Sound familiar? [US Patriot]

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.

“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.

Taliban Declare Ban on Slogans, Protests That Don’t Have Its Approval (theepochtimes.com)

What’s Happening:

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.

Source: Fox Business

Biden’s Democrats Tell Joe They Are “Furious” With Him – Leading Democrat Blumenthal Accuses Joe Of Delaying Escape Flights (thepatriotjournal.com)

Blinken and Psaki said prisoners posed no threat

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.

Top Biden Officials Backed the 2014 Bergdahl Deal. Now, the Terrorists Released Are Taking the Reins in Afghanistan. (freebeacon.com)

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.

What Afghanistan Teaches Us About Our Ruling Class (theepochtimes.com)

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.

Biden Administration Word Games Cannot Hide Prolonged Hostage Crisis (theepochtimes.com)

From Fox News:

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.

The Biden administration’s delaying of private evacuation efforts has been a widespread source of frustration, infuriating rescue organizers and even a prominent Democratic senator. 

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.”  

Read the full report here.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘State Department Obstruction of Private Rescue Flights from Afghanistan Revealed’ | Sean Hannity

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.

So, where does your congressman stand?

About two dozen Republicans have called for Biden to be impeached. What about your congressman? (foramerica.org)

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.

Taliban Taps Terrorist Wanted by FBI for New Government (freebeacon.com)

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.

DHS’s Shift to Domestic Terrorism Is ‘Chasing the Shiny Object,’ Says Ex-DHS Head at 9/11 Anniversary Event (theepochtimes.com)

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.

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.”

‘Get to the Back of the Line’: Interpreter Feels Betrayed by US Government (theepochtimes.com)

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.

As Taliban Grounds Planes Out of Afghanistan, Biden Administration Says There’s Little It Can Do (freebeacon.com)

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.

US Can Move Beyond Afghanistan Shambles With Alliance of Democracies (theepochtimes.com)

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.

In recent weeks, the Taliban has urged employed Afghan women to temporarily stay indoors until fighters of the terrorist group are trained in “respecting and dealing with women.”

“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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Taliban Accused of Executing Pregnant Afghan Police Officer in Front of Family (theepochtimes.com)

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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.

Trending:Afghan National Stabs Woman Working Outside Because He Didn’t Think It Was an Appropriate Job for Women

A solid majority of voters believe that Congress should investigate the withdrawal.

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.

It certainly stands to reason that any voter would want Congress to investigate what happened regardless of who was to blame.Related:Apprentice Winner & Major Star Predicts Possible End of Biden’s Presidency

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.

Bad News for Biden: It Looks Like Voters Aren’t Going to Let Fatal Afghan Withdrawal Be Forgotten (westernjournal.com)

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.”

She noted that the interaction was roughly three minutes long and spoke about how the president tried to relate it to his own son’s death from cancer.Trending:Afghan National Stabs Woman Working Outside Because He Didn’t Think It Was an Appropriate Job for Women

“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.

If the Biden administration properly accounted for the threat of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate while withdrawing troops, this tragedy could have been prevented.Related:Apprentice Winner & Major Star Predicts Possible End of Biden’s Presidency

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.

Gold Star Sister: I Had to Walk Out of Meeting with Biden After 15 Seconds Because I Was So Disgusted (westernjournal.com)

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.”

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.

Taliban Holding Americans Hostage at Afghanistan Airport: Top Republican Lawmaker (theepochtimes.com)

My first encounter with Afghanistan was many years ago through Eric Newby’s “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.”

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.

I think my next virtual trip to Afghanistan was through Peter Hopkirk’s riveting book “The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia.”

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.”

Afghanistan: the Mistake Was Not Going In, It Was How We Left (theepochtimes.com)

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.

The withdrawal ended on Aug. 30, leaving behind between 100 and 200 Americans, according to administration officials. A chunk of those were schoolchildren from California.

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.

‘I’d Do It Again Tomorrow’ Congressman Says After Attempt to Rescue Americans Stranded in Afghanistan (theepochtimes.com)

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.”

Fact check: He did not.

Biden’s Other Vietnam (Times Four) (freebeacon.com)

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.

Afghan Refugees Not Tested for COVID Before Landing in US (freebeacon.com)

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, 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.”

As Reports Come in of US Citizens Still in Afghanistan, GOP Reps Question Numbers Quoted by Biden Admin (theepochtimes.com)

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.

Afghanistan Brings Disaster, but no Responsibility is Taken (theepochtimes.com)

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.

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.

40,000 From Afghanistan Airlift Have Entered United States: Official (theepochtimes.com)

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.

“Kash’s Corner” premiers every Friday at 8 p.m.—exclusive on EpochTV.

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Epoch TV Review: You Can’t Blame Trump for This (theepochtimes.com)

“House Democrats just refused to recognize Republican veterans on the House Floor to read the names of our fallen service members in Afghanistan,” Florida combat veteran, Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) said on Twitter. “That’s how far our nation has fallen.”

House Democrats just refused to recognize Republican veterans on the House Floor to read the names of our fallen service members in Afghanistan.

That’s how far our nation has fallen.— Congressman Greg Steube (@RepGregSteube) August 31, 2021

Rep. Carlos A. Giminez (R-FL) blasted Pelosi and the House Democrats on Tuesday, saying “how badly do Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats want to cover up this Afghanistan debacle? They just blocked Members of Congress from reading the names of the service members who sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan last week. Don’t you think our military deserves better?”

How badly do Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats want to cover up this Afghanistan debacle?

They just blocked Members of Congress from reading the names of the service members who sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan last week.

Don’t you think our military deserves better?— Congressman Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) August 31, 2021

Wounded combat veteran from Afghanistan, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), told The Floridian “during a Republican-only moment of silence, Speaker Pelosi refused to recognize them to read names or bring up bills or anything. We gaveled in, had a prayer, said the Pledge of Allegiance, took a moment of silence with pretty much all Republican veterans, then asked to be recognized to read names and bring up Afghanistan legislation. They did not acknowledge us, and just closed the House down.”

On Monday, Congresswoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) announced that she and 158 co-sponsors introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would posthumously award the Congressional Gold Medal to the 13 slain US service members. This medal is Congress’ most distinguished award.

Today, I introduced bipartisan legislation, alongside 158 cosponsors, to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the 13 servicemembers killed in #Afghanistan last week. These valiant men and women will never be forgotten. https://t.co/voOU2yZuko— Representative Lisa McClain (@RepLisaMcClain) August 31, 2021

It was detailed in her press release that the legislation would award the Congressional Gold Medal to Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, Sgt. Nicole Gee, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, Cpl. Daegan Page, Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, Cpl. David Lee Espinoza, Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, Hospitalman Maxton Soviak and Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss.

“These heroic men and women are gone far too soon, and we must honor them for their bravery in helping U.S. citizens and Afghan allies safely evacuate Afghanistan,” Rep. McClain said. “My heart aches for the families and loved ones of our servicemembers. We will always remember their service and pay tribute to their sacrifice.”

Pelosi blocked legislators from reading names of slain US troops: GOP reps | The Post Millennial

How does a leader decide what to do?

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.

Cui Bono? Who Benefits From the Afghanistan Withdrawal? (theepochtimes.com)

State Department official ‘haunted’ by failure to assist special immigrant visa applicants

The majority of Afghan special immigrant visa applicants who aided U.S. forces did not safely exit Afghanistan before the Biden administration withdrew, the State Department said on Wednesday.

A State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Politico he and his team are “haunted” by the failure to assist applicants, many of whom were translators and aides for U.S. forces for decades in Afghanistan, often in life-or-death situations. The United States opened up 34,500 slots for SIV applicants, but an estimated 50,000 Afghans were interested in applying.

“There were days it did not work well,” a State Department official said. “We had a couple of instances where buses were a mix of foreign nationals and Afghan local employees of other missions, and the Talibs would only let pass the foreign nationals, and they turned away or they held at that location the Afghan citizens who were on that particular movement.”

Taliban checkpoints at the Kabul airport and nearby—as well as brutal killings of Afghans suspected of working with the United States—hindered the evacuation of some translators.

One Afghan interpreter who was left behind had rescued President Joe Biden during a 2008 visit to Afghanistan. Biden and former senators Chuck Hagel (R.) and John Kerry (D.) landed in a dangerous valley during a snowstorm and required evacuation with the assistance of the translator. He is now hiding out in Afghanistan with his wife and four children.

“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” the translator told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. “Don’t forget me here.”

Another translator who was unable to secure a safe exit from Afghanistan expressed fear to the Washington Free Beacon that he would be killed if spotted by the Taliban. Up to 200 Americans, including dozens of children, also remain in the Taliban-controlled country.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) ripped the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal in a Tuesday statement.

“President Biden prioritized political considerations over American lives and national security,” Cruz said. “He imposed an artificial deadline untethered from conditions on the ground, and refused to adjust or adapt even as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan and catastrophes mounted. He met his artificial deadline but broke all the promises he made to the American people. … And he dragged our nation into a crippling, humiliating defeat that has shaken our allies and emboldened our enemies.”

Majority of Afghan Allies Not Out of Afghanistan, State Department Says (freebeacon.com)

Facebook and Instagram removed Shana Chappell’s posts criticizing Biden

A Republican congresswoman is pushing Facebook and Instagram to explain why they censored posts critical of President Biden by the mother of a Marine killed in Afghanistan, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.) called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri to explain why the social media sites removed posts by Shana Chappell that criticized Biden for the debacle in Afghanistan and his allegedly callous behavior at the transfer of her son’s remains.

Chappell’s Instagram account was suspended and one of her Facebook posts was hidden, although both were later restored. Facebook, which owns Instagram, said Chappell’s Instagram account was “incorrectly deleted.” When asked for clarification on why Chappell’s Instagram account was removed, a spokesman said the platform does not “comment on how enforcements occurred.”

Tenney wants the companies to explain their behavior. “Our Gold Star families and the American public deserve better than this,” she wrote. “After sacrificing so much for the safety and security of our Nation, their speech should not be stifled by faceless Silicon Valley censors.”

Facebook and Instagram have come under fire for unclear or partisan content moderation. Facebook has “downranked” articles that argued COVID-19 escaped a Chinese lab. Tenney serves on the House GOP’s “Tech Task Force,” which is preparing a legislative package to tackle the power of major tech companies.

In the letter, Tenney expressed concerns about politically motivated censorship. “I am aware that the White House acknowledged it would be flagging for Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, posts it deemed ‘problematic.’ Weaponizing the power of the Executive Branch against an open public discourse is wholly un-American, and it would be a crucial error for Instagram to assist in this.”

Biden has not shied away from exerting leverage over Facebook. In June, he accused the platform of “killing people” by allowing “misinformation” about COVID on the site. Multiple former Facebook executives serve in the Biden White House.

According to a Facebook spokesman, Chappell’s “tribute to her heroic son does not violate any of our policies.” Chappell said that after she posted about her son, Instagram began flagging her older posts and warned that her account would be deleted if she continued posting. It is unclear what triggered the warnings on older posts.

GOP Congresswoman Asks Facebook To Explain Suspension of Gold Star Mother (freebeacon.com)

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.

Republicans Blame Pentagon Planner Colin Kahl for Bungled Afghanistan Strategy (freebeacon.com)

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.

Instead, journalists are being taught that it is fine to advocate for green climate change messages. We even have global media like the BBC instructing their journalists not to be balanced on 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.

Global Elite Latches Onto Neo-Socialist Vision: The Green New Deal (theepochtimes.com)

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.”

‘They’re Looking for Them Door to Door’: Afghans in New York React to Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan (theepochtimes.com)

Former Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles spoke with Sean Hannity Tuesday night on the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan, saying he has never seen a President or administration turn its back on the American people like Joe Biden’s White House.

“In my history of government service, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a constellation of officials from the National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, President, and Vice President who have turned their backs on Americans,” said Charles.

“Some resignations are in line,” he added.

Charles’ assessment is not un-common. New polls show sagging support for Joe Biden and his administration.

A new survey from Morning Consult spells more bad news for Joe Biden, with roughly 6 in 10 saying the country has “seriously gone off on the wrong track.”

“The study, conducted from Saturday to Monday, found that 61 percent of respondents believe the country is on the wrong track, compared to just 39 percent who say the country is ‘going in the right direction,’” reports The Hill.

“The survey also found a record-low overall approval rating for Biden at 47 percent, with 49 percent saying they disapproved of the president’s job performance overall,” adds the website.

6 in 10 say US has “seriously gone off on the wrong track”: poll https://t.co/nX5L22jmkL pic.twitter.com/d3bahrBc88

— The Hill (@thehill) September 1, 2021

The poll reflects a series of scandals, mistakes, and outright failures of the Biden administration in recent months.

Watch the former officials’ comments above.

EX STATE DEPT OFFICIAL: I’ve Never Seen an Entire Admin ‘Turn Their Backs on Americans’ | Sean Hannity

One small business owner in Florida has had enough with the Biden Administration and its supporters, posting an emotional message on the door just hours after more than a dozen US troops were murdered in Afghanistan.

Angie Ugarte, owner of the DeBary Diner, said felt compelled to make the statement after the deadly terror attack and President’s inept response.

“If you voted for and continue to support and stand behind the worthless, inept and corrupt administration currently inhabiting the White House that is complicit in the death of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan, please take your business elsewhere,” stated the signage.

“God bless America and God bless our soldiers,” concluded the note.

The message was added to the door the same day a suicide blast killed 13 US Service Members at Kabul’s International Airport.

The owner of DeBary Diner, posted the sign.

“If you voted for and continue to support and stand behind the worthless , inept and corrupt administration currently inhabiting the White House… please take your business elsewhere.”https://t.co/rogEyWFo7Q

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) August 31, 2021

“I was just angry. I was just let down. I felt like one of those mothers, or wives, or sisters who were gonna get that knock on the door,” said Ugarte.

“If you really, really still stand behind what’s allowed this to happen and the way it happened – which was unnecessary then I really don’t want to be associated with you in any way and I certainly don’t want your business,” she added.

‘TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE’: Diner Posts Fiery Message to Biden Supporters After Kabul Terror Strike | Sean Hannity

The White House issued a major clarification in the transcript from Joe Biden’s address on Afghanistan Tuesday afternoon; stating the actual number of Americans that got out of the country was 98%, not 90% as said by the President during the speech.

“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,” said Biden.

“The bottom line: Ninety [Ninety-eight] percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” states the transcript on the official White House webpage.

President Biden defended his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan during the address, labeling the effort an “extraordinary success.”

“No nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will to do it, and we did it today. The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill and bravery and selflessness courage of the United States Military,” said the President.

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.

“The Embassy will continue to provide information via the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), the Embassy web page, Travel.State.Gov, and Facebook and Twitter.  Consular services remain available outside Afghanistan.  To locate the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate click here,” adds the warning.

“Make contingency plans to leave when it is safe to do so that do not rely on U.S. government assistance,” warns the message.

Read the full report at the NY Post.

CLUELESS JOE? White House ‘Corrects’ Biden’s Claim 90% of Americans Got Out of Afghanistan | Sean Hannity

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.

BIDEN BREAKS PROMISE TO ‘STAY’ IN AFGHANISTAN UNTIL EVERY AMERICAN EVACUATED

“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.

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“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. 

Biden pressed Afghan president to change ‘perception’ that Taliban was winning, ‘whether true or not’ | Fox News

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.

Afghan Interpreter Who Rescued Biden from Snowy Afghanistan Valley in 2008 Gets Left Behind by US (westernjournal.com)

President Joe Biden waived a mandate in June that would have forced the Pentagon to provide a detailed report to Congress about the risks of leaving Afghanistan.

Under the federal statute, the administration was barred from reducing troops in Afghanistan below 2,000 without first briefing Congress about the expected impact on U.S. counterterrorism operations and the risk to American personnel. Biden waived the mandate in June, arguing that providing this information to Congress could undermine “the national security interests of the United States.”

The Biden administration spent months assuring Congress that the U.S.-trained Afghan forces would be able to forestall a Taliban takeover when American troops left the country on a pre-determined deadline. That assessment was proven wrong days after the withdrawal, when the Taliban overran the Afghan National Army and seized control of Kabul, forcing a chaotic evacuation of U.S. personnel and allies.

National security experts and Republican lawmakers told the Washington Free Beacon that the waiver blocked Congress and the public from reviewing the administration’s internal national security assessments prior to the withdrawal—details that could have been used to prevent or minimize the catastrophe currently unfolding in the war-torn country.

“If we had answers to these questions we might not be in the horrible debacle we’re in now,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who in April wrote about the statute and the likelihood that the administration would try to dodge it.

“I think the fact that they used the national security waiver to refuse to answer these questions in the light of day tells me their answers could not have stood up to scrutiny,” Bowman said.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R., N.Y.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the administration should be held accountable for withholding this information from Congress.

“It is increasingly clear that President Biden never had a plan in place to safely withdraw from Afghanistan, so it is no surprise he never shared it with Congress like the law requires,” said Tenney. “As we work to complete the critical mission of bringing every American and Afghan ally home, we must also be pressing for answers and accountability. I am calling on Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi to begin the impeachment process in the House immediately to determine how this crisis became such a catastrophe and to hold Biden accountable for his failure to lead.”

A senior congressional aide said Biden’s waiver showed a “blatant disregard for conditions on the ground,” noting that a State Department cable in June warned about the potential for an imminent Taliban takeover of Kabul after the United States pulled out.

“Against the advice of the military, the [intelligence community], and our diplomats—as evidenced by the dissent cable—the Biden administration continued its blind rush to the exits without regard for the consequences,” said the aide. “Apart from the collapse of the Afghan government and the humanitarian catastrophe at the airport, we are just now seeing the long-term implications of this rushed withdrawal, to include a renewed terror threat against U.S. interests, the proliferation of captured equipment, and the loss of hard-earned rights for Afghanistan’s women and girls.”

The law, which was instituted as part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, prohibited the Department of Defense from using its budget to reduce troop levels without first providing Congress with a report about the impact a withdrawal would have on the “ongoing U.S. counterterrorism mission against the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and associated forces; the risk to U.S. personnel in Afghanistan; and the risk for the expansion of existing or the formation of new international terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan.”

The Pentagon was also required to provide details on “the threat posed by the Taliban and other terrorist organizations in Afghanistan” and “the capacity of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces to effectively prevent or defend against attacks by the Taliban.”

Biden said he would waive the requirement because he “determined that a waiver of the limitation under subsection 1215(a) is important to the national security interests of the United States” in a June 8 letter to Congress.

“We will withdraw responsibly, deliberately, and safely, in full coordination with our allies and partners,” wrote Biden. “Our NATO allies and operational partners, who have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us for almost 20 years and who have also made great sacrifices, will now withdraw alongside our forces as we stand by our enduring principle of ‘in together, out together.'”

Biden Waived Congressional Mandate for Report on Afghanistan Withdrawal Risks (freebeacon.com)

On the heels of what sounded like a disastrous meeting between President Joe Biden and family members of those killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul last week, GOP members of Congress said that one of their Democratic colleagues blocked the names of the 13 deceased service members from being read on the floor Tuesday.

While members of one Gold Star family walked out of a meeting with President Joe Biden before he even got a chance to speak with them, one Democrat shut down Republican veterans who wanted to read off the names of those lost.

This is all terrible.

During a pro forma session, a group of Republicans gathered on the House floor to introduce a bill to demand accountability from the Biden administration over its handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

On Monday, the last troops pulled out of the country, ending the 20-year war in which several of the GOP members served. The Taliban appeared to mark the occasion by hanging a person by the neck from one of the Black Hawk helicopters that Biden left behind.

Trending:Biden Sounds Like He Has a Bout of Dementia When Trying to Talk: ‘I’m Here, Uh, Uh, Uh, Eh’

The GOP contingent of Republican veterans said House leadership refused to recognize their attempt to read the names of the 12 Marines and one Navy corpsman who lost their lives in an ISIS-K suicide bomb attack outside an entrance to the Kabul airport on Thursday in the final days of the chaotic evacuation.

“We gaveled in, had a prayer, said the Pledge of Allegiance, took a moment of silence with pretty much all Republican veterans, then asked to be recognized to read names and bring up Afghanistan legislation. They did not acknowledge us and just closed the House down,” Florida Rep. Brian Mast, himself a combat veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan, told The Floridian on Tuesday.

Fox News reported that the bill was introduced by Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and would have required the Biden administration to establish a plan to bring the Americans still trapped in Afghanistan safely home. The State Department said Monday the number of Americans left behind when troops withdrew is in the “low hundreds.”

Yet when the group of roughly 30 Republicans tried to get recognition to introduce their bill and read the names of the deceased service members, they were gaveled out by Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan, who was presiding over the chamber.

“How can you not read the names?” one member shouted, according to the Washington Examiner. “Turn your back on our country,” another yelled.

Illinois Rep. Mary Miller called Dingell’s move “shameful” on Twitter.

Democrats just shut down the House Floor when Afghanistan veterans stood up to speak.

Shameful.

— Congresswoman Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) August 31, 2021

“Don’t you think our military deserves better?” Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida tweeted.

How badly do Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats want to cover up this Afghanistan debacle?

They just blocked Members of Congress from reading the names of the service members who sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan last week.

Don’t you think our military deserves better?

— Congressman Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) August 31, 2021

Related:‘Blood on Your Hands’: Biden Slammed by Furious Relatives of Abandoned Afghans in WH Protest

“We had hoped to have an opportunity to be recognized to move a bill by veteran Mike Gallagher. It’s very simple what we’re requesting,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said at a news conference later in the day, according to Fox. “What is the plan to bring Americans home safely? Not some, but every single American?”

“Speaker Pelosi, now is not the time to act like you could not see us on the floor,” he added. “Now is not the time to hide. We are a co-equal branch.”

The Examiner noted that while Republicans had expected their bill to be blocked on the floor, they “hope that bipartisan support can grow for the bill as they start on a variety of actions to hold the Biden administration accountable for the chaotic withdrawal” and they have something else up their sleeve.

“The next opportunity is a committee markup session for the annual spending bill that funds the U.S. Military, the National Defense Authorization Act. Proposed Republican amendments include requiring an accounting of what equipment was left behind, an explanation for why Bagram Air Base was abandoned, and regular congressional briefings on the groups that will form because of the withdrawal,” the outlet explained.

These are all certainly pressing issues — and it doesn’t bode well for the Washington Democratic establishment that Pelosi’s cohorts in the House responded to this demand for accountability by not only ignoring the members who wished to speak, including veterans who served in the very war that Biden so disastrously ended, but also ignoring a request to read the names of those last 13 lives lost in the conflict.

It’s unthinkable that Americans were abandoned to the hands of a murderous terrorist regime, and you’d think that there would easily be bipartisan support for a bill demanding the Biden administration come up with a plan to recover them.

Will the Democrats just ignore the names of American civilians killed when the harrowing stories of what the Taliban has done to them start trickling in, like they ignored the names of our honorable service members on the House floor?

Dem Congresswoman Blocks Names of 13 Dead Service Members from Being Read on House Floor (westernjournal.com)

On Saturday, The Washington Post published a detailed account of events that occurred on Aug. 15, the day the city of Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Six writers collaborated on the article, which they inform readers is the result of “nearly two dozen interviews with U.S. and Afghan officials, a Taliban commander and residents of the city.” Most of these sources wished to remain anonymous.

Buried deep down in the lengthy piece came this startling revelation: “In a hastily arranged in-person meeting, senior U.S. military leaders in Doha — including [Gen. Kenneth] McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command — spoke with Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban’s political wing.”

According to the U.S. official, Baradar said, “We have a problem. We have two options to deal with it: You [the United States military] take responsibility for securing Kabul or you have to allow us to do it.”

“Throughout the day, Biden had remained resolute in his decision to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan. The collapse of the Afghan government hadn’t changed his mind,” the Post reported.Trending:Biden Sounds Like He Has a Bout of Dementia When Trying to Talk: ‘I’m Here, Uh, Uh, Uh, Eh’

“McKenzie, aware of those orders, told Baradar that the U.S. mission was only to evacuate American citizens, Afghan allies and others at risk. The United States, he told Baradar, needed the airport to do that.

“On the spot, an understanding was reached, according to two other U.S. officials: The United States could have the airport until Aug. 31. But the Taliban would control the city.”

So, according to three U.S. officials, the Taliban offered U.S. military leaders the chance to secure the Kabul airport as they evacuated Americans and Afghan allies, and they declined. This is remarkable.

Although the Post did not report that President Joe Biden made this decision, I can’t imagine that McKenzie would have signed off on something so monumental without the authorization of the commander in chief.Do you think the Biden administration should have accepted the Taliban’s offer to control the airport during the evacuation?Yes No
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Given the opportunity to bring in the additional troops that would be necessary to control the city during the evacuation period, the Biden administration chose to rely upon terrorists to provide protection.

The gravity of this miscalculation cannot be overstated.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, fearing a grisly execution at the hands of the Taliban, had already fled the presidential palace, and lawlessness was spreading throughout the city when this fateful meeting took place. The unthinkable had happened. The U.S.-backed Afghan government, which the Biden administration had expected to hold on for at least six months, had surrendered to the terrorists without a single shot being fired.

Afghanistan was engulfed in crisis, and thousands of American lives were in danger — and an even larger number of Afghan lives.

Still, the arrogant, stubborn and senile U.S. president chose the easier, softer way — the path of least resistance.Related:Dem Congresswoman Blocks Names of 13 Dead Service Members from Being Read on House Floor

When historians look back on pivotal events, they identify crucial decisions made at key moments that changed everything. This will be one of those.

The Biden administration’s previous blunders, such as withdrawing troops before evacuating U.S. and Afghan citizens and abandoning Bagram Airfield, had brought us to this point. The administration was fully aware the evacuation was going to be dangerous and messy, yet it foolishly turned down the chance to take control of the city.

Thirteen U.S. service members lost their lives Thursday after the Taliban allowed an ISIS-K suicide bomber through a checkpoint outside the airport, something that likely wouldn’t have happened if U.S. troops had controlled the city.

Retired U.S. Army General Don Bolduc joined Fox News’ Steve Hilton on his Sunday night show, “The Next Revolution.”

https://video.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=6270115931001&loc=westernjournal.com&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Fbiden-turned-offer-taliban-allow-us-control-kabul-airport-aug-31-report%2F&_xcf=

Hilton asked Bolduc to weigh in on this story. Bolduc said, “It’s complete and utter incompetence. … What a difference it would have made for us to have Kabul. They wouldn’t have been able to get close to the airfield. We wouldn’t have had this explosion. We wouldn’t have had these 13 deaths. We wouldn’t have Kabul, a city that was thriving, now is an utter cesspool.”

“If that was offered and the decision was not to accept that, then that is not only incompetence, but it’s absolute bad military judgment.”

Biden Turned Down Offer from Taliban to Allow US to Control Kabul Airport Until Aug. 31: Report (westernjournal.com)

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.

US Officials: Lists of Names Were Shared With Taliban (theepochtimes.com)

As the world watches events in Afghanistan unfold, many have started to wonder what the Taliban rule means for the future of the country’s opium production.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of the opium poppy, which is the raw material for heroin, one of the world’s deadliest drugs. The country accounted for nearly 83 percent of global opium production between 2015 and 2020, according to estimates of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). And it’s a key supplier for heroin markets across Europe and Asia.

The U.S. military presence failed to curtail opium production throughout the Afghan countryside. For two decades, opiate economy, which includes cultivation of the poppy, processing into heroin, and trafficking, has been a major source of cash for Afghanistan.

Despite its anti-heroin rhetoric, the Taliban has benefited greatly from this opium poppy economy and become a major player in the world’s drug trade.

In its first official press conference in Kabul, the Taliban pledged to end opium cultivation in Afghanistan, in an effort to gain acceptance from the international community.

“Today, when we entered Kabul, we saw a large number of our youth who was sitting under the bridges or next to the walls and they were using narcotics. This was so unfortunate,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters on Aug. 17.

“From now on, Afghanistan will be a narcotics-free country, but it needs international assistance,” he said, adding that foreign aid is needed to help Afghan farmers switch to alternative crops.

Afghanistan is noted for its high-quality fruits including pomegranates, grapes, and melons. Various international organizations in the past have helped Afghan families grow pomegranates, for example, as an important alternative to opium.

Despite its agriculture sector and rich mineral resources, the country has been critically dependent on foreign aid, which has dried up with the Taliban takeover.

International donors had been providing 75 percent of the Afghan government’s operating budget, Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a Chatham House report.

The Biden administration froze nearly $9 billion in Afghan government reserves that were held in the United States. The International Monetary Fund also blocked Afghanistan from receiving nearly $440 million in funds that were scheduled to be sent earlier. And the German government announced a suspension of $300 million in development aid budgeted for this year.

Financial sanctions will also make it difficult for international organizations to provide humanitarian aid to Afghan families.

Hence, the country is expected to drift into a humanitarian and financial crisis soon, according to experts, which may lead the new regime to increase illicit activities, including drug trafficking.

“The immediate effects of the financial squeeze in place is that cash liquidity in Afghanistan may drop, which will drive up inflation—including food prices—while disadvantaging Afghanistan’s poorest and the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people,” Felbab-Brown wrote.

As in the past, she noted, those who attempt to ban poppy cultivation in rural areas can “find themselves facing significant losses of political capital and violent opposition.”

Gretchen Peters, executive director at the Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime, believes the Taliban shouldn’t be trusted when it comes to its promises to eradicate the poppy trade.

“They pulled a maneuver like that back in the ’90s. They did actually succeed in banning farmers from growing poppy for a year,” she told NPR.

“But the secret was the Taliban were actually sitting on these huge, vast stores of opium. The price of opium went through the roof, and they sold it and made a lot more money than they had the year previous.”

According to Peters, the Taliban will now have full access to the capacities and institutions of state, including its banking system, airlines, and border crossings, which would make its drug trafficking a lot easier.

Recently, poppy cultivation has expanded in most regions of the country, soaring 37 percent in the past year alone, according to UNODC.

Amid Sanctions, Taliban Expected to Double Down on Drug Trafficking (theepochtimes.com)

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday acknowledged that Americans were stranded in Afghanistan despite earlier comments to the contrary made by White House officials. He said it’s not clear how many remain.

“Right now I think the tools we have available to us and that we’re going to use as a U.S. government is going to be more in the diplomatic, economic lanes, and we don’t really see a military role right now,” Kirby told MSNBC on Tuesday morning when asked if the U.S. military would play a role in rescuing those individuals.

When asked about whether the State Department could help evacuate Americans from the country amid Taliban terrorist rule, Kirby said that it will be similar to how the United States extracts its citizens from other countries.

“It’s not completely unlike the way we do it elsewhere around the world. We have Americans that get stranded in countries all the time and we do everything we can to try to facilitate safe passage,” Kirby said, which appeared to contradict comments made by White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Aug. 23 when she said it is wrong to refer to Americans stuck in Afghanistan as being stranded there.

During an exchange with a reporter last week, Psaki said, “I think it’s irresponsible to say Americans are stranded. They are not. We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home.” Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, during an ABC News earlier this month, vowed that the United States would evacuate every American who wanted to leave the country.

Also in the interview, Kirby said that the United States has “leverage” over the Taliban to “hold them to account,” adding “it’s going to be a whole-of-government effort, but I don’t see a military role at this time.”

Some Americans who remain in Afghanistan said they attempted to evacuate but weren’t successful.

“The last flight is gone and we’re left behind,” a U.S. citizen using a moniker said on Monday during a CNN interview.

Abound 6,000 U.S. citizens were flown out between Aug. 14 and Aug. 31, but “under 200, and likely close to 100,” are still in the country, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday.

“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,” he said. “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 wanted to leave.”

The remarks come as the final U.S. military flight out of Kabul was carried out on Monday, effectively leaving most of the country under Taliban control.

Pentagon Acknowledges Americans ‘Stranded’ in Afghanistan After Pullout (theepochtimes.com)

On August 18th 2021, The National Pulse exclusively reported that President Biden’s State Department had killed off plans for a “Crisis and Contingency Response” bureau which may have had “profound consequences,” according to a stunning new report by Vanity Fair published Monday.

“In July, at Antony Blinken’s State Department, bureaucratic decisions affecting the Afghan withdrawal, one insider said, were ‘slightly more organized than a Choose Your Own Adventure novel’,” the article begins, before detailing how newly minted Crisis and Contingency Response (CCR) bureau director Dr. William Walters had resigned on July 9th of this year.

Crisis and Contingency Response.

As the Taliban took Kabul, The National Pulse reported that a bureau green-lit by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Trump administration had been canceled by Biden’s pick for the role, Anthony Blinken.

Following our reporting, a number of left-wing outfits such as Politifact and Media Matters sought to discredit our reporting.

Now, a new report from Vanity Fair sheds more light on the “turf wars” inside the State Department that led to the rushed and botched evacuation from Afghanistan at departmental and political levels.

The Vanity Fair report also notes that while Biden’s State Department is claiming the CCR never existed, it is also making moves to inform Congress of the bureau’s abolition, as required by U.S. law:

A week later, on August 19, State’s Ned Price would tell reporters, in a sort of semantic jujitsu, that CCR was never actually created, which begs the question: Why have Price’s colleagues at State been preparing to notify Congress of a decision to “abolish” something that never existed?

The academic debate over CCR’s existence, however, obscures a far more elemental issue, which, at this date, remains unresolved: Why did Antony Blinken and his lieutenants rejigger and possibly degrade State’s in-house crisis planning and response capabilities on the eve of ending the longest war in American history?

Profound Consequences.

While publicly refuting the claims that the CCR had been canceled, and simultaneously claiming no competencies were lost in the move, Antony Blinken lauded Dr. Walters’s work in running CCR’s predecessor and his team known as “Op-Med”. In May, while setting up to destroy the Trump-era plans for a formal response unit inside the State Department, Blinken told Vanity Fair the unit was a “lifeline for the Department of State and the American people. Though perhaps lesser known outside of the Department, it’s vital to our operations. That’s because OpMed provides the platform and personnel to save American lives around the world, especially in times of crisis.”

Shortly after, “Blinken approved a recommendation against upgrading OpMed into a bureau. A unit distinguished by its ability to blow through bureaucratic wickets would instead be forced to play ‘Mother May I,’ answering to a series of administrators: a director, an acting undersecretary, and on up to the deputy secretary for management and resources (DMR). To outsiders, this might seem like a low-stakes game of Jenga in reverse. But the move, which blindsided many, appeared to have profound consequences.”MUST READ:  Joe Biden Must Resign.

It was at this point Walters chose to step down.

“I am resigning,” he told Blinken, face-to-face, explaining that the destruction of CCR bureau would “marginalize” his team and hinder State’s ability to respond to threats to U.S. citizens abroad.

“Sir, you deserve to have leaders who can get behind the decisions you make. I can’t do that. So I’m leaving,” he said.

Meta-Ignorance.

One source told Vanity Fair‘s Adam Ciralsky that the State Department was plagued by “pathologic optimism.” Other State Department sources said the problem was hubris.

Eliminating CCR and degrading OpMed, without clearly defined alternatives, was evidence, they said, of meta-ignorance (known in psychology circles as the Dunning-Kruger effect); America’s diplomats, in the view of these insiders, were ignorant of their own ignorance.

So while the Taliban captured city upon city, and Team Biden began plans for the evacuation of U.S. troops, civilians, diplomats, and those eligible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), his State Department was hindering a potential response.

Never-Trumpism Kills.

“Though it was founded during Obama’s second term, OpMed found its footing during the pandemic, much of which coincided with Trump’s frenzied final year in office,” Vanity Fair asserts.

In fact, President Trump explicitly stated in a comment to The National Pulse:

“My Administration prioritized keeping Americans safe, Biden leaves them behind. Canceling this successful Trump Administration program before the withdrawal that would have helped tens of thousands Americans reach home is beyond disgraceful. Our withdrawal was conditions-based and perfect, it would have been flawlessly executed and nobody would have even known we left. The Biden execution and withdrawal is perhaps the greatest embarrassment to our Country in History, both as a military and humanitarian operation.”

By September 2020, Secretary Pompeo had advanced the plans for a dedicated bureau to “synchronize Department capabilities including aviation, logistics, and medical support to disasters abroad, both natural and man-made, including the outbreak of infectious disease.”

Never-Trumpism inside the State Department, coupled with Team Biden’s skepticism of anything Trump-related appear to have been the concoction that brought down the CCR:

The move to make OpMed a bureau continued right up until Trump left office. An Executive Resources Board met and approved establishing the position of CCR coordinator as well as Doc Walters’s promotion to the civil service’s senior executive ranks. An action memo, which Pompeo approved on January 15, describes Walters’s new role as follows, “The CCR coordinator is an assistant secretary-equivalent position responsible for the development, resourcing, deployment, maintenance, and oversight of the Department’s medical, aviation, and logistics support capabilities to address contingency planning and crisis preparedness and response in accordance with applicable laws and Presidential policy in those instances where traditional mechanisms are not available or cannot address the need.

Another source close to Pompeo put it this way, “We needed to have a world-class organization that was ‘fit for purpose.’ What we had been doing previously was playing pickup games. What the secretary recognized is [that] if we’re going to be agile and have the ability to proactively respond…we’ve got to have a unit that could do operational planning and contingency scenarios and have the right capabilities and skill set, all in one, so that we can go to them when the decision is made and they can execute the hell out of it and we we can do it well.” Pompeo, said the source, wanted to eliminate silos and create an outfit with “a clear chain of command on who’s got the operational execution.”

In discussions shortly after the Biden inauguration, Trump-era official Brian Bulatao would even warn his Biden-era counterpart Brian McKeon: “CCR needs to endure… There are those in the building that are going to tell you that it’s not necessary, that it’s redundant because they’re envious of [OpMed’s] capabilities and they want to protect their turf. But they don’t know how to do it [themselves].”MUST READ:  CORTES: Mass Migration Was Never Part of America’s $2 Trillion Afghan Debacle.

The warning was not heeded, and neither Blinken nor McKeon have yet answered for, let alone resigned because of this decision.

‘Choose Your Own Adventure’.

A call hosted on July 14th 2021 saw Larry Padget, director of the Bureau of Medical Services, break the news that CCR would not be proceeding as planned by the Trump administration.

Tiffany Reeser, a senior policy official, explained: “I think there was an impression, given [Blinken’s] decision, with [McKeon’s] recommendation… that there was going to be a 25-point plan dropped on all of us for how this decision was going to be implemented. That’s not the case. This is, I would say, slightly more organized than a Choose Your Own Adventure novel.”

Manmeet Thind, an OpMed-adjacent attorney, warned: “Now, suddenly, you have more layers of bureaucracy, and as we all know, that’s going to slow response. And at the end of the day, that’s going to affect lives.”

It did.

The whole debacle led Texas Congressman Michael McCaul to tell Vanity Fair: “Call it OpMed, or CCR, or whatever you want… the point is the Department had these people, and their experience was a huge asset. We chose not to draw upon them until it was almost too late—after the Taliban had overrun the country, and tens of thousands of people had to be evacuated in a matter of days. We should have started sooner, and we should have used our A-team. The tragedy we’ve seen unfold—people stranded, American lives lost—reflects…disorganization, mismanagement, and, worst of all, utter neglect.”

‘Meta-Ignorance’ with ‘Profound Consequences’ – U.S. Govt’s Crisis Response Director Resigned After Biden’s State Dept Canceled ‘Lifeline’ Group Over Trump Links. (thenationalpulse.com)

‘It is now time for a reckoning,’ Rep. Chip Roy says

Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas) called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to reconvene Congress for hearings on President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“Madam Speaker, you have a duty to call Congress back to Washington and begin hearings immediately,” Roy wrote. “America does not run away. We do not leave our brothers and sisters behind. We do not aid and abet the enemy.”

Pelosi has stalled efforts to apply congressional accountability to the Biden administration for its missteps in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Democrats blocked an oversight measure authored by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) on Tuesday, leaving questions unanswered for Republicans demanding transparency regarding the Afghan withdrawal. The House of Representatives has been out of session since July 30.

Pelosi did not return a request for comment.

The Texas Republican also called for the resignation of both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as senior national security staff for “effectively abandon[ing]” military service members who risked their lives in Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal.

Roy joins a growing chorus of Republicans and some Democrats who have expressed outrage over the Biden administration’s handling of the Afghanistan crisis. As many as 200 U.S. citizens remain stranded in the country. The terrorist group has held another American—Navy veteran Mark Frerichs—hostage for more than a year.

“We do know that the Taliban is now stronger than ever before; they now have access to the sensitive biometric database of our Afghan allies and now control billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. military equipment,” Roy wrote. “We know that 13 U.S. service members were killed in the process. … With an arbitrary and unnecessary deadline imposed by the commander-in-chief having come and gone, it is now time for a reckoning.”

“The president made the morally indefensible decision to leave Americans behind,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said. “Dishonor was the president’s choice.”

House Republican Demands Pelosi Reconvene Congress for Hearings on Biden’s Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal (freebeacon.com)

Emergency evacuations operations coordinator resigned over decision

The State Department’s decision to abolish a crisis response bureau, as first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, “mucked up America’s exit from Afghanistan” and prompted the resignation of the department’s top physician, according to a new report in Vanity Fair.

The Free Beacon reported earlier this month that the State Department moved in June to dissolve the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR), a Trump-era project that was meant to coordinate the evacuation of Americans from hotspots overseas. The decision was made just months before the Biden administration pulled U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and sparked a chaotic rescue effort that sources inside and outside of the State Department said could have been bolstered by the CCR.

The Biden administration’s decision to scuttle the CCR bureau prompted the resignation of William Walters, the State Department’s top physician and coordinator of emergency evacuation operations, according to Vanity Fair.

“I am resigning,” Walters reportedly told Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, saying that Blinken’s “decision not to move forward with the establishment of the CCR bureau, which Walters had been slated to lead, was a mistake.”

“Given simmering tensions in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Walters said, he believed that throwing out plans for the new unit … would impact State’s ability to respond to threats to U.S. diplomats and citizens abroad,” Vanity Fair wrote.

These concerns came to fruition months later, as the State Department scrambled to evacuate Americans stranded in Taliban-controlled Kabul, where many Americans remain trapped after the Biden administration’s decision to not keep troops in the country past Aug. 31.

Blinken originally expressed support for the CCR bureau before delegating responsibility for it to his deputy, Brian McKeon, according to Vanity Fair.

The Free Beacon obtained a memo signed by McKeon authorizing the CCR bureau’s termination.

While the “fact checking” website PolitiFact attempted to downplay and undercut the Free Beacon’s reporting, the Vanity Fair article provides confirmation about the CCR bureau’s fate.

State Department Decision to Abolish Crisis Response Bureau ‘Mucked Up’ Afghanistan Exit, Report Says (freebeacon.com)

posted by Hannity Staff – 8.31.21

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

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 31, 2021

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.

“The Embassy will continue to provide information via the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), the Embassy web page, Travel.State.Gov, and Facebook and Twitter.  Consular services remain available outside Afghanistan.  To locate the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate click here,” adds the warning.

“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

— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) August 31, 2021

Read the full memo below:

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.

The Embassy will continue to provide information via the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), the Embassy web page, Travel.State.Gov, and Facebook and Twitter.  Consular services remain available outside Afghanistan.  To locate the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate click here.

The Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas.  U.S. citizens still in country should:

• Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP)

to receive security updates and ensure you can be located in an emergency.

• Review your personal security plans.
• Be aware of your surroundings and local security developments at all times.
• Keep a low profile.
• Notify a trusted person of your travel and movement plans.
• Make contingency plans to leave when it is safe to do so that do not rely on U.S. government assistance.
• Monitor local media.
• Please review, “What the Department of State Can and Can’t Do in a Crisis.”

Resources for U.S. citizens in Afghanistan:

• State Department – Consular Affairs Afghanistan Call Center
  833-741-2777 or 606-260-4379
• AfghanistanACS@state.gov
• Embassy Citizens’ Services Page
• Afghanistan Country Information
• Afghanistan Travel Advisory
• Visit the Department of Homeland Security’s website on the latest travel restrictions to the United States.
• Refer to our website for the latest Alerts and Messages for U.S. citizens.
• Consult the CDC website for the most up-to-date information related to COVID-19.
• Visit our Embassy webpage on COVID-19 for information on conditions in Afghanistan.
• Visit the COVID-19 crisis page on travel.state.gov for the latest information.
• Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to ensure you receive Alerts and other information

FLASHBACK 2 WEEKS: Biden Says ‘We’re Going to Stay’ Until All Citizens Are Out of Afghanistan | Sean Hannity

Almost 100 generals and admirals wrote a letter calling for the resignations of Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) Mark Milley after the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The hasty retreat has left initial estimates at ~15,000 Americans stranded in dangerous areas controlled by a brutal enemy along with ~25,000 Afghan citizens who supported American forces,” the letter said. “What should have happened upon learning of the Commander in Chief’s (President Biden’s) plan to quickly withdraw our forces and close the important power projection base Bagram, without adequate plans and forces in place to conduct the entire operation in an orderly fashion?”

“As principal military advisors to the CINC/President, the SECDEF and CJCS should have recommended against this dangerous withdrawal in the strongest possible terms,” the letter continued. “If they did not do everything within their authority to stop the hasty withdrawal, they should resign. Conversely, if they did do everything within their ability to persuade the CINC/President to not hastily exit the country without ensuring the safety of our citizens and Afghans loyal to America, then they should have resigned in protest as a matter of conscience and public statement.”

“The consequences of this disaster are enormous and will reverberate for decades beginning with the safety of Americans and Afghans who are unable to move safely to evacuation points; therefore, being de facto hostages of the Taliban at this time,” the letter added. “The death and torture of Afghans has already begun and will result in a human tragedy of major proportions. The loss of billions of dollars in advanced military equipment and supplies falling into the hands of our enemies is catastrophic. The damage to the reputation of the United States is indescribable. We are now seen, and will be seen for many years, as an unreliable partner in any multinational agreement or operation. Trust in the United States is irreparably damaged.”

The letter warned that America’s primary adversaries would be strengthened by the withdrawal. “China benefits the most followed by Russia, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and others,” the letter said. “Terrorists around the world are emboldened and able to pass freely into our country through our open border with Mexico.”

Generals And Admirals Call For Resignations Of Milley And Austin | The Jeffrey Lord

The deletion of an Instagram account belonging to a mother whose Marine son was killed in Afghanistan last week was a mistake, parent company Facebook said Tuesday.

Shana Chappell raised an alarm on Facebook on Monday after she said her account was removed.

Chappell said she believed the deletion was “because [I] gained so many followers over my [son’s] death due to Biden’s negligence, ignorance and him being a traitor!”

She was referring to President Joe Biden.

The post in question described “my heart break [sic] over my son,” according to Chappell.

Facebook acknowledged the account was deleted but said it has now been restored.

“We express our deepest condolences to Ms. Chappell and her family. Her tribute to her heroic son does not violate any of our policies,” a Facebook spokesperson told news outlets.

“While the post was not removed, her account was incorrectly deleted and we have since restored it,” the spokesperson added.

Chappell did not respond to a request for comment and had not posted about the development as of Tuesday afternoon.

Chappell is the mother of Kareem Nikoui, who was one of 13 U.S. service members who were killed in the suicide bombing attack on the Kabul airport on Aug. 26.

Steve Nikoui, the father of Kareem Nikoui, 20, also blamed Biden for the death.

“They sent my son over there as a paper pusher and then had the Taliban outside providing security,” Steve Nikoui told The Daily Beast. “I blame my own military leaders … Biden turned his back on him. That’s it.”

Read the remarks during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that there were “no words that I can say, that I think anyone can say, to assuage the grief that a parent is feeling at the loss of their child—nothing.”

“And if I were in his shoes, probably I would feel exactly the same way,” he added.

Facebook: Deletion of Marine Mother’s Account a Mistake (theepochtimes.com)

In a short pro forma session on Tuesday, House Democrats blocked a Republican-sponsored bill that would put new obligations on the White House and military leaders as the Afghanistan crisis continues to unfold.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), requires the White House and military to send daily reports to Congress on the number of Americans trapped in Afghanistan. It also commits U.S. troops to Afghanistan until every American who wants to leave has been able to escape the country. It would also urge the president not to recognize the Taliban terrorist organization as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Last Thursday, 13 U.S. troops died in an attack claimed by the terrorist organization ISIS-K, the highest American death toll in over a decade.

On Tuesday, the House met in the first session since these deaths in Afghanistan; legislative business is usually not conducted at pro forma sessions. Still, in the wake of the deaths in Kabul, some members of the House GOP caucus made a desperate bid to use the session to consider Gallagher’s bill.

Democrats silently shot down the motion by refusing to recognize Republicans to speak about the legislation. Over loud objections, House Democrats quickly adjourned the meeting.

This was the bill’s second failure in the House.

On Aug. 24, the House met in an emergency session to vote on two pieces of expansive Democratic legislation: Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) $3.5 trillion budget resolution and Rep. Terri Sewell’s (D-Ala.) “John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.”

Early in that session, Gallagher put forward a motion to suspend considerations on these pieces of legislation and to instead consider his bill. Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) quickly shot the proposal down, explaining that acceding to this request would “hand the floor over to the Republican conference,” an unacceptable move given the “extremely important” legislation on the House docket for the day.

Democrats later pushed forward party-line votes on both pieces of legislation, a move that drew the ire of Republicans. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made a fiery speech excoriating Democrats for shooting down Gallagher’s bill at the first session of Congress since the fall of Kabul to Taliban terrorists.

In a brief press conference after the pro forma session Tuesday, Gallagher and other Republicans discussed this second failure of the bill.

Gallagher first referenced the House’s emergency meeting on Aug. 24, saying “Just last week we had an opportunity to come together as Democrats and Republicans, and pass a bill that would have prevented the administration from withdrawing troops on the arbitrary August 31 surrender date until we had gotten all of our Americans out.”

He continued: “Behind closed doors, this is exactly what many Democrats said they wanted. They pushed back on the administration, they begged and pleaded the president to abandon the Taliban’s surrender day.”

In fact, many Democrats—especially those in vulnerable seats—have distanced themselves from the president in recent days. Several Democrats across various congressional committees promised to investigate the administration’s failures in Afghanistan and pushed to extend the withdrawal deadline. But despite this positioning, Democrats rejected Gallagher’s bill to push the withdrawal date forward indefinitely until all Americans were out safely.

With this rejection, the future of Gallagher’s bill is uncertain, leading Republicans to strategize a path forward for the bill.

McCarthy said at the press conference that in light of Democratic opposition to the bill, the House GOP would consider using a discharge petition. A discharge petition is a U.S. parliamentary procedure that can expedite the consideration of a bill by immediately moving it out of committee and onto the floor for a vote.

There are some hurdles that GOP leadership would have to overcome before moving the bill on, however. For one, a discharge petition must get 218 signatures to advance; because the GOP only controls 212 seats, advancing the petition would require that at least 6 Democrats sign on with Republicans.

But even if the bill got through the House with this technique, it would still face stiff opposition from Democrats in the Senate, who may kill the bill with a filibuster.

House Democrats Block GOP Afghanistan Withdrawal Transparency Bill (theepochtimes.com)

During an event in which Joe Biden presided over the bodies of fallen US Marines during the dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, the President appeared to check his watch, drawing national outrage as many viewed the move as inconsiderate and selfish given the circumstance and setting.

In the middle of a dignified transfer ceremony for the fallen US Marines that were recently killed in Afghanistan, Joe Biden appeared to check the time on his wrist watch, drawing outrage from many who viewed the move as incentive, inconsiderate, and selfish.

BIDEN APPEARS TO CHECK HIS WATCH DURING THE DIGNIFIED TRANSFER CEREMONY AT DOVER AIR FORCE BASE. PIC.TWITTER.COM/OMSBEFNMFS

— BENNY (@BENNYJOHNSON) AUGUST 29, 2021

THIS MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL, WHAT A SELFISH BASTARD. PIC.TWITTER.COM/0EQ0X9EWRW

— ALEX JONES WAS RIGHT (@ALEXJONESWS) AUGUST 29, 2021

“Biden checking his watch at the ceremony of our fallen heroes is the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen. Are they an inconvenience to you POTUS? I want an explanation,” tweeted one Twitter user. “Joe Biden checking his watch after removing his hand over his heart so disgusting…our government hates us,” tweeted another. “Utter disrespect. He looks at his watch during the ceremony of 13 fallen American heroes killed in Afghanistan. Their ages were less than half of Biden’s time in politics! Biden voters will call this “edited video” because they are brainless. #BidenMustGo,” tweeted third Twitter user.

This would not be the first time Americans slammed Biden over his apparent lack of sympathy with regards to his Afghanistan Disaster. Just one day before the 13 Marines were killed, Biden smirked when reporters asked him about the situation in Afghanistan. The smirk outraged the heartbroken mother of Rylee McCollum, a fallen US Marine who tragically died as a result of the bombing in Afghanistan, who ultimately condemned Biden and Democrat voters over the death of her son on a radio show hosted by Andrew Wilkow, as National File previously reported.

“MY SON IS GONE, AND I JUST WANT ALL YOU DEMOCRATS WHO CHEATED IN THE ELECTION, OR WHO VOTED FOR [BIDEN] LEGITIMATELY, YOU JUST KILLED MY SON…WITH A DEMENTIA-RIDDEN PIECE OF CRAP WHO DOESN’T EVEN KNOW HE’S IN THE WHITE HOUSE, HE STILL THINKS HE’S A SENATOR,” SAID MCCOLLUM, WHO LATER NOTED THAT “I WANTED MY SON TO REPRESENT OUR COUNTRY, TO FIGHT FOR MY COUNTRY, BUT I NEVER THOUGHT THAT A FECKLESS PIECE OF CRAP WOULD SEND HIM TO HIS DEATH AND SMIRK ON TELEVISION WHILE HE’S TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE DYING, WITH HIS NASTY SMIRK. THE DEMENTIA-RIDDEN PIECE OF CRAP NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE. IT NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED UNDER TRUMP.”

(VIDEO: Joe Biden Slumps Over, Appears To Fall Asleep During Meeting With Israeli PM)

In related news, the US military has relieved Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller from duty after he released a heartfelt video critiquing the tragic Afghanistan withdrawal following the Kabul bombings that killed up to 13 American service members. “My chain of command is doing exactly what I would do…if I were in their shoes. I appreciate the opportunities AITB command provided. To all the news agencies asking for interviews…I will not be making any statements other than what’s on my social platforms until I exit the Marine Corps,” explained Scheller. However, Scheller appears to be optimistic about his future aspirations, despite being relieved of duty.

NO RUSH: Biden Checks His Watch While Receiving Bodies Of Slain Marines At Dover Air Force Base – Conservative War – Breaking Political News

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.

A Self-Inflicted Catastrophe (theepochtimes.com)

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.

FLASHBACK: Biden Said His Foreign Policy Team of Geniuses Would ‘Stand Up for Our Values’ and ‘Keep Our People Safe’ (freebeacon.com)

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 provides perhaps 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.”

The other answers: “Our credibility.”

What We Left Behind in Afghanistan (theepochtimes.com)

What’s Happening:

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 31^st.

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

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 26, 2021

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.

Dan Crenshaw Drops Accusation On Biden’s Team – He Claims Handing Out American Names “Qualifies As Borderline Treason” (thepatriotjournal.com)

Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, a U.S. Marine infantry officer and battalion commander, was fired late last week after a video that he posted on social media went viral. In the video, he demanded that members of the Biden administration be held accountable for the disaster in Afghanistan, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 13 U.S. service members.

“[I’m] not making this video because it’s potentially an emotional time, I’m making it because I have a growing discontent and contempt for my perceived ineptitude at the foreign policy-level,” Scheller said. “And I want to specifically ask some questions to some of my senior leaders.”

“If I’m willing to risk my current battalion commander seat, my retirement, my family stability, to say some of the things that I want to say, I think it gives me some moral high ground to demand the same honesty, integrity, accountability from my senior leaders,” he continued. “The reason people are so upset on social media right now is not because the Marine on the battlefield, let someone down, that servicemember has always rose to the occasion, done extraordinary things. People are upset because their senior leaders let them down. And none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability, are saying we messed this up.”

“If an O-5 battalion commander has the simplest live-fire incident, EO complaint. Boom. Fired,” he continued. “But we have a secretary of defense that testified to Congress in May that the Afghan National Security Force could withstand the Taliban advance. We have Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs — who the commandant is a member of that — who’s supposed to advise on military policy. We have a Marine combatant commander. All of these people are supposed to advise. And I’m not saying we’ve got to be in the 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 your hand and say, we completely messed this up?”

“And what I’ll say is, from my position, potentially all those people did die in vain if we don’t have senior leaders that own up and raise their hand and say, we did not do this well in the end,” he concluded. “Without that, we just keep repeating the same mistakes. This amalgamation of the economic / corporate / political/ higher military ranks are not holding up their end of the bargain. 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.”

U.S. Marine Commander Fired After Demanding ‘Accountability’ From Biden Admin Over Afghanistan Disaster | The Daily Wire

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.

On August 18th, we reported:

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.

You can read Rep. Gosar’s full letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, here.

Rep. Gosar Demands Answers from State Dept Following National Pulse Afghan Exfiltration Exposé. – The National Pulse

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.

Marine Battalion Commander Fired After Blasting ‘Inept’ Military Leadership Over Afghanistan Withdrawal (freebeacon.com)

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.

Our Tame Leaders (theepochtimes.com)

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.

13 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan Bombings (theepochtimes.com)

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.”

Kabul Airport Explosion Kills Four U.S. Marines Amid Evacuations – WSJ

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.

— John Kirby (@PentagonPresSec) August 26, 2021

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.

— John Kirby (@PentagonPresSec) August 26, 2021

#BREAKING: Explosion reported at Kabul airport https://t.co/s40Ede94cd pic.twitter.com/4yeWCjwSF5

— The Hill (@thehill) August 26, 2021

BREAKING: Pentagon Confirms Second Explosion at Hotel in Kabul | Sean Hannity

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.

— John Kirby (@PentagonPresSec) August 26, 2021

#BREAKING: Explosion reported at Kabul airport https://t.co/s40Ede94cd pic.twitter.com/4yeWCjwSF5

— The Hill (@thehill) August 26, 2021

Pentagon Confirms ‘Explosion’ Near Kabul Airport, ‘Casualties Unclear at This Time’ | Sean Hannity

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.

BREAKING: British Official Warns Kabul Airport May Be Under ‘Imminent Attack,’ US Embassy Says to ‘Leave Immediately’ | TIMCAST IRL

posted by Hannity Staff – 8.26.21

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 31^st,” 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

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 25, 2021

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.”

GRAHAM on HANNITY: ‘Biden is Signing the Death Warrant of Thousands of Afghans Who Helped Us’ | Sean Hannity

The Democratic National Convention released a statement on Tuesday about President Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal titled “President Biden Defies Expectations (Again), Delivers Results in Afghanistan.” The statement surprisingly claimed that the “results” Biden “delivered” were better than expected.

“President Biden has defied expectations and exceeded even his own administration’s goal in successfully ramping up evacuations from Afghanistan,” the statement said. “Not only has President Biden evacuated nearly 60,000 people from Kabul with no American casualties, but he has taken the steps necessary to finally end a 20-year long war, bring Americans home, and keep our promise to our Afghan partners.”

Biden certainly defied his own expectations as the disastrous withdrawal went far worse than he had predicted in a press conference a month prior. At the time, Biden said that “the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

A month later, the Taliban have “overrun everything” and are in control of Afghanistan.

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

A month later, there were, in fact, “people being lifted off the roof of a embassy” in Afghanistan.

DNC Praises Biden On Afghanistan Withdrawal As Crisis Continues | The Jeffrey Lord

“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.

U.S. Leaving 75,000 Vehicles, 600,000 Weapons, 208 Aircraft In Afghanistan | Leo Terrell (theleoterrell.com)

posted by Hannity Staff – 8.25.21

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 31^st,” 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

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 25, 2021

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

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) August 25, 2021

A reporter asks President Biden what he will do if Americans are still in Afghanistan after the deadline.

White House cuts the audio feed pic.twitter.com/noBM74gzNn

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 25, 2021

‘You’ll Be The First Person I Call’: Biden Jokes When Pressed On Plan For Americans Left Behind In Afghanistan https://t.co/I8673J2n9W

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 25, 2021

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 31^st 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.

WATCH: Psaki Clams-Up When Asked Why Biden Joked About Americans Stranded in Afghanistan | Sean Hannity

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

— The Hill (@thehill) August 25, 2021

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.”

McCARTHY: ‘We Just Had a President Go Against Everything America Stood for in the Past’ | Sean Hannity

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.

🚨 NEW AD 🚨

President Donald J. Trump releases, “Surrenderer-In-Chief” pic.twitter.com/ctijLXj8gg

— Taylor Budowich (@TayFromCA) August 24, 2021

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.”

Worse than Saigon pic.twitter.com/AdRCirWCLd

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 18, 2021

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.”

Trump Releases New Attack Ad Dubbing Biden ‘Surrenderer-in-Chief’ | TIMCAST IRL

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 11^th,” 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.

Was the longest war worth it?

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%.”

Latest on Afghanistan:U.S.-Taliban meeting reported, UN issues warning on human rights

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.

If this isn’t impeachable, then what is? pic.twitter.com/n0K9iBalv5

— Bongino Report (@BonginoReport) August 20, 2021

“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.

Joe Biden creates the Taliban Army and Air Force. https://t.co/x5ly8ez6VS

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) August 19, 2021

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.”

RUBIO on HANNITY: ‘We Just Donated an Air Force to the Taliban’ | Sean Hannity

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.

Republicans Demand Answers Over Claims That Exiled-Afghan Leader Fled With $169 Million in Cash (theepochtimes.com)

posted by Hannity Staff – 8.25.21

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.”

Read the full report at Fox News.

CRENSHAW RIPS BIDEN: ‘He is Building the Taliban Back Better, Not America’ | Sean Hannity

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.

Republicans Call for Formal Pentagon Investigation Into Bungled Afghanistan Withdrawal (freebeacon.com)

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 remain functioning.

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.

Emboldened Iran To Hold War Drills With Russia and China (freebeacon.com)

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. 

DHS Braces for Terror Threat on Southern Border (freebeacon.com)

A group of Republican Senators called-out White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Tuesday after the Biden official claimed it was “irresponsible” to say there are currently Americans stranded in Afghanistan.

“This is just not true. And it’s a slap in the face to the thousands of Americans who are stranded right now,” posted Sen. Tom Cotton on Twitter.

This is a boldfaced lie!

My office literally just received word of a Tennessean STRANDED in Afghanistan. https://t.co/naM8g4OMRP

— Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) August 23, 2021

This is just not true.

And it’s a slap in the face to the thousands of Americans who are stranded right now. https://t.co/ngiGfddDqs

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) August 23, 2021

Psaki held her daily briefing at the White House Monday where she informed reporters that it’s now “irresponsible” to claim that American citizens are “stranded” in Afghanistan.

“I think it’s irresponsible to say that Americans are stranded. They are not. We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home,” said Psaki.

.@PressSec: “I think its irresponsible to say that Americans are stranded. They are not. We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home.” pic.twitter.com/lFIbQ56OBT

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 23, 2021

A report from Reuters highlights the scope of the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan as the agency claims the Taliban now control 2,000 American-made vehicles and between 30 and 40 aircraft.

“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.

‘SLAP IN THE FACE’: GOP Senators React to Psaki’s Claim ‘No Americans Stranded’ in Afghanistan | Sean Hannity

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.

Watch the revealing comments above.

FLASHBACK: Six Days Before Fall of Kabul, Pentagon Dismisses Taliban’s Capabilities | Sean Hannity

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 four briefings 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.

Watch Harris above.

WATCH: Kamala Harris Cracks-Up When Asked About Americans Trapped in Afghanistan | Sean Hannity

The Wall Street Journal reports “An internal State Department memo last month warned top agency officials of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the U.S.’s Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the document.”

The memo was dated July 13th, a mere month after Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a Trump-era program designed at providing swift and safe evacuations for Americans out of crisis zones, such as the upcoming Afghanistan troop withdrawal.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban’s advance was imminent and Afghanistan’s military may be unable to stop it.

The cable, sent via the State Department’s confidential dissent channel, warned of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and offered recommendations on ways to mitigate the crisis and speed up an evacuation, the two people said.

The cable, dated July 13, also called for the State Department to use tougher language in describing the atrocities being committed by the Taliban, one of the people said.

As of last weekend, some 18,000 Afghans who have applied for the U.S.’s Special Immigrant Visa program, as well as their families, remained on the ground in Afghanistan, with about half of them outside Kabul in areas already under Taliban control, and efforts to get them to the Kabul airport have grown more difficult by the day.

Internal Memo Shows State Department Was Warned ‘Collapse of Kabul’ by Taliban was Imminent | Gregg Jarrett (thegreggjarrett.com)

Americans have been beaten in Afghanistan, a U.S. military official said Saturday.

A day after he said the military was aware of reports that Americans were beaten by Taliban terrorists, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that “we know of a small number of cases where some Americans … have been harassed, and in some cases, beaten.”

“We don’t believe it’s a very large number, and most Americans who have their credentials with them are being allowed through the Taliban checkpoints,” he added.

The stunning admission came as the U.S. Embassy warned Americans against traveling to the U.S.-held airport in Kabul, where thousands of people are trying to enter to escape the country before American troops leave.

The United States is openly working with the Taliban to facilitate the evacuation, and Taliban militants control all of the ground around the exterior of the airport.

President Joe Biden said Friday that the United States was in “constant communication” with the Taliban, which is designated as a terrorist group by a number of countries.

The U.S. military has largely chosen not to conduct operations outside the airport, leaving Americans and Afghans to fend for themselves until they reach the facility.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told members of Congress in a call Friday that violence against Americans “is unacceptable,” Kirby said Saturday.

And U.S. commanders have conveyed the same message to Taliban commanders, he said.

“We’ve been in touch with the Taliban for quite some time, I think, over the course of the last week. And we’ve certainly made our concerns known,” Kirby said.

According to the military spokesman, word had not filtered down from Taliban leadership to every individual militant.

“What appears to be happening is that not every Taliban fighter either got the word or decided to obey the word,” he said.

The revelation came as a growing number of Republicans called for more decisive action from the Biden administration, which both parties have said has botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“Instead of going out there and making the Taliban our hostages, right now America is on day seven, day eight of the Afghanistan hostage crisis for us,” Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), a military veteran, said on Fox News on Friday. “And until we flip that scenario back to where it was prior to this, we can’t safely get our people out.”

“Biden’s failed Afghanistan withdrawal has put thousands of American lives in danger behind enemy lines,” added Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who is trying to impeach Biden, on Twitter on Saturday. “The Taliban is beating Americans but Biden is still relying on & trusting them. He is incompetent, unhinged, incoherent & unfit.”

Military officials said the focus remains on keeping the airport secure and evacuating people who can make it there.

“The military mission that we are executing now is a noncombatant evacuation operation,” Kirby said. “We’re fighting against both time and space. That’s the race that we’re in right now,” he added later.

Pentagon Confirms Americans Have Been Beaten in Afghanistan (theepochtimes.com)

Americans in Afghanistan were told Saturday not to go to the airport in Kabul to evacuate unless they receive a specific message to do so.

“Because of potential security threats outside the gates at the 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,” the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan said in an alert.

The Pentagon declined to comment, referring The Epoch Times to the State Department. That agency did not respond to a request for comment.

Video footage from the exterior of the airport on Saturday showed crowds remaining outside the concrete, razor wire-topped walls being guarded by U.S. troops.

President Joe Biden told Americans in Washington on Friday that his administration had “no indication” that Americans weren’t able to get to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

“We’ve made an agreement with the Taliban. Thus far, they’ve allowed them to go through,” he said.

He later said he misunderstood the question and that Americans may be getting into trouble after being let through Taliban checkpoints.

But the Department of Defense, about an hour later, acknowledged being aware of reports that Taliban terrorists had been beating Americans in Afghanistan.

Thousands of Americans are estimated to remain in the country after the United States withdrew most troops and the Taliban pummeled Afghan forces.

The Taliban took over Kabul on Aug. 15.

Members of Congress from both parties have been critical of how the United States conducted the withdrawal, with many wondering why civilians weren’t evacuated before the military largely pulled out.

Now, Americans, Afghans, and others seeking to flee the country must brave the Taliban-held streets to reach the airport, with little to no help from troops from the United States or other nations, though some special forces have reportedly conducted targeted rescue missions by helicopter and U.S. troops went outside the airport to rescue 169 people.

Americans were encouraged to leave Afghanistan earlier this year and urged to do so as the Taliban rapidly gained ground this month.

Those who chose to stay have been receiving changing advice from U.S. officials regarding travel to the airport.

The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan told Americans on Aug. 15 to shelter in place because of the unstable security situation there.

That directive remained active until Aug. 18, when Americans were told that U.S. government flights were departing from the airport but also informed that the government could not “ensure safe passage” to the facility.

A similar message was promoted on Thursday, with another warning.

“We are processing people at multiple gates. Due to large crowds and security concerns, gates may open or close without notice. Please use your best judgment and attempt to enter the airport at any gate that is open,” U.S. citizens were told.

US Tells Americans to Avoid Traveling to Kabul Airport Because of ‘Potential Security Threats’ (theepochtimes.com)

‘Highly unlikely’ Taliban will overrun Afghanistan, Biden said in July

When President Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by a September 11 deadline, the president told reporters in July that it remained “highly unlikely” the Taliban would take control of the country. 

“The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” Biden said. “The Afghan government and leadership has to come together. They clearly have the capacity to sustain the government in place … there’s not a conclusion that, in fact, they cannot defeat the Taliban.”

Biden’s forecast for the future of Afghanistan, however, has proven completely false. The Taliban has captured several of Afghanistan’s largest cities, and experts now believe the terrorist group will target the Afghan capital of Kabul in the coming weeks. The Biden administration scrambled to call in another 8,000 troops to the region in an effort to rescue both U.S. troops and civilians remaining in the country.

Biden’s Afghanistan Predictions Were All Wrong (freebeacon.com)

‘It was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen’ if Biden bucked military advice, Senate minority leader says

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said President Biden directly ignored the advice of military leaders during briefings on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

“I was in a number of these briefings over the last couple months, it was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen,” McConnell said Monday. “I know for a fact that the president’s military leaders argued against this decision. I think the president himself felt strongly about this and overruled his own military leaders to do it, and he owns it.”

McConnell slammed the Biden administration for its incompetent withdrawal of thousands of Americans and Afghans. Footage emerged Monday of havoc at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, that caused civilian casualties.

“Honestly, this administration looks to me like it couldn’t organize a two-car funeral,” McConnell said. “It is a sad day for the United States of America.”

President Biden responded Monday to critics of his withdrawal, saying he stands by his decision.

“We will continue to support the Afghan people,” Biden said. “The way to do it is not through endless military deployments, but diplomacy.”

McConnell: Biden Ignored Military’s Advice on Afghanistan (freebeacon.com)

The restraint crowd delivers America’s humiliation in Afghanistan

When the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft was founded in 2019, the mainstream media celebrated its emergence as a beacon of hope for a more restrained American foreign policy. Two years later, the humiliating failure wrought by the toxic mix of isolationism and anti-Americanism at the heart of the Quincy Institute is on full display.

Charles Koch, once pilloried for his conservative politics, was celebrated for a collaboration with George Soros that aimed to “bring an end to America’s age of endless wars and to reduce the nation’s military footprint around the world.”

While the left and right alike remain allergic to bipartisanship, the so-called transpartisanship of the Quincy Institute’s retrenchment remains very much in fashion in Washington. It can now claim full credit for the foreign policy debacle in Afghanistan.

The institution itself—and the White House—agrees. The Quincy Institute trumpeted its “success” in a Monday night email. “We knew that if we could bring the forces against endless war on the Left and the Right together, we could achieve the impossible,” the Quincy Institute wrote to supporters. White House chief of staff Ron Klain, for his part, retweeted the top Koch aide William Ruger’s wet kiss to Biden: In Ruger’s view, the president is “showing the requisite realist spine America needs at the moment.” Congratulations!

Quincy cheered President Joe Biden’s announcement in April that the United States would leave Afghanistan, sneering that that “the military high command’s never-ending urge to stick with a failed war was complemented by the inside-the-Beltway Blob’s doomsday scenarios and tired nostrums.”

The Soros network may have been pushing on an open door with Democrats, but Charles Koch gets the credit for doing the heavy lifting to provide intellectual cover for isolationists on the right.

That’s in part why President Donald Trump nominated Ruger, to serve as ambassador to Afghanistan in the last days of that administration. We opposed that nomination, but we now regret he wasn’t there this week to see the fruits of his labor.

This precipitous and calamitous withdrawal had “transpartisan” advocates. But the slogans, the white papers, the research and reports, and the veneer of professionalism and academic rigor used to justify the reckless policy came largely from Koch, Soros, and their army of “restrainers.”

A recent article from the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft blog posed a question that gets to the core of its naïve worldview:

What would our world actually be like if you simply declared peace and came home?

Now they know the answer. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft has brought us the single most irresponsible bit of American statecraft in 50 years. This travesty—and all the death and destruction that will flow from it—is their first great achievement. Let’s hope it is also their last.

Responsible Statecraft Gets Its Moment (freebeacon.com)

The Forrest Gump of American decline?

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is at the center of yet another U.S. foreign policy disaster. During the Obama administration, in his role as a top aide to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and then-vice president Joe Biden, the highly credentialed wunderkind presided over some of the most humiliating failures in the history of American foreign policy.

Sullivan’s extensive experience as an architect of American failure in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Iran, and Myanmar, plus the fact that White House press secretary Jen Psaki is mysteriously out of the office, made him a natural choice to defend the Biden administration’s handling of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

“It is certainly the case [that] the speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated,” Sullivan said Monday during an interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, who also asked about President Joe Biden’s assessment that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was “highly unlikely” and “there’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States,” as there was in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

Fact check: False. Kimberley Motley, an international human-rights attorney who has worked in Afghanistan for more than a decade, described the situation in the country as a “nightmare” that was “like Saigon on steroids.”

Sullivan was unable to muster a compelling response. “To be fair, the helicopter has been the mode of transport from our embassy to the airport for the last 20 years,” he said as the network rolled footage of Taliban militants streaming into Kabul.

Perhaps the 44-year-old Sullivan has grown weary of presiding over epic failures. Despite being considered one of the most brilliant foreign policy experts of his generation, Sullivan’s résumé is littered with embarrassing debacles, including both of Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaigns. Afghanistan is merely the most recent example.

In 2011, as a top adviser to then-secretary Clinton, Sullivan helped orchestrate the “kinetic military action” in Libya. Even though the intervention resulted in the death of dictator Muammar Qaddafi, it is widely viewed as a failure. The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was assassinated during the Benghazi terrorist attacks in 2012, and the country would eventually become a haven for Islamic State militants.

Less than a month before Stevens was killed, Sullivan was among the team of experts advising then-president Barack Obama on the escalating civil war in Syria. Obama warned Bashar al-Assad, the Russian-backed dictator, that the use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that would “change my calculus” regarding U.S. military action against the regime.

Assad crossed the red line on multiple occasions, and the United States responded by taking negligible action to deter the slaughter of civilians. Assad remained in power, Russia flexed its military muscle, and the Islamic State established a caliphate in northeast Syria, wreaking havoc in Iraq as well.

During an interview with the New Yorker in 2019, Sullivan said he considered it “a great regret of mine” that “we were not able to more effectively play a role in stopping hundreds of thousands of people from dying in Syria and millions and millions more losing their homes.”

By 2014, Obama’s failure to enforce his “red line” on chemical weapons in Syria had changed Vladimir Putin’s calculus regarding Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Once again, the United States took no significant action to deter Russian forces from destabilizing the country and annexing Crimea. The conflict would claim thousands of lives, including the 298 people aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down with a Russian-made missile over eastern Ukraine.

Less than a month after Biden was sworn in as president, the government of Myanmar was ousted in a military coup conducted by individuals responsible for the genocidal atrocities perpetrated against the country’s Rohingya population. Foreign Policy magazine called it “a failure of U.S. diplomacy orchestrated by some of [the Biden administration’s] own players nearly a decade ago.”

In other words, people like Jake Sullivan. In 2011, he was advising Clinton when she described meeting Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as an “inspiration” and touted the Obama administration’s efforts in the country as a diplomatic victory. The celebration was short-lived. Aung San Suu Kyi would go on to assume a senior role in the country’s government but would be widely condemned for her refusal to denounce the military’s campaign of violence against the Rohingya.

Sullivan, who played a key role in negotiating the failed Iran nuclear deal in 2015, is currently leading the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the controversial agreement. He will almost certainly have a major role in crafting the pathetic U.S. response to China’s inevitable invasion of Taiwan. He is the Forrest Gump of American decline, and one of the best rebuttals to the American system of meritocracy.

None of these policy failures will hurt Sullivan’s glowing reputation among members of the Liberal Élite. After all, his credentials are impeccable: Yale University (Phi Beta Kappa), Rhodes scholar, Yale Law School, Brookings Institution. He was a debate team champion and president of the student council in high school, where he was voted “most likely to succeed.” He clerked for Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer and worked as chief counsel for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), where he was presumably traumatized by the abuse he suffered.

In any event, these colossal blunders will likely pale in comparison to what he will be able to accomplish as U.S. secretary of state in the Kamala Harris administration.

Jake Sullivan Presides Over Yet Another Foreign Policy Disaster (freebeacon.com)

“But in Islamic law, even if you have a good purpose or goal, you have to follow the rules.”

As refugees from Afghanistan pour into the Fort Lee U.S. military base in Virginia, an imam named Ammar Amonette is leading the fundraising drive for the Afghan refugees. Ammar Amonette, Imam of the Islamic Center of Virginia, is a left-wing activist who has spoken alongside Democrat then-Governor Terry McAuliffe, worked with the state’s Democrat attorney general to push hate crime legislation, held a press conference with Democrat Senator Mark Warner, and protested President Donald Trump’s travel ban on terrorism-rich countries.

In a 2004 interview unearthed by NATIONAL FILE, Amonette discussed the 9/11 attackers, saying, “Terrorism is about symbolic targets. It’s sending a political message. The World Trade Center sounds in Arabic like ‘center for globalization.’ I think they took it literally, and globalism may be a threat. But in Islamic law, even if you have a good purpose or goal, you have to follow the rules.” Amonette previously served as imam of the Colorado Muslim Society which, during his tenure, hosted an event with then-Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Ekrima Sabry, who has said that it is a “fairytale” that six million Jews died in the Holocaust.

Ammar Amonette’s Islamic Center of Virginia is raising money and supplies for the Afghan refugees at Fort Lee. DiscoveringIslam.org describes Michigan-born Amonette as “an American Islamic scholar who is a convert to Islam. He spent 12 years studying in Saudi Arabia. He initially studied at Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He later earned a Masters at the Graduate Institute for Preparation of Imams in Mecca.” Amonette’s efforts to help the migrants was profiled this week by CBS 6 Richmond in which he stated that “It’s going to be a long process and it’s only beginning” and said “a new plane is arriving every day” to take refugees to Fort Lee.

In June 2020, Ammar Amonette was the first speaker at a Clergy Action RVA press conference to protest the police beside the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia. On its Facebook page, Clergy Action RVA posts support for Black Lives Matter and George Floyd, supported giving felons the right to vote in Virginia, stated that “As last week’s insurrection at the Capitol demonstrated, the voices of white supremacy are violent and loud,” and held “Election Organizing” and “Election Brainstorming & Organizing” Zoom meetings prior to the 2020 election.

In January 2021, Amonette was quoted as saying that Muslims are not allowed to be vaccine refusers, regardless of whether or not a vaccine contains pork ingredients. He stated: “In case of an epidemic, you’re not allowed to refuse vaccination even if there’s a slight danger to you of a reaction. Although you may be able to refuse treatment when you’re ill, you can’t endanger others in the community. We have a religious duty and obligation to be vaccinated as long as competent science and medical authorities approve the vaccine…Anything that saves lives takes precedence over food prohibitions. Protecting the health of the community takes precedence over some other details of the law.”

Amonette cited the rules of Muslim law when discussing the 9/11 terrorist attacks in an October 17, 2004 interview with Denver Post reporter Eric Gorski headlined “U.S.-born imam turns heads, minds, hearts.” At the time, Amonette worked as an imam for the Colorado Muslim Society. Text of that article is preserved at the World-Wide Religious News website.

Here is a passage from the article (emphasis added): “Given his background, Amonette is in demand as a spokesman for his faith on terrorism. His answer usually goes something like this: The Islamic concept of jihad is similar to Christianity’s just- war theory, which allows war if conditions are met. In Islam it is allowable to defend yourself against armed aggressors. But Islamic law strictly forbids killing innocent civilians.

“Terrorism is about symbolic targets,” he said. “It’s sending a political message. The World Trade Center sounds in Arabic like ‘center for globalization.’ I think they took it literally, and globalism may be a threat. But in Islamic law, even if you have a good purpose or goal, you have to follow the rules.’”

In 2017, Ammar Amonette spoke at an interfaith Ramadan potluck at Bon Air United Methodist Church with then-Virginia governor and current gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and then-lieutenant governor Ralph Northam. Amonette said at the event: “This is the real America, there’s nothing more American than an interfaith breaking of the fast where we’re not threatened by each other.”

Governor McAuliffe said at the event: “We want to be part of this very special occasion, and when you think about the holy month of Ramadan and how important that is, and the message it conveys, I want everybody to understand that from day one, our administration has fought to make sure Virginia is open and welcome to everyone. And to every member of the Muslim faith, let me be very clear on behalf of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, we love you, we respect you and we thank you for your contribution to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States of America.”

In 2004, while working as an imam of the Colorado Muslim Society, Amonette reportedly discussed how Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin’s assassination affected the Muslim community in Colorado. In March 2006, the Colorado Muslim Society (where Amonette served as imam) hosted “An Afternoon With Shaikh Ekrima Sabry,” who was then the Yasser Arafat-appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine. Years earlier in 2000, Sabry said, with regard to the Holocaust: “Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer. Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity. It is not my fault if Hitler hated Jews, indeed they were hated a little everywhere.” Records confirm Amonette working as an imam for the Colorado Muslim Society both before and after the event.

Amonette expounded on his views in a lecture called “The Need To Rule By ALLAH’s Law.” In his political activism from recent years, Amonette has opposed President Donald Trump. “At US Court of Appeals today protesting Trump’s Muslim Ban,” he wrote on Facebook on May 8, 2017.

In 2015, Amonette joined Democrat Senator Mark Warner for a press conference about alleged anti-Muslim hatred. In July 2018, the Islamic Center of Virginia teamed up with the ACLU of Virginia for the event #NoMuslimBanEver to fight President Donald Trump’s homeland security policy. Amonette spoke at the event. In October 2018, Amonette spoke at a vigil at the Weinstein JCC that attorney general Mark Herring and governor Ralph Northam’s wife Pamela attended. In April 2021, Amonette spoke at a Sikh event that was attended by Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger and governor Ralph Northam’s deputy chief diversity officer and senior policy adviser for immigrant and refugee affairs.

Amonette has appeared at events for the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, which advocates for progressive policies and which gave the Islamic Center of Virginia a “Beacon of Light” award. In one entry on its website, the Virginia Interfaith Center announced that “Representatives from the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy lent support today during Attorney General Mark Herring’s announcement of a new legislative push to protect racial, ethnic and religious minorities in Virginia from hate crimes, and to establish a more inclusive definition of “hate crime.”

Several faith leaders joined Herring for his announcement and added their words of support to a new effort to help protect citizens of the Commonwealth from acts of violence, harassment, discrimination or intimidation…Iman Ammar Amonette of the Islamic Center of Virginia in Bon Air, said that “we support everyone’s First Amendment rights, but hate speech emboldens some people to take matters into their own hands and to attack and assault and harass people. Most Muslims have probably been targeted by hateful speech and these incidents are underreported. We appreciate the Attorney General’s strong words and actions to protect us here in Virginia to make people feel safe and welcome and equal citizens under the law.’” (Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy passage ends)

The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy’s “Foundational Partners” include the Center for American Progress, a George Soros-funded leftist group.

Activist Imam Fundraising For Afghan Refugees Discussed ‘Good Purpose’ Of 9/11 Spoke With McAuliffe, Hosted Holocaust Denier – National File

Jihadists disseminate messages to Afghan residents on social media platforms

Taliban leaders used Twitter and WhatsApp to spread propaganda and establish control over Kabul as they stormed the Afghan capital over the weekend. 

On Monday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that residents welcomed the Taliban and that “the situation in Kabul is under control.” The jihadist group used WhatsApp to disseminate a similar message to Kabul residents as it entered the city. In recent days, Taliban leaders have circulated WhatsApp numbers that Afghan regime officials or soldiers could call to negotiate their surrender.

The Taliban has swept across Afghanistan in the weeks following Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops, capturing major cities with little resistance. The Pentagon on Sunday deployed an additional 1,000 troops to Afghanistan to aid evacuation efforts as Afghans and Americans swarmed Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Administration officials said in July that they expected a Taliban takeover to take months. 

The Taliban has used WhatsApp and Twitter for years to share official statements, but in the past week it has escalated its use of the platforms, using WhatsApp to announce new rules for Kabul residents.

On Monday, Mujahid tweeted a warning against looting and unauthorized intimidation of Afghan officials. The Taliban’s “complaint commission” posted WhatsApp numbers for city residents to call “if they face threats from anyone” and set up an emergency broadcast system via the app as well.

Twitter and Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, regularly banned ISIS members from their platforms. But the sites appear to let the Taliban broadcast its messages without incident. 

A Twitter spokeswoman told the Washington Free Beacon that it was “proactively removing content that violates our policies.” The spokeswoman linked to a policy banning “hateful conduct” and another that bans “threatening or promoting terrorism.” The spokeswoman did not comment on whether Twitter considers the Taliban a terrorist organization. A Facebook spokesman told the Free Beacon it would take action against accounts maintained by sanctioned groups in Afghanistan, but would not comment on specific cases.

Several Taliban spokesmen have maintained Twitter accounts for years, regularly tweeting updates on negotiations and regional battles. The accounts often post photos and videos from frontlines, which are then copied and shared by pro-Taliban accounts. Only 15 percent of the Afghan population has access to the internet.

Both Twitter and Facebook removed former president Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 riots and have not restored his account, citing “incitement to violence.” 

Taliban Leaders Used Twitter and WhatsApp to Help Capture Kabul (freebeacon.com)

My sources along with media reports have made it clear: Big Tech is offering their multi-billion-dollar platforms to terrorists.

Up until yesterday, the Taliban had been using Facebook’s WhatsApp to coordinate their terrorist activities in Afghanistan.

The rapid takeover of Afghanistan was made possible with the messaging tool WhatsApp, which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.

For years, I have been screaming about the presence of Islamic terrorists on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This isn’t a new phenomenon.

If you recall, CAIR, an Islamic terrorist organization even lobbied Twitter to remove my account.

As for Twitter, they’re allowing the Taliban to operate freely on their platform despite the group being sanctioned as a terrorist organization under U.S. Law.

Twitter acknowledged that they will continue to allow Taliban communication and coordination to take place on Twitter despite the fact that the Taliban is carrying out a murderous rampage in Afghanistan as I write this email to you.

As President Trump remains permanently banned over fears of “inciting violence”, an actual Islamic terrorist group is allowed to operate on Twitter!

This has to end!

Help fund my new lawsuit against Big Tech. Help me stop them.

The Taliban’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, is on Twitter with 321k followers and growing.

And thanks to Jack Dorsey and Twitter, the Taliban is quickly gaining support around the world.

A Twitter user named Mohammad Abbas from Pakistan tweeted:
 

Congratulations to the Taliban on their victory over Americans and against NATO. May Allah help the Taliban to run an ideal Islamic government in Afghanistan.

And as American troops are arriving to retake Kabul airport to safely evacuate people, Twitter is allowing coordination like this with Taliban leaders:
 

The tower of Kabul Airfield should not be taken over by the Americans. They should destroy “this system” after it arrives. – Taliban supporter to Zabihullah Mujahid
Facebook and Twitter are aiding and abetting terrorists!

Yet, here in the United States, we can’t even discuss COVID without censorship! We can’t share our conservative views without being banned! A sitting United States President was banned from Twitter, but Islamic terrorists are free to tweet.

This should be eye-opening to you – it was to me. And it has been for years.

This is no longer just about censorship.
 

Twitter is a national security threat, an argument I’ve been making for years.

Twitter is allowing terrorists to organize and coordinate the killing of American soldiers and innocent Afghans who are fleeing for their lives.

It’s happening as you read this email!

An administration that took national security seriously would have Twitter shut down by the morning – but we know that won’t happen under the Biden Regime.

So we’ll have to stop them ourselves, and the best immediate shot we have is forcing them to change through the courts . . . and that’s exactly what I’m doing.

The cost has been great to me. Every spare dime I have is going to fund my legal work and I need your help more than ever.

Chip in as much as you can if you can help.

Thanks so much for your support and please, help me keep fighting.

Respectfully,


Laura Loomer

P.S. Tomorrow I have a call with my attorneys to go over the final draft of my initial court filing. During that call, I expect to hear that my retainer has been depleted because this case is MASSIVE. Please give me a hand to keep going.

Officials at the U.S. State Department declined on Aug. 19 to say why Secretary of State Antony Blinken “paused” a special evacuation unit formed by his predecessor, even as the firestorm of reaction to the bungled Afghanistan withdrawal intensified.

In June, Blinken signed off on the department’s fiscal year 2022 budget justification request submitted to Congress that included a notation that, while $50.8 million was sought for the Crisis and Contingency Response (CCR) program, “the department has paused implementation pending a policy review.”

When asked by The Epoch Times “Why was [CCR] paused, is that still State’s intent, and is [CCR] being utilized now in the Kabul evacs,” the department spokesman declined to respond.

Instead, the spokesman repeated a statement previously provided to media inquiries, saying:

“It is important to note that not only would the proposed [CCR] not have introduced any new capabilities to the department, it was never formally established. Some administrative steps were taken before its establishment was paused, but the day-to-day operations of the team have not changed.

“Every requirement the department delivered on last year, and, since the proposed establishment of the bureau, can be delivered on today in the same manner if appropriate to do so.”

But interviews on Aug. 19 with former senior State Department officials indicate the CCR program had been up and functioning effectively for months when Blinken and his team took over operations following his Jan. 26 Senate confirmation.

A former official pointed to the State Department’s evacuation of U.S. citizens from Wuhan, China, at the outset of the pandemic caused by the CCP virus, which is also known as the novel coronavirus.

“This was the group of brave Americans that rescued more than 800 people from Wuhan in February 2020, when we knew little about the virulence of the virus and danger of that mission,” the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times.

“These committed civil servants are heroes, and the American citizens and Afghans who helped in the anti-terrorism fight could use their expertise right now.”

Then-State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus described the Wuhan evacuation as “a joint effort by the Department of State, the CDC, HHS, the Department of Defense, and state and local authorities to bring home Americans in need. In total, we evacuated over 800 passengers from Wuhan.”

Throughout the pandemic, the State Department evacuated an estimated 100,000 U.S. citizens from locations around the world, the official said.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley described the present evacuation effort from Kabul as “likely the second-largest” such operation by the United States since more than 20,000 Americans were rescued during a destructive volcanic eruption in the Philippines in 1991.

The CCR was specifically authorized by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sept. 21, 2020, to be developed from the department’s existing OpMed program.

Congress was notified Oct. 13, 2020, about the new organization, and the official reorganization plan was approved Nov. 16, 2020. The official “standup” of CCR was ordered on Dec. 23, 2020.

Pompeo viewed the CCR as needed to upgrade the department’s ability to prevent a repeat of the Benghazi tragedy in Libya in 2012, when Islamic terrorists stormed a U.S. facility there, killing three security personnel and Ambassador Christopher Stevens before U.S. forces arrived on the scene.

As was often the case with new initiatives during President Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House, the creation of CCR prompted opposition from among the department’s career ranks.

Diplopundit reported in October 2020 that many career employees “are said to be up in arms about the rapid formation of this new bureau—which happened in a span of just four months—with apparently no input from the field.”

Regarding the present confused situation in Afghanistan, another former senior official told The Epoch Times that “the French are doing armed runs into Kabul to get their people,” and that “they and the Brits will do that until they get everyone they want out and then they will pack up and go without telling us.”

As The Epoch Times has reported, Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that U.S. officials estimate there are between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan, and the “estimate we’re giving” is 50,000 to 65,000 Afghan allies, including family members.

“Americans should understand that we’re going to try to get it done before Aug. 31,” Biden said in the interview, his first one since the Taliban took over the country. The president said the U.S. military will attempt to evacuate all Americans out of the South Asian country by that date.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for the Taliban warned in a Sky News interview that U.S. forces need to withdraw from the country by Sept. 11, which is the date of the terrorist attacks that toppled the Twin Towers in New York 20 years ago.

State Department Mum on Why It Killed Pompeo’s Crisis Evacuation Unit (theepochtimes.com)

The thousands of prisoners freed by the Taliban in Afghanistan after the terrorist group took over the country pose a “serious concern to the security of the United States,” top Republicans in the House of Representatives warned national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday.

Prisoners freed from Pul-e-Charkhi prison and Bagram Air Base, among other lockups, are reported to include Taliban terrorists, senior Al-Qaeda operatives, and former Guantanamo Bay detainees.

“This development is found to be more troubling considering recent reports of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General [Mark] Milley’s observation that terror groups like Al-Qaeda could build up in Afghanistan much sooner than earlier intelligence estimates suggested. With the very real prospect that seasoned terrorist operatives now roam freely in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, we write to urgently request information on how the U.S. Government plans to mitigate threats to U.S. interests and the homeland,” the Republicans wrote to Sullivan.

They’re asking for detailed information on the prisoners, including whether the U.S. government is aware of any who were previously involved in plotting terror attacks against the United States.

“As the American people prepare to mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we are soberly reminded of the dangers posed to the homeland by threats borne out of terror safe havens, like Afghanistan,” Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) and two other top Republicans said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday that the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan was presenting broad challenges.

“We will remain persistently vigilant against the terrorism threat in Afghanistan,” Sullivan said, asserting that the United States “has proven in other places that we can suppress terrorism without a permanent military presence on the ground.”

“We are going to have to deal with the potential threat of terrorism from Afghanistan going forward, just as we have to deal with potential threat of terrorism in dozens of countries, in multiple continents around the world,” he added.

Katko, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) also linked the threat to the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where thousands of people are crossing illegally every day.

Border agents have encountered known or suspected terrorists from far-flung countries. The outgoing Border Patrol Chief said recently that “Unprecedented numbers of known or suspected terrorists have crossed the southern border in recent months.”

As part of their inquiry, the lawmakers want to know whether the intelligence community and U.S. immigration enforcement officials are sharing information related to known or suspected terrorists “seeking to exploit vulnerabilities along the southwest border.”

Katko is the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee. McCaul is the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Rogers is the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

Prisoners Released by Taliban in Afghanistan Pose ‘Serious Concern’ to US Security, Republicans Warn (theepochtimes.com)