China. “The world is changing,” he said to the American people on Aug. 31. “We’re engaged in a serious competition with China. We’re dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia.”
It is significant, therefore, that on Aug. 27 USS Kidd, an American guided-missile destroyer, and USCG Munro, a Coast Guard cutter, transited the Taiwan Strait. The transits come on the heels of Vice President Kamala Harris’s welcome comments in both Singapore and Hanoi on China’s “bullying” in the South China Sea.
The Biden administration may in fact be willing to defend Taiwan, but that is not all that counts at this crucial time. What also counts are perceptions, and the perceptions that especially count are those in Beijing. Chinese propagandists promoted two narratives as Kabul fell: The United States will not defend Taiwan and an America unable to deal with the Taliban cannot hope to stand up to China.
Those two narratives appear to in fact reflect Chinese thinking, especially because the withdrawal from Afghanistan signaled to Beijing a complete failure of the U.S. intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the White House national security apparatus. Chinese exercises in areas adjacent to Taiwan in August and an Aug. 13 simulated attack on Taiwan with a short-range missile are, in this context, ominous.
The other perceptions that count are those in New Delhi, which had been inching toward closer cooperation with Taiwan. Indian thinkers realized that they needed to challenge China in its peripheral seas as China was challenging India in its nearby waters. India’s close ties with Vietnam are an indication that India perceives its security as dependent on an open South China Sea and even East China Sea. Taiwan, which sits at the intersection of those bodies of water, is essential in keeping sea lanes there open.
America more than ever needs India’s help in ensuring peace in the ring of countries surrounding China and its surrounding waters. Now, however, India could desert America as America has just deserted India. Said Paskal, “To say there is a crisis in trust in current U.S. policymaking in New Delhi is an understatement.”
For 20 years since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. presidents have been saying their anti-terrorism policies have worked, as evidenced by no new attacks on America. While we should be grateful another attack hasn’t occurred, past performance is no guarantee of future success. Fanatics are nothing but patient, as we have seen in Afghanistan.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley has said the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to civil war and the possible “reconstitution of al Qaeda.” That should come as no surprise as the goals of our enemies in the Middle East have been expressed openly for decades. Their actions have proven a commitment to killing Americans and destabilizing democracies and their economies.
Underestimating one’s enemy is always a fatal error as we saw on 9/11. President Obama once dismissed al-Qaeda as the “JV team.” In fact, they are the varsity. It is difficult to deter or destroy an ideology whose adherents are willing to die for its cause, especially when they believe they are carrying out orders from their god.
In its March 2015 issue, The Atlantic noted a New York Times story about confidential comments made by Major General Michael K. Nagata, at the time the Special Operations commander for the U.S. in the Middle East. Gen. Nagata reportedly admitted he had yet to figure out the appeal of one of many terrorist organizations. About the Islamic State, he said, “We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.” Whose fault is that?
With their win in Afghanistan, terrorists by whatever name, can only be further motivated to conduct new attacks. What might those look like? From experience we know they prefer the big event, such as crashing airliners into buildings and blowing up high value targets. There are other options when big targets are not vulnerable.
Lone suicide bomber incidents can also strike fear into a nation, especially if they are sustained and coordinated.
In 2003, Tom Clancy wrote a novel called “The Teeth of the Tiger” about terrorists who sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border and in coordinated attacks shoot up suburban shopping malls. Fear of terrorists slipping over the border is not fiction, but of growing concern.
Small-scale attacks, undetectable in advance, have been occurring since 9/11.
Two recent incidents demonstrate what we’re up against.
On the Sunday before the last American military planes left Kabul, a gunman shot and killed a Lyft driver in Garland, Texas. He then drove to a nearby police station and began shooting at people inside. The gunman was identified as Imran Ali Rasheed. Police killed him.
The FBI said Rasheed “may have been inspired by a foreign terrorist organization to commit these crimes.” Ya think? Suspected terrorists are crossing our southern border at “unprecedented level,” according to the outgoing U.S. Border Patrol chief. In New Zealand, a man named Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen stabbed seven people inside a store where he had bought a knife. Police shot and killed him. Authorities drew the obvious conclusion, calling it a “terrorist attack.”
Who knows how many—if any—terrorists are among the thousands of Afghan refugees now pouring into America? The Biden administration claims the vetting system should weed out anyone who means us harm, but there are no guarantees and the radicals can be expected to lie and perhaps even have forged papers.
After turning back German General Erwin Rommel’s forces in what Winston Churchill called “The Battle of Egypt,” Churchill famously said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Given the commitment and resourcefulness of this modern enemy, I’m not sure we are even at the end of the beginning.
Interview with the Antichrist is a must-see film, especially for Christians. In the movie, the Antichrist interviewee made a warning that soon he would take all lukewarm Christians to Hell, instead of being saved by God. Who is this guy? And who are the lukewarm? Could this happen in the real world, and how to prevent it? You will get an answer to these questions after watching this feature.
Director Timothy A. Chey shared he was an atheist until in his 30s. Since then, he has become very spiritual and committed to making faith-based films. Chey does not think the movies he made are merely fictional or for entertainment. “My one and only goal is to bring people true salvation in Christ in these very last days,” Chey said, “the Lord is coming sooner than we think.” And what he is most interested to illustrate is the battle of Armageddon described in the book of Revelations—the destruction of humanity by the Antichrist before God returns and how mankind would go through this great tribulation.
“I believe the Antichrist is alive right now,” Chey stated, “so it intrigued me to show a live broadcast with the Antichrist to ask him every question under the sun.” That is why, in the film, the Antichrist is peppered with stark questions including media domination, the battle between pastor John MacArthur and the California governor, the ACLU, Netflix and couch potatoes, the 9/11 terrorist attack, mass shootings, radical left movements, communist China, the evils of political correctness, pandemic lockdowns, and other mandates.
In the movie, the Antichrist mocks Pope Francis’ Interfaith Unity movement and lukewarm Christians spending more hours watching food channels than reading the Bible. Is even the Pope lukewarm? Some churchgoers may be shocked.
Lukewarm is neither hot nor cold. Lukewarm Christians are people who claim they have faith in Lord, but in the real world, are on and off. Are you lukewarm? Maybe you’re thinking, “No, I’m a devout believer of God.” That is remarkable. But wait for a minute. Is this your resolution or actual daily practice?
When the apostles worried about their clothes and bread, and when frightened by the storm, they were called “ones of little faith.” Peter denied his identity three times, even though he was the first disciple to acknowledge the Messiah.
Like water being cooked, every molecule of water in the pot is lukewarm until it boils. So lukewarm might not be name-calling, but a description of certain status or phase in the spiritual journey. And a person’s spiritual level is not static throughout one’s life; shifts in both directions are possible.
Viewer Joan Enderman agrees this movie is a wake-up call because she has found herself “slipping,” “being a Christian and sealed by the Holy Spirit does not give us immunity from sin and slipping backward.” Another viewer Christine Kenyon notes, “it now becomes harder and more of a spiritual battle because our eyes and hearts have been opened.” The movie talked about people being deceived or attached to worldly desires. For example, the lure of pornography is everywhere, from movies to TV shows, from advertisements on the street to the internet.
The Antichrist in the film is an anthropomorphized character. Through the dialogue between host Alex Carter and the Antichrist, the film conveys that the Antichrist is alive and is everywhere, as many politicians and influential figures believe more in the power of man than in God. This is exactly the spirit of the Antichrist.
Undoubtedly, communism or Marxism has been a collective representation of the Antichrist for the last hundred years. Opposing capitalism and preaching common prosperity through violence are just the political slogans of communists. But anti-God and anti-humanity are their hidden intentions.
The communist regimes have killed hundreds of millions of innocent people simply because of their spiritual beliefs. Affirmed by the China Tribunal, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime has committed forced organ harvesting for years on a significant scale, “an unprecedented evil on this planet.” The reason the communists denigrate and eliminate all traditional beliefs and values is that they want humans to worship them as god or savior.
If you were thinking the Antichrist would only appear in the Western world, that might be a mistake. Revelation 14:9 reads that the worshippers of the beast will receive “the mark on his forehead or on his hand.” Think about the communist posture of raising their hands to take the oath, and then you may understand the verses better.
Likewise, Revelation 17:1-2 says, “The great whore… With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” Who better to be called the great whore than the CCP that has lured the leaders on earth with money and coaxed the inhabitants of the earth with poor quality and low-priced goods?
Stressed in the movie, the Antichrist and his secular agents are most adept at creating and exploiting various forms of crisis to panic people into ceding their rights to the government and totalitarians. Hence, many people fear that America might become like a communist country.
If you are someone who wants to take your faith seriously, or is concerned about the future of America, or cares about the health and well-being of yourself and your family, I suggest you watch this film. It is available on EpochTV, a streaming platform for exclusive programming that includes investigative news analysis, in-depth interviews, and award-winning documentaries and films.
“China is considering deploying military personnel and economic development officials to Bagram airfield, perhaps the single-most prominent symbol of the 20-year U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
“The Chinese military is currently conducting a feasibility study about the effect of sending workers, soldiers and other staff related to its foreign economic investment program known as the Belt and Road Initiative in the coming years to Bagram, according to a source briefed on the study by Chinese military officials, who spoke to U.S. News on the condition of anonymity.”
As Moon Unit Zappa used to say, “Gag me with a spoon!”
Feasibility study? You don’t have to be Nostradamus to figure out how that’s going to turn out, assuming it hasn’t been done already and this is just a masquerade.
Why wouldn’t the Chinese take over Bagram? It’s sitting there.
And no real estate could be more apt for their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road), essentially a large-scale bait-and-switch operation. The Chinese—in reality the Chinese Communist Party—lends the poor country—in this case the impoverished Taliban—money to modernize their infrastructure with the caveat that, if they don’t pay off the loan in a certain amount of time, guess who owns said infrastructure?
Well, we know the answer to that. The Chinese are in essence buying the world with the help, note well, of some of the most prominent American firms (pdf) busy enriching themselves with more money than most of us can compute.
(If you’re interested in how successful the BRI has been, here’s a helpful map from the Council of Foreign Relations.)
What has occurred in recent days is that China has achieved something absolutely free for which the Soviets and the United States wasted decades of personnel (tragically dead or wounded), matériel and trillions of dollars, not to mention ended up by disgracing themselves in the eyes of the world.
Effectively, the Chinese own Afghanistan, the important parts of it anyway—airbases, ports, mineral rights, and so forth—or will shortly.
As for internal Taliban affairs, the Chinese communists aren’t about to lift a finger about the horrifying level of women’s rights or the extensive drug growing and dealing the terror group engages in, especially if they send as much of it as possible to America.
As long as the various Islamic terror organizations leave the Chinese alone, the Chinese will let them do as they wish. Yes, some—al-Qaeda, ISIS-K, one we haven’t heard of yet—may make a fuss about the treatment of the Uyghurs and make their violent presence known, but I would imagine they ultimately see the Chinese forces as much more ruthless than the Americans (now especially) and this will be at best a temporary sideshow of little global importance. Realpolitik will be at play on both Chinese and Taliban (Islamic) sides as they benefit each other, at least for now.
So how did we get here? If this is all so obvious—and it is—wasn’t our State Department and our military aware of how this would, or certainly could, turn out? (Wouldn’t they at least leave a small NATO force guarding Bagram and destroy our weaponry?)
I imagine many of our officials were—how could they not be—aware of this eventuality. And that’s highly disturbing.
Why then did the USA cede Afghanistan—a territory bounded by Iran and Pakistan, among other states, not to mention control of much of the world’s rare earths and other key resources—to the increasingly totalitarian China of Xi Jinping?
For an answer, it’s hard not to think back to those days when, shortly before declaring for the presidency and reversing himself on the topic, our current president told us “The Chinese aren’t our enemies, folks.”
Was he covering up for his own activities and connections that could have been recorded on his son Hunter Biden’s laptop, much of which is as yet unseen? Do the Chinese, in the crudest sense, have something on him? Unfortunately, considering the operations and governance of our FBI and Department of Justice, we may never know.
We can, however, make our own surmises. But whatever they may be, they’re only a part of a more depressing overall zeitgeist.
I have believed for some time—and our extraordinarily rapid and ill-conceived evacuation of Afghanistan, leaving behind not only Bagram but enough U.S. weaponry to make the Taliban’s army nearly equivalent to the Italian’s, not to mention putting our advanced military technology in the hands of the Chinese and the Russians, only underscores this—that a large percentage of our Democratic Party leadership as well as a tragically significant percentage of the Republican have long believed the Chinese regime are winning the battle between China and America for global hegemony. They are therefore, overtly or covertly, consciously or subconsciously, throwing in with the Chinese side for their own economic—and to a lesser extent survival, though the two interact—advantage.
Our globalist-leaning corporations, like the giant law firm linked above, that deal extensively with China are similar. They’re going with what they think is the winning side.
And globalism is not democracy. For the globalist, people voting has been irrelevant, even retrograde, for decades. It’s the one-party state gone world-wide.
So, to be overly colloquial, “bugging out” on Afghanistan to them is no big deal. And China taking over, well, to them it’s just part of the game.
A couple of weeks before the completion of the catastrophe of the American presence in Afghanistan—or, if you believe President Joe Biden, the “extraordinary success” of the American evacuation—a Russo-British comedian named Konstantin Kisin published a brilliantly funny thread on Twitter headed: “You’re struggling to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant. Let me help you.”
The “let me help you” megathread, as he called it, consisted of example after example of so-called “expert” opinions that have turned out to be completely wrong—beginning with the British vote for Brexit and the American vote for President Donald Trump in 2016, both of which elections the top experts at the time confidently assured us would go the other way.
Actually, Kisin’s spiel could be considered as a belated gloss on one of the most famous quotations to come out of the Brexit referendum, that of the Brexiteer and veteran government minister Michael Gove who said: “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts.”
I think that Trump was striking the same responsive chord with Americans when he disparaged what he called “political correctness”—still ravaging the county after four years of his administration—which was also the product of that breed of experts who call themselves “intellectuals.”
If people were fed up with experts in 2016, think how much more reason they have to be so five years later! Kisin does, and he goes ruthlessly through the whole catalog of errors from Russian collusion to “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” to “toxic masculinity” and the abolition of sex in favor of the nebulous idea of “gender.”
And of course we mustn’t leave out the conflicting and often mendacious pronunciamentos of “the Science” on the coronavirus, which have culminated in the distrust, not so much of the vaccines themselves, but of “the experts’” attempts to demonize those who remain skeptical about them.
And all this was before the collapse of the Afghan government and army under the onslaught of the Taliban gave us what may be the best reason ever for thinking that we, too, have had enough of experts in this country.
“Afghanistan: the graveyard of experts,” wrote Tim Black at Spiked Online.
“US ‘experts’ who created Afghanistan mess should be fired for malpractice,” wrote Rebekah Koffler for The New York Post—though of course they won’t be. They never are. They’re the experts.
A writer on Substack named Richard Hanania compared the galaxy of American Ph.D.’s (including the now-deposed president of Afghanistan himself, Ashraf Ghani, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia) who got us into Afghanistan with the madrassa-educated Taliban and wrote that, “It’s as if Wernher von Braun had been given all the resources in the world to run a space program and had been beaten to the moon by an African witch doctor.”
Unsurprisingly, there were a great many negative comments appended to Kisin’s bonfire of the experts, most of them to the effect that, just because some people have been wrong about some things it doesn’t mean that other people are going to be wrong about other things—especially when those things include vaccines which, as there are sound scientific reasons for believing, can be life-saving.
Nor should we neglect to consider that the lives saved are not only of those who receive the vaccines but also those of the immunosuppressed and other vulnerable people who come in contact with them.
They have a point. But so has Kisin. The latter is certainly right in thinking that the experts, particularly those who write for the partisan media, have taken too little care of their own credibility in the past, instead expecting to be trusted and believed as right, just because of who they are. When they then turn out to be wrong, they have no one but themselves to blame if people don’t believe them the next time.
Some people are always going to be wrong about almost everything, but the case is altered when the people who are wrong have set themselves up in the profession of being right. These are the people we call “experts” solely because they have the recognized credentials of experts—advanced degrees from top universities or awards for their expertise from other experts—whether or not they have any real-world experience or expertise.
Their authority is what the anthropologists call “positional”—like that of the parent who answers a child’s question of why? by replying: “Because I said so!” or “Because I’m your mother.”
The experts treat us all like those children—and then they wonder why they are resented and distrusted.
They are the people who identify themselves with their beliefs to the extent that they can never admit it—and so never learn from their mistakes—when those beliefs turn out to be wrong.
That’s how you get to Biden’s calling an obvious disaster of the first water an “extraordinary success”—with no more than an occasional raised eyebrow from the compliant media.
Much publicity in the last week or so was given to a Reuters report of a conversation between Biden and Ghani in the dying days of the latter’s government, as the Taliban were closing in. What he had to worry about, said the American president to the Afghan one, was the “perception” that he was losing the war, not the fact that he actually was losing it.
All he had to do to get American help, said Biden, was change this perception, “whether it is true or not.”
I think a lot of the criticism of this extraordinary conversation was misdirected. The problem wasn’t that Biden told Ghani to lie. Lying to the enemy has a long and honorable tradition in the history of warfare.
No, the problem was that he was foolish enough to think he could lie in that situation: that he (or Ghani) could get away with spinning the enemy as he himself was used to spinning the American media—as, of course, he would go on to do again with the claim of an “extraordinary success.”
A man whose self-assurance and self-absorption is such that he believes reality can make no claim against him that he can’t pay off with the experts’ counterfeit currency of interpretive ingenuity and rhetorical sleight-of-hand is a man who can only lead his country and himself into more disasters.
A new report claims Google is engaged in an “anti-racism” campaign to paint America as a white supremacist nation.
According to internal documents shared with writer Christopher Rufo, Google is teaching employees that the U.S. has a “system of white supremacy” and that Americans are “raised to be racist.”
The City Journal reported on Wednesday that the Big Tech giant is presenting to employees materials that promote “the core tenets of critical race theory.”
Included in the program is a graphic entitled “The White Supremacy Pyramid,” which features conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. The graphic further suggests that former President Donald Trump is bringing “mass murder” and “genocide” into the mainstream of society.
“All it would take is one Google search to learn just how much white supremacists hate my work, or how often I’ve spoken out against their benighted philosophy,” Shapiro said.
“The attempt to link everyone to the right of Hillary Clinton to white supremacism is disgusting, untrue, and malicious.”
Another graphic said that Columbus Day and phrases such as “Make America Great Again” are examples of “covert white supremacy.”
Google’s program also included video discussions with Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi and “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Rufo tweeted screenshots of documents he said were used by Google.
Another graphic, titled “The White Supremacy Pyramid,” advances the idea that conservative commentator Ben Shapiro is a foundation of “white supremacy” and that Donald Trump is moving society on a path toward “mass murder” and “genocide.” pic.twitter.com/9s81yC1Cxd
In a module called “Allyship in Action,” Google trained employees to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, and then rank themselves on a hierarchy of “power [and] privilege,” then “manage [their] reactions” through “cry[ing]” and “accessing [their] ‘happy place.’” pic.twitter.com/LUtzbzenr2
“For years now, companies in Silicon Valley, including Google, are ideological echo chambers,” he said.
“I have documents now from about a third of the Fortune 100 companies that are promoting similarly themed anti-racism programs. And this, in the confines of Silicon Valley, is considered not only not unusual, it’s considered virtuous.”
“The reality is that the culture inside companies like Google matters, and when it’s hijacked by racial ideologues, it can do tremendous damage, not only to Google’s users and consumers but actually to American society,” he said.
“What we see inside these companies is that increasingly, the ideology of Google employees is actively hostile to the United States.”
Karl Eikenberry – a former Ambassador to Afghanistan under President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden – now collaborates with several Chinese Communist Party-funded influence groups seeking to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition” to the regime and works for a state-run university in China, The National Pulse can reveal.
The sole political appointee to fill the role in the Obama-Biden years, Eikenberry served as Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011. His appointment followed his service as a Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army focusing on Afghanistan, overseeing the training of the now-defunct government’s army and police forces.
Since his departure from the role, Eikenberry has affiliated with several Chinese Communist Party-run institutes and initiatives.
In addition to serving as a senior advisor to the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Defense, he doubles as a Visiting Professor at Schwartzman College housed at Tsinghua University. The alma mater of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, Tsinghua University has a history of launching cyberattacks against the U.S. government.
Tsinghua also has a “clear connection between them and the state administration for technology and industry in discussions on what [they] can do to help the national security,” according to former Senior Intelligence Officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency and State Department Official Nicholas Eftimiades.
Similarly, Eikenberry is an International Security fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). The National Pulse has previously highlighted the center’s deep collaboration with several Chinese military and government-linked entities, including those flagged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for espionage and blacklisted by the U.S. government.
Eikenberry is also part of a working group based at the University of California San Diego’s (UCSD) 21st Century China Center, which is predominantly funded by the co-founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba. The China-based firm has close financial and personnel ties to the Chinese Communist Party and its military. It has been flagged as a “tool” of the Chinese Communist Party by the U.S. State Department.
Another event sponsor – the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC) – has been flagged by the U.S. government as a United Front group operating under the auspices of China’s military.
“CAIFC has additional ties to the Ministries of State Security, Civil Affairs, and Foreign Affairs, and it is a platform for deploying undercover intelligence gatherers,” the federal commission’s report adds.
Despite these ties, Eikenberry participated in a 2018 military-to-military dialogue – the Sanya Initiative – alongside Chinese Communist Party counterparts sponsored by CUSEF and CAIFC.
“Retired American and Chinese senior flag officers and executives of the hosting organizations met in Beijing to discuss critical issues of mutual concern and interest impacting the U.S.-China military-to-military relationship, including North Korea, Taiwan, the South China Sea, emerging technologies, as well as other regional security challenges,” an event summary notes.
Foreign Policy magazine noted how the Chinese regime effort aims to subvert former American military leaders into advocating on behalf of Beijing and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA):
One of those PLA projects is the Sanya Initiative, an exchange program that brings together U.S. and Chinese former high-ranking military leaders. On the Chinese side, the Sanya Initiative is led by a bureau of the PLA that engages in political warfare and influence operations, according to Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute.
Sometimes the results of such high-level exchanges aren’t subtle. In February 2008, PLA participants in the Sanya Initiative asked their U.S. counterparts to persuade the Pentagon to delay publishing a forthcoming report about China’s military buildup, according to a segment excised from the 2011 annual report of the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The U.S. members complied, though their request was not successful.
Company’s top scientist says China’s use of AI is ‘chilling’
Microsoft’s top scientist is warning Congress about the dangers of Chinese artificial intelligence even as his company deepens its collaboration with China.
Dr. Eric Horvitz this year reported to Congress that “China’s domestic use of AI is a chilling precedent for anyone around the world who cherishes individual liberty.” The report was the result of Horvitz’s work on a panel tasked with advising Congress on artificial intelligence. The report comes as Microsoft CEO Brad Smith is meeting with top Chinese officials to discuss deepening ties in digital technology and Microsoft’s work in China.
Microsoft is one of many companies that capitulate to China in exchange for access to the country’s lucrative market. The National Basketball Association supports political activism among its players and coaches but remains silent on China’s human rights abuses and suppression of free speech. Apple allows Chinese officials to physically monitor its facilities and data centers in the country. Tech companies have also faced pressure from within their ranks to downplay Chinese human rights abuses. Apple employees have called on the company to condemn Israel for its actions in the Gaza Strip but not China for its use of slave labor.
Microsoft allows China to heavily censor LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary. LinkedIn creates both a Western and a Chinese profile for Western users and shutters the Chinese versions when users post phrases banned by the Chinese government. In March, LinkedIn took a step further and banned a China critic based in the United Kingdom.
Smith continued his engagement with the Chinese government in a meeting last week with Xiao Yaqing, a top regulator at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. According to Xiao, the two discussed expanding Microsoft’s work with China.
Horvitz sounded the alarm about China as part of his work for the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. The commission’s report repeatedly warns that China’s AI use is a threat to both liberty and American national security. China’s “employment of AI as a tool of repression and surveillance—at home and, increasingly, abroad—is a powerful counterpoint to how we believe AI should be used,” the report’s authors say.
The report also highlights the dangers of China’s use of artificial intelligence to more effectively leverage facial recognition technology. The authors write that China’s use of AI to repress its Uyghur minority “foreshadows how authoritarian regimes will use AI systems to facilitate censorship, track the physical movements and digital activities of their citizens, and stifle dissent.” Microsoft has expanded data centers in China for its Azure cloud service, which includes a facial recognition software package.
China in March hacked hundreds of thousands of Microsoft servers, an attack that some scholars believe was an attempt to collect data to train AI models. Microsoft responded to the attacks by expanding its business in China. The Biden administration refused to sanction Chinese actors for the attack.
Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.
One anonymous 4Chan user suggested Afghan refugees might vote for Democrats
Refugees fleeing the Biden-induced human rights catastrophe in Afghanistan are streaming into Washington, D.C., and flowing into the area’s hospitals amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the district’s emergency management agency has issued a stern warning about the threat of online extremism.
The District of Columbia’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency warned law enforcement officials earlier this week that “extremist rhetoric has risen online following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.” According to an intelligence assessment obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, the agency assessed that “the increase in extremist rhetoric may presage targeted violence against Afghan refugees.” The evidence cited to support that assessment, however, was rather scant—just a handful of examples from “known online forums,” such as 4Chan, Free Republic, BitChute, and the official QAnon Telegram channel.
The report, dated Sept. 7, quotes an anonymous 4Chan user who responded to a series of posts about the resettlement of Afghan refugees. “Hello…don’t yall [sic] see the democratic strategy here?” the anonymous poster posted. “[The refugees] arent [sic] going to strong blue states but the key electoral swing states.” It goes on to note that the deranged North Carolina man who precipitated a standoff with law enforcement outside the U.S. Capitol Building last month had “shared frustration with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan on Facebook.”
Additional evidence includes “open-source comments” on Free Republic containing “implied threats” against President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), and a post suggesting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) wants to bring in “200,000 [evacuees], that is 4000 new terrorists…per state.” The assessment also cites two comments from “identified” BitChute users who referenced “replacement theory” and “white genocide” in response to posts about refugee resettlement, and another from the QAnon Telegram channel describing the resettlement of Afghan refugees as “an enemy invasion.”
There are a couple posts that could realistically be defined as vague threats against refugees, such as one from a QAnon Telegram user who urged Americans to “Arm yourself!…citizens should storm the airports and blow up the runways.”
The report did not elaborate as to whether any (or all) of the posts were written by law enforcement agents and informants, nor did it discuss the amount of taxpayer dollars and government manpower the agency devotes to perusing online forums.
A report highlighting Chinese government-backed influence campaigns on social media platforms found that the effort sought to mobilize protests against “racial injustice,” CNN has finally admitted.
The network’s summary of the recently released Mandiant Threat Intelligence and Google report notes how bot accounts linked to a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disinformation network attempted to incite Asian Americans to protest against racism and those claiming COVID-19 originated in China.
“US officials believe the operation is linked to the Chinese government,” the article adds.
As the CNN article admits:
In April for example, experts saw thousands of fake accounts calling on Asian Americans to protest racial injustice in the US and “disinformation about the virus’ origins.” While experts found no evidence these posts were successful in mobilizing protesters, the report says “it does provide early warning that the actors behind the activity may be starting to explore, in however limited a fashion, more direct means of influencing the domestic affairs of the US.”
The report identifies how the bot network attempted to catalyze a protest on April 24th in New York City:
In April 2021, thousands of posts in languages including English, Japanese, and Korean, images, and videos were posted across multiple platforms by accounts we assess to be part of this broader activity set that called on Asian Americans to protest racial injustices in the U.S. The accounts specifically called on Asian Americans to protest on April 24 in New York City and “fight back” against the purported “rumors” caused by Dr. Li-Meng Yan, Guo Wengui, and Steve Bannon, and in some instances provided an address that they claimed Guo lived at.
Posts shared by the fake accounts included messages such as “the racism is the virus.”
“This direct call for physical mobilization is a significant development compared to prior activity, potentially indicative of an emerging intent to motivate real-world activity outside of China’s territories,” the report says.’
“While experts at Mandiant and Google say they have not seen these specific pro-Chinese accounts wade into election specific content to date, they did warn that the actors responsible could be gearing up for a more expansive disinformation push,” CNN adds. Platforms such as TikTok, however, have been used to sabotage Trump rallies during the 2020 election cycle.
The National Pulse first reported on the existence of a Beijing-backed, online bot army in early 2020, which, at the time, was used to criticize former President Donald Trump and his COVID-19 response.
More recently, over 20 advocacy groups comprising the “Stop AAPI Hate” coalition sent a letter demanding the Biden White House terminate the Department of Justice’s Trump-era “China Initiative” – which identifies and prosecutes Chinese Communist Party espionage operations – and publicly discredit the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory.
No evidence of a quid pro quo over the CCP’s attempts to bolster these campaigns digitally and the campaigns’ attempts to shift U.S. government policy on China has yet emerged.
The Taliban on Sept. 8 announced a ban on all slogans, demonstrations, and protests that don’t have official approval in yet another signal that the Islamic terrorist group is taking a hardline and repressive approach to government.
A decree was issued on Sept. 8 by the head of the Taliban’s new interior ministry, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is a member of the Haqqani network that has long been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. The department also has a $10 million bounty on Haqqani’s head, while the United Nations has Haqqani on a sanctions list.
Haqqani’s decree said that protesters without the Taliban’s permission to stage demonstrations in a stated time and location will face “severe legal consequences.”
Approval must also be given for any slogans that might be used during the protest.
The decree also accused Afghans protesting in Kabul and other provinces in recent days of “disrupting security, harassing people, and disrupting normal life,” telling citizens that “no one should protest and cause concern to the citizens” without permission from the Ministry of Justice.
It claimed, “The Islamic Emirate addresses the legitimate demands and rights of all citizens and must be given time to take the necessary steps to address other issues once security is restored.”
The announcement comes amid multiple protests in the country between Taliban fighters and demonstrators—including one protest led by local women in Kabul.
On Sept. 7, members of the terrorist group were seen firing shots into the air in an effort to disperse a large protest being held outside the Pakistan embassy in Kabul, while several reporters were arrested as they attempted to document the demonstration, according to reports.
Thousands of Afghan men and women took to the streets to protest against the Taliban and what they characterized as Pakistani intelligence’s interference in the affairs of the Middle Eastern nation and for allegedly being the guiding hand behind the Taliban’s return to power.
Demonstrators allege that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) supported the Taliban’s latest offensive that routed resistance fighters in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul—the last area where anti-Taliban resistance fighters have held out against the terrorist group. Islamabad denies this.
Some of the protestors carried signs reading “ISI stay away.” Others shouted slogans such as “Azadi [freedom or liberty]” and “Death to Pakistan.”
On Sept. 7, the Taliban announced its new government for Afghanistan, challenging claims to rightful government by former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who says he is the “legitimate caretaker president,” according to the country’s constitution adopted in 2004. The Taliban’s cabinet notably doesn’t include any women or non-Taliban figures, despite the militant group vowing to form an “inclusive government” as part of the Doha Agreement.
The group named Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund as the country’s interim prime minister and co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar as second in command, while Mullah Yaqoob will be the defense minister.
The international community has expressed concern over the lack of diversity within the Taliban’s so-called government, with the United States previously stating it wouldn’t recognize a Taliban-led government if it wasn’t inclusive.
“We note the announced list of names consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates and no women. We also are concerned by the affiliations and track records of some of the individuals,” a spokesperson for the State Department said in a statement following the Sept. 7 announcement.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy leader and negotiator, and other delegation members attend the Afghan peace conference in Moscow, on March 18, 2021. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via Reuters)
“We understand that the Taliban has presented this as a caretaker cabinet. However, we will judge the Taliban by its actions, not words.”
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson echoed U.S. concerns over the Taliban’s proposed government and the distinct lack of diversity.
“We would want to see, in any situation, a diverse group in leadership which seeks to address the pledges that the Taliban themselves have set out, and that’s not what we have seen,” a spokesman for Johnson said. “We will continue to judge the Taliban on their actions.”
EU spokesperson Peter Stano said the new government “does not look like the inclusive and representative formation in terms of the rich ethnic and religious diversity of Afghanistan we hoped to see and that the Taliban were promising over the past weeks,” in a statement to media outlets.
Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the exclusion of groups outside the Taliban, coupled with the violence perpetrated by Taliban terrorists against protesters and journalists in Kabul “are not signals that give cause for optimism.”
“It must be clear to the Taliban that international isolation is not in its interests, and especially not in those of Afghanistan’s people,” Maas said.
News came out recently that, despite pulling our troops out, Americans were still stranded in Afghanistan. Doing what Biden refused to do, private citizens raised money to fly home those left behind.
We were told the Taliban was trying to block these flights. But, as it turns out, many of them can’t get clearance. Why?
Because the State Department is ignoring them.
Now, even Biden-supporting Democrats are getting “furious.” From Fox News:
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is “furious” over the Biden administration delaying flights with Americans trying to escape Afghanistan after President Biden’s botched troop withdrawal.
The senator from Connecticut issued a press release on Monday eviscerating the Biden administration for delaying flights…
Blumenthal – who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee and has sons who have served in the military – expressed he has been “deeply frustrated, even furious” at the U.S. government’s “delay and inaction” in rescuing the people left behind in Afghanistan after Biden’s deadly troop withdrawal.
A leading Democratic Senator blasted Joe Biden for failing to help Americans get out of Afghanistan.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal took the lead to arrange flights for stranded families. But the Biden’s State Department reportedly will not give them clearance to leave.
He even arranged a place for the flights to land, in Doha, saying they are “already been cleared to land.”
The only hold-up? Biden apparently won’t give the go-ahead.
Blumenthal blasted the administration saying he’s “deeply frustrated, even furious.”
He criticized Joe Biden because he expected his administration “to do everything in their power – absolutely everything – to make this happen.”
But it looks like Joe is not doing that. Not even close.
Some people have previously claimed the State Department is refusing to give the green light, out of embarrassment.
They failed to get out all Americans and Afghan allies. So, they are refusing to let these flights happen, to avoid calling attention to their failure.
If that’s the case, wow. Biden is abandoning Americans because he wants to save face?
No wonder even Democrats are ticked off.
Key Takeaways:
Democrat Sen. Blumenthal blasted Biden for refusing to help stranded Americans.
The senator claims Biden’s State Department won’t give clearance to flights.
Blumenthal said he was “deeply frustrated, even furious” at the president.
All white people are, says “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo.
Race explains everything, says bestselling “How to Be an Antiracist” author Ibram X. Kendi. “Every policy is either racist or anti-racist.”
Kendi’s and DiAngelo’s books are now recommended reading at schools, corporations and in the military. Both authors command high speaking fees.
Isn’t that good? It’s important to educate people about racism.
But John McWhorter, author of “Woke Racism,” says, “The way we’re being encouraged to think, hurts Black people.”
In my new video, he gives this example: “There is a disproportionate number of suspensions of Black boys in schools for violence. (Kendi says) that must be racist … a stereotype of Black men as violent. But … the data makes it very clear that Black boys do commit more violent acts in schools. If you don’t suspend those boys, the violence is being perpetrated (mostly) against other Black kids.”
Kendi’s positions “leave Black kids in the lurch,” says McWhorter.
Kendi and DiAngelo call most every disparity between races “systemic racism.”
White people live longer than Black people? Racism.
Income inequality? Racism.
White and Asian students get higher test scores? Systemic racism.
In the past, says McWhorter, civil rights leaders asked, “How can we make it so that Black kids are better at the test?” Now they want to “eliminate the tests” because they “make Black people unhappy.”
This just makes the problem worse, he says, because it encourages people to think of themselves as victims. If you believe you are a helpless victim of racism, why study?
The idea that it is “unreasonable to expect Black kids to use analytical thinking in a rigorous way. … This is a new way of thinking. It’s a religious way of thinking.”
Blaming racism for low test scores ignores “aspects of Black culture that don’t stress getting good at those tests — the way that South Asian immigrant culture clearly does.”
Nigerian and Caribbean culture, too. People from those places are often just as dark or darker than Black Americans. They “come here and deal with the same racism that everybody else does. Yet they make the best of the worst. That means: so could Black Americans.”
The media label Kendi and DiAngelo “leading scholars,” but their arguments are rarely tested in the marketplace of ideas. Both refuse to debate opponents. McWhorter calls their work far from scholarly — “more like a toxic religion, a cult.”
In fact, he adds, “Kendi is dim.”
I argue that, even if Kendi is “dim,” he’s winning hearts and minds. Companies now donate millions to his Center for Antiracist Research. His book sales and success with students show that his arguments convince people.
McWhorter disagrees. “As we come out of the pandemic and we’re less bored, less anxious, I suspect that a lot of the extremes that we saw are going to start retreating because there’s going to be pushback.”
The idea of anti-racism is “charismatic,” he adds. “It makes it seem like you’ve got one answer to a bunch of things that look disparate and difficult. But all disparities between white people and Black people are not due to something unfair that was driven by whites.”
I’m puzzled that DiAngelo’s and Kendi’s message is so popular today, when life for racial minorities seems to be better than ever before. With some exceptions, there’s less racism, more intermarriage, more opportunities for minorities, etc.
“Why now?” I ask.
There’s an advantage to being identified as a victim, says McWhorter. “An emotional balm to be treated as this victimized person. The problem is that it’s anti-Black.”
Anti-white too.
If the “systemic racism” cult wins, says McWhorter, “we all lose.”
A radical left-wing activist group organizing a pro-abortion protest outside the home of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh had some interesting advice for prospective attendees. An addendum to the notice announcing the protest urged activists “to be as inclusive as possible in your language” while making a ruckus outside Kavanaugh’s home in Washington, D.C.
“Women and girls are not the only people who can get pregnant and need abortions,” the organizers from ShutDownDC wrote. That’s going to be rather inconvenient for anyone who was planning to reuse old signage about stopping the “war on women,” but at least they’ve been given a few days to prepare. Alas, “Stop the war on people who can get pregnant” has far too many syllables to incorporate into a catchy chant.
Additionally, the protest organizers cautioned attendees to “please avoid comparing U.S. abortion-restricting politicians to the Taliban” because it would be unfair to the Taliban. (No, seriously.) “The former are a distinctly homegrown phenomenon and ignoring that in favor of such comparisons is Islamophobic,” they explained.
Since the Taliban’s rapid takeover in Afghanistan, even prominent Democrats have delighted in comparing people they don’t like to the militant Islamist group. “Have you noticed how strikingly similar both the mindsets and actions are between the suicide bombers at Kabul’s airport, and the anti-mask and anti-vax people here?” wrote Arne Duncan, an Islamophobe who served seven years as former president Barack Obama’s secretary of education.
The protest is scheduled to take place on the evening of Monday, Sept. 13. ShutDownDC, a left-wing activist group that purports to use “strategic direct action to advance justice and hold officials accountable,” said they intend to “make our voices heard” by calling for Kavanaugh’s resignation and telling him to “keep your oppressive ideology out of our bodies.”
Earlier this year, ShutDownDC organized a small gathering outside the Virginia home of Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), where protesters used a bullhorn to yell at his wife. (The senator wasn’t there.) They also left a copy of the U.S. Constitution on his doorstep. It was very sad.
Christina Bohannan backed radical group working to ‘melt ICE,’ achieve ‘world without police’
Swing-district Democratic congressional candidate Christina Bohannan donated money to pay bail for illegal immigrants through a group that works to achieve a “world without police.”
Bohannan in July 2019 said she was “glad to contribute” to Prairielands Freedom Fund through a Facebook fundraiser. Just one month before Bohannan’s donation, the group—which also advocates the elimination of prisons—promoted a campaign to “rally for the abolition of Immigration Customs Enforcement” and “melt ICE.”
Two years later, Bohannan is setting aside her radical past in an attempt to recast herself as a moderate, bipartisan alternative to Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R., Iowa). The Democrat says she “is running for Congress because she believes we need less bickering in Washington, and more working together.” Prior to her campaign announcement, however, the state legislator scrubbed all policy positions from her 2020 campaign site, including sections that condemned Iowa’s popular voter ID law and endorsed taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries.
In addition to Prairielands Freedom Fund’s campaign to abolish ICE—which it describes as “xenophobic” and “racist”—the group “reject[s] the assumption that imprisonment is necessary,” works to “abolish the imprisonment of our fellow human beings,” and hopes to achieve a “world without police.”
Neither Bohannan nor Prairielands Freedom Fund returned requests for comment.
The group has only grown more radical since Bohannan lent her support. In March, it urged supporters to lobby the University of Iowa not only to defund the college’s police department but also to “eliminate police.”
“Detention and imprisonment do not keep us safe. In fact, they actively make people and communities less safe … by directly harming individuals and families who then struggle to regain stability,” the group’s website states. “Our bond fund is not a solution to these problems. The only way to eliminate the harm caused by detention and imprisonment is to abolish them entirely.”
Prairielands Freedom Fund used contributions from donors to pay out “roughly $184,000 in bond for protesters jailed throughout the state” in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to its website. In July 2020, the group called for the release of local Iowa man Tremayne Lamar Clemons, who allegedly provided the illegal guns used in a fatal shooting months earlier.
“It is egregious that Treymane has been in custody for so long based on flimsy allegations which stem from a law that is deeply racist and arbitrarily enforced,” the group wrote in a statement. Nearly one year after his arrest, a federal judge sentenced Clemons to 30 months in prison for being an unlawful drug user in possession of firearms.
Bohannan’s anti-police activism continued after the Democrat’s election to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2020. In an April Little Village op-ed, she condemned a GOP bill that would increase punishments for those who are convicted of rioting, arguing the legislation would “make us both less free and less safe.”
Bohannan in 2020 ran to the left of eight-year Democratic incumbent Vicki Lensing in Iowa’s deep-blue 85th district, calling for a “more progressive and less defensive attitude in the Iowa House.” She went on to defeat Lensing by 32 points in the primary race and did not face a Republican challenger in the general election.
Bohannan is now running to unseat Miller-Meeks in Iowa’s competitive Second Congressional District. The Republican defeated her Democratic challenger, former state senator Rita Hart, by just six votes in November. Before Miller-Meeks’s election, Democrat Dave Loebsack held the district for 14 years.
U.S. officials want to facilitate Lebanese energy deal that would provide Assad with financial lifeline
The Biden administration is expected to waive sanctions on Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad to facilitate an energy deal with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, according to congressional sources briefed on the matter.
The administration wants to waive portions of the bipartisan Caesar Act, which applied wide-ranging sanctions on Assad for his war crimes in Syria, to facilitate an energy deal with Arab nations that would provide the Assad regime with a financial and political lifeline.
Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa who was caught having an extramarital affair with a reporter in 2008 while serving as the Obama administration’s ambassadorial nominee to Iraq, is pressing Egypt to sell gas to Lebanon via a pipeline that runs through Syria, congressional sources told the Washington Free Beacon. The Biden administration would have to waive key sanctions on Assad in order for the deal to go through.
As Biden and Democrats in Congress signal a willingness to back sanctions relief, Republican foreign policy leaders say removing sanctions on Assad will embolden his Iranian backers as well as Hezbollah. Indeed, Hezbollah itself sees the deal as a victory in its fight against U.S. sanctions and efforts to expand the Islamic Republic’s influence across the Middle East, saying it will loosen restrictions on all three countries involved: Syria, Iran, and Lebanon.
“Why in the world would the Biden administration lift sanctions on one of the most brutal human rights abusers in the world—the Assad regime?” Joe Wilson, a House Foreign Affairs Committee member and chair of the Republican Study Committee’s National Security and Foreign Affairs Task Force, told the Free Beacon.
A congressional source tracking the matter said the deal will supply the Assad regime with much-needed hard cash.
“Assad is desperate for hard currency and that’s what they are going to get from this via the transit fees,” the source said. “The regime is literally starved for cash and Biden is saving them by the bell. A great new win for the human rights agenda after the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. So glad we have the geniuses in charge like McGurk.”
Diplomats from Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan met on Wednesday to finalize a roadmap for the energy deal and have signaled the Biden administration is prepared to issue the necessary waiver.
U.S. officials are also participating in the energy negotiations. Dorothy Shea, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, has been working to address the country’s energy issues and confirmed in late August that she is in talks with the World Bank and Arab countries to finalize an agreement. Lebanon is also pushing the World Bank to finance the arrangement. Shea said she has also been in contact with the White House and Treasury Department as part of efforts to waive sanctions.
“There is a will to make this happen,” Shea said in an interview with Al Arabiya English last month. “There will be some logistical things that need to happen too, but I think that it will all fall into place fairly easily.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), during a trip last week to Lebanon, signaled his party’s willingness to back sanctions relief for Assad.
“The complication as you know is the transport via Syria,” Van Hollen said of the energy deal. “We are [urgently] looking for ways to address that despite the Caesar Act.”
Shea and other Biden administration diplomats believe the energy deal will weaken Iran and Hezbollah because Lebanon would receive energy shipments through Syria instead of Tehran.
But top Hezbollah officials refute this argument. A senior Hezbollah official gloated about the deal after Shea claimed it would undermine the terror group’s grip on Lebanon.
“The stupidity of the U.S. ambassador was in her rush to react” to the situation, Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, said on Monday. “With one stroke we broke the siege on three countries: We purchased the fuel from Iran, we transferred it through Syria, and besieged Lebanon benefited from it. This is a first step that we will follow with others.”
The Biden administration began laying the groundwork for bypassing the Caesar Act in June when it removed sanctions on several businessmen tied to the Iran-Assad financial network.
Regional experts viewed this move and others—such as lax enforcement of sanctions on Iran’s oil trade—as a sign the Biden administration intends to move forward with sanctions relief for Assad as part of the energy agreement with Lebanon.
The move also comes as the Biden administration works to solidify a revamped nuclear deal with Iran, negotiations that stalled even as senior administration officials show a willingness to waive a large portion of sanctions on the Iranian regime.
“U.S.-Lebanon policy is by definition pro-Iran,” said Tony Badran, a veteran Lebanon analyst and research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Under the pretext of ‘saving’ Lebanon and ‘countering’ Hezbollah, the U.S. is in fact propping up the Iranian order and Iranian clients.”
“The conceit that wheeling gas and electricity to Lebanon through Syria somehow weakens Iran’s position in Beirut or even Damascus is laughably absurd as well as blatantly dishonest,” said Badran, who has been tracking the energy deal’s developments. “It’s simply a pretext for a pro-Iran posture.”
Congressional sources told the Free Beacon that the Trump administration was presented with an opportunity to waive sanctions on Assad as part of a similar deal, but they declined due to concerns such a move would enrich the Syrian dictator as he commits mass human rights abuses.
A Treasury Department spokesman said the State Department has the authority to waive sanctions under the Caesar Act. The State Department did not respond to Free Beacon requests for comment by press time.
Inflation threatens Biden’s credibility on economics as he attempts to pivot to domestic issues
President Joe Biden is working to pivot away from the Afghanistan crisis to focus on his domestic agenda, but polling suggests American voters are sensing a looming economic crisis.
Ninety percent of registered voters reported paying more for goods they regularly purchase, according to a survey of 1,200 people commissioned by Heritage Action, a conservative group. Only 29 percent said their personal finances are better off today than they were a year ago, and 65 percent believe that Biden’s multitrillion-dollar plan will worsen inflation.
The Biden administration has made a concerted effort to pivot to domestic policies this week. The White House press briefing on Wednesday opened with a discussion of plans to tackle inflation and an explanation by Biden’s top economic aide Brian Deese that the spike in grocery prices was overblown. The administration also released a plan that it said will alleviate the rising costs of meat, which it believes is driving inflation concerns.
Biden’s pivot to domestic issues comes in the wake of the administration’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left hundreds of Americans—including dozens of elementary school students—stranded. Polling suggests, however, that prioritizing trillions of dollars in social spending is already unpopular with voters, who fear it will exacerbate inflation even further.
The Heritage Action poll is one of many showing Biden faces headwinds as he seeks to pivot to his multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better agenda.
The American Action Network, a conservative outside group closely aligned with House Republicans, also polled seven swing House districts held by Democrats and found that Biden’s personal image and political agenda are deeply unpopular.
Across the seven districts, AAN found that Biden’s job approval is 43 percent. The swing-district Democrats they polled, including Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) and Josh Harder (D., Calif.), “are all hovering at or near 45 percent in a head-to-head congressional ballot.”
The Biden administration also faces political challenges advancing the president’s domestic agenda through Congress. Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) this week repeated his opposition to Biden’s proposed $3.5 trillion in social spending, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who crafted the spending plan, indicated there would be no flexibility on the overall price tag.
Voters polled by AAN across the seven districts opposed the spending plan by a 54 percent to 36 percent margin.
When President Barack Obama struck a deal with the Taliban in 2014 to free several high-ranking terrorists being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, his defenders argued their release would do little to harm U.S. national security. Now, four of those terrorists are serving in senior roles in Afghanistan’s newly formed Taliban government.
The Obama-era deal’s prominent defenders include officials now serving in senior posts in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House press secretary Jen Psaki. They claimed there was no indication these terrorists, known as the Taliban Five, would return to the battlefield, let alone rise to senior leadership positions in the Taliban government following the United States’ much-criticized evacuation from Afghanistan. The prisoners were swapped for Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was later charged with desertion.
Blinken, who was then serving as deputy national security adviser, told NBC that “any threat they would pose to the United States [and] to Americans has been sufficiently mitigated.” Blinken also claimed the terrorists would be “very carefully monitored” by Qatar, which helped facilitate the trade and provided safe haven to the five detainees after their release. “There will be restrictions on their travel, on their activities,” Blinken said.
Jen Psaki, who served as the State Department spokeswoman at the time of the deal, hailed it as a signature achievement by the Obama administration. “Was it worth it? Absolutely,” Psaki said in 2015.
Biden himself, who was vice president at the time, also celebrated Berghdahl’s release on Twitter.
The ascension of these former prisoners is a sign the Taliban has no interest in moderating its behavior since the United States fled Afghanistan and allowed it to reclaim control of the war-torn country. With Americans and vulnerable Afghans still stranded in the country, these prisoners-turned-leaders could play a central part in the Taliban’s efforts to arrest, detain, and kill those they accuse of aiding America during its 20-year presence in Afghanistan.
After Kabul fell to the Taliban last month, the former prisoners flew to Afghanistan to join the new government.
Former detainee Khairullah Khairkhwa is now the acting minister for information and culture, according to national security expert and Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow Thomas Joscelyn. Norullah Noori now serves as acting minister of borders and tribal affairs, while Abdul Haq Wasiq is the acting director of intelligence and Mohammad Fazl is the deputy defense minister.
Haq Wasiq was a senior intelligence official for the Taliban prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and worked with al Qaeda as it plotted the strike that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.
Fazl was the Taliban’s deputy defense minister in 2001 and now resumes that role. He also worked with al Qaeda and terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenant.
Before he was arrested, Khairkhwa inked an agreement with Iran to fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan post-9/11.
With our political and military establishment spending twenty years waging war in the mountains of central Asia, Americans now know that the old saying about Afghanistan and imperial ambition is a lie. A great nation with a keen pride in its own identity and the destiny defined by it doesn’t risk blood and treasure to convince primitive tribes to adopt its style of governance. Only a failing power that has lost all sense of what once made rivals shrink would spend the lives of its young men and women to plant its flag on a pile of inconsequential rocks. Afghanistan is not the graveyard of empires. Rather, it is where failing regimes go to be euthanized.
The Soviet Union was already crumbling when Leonid Brezhnev sent troops to prop up a Communist regime in 1979. Months after Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew the last Soviet soldier in February 1989, the Berlin Wall was toppled. Russia survived and so will America. It is only the end of our ruling class, the curators of the new world order—globalism—that rose with the end of the Cold War. The impending collapse of this deracinated elite, like that of the Soviet Union, has simply been accelerated by its loss in Afghanistan.
It was not inevitable that what began in the wake of the Sept. 11 as an act of retribution would end in a theatre of self-pity. With lower Manhattan still smoking, Americans entrusted their political and military leadership with their safety and continued prosperity. Many of the most high-spirited among us offered America their service and some gave their lives.
But as the leadership class foundered in Afghanistan—Osama Bin Laden had escaped, Afghan democracy proved to be a fantasy, neither its army nor national police force could stand on its own, and so on—it saw that the failures prolonging the war in fact created opportunities for personal advancement. They used Afghanistan as a financial instrument to launder their spoils and purchase the power and prestige that are naturally owed victors. Like all habitual losers, America’s ruling class escapes the shame and humiliation it merits by forcing others to bear responsibility for the crimes it alone committed.
And that’s the context in which to understand the massive airlift for which the Joe Biden administration keeps congratulating itself. Never mind the thousands of Americans sent to their death for no strategic purpose and the trillions of U.S. taxpayer money wasted on the fantasy of turning Afghanistan into a democratic state. The message is: We’re good guys—we’re rescuing Afghans from the clutches of the Taliban.
The ruling class’ phony atonement comes at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. No one knows how many Afghans will be coming to the United States. Tens of thousands have been settled already, with others reportedly on their way, totaling according to some reports around 120,000. Government sources say that after refugees start bringing over family still in Afghanistan the final tally will likely reach a quarter of a million, maybe more.
The resettlement abuses the generosity of Americans, most of whom don’t understand that the Afghans sent to their communities are not the Afghans who helped Americans. The media, local political, social, and religious organizations have misled them to believe these are the interpreters and others who assisted US troops and other agencies. But according to reports, the Biden team left many of those Afghans behind. So, who are these people?
No one really knows. The problem is not that they are unvetted but that they are unvettable. The biometric information collected by U.S. authorities—and has now reportedly fallen into the hands of the Taliban—documented the Afghans who worked for them. Those among the warring tribesmen who opposed the U.S.-led coalition are undocumented, unless they are so notorious for shooting at Americans that they wound up on terror lists. Those Afghans are known. There are also records of those who committed crimes during earlier stays in Western countries and were deported. As for the rest, they pushed their way into Kabul airport, forced their way on to planes and now they’re here.
Gen. HR McMaster famously showed Donald Trump a 1970s photograph of young Kabul women in miniskirts to dissuade him from withdrawing forces. Trump’s advisor was trying to show that just underneath the country’s primitive violence was an open-minded and liberal core just waiting to be liberated.
But the type of people in those pictures are not part of this wave of Afghan migrants because all those open-minded and liberal Afghans left for the West years ago. The people coming now are poor and illiterate. They support strict Islamic law. Some of the tribal elders brought child brides with them. That is normal in traditional Afghan culture. So is raping young boys, which the Afghans call “bacha bazi.”
These Afghans can hardly be expected to assimilate American values and norms. And yet in one significant respect, these Afghans were shaped by their recent experience with Americans. The two-decade-long occupation trained them to be dependent on U.S. handouts. Thus, it is not entirely accurate to say the Afghans are fleeing the Taliban. Rather, they are following their source of income.
In this light, it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Hamed Ahmadi, the 28-year-old Afghan refugee who tweeted out a picture of the meager meal he and other immigrants were served when arriving at Fort Bliss. Many commentators called him an ingrate, but see it from his perspective. He was eight when American forces landed. The only world he knows is the one in which the Americans give you money just so you won’t take up arms against them. The way he sees it, the Americans have no choice but to keep paying.
On Sept. 7, Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a news conference in Qatar declared he was “unaware” of any “hostage-like situation” in aircraft waiting to take off from Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport.
Blinken was responding to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). On Sept. 5, McCaul told Fox News Sunday that six planes at Mazar-i-Sharif transporting American citizens and Afghan interpreters had been denied departure. The State Department “has cleared these flights and the Taliban will not let them leave the airport,” he said. He added: “We know the reason why (they are held) is because the Taliban want something in exchange.” McCaul speculated the Taliban wanted U.S. diplomatic recognition.
McCaul is the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s ranking Republican.
Mazar-i-Sharif is 190 miles northwest of Kabul. Several private organizations have tried to arrange chartered flights from Mazar-i-Sharif with the aim of evacuating stranded Americans and Afghan nationals who possess or deserve a U.S. Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV.
McCaul described a hostage situation quid pro quo. In exchange for releasing Americans held against their will, the Taliban want diplomatic recognition, which might give the Taliban access to frozen Afghan financial assets.
Blinken’s oily response was a nondenial. Claiming he is personally “unaware” doesn’t mean no one in his State Department knows otherwise. Note Blinken adds cheap spin with the weasel term “hostage-like.”
Blinken’s waffles followed White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s Aug. 23 Alice in Wonderland reply to a reporter that “Americans aren’t stranded” in Afghanistan. On the fly, Psaki redefined “stranded” to mean something it doesn’t. She contended citizens denied entry to Kabul’s airport weren’t stranded because they had cellphone contact.
They follow their leader. Blinken and Psaki mimic President Joe Biden’s example. On Aug. 31, Reuters published a July 23 telephone exchange between Biden and Afghan then-President Ashraf Ghani. Biden told Ghani that “… the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
The Reuters report has decisive historical importance. Biden knew his clumsy, incompetent, and haphazard withdrawal was failing. However, instead of assisting the Afghan government in order to safely and successfully evacuate U.S. citizens, Biden wanted Ghani to use word and image perception gimmickry to conceal Biden’s real-world leadership, policy, and battlefield failure.
Blinken’s Sept. 7 performance included some subtle but ugly admissions. Flights from Afghanistan were denied exit because people with valid travel documents are grouped with people lacking proper State Department paperwork.
Biden announced his withdrawal on April 14. He craved the optics of exiting Afghanistan by 9/11’s 20th anniversary. But Biden’s presidential order failed to prod the State Department to act to meet his withdrawal deadline.
On Aug. 16, the Washington Examiner reported that the State Department had a SIV “processing backlog” for 18,000 Afghan allies and 53,000 Afghan dependents.
That “backlog” testifies to the life-threatening wages of the State Department’s ingrained institutional defects. I’ll list a few: paper shuffling, bureaucratic 9-to-5 inertia; lack of accountability; and focus on perception, not policy execution and results.
Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) is Pentagonese for “the departure of civilian noncombatants and nonessential military personnel from danger in an overseas country to a designated safe haven …”
By doctrine, in a NEO the State Department is the lead government agency. The State Department identifies who should be evacuated, processes their paperwork, and arranges for safe havens. The State Department constantly coordinates with the Pentagon, so the military is prepared to safely conduct the evacuation.
Biden and Blinken at best gave a nod to a haphazard planning process. Then they mismanaged the withdrawal’s preparatory action phase and utterly botched its execution phase.
We confront our appalling moment: Biden and Blinken’s leadership failures and the State Department’s ineptitude have created a prolonged hostage situation. The failures and ineptitude also spurred the chaos that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. military personnel.
The State Department refused to grant official approval for private evacuation flights from Afghanistan to land in third countries, even though the department conceded that official authorization would likely be needed for planes to land in those nations, an email reviewed by Fox News shows.
Furthermore, the State Department explicitly stated that charter flights, even those containing American citizens, would not be allowed to land at Defense Department (DOD) airbases. U.S. officials have pointed to possible security threats from landing charter planes at military bases, saying that they lack the resources on the ground to fully verify flight manifests.
Eric Montalvo, who organized a series of private flights evacuating those stranded in Afghanistan, shared that email and others with Fox News after his evacuation efforts were repeatedly hampered by the federal bureaucracy.
A Sept. 1 email that a State Department official sent to Montalvo underscores the extent to which private evacuation efforts have run into bureaucratic roadblocks.
“No independent charters are allowed to land at [Al Udeid Air Base], the military airbase you mentioned in your communication with Samantha Power. In fact, no charters are allowed to land at an [sic] DoD base and most if not all countries in the Middle Eastern region, with the exception of perhaps Saudi Arabia will allow charters to land,” the official wrote.
“You need to find another destination country, and it can’t be the U.S. either.”
The official noted that though some third countries “may require” official approval from the State Department before accepting the private charter flights, the department “will not provide” that approval.
“Once you have had discussions with the host/destination country and reached an agreement, they may require some indication from the USG that we ‘approve’ of this charter flight. DOS will not provide an approval, but we will provide a ‘no objection’ to the destination country government via the U.S. Embassy in that country.”
Joe Biden’s disastrous handling of U.S. troop withdrawal in Afghanistan is an impeachable offense for a president if there ever was one. Despite trying to impeach Donald Trump twice for far less, Democrats are not calling impeachment.
But some Republicans are. Forbes reported Thursday, “Nearly two dozen House and Senate Republicans on Thursday called for President Joe Biden to resign or be removed over a terrorist attack in Kabul that killed at least a dozen U.S. service members, as tensions between Biden and Republicans in Congress have worsened amid the U.S. withdrawal of troops from the region.”
Two dozen is not enough. All Republicans should be calling for impeachment. In no particular order, some of these House and Senate Republicans include Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Rice, Elise Stefanik, Claudia Tenney, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lindsey Graham and Mary Miller.
Do you know if your representative is calling for impeachment?
I’m not counting on useless Never Trumpers who are probably about to be voted out of office anyway.
If dereliction of duty is not an impeachable offense, what is? Biden badly botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan because he did not have an exit strategy. Well, he did have one – don’t follow Trump’s exit strategy.
The former president’s deal with the Taliban included a May 1st withdrawal that Trump repeatedly warned Biden to stick to. Former vice president Mike Pence blames Biden for breaking the deal his administration brokered with the Taliban.
For Biden, there was no deal, no plan and no strategy. It was a dereliction of duty of the grandest scale.
We could throw in Biden’s dereliction of duty on our southern border as well, but for our purposes here let’s stick to one colossal Biden failure at a time.
The Democrats spent four years calling for Donald Trump’s head over nothing. Every Republican should be calling for the removal of Joe Biden from the White House for inaction that has cost lives and more.
Sirajuddin Haqqani has $5 million bounty for killing a U.S. citizen in 2008
A Taliban spokesman on Tuesday announced the appointment of a terrorist on the FBI’s most-wanted list to a cabinet-level position in its new government.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is a senior leader in the al Qaeda-aligned Haqqani network of terror groups, will serve in the Taliban’s government as minister of the interior. He is wanted by federal authorities for his involvement in a 2008 bombing in Kabul that killed Thor Hesla, a U.S. citizen. The State Department is offering up to $5 million for information leading to Haqqani’s arrest.
Haqqani authored an op-ed in the New York Times in February 2020, which expressed the demands of the Taliban ahead of talks with U.S. officials in Qatar.
The Taliban leader said his organization would work to protect human rights for all Afghans and work toward “mutual respect” with foreign powers. The claims run counter to reports of atrocities the Taliban have committed against Afghans, many of whom assisted the United States during its 20-year war in Afghanistan.
Haqqani’s op-ed ran four months before a now-infamous New York Times editorial by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) that argued federal forces should be deployed to quell violence and restore order in America’s cities during the summer’s riots. Whereas some employees said Cotton’s views put black journalists at the newspaper “in danger,” no Times employees said publishing a known terrorist’s words in their opinion pages put any subgroup of U.S. citizens at risk.
United Nations-sanctioned terrorist Mohammad Hasan Akhund will lead the newly installed Taliban government. A 2020 report from the United Nations Security Council said the Taliban’s senior council of 20 members—including Akhund—maintained close ties with al Qaeda during negotiations with the West.
With its recent focus on domestic terrorism, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is veering off its core competency by “chasing the shiny object,” according to former Acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf. He said that DHS should focus on international terrorism, especially given the security risks incurred by the withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan. The talk of establishing a new statute on domestic terrorism seems like “weaponizing the criminal justice system,” added Chris Swecker, former FBI assistant director.
At a 9/11 anniversary event hosted by the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, Wolf said that DHS’s first-ever comprehensive threat assessment (pdf) published in October 2020 highlighted threats from China and Russia. However, domestic terrorism was a small piece in the overall picture, according to Wolf, adding that some people have “blown that [domestic terrorism] out of proportion.”
Given that Afghanistan has become a safe haven for terrorists and that America has withdrawn its diplomatic presence, the area will be a “black hole” for the U.S. homeland security, according to Wolf.
Wolf said that the normal vetting process for Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans is 18 to 24 months. Now Afghans are being paroled in and vetted in a matter of days. It would take only one or two bad actors to harm the security of the American homeland, added Wolf.
Swecker highlighted that international terrorist groups could pressure family members in Afghanistan to extort people in the United States to do their bidding, similar to how the Chinese Communist Party operates. This could bring additional domestic security risks, said Swecker.
Both expressed worries about a potential new statute on domestic terrorism. They said that existing laws cover prosecution of domestic terrorism acts. However, the proposed new rule seems to point to naming domestic terrorist groups or people, which could be dangerous in terms of harming people’s freedom of speech.
Furthermore, Swecker pointed out that recent DHS bulletins on domestic terrorism did not mention Antifa or Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. The DHS threat assessment report documented these events: “DHS law enforcement officers suffered over 300 separate injuries and were assaulted with sledgehammers, commercial grade fireworks, rocks, metal pipes, improvised explosive devices, and more.”
Wolf defined domestic terrorism as “committing crimes that are intended to force your ideology on a population on a government.” He said he worried that the domestic terrorism issue would become political: “Violence is violence, whether it’s coming from the right or the left. You have to condemn it equally. Otherwise, it becomes a political issue.”
Calling the 9/11 terrorist attack “one of the most significant events of the last 100 years,” Swecker said, “It was an attack on our government and our people. And it was highly successful by a determined, well-funded, well-trained terrorist organization that hasn’t gone away.”
Wolf added that it might be hard for some Americans to fathom that there were individuals and organizations “whose sole mission is to harm America.” He said China and Russia were examples of that. “I don’t think that can be overstated enough,” said Wolf.
A U.S.-Afghan interpreter with family stuck in Afghanistan has spoken out against what she describes as unforgivable negligence by the U.S. government. Amidst reports that the Taliban is conducting online surveillance operations against American allies in a possible revenge campaign, The Epoch Times has chosen to withhold the names of the interpreter and her family. This is their story.
During her roughly six-day ordeal escaping Afghanistan last month, a U.S.-Afghan interpreter was harassed by the Taliban, nearly trampled by stampeding crowds, and subjected to wildly inhumane conditions.
She expected that kind of treatment from the Taliban.
What the interpreter didn’t expect, however, was receiving similar treatment from her own government. She didn’t foresee being misled by her president, cursed at by Marines, or lied to by State Department officials.
She didn’t expect to have her family betrayed.
Now, the interpreter wants the American people to know how their taxpayer-funded officials turned their backs on countless allies and others in desperate need of help.
Chaos
“I don’t like spotlights. I don’t want attention. I just want the American people to know the truth—that, I’m sorry, but our president is standing there, and the words coming out of his mouth don’t match what he did,” she said. “And I was there, I saw it, and it’s not okay. Someone has to be held accountable.”
A native of Afghanistan who moved to the United States following the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979, the interpreter wanted to serve the country that provided her refuge.
Afghanistan provided her with that opportunity. During her time there, she worked with village stability teams operating out of Camp Vance in Bagram in 2012 and 2013, assisting U.S. troops and security contractors on numerous projects.
She told The Epoch Times that she was the first female to help coach then-Afghan commandos at the Afghan Special Security Forces ANA Special Operations Command— “I think that was the proudest thing for me, and I have a lot to show for on that,” she said.
Interpreter at work in Afghanistan, with face blurred to protect her identity. (Courtesy of the interpreter)
After her stint in Bagram, the interpreter returned home to Idaho. But when the Taliban began retaking the country earlier this year, she knew she had to get her family out of danger.
Arriving in Kabul on Aug. 7, the interpreter thought she had until the end of the month to arrange for her sister and others to travel back to America.
Like so many others—including the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus—she was wrong.
“I told her to hurry up and go to Afghanistan in August and it would be safe—but to hurry up,” said George McMillan, a security contractor who worked with the interpreter. “And then the Afghan Army in the Pashtun-dominated areas just surrendered.”
Chaos ensued.
Sister Gives Up
The interpreter’s primary mission became getting herself and her older sister—who was the family matriarch following the death of their mother, as per Afghan cultural norms—on the soonest plane back to the United States.
Making their way through the streets of Kabul, they arrived at one of the security checkpoints outside of the Kabul airport. There, they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The interpreter said they spent some 48 hours in line, standing under the scorching sun with no food or water, sleeping in garbage and feces, and dealing with the all-to-real threat of being trampled by throngs of would-be refugees. There were times when the interpreter passed out in her sister’s arms from exhaustion, and vice versa.
Finally, they made it to the gate, where the interpreter presented her American passport to a U.S. Marine.
Instead of letting them through security, the Marine “told me to [expletive deleted], go wait in the back of the line, and that he didn’t give a [expletive deleted],” she said.
At that point, the sister fainted. When she woke up, the sister asked to go home—where she remains to this day. Unlike the interpreter, the sister has lived in Afghanistan her whole life, and she gave up hope on ever making it to America.
“She said, ‘Just take me home.’ She said, ‘I don’t want to be here; just take me home,’” the interpreter said through her tears. “She was really sick; she was dehydrated.”
Adding insult to injury, the Marines allowed an influx of refugees to enter the airport about 10 minutes after the sisters were booted to the back of the line. Few, if any, had documentation, according to the interpreter.
The interpreter’s heart-breaking journey wouldn’t end there. Nor would the abject horror.
Non-Americans Board
After dropping her sister home, she made her fifth attempt to catch a flight. This time, she was with two cousins, one of them an Afghan national who works for the United Nations, and the other a former U.S. embassy employee. The Marines let them inside the gate, but they were not allowed to board the flight, she said.
A State Department employee told the cousins that “only American citizens were allowed aboard.” Therefore, it came as a shock to the interpreter when she boarded the plane to find “hundreds” of non-American Afghans.
“How are you going to sit there and lie to my face like that? A plane full of Afghans—none of them with the proper documents—yet you’re turning away an active employee of the United Nations,” she said. “He still had his badge. The other [cousin] was an active employee of the U.S. embassy. The State Department’s website says, ‘U.S. citizens plus their family’ [are allowed to board].
“But they were turned around, right there in front of the plane … I wish to God that I would have taken the name of that [State Department official] lady.”
Not only were the cousins replaced by non-American citizens on the flight home; the interpreter said she thinks a Talib may have been aboard as well.
She said she helped serve as a translator when the plane left Kabul, assisting those who couldn’t speak English. One man stood out to her in particular—and not for good reasons.
“He was there, and I saw it with my own eyes that he had two different passports—one was an American passport and the other one was an Afghan passport. And he did not speak one word of English, not one word. So, it’s like, how the hell somebody can have American passport and not speak one word of English? It is beyond imagination.”
The interpreter said the man was questioned by authorities upon reaching the United States, but was still allowed in the country—where he’s likely at-large in America.
She took a brief video of the man on the plane and sent it to her former colleague McMillan, who shared her assessment about the person’s likely allegiance to the Taliban.
“He spoke only Pashtun, so it is impossible that he worked for the United States in any capacity,” he said, noting that the man was from the Khost Province. “Khost is almost exclusively Pashtun and therefore Taliban in the mountain range on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.”
Some two weeks after her hellish ordeal, the interpreter is still bruised and battered.
“I’m not normal. I’m not. I’m really going through PTSD,” she said. “It’s, it’s, it’s—I don’t think I can recover from this.”
She wants answers, and for people in power to be held to account.
Meanwhile, the cousins and sister are still in Afghanistan, living in danger from a revenge-driven Taliban.
The interpreter talks to them on a regular basis.
“They’re trying to survive. As you know, their biometrics and pictures, IDs and passports are all in Taliban’s hand. I know everybody likes to believe this fairy tale that the Taliban won’t do anything to these people,” she said. “Yeah, they’re going to do something to these people. They’ll be the first to be slaughtered.”
The interpreter is working with private groups to extract them, but she isn’t holding her breath. She’s certainly not counting on the U.S. government to help her.
She fears that last month was the last time she’ll ever see her sister.
“I don’t know,” she said through more tears. “I hope not.”
Top Republican says Taliban is limiting travel to strong-arm Biden administration
The State Department says there is little it can do to help Americans and at-risk Afghans whose planes are reportedly grounded at an airport as the Taliban prevents them from leaving the country.
At least six chartered planes are attempting to evacuate these Americans and others from Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport, but the Taliban is reportedly preventing them from taking off. Since it evacuated U.S. military forces and diplomatic personnel from the war-torn country, the Biden administration has not had the resources necessary to ensure that flights chartered by nonprofit groups and others can depart Afghanistan.
“We do not have personnel on the ground, we do not have air assets in the country, we do not control the airspace—whether over Afghanistan or elsewhere in the region,” a State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. “We understand the concern that many people are feeling as they try to facilitate further charter and other passage out of Afghanistan.”
While the State Department says it has little to no information about the situation but is pressing the Taliban to make good on its promise to allow Americans to leave the country, Republican lawmakers are now raising the alarm that the Taliban is grounding planes as leverage to extract concessions from the Biden administration.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who has received classified briefings on the matter, told Fox News on Sunday morning that there are hundreds of American still trapped in Afghanistan and that the “Taliban want something in exchange” for letting these people leave.
McCaul has been tracking the situation and says the State Department cleared these flights to leave, but that the Taliban is responsible for stopping them. The State Department reportedly confirmed to Congress that flights from Mazar-i-Sharif are being held until the Taliban gives its approval.
McCaul says the planes have been stuck at the airport for the past several days and include American passengers, as well as Afghans who are trying to flee the Taliban, which has been trying to detain those citizens who worked with the United States and other coalition forces during the 20-year operation there.
“What we are seeing right now in Mazar-i-Sharif—this didn’t have to happen,” McCaul told the Free Beacon. “If the president had listened to the bipartisan pleas from Congress, his own generals, or the intelligence community, he would have properly planned for this withdrawal, including evacuating Americans before he pulled out the military. Instead, Americans are trapped in a country run by brutal terrorists, who are currently not allowing them to leave.”
The State Department said Sunday that it does not have a “reliable means” to get information about the passengers on the charter flights.
“Given these constraints, we also do not have a reliable means to confirm the basic details of charter flights, including who may be organizing them, the number of U.S. citizens and other priority groups on-board, the accuracy of the rest of the manifest, and where they plan to land, among many other issues,” the spokesman said.
A man who was charged with attempted murder after allegedly firing shots at Minneapolis officers amid George Floyd protests last year was acquitted of all counts.
Jaleel Stallings, 29, of St. Paul, Minnesota, argued via lawyers that he acted in self-defense and fired three shots after being struck by rubber bullets, believing that he was being attacked by civilians, not police.
Lawyers for the man said Stallings surrendered after realizing he was firing at police. No officers were injured, according to court documents.
Stallings was facing two counts of second-degree attempted murder, assault, and other charges.
Video footage and court documents said that the officers approached Stallings in an unmarked white van, and testimony from one of the officers said they did not identify themselves as police and didn’t warn Stallings if he didn’t comply, according to KARE.
The documents said that Stallings “believed white supremacists (or, perhaps, other non-law enforcement individuals) were firing upon him.”
A news release at the time released by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office that Stallings “quickly ran away while officers began searching for him” after the incident.
In court, the officers testified that they believed Stallings was a rioter and felt the use of force was necessary because they believed him to be armed.
But a judge found that two officers violated Stallings’ Fourth Amendment rights during the arrest and that their actions were unreasonable.
“Officer Stetson and Sergeant Bittell allowed their anger and/or fear to overtake their faculties and they beat Mr. Stallings for nearly 30 seconds before attempting to place him in handcuffs,“ Judge William Koch wrote. “The video evidence does not support their testimony Mr. Stallings was resisting arrest in any way, instead he surrendered to their authority.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo issued a statement saying there is an active investigation into the matter.
“I’m aware of the recent decision by the honorable Judge Koch who as a part of his decision noted context is important, and that the officers had just been through four days of rioting, looting, arson and the burning of the Third Precinct. Peaceful protest sometimes quickly escalated to violence,” said Arradondo. “We respect the judicial process as well as the internal investigatory process which is currently active. It is for that reason I will not be commenting further at this time.”
During last year’s riots in Minneapolis, tens of millions of dollars in damage was reportedly wrought by rioters, arsons, and looters. More than 1,500 businesses were damaged or destroyed in the riots that were sparked by the death of Floyd.
In the afterglow of the shambles of American and NATO policy in Afghanistan, it is probably a good time to review American strategic thinking in the Mideast and South Asia generally.
While the Cold War was in progress and the Nehru-Gandhi Congress party was in power in India, it made some sense for the United States to prop up Pakistan, as a partial counterweight to India, a contact bridge with China (which facilitated the reopening of relations between the U.S. and China), and as a friendly Muslim power.
The dynamics of these relationships changed after China, under Deng Xiaoping, opted for economic growth and a strenuous, stylized version of state-led capitalism, and India sloughed off the Nehru-Gandhi pretension to being the world’s moral arbiter (partly because of its vast poverty), and set out after economic growth also.
The People’s Republic gradually emerged as a challenger to the United States as the world’s most influential country and it has treated the mountainous India-China border as a convenient skirmishing place in order to claim to be clearly preeminent over India also—it’s only demographic rival in the world.
American relations with India have steadily improved for nearly 40 years and presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump particularly emphasized that progress with very successful visits to India.
Update Pakistan Relations
Throughout the 20-year NATO involvement in Afghanistan and for some years prior to that, the Pakistani military and intelligence services, which have derived much of their operating budget from the largesse of the United States, have been funneling a substantial amount of it into Afghanistan and particularly to the Haqanni Taliban, a large Taliban faction that has been intermittently bedeviling and killing NATO forces throughout their sojourn in Afghanistan.
Given the vigorous activity of the Pakistani-sponsored Taliban faction in Afghanistan to frustrate and harass the NATO effort there, and especially in light of the pitiful ending of that effort, the status of American relations with Pakistan really should be brought up to date.
In 1971, in the India-Pakistan War in which India succeeded in politically separating East Pakistan 1200 miles distant from West Pakistan and effectively dividing that country in half, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Pakistan was drastically weakened, losing half its population in a way that presaged the disintegration of the Soviet Union 20 years later.
The United States had attempted to assist Pakistan at that time. It is a tough region: the Pakistani president in 1971, Yahya Khan, was deposed; his successor Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was executed; his successor Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq was assassinated, and his eventual successor-Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir Bhutto, was also assassinated.
The Indian Premier Indira Gandhi and her successor, her son Rajiv Gandhi, were both assassinated, and the founding leader of Bangladesh, Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated with his family (and the family dog) in 1975. It is, politically and otherwise, a rough-and-tumble area.
The United States appears to have been somnambulating through these years with Pakistan mindlessly continuing a relationship which has subsidized Afghan terrorist activity and outright war with NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Pakistan has throughout that time never shown the slightest solidarity with American interests. The current Pakistani leader, former star cricketer Imran Khan, celebrated the American defeat in Afghanistan with ululations of good riddance.
All the neighboring countries have their protégé factions in Afghanistan: Russia, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Iran. And however mistakenly and unceremoniously, the West has renounced the policy of developing and financing a pro-Western faction, dominating the cities and assuring that Afghanistan does not become again a breeding ground and launching place for sophisticated international terrorists.
In these circumstances, the United States should sever all assistance to Pakistan, a primitive, fragile, truncated, and often politically insolent country that has never ceased to swindle and confound the United States and assist its enemies these last 40 years.
It knowingly harbored Osama bin Laden and periodically suspended overland American access to its expeditionary forces in Afghanistan, irritatingly confident of its ability to spite the United States with impunity. It should at least be disabused of that practice. If Pakistan blows up, then as Henry Kissinger said of Bangladesh on its independence day in 1971: “It’s not our basket case.”
Rebuild American Credibility
The United States has just committed on behalf of NATO a spectacle of astonishing self-humiliation. It will require radical changes of personnel and policy to rebuild American credibility as an ally and as an opponent, but it can certainly be done and almost certainly will be done.
It took President Kennedy, who admitted error frankly and made radical changes of personnel and policy, 18 months after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, to regain his stature and reestablish the preeminence of the United States even in its own hemisphere, in the Cuban Missile Crisis. And his failure was only in giving arm’s-length support to an inadequately strong rebel group—there was no humiliating departure by the Armed Forces of the United States from Cuba.
I doubt that anyone now visible in the Biden administration is remotely qualified to do what needs to be done, but that is essentially to lead NATO into association with the alliances that the United States has in East Asia, South Asia, and Australasia and convert it all into an alliance of democratic states.
Unless Pakistan is prepared to take drastic steps of political and foreign policy reformation and play it straight and bear the burdens as well as receiving the benefits of being an American ally, the West can step back slightly and allow the vaunted Chinese Belt and Road to go through Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iran.
China as Bully
China is not fundamentally nearly as strong a country as the United States, and the greatest danger that it poses to us is if we push Russia into its arms so that there is an infelicitous combination of unexploited Siberian resources and surplus Chinese population. China is a newcomer to great power politics since its last turn as a major power was many centuries ago, and its interest was then effectively confined to the bullying of its neighbors.
It seems not altogether to have outgrown those habits and even the dogged colonels of Myanmar tired of Chinese overlordship and threw the Middle Kingdom out, bag and baggage. Any Chinese success or major Western failure such as Afghanistan seems to propel the People’s Republic to greater outrages—Hong Kong, the Uyghurs, incursions into India, and threats against Vietnam.
Eventually China will irritate all those whom it seeks to bully or dominate and all of the money that it is investing in Africa will eventually be seized by the locals, and the Chinese will be sent packing. Their Belt and Road is nonsense but if they want to hurl money at the underdeveloped countries we should welcome that, not just for humanitarian reasons, but because it will not lead to significant geopolitical inconvenience for the West.
On one point the hapless Joe Biden is right: Afghanistan is strategically useless, a primitive landlocked country inhabited by fierce and inhospitable people. If it possesses resources in rare-earth, that is a very recent discovery that reminds me of Marxist Herbert Marcuse’s theory that the United States was in South Vietnam in pursuit of oil (which has still not been discovered).
Not much can be expected from the deflated, excuses-addled Biden foreign and strategic policy team in terms of an imaginative foreign policy such as that pursued by President Truman and General Marshall and Dean Acheson or by President Nixon and Henry Kissinger. But even Biden might be up to giving Pakistan a good and well-deserved kick in the shins.
The Taliban terrorist group has been accused of killing an 8-month pregnant policewoman in front of her family over the weekend, according to witnesses.
The incident comes amid mounting concerns and reports of repression against women in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s rule.
A spokesperson for the group denied the accusations while speaking to the BBC, adding that an investigation into the murder is ongoing.
“We are aware of the incident and I am confirming that the Taliban have not killed her, our investigation is ongoing,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed said.
Relatives of the victim, who has been identified by her sister as Negar Masoomi, said she worked at a local prison in Ghor, a central Afghan province.
On Sept. 4, three armed Taliban terrorists reportedly forced their way into the house where the family lives, tied everyone up, and searched the house before executing Masoomi with a knife.
“They killed our mother before our eyes. They killed her with a knife,” Mohammad Hanif, the son of the victim, told a local CNN reporter in Ghor. The motive for her death is currently unclear.
The Taliban has previously promised they would not seek revenge on former enemies and assured they will respect women’s rights and grant amnesty to those who fought them in the past.
Mujaheed repeated the terrorist group’s amnesty promise for those who worked for the previous administration and shifted the murder down to a “personal enmity or something else.”
When the Taliban was in power last time between 1996 and 2001 prior to a U.S.-led military operation two decades ago that ousted the group, they banned women from the workplace and nearly all women were mostly confined to their homes. They also forbid women from leaving the home unaccompanied and forced them to cover their entire bodies.
Women gather to demand their rights under Taliban rule during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sept. 4, 2021. (Kathy Gannon/AP Photo)
“Our security forces are not trained [in] how to deal with women—how to speak to women,” a spokesman for the group, Zabihullah Mujahid, told reporters at a press briefing on Aug. 24, referring to some fighters in the group.
Over the weekend, Taliban terrorists in camouflage fired weapons into the air, bringing an abrupt and frightening end to a protest in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, by women demanding equal rights from the new rulers.
The women’s march—the second in as many days in Kabul—began peacefully. Demonstrators laid a wreath outside Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry to honor Afghan soldiers who died fighting the Taliban before marching on to the presidential palace.
As the demonstrators reached the presidential palace, a dozen Taliban terrorists ran into the crowd, firing in the air and sending demonstrators fleeing.
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When President Joe Biden was elected in November under hotly contested circumstances, he was supposed to be the most popular presidential candidate in our nation’s history, receiving more than 81 million votes.
The magic of this remarkable achievement wore off pretty quickly once he took up the post of commander-in-chief, however.
In less than a year, his administration has overseen crippling inflation, a horrific humanitarian crisis at the border and a return to pre-9/11 conditions in Afghanistan as the Taliban retook the nation with ease before our troops — and our civilians — had withdrawn.
It’s been a mess and a disaster. And now, the people who voted for and against the most popular presidential candidate in U.S. history want answers.
It’s not just Republicans, although they’re certainly making the most noise. Last week, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton was joined by over two dozen of his colleagues who demanded answers on what went wrong in Afghanistan.
Yes, Biden is turning out to be quite the historical president — although more so for his administration’s quickly-earned notoriety than succusses at this rate.
A Rasmussen Reports survey released last week found that while less than one-third of likely voters believed the Afghanistan withdrawal was a success (those are some optimistic likely voters), nearly two-thirds believed that the handling of the withdrawal should be investigated.
The national online and phone survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted Aug. 30-31, as the last of the U.S. troops were pulling out of the nation and Americans, including schoolchildren, were left stranded in the Taliban-controlled nation.
The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.
Sixty-two percent of those surveyed responded affirmatively to the question, “Should Congress investigate how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was handled?”
Twenty-eight percent of those surveyed opposed a congressional investigation (imagine opposing government accountability at a time like this), while 10 percent were not sure.
Here’s the thing: the refrain from the Democrats over the last month has been that what happened in Afghanistan was the fault of former President Donald Trump, who negotiated a peace treaty with the Taliban and set a withdrawal date for May of this year before leaving office.
Yet it was under the command of Biden’s military leaders that the United States appeared to completely abandon the Afghan national army to the mercy of the Taliban and left billions of dollars worth of equipment in their hands.
It is these same military officials — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley — on whom over 100 retired military officers have called to resign.
It is Biden who appeared to advise the now-deposed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to give the public impression that the Taliban wasn’t winning in July if he wanted to receive more U.S. aid, according to Reuters.
It is Biden who was running things when thousands of Americans were scrambling to evacuate and when hundreds were abandoned in the country after we withdrew.
It is the Biden administration that was facilitating the chaotic evacuation and that gave the Taliban the names of Americans and U.S.-allied Afghans as the terror group appeared to control the entrance to the Kabul airport in the final days of the withdrawal.
And it was Biden who was commander-in-chief when Islamic State group terrorists detonated a suicide vest and opened fire upon the crush of desperate civilians trying to flee Afghanistan in an attack that killed 13 U.S. service members, the worst single-day casualty event our forces had seen in 11 years.
The American people are right to want answers — and it is from President Joe Biden that they must be demanded.
The sister of fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum is speaking out against President Joe Biden after her brother was tragically killed in the suicide bombing near the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, making him one of the last American casualties of the War in Afghanistan.
Cheyenne McCollum courageously spoke with Newsmax’s “Wake Up America” on Monday to discuss meeting with the president at the dignified transfer of her brother’s remains.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say I stayed to meet him. I stayed to support Rylee’s wife because I didn’t want her to sit alone, and she wanted the chance to look him in the eye, so I sat beside her to do that as well,” McCollum said.
“I stayed, and when he came up to us about 15 seconds in I ended up having to walk away. It was so insincere, and he didn’t look us in the eye, he gave her a pat on the knee and said, ‘I know what you’re going through — I lost my son.’ Which, he didn’t lose his son serving.”
“He just said, ‘There’s nothing I can say,’ and would just go on to talking about his son. … I don’t even think he knows Rylee’s name, to be honest. … He didn’t know or say anything personal. It was very scripted,” she added.
“Everything felt fake, if I’m being honest.”
McCollum’s wife is pregnant with their first child, making the emotions run even higher for the family.
Two GoFundMes set up were set up to support his wife, Gigi, and their unborn child’s education fund. The two campaigns have raised over $875,000 combined.
“He was so excited,” his sister said about how he was going to become a father. “He was gonna be such a good dad.”
The establishment media has painted Biden as an empathetic figure, but this interview suggests otherwise.
While it is hard to know what was going through the president’s mind during the dignified transfer, some in attendance were clearly upset with his cold behavior.
The McCollum family is just one of the 13 families that lost a service member, so it is reasonable for them to be upset with the president.
For those on the left who would like to create a false equivalency to the lives lost to coronavirus, they must be reminded that this was the result of policy, not a pandemic.
These service members sacrificed their lives to protect freedom and democracy overseas, only for their families to be passively glanced over by their commander in chief.
The top-ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said that the Taliban terrorist group will not allow Americans to leave from an airport in the northern part of Afghanistan, while the White House chief of staff estimated that about 100 Americans still remain in the country.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said that six airplanes carrying Americans and Afghans are sitting at the Mazar-i-Sharif airport in Afghanistan but cannot depart because the Taliban is “holding them hostage for demands.”
“In fact we have six airplanes at Mazar-i-Sharif airport, six airplanes, with American citizens on them, as I speak, also with these interpreters, and the Taliban is holding them hostage for demands right now,” McCaul told Fox News on Sunday. The Department of State “has cleared these flights, and the Taliban will not let them leave the airport,” he added.
The top Republican lawmaker did not elaborate the specific demands the Taliban have made to the United States, but he said it is “turning into a hostage situation” and said the Taliban is “not gonna allow American citizens to leave until they get full recognition from the United States of America.”
“Well, they are not clearing airplanes to depart. They’ve sat at the airport for the last couple days, these planes, and they’re not allowed to leave,” McCaul said. “We know the reason why is because the Taliban want something in exchange.”
Rep. Michael McCaul speaks as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on The Biden Administration’s Priorities for U.S. Foreign Policy on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 10, 2021. (Ken Cedeno-Pool/Getty Images)
Late last month, the U.S. military completed its final evacuation mission at the Kabul airport while Biden administration officials declared an end to the 20-year-long military conflict in Afghanistan. However, possibly hundreds of American citizens still remain inside the country.
For how his administration handled the pullout and chaotic evacuation, President Joe Biden has received unprecedented bipartisan criticism. During remarks to the press and in speeches, Biden repeatedly defended the pullout and blamed the Afghan army for not being willing to fight the Taliban, although neither he nor top generals could explain why the Afghanistan government collapsed in just 11 days and acknowledged their intelligence didn’t predict such a scenario unfolding.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that about 100 Americans remain in the country.
“Obviously, we’re hopeful that, in the coming days, the Qataris will be able to resume air service out of Kabul. And, if they do, we’re obviously going to look to see if Americans can be part of those flights. We are going to find ways to get them … the ones that want to leave, to get them out of Afghanistan,” he said.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of State regarding McCaul’s comments.
The book is a hoot, partly because Newby made it quite clear that no walk in the Hindu Kush is short, but mostly because of its dramatization of the encounter between a modern Westerner and the harsh, primitive tribalism of a society caught in the past like a bug in amber.
Hopkirk’s account of Maj. Gen. William Elphinstone’s disastrous withdrawal from Kabul in 1842—out of a party of 16,000 precisely one European, William Brydon, an army surgeon, made it out alive—made a deep impression on me.
“Where’s the army?” he was asked when, badly wounded, he wobbled into the British garrison in Jalalabad, some 90 miles East of Kabul.
“I am the army,” was his reply.
Miraculously, Brydon lived on for another twenty years. The pony that bore him into the fort was not so fortunate. He lay down directly and never rose.
There is a reason that Afghanistan is called the “graveyard of Empires.”
The Russians know a thing or two about that, though they at least managed their withdrawal in an orderly fashion.
Unlike the United States, whose departure, though not as sanguinary as Elphinstone’s, may well have bigger global repercussions.
I should say for the record that I strongly supported America’s entry into Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11.
Indeed, it might be said that I supported it more strongly than our leaders since I thought the rules of engagement we followed hampered the effective prosecution of the assault.
Early on, for example, we had a clear shot at the Taliban bigwig Mullah Omar, but permission to take him out was denied for fear of collateral damage.
I should also say that I supported Donald Trump’s plan to extricate the United States from what had become America’s longest war.
Was his deal with the Taliban, the so-called Doha agreement, a good one?
Maybe not.
Trump had promised to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of May, 2021, provided that the Taliban upheld their end of the bargain, which prominently included a promise that they would engage in “intra-Afghan dialogue” in order to to achieve a “permanent and comprehensive ceasefire” that would yield a “political roadmap” for the country’s future.
As a recent story in The Wall Street Journal notes, “Trump administration officials emphasized the conditional nature of the U.S. commitment when the Doha agreement was signed.”
Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, noted in March 2020 that Doha “is a conditions-based agreement.”
If “we assess that the Taliban is honoring the terms of the deal,” he said, “including progress on the political front between the Taliban and the current Afghan government,” the United States will “reduce our presence toward a goal of zero in 2021.”
“If.”
Should progress toward that goal stall, he warned, then “our drawdown likely will be suspended, as well.”
I mention this minutia to answer critics of Trump’s plan, in and out of the Biden administration.
The administration’s whining that the evacuation was Trump’s plan, and therefore it was bad, but nonetheless that it was “extraordinarily successful” is especially risible or, to be more strictly accurate, is pathetic.
The Taliban did not abide by the agreement. They took the country by force, and they did it in such short order that General Mark Milley didn’t even have time to complain about all the “white rage” on view.
That said, Biden’s mistake was not in withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
His mistake was twofold: not holding the Taliban to their word, and utterly bungling—bungling that rises to the level of criminal negligence—the evacuation.
Memo to the “experts” in the State Department: the next time you have to withdraw from a hostile country, do not, I repeat, do not abandon your chief strategic airbase before evacuating American citizens and our allies.
Also, do not leave behind hundreds of millions of dollars of military hardware for the enemy to hoover up and use against its own population and, in due course, the West.
Finally, do not listen to anything that Antony Blinken says.
I stress again, however, Biden’s mistake was not in leaving Afghanistan.
That was long overdue.
His mistake was the way he left.
Writing at The Spectator World, Daniel McCarthy got to the nub of the issue. “Biden deserves censure for a thousand reasons,” McCarthy notes.
“But the public deserves an honest accounting of the war itself, which was never winnable in the way that those who sold the conflict to America at the outset had promised.”
Twenty years and $2 trillion on, we all know that (well, maybe not Bill Kristol or David French, but everyone who matters).
McCarthy underscores the hard truth of the situation: “Afghanistan is a disaster not primarily because of Biden but because our leadership class, in politics and the media alike, cannot confront uncomfortable truths,” above all the uncomfortable truth that Afghanistan was always an unlikely candidate for the institution of liberal democracy and all the nonsense about “diversity,” “gender equity,” and the like that accompanies the American variety of liberalism like a limpet.
No, we should have gone into Afghanistan after 9/11, devastated al-Qaeda and anyone harboring them.
Then we should have left.
We didn’t, and the result is this sucking mess that is destroying the Biden administration and will likely have very serious implications for America’s status on the international stage.
Again, Daniel McCarthy was absolutely correct: “Afghanistan was lost the minute the mission became democracy-promotion and nation-building. A humiliating end was written in failures right at the start.”
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) was in a plane circling the U.S.-held airport in Kabul with Special Forces last week on a mission to rescue Americans stranded in Afghanistan.
Mullin had learned American citizens were stuck in the Taliban-controlled country and wanted to help get them out before U.S. troops withdrew before President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline.
But the attempt failed, the congressman said on Friday.
“They would never let us in Afghanistan,” he said on Fox News, blaming Biden administration officials.
The 20 Americans the flight was aimed at rescuing haven’t been in contact since, Mullin said.
The secretive trip led to reports that Mullin’s whereabouts were unknown and claims he threatened staff members at the U.S. Embassy in Tajikstan as he tried to enter Afghanistan for a rescue mission.
Mullin and a spokesperson issued brief statements earlier this week saying he was safe, but the television appearance was the first-term representative’s first time getting into detail on what unfolded.
The chaos in Kabul, where tens of thousands of Afghans and thousands of Americans tried to brave Taliban checkpoints before convincing U.S. troops and other personnel to let them into the airport, unfolded over 17 days after the terrorist group barreled through U.S.-backed Afghan forces and assumed control of the country.
Some Americans reported being unable to reach the airport, with reports of scattered beatings being confirmed by the Pentagon. That led to appeals to outside parties, including Mullin, to carry out rescues.
Mullin said people started calling him to ask for help evacuating Americans and Afghans. One phone call concerned 20 U.S. citizens who needed a State Department or another government entity, such as a member of Congress, to sponsor a flight. That’s how he ended up on board a plane that was set to touch down in Kabul before taking off with more passengers on board.
Mullin and those with him were aware of the danger. “We felt like we probably had a 50–50 chance of coming back,” he said.
But he feels no regrets about the attempt, which did not culminate with a rescue.
“How do you say no when you have the option to do something?” he wondered. “I’d do it again tomorrow.”
Mullin targeted Biden and other top officials, saying that they lied when they said all Americans who wanted out would be evacuated before U.S. troops left.
Mullin, who said his flight received a humanitarian plan from the Federal Aviation Authority, accused the State Department of interfering with the mission.
The authority told The Epoch Times via email that any operators flying into the airport were told Aug. 18 that they must obtain permission from the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Department of Defense and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
The congressman also denied the anonymously-sourced report that claimed he threatened American staffers in Tajikstan. He said he did have a large sum of cash, because of the prediction money might be needed to get through Taliban checkpoints. He said the U.S. ambassador in Tajikstan refused to help.
Two other members of Congress did make it into Afghanistan, but they went to oversee the evacuation, not carry out a rescue mission.
Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) reached Kabul on Aug. 24 and spent several hours at the airport before leaving, Pentagon officials have confirmed.
House of Representatives leaders from both parties said the trip shouldn’t have happened, though House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he understood why it did.
“They’re both veterans, they’re both frustrated, they have an administration that won’t tell them the answers to how many Americans are left,” he told reporters in Washington.
As Afghanistan falls to the Taliban, U.S. deaths from COVID-19 reach grim milestone
President Joe Biden promised the American people the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan would not in any way resemble the humiliating end to the Vietnam War. He broke that promise.
“The Taliban is not the south—the North Vietnamese army. They’re not—they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability,” Biden said during a press conference on July 8. “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.”
Several weeks later, American forces were scrambling to evacuate diplomats and staff from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Kabul as the Taliban advanced toward the capital. Chaos ensued as thousands gathered at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where 13 American service members were killed in a suicide bombing attack, and hundreds of American citizens and Afghan allies were left behind. Earlier this week, Biden hailed the disastrous withdrawal as an “extraordinary success” that went exactly “as designed.”
Meanwhile, back in the United States, another human-rights disaster has been unfolding on Biden’s watch. More than 235,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 since Biden took office in January. That is more than quadruple the number of Americans who died during the Vietnam War (58,220) from 1964 to 1975. On average, COVID-19 has killed more than 1,000 Americans every day that Biden has been president.
The horrific death toll marks another broken promise for Biden, who insisted during the 2020 presidential campaign that he would “shut down the virus” in the United States. In fact, the number of COVID-19 deaths on Biden’s watch is even greater than the American death toll was on October 22, 2020, the date of his final presidential debate against former president Donald Trump.
“Two-hundred twenty-thousand Americans dead,” Biden said. “Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America. We’re in a situation where there are a thousand deaths a day.”
Once again, Biden promised that electing him president would halt the deadly pandemic in its tracks. “The way this president has responded to this crisis has been absolutely tragic,” he said. “So, folks, I will take care of this. I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan.”
Afghans are tested after arrival in the United States
Afghan refugees coming to the United States did not receive COVID-19 tests before departing Kabul, the State Department told the Washington Free Beacon.
The State Department’s disclosure comes amid increased scrutiny of the Biden administration’s handling of more than 100,000 Afghans, who fled the country following the Taliban’s takeover. The agency requires COVID tests before it allows foreign travelers to arrive in the United States, but it waived the requirement for those who evacuated from Afghanistan.
“Given the extraordinary circumstances, a blanket humanitarian exemption was issued for the requirement of pre-departure COVID testing for all individuals the U.S. government transported by aircraft from Afghanistan,” an agency spokeswoman told the Free Beacon on Friday.
Reports indicate other significant lapses in the State Department’s handling of the Afghan evacuation efforts. The Associated Press reported Friday that officials are investigating cases of Afghan men bringing their child brides into the United States. “Intake staff at Fort McCoy reported multiple cases of minor females who presented as ‘married’ to adult Afghan men, as well as polygamous families,” a document obtained by the AP says. “Department of State has requested urgent guidance.”
Both the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have defended the refugee-vetting process that has been criticized for leaving behind hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghan translators and allies. Special Immigrant Visa applicants, who spent years waiting on agency background checks and other bureaucratic hurdles, were stranded as others boarded flights at the Kabul airport on a seemingly first-come, first-serve basis under the supervision of the Taliban. Republicans, as well as DHS officials, say the sheer number of refugees coming into the country makes it impossible for comprehensive background checks to take place.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and 26 other GOP senators sent a letter to the White House on Thursday demanding specifics on the refugees who are arriving in the United States, citing the high number of SIV applicants left behind in Afghanistan. Cotton estimated more than 57,000 of the Afghans evacuated were not green card holders, visa applicants, or U.S. citizens.
“Joe Biden cynically used the plight of those loyal Afghans who served alongside American troops to evacuate tens of thousands of Afghans who had no right to be in the country and is now bringing them into the country to the tune of thousands every day, with no ability to vet whether or not they’re a security threat at all,” Cotton said.
Afghans received COVID tests after their arrival at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and Philadelphia International Airport. The State Department official declined to elaborate on the quarantine procedures for those who test positive.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have seized several counterfeit Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration badges shipped from China.
As an agency press release notes, “officers at the Chicago International Mail Branch (IMF) recently seized several packages all arriving from China that contained counterfeit Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) badges.”
In the following week, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials busted additional shipments containing over two dozen counterfeit DEA badges.
FAKE BADGE.
“These counterfeit badges could have led to disastrous consequences if our officers had not found them,” said LaFonda Sutton-Burke, Director of Chicago CBP’s Field Operations. “Criminal organizations could have used these badges for their illicit activity under the guise of federal agents. Our CBP officers were able to identify these very realistic counterfeits and stop them from reaching their destinations.”
Republican Congress members are disputing the numbers the Biden administration is quoting of Americans left behind in Afghanistan after the last U.S. troops left the country on Monday, citing the calls their offices are getting from citizens stranded in a country now under Taliban rule.
President Joe Biden said in an address Tuesday: “Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave. Most of those who remain are dual citizens, long-time residents who had earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan,” adding, “The bottom line: [Ninety-eight] percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.”
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a Green Beret, told Fox News on Tuesday: “I think we’re all somewhere on the spectrum between rage and grief at any one given moment, but just this morning, literally just a few hours ago, we were in touch with American citizens and their children that were denied access to Kabul International.”
Republicans have been urging the Biden administration to continue rescue efforts in Afghanistan as their offices receive calls from those still stranded in Afghanistan.
At least 24 students from Southern California are stuck in Afghanistan, officials said this week. The students, as well as some parents, are stranded in the Central Asian country after going there for a summer trip, a spokesman for the Cajon Valley Union School District confirmed via email to The Epoch Times.
The group was visiting relatives in Afghanistan when they found themselves stranded after the Taliban took over the country in mid-August.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Wednesday said his office is helping get people out of Afghanistan. “Nasria, a pregnant American citizen, has braved beatings and harassment by the Taliban trying to get past their checkpoints to return to the US. This is one of the individuals we continue to help. All should know the Americans left behind in Afghanistan by President Biden.”
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Toria Nuland told reporters at a Sept. 1 press briefing that the United States is committed to getting Americans out by air and by land.
“As I said, we are working on trying to get that—supporting those partners on the ground who are trying to get that airport open. And we are also looking at land routes. I think on land routes, I don’t want to be any more specific because, as you know, it is a long journey with lots of dangers and we don’t want to further endanger folks who might be involved in that,” said Nuland.
Since the U.S. military’s total exit from Afghanistan on Aug. 31, private groups and former military personnel have stepped up to raise funds and get citizens and allies out. They estimate the U.S. citizens still there to be in the thousands, not hundreds.
Glenn Beck, a conservative media personality, in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 19, 2019. (Brendon Fallon/The Epoch Times)
Glenn Beck, one of the founders of The Blaze news network and of the Nazarene Fund, told Dave Rubin on The Rubin Report on Friday he believes the number of U.S. citizens still in Afghanistan to be a few thousand, given the original number Biden quoted of 16,000 U.S. citizens in Afghanistan. Beck has been leading the Nazarene Fund to charter planes to get citizens and allies out of Afghanistan.
Beck has been in the Middle East helping to coordinate the evacuation of U.S. citizens and allies via the Nazarene Fund since mid-August. “Let’s just put it this way. I don’t think anybody knows the American number, but it’s not 300 or 200. It’s not anywhere close to that,” said Beck.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said his office is also getting calls from American citizens still inside Afghanistan. “@SecBlinken and @StateDeptSpox: I am in contact right now with US citizens in Afghanistan who tried to leave but couldn’t. Now they have what they need to leave except clearance from State. DM me please,” Crenshaw wrote on Twitter the day the U.S. military left Afghanistan.
The State Department has also said they can only estimate the numbers of citizens, claiming that, of the about 200, some do not want to leave.
“We’re trying to determine exactly how many. We’re going through manifests and calling and texting through our lists, and we will have more details to share as soon as possible. Part of the challenge with fixing a precise number is that there are longtime residents of Afghanistan who have American passports and who are trying to determine whether or not they want to leave. Many are dual citizen Americans with deep roots and extended families in Afghanistan who resided there for many years. For many, it’s a painful choice,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday.
John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, told MSNBC on Aug. 31 that the Biden administration had to pull troops out when they did because of the terrorist threats.
“I mean there was a very credible, very specific, increasing threat stream by ISIS that was making the entire operation more perilous, and we had to make some decisions in the last couple of days to make sure that we could get everybody out as safely as possible and not imperil civilians any more than they already were.”
Two weeks ago in this space, I wrote about the foolishness of a political leader like President Joe Biden who is so ideologically rigid, so thoroughly self-identified with his beliefs about the world that, when those beliefs turn out to be wrong, he can never afford to acknowledge the truth.
This week, Biden provided yet another illustration of this foolishness by an address to the nation, occasioned by what anyone could see was America’s worst military disaster in nearly half a century.
Yet not only did he fail to acknowledge the disaster, he treated it as if it were a triumph.
“Last night in Kabul,” he began, “the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan. The longest war in American history. We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts thought were [sic] possible. No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and ability to do it, and we did it today.”
Then he continued: “The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.”
Even allowing for the fact that he knew he could rely on a sycophantic media to back up or rationalize this patently false claim to “success,” or least decline to notice its falseness, it was a powerful testimony to the capacity for self-delusion of the modern ideologue—both of him who made the claim and those millions who are presumably still willing to support him in that self-delusion.
A few weeks earlier, right around the time that Biden was assuring us that “the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” I also wrote of how the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the military services, General Mark Milley, had also become a prisoner of ideology, since he appeared to have acquiesced in the hard-line Democratic ideologues’ view of Trump supporters as a threat to national security.
This delusion, presumably shared by other senior officers in the armed forces, was potentially even more dangerous than that of Biden about the Taliban, but it also turned out to have foreshadowed it.
You could tell by the transparently political happy-talk briefing given by General Hank Taylor and Pentagon press secretary John Kirby a week before the curtain fell on the American military presence in Afghanistan. (We still don’t know, as of this writing, how many other Americans were left behind there when the last military transport took off.)
“I’m pleased to report our best departure results since evacuation operations began have happened in the last 24 hours,” burbled General Taylor. “Where 37 US Military aircraft, 32 C-17s, five C-130s departed from Kabul with approximately 12,700 personnel. On top of that, 57 coalition and partner aircraft left Kabul aircraft with 8900 personnel.”
He was speaking before the deaths of 13 American service personnel in the suicide bombing at Kabul Airport on Aug. 26. That tragic event caused General Milley to feel “pain and anger” but no regrets for anything he had done.
The “pain and anger,” he said, “comes from the same as the grieving families”—which seemed to rule out the possibility that some of the anger of the grieving families was directed at himself.
“This is tough stuff,” he explained. “War is hard. It’s vicious. It’s brutal. It’s unforgiving.”
No kidding! Don’t look to him to take any responsibility for those 13 deaths, however. “War” was to blame, not he.
In the olden days, losing generals would expect to be relieved of their command—and be thankful they weren’t living in Roman times when they would also have been expected to fall on their sword to atone for the dishonor of losing.
As late as 1757, the British put Admiral Byng up before a firing squad for a relatively trivial loss in the Seven Years’ War. Voltaire responded by saying that it was good to kill an admiral from time to time, “pour encourager les autres”—to instill a bit more intestinal fortitude in the surviving admirals.
Yet apparently in our age of ideology, when no one with the “right” political views can ever be wrong, no American general will even lose his job or his general’s pension over the military debacle in Afghanistan—though a lowly lieutenant colonel, who thought and said publicly that somebody higher up ought to pay a price for the disaster, was relieved of duty and forced to resign his commission.
It shouldn’t be necessary to say it, but someone who can never admit to his mistakes can never learn from them.
That’s presumably why we’ve been making the same mistake in waging our American wars since Korea—the mistake of not realizing that if you’re not winning, you’re losing.
General Douglas MacArthur warned us against this mistake when he was fired by President Harry Truman for believing that he had been put in charge of UN Forces in the Korean war to win it, not to create bargaining chips for politicians to trade away in negotiations with the enemy.
“In war,” as General MacArthur put it, “there is no substitute for victory.”
But the lesson of his dismissal for all our generals since, down to General Milley, has been that you can never get in trouble, no matter how badly you screw up, for agreeing with the civilian leadership, only for disagreeing, never for being too cautious or complacent, only for being too bold.
Only, that is, for wanting to win. For it is boldness that wins wars. Not caution. Not complacency.
With leaders who can never admit they were wrong, we can expect to do a lot more losing.
Some 40,000 people airlifted from Afghanistan have arrived in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday.
U.S. troops flew or facilitated the flight of more than 120,000 people from the airport in Kabul during about two-and-a-half weeks through Aug. 30, when the troops withdrew from Afghanistan completely.
Approximately 13 percent of the evacuees that have entered the United States have been U.S. citizens, according to Mayorkas. Another 8 percent were lawful permanent residents. The rest were Special Immigrant Visa holders or applicants or other Afghan nationals deemed vulnerable to Taliban terrorists if they had not been evacuated.
Mayorkas has been using his powers of parole to let in some Afghans who lack a visa, the Department of Homeland Security revealed last week. Mayorkas declined to say how many Afghans have been granted parole.
The evacuees were initially flown from Kabul to U.S. military bases in third countries, such as Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
After vetting by a team of hundreds of government workers, including FBI officials, the cleared evacuees were flown to the United States. Most have been landing at Dulles International Airport in Virginia or Philadelphia International Airport in Pennsylvania.
They are then shuttled to one of eight military bases scattered across the country, including Fort Bliss in Texas and Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.
Approximately 25,600 Afghans were being housed at the military bases as of Sept. 3, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington.
Families evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, walk through the terminal before boarding a bus after they arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport, in Chantilly, Va., on Sept. 2, 2021. (Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo)
The military has a capacity across the eight installations for about 36,000 but is working to increase that to at least 50,000. No more bases are expected to be needed to house the evacuees.
About 1,000 Afghans have been resettled, or moved off of bases, according to U.S. Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and Northern Command.
Mayorkas said the number of evacuees is expected to come in above 50,000.
“The number is something I don’t want to estimate because—as I’ve mentioned before—our commitment is an enduring one,” he said. “This is not just a matter of the next several weeks. We will not rest until we have accomplished the ultimate goal of Operation Allies Welcome.”
U.S. officials pledged to Afghans who helped U.S. troops in the war in Afghanistan that they would be evacuated before troops withdrew. Some were not. Between 100 and 200 Americans were also left behind.
Governors from each party have said they will welcome refugees to their states.
“The Afghans fleeing the Taliban regime served alongside America’s military forces and fought for freedom. We’re grateful for their efforts and Arizona wholeheartedly welcomes our fair share of the refugees in our state,” Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, both Republicans, said in a joint statement last month.
But some officials have expressed concern about the influx of refugees, arguing they could pose security problems.
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) said he visited Fort McCoy last week and discovered all Afghan nationals there were on parole.
“The Biden administration has circumvented the SIV process,” he said.
Afghans are also being allowed to leave the base at will, he added.
The Afghanistan withdrawal is worse than you think. Whatever level of incompetence you think was at play, however poorly you think the planning was, however avoidable you think this disaster should have been, it’s honestly so much worse. If you know anyone who thinks there was no way to pull out of Afghanistan without the country devolving into utter chaos, or if you know anyone who thinks Trump couldn’t have done any better, it is your duty to sit them down and make them watch the premiere of Season 2 of “Kash’s Corner.” I don’t care how you do it. Tie them to a chair. Tape their eyelids open. Offer them twenty bucks. Just make them watch “We Knew This Would Happen in Afghanistan and We Had a Strategy to Prevent It,” because they’re wrong.
Obviously it’s impossible to say with absolute certainty that the exit from Afghanistan would have gone better under former President Trump, because he isn’t the president and we don’t have access to alternate timelines. However, Kash Patel worked on Afghanistan under both the Obama and Trump administrations and the insight he provides into how those administrations tackled the problem of our longest war versus our current administration makes it difficult to believe Trump’s plan would have ended in such a catastrophe. The episode was clearly filmed before the worst day of the entire withdrawal, when 13 members of our armed forces—the bulk of them well under the age of 30—were killed by a suicide bomber, along with nearly 200 civilians.
The episode lasts just under 50 minutes, allowing Patel and Jekielek plenty of time to discuss in depth the steps President Trump had undertaken to ensure a successful withdrawal; the same steps President Biden completely ignored. Anyone not wholly consumed by Trump Derangement Syndrome likely knows that President Trump’s deal to withdraw was conditions- based, and that the Taliban knew full well that if they didn’t meet the conditions then the deal was off. Trump wanted to remove our troops sooner than the agreed-upon May 1st deadline, but had already delayed withdrawal once and was willing to do so again if necessary. He’d already proved to the Taliban that he wouldn’t pull our soldiers out on a fixed deadline if they weren’t holding up their end of the bargain, which was a strong incentive for them to do just that.
Patel’s explanation of the Trump administration’s handling of Afghanistan goes far beyond outlining the conditions and is infuriating. Trump ran on a platform that included ending the never-ending wars in the Middle East, with Afghanistan at the top of the list. However, he wanted to finally leave Afghanistan in such a way to hopefully allow for some modicum of peace between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which was the whole point of a conditions-based exit. The only way we were leaving was if both parties met these conditions, and since both the Taliban and Afghan government wanted us gone they were highly motivated to do so. The Taliban was required to renounce Al-Qaeda and come to the table with the Afghan government to negotiate an interim government, which they’d repeatedly done. We agreed to keep special forces in the country specifically to combat terrorism, and we made sure they knew we’d wipe anyone off the map who killed an American citizen or harmed an American interest.
This plan was already in place and working well when President Biden took office. As with many of Trump’s policies that Biden dismantled, all the incoming administration had to do was keep everything in place and the mission could have been, if not a rousing success, at least not a total failure. Patel says that he and his colleagues were instructed to share anything and everything they had on Afghanistan with the incoming administration, and in fact gave the Biden administration the most materials from the Department of Defense of any administration in transition history. Only the incoming administration wanted nothing to do with any of it. They refused to meet with the outgoing members of the Department of Defense. They weren’t interested in hearing about the intel the Trump administration had on what was happening on the ground. The best the outgoing staff could do was make sure the career military members they worked with had everything the Biden administration would need and hope for the best.
Patel goes on to explain that Afghanistan was a high priority for President Trump in ways that it clearly hasn’t been for President Biden. Trump took daily briefings on conditions on the ground, listened to his military commanders, and was willing to pivot to a different strategy on a moment’s notice. The Biden administration took a completely different tactic, deciding that the intelligence focus should be on the white supremacy boogeyman within the Department of Defense. Rather than looking outward, U.S. intelligence agencies were looking inward, so when Biden finally got around to getting back to Afghanistan, months had passed since the last time anyone had paid much attention to what was happening on the ground.
The idea that there was no way to know the Afghan army would immediately collapse is one that Patel completely refutes, as the intelligence they were collecting (which the Biden administration was not) was very clear that if we did something like, oh say, leave in the middle of the night, the country would collapse. Based on the daily briefings, President Trump believed it would happen in a matter of days, leading to the plan to withdraw based on conditions. All of this intelligence that led Trump and his administration to this conclusion was and still is readily available for the new administration to look at any time they want, but clearly they didn’t want to or they wouldn’t have been shocked when Afghanistan collapsed over the course of a weekend.
Biden deciding that he wasn’t going to be held to Trump’s timeline also damaged our ability to leave Afghanistan in one piece. Patel makes a point that isn’t widely discussed about Biden moving the deadline and how the Taliban interpreted that as the United States breaking one of the conditions. Since the incoming administration immediately scrapped the withdrawal date everyone had agreed to, the Taliban no longer saw any reason to continue negotiating with the Afghan government in good faith. Perhaps we should have sent a strongly-worded letter that they’d better hold up their end of the bargain even though we had no intention to hold up ours. Then we might have avoided this whole thing.
Jekielek then asks about the media’s role in this whole debacle, marveling at the fact that suddenly the media remembered to do their job. Patel agrees that the shift in tone is quite drastic from their previously glowing coverage of Biden’s Afghanistan plan to covering the breakdown of the country honestly, which just goes to show how bad the situation is. If the media can’t find some way to ignore it, gloss over it, or interest the American public in what kind of pudding Biden had for dinner, you know it’s truly a disaster.
That’s a 500 foot overview of just the first half of the episode. Patel also talks about just how unconscionable it is that Biden’s DoD went into the withdrawal with no plan on how to get Americans and our allies out beyond giving them a phone number, the plans Trump had in place to actually extract the Americans who are now stuck, and how monumentally boneheaded it was to let go of Bagram Airfield. Trump even had a plan to get our weapons and machines out after the civilians but before the military—the exact opposite of what the Biden administration did. Every subject Patel and Jekielek touch on made this reviewer want to bang my head on a desk until the list of stupid, ego-filled, politically-driven decisions by the current administration stopped. But the list doesn’t stop for nearly an hour, and it never gets any better.
No matter what the media says, or how White House talking heads try to spin it, Patel makes it very clear that the Biden administration’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan was very clearly, “Whatever Trump was going to do, we’re not going to do that,” and that’s it. That’s literally it. That’s why it’s so egregious that President Biden continues to throw out straw man arguments to deflect the public’s anger on this withdrawal, by suggesting that Americans are upset that we left, not how we left, or somehow insisting we either had to get out or send in more troops indefinitely. It’s also appalling that Biden continues to try to blame President Trump for his utter surrender to the Taliban, and that he thinks he can simply walk away from the press without taking questions or shame the public for being outraged about the way this war ended. Every American should see this episode and share this episode, especially with blind partisans who still somehow buy the lie that the blood spilled in the last week in Afghanistan isn’t solely on Biden’s hands. It is, and everyone needs to know it.
Israeli prime minister’s fears about new deal rebuffed in high-level meetings
The Biden administration is expanding the team dedicated to renegotiating the Iran deal, just days after Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett urged the United States to back out of negotiations, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
Dan Shapiro, the Obama administration’s ambassador to Israel, is now working as an adviser on the Iran portfolio, the State Department confirmed to the Free Beacon. Shapiro is “the first of what we plan to be a small group of part-time advisers” who will work to solidify a new nuclear deal, the official said. The move demonstrates the administration’s commitment to push forward with talks as Iran demands full-scale sanctions relief.
Shapiro’s hiring signals the administration has no intention of heeding Israel’s warnings. Senior Biden administration officials told Bennett during his first U.S. visit that they will not back down from efforts to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, according to a U.S. official familiar with the meetings.
“Certain requests were made regarding a return to the Iran deal during the recent visit by the Israeli prime minister, but the current administration has tunnel vision on this,” the official told the Free Beacon.
In meetings with President Joe Biden and top State Department officials, Bennett expressed concerns that the ongoing talks will provide Iran with economic sanctions relief and bolster the regime as it faces a cash crunch that has sparked nationwide protests. The Israelis fear a new deal will embolden Iran and its terror proxy groups operating on the country’s borders. These concerns have been amplified since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan and reportedly moved leftover U.S. military equipment into the Islamic Republic.
A State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that Shapiro will join Iran envoy Robert Malley’s negotiating team as it works to secure a new deal with Iran. America’s Iran policy “will benefit greatly from the participation of a diplomat of his caliber and experience,” the spokesman added.
Shapiro’s tenure in the Obama administration was mired in controversy, including allegations he assisted in election interference meant to undermine then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Free Beaconreported at the time that a congressional investigation discovered emails it requested about the campaign had been destroyed by the State Department.
Biden and Bennett discussed the Iran threat at their meeting last week. The State Department, however, would not say whether the Israeli concerns about a new deal would factor into the administration’s approach.
“The president made clear his commitment to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” the spokesman told the Free Beacon. Biden and Bennett “reviewed steps to deter and contain Iran’s dangerous regional behavior. They reiterated their commitments to work constructively and deepen cooperation to address all aspects of Israel’s security against Iran and other threats.”
The official said the State Department does “not have further comment” on the contents or outcome of those talks.
The most logical response is: “Cui bono?”—”Who benefits?”—from the decision.
If some policy benefits your country most, you should, within moral bounds, pursue it.
If your enemies benefit most, you should avoid it.
I’d be curious to learn what answer proponents of America leaving Afghanistan—conservative or liberal—would give to the question, “Cui bono?”
I can say that until this moment, I have not read or heard a single cogent argument from proponents of American withdrawal as to how exactly it benefits America.
“Twenty years is too long,” or its variant, “we have to end these endless wars,” the most commonly offered argument for withdrawal, has nothing to do with benefiting America.
It is an emotional sentiment, not a rational argument.
The withdrawal has already cost us in a single day more service members’ lives than we lost on any one day in Afghanistan since June 2014, seven years ago.
The number of American servicemen killed in Afghanistan per year from 2015 to 2020 is respectively 22, 9, 14, 14, 21, and 11. No one can seriously argue that we are leaving Afghanistan because of high American casualties.
So, while America doesn’t benefit at all from leaving Afghanistan, it does get hurt.
The damage to the reputation of America—as an ally and as a strong country—is not easily overstated.
The damage done to NATO, whose members President Joe Biden didn’t bother to consult, is greater than any damage former President Donald Trump—whom the left-wing mainstream media constantly attacked for damaging NATO—was alleged to have done.
On the other hand, “Cui bono?” has some very clear answers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, every Islamic terror group in the world and every other anti-American regime and movement.
In the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro compiled a list of recent Western weakness in the face of tyrants and the commensurate strengthening of those tyrants:
“The West’s abandonment of Hong Kong in the face of Chinese aggression last year.
“The West’s continuing desire for a rapprochement with the Iranian mullahcracy.
“The West’s routine appeasement of Russia.
“All speak to the unwillingness of the West—and the West’s leader, the United States—to stand up for allies anywhere on earth.
“Afghanistan is simply the latest, and by far the most stunning, example of abandonment of an American ally …
“China’s Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, chortled, ‘From what happened in Afghanistan, those in Taiwan should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and U.S. military won’t come to help. As a result (Taiwan) will quickly surrender.’
“Indeed, given the window presented by the Biden administration, it would be somewhat of a surprise if China didn’t attempt some sort of action against Taiwan in the next few years …
“Foreign policy abhors vacuums, and the United States has now created one. That means that erstwhile American allies will begin to play footsie with countries like Russia and China, believing that American commitments mean little. They have reason for such suspicions, obviously.”
The effects on Americans’ perceptions of the military constitute another terrible price paid by leaving Afghanistan. More and more Americans see the military as more concerned with fighting white supremacy in America and transphobia in the military than with fighting for the supremacy of freedom on earth. This is new. And it will have a devastating effect on both America and the military. One obvious consequence: Who will want to enlist in a woke military? (Perhaps that’s the goal.)
It seems that every generation has to relearn the basic laws of life, such as this one: There are many bad people and many bad countries in the world, and only a fear of good countries prevents them from conquering other countries.
There is less fear of good countries in the world today than at any time since World War II. And that is especially so because the good countries are preoccupied with their own alleged evils rather than with the world’s real evils.
Sen. Hagerty: ‘We have someone not even qualified for a security clearance at the center of Biden’s incompetently planned withdrawal”
Pentagon strategy chief Colin Kahl is in the hot seat over his role in the Biden administration’s bungled Afghanistan withdrawal, four months after Senate Republicans unanimously opposed his nomination and warned that his appointment would be disastrous for national defense policy.
Kahl, the civilian head of policy planning at the Department of Defense and third highest ranking department official, has been a key player in planning for the Afghanistan withdrawal and the day-to-day policy decisions on the ground. While several Biden administration officials have been publicly defending the president’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, Republican foreign policy leaders say Kahl is the behind-the-scenes player largely responsible for the botched evacuation of Afghanistan and decision to leave Americans stranded in the country. The GOP lawmakers, who also have criticized Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, now say their fears about Kahl’s lack of fitness for the role are coming to pass.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon that Kahl “should never have been nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate” and should be held responsible for the Biden administration’s failures in Afghanistan, including for the hundreds of Americans who have reportedly been left behind. “In Kahl, we have someone not even qualified for a security clearance at the center of President Biden’s incompetently planned and disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), another member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Free Beacon that Kahl and Pentagon leadership “are more worried about woke messaging than combat readiness. And the entire White House national security team is being bullied by a band of medieval terrorists. They are overseeing America’s decline, and it is an absolute disgrace.”
The criticism of Kahl comes as lawmakers are demanding the resignation of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley over the handling of the Afghanistan exit, which led to a Taliban takeover of the country and a chaotic and deadly evacuation effort. While senior State Department and Pentagon officials have come under the microscope in the wake of the Biden administration’s evacuation from Afghanistan, Kahl has largely avoided public scrutiny. Leading GOP foreign policy voices and national security establishment insiders, however, say that Kahl was not prepared for a senior Pentagon job and that this lack of preparation contributed to the administration’s failure to plan for the Taliban’s rise. The Biden administration rammed Kahl’s appointment through Congress this year, even in the face of significant Republican opposition. As Afghanistan fell apart in the past several weeks, Kahl’s opponents began to lay blame for the crisis on his office, which is tasked with providing day-to-day policy advice to the Pentagon’s military leaders.
As undersecretary of defense for policy, Kahl has played a leading role in crafting the withdrawal strategy. During a strategy call last week, military commanders warned Kahl and other Pentagon leaders about an imminent “mass casualty” attack expected to take place near Abbey Gate last week, according to notes from the classified session obtained by Politico. Kahl and the other officials reportedly declined to close the gate due to concerns that it would impede the evacuation process. The next day, a suicide bomber killed 13 service members in the same location.
On the call, Kahl and other officials were also reportedly told that the United States would not be able to evacuate every American from the country, an outcome that the Biden administration had promised to prevent. Kahl expressed concern about the optics, reportedly worrying that “history will judge us by those final images.”
Kahl “owns the [Department of Defense’s] failure to plan and implement a withdrawal that wouldn’t dishonor our veterans, our military, and our values,” said Josh Block, a foreign policy scholar at the Hudson Institute and former Clinton administration State Department official.
Block said Kahl is “unqualified for his job, a liability to American national security” and “needs to be removed or made to resign.”
Calls for Kahl’s resignation come just months after his bruising confirmation battle, during which he faced scrutiny for his Twitter attacks on Republicans, his advocacy for the Iran nuclear deal, and his record of inaccurate foreign policy predictions.
Kahl was confirmed in a divisive, party-line vote after he apologized for his years of inflammatory tweets, including blasting the GOP as the “party of ethnic cleansing” and a “clown show.”
Kahl, who served in the State Department under President Obama, was a top advocate of the nuclear deal with Iran and has spoken at multiple events hosted by the National Iranian American Council, a pro-Iranian regime lobbying group.
He opposed a 2017 bill to sanction the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the nexus for Iran’s global terrorism operations. Kahl also protested the Trump administration’s assassination of Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani, which he described as “the equivalent of another country taking out the director of the CIA, secretary of defense, and shadow secretary of state all rolled into one.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), in a speech he made this spring in opposition to Kahl’s nomination, said the nominee was “wrong about nearly every important foreign policy decision of the last decade.”
Cotton noted that Kahl in 2010 dismissed concerns about a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, which he said was “very unlikely to trigger a dramatic uptick in violence”—a prediction that was proven wrong after terrorists seized a large portion of Iraq. Kahl also predicted that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would prompt a third intifada and that Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and later assassination of Soleimani would spark a war with Tehran.
“Mr. Kahl’s inability to accurately assess these events almost defies probability,” said Cotton.
A reconfigured global elite are shaping up around a new kind of vision for transforming our world. They’ve called their neo-socialist and multilateral vision the Green New Deal.
Joe Biden’s White House team are core players in this vision, as they seek to reinvent Roosevelt’s original 1930s New Deal into a contemporary twenty-first century Democratic Party platform.
But there are also other important players pushing this neo-socialist dream.
One has been the European Union’s large and well-organised green lobby. Another has been Klaus Schwab (economist and founder of the World Economic Forum), who has used Davos to push his vision of a “Great Reset” of the global economy.
Those getting on board with the Green New Deal are the usual advocates of state interventionism, big government, and multilateral globalism. But surprisingly this new elite is a mix of left-liberals, socialists, Greens, bureaucrats, and university researchers/experts. More surprising is that sections of the business elite are also climbing on board what they believe will be a gravy train.
It appears business is motivated by two factors. First, they are afraid of activist pressure. Second, their marketing departments are telling them there are great public relations kudos to be had in signing up to the now fashionable narratives of saving victims, saving the planet, and distancing themselves from left-leaning stereotypes of greedy uncaring capitalists.
So now we have woke businesses greenwashing their brands plus learning to make profits out of the Green New Deal’s neo-socialist strategy to tear up our old infrastructure and replace them with new ones at great expense to the taxpayer. Who knew socialism could be profitable.
But one of the most fascinating features of this trend is how enthralled legacy media journalists are with the green narratives underpinning this emergent global elite.
Journalists who would normally ask questions about self-interest, crooked narratives, and obvious propaganda now meekly buy into the trendy narratives. Indeed journalists are now being told that applying the journalistic principle of balance is a bad thing when reporting on issues like climate change.
In a climate when green activism is now normalised in media newsrooms, it is hardly surprising that we see journalists treating green experts as media darlings, and as a result, those same green experts are no longer challenged by probing journalistic questions.
Instead, what emerges is a de facto partnership between the media, climate change scientists, and activists wherein journalists start to construct pro-green (propaganda-like) stories.
One way of explaining this partnership is to see it as part of the phenomenon of an emergent global elite for whom left-wing “progressivism” has become a kind of secularised religion, built around saving the many kinds of victims we apparently have today.
These victims can be those conventionally beloved by socialists—the poor. They can also be the new victims beloved by identity politics—LGBTQI, Indigenous or ethnic minorities. Or victims beloved by feminists—women persecuted by the patriarchy. Or the victims can now even be non-human—whales, polar bears, coral reefs, nature, or the planet.
What binds all these victims is that they need to be saved by a self-selecting elite of people who have married elements of the narratives of left-liberalism and neo-Marxism.
This elite first emerged in the United States and then spread to the rest of the western world. And now, like a virus, it is also spreading to places like the European Union (EU).
It is an elite who have proven highly susceptible to catching the green virus. Significantly, enormous progress has been made in capturing western universities, the global media, the education system, and the many bureaucracies across the Anglo world and EU.
The result has been the growth of an alliance between left-liberal, progressive politicians; academics; journalists; and bureaucrats.
Once the universities were captured by this progressive-left, universities were used to teach a new “way of seeing” and a “new way of speaking about” the world.
Thus, universities become the source of what is termed ‘woke’ and green narratives; while the media and internet are used to disseminate their tales. In addition, as universities produced more of these progressive and Green “experts,” journalists rely on them to justify their own work—creating an ongoing cycle.
Importantly, since universities teach journalism, public relations and marketing the communication industries are filled with those taught the woke discourses beloved by the globalised elite.
Not surprisingly, the resultant spread of progressivism within the communications industry means progressives are also becoming well placed—and more skilled—at spreading their own ideologies, while shutting down opposing views.
Indeed the Left are so successful that much of the world in the Biden era is starting to feel a bit like a mixture of the hard authoritarianism of George Orwell’s 1984 and the soft authoritarianism of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
The proliferation of both discourse around the Green New Deal, and the expanding power of a medical autocracy calling the shots over COVID-19, are two indicators of the way the global elite are becoming successful at promoting only their views while undercutting all others.
The universities have also given birth to “experts” who believe that secular science can fix everything thereby removing the need for religion or traditional knowledge.
At a deeper level, German existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche saw this rot beginning when Western thinkers “killed God” in the 19th century, and from that wrong turn has evolved the secularist, social engineers of today.
But at a more institutional level, I think American conservative philosopher Paul Gottfried was correct that the problem lies in today’s overly interventionist governments imposing social therapy measures upon their citizens.
His argument was that this began during the post-second World War era in the United States—specifically with Paul Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University in the 1940s to 1950—and in the growth of the 1960s U.S. government-led social engineering policies (for example, affirmative action new migration laws).
And today, we see the modern manifestation of such a long-running trend in state-run welfare systems, the Green New Deal, and the COVID-19 medical autocracy.
Significantly, Lazarsfeld’s behavioural science was built on the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School’s idea of an “Authoritarian Personality”—a personality type that is submissive and obedient to authority—as well as the notion that experts should learn to manage and control the population better (using psychology, behavioural sciences, public opinion research, public relations, and spin-doctoring). This, in turn, can help stop the re-emergence of “bad ideas” like nationalism or traditionalism.
Lazarsfeld founded an American tradition of academic thinking about how the media could be used to promote “good” (progressive) ideas and shut down “bad” ideas.
Lazarsfeld’s centre employed many Frankfurt School members and so opened the door to the merging of left-liberal and neo-Marxist ideas, which has further contributed to the growth of the progressive elite.
With Biden in office, this elite now has a great base to work from to disseminate their preferred ideological narratives including the virtues of big government, green activism, and multilateral interventionism to save its so-called “victims.”
And because the 2000 anti-Trump crusade helped cement the alliance between left-leaning politicians, activists, mainstream liberal media journalists, U.S.-owned tech giants; and the university sector, we can now expect to see a period of intensified dissemination of “progressive” narratives plus simultaneous attempts at discourse closure aimed at closing-down and disrupting narratives that the Left loves to hate.
With the United States completely withdrawn militarily from Afghanistan since the nation’s involvement after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and with the Taliban terrorist group having seized troves of U.S. weapons, Afghans living in New York hope that by force of miracle, stabilization can come to their home country.
The Epoch Times reached out to members of the Afghan community in New York to get their thoughts on the situation.
Fakhrudin Fakhrudin works in an Indian beauty salon, owned by his wife, who is originally from India.
His family cannot come to the United States, they have told him over the phone that the situation is “very bad.”
“One hundred percent bad. because you can’t find f0od, you can’t find anything. They’re scared of Taiban because they work with the government,” he told The Epoch Times.
His sister’s husband and son worked for the now overthrown Afghan government.
Fakhrudin said that the Taliban are systematically looking for people that worked for the government.
“Now they are looking [for the people who worked for the government] door to door,” Fakhrudin said.
“One girl worked with the police. She’s a neighbor of my sister. They took her eyes off with a knife, twice. The Taliban, I swear to God.”
Fakhrudin has been in the United States for 50 years. He wants to tell the U.S. government as a citizen that the Afghan people need help.
“[Afghan] people need help, they need help very badly because a lot of them worked with the government, and now they are hiding.”
“There’s nothing that we can do, people are just suffering over there,” he concluded.
Karimullah Faizy’s parents were born and grew up in Afghanistan and moved to the United States in the 90s. He runs a restaurant that is owned by his father in Long Island, New York.
“The U.S. government, the way they just left and they left everybody and they left their weapons, just for the Taliban to use it. And now they’re obviously using it against us,” said Faizy.
“Twelve soldiers just died. And it was a very bad decision for [America] just to leave, leave all their Blackhawk Hawk helicopters … And now we just left.”
Faizy’s father is gathering some money to send to his uncle in Afghanistan, whose house was bombed two weeks ago and only half of it remains.
He shared a video with The Epoch Times that shows the ruins of the home.
“They just surrendered, and now the Taliban are taking over the soldiers and using our own equipment. And sooner or later, they’re going to have to go back,” said Faizy.
“People and soldiers dying, and all the money being spent on this … is just very sad and tragic, especially for the people living there, the innocent civilians, and you can see they’re just leaving in helicopters … it’s sad [in] our hearts and we’re praying for them.”
Salimi Popal, originally from Kandahar, Afghanistan, has been living in the United States for 13 years, working 12 hours a day in his food cart in Flushing, Queens.
It was reported recently that the Taliban banned female voices and music from airing on the radio in Kandahar.
His brother, cousin, grandfather, and children all live in the United States. Any extra money he has, he sends to his family in Afghanistan.
He believes in peace and says all the people of Afghanistan are his family, and hopes that the situation can be stable in his home country.
“So bad,” he said, of his family’s situation, “there are no more doctors available.”
Nevertheless, he has hope that things might not go downhill.
“Now it’s too early, because I don’t know what will happen with this new regime,” Popal said.
He emphasized that “maybe,” gradually it would be ok.
“[Let’s] wait. He [the leader] said that ‘I don’t want to kill anybody, free everybody,’ everybody is ok now, the country is ok now, the cities are ok now, everybody is quiet, people are very happy now, because [people] like that nobody dies.”
“Afghanistan people are not terrorists, they are people like you, like me,” Popal asserted. “Taliban speak the same language, how could I think they are different people.”
“Let’s wait, everybody says ‘wait,’” he said. “Everybody, different countries are waiting to see what will happen—later.”
Democrat Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has been accused of possibly committing a felony by not properly reporting her income and assets in the financial disclosure reports she sent to the House of Representatives.
The accusations came from the conservative watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), which demanded that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) look into the reason Rep. Omar’s financial disclosures do not refer to the income she may have received from her memoir that she published in May 2020, The Daily Caller reported.
It also wants to know why, it believes, her new husband’s consulting firm was undervalued after it made around $3 million from Rep. Omar’s campaign from 2018 through 2020.
“Representative Omar’s apparent disclosure omissions and misreporting violate House ethics rules, the Ethics in Government act, and possibly 18 U.S.C. 1001, a felony with penalties up to five years in prison for making false statements in a matter before the legislative branch,” it said in its complaint. “There is clearly more than ‘reasonable cause to believe’ that disclosure violations may have occurred.”
In a message to the Daily Caller News Foundation a spokesperson for Rep. Omar accused NPLC of being a “far-right group.”
“The NPLC a [sic] far-right group with ties to the Trump campaign known for filing specious claims, including trying to challenge the constitutionality of the Mueller investigation,” spokesman Jeremy Slevin said. “We see this complaint for what it is: a completely political document, and not one with legal validity.”
The DCNF first reported on Aug. 17 that Omar did not report in her 2020 financial disclosure any income or royalties she may have received from her memoir, “This Is What America Looks Like,” which was first released in May 2020. Forbes reported in January 2019 that the lawmaker signed a deal for the memoir worth between $100,000 and $250,000
Lawmakers are required to report any income sources over $200 in their financial disclosures, the NLPC noted in its complaint.
Omar’s 2019 and 2018 financial disclosures also contained no reference to her book or any advance she may have received from it.
Slevin told the DCNF on Aug. 17 that Omar “has been in full compliance with House Ethics rules. She has reported everything that needed to be reported on the financial disclosure form accurately.”
But this is not the only time Rep. Omar has faced controversy. In June Rep. Omar made comments that many believed to be anti-Semitic.
During an interview on CNN, Omar told host Jake Tapper that she did not regret comparing the U.S. and Israel to terrorist organizations.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
OMAR: “If you are in someone’s backyard, can you say you are defending yourself?”
TAPPER: “It’s a good question. On the subject of the Middle East, you have said, as you know, many of your fellow House Democrats after comments you made earlier this month about the U.S. and Israel, you were questioning Secretary of State Blinken about where victims of war crimes could get justice. You made comments to him and also you tweeted: ‘We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.’ Ultimately, Democratic leaders said that equating the U.S. and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban ‘foments prejudice.’ And as you know, a group of Jewish House Democrats wrote a letter to President Biden saying that accusing Israel of acts of terror, as you and other members of the Squad have done, is anti-Semitic. Do you regret these comments?”
OMAR: “I don’t.”
Later in the segment, Tapper asked:
In 2019, you said lawmakers support Israel because it’s ‘all about the Benjamins,’ which implies that politicians only support Israel because of money. There was a tweet from 2012 when you said Israel had hypnotized the world. Do you understand why some of your fellow House Democrats, especially Jews, find that language anti-Semitic?
Omar responded by attacking her own colleagues and didn’t accept any responsibility for her comments.
“I have welcomed anytime my colleagues have asked to have a conversation to learn from them, for them to learn from me,” Omar said.
“I think it’s really important for these members to realize that they haven’t been partners in justice. They haven’t been equally engaging in seeking justice around the world and I think I will continue to do that,” she added.
Omar declared: “It is important for me as someone who knows what it feels like to experience injustice in ways that many of my colleagues don’t, to be a voice in finding accountability, asking for mechanisms for justice for those who are maligned, oppressed and who have had injustice done to them.”
Biden pressured Ghani to ‘project a different picture’
President Biden stressed the need for changing the “perception” of the Taliban’s progress in Afghanistan, “whether it is true or not,” during a phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani less than four weeks before Kabul collapsed, according to a new report.
According to a transcript of the July 23 presidential call reviewed by Reuters, Biden didn’t anticipate the Taliban’s rapid advance across Afghanistan, which ended when they stormed Kabul on Aug. 15 and Ghani fled the presidential palace. Instead, Biden focused much of the 14-minute call on the Afghan government’s “perception” problem, Reuters reported.
“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said. “And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
At the time of the call, the Taliban controlled about half of Afghanistan’s district centers. Biden urged Ghani to hold a press conference with other prominent Afghan leaders to outline a new military strategy, which he argued would “change perception, and that will change an awful lot I think,” Reuters reported.
“We are going to continue to fight hard, diplomatically, politically, economically, to make sure your government not only survives, but is sustained and grows,” Biden said.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed similar concerns in a follow-up call with Ghani later that day, which did not include Biden, Reuters reported.
“The perception in the United States, in Europe and the media sort of thing is a narrative of Taliban momentum, and a narrative of Taliban victory,” Milley reportedly said. “And we need to collectively demonstrate and try to turn that perception, that narrative around.”
The White House on Tuesday declined to comment on the call when reached by Reuters.
Throughout his long political career, President Joe Biden has interacted with countless people both at home and abroad. It would be impossible to remember each and every one of them, especially given his declining cognitive abilities.
However, you would think that a man who rescued him from a snowy valley 13 years ago might stick in his mind. If Biden does remember, his actions certainly don’t show it.
According to The Wall Street Journal, an Afghan interpreter named Mohammed assisted in the rescue of then-Sens. Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry in February 2008. Now Biden has stranded him in Afghanistan.
Mohammed, his wife and his four children have been trying unsuccessfully for years to safely leave the country.
When the last United States plane left Afghanistan on Monday, he and his family were left behind.
The family is now hiding from the Taliban as they hope to be rescued even after the U.S. effectively handed the country over to the radical extremist group.
“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” Mohammed, who did not use his full name due to safety concerns, told The Wall Street Journal. “Don’t forget me here.”
Mohammed was 36 years old in 2008 and was working as an interpreter for the U.S. Army. During a trip to Afghanistan that year, two Black Hawk helicopters carrying Biden, Kerry and Hagel were forced to make an emergency landing due to a severe snowstorm.
“As a private security team with the former firm Blackwater and U.S. Army soldiers monitored for any nearby Taliban fighters, the crew sent out an urgent call for help,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
“At Bagram Air Field, Mohammed jumped in a Humvee with a Quick Reaction Force from the Arizona National Guard working with the 82nd Airborne Division and drove hours into the nearby mountains to rescue them.”
Thanks to Mohammed, the three U.S. senators escaped. One of them is now the president of the United States, and another serves in his administration. But when it came time for the American politicians to return the favor, they failed to do so.
Mohammed was trying to get out of Afghanistan well before the Taliban takeover. According to The Wall Street Journal, he originally applied for a special immigrant visa in June.
“His selfless service to our military men and women is just the kind of service I wish more Americans displayed,” Lt. Col. Andrew R. Till wrote in support of Mohammed at the time.
However, when the defense contractor who employed Mohammed lost necessary records, Mohammed’s visa application became one of many stuck in limbo.
Once the Taliban took over, Mohammed made his way to the Kabul airport to try to escape that way. U.S. forces then told him he could be allowed in the airport, but his wife and children could not.
“If you can only help one Afghan, choose [Mohammed],” said Shawn O’Brien, an Army combat veteran who served with him in 2008. “He earned it.”
Biden himself has attempted to use the 2008 incident as a political talking point.
“If you want to know where al-Qaida lives, you want to know where [Osama] bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me,” he said on the campaign trail in October of that year.
“Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down … in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.”
While Biden did not hesitate to reference the incident for political gain, he has conveniently forgotten about one of his rescuers in that hero’s darkest hour. It’s just another example of the utter lack of compassion in Biden’s heart.
The United States shared lists of names with the Taliban, U.S. officials confirmed on Aug. 29, as they disputed accusations that the terrorist group was given the identity of many Americans and Afghans trying to flee Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed the information was shared with the Taliban.
Blinken said there were certain times when the Taliban was given lists of people on buses that were en route to the U.S.-held airport in Kabul and needed to get through Taliban checkpoints.
“You’ll share names on a list of people on the bus so they can be assured that those are people that we’re looking to bring in,” Blinken told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“And by definition, that’s exactly what happened.”
Sullivan disputed a report that the United States gave a list of names to the Taliban but indicated that some identities were shared.
“We have given no list of all of the American SIV holders to the Taliban or any other kind of big list,” he said, referring to Special Immigrant Visas, which are given to Afghans.
But he didn’t deny that other lists were handed over and appeared to suggest that, in some cases, they had been.
Sullivan spoke about situations in which buses of Afghans and others were headed to the airport but had to go through Taliban checkpoints.
“That is the type of coordination we’ve done with the Taliban. That has resulted in journalists and women and pilots and other SIVs being able to get through and get on planes and out of the country,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
President Joe Biden last week didn’t deny that his administration shared lists of American names with the Taliban, telling reporters: “There have been occasions where our military has contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said: ‘This bus is coming through with X number of people on it, made up of the following group of people. We want you to let that bus or that group through.’”
Biden also said he couldn’t confirm whether there’s been a list.
“There may have been, but I know of no circumstance. It doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, that, ‘Here’s the names of 12 people; they’re coming. Let them through.’ It could very well have happened.”
Asked about those remarks on Aug. 30, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said there may be cases in which commanders on the ground are sharing names with the Taliban.
“I think we can all agree there’s a big difference between providing the list of people who want to depart proactively and working at the moment on the ground in a coordinated tactical way to get people out and evacuated and save their lives,” she said.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), on ABC’s “This Week,” denounced the sharing of names with the Taliban.
“They passed a list of American citizens and America’s closest allies, people who fought alongside us, they passed those lists to the Taliban, relying on them, thinking they could trust on them. It was stupid then. It’s insane now. And their plan still seems to be ‘Let’s rely on the Taliban,’” Sasse said.
The U.S. military is leading an effort to evacuate tens of thousands of Afghans and nationals from various countries from Afghanistan before the military withdraws, a pullout currently slated to take place on Aug. 31.
U.S. troops hold the airport in Kabul, but the Taliban controls everywhere else in the city, making it a necessity to pass through Taliban checkpoints to reach the facility.
Asked if the United States would continue coordinating with the Taliban after the withdrawal, with an eye toward combating ISIS, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to answer on Aug. 30.
“I don’t think it’s useful to get into hypothetical operations, future operations one way or the other,” he said.
Jamaal Bowman has formed close ties to controversial Turkish group
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) attended a fundraiser hosted last month by a Turkish-American advocacy group with close ties to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose members were on hand in 2017 when the Turkish leader’s bodyguards beat peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C.
Two officials with the Turkish American National Steering Committee, a nonprofit cofounded by a relative of Erdogan’s, hosted the “meet and greet” fundraiser for Bowman at a restaurant in New Jersey on Aug. 7. Bowman, an acolyte of the “Squad,” appeared at two of the committee’s events in May, the Washington Free Beaconreported.
The committee has been accused of working as an influence group for the Erdogan regime. Founded in 2016, the Steering Committee has hosted Erdogan at multiple events in the United States and frequently holds protests supporting Erdogan-backed causes. It lobbied aggressively against the U.S. government’s recognition of the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of Armenians. Officials with the Steering Committee, including Erdogan relative Halil Mutlu, accompanied Erdogan’s delegation in May 2017 when his bodyguards attacked peaceful protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.
“[The Steering Committee] operates as an Erdogan front, one of many astroturf groups advancing this dictator’s anti-American agenda in Washington, D.C.,” Aram Suren Hamparian, the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told the Free Beacon in June.
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has been targeted by the Erdogan regime, said Bowman was “siding with the most dictatorial elements in Turkey” by appearing at Steering Committee events.
Rubin said Bowman was “symbolically spitting on Turkish journalists and progressives imprisoned by the Erdogan regime, and giving solace to a group on the wrong side of the attack on Americans in the heart of Washington, D.C.”
Bowman’s blind eye to Erdogan’s crackdown in Turkey is a stark contrast to his support for left-wing causes at home. Bowman supports the movement to defund police departments and has said he wants to “disarm the police.”
Bowman posed for photographs with Mutlu at the recent fundraiser and at a previous event held by the committee. Mutlu and other officials with the committee contributed more than $6,750 to Bowman’s congressional campaign last year. The group supported Bowman’s primary challenge against former representative Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.), who was a staunch critic of the Erdogan regime.
Relations between the United States and Turkey have deteriorated in recent years as Erdogan has purged Turkish media companies, schools, and the military of his critics. Turkey has become one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists.
The Steering Committee’s close ties to the Turkish government were on display days before the group hosted the Bowman fundraiser. Mutlu, who is Erdogan’s cousin, met in Ankara on July 26 with Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and his deputy.
According to a post on the Steering Committee’s Facebook page, Mutlu told the Turkish officials that the group would “reach out to the U.S. political leaders, media, and public” regarding U.S.-Turkey relations. The Steering Committee also boasted that it has representatives throughout the United States “who communicate and educate the local leaders on issues related to Turkey and the Turkish community.”
Bowman’s office and the Turkish American National Steering Committee did not respond to requests for comment.
A recent interview with Joe Biden went viral on social media Tuesday showing the Commander-in-Chief vowing to keep troops in Afghanistan until all Americans can be evacuated from the country.
Despite the pledge, hundreds of Americans remain in the country after the President removed all US forces.
“Are you committed to making sure that the troops stay until every American who wants to get out, gets out?” asked ABC News George Stephanopoulos two weeks ago.
“Yes, yes!” insisted Biden. “If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out!”
Flashback … from two weeks ago:
Biden pledges to stay in Afghanistan until every American is out; “we’re going to stay to get them all out.” pic.twitter.com/94IKhNGMHR
The US Embassy in Afghanistan posted a dire message on its official webpage Tuesday, saying the office has “suspended operations” and Americans can no longer rely on “United States government assistance.”
“The U.S. Embassy in Kabul suspended operations on August 31, 2021. While the U.S. government has withdrawn its personnel from Kabul, we will continue to assist U.S. citizens and their families in Afghanistan from Doha, Qatar,” states the memo.
“Make contingency plans to leave when it is safe to do so that do not rely on U.S. government assistance,” warns the message.
Latest security alert on US Embassy In Afghanistan website: “Make contingency plans to leave when it is safe to do so that do not rely on U.S. government assistance.” pic.twitter.com/d2DujvpSZ2
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul suspended operations on August 31, 2021. While the U.S. government has withdrawn its personnel from Kabul, we will continue to assist U.S. citizens and their families in Afghanistan from Doha, Qatar.
Afghan man who helped the US on the ground: ‘I have no idea how to leave’
Horrifying audio of distant gunshots appears to confirm reports of “house-to-house executions” as the Taliban asserts control of Kabul and Afghanistan after the U.S. military’s departure on Monday evening.
An Afghan man who worked with Americans on the ground provided Fox News with the chilling audio featuring distant gunshots.
“I think there’s a conflict between the Taliban, I have no idea where I’m located. From everywhere I hear the sounds of shooting, gunfire. I have no idea how to leave,” the Afghan man said in the audio clip, recorded around the time the final U.S. plane left Kabul.
Distant gunshots rang in the background in the audio clip.
Taliban militants were carrying out “house-to-house executions in Kabul” after the U.S. departure, a senior U.S. source told Fox News Investigative journalist Lara Logan.
President Biden did not deny a Politico report, confirmed by Fox News, that U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies in an effort to grant them entry to the airport which resulted in outrage from military officials behind the scenes. The president said “there may have been” such a list. “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” one defense official told Politico.
“The last American soldier left Kabul airport at 9pm Afghan time tonight and our country gained full independence. Thank God and blessings,” the Taliban account tweeted.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Vincent Boles told Fox News that the Taliban should not get too comfortable.
“Be careful what you ask for,” Boles said. “Now they have to show they can govern a nation and people that are very different than when they left power. Will the Taliban go forward to the future or pull Afghanistan back to the past? The answer will be in their behavior… behavior is believable.”
“From everywhere I hear the sounds of shooting, gunfire. I have no idea how to leave.”— Afghan source who worked with Americans on the ground.
Last Wednesday, a former translator for a high-ranking U.S. Army Ranger told Fox News the Taliban had started executing allies of the U.S. in public, in provinces away from the media attention of Kabul.
“They are not doing really bad stuff in Kabul right now because there’s a lot of media focus on Kabul, but they already started public execution in other provinces where a lot of media is not available or covering it,” the interpreter said.
What’s more, in holding to his Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, President Biden appears to have broken his promise to stay in Afghanistan until every American has been evacuated.
“We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out,” Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of U.S. Central Command, admitted Monday evening.
On Aug. 18, Biden had told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that the U.S. military’s objective in Afghanistan was to get “everyone” out, including Americans, Afghan allies and their families.
“That’s what we’re doing now, that’s the path we’re on. And I think we’ll get there,” he said. “If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.”
Yet a senior State Department official told Fox News that a “small number” of Americans remained in Afghanistan, putting the number at “below 250.”
The suicide attack that killed 170 people including 13 U.S. troops provides the crowning disgrace for President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the military leadership going all the way up to Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This disaster in Afghanistan is worse than Benghazi, worse than Jimmy Carter’s hostage crisis, because those were inept responses to an external situation. By contrast, this is a disaster that Biden and his inept team themselves created.
I remember well how Carter’s hostage crisis ended. It ended on the very day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in January 1981. Reagan had pledged that he would take very strong action against Iran, without specifying what that action might be. Evidently the terrorists, who had the backing of the Khomeini regime, decided it was not a good idea to test Reagan’s resolve. They let the hostages go.
The current catastrophe in Afghanistan seems to have proceeded in reverse. While Donald Trump was in office, the Taliban continued its war, but neither they nor other Islamic radical groups, from al Qaeda to ISIS, had the capacity to inflict massive damage on U.S. forces. The moment Biden got into office, however, the Taliban and the other terrorists all realized it was time to get going. They exploited their opportunity to seize Kabul. They were emboldened to launch a suicide attack that was the most successful strike against America since 9/11.
The blame, of course, starts with Biden. He’s primarily responsible for this self-inflicted wound. Yet Biden has done his best to shift the blame to his predecessor, Trump. Biden’s position seems to be that he was merely carrying out a withdrawal that Trump agreed to. Yet Biden has reversed Trump’s policies in innumerable areas, so he was hardly obliged to follow in Trump’s tracks here. Moreover, there’s a huge difference between a decision to withdraw and the manner of the withdrawal. The responsibility for the latter lies wholly with Biden.
In a recent interview, retired Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who was former head of U.S. forces both in Iraq and Afghanistan, disputed Biden’s claim that Trump is responsible for the current mess. Petraeus pointed out that there were merely 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and they were not doing front-line fighting. Rather, their responsibility was to provide intelligence and logistical support for the Afghan army, and moreover, to help carry out air strikes to provide the Afghan army with cover during clashes with the Taliban.
This, Petraeus says, the Afghan army counted on. They were never trained to fight exclusively on their own. They were trained to fight with U.S. coordination and support, and when this coordination was precipitously halted, and the U.S. just got up and ran, well, the Afghan army decided to get up and run also. This, Petraeus concludes, is why Afghanistan fell so quickly into Taliban hands.
Biden’s blunders have continued beyond the fall of Kabul. That loss was disastrous enough, because it left a huge cachet of guns and matériel for the Taliban to use itself or put on the international market for other terrorist groups and also for China and Russia. Moreover, thousands of Americans were left stranded, not to mention tens of thousands of Afghan allies who were assured the United States would stick with them but now found themselves vulnerable to imprisonment, torture, and death.
But even after leaving Americans behind—creating a vast potential hostage situation of his own—Biden compounded the problem by giving the Taliban a list of names of U.S. citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies. The ostensible purpose was for the Taliban to grant these people access to the outer perimeter of the city’s airport, so that they could get out. It’s not clear whether Biden himself made this decision, but his administration clearly approved it.
The danger here should be obvious. The Taliban have been fighting against the United States and its Afghan allies for 20 years. Wouldn’t it make sense that they would grab the list, thank Allah for this incredible gift, and then put all these people on a kill list? Is there any doubt that Islamic radicals hardened by privation and guerilla war would be willing to execute people whom they view as enemies of Allah and the very people they have been trying to kill for two decades?
Yet the Biden administration seems willing to trust the Taliban to protect and help evacuate the people on this list. Press secretary Jen Psaki said the Taliban would want to do this to secure its reputation in the international community, as if the Taliban cares what people at the United Nations or the European Union think about its actions. Equally absurd, the commander of the U.S. Central Command said that the United States and the Taliban “share a common purpose,” which raises the question of why the two groups were trying to kill each other since 2001.
The U.S. media, for its part, has provided relatively little honest critical scrutiny of Biden’s actions, evidently owing to its ideological sympathies with the current administration. There have been several articles instructing Americans not to confuse the Taliban with the ISIS-K group that claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. The underlying premise is that the Taliban and ISIS-K have several disagreements, there have been reported clashes between the two, and therefore it’s not unreasonable to expect the Taliban to assist the United States after an attack mounted by the terrorists of ISIS-K.
These articles have all the persuasiveness of someone who argues that there are two types of snakes in the garden, rattlesnakes and copperhead snakes, and humans should not hastily confuse the two. This may very well be true, and it might also be that rattlesnakes and copperheads don’t get along, since they compete for the same types of food. But it does not follow that humans can count on the rattlesnakes to be our allies when faced with a threat from a copperhead. The wiser course of action is for humans to recognize they are in a snake pit and take action to destroy as many snakes as we can.
Some Republicans are already calling for resignations, but not enough of them, and not loudly enough. It’s not enough to stop at Biden. The Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence agencies all share the blame for this unmitigated disaster. They all put Americans last, they all betrayed their countrymen and women, and they all should face the consequences.
Thursday’s suicide bombings in Kabul, which claimed the lives of at least 13 American servicemen, marked the deadliest day for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since 2011. President Joe Biden’s low energy press conference in response to the attacks was widely panned for failing to inspire confidence as the situation spirals out of control.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. During the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden touted himself as the only candidate with the experience necessary to successfully handle an international crisis. “To be commander in chief, there’s no time for on-the-job training,” he said during a primary debate in November 2019. “I’ve spent more time in the Situation Room, more time abroad, more time than anybody up here. I know every major world leader. They know me, and they know when I speak, if I’m the president of the United States, who we’re for, who we’re against, and what we’ll do, and we’ll keep our word.”
Former president Barack Obama tried to warn us. He urged Biden not to run for president in 2016, reportedly out of concern that his former running mate “would embarrass himself on the campaign trail and that the people around him would not be able to prevent a belly-flop.” Obama did not mince words during the primary campaign, telling one fellow Democrat: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” We should have listened.
When Biden introduced his top foreign policy advisers in February 2021, he touted their “unmatched experience and accomplishments,” as well as their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Biden went on to imply, without evidence, that he had compiled a team “that will keep our country and our people safe and secure.”
“It’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it, once again sit at the head of the table, ready to confront our adversaries and not reject our allies, ready to stand up for our values,” Biden said.
The events of the past several weeks suggest otherwise.
Many of the reports coming out of Afghanistan this past week mention something that is simultaneously deplored and swept under the rug.
I mean the fact that when the United States raised the white flag to the Taliban it left behind an enormous amount of American-made military hardware.
Just a couple of weeks ago, all of that war-making matériel had been the property of two entities.
Some belonged to U.S. forces themselves.
A lot of it belonged to the U.S.-supplied Afghan government that was—the mighty 300,000 man-strong force that, on July 8, President Joe Biden said would prevail over the Taliban if push came to shove.
Push did come to shove, as we all know, and now those vast stores of military hardware are under sole control of the Taliban.
There have been several differing inventories of these stockpiles. One just published in the London Times providesperhaps the most authoritative accounting published to date.
Scattered in seven Afghan army garrisons across the country, from Kabul and Kandahar to Herat, Mazar-Sharif, Kunduz, these arms depots include an impressive amount of U.S. military hardware: 22,174 armored Humvees, for example, 42 pickup trucks and SUVS, 64,363 machine guns, 162,043 radios. 16,035 night vision goggles, 358,530 assault rifles (the real ones, not the “assault rifles” that Joe Biden warns about at home), 126,295 pistols, and 176 artillery pieces.
And that’s just for starters. The U.S. also generously left behind more than 100 helicopters, including 33 Blackhawks, 4 C-130 transport planes, and some 60 other fixed-wing aircraft.
There was also oodles of ammunition to go along with all the loot.
The question that has not really been pressed about this rather awe-inspiring armory is, why?
Why did we leave it behind to be used by the Taliban?
I don’t believe that question has been addressed with anything like the determination it deserves.
Some people have suggested that it was just a matter of simple incompetence on the part of the Biden administration, particularly the State Department, which is overseeing the evacuation, and the president himself, who apparently chose to ignore advice from some of his advisors about the time table for the evacuation.
But I suspect there is something more insidious than simple incompetence.
What we’re dealing with here is politicized, and therefore, malevolent incompetence.
This is beginning to be recognized in some surprising venues.
The New York Times, for example, just published an op-ed by Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine who is part of a group of “veterans, journalists, and activists” who have been privately helping to organize evacuation efforts in Afghanistan for months.
“Never,” Ackerman wrote, “have I witnessed a greater, swifter collapse of competence than what I have seen with the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan.”
Nor is he shy about identifying the source of the pandemonium: “Events at the airport—desperation, death—indicate the extreme chaos that ensues when the commander in chief doesn’t actually understand the value of service.”
Like many observers, Ackerman focuses mainly on the chaos in Kabul.
But I continue to wonder about all that fire power and supporting matériel that we have left behind.
Why did we do so? Why did we not destroy it?
As far as I know, no one has answered those questions.
Of course, military hardware is not all that we have left behind.
The evacuation “mission” is apparently also leaving behind hundreds of Americans.
According to Rep. Dan Crenshaw, among others, “Biden is not letting U.S. citizens through the airport gates. It has been impossible to get anyone through for the last 24 hours.”
Crenshaw concludes: “This administration has been lying about their intent to save Americans. Unforgivable.”
Biden has been quick to try to shift the blame for this whole debacle onto Donald Trump. “He made a deal with the Taliban!” is his constant refrain.
But Biden neglects to point out that Trump had a plan to leave by the beginning of May, before the “summer fighting season,” and well before the Taliban had overrun the country.
Biden came up with his own timetable for the optics: he wanted to be able to claim the credit for ending “America’s longest war” and to do so in a way that would deny Trump any credit for it.
It has backfired spectacularly, and the blowback, I predict, is far from over.
For those who wonder about the kinder, gentler Taliban that Biden is partnering with, we’re already getting some vivid indications.
Sure, they post pictures of themselves eating ice-cream to taunt Biden.
I have even seen reports that they have bought or are planning to buy a painting by Hunter Biden to install in the Presidential palace.
Maybe that’s satire, who knows?
The Biden administration and its media poodles keep suggesting that the Taliban may be turning over a new leaf. I think you would have to be mad to think so.
One representative incident: The London Times is reporting that “Taliban fighters have shot dead an Afghan folk singer after it outlawed music and women’s voices on television and radio in the bellwether province of Kandahar, laying the ground for a nationwide ban in an echo of the brutal Islamist regime of 20 years ago.”
Uh oh.
What have we left behind in Afghanistan?
The brilliant editorial cartoonist Michael P. Ramirez provided the crispest summary in his cartoon for today.
A big transport helicopter is flying over our (former) embassy in Kabul. One speech balloon asks: “What did we leave behind.”
There are many mistakes made by the Biden administration in the unfolding Afghanistan crisis.
Far too many to count in just one article.
But it seems, over the last few days, the administration has gone out of its way to make matters worse.
We learned that Biden caved to the Taliban’s demands to leave by August 31st.
Now, we discovered that Biden gave the murderous regime a list of American names.
Um… is Joe that much of an idiot? The administration claim this was to aid getting Americans out.
But Rep. Dan Crenshaw has a different take on this.
From Twitter:
If true, this qualifies as borderline treason. We need to find out who is responsible for giving the Taliban a hit list and they need to go to prison. https://t.co/WTkeRytHmN
If true, this qualifies as borderline treason. We need to find out who is responsible for giving the Taliban a hit list and they need to go to prison.
Republican lawmaker Dan Crenshaw hammered the Biden administration over their handling of American names to the Taliban. He said this was “borderline treason” and those responsible “need to go to prison.”
The administration claims they did this to help Americans get to the airport.
But reports from the ground revealed that the Taliban was in no way trying to help Americans.
Some stories say that they have been detaining Americans along the road. They have been stealing passports and phones.
One story claims Americans have been beaten.
So, why would Biden give a list of names of Americans stuck overseas to our enemy?
Remember, we are trying to evacuate Americans because they are in danger if they stay. The Taliban are not our friends.
They want us gone—because God knows what they’d do if Americans stick around.
It didn’t occur to Biden that handing over American names to these terrorists would be a bad idea?
Is Biden working for the Taliban? He gave them billions of dollars worth of weapons and gear.
And he is making it easier for the Taliban to hunt down those Americans Biden is leaving behind.
If it does constitute treason, Biden could be in very big trouble.
Key Takeaways:
Dan Crenshaw blasted Biden over handing American names to the Taliban.
The Republican said this is “borderline treason.”
He called for those who did it to be sent to prison.
Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is demanding answers from the U.S. State Department after a National Pulse exposé revealing the Biden regime cancelled Trump-era plans to found a new bureau specializing in rescuing Americans from crisis zones such as Afghanistan.
The “Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau” – which was designed to handle medical, diplomatic, and logistical support concerning Americans overseas was paused by Antony Blinken’s State Department earlier this year. Notification was officially signed just months before the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
In a letter dated August 27th, Rep. Gosar wrote to Secretary Blinken:
As Americans and the world-at-large watch in dismay at the frantic scenes coming from Kabul, we are all concerned for the safety of our fellow countrymen. I am equally concerned with the lack of preparation for this contingency. Questions regarding this lack of preparation will be brought to the Department of Defense, however I write today concerned by reports that the State Department terminated a crisis response group in the months leading up to the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Specifically, I am referring to the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR) established in October 2020 under the Trump Administration which was designed to handle medical, diplomatic, and logistical support concerning Americans overseas. Reports from The National Pulse indicate that the State Department under your watch terminated this critically important bureau just months before the Afghanistan withdrawal and the need to evacuate thousands of Americans.
Gosar added:
Cancelling the CCR as the Biden Administration was preparing for the Afghanistan withdrawal is baffling and raises serious questions about how prepared the Administration was to complete this final step in Afghanistan. Reports also indicate that the decision to pause the program go back as far as February, which means this decision would have also jeopardized the withdrawal plan committed to under the Trump Administration.MUST READ: Bannon’s War Room 1188: Thurs. 19 August 2021
If reports that the CCR has been paused since February and terminated in June are correct, it shows that State was never prepared for this withdrawal, justifying the heartbreaking and concerning reports and videos we are now seeing from Afghanistan.
I am therefore asking for confirmation on whether or not CCR was terminated and if so, on what grounds? A full scope answer of what authorities and justification were given to terminate the CCR, what the State Department felt it had in place to fill the CCR gap, and a determination of any issues for the State Department responding to this contingency would greatly aid in oversight of this withdrawal.
Finally, please also indicate if elimination of the CCR was in response to any Biden Administration wide orders to reevaluate Trump era policies or the product of any lingering resentment towards the former Administration held by career or political employees. Please adhere to all rules and regulation when fulfilling this request.
The letter comes as discredited “fact check” websites such as Politifact panicked over The National Pulse’s reporting, and sought to confuse the matter with a long article quoting unrelated think-tank “experts” who claimed without evidence that the scrapping of the CCR plan did not affect the Afghanistan withdrawal. Notably, Politifact did not attempt to rate the story true or false, as it usually does.
The far-left Media Matters website was also rattled by the revelation, first misattributing the story to Fox News, then baselessly attempting to confuse the OpMed bureau inside the State Department with the new CCR, without speaking to people actively involved in the Trump-era program, as The National Pulse sourced.MUST READ: WATCH: Kassam Breaks Biden Botched Afghanistan Exfiltration Scoop.
A sitting Marine battalion commander was fired Friday after he slammed the “ineptitude” of U.S. military leadership over the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, saying he was willing to risk losing his 17-year career and future retirement pension in order to “demand accountability” from top military brass.
Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller said in a Facebook post that he was relieved for cause after he posted a video Thursday saying military leadership let service members down during the bungled Afghanistan withdrawal. His video post came after a terrorist attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday that killed 13 U.S. service members, including someone with whom Scheller had a close relationship.
“I have been relieved for caused based on a lack of trust and confidence,” Scheller wrote.
In his Thursday video post, Scheller said that military leadership should take responsibility for the situation in Afghanistan.
“The reason people are so upset on social media right now is not because the Marine on the battlefield let someone down. That service member always rose to the occasion and done extraordinary things,” Scheller said. “People are upset because their senior leaders let them down and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, ‘We messed this up.'”
The scathing public rebuke is a sign of the growing anger among U.S. service members over the pullout and evacuation effort, which has led to a Taliban takeover of the country, left departing Americans vulnerable to deadly terrorist attacks, and stranded thousands of at-risk Afghan military allies.
“I want to say this very strongly. I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders: I demand accountability,” said Scheller.
On Aug. 18, Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps., issued a public letter in an attempt to reassure Marines who were venting their frustration on social media, telling them that their service was “meaningful, powerful, and important.”
Scheller said the letter missed the point and failed to address the actual concerns of his fellow Marines.
He argued that the withdrawal was a major policy failure from the highest levels of military leadership, calling out Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the joint chiefs of staff.
“I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever. But I am saying, did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone’? Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up’?” asked Scheller.
Scheller acknowledged that his critique would almost certainly cost him his job three years before he would qualify for a retirement pension.
“I thought through, if I post this video, what might happen to me—especially if the video picks up traction, if I have the courage to post it,” Scheller said. “But I think what you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk. If I’m willing to risk my current battalion seat, my retirement, my family’s stability to say some of the things I want to say, I think it gives me some moral high ground to demand the same honesty, integrity, and accountability from my senior leaders.”
Update 4:12 p.m.: This post has been updated to reflect that the Marine Corps relieved Scheller of his duty.
Baitulmaal gives financial support to families of Palestinian terrorists
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) on Wednesday shared a tweet that advertised a fundraiser for an organization with ties to Hamas and the Taliban.
Tlaib, who has a long history of anti-Semitic rhetoric, retweeted a post from critical race theorist Khaled Beydoun that urged donations to Baitulmaal, a Texas-based nonprofit. Experts say Baitulmaal helps fundraise for Hamas and distributes aid to the “families of martyrs of the Palestinian people.” And the group’s leader, Mazen Mokhtar, has been accused of working with the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
The retweet isn’t the first time Tlaib expressed support for terrorists. Days after she became a congresswoman, the controversial Democrat hosted Abbas Hamideh, a pro-Hezbollah activist who has repeatedly compared Israelis to Nazis. She shared a post last year that included an anti-Semitic phrase frequently used by Palestinian terrorist groups that seek to destroy Israel. She subsequently unshared the post.
Baitulmaal works closely with Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, according to a 2020 analysis by the Middle East Forum. The group, which received $10,000 in emergency coronavirus funding last year, frequently partners with Unlimited Friends Association for Social Development, a Palestinian group that describes itself as a “a social, developmental, educational NGO.”
The Unlimited Friends Association works with Baitulmaal to hand out cash to the families of Palestinian terrorists, according to the Middle East Forum. These donations complement the Palestinian Authority’s formal “Pay to Slay” program, which has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian terrorists. The Palestinian government this year paid $42,000 to the family of a Palestinian terrorist who stabbed two Israelis to death and wounded two more, including a two-year-old child.
The association, which lists Baitulmaal on its website’s partners and donors page, is openly hostile towards Israel. The group’s Facebook page contains references to “the filth of the most dirty Jews” and “Nazi Zionist jails.” The association also partners with Islamic Relief, a group with which the State Department cut ties this year because of “anti-Semitism exhibited repeatedly” by its leaders.
In 2004, federal agents in Connecticut investigated Mokhtar for running a website that “solicited funds for the Taliban and Chechen mujahideen.” Mokhtar was not convicted. Three years later, he was arrested on a multi-count indictment for filing false tax returns. The lead prosecutor was former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R.).
Baitulmaal also partners with West Bank-based Hamas organizations. The organization hosted a 2008 fundraiser for the Yazour Medical Clinic in Nablus, an offshoot of Hamas. One Palestinian newspaper reports that Baitulmaal and the Hamas offshoot have been working together “for years.”
Anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour last year hosted a fundraiser for Baitulmaal that raised tens of thousands of dollars.
Tlaib and Baitulmaal did not respond to requests for comment.
The identities of the 13 US service members who were killed by an ISIS-K suicide bomber outside the Kabul airport while helping to oversee the evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghan allies have begun to emerge.
The names of one Navy corpsman and four Marines killed in Thursday’s blast have been released, while the identities of an additional six Marines and two Army soldiers have yet to be disclosed while the military works to inform their families.
“We continue to mourn the loss of these Marines and pray for their families. Our focus now is taking care of the families of those who were killed and caring for our injured,” Maj. Jim Stenger, a Marine Corps spokesperson, told The Post in an email.
Per protocol, the military does not release information on deceased service members until 24 hours after their family members have been notified, but relatives have already independently confirmed several of the deaths ahead of that timeline.
Here’s what we know about the US service members who were killed.
Maxton Soviak
Soviak, a 22-year-old Navy hospital corpsman, hailed from Berlin Heights, Ohio, and graduated from Edison High School in Milan in 2017, the Sandusky Register reported.
A woman who identified herself as Soviak’s older sister, and who goes by Marilyn Soviak on Instagram, penned a heartbreaking post Friday that confirmed her brother’s death.
“I’ve never been one for politics and i’m not going to start now. What I will say is that my beautiful, intelligent, beat-to-the-sound of his own drum, annoying, charming baby brother was killed yesterday helping to save lives,” the sister wrote.
“he was a f–king medic. there to help people. and now he is gone and my family will never be the same. there is a large Maxton sized hole that will never be filled,” she wrote alongside a slideshow of images showing the two as children.
“he was just a kid. we are sending kids over there to die. kids with families that now have holes just like ours.”
While in high school, Soviak was on the honor roll and football team, the outlet reported.
“Max was a good student who was active in sports and other activities throughout his school career. He was well respected and liked by everyone who knew him,” the school said in a statement, adding that news of his death has brought “great sorrow.”
Soviak also previously worked as a lifeguard and a maintenance technician, the outlet reported.
Kareem Nikoui was a young Marine from California whose father didn’t realize he’d been killed until he saw a clutch of Marines show up at his door, the Daily Beast reported.
“I haven’t gone to bed all night,” the heartbroken dad told the outlet.
“I’m still in shock. I haven’t been able to grasp everything that’s going on.”
He said his son “loved what he was doing” and “always wanted to be a Marine.”
“He really loved that [Marine Corps] family. He was devoted — he was going to make a career out of this, and he wanted to go. No hesitation for him to be called to duty,” the dad said.
Ahead of his deployment to Afghanistan, Kareem Nikoui was stationed nearby at Camp Pendleton and often visited home on the weekends, bringing along “10 or 15 other Marines” with him, the dad told the Daily Beast.
“My wife and I felt very honored that [since] these other boys weren’t around their homes, that we were able to provide some sort of family life for them,” he said.
The father criticized President Biden’s sloppy withdrawal from Afghanistan and said he didn’t expect his son to be in this situation.
“They sent my son over there as a paper pusher and then had the Taliban outside providing security,” Steve Nikoui said.
“I blame my own military leaders … Biden turned his back on him. That’s it.”
David Lee Espinoza
Espinoza was a 20-year-old Marine from Laredo, Texas, according to the Laredo Police Department.
“Our thoughts and prayers will remain with the family of United States Fallen Marine, David L. Espinoza, as well as to his friends and fellow Marines,” the agency wrote in a Facebook post alongside a photo of Espinoza.
“Semper Fi. Thank you for your service.”
Espinoza graduated from Lyndon B. Johnson High School in Laredo and lived in Rio Bravo his entire life, KGNS reported.
“Mr. Espinoza, a Laredo Marine killed in Afghanistan, embodied the values of America: grit, dedication, service, and valor. When he joined the military after high school, he did so with the intention of protecting our nation and demonstrating his selfless acts of service,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) wrote on Twitter.
“I mourn him and all the fallen heroes in Afghanistan. My heart goes out to the Espinoza family in this extremely difficult time. The brave never die. Mr. Espinoza is a hero.”
McCollum, a Marine from Bondurant, Wyoming, was on his first deployment and was three weeks away from being a dad when he was killed in Thursday’s blast, his sister told the Casper Star Tribune.
“He wanted to be a Marine his whole life and carried around his rifle in his diapers and cowboy boots,” McCollum’s sister Roice McCollum told the outlet.
“He was determined to be in infantry … Rylee wanted to be a history teacher and a wrestling coach when he finished serving his country. He’s a tough, kind, loving kid who made an impact on everyone he met. His joke and wit brought so much joy.”
Rylee McCollum had just graduated from high school in 2019 and was manning an airport checkpoint when the bomb exploded, the outlet said.
“Saying that I am grateful for Rylee’s service to our country does not begin to encapsulate the grief and sadness I feel today as a mother and as an American,” Wyoming Schools Superintendent Jillian Balow told the outlet.
“My heart and prayers are with Rylee’s family, friends, and the entire Jackson community.”
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon tweeted about the death early Friday.
“I’m devastated to learn Wyoming lost one of our own in yesterday’s terrorist attack in Kabul,” Gordon wrote.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Rylee McCollum of Bondurant. Jennie and I, along with all of Wyoming and the entire country thank Rylee for his service.”
Jared Schmitz
Schmitz was a 20-year-old Marine lance corporal from St. Charles County, Missouri, according to KMOX.
“His life meant so much more. I’m so incredibly devastated that I won’t be able to see the man that he was very quickly growing into becoming,” Schmitz’s father, Mark Schmitz, told the outlet.
The heartbroken dad said his son, who always dreamed of being a soldier, was on his first deployment and was sent to Afghanistan from Jordan. He was notified of his son’s death at about 2:40 a.m.
State Rep. Nick Schroer penned a Facebook post about the death.
“Today please pray for Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz who paid the ultimate sacrifice yesterday serving our nation,” Schroer wrote on Facebook.
“This young marine was from St. Charles County and is a true American hero. Keep his family in your prayers today. Thank you for your service young man! God Bless you and your family, Marine.”
When I was young and inexperienced, with no money and no career, I nonetheless made a firm assumption about people who’d made it, who’d risen to the top of their fields. They were daring individuals, I thought, outspoken and candid, willing to go against the crowd. These were people with a skeptical eye on the conventional wisdom, ever ready to challenge and dispute whenever they sensed a stale assertion of it.
When I worked for Dana Gioia at the National Endowment for the Arts, he told me once that when he was in advertising his team would meet at the end of the year to review themselves, and they spent five times as many minutes discussing what they did wrong as they spent on what they did right. That was the kind of toughness I imagined happened in every elite circle.
Look at the leaders of institutions, today, however, and you witness a pageant of conformity and timidity, guardedness ever present, the most powerful people in politics, education, entertainment, media, and business speaking in well-rehearsed terms, mouthing standard pieties with an air of solemnity that is one millimeter thick. Political correctness has turned them into cliche machines.
Did you notice the apology written recently by Mike Richards, the man who was to replace the late Alex Trebek as host of “Jeopardy!”? Richards is a big deal in the game show world, the executive producer of “Jeopardy!” and of “Wheel of Fortune,” winner of three Emmy Awards, too. But after he was selected as “Jeopardy!”‘s new host, some comments that he’d made on his 2013–14 podcast surfaced and set him up for what is now a familiar ritual: the high-profile cancellation. The ritual meant the loss of his post, and also a confession/contrition/plea on the accused’s part that is painful to read—not because of the sentiments themselves, however, but because of their dispiritingly banal expression.
Richards might have said, “Yeah, I made some dumb remarks just trying to get a laugh—I don’t regard them as cause for termination eight years later, though—let’s ease up, okay.”
No, instead we got the nauseatingly customary script:
“It is humbling to confront a terribly embarrassing moment of misjudgment, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity from nearly a decade ago,” he said.
It sounded like every other public apology we’ve heard in recent years, with studied humility and sober drama of self-confrontation. The words follow with all the formulaic layout of an algebraic equation. We have the expected family invocation as well, and role model talk: “My responsibilities today as a father, husband, and public personality who speaks to many people through my role on television means I have substantial and serious obligations as a role model, and I intend to live up to them.”
I don’t blame Richards for this, though. It’s the environment he’s in, a tiresome and phony place that the rest of America recognizes instantly for its mendacity. These declarations sound so sincere, but we know how calculating they are. To the material loss suffered by the penitent one, we have the pain of self-emasculation added in the most predictable language. Can’t any of these people think for themselves? Richards’ public career is over, at least for the near future and maybe the far. What does he have to lose? Why go official and betray his own heart (which is precisely what a man who adopts the idiom of his executioners is doing), even when you know it won’t save you?
Again, these are not people beaten down by life, their egos crushed by poverty and disappointment. They have all the trappings of self-determination—money, education, worldliness, competitiveness, achievement—and yet the working-class guy and gal show a heckuva lot more independent spirit than Mr. Success ever does.
I think that this conformist atmosphere among the elite has played a significant role in the rise of populist anger in America. The contempt that the elite feel for the non-elite in our country is on display every day in the opinion pages and the liberal cable news shows. Just the recently, while driving through the South and listening to NPR, I heard the host introduce interviewee Robin D’Angelo with the question, “Why is it so hard for white people to talk about racism?” The willingness to cast an entire racial group as deficient in some way used to be called “stereotyping,” and enlightened folk universally rejected it. Here, however, it was offered as an enlightening observation. The condescension was thick and gleeful. The host wasn’t aware of how smug she sounded, but ordinary Americans have seen and heard such sentiments over and over, and they discern the contempt more acutely than elites realize.
How irritating it is, then, for these judgmental elites to appear so weak and obedient and cookie-cut at times that call for bold presentation. They’re avid about their superiority, but feeble in their individuality. They profess to be the best and the brightest, but they sink into stupid politically correct truisms when the pressure’s on. Liberalism claims to honor the individual voice, the lone dissenter, but never does a prominent 21st-century liberal wish to fall out of step with his fellows. The guns of cancellation are always primed, and he knows it.
A country whose leadership class is fearful and wary is in trouble. Insecurity makes for bad decisions, and for bad symbolism, too. A leader who stands up and apologizes for the “systemic” sins of the institution he leads doesn’t come off as properly sensitive and constructively progressive. He’s just weak. The celebrity who gets down on his knees and apologizes for some “phobic” remark made years earlier on the internet isn’t rightly repentant and newly enlightened. He’s just humiliating himself. Ordinary Americans draw a pat conclusion: These figureheads make a lot of money and they’re awfully full of themselves and down on us, but when you get down to it, they’re not so great, not at all.
This is the end of a great American tradition of rebelliousness. Ben Franklin ran away from Boston and struck out on his own as a mere teenager. Emerson praised self-reliance as the essence of genius. Thoreau headed to the woods because he couldn’t stand the copycat mentality of fellow citizens. Huck at the end aims to light out for the territory, knowing he’ll never fit in with civilized society. Those figures are the opposite of today’s Americans aspiring to the realms of the elite. Ambitious ones sense at an early age that climbing the ladder means fitting in and filtering impulses. The pipeline has sensors attuned to pick up the maverick spirit and mark it as suspect. Our leaders are tame souls whose wills are triggered mainly by the appearance of a rogue in their midst.
Therein lies the aversion to Donald Trump. It wasn’t Trump’s politics or policies that disturbed the elite. It was, instead, his headstrong personality and outspoken words. The content of his thought and speech they might have opposed in the normal political ways, but the character of the man couldn’t be handled that way. His performances could be received by them only as an admonishment. He spoke his mind, they didn’t, and that made them feel bad about themselves—as it should. Let us hope that more untamed figures surface and do the same thing.
Thirteen U.S. troops were killed on Thursday in the bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan.
More than a dozen others were wounded, CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie told reporters in a briefing conducted hours after the attack.
Twelve deaths were initially announced; among them were 11 Marines and one Navy medic. Another Marine was reported to have died hours later.
Kabul health officials were quoted as saying that at least 60 Afghan civilians were killed in the attack, reported Reuters.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, bragging that a suicide bomber “managed to penetrate all the security fortifications” put into place by U.S. forces and the Taliban.
President Joe Biden said the United States would retaliate against the terror group.
“We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said in Washington, speaking to those responsible for the bombings.
U.S. officials also said evacuation efforts would continue until Aug. 31, when U.S. troops are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan.
“We will not be dissuaded from the task at hand,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a written statement. “To do anything less—especially now—would dishonor the purpose and sacrifice these men and women have rendered our country and the people of Afghanistan.”
The bombings took place at or near the Abbey Gate, which sits on the eastern side of the airport, on Thursday evening local time.
One went off at the gate before at least one other exploded near the Baron Hotel, situated a short distance from the gate.
Photographs showed injured and bloodied people, with dozens of Afghans among those wounded or killed.
Multiple casualties among Americans and Afghans were reported
The U.S. ambassador in Kabul has told staff there that four U.S. Marines were killed in an explosion at the city’s airport and three wounded, a U.S. official with knowledge of the briefing said. Two explosions ripped through crowds of Afghans trying to enter the airport on Thursday.
At least three U.S. troops were injured, a U.S. official said. Witnesses reported multiple fatalities among the Afghans, many of whom were trying to enter the airport because they had assisted U.S.-led coalition efforts and feared persecution by the Taliban.
Western governments have repeatedly warned of an imminent attack by Islamic State and urged their citizens not to approach the airport. After the blasts, the U.S. Embassy told all Americans to leave the entrances to the airport immediately.
The explosion at the Abbey Gate of the airport was the result of a complex attack, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said. He said another blast occurred near the Baron hotel adjacent to the airport. A British security official said both attacks were carried out by suicide bombers.
An Afghan man who was attempting for the fifth time to get into the airport and get on one of the evacuation planes was standing in the crowd outside Abbey Gate when the detonation took place. “A lot of people got hurt,” he said by phone. “I helped a little girl. I think she died.”
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby confirmed a second explosion in downtown Kabul Thursday after an earlier explosion rocked the capital’s international airport.
“We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US & civilian casualties. We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate. We will continue to update,” posted the Pentagon Press Secretary on Twitter.
We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US & civilian casualties. We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate. We will continue to update.
Fox News is now reporting at least three American soldiers were injured in the first blast.
“A suicide bombing outside the Abbey Gate at Kabul’s airport in Afghanistan Thursday injured at least three U.S. troops, U.S. officials confirmed. A U.S. official indicated that the attack set off a firefight at Abbey Gate, where last night, there were 5,000 Afghans and potentially some Americans seeking access to the airport,” reports Fox News.
“We can confirm an explosion outside Kabul airport. Casualties are unclear at this time. We will provide additional details when we can,” posted Kirby on Twitter.
We can confirm an explosion outside Kabul airport. Casualties are unclear at this time. We will provide additional details when we can.
An explosion has been reported Thursday outside of Kabul’s airport.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby confirmed Thursday that an “explosion” occurred outside Kabul’s International Airport, stating that “casualties are unclear at this time.”
“We can confirm an explosion outside Kabul airport. Casualties are unclear at this time. We will provide additional details when we can,” posted Kirby on Twitter.
We can confirm an explosion outside Kabul airport. Casualties are unclear at this time. We will provide additional details when we can.
The US Embassy in Afghanistan is warning Americans who are at or near the Kabul airport to “leave immediately.”
James Heappey, Britain’s armed forces minister, told the BBC that there was “very, very credible reporting of an imminent attack” that may be targeting the airport.
Heappey said that there could be an attack perhaps “within hours.”
The British official said that “there is an appetite by many in the queue to take their chances, but the reporting of this threat is very credible indeed and there is a real imminence to it.”
“There is every chance that as further reporting comes in, we may be able to change the advice again and process people anew, but there’s no guarantee of that,” Heappey added.
The US Embassy issued a statement late Wednesday evening saying that people should not attempt to travel to the airport and those who are already there should leave immediately.
“Because of security threats outside the gates of Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so,” a statement from the embassy issued early Thursday morning said.
“U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately,” the embassy added.
According to a report from the Seattle Times, “new warnings emerged from Western capitals about a threat from Afghanistan’s Islamic State group affiliate, which likely has seen its ranks boosted by the Taliban’s freeing of prisoners during their blitz across the country.”
Britain and New Zealand also warned their citizens not to go to the airport. Australia’s foreign minister also stated that there was a “very high threat of a terrorist attack.”
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also said that his country had been warned about the possibility of an attack, according to the Seattle Times report.
“We received information at the military level from the United States, but also from other countries, that there were indications that there was a threat of suicide attacks on the mass of people,” he said, talking about the threat around Kabul airport.
There are still hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans who are attempting to flee the Taliban controlled country.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has dismissed reports of a possible imminent attack, calling them “not correct,” according to a report from Fox News.
Senator Lindsey Graham stopped by ‘Hannity’ Wednesday night to discuss the escalating chaos in Kabul; saying President Biden has “signed the death warrant” for thousands of Afghans who helped America the last two decades.
“This is the most dishonorable thing a Commander-in-Chief has done in modern times. He said he’s leaving 31 August because the Taliban told him we have to get out. There’s no way in hell we’re going to get all the American citizens out,” said Graham.
“We’re going to leave thousands of Afghans behind. We’re setting the table for the rise of al Qaeda and ISIS to attack us down the road,” he added. “President Biden has signed the death warrant for thousands of Afghans who helped us.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended President Biden’s joke about Americans being stranded in Afghanistan during her briefing Wednesday, saying “we’re on track to complete our mission.”
“At the tail end of the President’s remarks today about cyber security, he was asked about Afghanistan and he made a joke… So, what’s so funny?” asked Fox News’ Peter Doocy.
“What he conveyed is that, he uh, he has not, well, what I can convey from here, is that we’re on track to complete our mission by August 31st,” said the Press Secretary.
What’s so funny?
Peter Doocy presses Jen Psaki as to why Joe Biden laughed about leaving Americans in Afghanistan earlier today. pic.twitter.com/CWi9imJaHA
President Biden continued to deflect questions surrounding his withdrawal from Afghanistan Wednesday when the White House turned off the Commander-in-Chief’s microphone as journalists shouted questions about the safety of Americans in Kabul.
“Thank you all very much, and I thank the press for being here. We’re going to go private now,” said the President.
“Mister President, what will you do if Americans are still there after the deadline?” pressed one journalist.
The White House turned off the President’s microphone at that moment.
“I asked President Biden what he will do if Americans are still in Afghanistan after the 8/31 deadline,” posted New York Times reporter Peter Alexander. “His response: ‘You’ll be the first person I call.’ Took no questions.”
“We built them a pretty amazing war chest and now all of it is in the hands of the Taliban”
The United States military is leaving 75,000 vehicles, 600,000 weapons and 208 aircraft in Afghanistan after the Taliban conquered the country amid the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
“We built them a pretty amazing war chest and now all of it is in the hands of the Taliban,” said Open The Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski. “We know that last month, as late as July, seven new helicopters were being delivered in the capital city of Kabul.”
“We’ve made the Taliban into a major U.S. arms dealer for the next decade,” said Andrzejewski. “They now control 75,000 military vehicles. This is about 50,000 tactical vehicles, 20,000 Humvees they control about 1,000 mine-resistant vehicles, and even about 150 armored personnel carriers.”
Andrzejewski also told The National Desk that “there are also about 208 airplanes and helicopters. Some U.S. equipment given to Afghan security forces is currently unaccounted for, including missing military drones.”
“We found a Federal Audit that detailed up to $200 million worth of drones that had disappeared,” Andrzejewski said. “We don’t know where 600,000 weapons are within the country.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the United States doesn’t know where the equipment is, but a “fair amount” is in the hands of the Taliban.
“We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” he said.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended President Biden’s joke about Americans being stranded in Afghanistan during her briefing Wednesday, saying “we’re on track to complete our mission.”
“At the tail end of the President’s remarks today about cyber security, he was asked about Afghanistan and he made a joke… So, what’s so funny?” asked Fox News’ Peter Doocy.
“What he conveyed is that, he uh, he has not, well, what I can convey from here, is that we’re on track to complete our mission by August 31st,” said the Press Secretary.
What’s so funny?
Peter Doocy presses Jen Psaki as to why Joe Biden laughed about leaving Americans in Afghanistan earlier today. pic.twitter.com/CWi9imJaHA
President Biden continued to deflect questions surrounding his withdrawal from Afghanistan Wednesday when the White House turned off the Commander-in-Chief’s microphone as journalists shouted questions about the safety of Americans in Kabul.
“Thank you all very much, and I thank the press for being here. We’re going to go private now,” said the President.
“Mister President, what will you do if Americans are still there after the deadline?” pressed one journalist.
The White House turned off the President’s microphone at that moment.
“I asked President Biden what he will do if Americans are still in Afghanistan after the 8/31 deadline,” posted New York Times reporter Peter Alexander. “His response: ‘You’ll be the first person I call.’ Took no questions.”
I asked President Biden what he will do if Americans are still in Afghanistan after the 8/31 deadline. His response: “You’ll be the first person I call.” Took no questions. pic.twitter.com/MlyFIayrMZ
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy issued a dire warning after receiving a classified briefing on Afghanistan Tuesday; saying he’s “less confident” all Americans can be evacuated from Afghanistan before the Taliban’s August 31st deadline to remove all US Troops.
“I’m less confident after leaving that briefing. There’s no possible way that we can get every American that’s still in Afghanistan out in the next seven days,” McCarthy said.
“At no time should America ever bend or allow the Taliban to tell us when we have to stop bringing Americans out. We should stay until every single American is able to get out of Afghanistan. And we should use every recourse possible to make that happen,” McCarthy continued.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ripped the Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan during his weekly press briefing Wednesday, saying Joe Biden went “against everything America has stood for in the past.”
“We’re going to have to reassure our allies that we’re going to keep our word… A number of them question what America will do in the future,” said McCarthy.
“We just had a president go against everything America has stood for in the past,” he added. “He made a decision and won’t answer questions.”
Rep. Kevin McCarthy on President Biden: “We just had a president go against everything America has stood for in the past.” pic.twitter.com/nR0WmBR0Pz
Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw also slammed President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan on Fox News Tuesday, saying the Commander-in-Chief is “building the Taliban back better” -not America.
“Every time you think of something you shouldn’t do that’s exactly what he does. He is building the Taliban back much better,” he said. “That’s exactly what he has done. He is not building America back better.”
“You know what the House has been working on all week – what Pelosi has been putting on the floor – is giant inflation-driving spending bills. $3.5 trillion, which is actually closer to really $6 trillion if the math is done correctly as well as that $1 trillion of infrastructure spending. That’s what they’re talking about right now,” Crenshaw said.
“It’s wasteful spending at a time when we don’t need it and in a time we all need to be focused on what’s going on in Afghanistan. As you noted, there is bipartisan outrage over this Aug. 31 deadline.”
“I never thought I would see our American military; our country acting this way,” he said. “We don’t run from these people. We make our own timelines and those timelines should be based on getting our people out in a timely manner. And it’s over when we say it’s over. If they don’t like that, then too bad. We will kill you.”
Former President Donald Trump has dropped a brutal new ad attacking President Joe Biden and nicknaming him the “Surrender-in-Chief.”
Trump has been calling for Biden to step down over his handling of the withdrawal.
The 90-second ad was created by the Save America PAC, which was started by Trump following the 2020 presidential election.
“Joe Biden lied to America and to the World when he told us ‘America was back.’ Instead, he surrendered to the Taliban, and left Americans behind to die in Afghanistan,” a spokesman for the Save America PAC said in a statement.
“This will go down as one of the greatest Military failures in American history. Now, it’s the Taliban that is back – not America,” the spokesman added. “This is not the America we know and the media refuses to hold Biden accountable for the destruction and tragedy he’s caused. It’s time for the truth.”
The ad is a montage of photographs and videos highlighting the inflation since January, the handling of COVID, the border crisis — and of course, the chaos in Kabul as the Taliban took control of the city.
Another ad released by the PAC earlier this month featured Afghans falling from planes as they attempted to hold on and flee the country. It referred to the chaos as “worse than Saigon.”
In a statement released as the Taliban took control, Trump called for Biden to “resign in disgrace.”
“It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy,” Trump said.
The former president added, “it shouldn’t be a big deal, because he wasn’t elected legitimately in the first place.”
Unbelievable footage resurfaced Wednesday showing Donald Trump issuing a major warning on Afghanistan back in 2017, saying a “rapid exit” from the country would be “unacceptable” and create a “vacuum” filled by terror networks like ISIS and al Qaeda.
“My original instinct was to pull out. The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9/11 -the worst terrorist attack in our history- was planned and directed from Afghanistan because that country was ruled by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists,” said the President,.
“A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists -including ISIS and al Qaeda- would instantly fill just as happened before September 11th,” he added.
House Republicans sent a scathing letter to the Department of Justice this week over allegations exiled Afghani President Ashraf Ghani departed the country with upwards of $169 million in assets as the Taliban seized control of Kabul.
“President Ashraf Ghani fled the country of Afghanistan on August 15, precipitating the rapid collapse of the Afghan government in Kabul and paving the way for the Taliban’s entry into the capital city and presidential palace. The Taliban are now in control of Afghanistan for the first time in nearly two decades. President Ghani is residing in the United Arab Emirates, which has granted him humanitarian protection. However, reports state that President Ghani may have been self-dealing with U.S. funds intended for the Afghan people, having fled the country with enormous sums of cash totaling well over a hundred million dollars. If true, this was not the dignified exit of a benevolent head of state, but that of a coward and grifter. The United States must do everything in its power to seize any illicitly gained funds that were corruptly embezzled by President Ghani. If he diverted funds from their intended purposes, the U.S. should bring him to justice,” write the lawmakers.
“It is unclear how President Ghani obtained such a large sum of cash, but the amount and nature of his flight from Afghanistan raises the specter that he illegally and corruptly embezzled these funds from U.S. assistance intended for the Afghan people’s welfare and defense. In fact, until recently, approximately 80% of Afghanistan’s total budget was funded by the United States and other international assistance. Thus, if Ghani was embezzling funds from the government of Afghanistan, he was likely embezzling U.S. taxpayer funds,” add the legislators.
After two decades of combat, Americans by more than 2-1 say the war in Afghanistan, launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, wasn’t worth it. In a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, 3 of 4 predict the Taliban-led country will once again become a haven for terrorists targeting the United States.
For President Joe Biden, the cost of the war’s chaotic end has been steep. His overall job approval rating now stands at 41% who approve versus 55% who disapprove – a big drop in the closely watched barometer of political health. Until last week, national polls generally showed his approval rating above 50%.
Now, while he has held the backing of 87% of Democrats, only 32% of independents say he’s doing a good job.
The poll was taken Thursday through Monday, when the nation’s headlines were dominated by scenes of desperate families trying to evacuate the Kabul airport and a surge of COVID-19 cases across the United States.
Half approved of his handling of the pandemic, 39% of his handling of the economy, 26% of his handling of the Afghan withdrawal.
“Today, President Biden’s overall approval has taken a turn for the worse due to his awful job performance rating on Afghanistan,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center. “His approval on immigration and the economy are also upside down. The only issue keeping him remotely in the game is his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, where he is barely at 50%.”
Biden’s decision to pull out troops was backed by most Americans, 53%-38%. But almost two-thirds, 62%, disapproved of the way his administration has handled that withdrawal.
“He basically handed the Taliban all these weapons, and he’s inspired a resurgent ISIS now,” said Aubrey Schlumbrecht, 51, of Lakewood, Colorado, a home health-care nurse and political independent who was among those polled. “He is not even taking any responsibility. He says he owns it, but he’s blaming other people and he’s blaming the Afghan people themselves.”
John Plaskowsky, 55, a business manager from Suwannee, Georgia, said the news media’s coverage of the tumultuous withdrawal has been unfair to Biden.
“I would say probably for the last 10 years they’ve been ignoring Afghanistan, then President Biden gets handed a horrible deal from the previous administration,” he said in a follow-up interview. While noting that he is a Republican, he said former President Donald Trump played a role by negotiating with the Taliban for a U.S. withdrawal that was supposed to be completed by May 1.
“There needs to be some accountability to the previous administration on the deal they cut,” he said.
Some say Afghanistan war was ‘all for nothing’
Attitudes toward the war in Afghanistan and the leadership of the commanders-in-chief who waged it are complicated.
“There were objectives in the very beginning that were probably good objectives,” said Leif Hassell, 46, a Democrat and public health administrator from Little Rock, Arkansas. “But we spent a long time there and used a lot of treasure and a lot of American lives. There was no clear goal, and there’s been no clear benefit from it.”
While most of those surveyed say Biden mishandled the exit in Afghanistan, few blame him for what went wrong in the war itself. Among those who say the war wasn’t worth it – a view held by 60%-28% – just 7% identify Biden as the president who is most responsible for that. Fifteen percent cite Barack Obama, who vowed to end U.S. participation in the war and didn’t.
Nearly two-thirds, 62%, put the responsibility on George W. Bush, the president who ordered the invasion in 2001.
“He’s the one that had the big push into Afghanistan,” said Ryan Haugh, 27, an independent from Camphill, Pennsylvania. “After 9/11, I think there was very few Americans that were against war at that point because of what happened with the World Trade (Center) and the Pentagon. But I think some of the reasons that we were there were the wrong reasons. And then, ultimately, if you look at the end goal, or the end game, where we’re at now, it’s kind of just like it was all for nothing.”
Foreign policy and defense strategists in a string of administrations say the war was a success in routing the Taliban and combating terrorist groups, if not in establishing a stable democracy.
But now 73% of Americans believe Afghanistan will once again become a base for terrorists who want to attack the United States. There is scant support for developing diplomatic relations with the emerging rulers there; 71% say the United States should not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Senator Marco Rubio ripped the Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan on ‘Hannity’ Tuesday night, saying the United States just “donated an Air Force to the Taliban.”
“When history looks back at this moment, this is going to be a big deal for decades. This is going to be one of the worst catastrophes in American foreign policy history,” said Rubio.
“They should have known, the red lights were flashing the whole time,” he added. “They were oblivious to it… We just donated an Air Force to the Taliban.”
A report from Fox News highlights the scope of the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan as the network claims the Taliban now control 75,000 vehicles, 200 aircraft, 600,000 weapons and $85 billion in funding.
“U.S. officials tell Reuters that the current intelligence indicates that the Taliban control at least 2,000 U.S.-made armored vehicles, between 30 and 40 aircraft and an untold number of small arms,” writes a reporter from the global news agency.
“Joe Biden creates the Taliban Army and Air Force,” posted former Trump official Richard Grenell on Twitter.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted last Tuesday that the administration does not yet have a “complete picture” on the location of American defense equipment abandoned in Afghanistan.
“We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone,” the Biden adviser said. “But certainly, a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban, and, obviously, we don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport.”
“The president did not think it was inevitable that the Taliban were going to take control of Afghanistan,” Sullivan said. “He thought the Afghan national security forces could step up and fight because we spent 20 years, tens of billions of dollars, training them, giving them the best equipment, giving them support of U.S. forces for 20 years.”
Two top House Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are demanding answers over the allegations that exiled Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country with $169 million in cash, as the Taliban terrorist group seized control of Kabul.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the top Republican on the committee, and Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), the ranking member on the National Security subcommittee, wrote a letter (pdf) to Attorney General Merrick Garland following accusations that Ghani took large sums of money with him as he departed the presidential palace.
“President Ghani may have been self-dealing with U.S. funds intended for the Afghan people, having fled the country with enormous sums of cash totaling well over a hundred million dollars. If true, this was not the dignified exit of a benevolent head of state, but that of a coward and grifter,” the lawmakers wrote.
Comer and Grothman said that the United States must do everything in its power to seize “any illicitly gained funds that were corruptly embezzled by President Ghani.”
“If he diverted funds from their intended purposes, the U.S. should bring him to justice,” the lawmakers said.
Ghani’s exit from the country on Aug. 15 allowed the Taliban to take the capital unopposed. He fled as the Islamist insurgents entered Kabul, saying he did so to avoid bloodshed.
The lawmakers called it “imperative that corrupt foreign government officials not be permitted to personally enrich themselves with U.S. taxpayer money,” and charged that Ghani’s actions contributed “to the speed with which the Taliban took over the country.”
“It is unclear how President Ghani obtained such a large sum of cash, but the amount and nature of his flight from Afghanistan raises the specter that President Ghani illegally and corruptly embezzled these funds from U.S. assistance intended for the Afghan people’s welfare and defense,” the Republican lawmakers continued.
Speaking from exile in the United Arab Emirates on Aug. 18, Ghani denied reports that he fled the country with large sums of money.
The pair concluded their letter with a list of questions the said they want answered by the Department of Justice (DOJ), including whether it is probing the matter, if the alleged sum came out of U.S. funding, and what action the DOJ intends to take to bring Ghani “to justice,” if he did “engage in corrupt actions…to enrich himself at the expense of the U.S. taxpayers.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the DOJ for comment.
Months before he fled the country, Ghani claimed that his government could resist the terrorist group’s attacks without U.S. support, and that “no power in the world” could persuade him to get on a plane and leave the country.
“It is a country I love, and I will die defending,” he claimed in an interview with German news magazine Der Spiegel published on May 14.
The president’s words saw tens of thousands of Afghan families flee their homes hoping to find safety from the approaching Taliban in Kabul.
Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh has remained in the country following Ghani’s exit. He said on Twitter on Aug. 17 that he has remained to fulfill his duty as the “caretaker president” as outlined in the country’s constitution, adopted in 2004.
He has since vowed to resist the Taliban from the Panjshir Valley, together with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the son of a former anti-Soviet mujahedeen commander.
Comer and Grothman have asked for answers to their questions by Aug. 31, which is President Joe Biden’s self-imposed deadline to pull remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw ripped President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan on Fox News Tuesday, saying the Commander-in-Chief is “building the Taliban back better” -not America.
“Every time you think of something you shouldn’t do that’s exactly what he does. He is building the Taliban back much better,” he said. “That’s exactly what he has done. He is not building America back better.”
“You know what the House has been working on all week – what Pelosi has been putting on the floor – is giant inflation-driving spending bills. $3.5 trillion, which is actually closer to really $6 trillion if the math is done correctly as well as that $1 trillion of infrastructure spending. That’s what they’re talking about right now,” Crenshaw said.
“It’s wasteful spending at a time when we don’t need it and in a time we all need to be focused on what’s going on in Afghanistan. As you noted, there is bipartisan outrage over this Aug. 31 deadline.”
“I never thought I would see our American military; our country acting this way,” he said. “We don’t run from these people. We make our own timelines and those timelines should be based on getting our people out in a timely manner. And it’s over when we say it’s over. If they don’t like that, then too bad. We will kill you.”
“That’s exactly what we do to people who get in the way of us saving Americans,” Crenshaw continued. “And that’s exactly the message that should be delivered right now. And I’m telling you, there is actually bipartisan support for this — for extending the deadline, and it’s time we stand up for ourselves and stand up for the people we left behind in this botched withdrawal and it’s time we act like America again.”
Andrew Cuomo granted clemency to Kathy Boudin’s partner, David Gilbert
Former Weather Underground member David Gilbert may be poised for a jailbreak thanks to former New York governor Andrew Cuomo (D.), but progressives have long supported his terrorist wife, who has for the past seven years operated a criminal-justice reform think tank at Columbia University.
The Center for Justice, Kathy Boudin’s think tank at Columbia, is bankrolled by left-wing billionaires, including George Soros, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, and Peter Buffett, the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. Their philanthropy has collectively poured millions into the Center for Justice, which Boudin cofounded in 2014 to push criminal justice reform.
Boudin and several Weather Underground members were convicted in 1983 on murder charges for their role in a robbery of a 1981 Brinks truck in Nyack, N.Y. Two police officers and a security guard were murdered during a shootout that followed the robbery. Cuomo, who resigned Tuesday in the wake of sexual harassment charges, granted clemency to Boudin’s partner Gilbert, who is serving a 75-year sentence for second-degree murder connected to the robbery.
Boudin and Gilbert are the parents of San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin (D.), who called on Cuomo last year to commute his father’s prison sentence.
Kathy Boudin rose through the ranks of academia after she was paroled in 2003. She joined Columbia University as an adjunct professor before she began the Center for Justice. The center says it partners with government agencies, universities, and advocacy groups to end mass incarceration and advance “alternative approaches to justice and safety through education, research, and policy change.”
The center also partners with the Manhattan district attorney’s office on a program called “Inside Criminal Justice.”
The NoVo Foundation, a charity founded by Buffett, contributed $2.5 million to the center in 2018. Buffett launched NoVo Foundation in 2008 with seed money from his billionaire father.
Soros’s Open Society Foundations in 2019 gave $150,000 to the Center for Justice. Moskovitz’s charity, the Open Philanthropy Project, sponsored the Center for Justice’s “Beyond the Bars” events in 2018 and 2019. The Ford Foundation, which sponsors a variety of left-wing causes, contributed $15,000 to “Beyond the Bars.”
Other backers are the Tow Foundation and Robert Sterling Clark Foundation.
Soros has backed progressive prosecutors across the country, many of whom have come under fire amid crime spikes in their cities. While Chesa Boudin has not received any direct support from Soros, he faces a recall effort from opponents who fault his policies for a dramatic increase in crime in San Francisco. Boudin ended the use of cash bail, supports cutting the jail population, and declines to prosecute crimes such as prostitution and public urination.
Boudin faced a recall effort after a career criminal, whom he declined to prosecute, killed two pedestrians while driving drunk on New Year’s Eve. The Moskovitz-funded Real Justice PAC, which supports the defund-the-police movement, has contributed more than $2 million to support progressive prosecutors, including Boudin. The political action committee contributed $100,000 to oppose the Boudin recall effort.
It is unclear whether the Center for Justice benefactors are aware of Kathy Boudin’s terrorist acts. In addition to her role in the Brinks robbery, she was at a Weather Underground hideout in 1970 when a bomb the group was building accidentally exploded. Three Weather Underground members died in the blast, though Boudin escaped without injury. The terrorists had hoped to kill Army personnel by setting off the bomb at a social event at New Jersey’s Fort Dix.
Biden administration left Americans trapped in Kabul and American-made weapons in Taliban hands
Republicans are calling on the Pentagon’s inspector general to launch a formal investigation into the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, including its decision to abandon scores of American-made weapons that are now in the Taliban’s possession.
Rep. Carlos Giménez (R., Fla.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, is spearheading legislation that would direct the Defense Department’s inspector general to determine how the Biden administration’s pullout from Afghanistan endangered scores of American citizens who are trapped in Taliban-controlled Kabul and begging for rescue by U.S. forces.
Giménez’s bill is the first in what is likely to be a series of Republican efforts to investigate the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. The administration has faced criticism at home and abroad over its failure to plan for an immediate Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. The administration, including the Pentagon and State Department, is struggling with its evacuation effort and has avoided answering questions about whether it had a plan to deal with the Taliban’s return to power. It is likely that Democrats will be forced to go along with these investigations, even as party leaders defend the Biden administration’s decisions.
Giménez told the Washington Free Beacon that Congress must begin investigating the ongoing disaster, particularly given the administration’s refusal to answer questions.
Biden and his senior advisers have “made categorically false statements to the American people, including lies that the American embassy in Kabul was secured and prepared for the withdrawal, that there are no al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan, that America’s allies are not questioning the president’s judgments, and even changed transcripts and readouts with our most important allies,” Giménez said.
“These falsehoods,” Giménez continued, “are deliberately deceptive to the American people with both the mainstream press and the president’s own senior national security officials contradicting these claims. If the president of the United States is not going to be straight with the American people while American lives are being left in Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban, then Congress has both the moral and constitutional obligation to demand accountability of any and all Biden administration officials who deliberately put American lives at risk.”
Giménez’s bill would direct the Pentagon inspector general to provide Congress with a full accounting of the Biden administration’s behind-the-scenes decision-making. This accounting would include an audit of “the reasons why United States Humvees, helicopters, artillery, and drones ended up in the hands of the Taliban,” according to the bill.
Since the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban has seized scores of American-made weapons, which helped them take control of the country and trample the U.S.-trained Afghan National Army.
The legislation also would force the Defense Department to provide information on whether “Afghan forces in possession of United States equipment entered Iran,” which seeks to replace the United States as a powerbroker in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon inspector general’s report would be issued to Congress within three months and also examine the effectiveness of the Biden administration’s ongoing evacuation of Americans from Kabul, according to the bill.
Border Patrol agents have arrested 8,691 criminal aliens coming across the southern border in the past 10 months. Between them, the aliens have committed 12,685 crimes.
On Aug. 14, border agents in south Texas arrested two MS-13 gang members. One, a convicted murderer from El Salvador, was apprehended after illegally crossing into the United States with a group near Mission, Texas. The 44-year-old man spent three years in prison for a murder in California in the late ’90s and was imprisoned again in 2005 for “re-entry of a deported alien,” according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Many criminal aliens are arrested while trying to evade Border Patrol, or as they attempt to blend into large groups crossing the border. While Border Patrol agents are tied up dealing with large groups, the cartels and criminal organizations smuggle contraband and people through unpatrolled areas nearby.
Several Border Patrol agents told The Epoch Times that agents estimate they’re apprehending between 10 percent and 20 percent of all illegal border crossers, although it’s impossible to estimate how many have avoided detection and capture.
Since February, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 1 million illegal aliens.
In the busiest sectors along the U.S.–Mexico border, agents are constantly being pulled off the line to help process large groups of illegal border crossers—many of whom seek out Border Patrol, knowing they’ll be released into the interior of the country with a request to report at a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office when they reach their destination.
Additionally, at least 300,000 illegal aliens have slipped past border agents in the past 10 months, according to estimates based on statistics provided by Acting Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz.
The 8,691 criminal alien arrests over the past 10 months is about a 328 percent increase over fiscal 2020, if accounting for the two-month reporting difference.
Border Patrol agents are often not able to immediately check for criminal convictions in an alien’s home country, so most convictions that pop up are from crimes committed in the United States that have been recorded in the National Crime Information Center database.
On Aug. 19, Border Patrol agents in Brownsville, Texas, apprehended Mexican national Marco Antonio Tellez, who was previously arrested for first degree attempted sexual abuse of a child in Lexington, Kentucky. He was sentenced to one year in prison, registered as a sex offender, and then deported, according to records.
Two days earlier, Honduran national Arlin Reinaldo Ruiz-Cardona, was arrested as part of a group of 46 in Rio Grande City, Texas. In 2011, Ruiz-Cardona was arrested in New York City for raping an 8-year-old girl multiple times, according to New York records. He was sentenced to four years in prison and subsequently deported in June 2015.
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas have arrested more than 140 illegal alien gang members affiliated with 10 different street gangs this fiscal year.
One of the most recent arrests was conducted by Texas state troopers about 70 miles north of the border. On Aug. 22, troopers apprehended two illegal immigrants at the Brooks County rest area. One of the men was a confirmed MS-13 gang member from El Salvador with a 2009 conviction for sexual battery in Hall County, Georgia.
Iran touts US failure in Afghanistan as it increases enrichment of weapons-grade uranium
Iran is set to hold a series of war drills with Russia and China, as the hardline regime celebrates the United States’ bungled evacuation in Afghanistan and boosts its enrichment of nuclear weapons-grade uranium to historically high levels.
Iranian and Russian leaders announced on Monday that their countries, along with China, will hold joint maritime war exercises in the Persian Gulf later this year or early in 2022, according to Iran’s state-controlled media. The countries said they will focus on “shipping security and combating piracy” as the United States reduces its military footprint in the region following its marred withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The announcement comes as the rogue countries step up their involvement in war-torn Afghanistan amid a hurried effort by the Biden administration to evacuate U.S. personnel from the country. Iran, Russia, and China have all expressed an interest in replacing the United States as a powerbroker in the nation and working with the newly installed Taliban government. Iran’s foreign ministry announced that “Iran is in contact with all parties in Afghanistan to pave the ground for dialogue and reconciliation” and that the Russian and Chinese embassies remainfunctioning.
Iran’s new hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, celebrated what he called America’s “military failure” in Afghanistan last week, saying the Biden administration’s “military defeat and its withdrawal must become an opportunity to restore life, security, and durable peace in Afghanistan.” Iranian officials also have sought to increase ties with the Taliban, historically a regional enemy, as it expands its footprint in the region.
As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates for the United States, Iran has increased its enrichment of uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported late last week that Iran produced uranium metals that were enriched up to 20 percent purity for the first time in its history. It also amped up its uranium enrichment program to 60 percent purity, a threshold level that allows the regime to produce the fuel needed for a nuclear weapon.
The move was met with consternation by the United States and its European allies, but they did not take any steps to sanction Iran or issue penalties for its breach of the 2015 nuclear accord. The United States said Iran must cease its enrichment, but would not go further than a public reproach. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom also acknowledged their concerns on the IAEA report in a joint statement on Thursday.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Free Beacon that “the botched Afghanistan drawdown is a propaganda coup for Tehran.”
The Islamic Republic “has long advanced the idea that America can be forced from the region through a sustained death-by-a-thousand-cuts military strategy,” Taleblu said. “Moreover, it is trying to get local actors who are pro-American to accommodate rising Iranian power by saying those who work with Washington will one day be abandoned.”
Iran’s latest enrichment levels are a signal to the U.S. administration that the country “is increasingly comfortable with escalation and has survived peak pressure,” Taleblu said. “Would you be afraid of a state which has denigrated instruments of national power like economic sanctions and military force in a bid to change your national security policy?”
As Iran increases its regional footprint and funds terrorist groups operating in and around Afghanistan, the Biden administration is pursuing negotiations aimed at securing a revamped nuclear agreement.
The State Department has made clear that it remains open to talks even as Iran refuses to come back to the bargaining table. Tehran wants full-scale sanctions relief and access to hard currency, but claims the Biden administration is not going far enough in its concessions, which are rumored to include the removal of sanctions on Iran’s financial system and other sources of revenue for the regime.
U.S. Iran envoy Robert Malley said last week the Biden administration is prepared to present Iran with a new nuclear deal should talks on reentering the 2015 accord fall apart, according to Politico.
Iran recently enlisted U.S. ally Japan in its pursuit of sanctions relief. Japanese foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi landed in Tehran over the weekend to discuss ways both countries can pressure the Biden administration into granting Iran sanctions relief.
“To revive the [nuclear deal], the United States must abandon its excessive demands,” Motegi was quoted as saying following meetings with high-ranking Iranian government officials.
My friend Owen Shroyer was forced to turn himself in yesterday.
While he never stepped foot inside the Capitol on January 6th, he’s been charged with “illegally entering a restricted area on Capitol grounds”, along with disorderly conduct.
Owen is a journalist and was covering the event with a news crew from InfoWars.
They never entered the Capitol, never jumped any barricades, and never disobeyed orders from law enforcement – because they were given none!
So why are the Feds going after Owen?
Because he’s an influential conservative media figure, and they can take him down despite having no evidence of wrong-doing!
Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats are leading this charge with the intent to dismantle the activist wing of the conservative movement.
And it’s working!
Families are being broken up, careers are being destroyed, and everyone else is being terrified into silence or submission.
We have to stand up and tell the truth about what is happening, and it shouldn’t surprise any of us that the majority of Republicans in Congress are silent as Nancy Pelosi is literally taking political prisoners around the nation!
Do you think Democrats in Congress would have the same reaction if BLM and Antifa had swarmed the Capitol with Molotov cocktails and bricks like they did in Portland?
No! Pelosi, AOC and Ilhan Omar would be defending their right to protest, despite the fact that their actions are far from being “mostly peaceful”!
While over 600 Patriots have been charged with crimes from January 6th, nearly every BLM rioter is getting their charges dropped!
We need members of Congress brave enough to stand up to partisan plots like this . . . and that’s why it’s so important to send patriots to Congress who have a spine!
And please, take a moment to give your thoughts and prayers to Owen Shroyer and the hundreds of other men and women whose lives have been upended by this partisan political power play.
National security officials fear newly freed Afghan terrorists may exploit border crisis
The Taliban’s release of prisoners throughout Afghanistan poses a security threat on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to senior Department of Homeland Security officials and national security experts.
The Taliban freed thousands of prisoners, many of whom either worked directly with or had ties to al Qaeda and ISIS, when it captured Bagram Air Base on Aug. 15. Afghan soldiers surrendered the base with virtually no resistance, leaving U.S. intelligence officials with little ability to track suspected terrorists. The crisis at the southern border could prove an inviting target for terrorists, according to the DHS official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
“We’ve always been surprised by the countries of origin we see individuals coming from along our southwest border. It’s more than likely some Afghans will arrive now as well,” the official told the Washington Free Beacon. “It’s definitely a national security threat, and the strain of forces currently along the border would make it more likely that some would slip through illegally.”
The intelligence community warned the administration about terror threats at the southern border just weeks after President Joe Biden announced the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan. National security officials warned the White House in a classified memo, first reported by the Free Beacon, that border patrol officers had arrested two Yemeni nationals on the terrorist watch list as they attempted to cross into the United States from Mexico. One of the two men was also on the FBI’s no-fly list. Their names have not been released to the public.
The Biden administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Senators from both parties pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark Milley on whether the Pentagon would change its terror assessment of Afghanistan following the collapse of the U.S.-backed government. The two acknowledged their report to Congress in June—that Afghanistan contained only a “medium” risk of terror groups—was likely obsolete.
Individuals who had worked on assessing terror threats at the southern border told the Free Beacon that the surge of migrants has left border patrol officers ill-equipped to face the new terror challenge. Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief of staff Jon Feere said the record-setting influx of illegal border crossings will only exacerbate the threat.
“When it comes to cross-border illegal immigration that goes undetected, there is obviously no background check taking place,” Feere, who now works at the Center for Immigration Studies, said. “Customs and Border Protection apprehended foreign nationals from countries across the globe and that means there are likely many aliens from problematic countries getting past the border patrol already.”
Border patrol agents already complain about a lack of resources to adequately police the southern border. Biden administration officials have also come to acknowledge the strain. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas privately told border agents, “If our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose and this is unsustainable,” according to Leaked Audio of his remarks.
More migrants were recorded crossing into the country in July—212,000—than at any point in the last 21 years. Illegal crossings jumped 13 percent from June, which previously held the 21-year record.
The Biden administration continues to deflect growing criticism surrounding its decision to rapidly withdraw US troops from Kabul, claiming just weeks ago that the Afghanistan Army could defend itself from the terror network.
“What proof do you have that the Afghanistan forces can defend themselves?” asked one reporter.
“They have over 300,000 soldiers and police. They have a modern Air Force. They have modern weaponry. They have an organizational structure. They have a lot of advantages that the Taliban don’t have,” said the spokesperson.
President Biden addressed the nation Sunday afternoon on the chaos unfolding in Afghanistan, saying his decision to abruptly exit the country was “rational, logical, and right.”
“There are number of places where we’re doing that, without permanently placing American forces there… But look, that’s the job. My job is to make judgments no one else can or will make. I made them, I’m convinced I’m absolutely correct in not sending more women and men to war,” said Biden.
“I don’t trust anybody, there’s not a lot of people I trust. The Taliban has to make a fundamental decision. Are they going to attempt to be able to unite and provide for the well-being of the people of Afghanistan?” he added.
Vice President Kamala Harris broke-out in laughter early Monday when asked about the chaos engulfing Afghanistan, telling reporters to “slow down!” when pressed about the foreign policy debacle.
“What’s your response to reports the American…” began one journalist.
“Hold on, slow down everybody. I want to talk about two things. First Afghanistan, we couldn’t have a higher priority right now,” said Harris. “
New polls are sounding alarm bells within the Democratic Party as Vice President Kamala Harris’ approval rating sinks amid a series of controversies surrounding the border, Afghanistan, and inflation.
“According to a Rasmussen Reports survey released Thursday, 55 percent of likely voters say the former senator from California is either ‘not qualified’ or ‘not at all qualified’ to assume the duties of the presidency. By contrast, 43 percent consider Harris ‘qualified’ or ‘very qualified’ to be commander in chief. The same poll found in April that 49 percent of likely voters said Harris was qualified to become president,” reports the NY Post.
The Vice President has been mostly absent since Afghanistan’s capital Kabul fell to the Taliban last weekend.
“Since then, she has taken part in at least fourbriefings with President Biden and his national security team, but has confined her public statements about Afghanistan to Twitter and did not appear at Biden’s side when he attempted to defend the withdrawal in remarks from the White House East Room Monday,” adds the Post.
“Kamala Harris, who has vanished since the debacle began, still can’t keep her approval polls from dropping,” posted Larry Elder -Republican candidate in Gavin Newsom’s upcoming recall- on social media.
I saw ‘Defund the Police’ coming from miles away, and I tried to stop them!
In 2016, I filed a federal lawsuit as a Dallas Police Sergeant against Black Lives Matter, Barack Obama, George Soros, and others for inciting racial violence in our streets. Unfortunately, that movement has evolved into the modern-day ‘Defund the Police,’ with millions of dollars of support from George Soros to BLM-back groups like Color of Change, and I’m fighting back once again!
The lawlessness we see in the streets today is a direct result of kowtowing to BLM and other far-left race-baiting groups for the last five years and longer!
My name is Tre Pennie. As a black man who grew up in and patrolled one of the toughest neighborhoods in America, I’m offering black Americans a way forward that empowers law enforcement to help clean up our communities.
We’ve come a long way in this country since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote his ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail,’ where he reiterated his commitment to nonviolence in the pursuit of racial harmony.
Unfortunately, Soros-funded BLM rioters and the ‘Defund’ Democrats they support are actively tearing away at the racial unity of the American fabric. They have turned to violence to promote their “social justice” agenda. They would rather see our cities burn and perpetuate racial division than allow law enforcement to safely patrol our communities and help diminish crime and poverty in our inner cities.
As a 22-year veteran of law enforcement who grew up in the inner city, I know the opportunity policing can provide for young men and women who want to help clean up their neighborhoods. George Soros, BLM, and the race-baiters who profit from this chaos don’t care about our communities, and it’s time for someone to stand up and call them out.
My campaign is gaining momentum… Fox News hosts from Sean Hannity to Judge Jeanine and my Friends in the morning like Pete Hegseth keep calling me to talk about the spike in crime as a direct result of Soros-funded BLM and the ‘Defund’ Democrats.
The radical leftist politicians are stripping law enforcement of the resources to keep our streets safe. It’s causing a major spike in line of duty deaths for brave law enforcement officers, and it needs to stop!
We cannot allow the George Soros-Joe Biden Crime Crisis to continue! For America,
Tre Pennie American for Congress
P.S. George Soros is pumping millions of dollars into groups like Color of Change who are placing politicians like the prosecutor in St. Louis in power who will target law-abiding citizens like Mark McCloskey and his wife for protecting their home from violent, BLM trespassers. You can’t waste another moment if we’re ever going to take back our nation’s streets from criminals. Chip in $25, $50, $100, $250, or even $1,000 and make a difference TODAY! Thank you.
US Border Patrol agents are reportedly suffering low morale, to the point they feel “almost dead inside,” as President Joe Biden’s policies leave only skeleton crews working in the field to intercept national-security threats.
“Everyone shows up to work sort of downtrodden, almost dead inside, for lack of a better term,” Jon Anfinsen, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s union, told the Washington Examiner in an article published on Sunday.
They’re not allowed to [do] the job, and they know that people are getting away every single day, every hour.
The US has set new 20-year highs in each of the past two months for the number of illegal aliens encountered by Border Patrol, including 213,000 in July, after Biden dismantled the policies of his predecessor Donald Trump, which he called “an assault on the dignity of immigrant communities.” Agents know that many more people are crossing the border undetected, as hundreds of agents have been pulled from the field to process and care for the crushing flow of migrants.READ MORESuspected terrorists are crossing into US at ‘level we have never seen before,’ outgoing Border Patrol chief tells agents – report
“Agents are primarily indoors, processing, and we’re dealing with the people who are flagging us down – the ones who are walking up to us and turning themselves in,” Anfinsen said. “Meanwhile, the immigrants who don’t want anything to do with us, they’re running away, although sometimes they’re walking because they have no need to run because we’re not there.”
In one 245-mile stretch of the southwest US border, there are only 12 agents patrolling, a record low, the Examiner said. On one recent day, the busy McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol Station had just one person and a dog working in the field because all other agents were needed for non-enforcement tasks, such as processing and transporting illegal migrants.
That’s especially troubling to agents, knowing that drug traffickers and suspected terrorists, among other threats, are exploiting the porous border. People on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist are crossing into the US at an unprecedented level, according to Rodney Scott, whom the Biden administration forced out as Border Patrol chief earlier this month. Also this month, Mark Morgan, a top border official in the Obama and Trump administrations, said the Biden administration has dropped at least 40,000 illegal aliens infected with Covid-19 into US cities.
The newspaper said its reporting was based on interviews with five current agents and three former senior officials who worked in the Biden administration. The administration has prohibited Border Patrol employees from speaking to media outlets without permission and stopped allowing reporters to do ride-alongs with enforcement agents.
“The mission is no longer deter, detect, detain,” one agent said. “It is wait until they have all crossed, Uber them to the station and process. Morale is below the Mason-Dixon line. We need more agents on the line, not at hospital or processing.”
The agent added that more operatives are also needed to do intelligence work to target the cartels that are smuggling migrants.
Asked about the alleged plunge in morale, the US Customs and Border Patrol sent a statement to the Examiner, saying it’s fortunate to have agents who “remain resilient as we seek to improve enforcement efforts along the border.” The statement added, “Day in and day out, our Border Patrol agents continue to meet the need to protect our nation’s border as well as process migrants safely and expeditiously.”
A supposed DNA match between Rep. Ilhan Omar and her second husband Ahmed Elmi allegedly proves that the two are siblings
It has long been rumored that Omar and Elmi are siblings, but because of a lack of paperwork in war-torn Somalia, positive proof has never been uncovered
The match says that Omar’s DNA was taken from a cigarette butt, while Elmi’s DNA purportedly came from a drinking straw
Although Omar is not known to be a smoker, a grainy photo appears to show her smoking outside of her Washington, DC home
Republican strategist Anton Lazzaro posted the results hours before he was arrested and charged with trafficking underage girls for sex
Omar’s spokesperson is already discrediting the report due to Lazzaro’s involvement
A shadowy Republican group is behind the surreptitious sleuthing and claims this finally proves the two are siblings
Persistent claims that leftist congresswoman Ilhan Omar married her own brother to get around US immigration laws may be legitimized by what appears to be a conclusive DNA test.
The results of the test assert that there is a 99.999998% chance that Omar and her second husband Ahmed Elmi are siblings.
The report, drawn up by Endeavor DNA Laboratories does not name either Omar or Elmi, instead referring to them as ‘Sibling 1’ and ‘Sibling 2.’ DailyMail.com understands that Omar is Sibling 1.
It says that Sibling 1’s sample was garnered from a cigarette butt and Sibling 2’s from a drinking straw.
Omar has never before been known publicly to be a smoker, although her third husband Tim Mynett is. However, a grainy picture of her with a cigarette in her mouth, said to have been taken outside her home in Washington, D.C. appears as part of the evidence gathered in an intensive investigation by a shadowy conservative group.
Endeavour Laboratories did not name either Omar or Elmi on the results, identifying them merely as ‘Sibling 1’ and ‘Sibling 2.’ DailyMail.com understands Sibling 1 is Omar
The test was posted online by Anton Lazzaro, a Republican strategist in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Around 12 hours later Lazzaro was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges.
He is now in custody awaiting a hearing on Monday.
Lazarro’s lawyer Zachary Newland could not immediately be reached as he was on a flight. However he confirmed by email that the website was put up by his client.
Omar’s spokesman Jeremy Slevin threw shade on the report. ‘This is a fraudulent website created by a man charged this week with child sex trafficking and lying to federal investigators to cover it up,’ he said in a statement.
The supposed DNA match between the two was posted on Republican strategist Anton Lazzaro’s (pictured) Facebook page and Twitter feed just before he was arrested and charged with trafficking underage girls for sex
Endeavor, which is based in El Paso, Texas did not return a call for comment. The company charges $189 for a siblingship test.
DailyMail.com understands that a shadowy Republican group was planning to release details of a DNA report in the next day or two. It is not known what relationship Lazarro, 30, has to that group.
Its work could have been undermined by Lazarro as it gives Minnesota congresswoman Omar, 38, an opportunity to try to discredit the information as coming from a tainted source.
Lazzaro’s website says that the group garnered a DNA sample from Elmi’s straw in Leicester, England as part of a two-year investigation. He has recently been living in both Kenya and on the east African island of Zanzibar.
The test result appears to show that some of the DNA matches are exact while others are close. The group behind the surreptitious sleuthing claims this proves the two are siblings.
Claims that Omar and Elmi, 36, are siblings have been rampant for years. The allegation is that they married so Elmi, a British citizen could go to school in the United States. He followed Omar to North Dakota State University.
Lazzaros’ website says: ‘Rep. Omar was a U.S. Citizen for a decade and her brother/ex-husband Mr. Elmi was a UK Citizen.
‘This is purely a crime of convenience, by an individual with extremely poor ethics now representing hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans in Congress. There was absolutely no threat to these individuals causing them to commit multiple felonies while living in the two wealthiest countries in the world seeking reduced tuition at a public University.
Omar, who was first elected to Congress in 2018, has never fully addressed the question of whether she is related to Elmi. While serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives she did issue a press release in which she called the allegations ‘absurd and offensive.’
In her memoir, This Is What America Looks Like, published last year, she claims she hardly knew him when they married, saying: ‘I had a Britney Spears-style meltdown, I not only eloped with a man — whom I spent so little time with that I wouldn’t even make him a footnote in my story if it weren’t for the fact that this event turned into the main headline later on — but I shaved my head.
‘Yes, like the beleaguered pop star, who shaved her head in 2007, I took clippers to my own head. Too many headaches, too little sleep — I had to flee myself, my relationships, my hair.
‘The difference between Britney and me is that I wore a hijab, so nobody knew what I had done — except my children who were very surprised. ”Mommy looks like me,” Adnan (her young son) declared. And he was right, I did look like a little boy.’
She didn’t even name Elmi in her memoirs.
Although Ilhan Omar is not known to be a smoker publicly, Elmi has been seen smoking along with her current husband Tim Mynett.
Omar was married to Ahmed Hirsi — who she later remarried. They have since divorced and in March 2020 she married Mynett, her chief fundraiser
But others have long claimed that she married him so he could go to school in the United States. She had come to America as a refugee fleeing war in her native Somalia, but he had taken up British nationality.
He followed her to North Dakota State University, after their marriage in 2009. A Christian minister performed the ceremony despite the fact that both are Muslim.
Somali blogger Abdihakim Osman Nur told DailyMail.com in February last year that he had known Omar growing up and suddenly her brother arrived in Minneapolis.
At the time Omar was married to Ahmed Hirsi — who she later remarried. They have since divorced and in March 2020 she married Mynett, her chief fundraiser.
‘No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,’ Nur said, about the Elmi-Omar marriage.
‘People began noticing that Ilhan and Southside were often with a very effeminate young guy,’ Osman said, referring to Hirsi by his nickname.
‘He was very feminine in the way he dressed — he would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very, very, short shorts in the summer. People started whispering about him, added Nur, who spoke in Somali through an interpreter.
‘Southside and Ilhan both told me it was Ilhan’s brother and he had been living in London but he was mixing with what were seen as bad influences that the family did not like,’ added Nur.
‘So they sent him to Minneapolis as ”rehab”.’
Nur said that Omar kept her marriage to Elmi quiet, with no one from the Somali community invited to the wedding that was held at a county office in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
He explained: ‘When Southside and Ilhan got married, a lot of people were invited. It was a big Islamic wedding uniting two large clans in the Minneapolis community.
‘I would say there were 100-150 people there.’
But he said: ‘When she married Elmi, no one even knew about it.’
Nur said he believed Elmi and Omar sought out someone outside the Somali community to conduct the ceremony because an imam would have known they were related and would have refused to marry them.+10
Elmi and Omar married on February 12, 2009 at a Hennepin County office in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, southwest of Minneapolis, their license shows. The marriage was conducted by a Christian minister+10
In the late 2000s Elmi (pictured) appeared in Minneapolis, said Somali blogger Abdihakim Osman. ‘People began noticing that Ilhan and [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy. He was very feminine in the way he dressed — he would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very short shorts in the summer. People started whispering about him. [Hirsi] and Ilhan told me it was Ilhan’s brother’
The marriage was conducted by Christian minister Wilecia Harris. When DailyMail.com approached her in 2019 she would not discuss the ceremony or why a Muslim couple would have asked her to marry them.
In a Facebook message, Harris’s husband Marcus told DailyMail.com: ‘My wife doesn’t want to be involved or interviewed about Congresswoman Omar.’
‘It’s not going to happen, not now and not never.’
Lazzaro’s arrest could complicate the latest attempts to prove the congresswoman may have broken federal immigration laws.
According to a press release from the Department of Justice in Minnesota, Lazzaro ‘conspired with others to recruit and solicit six minor victims to engage in commercial sex acts.’
‘The indictment charges Lazzaro with one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, five counts of sex trafficking of minors, one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor, and three counts of obstruction.’
He is being held in federal custody until a hearing on Monday.
Lazzaro, who has appeared on Fox News and other conservative media outlets has posted pictures of himself posing with former president Donald Trump, former vice-president Mike Pence and other leading Republicans.
According to the Daily Beast, which broke the story of his arrest, the FBI had raided Lazzaro’s luxury apartment in the Hotel Ivy Residences in downtown Minneapolis in December last year.
‘The indictment accuses Lazzaro of having ‘recruited’ at least five underage victims for paid sex between May and December last year, and trying to entice a sixth. It also says he ‘knowingly and intentionally interfered’ with the investigation as it closed in on him,’ the Daily Beast reported.
The outlet said law enforcement served the condo building’s management company with a search warrant seeking Lazzaro’s bank records and video surveillance footage a week before the raid.
At the time, Lazzaro told the Daily Beast: someone had ‘made a false allegation against me,’ and he said the matter was ‘almost resolved.’
On Saturday 18 RINOs joined Democrats to pass the Democrat Party’s infrastructure bill. Democrats never allowed a similar bill to reach President Trump’s desk last year.
The RINOs gave Joe Biden a rare win at a time when the illegitimate president is sinking in the polls and continues to struggle with his diminishing faculties.
Mitch McConnell led the charge of the RINOs. Here are the 18 GOP members who voted for this monstrosity on Saturday:
** Mitch McConnell ** Roy Blunt of Missouri, **Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, **Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, **Susan Collins of Maine, **John Cornyn of Texas, **Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, **Mike Crapo of Idaho, **Chuck Grassley of Iowa, **John Hoeven of North Dakota, **Deb Fischer of Nebraska, **Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, **Rob Portman of Ohio, **Jim Risch of Idaho, **Mitt Romney of Utah, **Thom Tillis of North Carolina, **Todd Young of Indiana **Mike Rounds of South Dakota.
On Sunday morning Senator Kevin Cramer joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures to discuss his vote for the Socialist infrastructure plan. Big mistake. Maria Bartiromo chewed him up and spit him out — as he deserved.
Bartiromo pointed out in the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” monstrosity there is not a single dime for a border wall during the worst border crisis in US history. Cramer had no response. Instead he started spouting off about the globalists at the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable who support the Uniparty spending plan.
Cramer was outmatched and looked ridiculous. Maria destroyed him.
On Monday the War Room panel pointed out that there is not a dime in the trillion dollar plan supported by RINOs for border security. And yet 18 Republicans voted for it. It is clear these dirty RINOs DO NOT support their constituents.
Below are the 17 REPUBLICAN Senators and links to EMAIL THEM, keep your messages short, but let’s flood their email boxes with messages like “VOTE NO on Trillion Dollar Infrastructure bill”, “NO to Socialism”, “NO to GREEN NEW DEAL”.
The city’s enforcement against shoplifters has dwindled, and these are the results.
San Francisco ranks as the fifth-worst city in the US when it comes to retail theft. Now, the problem is getting so bad that businesses like Target and Walgreens are being forced to make drastic changes in response.
“For more than a month, we’ve been experiencing a significant and alarming rise in theft and security incidents at our San Francisco stores,” a Target spokesperson said. “With the safety of our guests, team members and communities as our top priority, we’ve temporarily reduced our operating hours in six San Francisco stores.”
Target stores normally stay open to 10:00 pm, but many in the San Francisco area will now close their doors at 5:00 pm or 6:00 pm. Meanwhile, Walgreens stores are faring even worse, with some shutting their doors altogether.
“Representatives from Walgreens said that thefts at its stores in San Francisco were four times the chain’s national average, and that it had closed 17 stores, largely because the scale of thefts had made business untenable,” the New York Timesreported.
This isn’t just a problem at big-box retailers, either. The California Retailers Association has decried the rampant theft, which is hurting Golden State businesses small and large. Theft has gotten so bad in some parts of San Francisco that it is beyond belief.
“I’m new to San Francisco,” Times journalist Thomas Fuller told a grocery store clerk shortly after moving to the city. “Is it optional to pay for things here?” It sounds like an absurd thing to ask, but Fuller explains that he was genuinely forced to wonder what was going on after he witnessed people walk into Walgreens and Safeway, grab stuff, and walk out.
The dysfunction-driven closures and scale-backs at major retailers will hurt everyday Californians. From the workers whose hours are cut to the customers who can’t get the products they need, this undermining of the market will have many victims beyond just those who are directly robbed.
The sad affair is another reminder of the timeless truth described by economist Thomas Sowell, who said that property rights “belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.”
Protecting property rights is a necessary precursor for basic economic activity to function. As I previously explained on FEE.org:
“When property rights are insecure or routinely violated—widespread looting and arson are prime examples—the very foundation of a community’s economy is undermined. Investors understandably balk at the uncertainty and forgo investing there, while entrepreneurs cannot launch new enterprises or even continue current ones without the knowledge that they will be secure in their property. As a result, job opportunities and income streams dry up.”
This is why millions of our taxpayer dollars are given to police departments and other government agencies tasked with enforcing property and protecting our rights. But in San Francisco, they’ve woefully failed this most basic responsibility.
A 2014 ballot referendum downgraded theft of goods less than $950 in value to just a misdemeanor, a slap on the wrist, and the city’s enforcement against shoplifters has dwindled in the years since.
That’s why Target and Walgreens are being forced to take drastic actions to protect their stores. But if widespread violation of property rights continues unpunished, they won’t be the last businesses in San Francisco to close their doors in response.
+10![In the late 2000s Elmi (pictured) appeared in Minneapolis, said Somali blogger Abdihakim Osman. 'People began noticing that Ilhan and [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy. He was very feminine in the way he dressed — he would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very short shorts in the summer. People started whispering about him. [Hirsi] and Ilhan told me it was Ilhan's brother'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/08/13/16/24850290-9891015-In_the_late_2000s_Elmi_pictured_appeared_in_Minneapolis_said_Som-a-19_1628868462799.jpg)
+10
