Elite Afghan forces bring U.S. training to Tehran, according to whistleblower interviews

Elite Afghan soldiers trained by the United States fled to Iran with weapons and specialized combat training following the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal from the country that let the Taliban regain power, according to a report by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee based on interviews with whistleblowers and internal State Department documents.

“A ‘significant’ number of Afghan special forces and about 3,000 Afghan security forces, including high ranking officers, crossed the border into Iran,” according to the report, which was released on Monday to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the deadly U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Some brought military equipment and vehicles with them. We believe this happened because they were not evacuated by the U.S. or our allies, and therefore had no other option.”

These forces were trained in combat by U.S. special operators, in some cases within the United States, and “could be a serious national security threat to the United States if they are captured or turn,” according to the report. They “know not only our tactics but who these elite [U.S.] military officials are.”

The findings detail months of chaos following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and indicate that the tumult in the country has provided an opportunity for regional enemies like Iran to regain a foothold in the war-torn country. Details of Iran’s ties to these U.S. trained fighters comes as new threats from Iran are making headlines across America, with the arrest of an Iranian national who’d put a bounty on former White House national security adviser John Bolton’s head, as well as the attempted murder last week of the novelist Salman Rushdie, who has long faced threats from Iran’s clerical regime.

“The recruitment of former Afghan military and intelligence personnel poses a major national security risk due to the fact these Afghan personnel know the U.S. military and intelligence community’s tactics, techniques, and procedures,” the report concludes.

In addition to the weapons and military equipment these special forces brought with them to Iran, they have an intimate knowledge of the U.S. military and its tactics in the region, know-how that is highly sought after by Iran’s terrorist proxy groups and other jihadi militants.

“These commandos are trained, highly trained, on how we do signals intelligence, how we do human intelligence, how we operate,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), a combat veteran, said in the report. “We know that the Taliban are hunting them down. They are seeking to force them through coercion to hand over that information so that they can use it and they can understand how we operate.”

Beyond Iran, Russia and China are also looking to recruit these forces for their inside knowledge about American military tactics.

“It is possible these former Afghan military and other intelligence personnel could be recruited or coerced into working for one of America’s adversaries that maintains a presence in Afghanistan, including Russia, [and] China,” in addition to Iran, according to the report.

The State Department said in October 2021 that it is aware of the threat posed by Afghan soldiers trained by the United States, though it has done little since then to find them and get them to safety.

“Afghans who possess the knowledge specific to security operations, intelligence collection, other aspects of security and defense forces that if it were to fall into terrorists’ hands would pose a national security risk to the United States, those people will have a special category, I think there is just no way around it,” a senior State Department official quoted in the report told Congress.

The Pentagon was to create a list detailing “critical Afghan personnel that would warrant prioritization in being evacuated.” But, as of February 2022, “the Pentagon list had still not been shared with the State Department Task Force, meaning several months of inactivity with regards to evacuation,” the report disclosed.

Afghan military personnel also do not qualify for the U.S. Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program that has brought in scores of vulnerable Afghans, the report says. The administration is still only evacuating remaining Americans, green card holders, and pre-approved SIV applicants.

It also has not been made clear if Afghan military members would qualify for refugee status, and, if they did, they would be responsible for getting themselves out of the country without American assistance, according to the report.

The number of Americans stranded in Afghanistan after the evacuation also is far higher than the Biden administration admits. While U.S. officials repeatedly said “about 100” Americans were left in the country after the military left, the State Department is known to have evacuated more than 800 American citizens since Aug. 31, 2021—a number that does not include the scores of Americans evacuated by outside groups.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

August 15, 2022, marks one year since the Taliban retook the Afghan capital of Kabul following the Biden administration’s catastrophic withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country. In that time, Afghanistan has become “a nation in anguish,” Axios reported.

The Taliban has banned women from attending school, cracked down on the media, and committed mass executions of civilians. Since the terror group took control, the country’s economy has plummeted more than 60 percent, a World Bank report found. The economy and a drought have resulted in about 20 million Afghans going hungry, a U.N. study found.

Joe Biden’s poll numbers began to plunge after he botched the U.S. withdrawal, resulting in the deaths of 13 American service members. Biden’s administration was unprepared for the Taliban’s rapid conquest of Afghanistan following the withdrawal, the Washington Free Beacon reported, even as the president told the American people that the evacuation went off “as designed.”

While the Taliban swore it would not harbor other terrorists, a U.S. drone strike this month killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. The Taliban government condemned the strike.

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley told the Free Beacon this month that “Afghanistan is once again a safe haven where terrorists operate freely,” blasting Biden’s withdrawal as “a slap in the face” to combat veterans.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Joe Biden touted the killing of al-Quaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri as a win for his administration on Monday, but experts said he was ignoring some major facts.

“On Saturday, on my direction, the United States successfully concluded an air strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed the emir of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Biden said on Monday.

“You know, Zawahiri was [Osama] bin Laden’s leader. He was with him all the…whole time. He was his number two man, his deputy, at the time of the terrorist attack on 9/11. He was deeply involved in the planning of 9/11.”

The United States has killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists, who oversaw the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, alongside the group’s founder, Osama bin Laden, announced Biden. pic.twitter.com/lfX0yY5wDs

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 2, 2022

Biden went on to tout the killing as the fulfillment of a promise he made to Americans when pulling out of Afghanistan nearly a year ago.

“I made a promise to the American people that we’d continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond,” Biden said. “We’ve done just that.”

“I made a promise to the American people that we’d continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan…We’ve done just that,” Biden says on the killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri nearly one year after U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/61fUv6ahZY

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 2, 2022

While eliminating this terrorist is undoubtedly a positive development for the country, the fact that he was even in Afghanistan highlighted Biden’s previous failures.

In trying to justify his hasty withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan on Aug. 20, 2021, Biden declared al-Qaeda was no longer in Afghanistan.

“Look, let’s put this thing in perspective here,” Biden said according to a White House transcript. “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al-Qaeda gone?

“We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as — as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did.”

Of course, Biden’s botched withdrawal ultimately led to the Taliban gaining control in Afghanistan and cost the lives of 13 American soldiers.

Related:

As Afghanistan Vet Defends Home with AR-15-Style Rifle, Invaders Realize They Chose the Wrong House

Given that the leader al-Quaeda leader was in Afghanistan on Saturday, it seems the group is in the country at this point. This means one of two things, neither of which are good for Biden.

Either Biden was lying when he said al-Quaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan last year, or the group has re-entered the country since Biden’s botched withdrawal. In both scenarios, Biden failed to achieve the stated goal of “getting rid of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

As Biden celebrated the killing of Zawahiri, some terrorism experts pointed out this inconvenient fact.

“The killing of Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri will be sold as a counterterrorism success,” Long War Journal terrorism analyst Bill Roggio wrote on Twitter. “But that narrative masks the undeniable truth that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is a safe have for Al Qaeda.”

1) The killing of Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri will be sold as a counterterrorism success. But that narrative masks the undeniable truth that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is a safe have for Al Qaeda. https://t.co/CGc5Fs8oMw

— Bill Roggio (@billroggio) August 2, 2022

In another tweet from the same thread, Roggio explained the implications of Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul.

“Zawahiri could not operate in Afghanistan — particularly in Kabul — without the consent of the Taliban,” Roggio wrote. “He wasn’t in the remote mountains of Kunar, Nuristan, or Nangarhar, or distant provinces of Ghazni, Helmand, or Kandahar. He was in the Taliban’s capital.”

4) Zawahiri could not operate in Afghanistan – particularly in Kabul – without the consent of the Taliban. He wasn’t in the remote mountains of Kunar, Nuristan, or Nangarhar, or distant provinces of Ghazni, Helmand, or Kandahar. He was in the Taliban’s capital.

— Bill Roggio (@billroggio) August 2, 2022

International security professor Max Abrahms made a similar point in a tweet of his own.

“Taking out #Zawahiri isn’t the categorical win Biden says,” he wrote. “The Taliban was supposed to prevent Al Qaeda leaders from hiding out there for goodness sake.”

Taking out #Zawahiri isn’t the categorical win Biden says. The Taliban was supposed to prevent Al Qaeda leaders from hiding out there for goodness sake.

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) August 1, 2022

Once again, Biden is attempting to take credit for taking steps to solve a problem he created, at least in part. While Zawahiri’s death is a good thing, it is not the end of terrorism problems in Afghanistan, and we have Biden himself to thank for that.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday, the biggest blow to the militant group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.

One of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a drone strike was carried out by the CIA in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that a strike took place and strongly condemned it, calling it a violation of “international principles.”

Joe Biden will deliver remarks on Monday at 7:30 p.m. (2330 GMT) on what the White House described as a “successful counter-terrorism operation.”

(Reporting by Idrees Ali. Editing by Leslie Adler and Grant McCool.)

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Vets on Duty chairman Jason Church is ‘laser-focused’ on ‘advocating for a strong national defense’

A coalition of veterans dedicated to strengthening America’s military has been uniformly slammed as racist by their critics. It’s a surprisingly callous take on a group chaired by a Purple Heart recipient who lost both his legs in Afghanistan.

Jason Church, a retired U.S. Army captain, joined with other veterans of the war on terror to ensure the United States retains military supremacy. Their group, Veterans on Duty, is warning that progressive bureaucrats have taken control of the armed forces and are forcing troops to sit through diversity, equity, and inclusion seminars when they should be training for battle. The newly formed nonprofit aims to reverse this trend by recruiting veterans to leadership roles and supporting lawmakers and policies that will help keep the U.S. military battle-ready.

To mark the group’s launch, Church penned a New York Post op-ed laying out these problems and enumerating Veterans on Duty’s proposed solutions. Critics immediately accused him of racism.

The progressive group VoteVets tweeted that Church “makes the same arguments that were made against integration over 70 years ago.” VoteVets, which is  chaired by Jon Soltz, who still has both of his legs, has spent tens of millions of dollars backing Democratic candidates, also slammed Church as a “loser congressional candidate.” Church entered a 2020 special congressional election in Wisconsin in an effort to continue serving his country “even though the Taliban took my legs.”

VoteVets CEO Janessa Goldbeck, who also has both of her legs, struck a similarly harsh note, calling Vets on Duty members “assholes” after saying, “50 years ago these people would have been mad about racial integration. Today they are mad about women and LGBT people in the military.”

At no point in Church’s Post piece does he call for the military to exclude soldiers based on race or sexual orientation. But he isn’t surprised by the reaction to Veterans on Duty’s launch.

“The radical left has long used baseless accusations of bigotry to browbeat dissenters as it bends American institutions to its will,” Church told the Washington Free Beacon. “This tired tactic should be ignored. We are laser-focused on our mission of advocating for a strong national defense and combating progressives’ efforts to corrode the military from within.”

As Church points out, that corrosion couldn’t come at a worse time. In his Post piece, he notes that Iran is close to obtaining nuclear weapons, and the Chinese Navy last year “surpassed our own as the world’s largest,” all while Russia is marching its armies through Ukraine.

Members of the media were also quick to criticize Church’s piece.

“I’m just woke enough to say you … are a fucking idiot,” MSNBC pundit Malcom Nance tweeted at Church. Nance, who tweeted “#DealWithIt” after terrorists killed 13 U.S. soldiers outside Kabul Airport in Afghanistan last summer, called Church “another pro-Trump Summer Soldier begging to be given a public paycheck for exhibiting asshattery & beclownment  above and beyond the Call of Duty.”

“Just imagine how all these right-wingers would have reacted with horror if they had been around when Harry Truman desegregated the military,” tweeted Max Boot, a Washington Post columnist who has not served in the military. “Now that was woke!”

Jeremy C. Hunt, a black military veteran who serves on Veterans on Duty’s board, quickly rebuffed Boot’s accusation. “We care about a military that wins,” Hunt wrote. “If you want an example of modern segregation in the military, look no further than the Biden administration’s racist DEI protocols that you defend.”

Those protocols include instructional videos that teach Navy cadets how to use gender pronouns, and “gender identity” training for Green Berets, the Free Beacon originally reported.

Still, Boot tells the Free Beacon that he stands by his claim “that the right-wingers who today decry the supposedly ‘woke’ military would have opposed the integration of the military in 1948.”

“How do I know? Because that was the conservative position back then,” said Boot, adding that “this whole ‘Vets on Duty’ exercise looks to be mere partisan politics designed to bash Democrats—not a serious attempt to protect the military.”

Jay Kramer, executive director of Veterans on Duty, says that politics is precisely what puts the military at risk.

“At a time of growing threats to the United States, progressive ideologues are pushing radical policies that undermine the men and women of our military,” Kramer told the Free Beacon. “While out-of-touch commentators focus more on messaging than substance, we are joining with like-minded veterans nationwide to do the hard work to ensure our military remains lethal and effective.”

VoteVets and Goldbeck did not return Free Beacon requests for comment. Nance could not be reached for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Congressional Republicans want to mandate that any immigrant who applies for a U.S. visa disclose ties they might have to Iran and its terror affiliates, according to legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Those seeking entrance into the United States are not currently asked on immigration forms if they have ties to the hardline Iranian government and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the country’s paramilitary fighting force responsible for orchestrating terror attacks on Americans.

The bill, led by Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) and a coalition of 14 lawmakers affiliated with the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), comes on the heels of a Free Beacon report detailing the Biden administration’s decision to loosen immigration laws so that individuals with known ties to designated terror groups can more easily enter the country. The amended law permits foreigners who provided “insignificant material support” to designated terror groups to receive “immigration benefits or other status.”

“Opening the border to members of a hostile terrorist army violates the Biden administration’s constitutional obligation to protect states from invasion,” Banks said. “Unfortunately, House Democrats have prioritized appeasing Iran above all else.”

Banks and his colleagues say the administration is opening “the floodgate for supporters of IRGC terrorism to enter the United States,” according to an RSC-authored memo circulating among Republican offices on Capitol Hill and obtained by the Free Beacon.

The Republican legislation, called the “Protecting America from IRGC Terrorists Act,” seeks to close these loopholes by mandating that every foreigner applying for a U.S. visa or citizenship disclose any ties to Iran and the IRGC on relevant immigration forms. The Republican coalition says the legislation is particularly important as Iran and its terror proxies actively plot to assassinate current and former U.S. government officials.

“I am shocked that disclosing Iranian and IRGC affiliations was not already a requirement for U.S. visa applications,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and one of 15 Republican cosponsors of the bill, told the Free Beacon. “Iran has shown us time and time again that they are no friend of the United States.”

The legislation, which is likely to garner widespread Republican support but stall in the Democrat-controlled House, would force the State and Homeland Security Departments to “ask about an alien’s affiliation with the Iranian state and the IRGC on visa, permanent residency, and naturalization application forms,” according to a full copy of the bill.

“By requiring these carefully crafted questions in our immigration vetting process, the bill aims to strengthen immigration accountability and transparency and provide more data for the Department of State and Department of Homeland Security to better evaluate potential US national security threats,” the RSC wrote in its internal policy brief on the legislation.

The Biden administration made several changes to federal immigration laws late last month that allow individuals who provided “humanitarian assistance” or “routine commercial transactions” to designated terror groups to obtain residence in the United States.

A State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon at the time that the changes were made to facilitate the immigration of vulnerable Afghans who may have been forced to work alongside terror groups operating in the country.

Former U.S. officials and experts, however, pointed out that the policies do not mention Afghanistan and apply specifically to designated terror groups. The Taliban, for instance, is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The broad nature of the changes drew accusations that the special immigration benefits could apply to IRGC members—though the State Department disputes that charge.

The changes “are an effort to address issues related to Afghanistan,” a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon in July, when the policy change was first announced. “The circumstances between Afghanistan and Iran are very different.”

Republican House lawmakers, led by Banks, launched a formal probe into the policy change earlier this month, as the Free Beacon first reported.

The order was “released just weeks before negotiations with Iran over restoring the nuclear deal recommenced,” Banks and three of his colleagues wrote in a letter to the White House demanding in-depth information about its justification for amending immigration law. “Your administration may be trying to entice Iran back to the nuclear deal by using broad executive authorities to weaken the penalties connected to the [foreign terrorist organization] designation without requiring the IRGC and other Iran-supported terrorist organizations to verifiably cease their terrorist activities.”

Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a cosponsor of the bill and member of the Armed Services Committee, said the legislation “will help ensure these terrorist supporters are barred from our homeland.”

“Over the last two decades, the IRGC is responsible for the killing of over 600 U.S. servicemembers and continue to threaten U.S. public officials who dared challenge their terrorism,” Waltz said. “Allowing any individuals into our country who may have assisted these terrorists would be a direct national security threat to our citizens.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Lawmakers, former officials say change will let Iranian terrorists come to US

The Biden administration altered federal law to make it easier for individuals who have worked with designated terrorist groups to legally enter the United States.

The State and Homeland Security Departments last week amended federal immigration laws to allow foreigners who provided “insignificant material support” to designated terror groups to receive “immigration benefits or other status,” according to the policy published in the Federal Register. Examples of individuals who would fall into the new category, according to the announcement, include individuals who provided “humanitarian assistance” or “routine commercial transactions” to terror groups.

The policy shift is fueling concerns that the Biden administration wants to make it easier for individuals who work with or for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the country’s paramilitary fighting force that has killed hundreds of Americans, to enter the country. Notice of the change came several days before the Biden administration and hardline Iranian government resumed talks aimed at securing a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear deal.

A State Department spokesman said the law was amended to help vulnerable Afghans, who might have inadvertently worked with terror groups, gain refuge in the United States following the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal that left the Taliban in power. Lawmakers and former U.S. officials, however, say the new regulations are so broadly written that they would apply to organizations like al Qaeda and the IRGC. The policy change is also raising red flags as U.S. officials, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, face credible death threats from Iran.

The rule does not specifically mention Afghanistan but is written to cover all U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, such as the IRGC and al Qaeda, experts told the Free Beacon. The Taliban is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization, leaving lawmakers and former U.S. officials concerned the changes extend far beyond vulnerable Afghans and cover those tied to some of the globe’s most violent terror groups.

Gabriel Noronha, a State Department special adviser for Iran during the Trump administration, said that “the Biden administration is claiming this regulation is all about Afghanistan, but they didn’t even mention Afghanistan once in their action, and have made no serious attempt to limit the scope to the situation there.”

“Instead,” said Noronha, who is a fellow with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America think tank, “this looks like a massive watering down of our immigration restrictions against members of terrorist organizations.”

The State Department says the changes are limited to Afghanistan, but would not say why the country is not mentioned once in the new order.

The changes “are an effort to address issues related to Afghanistan,” a State Department spokesman, speaking only on background, told the Free Beacon. “The circumstances between Afghanistan and Iran are very different.” The new rules “are not applicable to people who have received military-type training from [foreign terrorist organizations], including IRGC conscripts.” Rather, the administration is trying to make it easier for those tangentially tied to terrorism to legally enter the country, the official maintained.

When the Free Beacon requested additional information and an explanation as to why the IRGC or similar groups would not be covered by the changes, the State Department declined to answer, saying, “We have no further information or comments to share.” This lack of clarity is fueling concerns about the policy change.

Noronha and others who spoke to the Free Beacon say the broad reference to “foreign terrorist organizations” leaves open the possibility that groups like the IRGC and al Qaeda would benefit from the relaxed immigration guidelines. The revamped guidelines do not specifically include restrictions on either of these groups. “At best this is a horribly written regulation. At worst, it’s an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of Congress and the American people and make it easier for terrorists to come to America,” Noronha said.

Richard Goldberg, who under Trump served on the White House National Security Council as the director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction, said that any effort to loosen restrictions on terror-tied individuals is worrying amid Iran’s threats to kill U.S. leaders.

“Given Iran is actively plotting to kill former American officials, the administration should carefully explain if and how this [rule] might apply to a potential affiliate of the IRGC, and provide a high-level commitment to take all necessary steps to bar any potential IRGC associate from admission to the United States,” Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told the Free Beacon.

Republican lawmakers agree with this assessment. Five Republican foreign policy leaders who spoke to the Free Beacon expressed concerns the administration is trying to quietly grant concessions to Iran as it reenters nuclear talks.

“It’s outrageous that the Biden administration is lifting the blanket ban on individuals who have provided support to terrorists from entering the United States,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Free Beacon. “The timing raises concerns coming just a few days before the latest round of Iran talks. Resident Biden should end these failed negotiations once and for all and return to a policy of maximum pressure, rather than continuing to make concessions to the terrorist regime in Iran.”

Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he and his colleagues worry the Biden administration is attempting to grant concessions to Iran via backdoor changes to American laws.

“What do Americans gain by letting members of Iran’s terrorist army cross our borders?” Banks asked.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a combat veteran and also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the change is purely about “appeasing terrorist groups—whether it’s the IRGC, Houthis, or Taliban.”

Reps. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) and Pat Fallon (R., Texas), both Armed Services Committee members, expressed shock at how broadly written the new regulations are.

“In what world is it an acceptable decision to allow terrorists into our country?” Fallon asked the Free Beacon. “Instead of ending the nuclear talks with Iran all together, Joe Biden has decided to bend over backwards to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. Before it is too late, I urge them to immediately reconsider this foolish decision.”

Update June 29, 3:31 p.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Biden administration made no formal announcement of the policy change.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/the-biden-admin-just-made-it-easier-for-terrorists-to-enter-the-united-states/

In the United States, the right to worship freely is often called America’s first freedom. It is a necessary component of U.S. foreign policy and our commitment to creating a more peaceful world.

History has shown that governments and societies that champion religious freedom are safer, more prosperous, and secure. Our commitment to protect this fundamental human right is both a moral necessity and a national security imperative.

On June 2, the U.S. Department of State released the 2021 International Religious Freedom Report. The more than 2,000-page report is a comprehensive, fact-based account of nearly 200 countries and territories around the world that is made publicly available for use by all guardians of religious freedom, including governments, religious communities, and activists.

For more than two decades, the International Religious Freedom Report has been an essential tool for the United States to advance and defend the universal right to worship freely.

Under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the State Department is required to submit an annual report to Congress detailing the status of religious freedom in countries, government policies violating religious beliefs and practices, and U.S. policies that promote religious freedom.

As former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo previously said of the report, “Its very existence is evidence of our strong resolve to defend human dignity.”

Three central themes emerged from the 2021 Report.

First, discriminatory laws and policies are used by foreign governments to abuse their own people. For example, excessive prison sentences and home raids target people of faith in Russia, the Taliban and ISIS-K threaten and attack religious minorities in Afghanistan, and the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minorities.

Second, the report found that the rise of intolerance and hatred in societies fuels violence and conflict. According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, record-high levels of antisemitic incidents took place in Germany and the United Kingdom in 2020. In a separate report, the Commission stated that 82 percent of Jews in Sweden, 85 percent in Poland, 86 percent in Belgium, and 95 percent in France said that antisemitism is a “very big” problem.

Lastly, the partnership and collaboration among members of civil society, governments, and multilateral partners have been important to making progress in advancing and defending religious freedom.

Using the findings of the report, the president is also required to designate any nation that has “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom,” as a “Country of Particular Concern.” Nations that are severe violators of religious freedom but don’t meet all of the CPC criteria are designated as “Special Watch List Countries.”

On Nov. 15, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken designated Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan as Countries of Particular Concern.

The Special Watch List designations included Algeria, Comoros, Cuba, and Nicaragua. As I previously wrote, the administration removed Nigeria, but in the wake of the ongoing violence, it should be redesignated as one of the world’s most serious violators of religious freedom.

The Biden administration’s updates to these designations, which have yet to be released, will be watched closely by religious liberty advocates and perpetrators of persecution alike.

Tragically, as evidenced by the latest International Religious Freedom Report, religious oppression is a daily reality for millions of people of faith around the world.

The United States plays a consequential role in exposing these atrocities so that violators of religious freedom can be held accountable. America will not sit back as people are targeted, punished, and persecuted for their faith.

The Biden administration is illegally withholding information about its bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, including information that could show senior U.S. officials knew prior to the withdrawal that the Taliban would quickly rise to power and trap scores of Americans, according to a nonpartisan advocacy group focused on U.S. national security issues.

The Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) is petitioning a district court in Washington, D.C., to force the State Department to release communications records related to the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation. This would include information “related [to the] vetting of Afghan refugees, and the number of U.S. citizens and lawful residents that were or were not evacuated from Afghanistan,” according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The Biden administration has yet to provide the American public with a full accounting of those who were left behind in Afghanistan once the Taliban took over and American troops left the country, including the exact number of U.S. citizens and Afghans who aided the American government during the 20-year war. U.S. officials also have evaded congressional investigations into the matter and misled lawmakers for months about the number of Americans trapped in the country once the Taliban cut off access to airports. The Biden administration has thus far rebuffed congressional efforts and those from outside groups to determine how it is vetting scores of Afghan refugees that have been brought into the United States since the withdrawal, including how these individuals are being screened for terrorism ties.

CASA, which attempted to obtain these documents through Freedom of Information Act requests filed in January 2022, argues that “without litigation, [the State Department] will not produce the requested documents,” which are likely to shed light on the chaos that played out behind closed doors within the administration as the evacuation effort spiraled out of control. The State Department “wrongfully withheld agency records requested by CASA by failing to comply with the statutory time limits for making a determination on these FOIA requests, and by withholding from disclosure records responsive to CASA’s FOIA requests to DOS,” the group maintains.

The group wants the State Department to turn over all of the requested documents and stop stonewalling CASA’s FOIA requests, which have sat in administrative limbo for months. In addition to information about vetting and those trapped in Afghanistan, CASA wants the State Department to provide it with internal communications that could detail the administration’s efforts to downplay security concerns.

“The criminal and terrorist networks in Afghanistan are real and they are extensive,” CASA said in a statement about its lawsuit. “Americans have a right to know the people being brought to our country are not tied to them. Yet the U.S. government continues to hide the records surrounding the vetting process of refugees from the country who were admitted to the United States. Nor is State willing to reveal the real number of Americans left behind or if legitimate warnings were brushed aside.”

During and after the evacuation, Biden administration officials claimed for months that the number of Americans stranded behind enemy lines in the country was around 100. Lawmakers from both parties, however, disputed that number and disclosed that they were in contact with thousands who had trouble getting help from the State Department. To this day, it is unclear how many Americans were left behind and if any remain trapped in the country. Nonprofit organizations say at least 78,000 Afghans who worked with the United States were left behind.

The evacuation, CASA argues in the suit, was “conducted in a country controlled by a hostile government previously overthrown by U.S. forces, [and] was marked by chaos and ambiguity regarding who was, and who was not, being evacuated. That ambiguity extended to, for example, how many [U.S.-aligned Afghans]—at risk due to their support of the U.S.— were evacuated; furthermore, it was unclear whether the U.S. was vetting Afghan evacuees to ensure that they did not pose a national security, or other, risk to the U.S.”

Internal communications between the State Department and other agencies are likely to corroborate reports that the Biden administration ordered evacuation flights to be packed with unvetted Afghans.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), disclosed in October 2021 that an internal Biden administration directive ordered officials to overfill flights. “Total inflow to the U.S. must exceed the number of seats available. Err on the side of excess,” an Aug. 16 email stated. “This guidance provides clear discretion and direction to fill seats and to provide special consideration for women and children when we have seats.”

CASA argues in the suit that the State Department has “wrongfully withheld agency records” related to its screening process and failed “to comply with the statutory time limits” for providing the requested documents.

“Americans witnessed the mismanagement and chaos of the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” CASA director Adam Turner said in a statement on the suit. “Yet the State Department is unwilling to reveal what happened around this humiliating episode—were warnings of Afghanistan’s rapid collapse ignored, how many Americans and others we had committed to evacuate were left behind, were those admitted to the United States properly vetted? Americans deserve the answers to these and other questions. State’s lack of transparency is gravely concerning.”

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-admin-withholds-info-on-bungled-afghanistan-withdrawal-lawsuit-says/

The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan seems to be the gift that just keeps on giving.

In the midst of the destruction and Taliban takeover, it is actually the Islamic State that is now benefiting greatly from President Joe Biden’s poor planning, and the U.S. is the loser in the grand scheme of it all.

During all the years that the U.S. was present in the country, they were training elite Afghan military units. Now, some of those U.S.-trained officers are joining the Islamic State-Khorasan in defiance of the Taliban.

The Taliban and ISIS-K are bitter enemies, and the war between them in Afghanistan has never ceased. In fact, when the Taliban took over the country, the fighting increased as the groups began targeting each other’s fighters and leaders. But now, ISIS-K could gain the upper hand as they gain elite Afghan officers.

According to an exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal, the group of Afghan defectors to ISIS-K is still small but may be growing.

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“Importantly, these new recruits bring to Islamic State critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques, potentially strengthening the extremist organization’s ability to contest Taliban supremacy,” the WSJ reported.

Various Afghan officials told the paper of previous members of the Afghan military and intelligence branches who disappeared and then reappeared as fighters for the Islamic State.

“In some areas, ISIS has become very attractive,” said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security.

Though ISIS-K may appall many, it does make sense that Afghan officers would be joining its ranks. After years of working with Americans to stave off the Taliban, it’s logical that they would then join the only real organized resistance to the Taliban.

Should the U.S. work with the Taliban to fight ISIS-K?

No matter what else ISIS-K is embroiled in or planning, it has set itself up as the main opponent of the Taliban.

Besides just being the resistance to the Taliban, ISIS-K could also provide protection to Afghan officers who previously were allied with the United States. The Taliban promised amnesty to those who worked with Americans, but there seems to be little trust in this promise.

“Hundreds of thousands of former Afghan republic intelligence officers, soldiers and police personnel are unemployed and afraid for their lives despite pledges of amnesty from the Taliban,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Along with protection from the Taliban, the WSJ also heard reports that ISIS-K is offering significant compensation to new members in Afghanistan.

This whole development is deeply concerning to the U.S., and rightly so. Not only has the government inadvertently funded ISIS-K terrorism as Afghan officers they trained are joining the organization, but the terror of the Islamic State will eventually be directed at America. In a way, the U.S. may have funded an attack against itself.

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While ISIS-K may not have the ability to launch an attack on the U.S. immediately, senior Pentagon official Colin Kahl said recently, “We could see ISIS-K generate that capability in somewhere between six or 12 months,” CNN reported.

Originally, it might have been assumed that the Taliban would be able to curb ISIS-K, but Kahl clarified that, though the Taliban are highly motivated to beat down the Islamic State, “their ability to do so, I think, is to be determined,” according to Middle Eastern news site Gandhara.

ISIS-K seems to be showcasing its new surge of power and has already been responsible for several bombings in Afghanistan just in the last few weeks, Human Rights Watch reported.

So it is certainly not helping that now, U.S. trained Afghan officers are strengthening ISIS-K against the Taliban.

In this violent fight between the Taliban and ISIS-K, the U.S. is caught in the middle with hostility coming from both sides. There are simply no winners in this triangle of conflict, and the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw American troops simply brought everything to a head.

Biden’s promises to get Americans out of Afghanistan are proving to be empty lies. Now, a disabled American citizen from Liberty, Kentucky, is finding this out the hard way.

“Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home,” Biden said back in August, according to NPR.

Abdul Samad and his family are desperately wanting to come home, but they can’t. They are in extreme danger, but due to the incompetence that led the American withdrawal, the Samad family is having to hide and beg the American government to bring them home.

Samad is originally from Afghanistan, but after losing his hands and left eye in a landmine explosion when he was a teenager, he came to the United States. The founders of Galilean Children’s Home took Samad in, and he became a citizen, building a life in Kentucky.

In August, however, Samad, along with his wife, four children, and mother-in-law, went back to Afghanistan to visit a sick relative. Then devastation struck when the American troops suddenly withdrew and left Samad behind. Samad’s wife and children are also American citizens, and his mother-in-law has a green card.

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“I’m really confused because I don’t know what to do because the airport is closed and the border with Pakistan is closed. So I don’t know how to get out,” Samad told Lex18 News.

It’s been nearly two weeks since Samad has heard from the American embassy. He has twice filled out the re-repatriation request form they asked for, but still has no way out. He has kept his family on the move continually, and they are afraid to sleep in the same place.

“I’ve been moving with family members from place to place to stay with them, so people will not notice we are from the United States,” Samad said.

Should we still have troop in Afghanistan?

The government has miserably failed their own citizens and has put them in harm’s way.

“We are in a very helpless situation because we cannot really say much and we cannot do much unless we found a way that we can really get out safely,” Samad said.

Sadly, Samad’s story of helplessness is just one more piece of incriminating evidence against Biden’s absolute failure in Afghanistan.

Thanks to Biden’s hasty decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Samad is now having to hide from the Taliban. Just about two months ago he and his family were peacefully living in Kentucky; now, they are suffering for Biden’s foolishness. It is the height of injustice, and Biden is to blame.

Biden’s ample lip-service to the idea of American safety has done nothing.

Biden Must Answer: Nearly 200 Americans Reportedly Still Trying to Escape Afghanistan

“The United States stands by its commitment that we’ve made to these people,” Biden said, according to NPR.

Then why is Samad stranded?

When people were hanging from plane wings and nearly killing each other to get on the leaving American planes, Biden acted like it was just business as usual.

“There’s no way we would have been able to leave Afghanistan without there being some of what you’re seeing now,” he said, CNBC reported.

Of course withdrawals are messy. But that doesn’t mean it’s simply fine to ignore the pleas of citizens that are trapped. Biden made promises.

But now Samad is hiding helplessly, and his pleas seem to be falling on deaf ears.

Biden should be utterly appalled and sick that he has done this to Samad — and so many other American citizens.

This might be brutal, but it’s 10000% true – can’t wait for Joe to see it 

There’s a hero Republican politician in York County, PA who is putting his money where his mouth is, and he’s doing so by placing some very damning billboards up featuring Joe Biden, all over the county.

ABC 27 News covered the story and said the following: If you’ve driven along Interstate 83 in York County lately, chances are you’ve seen a giant billboard that features President Joe Biden in a military outfit along with the phrase “Making the Taliban Great Again.”

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The billboard is operated by advertising company Trone Outdoor Advertising, which provides billboard advertising in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. The company is responsible for operating and organizing advertisements, but it is not responsible for what is included in the advertisements that are displayed.

“The individual that is responsible for the billboard is (former Pennsylvania State Senator) Scott Wagner. He gave us permission to make it known that he was responsible for the billboard,” Vice President of Trone Outdoor Brian Scott said.

Scott Wagner had one term as Pennsylvania State Senator, elected in 2014. He represented the 28th district in the state, which is a large portion of York County. He resigned in June of 2018 to run for Governor as the Republican nominee, a race in which he lost to Governor Tom Wolf.

“I saw the image (of Joe Biden), I got it from a friend a few weeks ago. The picture tells the story. We pulled out of Afghanistan too quickly, and we left so much of American equipment. Joe Biden has made us look like a fool. I feel so bad, words can’t describe what I would say to someone who was wounded or someone’s family who had a soldier pass away in the country after all this happened,” Scott Wagner said when asked for a comment.

Gee, between this and the F Joe Biden stuff, I don’t think ol’ Bumbling Joe is gonna wanna leave the basement ever again.

And truthfully, that’d be a good thing for the entire country.

In off-the-record call with congressional staff, Biden admin says nearly 400 still stranded

The Biden administration is in touch with nearly 400 Americans who are stranded in Afghanistan, a figure that far exceeds the administration’s claims that about 100 Americans were left in the nation following the United States’ hurried exit from Kabul, according to a senior congressional source who was briefed Thursday by the State Department.

With Afghanistan in the administration’s rear-view mirror, U.S. officials are providing exact figures on the number of Americans who are still stranded and want to leave—although they are doing so in private, off-the-record forums—according to two senior congressional aides, who relayed the contents of the non-public call to the Washington Free Beacon.

The United States is in touch with 363 Americans who are stuck in war-torn Afghanistan and around 176 U.S. permanent residents who are asking to be evacuated immediately, Biden administration officials said on the call with congressional staff, according to the source, who requested anonymity to discuss non-public information. These figures demonstrate that senior Biden administration officials routinely misrepresented the number of stranded Americans to the public and Congress for nearly two months.

The State Department further claims to have airlifted 218 U.S. citizens and 131 long-term permanent residents out of Afghanistan since Aug. 31, when senior Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House press secretary Jen Psaki, were publicly claiming that “around 100” Americans were still stuck in the nation. Psaki, for instance, said last month that only “a handful of American citizens” were trying to leave Afghanistan after the United States pulled its forces. The figures presented in Thursday’s briefing indicate the administration was citing the “around 100” talking point while privately being aware of nearly 600 Americans still inside Afghanistan.

The information presented in the call stunned participants and fueled accusations that the Biden administration lied about the dire situation in order to avoid public scrutiny of its rushed evacuation from Afghanistan that was widely seen as disastrous and ill-prepared.

“We now know this administration repeatedly lied to the world about the citizens of our country it abandoned in Afghanistan,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), whose office has paved the way for several families to come home, told the Free Beacon. “But it did something even worse: It broke a sacred bond of trust between Americans and their government. This isn’t close to over.”

While members of Congress often challenged the “around 100” figure, the administration stuck to the number and attempted to downplay criticism of its botched retreat.

“Everyone who has said these numbers make no sense got told we were lying, got told we were crazy, got told we were not on the ground,” said a second senior congressional source working on the issue. “The White House has said on the record that they’re turning the page and it becomes clearer all the time why: Every new detail that we find out about the reckless Biden policy in Afghanistan produces only more proof that they lied from day one.”

The State Department did not provide congressional staff with information about how it is coordinating with outside groups to fly trapped Americans out of Afghanistan. Many charter flights have been prevented by the Taliban from leaving Afghanistan. The State Department said it “didn’t have good guidance there for how to get a flight in and out of the country.” There were also “no clear answers” about how Americans board a private flight out of Kabul, where the Taliban controls who gets in and out of the city.

The United States has established a “technical channel” with the Taliban passport office to help stranded Americans get the paperwork needed to flee the country, according to the source who was on the call.

Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers, including Issa, were informed last week by American military officials that nearly 20 percent of the Afghan evacuees who were brought to the United States—around 12,000 in total—arrived with no paperwork, no identification, and no visa, as the Free Beacon first reported.

The Biden administration additionally blocked Issa and other lawmakers from accessing a U.S. holding facility located near Doha, Qatar, where Afghan evacuees are being held prior to being flown into America.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the call or its contents.

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/the-biden-admin-said-it-left-100-americans-in-afghanistan-they-now-admit-its-far-more/

The ominous ripple effects of President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan disaster affirm that his incompetent leadership has emboldened and incentivized more terrorism in the Middle East. This not only jeopardizes the unstable region, but is a direct threat to U.S. national security.

The Taliban’s acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, gleefully offered money and plots of land to the relatives of jihadi suicide bombers, according to Twitter photos posted by Qari Saeed Khosty, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs.

Many of the victims of these attacks during the past 20 years have been American soldiers, who have been injured, maimed or murdered by jihadis.

Khosty said Haqqani met with the family members of fallen “fidayeen,” or jihadis who sacrificed their lives to advance radical Islamic terrorism.

He posted photos of the convocation on Twitter, where the Taliban and other terrorists are allowed to maintain massive accounts while former U.S. President Donald Trump is banned.

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“Yesterday, H.E Interior Minister Alhaj Mullah Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani met the family members of martyred Fidayeen at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul,” Khosty tweeted Tuesday.

2/3- In his speech, the Interior Minister praised the jihad & sacrifices of Mujahideen & martyrs. He called them heroes of Islam & the country.

H.E told everyone about the memories of the martyred (Fidayeen) their piety & deeds. He called them heroes of the believing nation. pic.twitter.com/Td9Y52kbr0

— Qari Saeed Khosty (@SaeedKhosty) October 19, 2021

Haqqani praised the jihadis as valiant martyrs who are the backbone of “the Islamic system,” Khosty tweeted.

Is Biden a bigger threat to national security than the Taliban?

“In his speech, the Interior Minister praised the jihad & sacrifices of Mujahideen & martyrs. He called them heroes of Islam & the country.

“H.E told everyone about the memories of the martyred (Fidayeen) their piety & deeds. He called them heroes of the believing nation.”

At the end of the meeting, according to The Associated Press, Haqqani rewarded the families of the suicide bombers by giving them 10,000 AFN (Afghan afghani, which is roughly $111), clothes and promised a plot of land to the families of every fallen jihadi.

He also exhorted them to “refrain from betraying the aspirations of our martyrs.” Essentially, this means that the jihad must continue unabated.

3/3- H.E Haqqani added: “Now you & I must refrain from betraying the aspirations of our martyrs.”

One Twitter photo showed Haqqani embracing an attendee in a packed auditorium. In a slap in the face to America, his security detail wore what appeared to be U.S. military garb.

At the end of the meeting, he distributed 10,000 AFN & clothes to the families of the martyred Fidayeen & promised a plot for each (martyr’s) family. pic.twitter.com/CBEaW4SACp

— Qari Saeed Khosty (@SaeedKhosty) October 19, 2021

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The sickening public spectacle of a terrorist organization rewarding suicide bombings underscores that Biden’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal has encouraged more radical Islamic terrorism in the already-unstable Middle East.

As we’ve already seen, this terrorism does not contain itself geographically and has spread around the world. Just look at the countless jihadi attacks that have roiled Western Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the United States.

While the Biden administration has praised the Taliban as “businesslike and professional,” the terrorist group said it won’t help America defeat ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for killing 13 U.S. soldiers during a suicide bombing in August.

Taliban say they won’t work with US to contain Islamic State https://t.co/EkT0gKBqE2

— Montgomery Granger (@mjgranger1) October 11, 2021

While the Taliban refuses to cooperate with the United States, the Biden administration is handing out exorbitant amounts of taxpayer money to help Afghanistan.

The U.S. has given $330 million to Afghanistan this fiscal year alone while taking in tens of thousands of Afghan refugees — all while Americans struggle with rocketing consumer prices and a sputtering economy.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates says President Joe Biden has a track record of errors on foreign policy.

Gates, who served under former President Barack Obama when Biden was vice president, was interviewed by Anderson Cooper for the CBS show “60 Minutes” on Sunday.

During the interview, Cooper mentioned comments Gates had made in his 2014 book, “Duty.”

The former defense secretary had written that Biden was guilty of “poisoning the well” with the military and was “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” according to Politico.

Gates’s reply showed his opinion has not changed.

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“I think he’s gotten a lot wrong,” he told Cooper.

Gates indicated Biden’s track record on foreign policy is bad.

“He opposed every one of Ronald Reagan’s military programs to contest the Soviet Union. He opposed the first gulf war. That list goes on,” he said.

During the interview, Gates said he was troubled by the debacle he witnessed in Afghanistan in August, from the Taliban takeover to the U.S. withdrawal.

“It was really tough. For a few days there, I actually wasn’t feeling very well. And I realized it was because of what was happening in Kabul,” he said.

“And I was just so low about the way it had ended, if you will. And — and I guess the other — the other feeling that I had was that it probably did not need to have turned out that way,” he said.

Gates said Biden mismanaged his way into a crisis.

“Once President Biden reaffirmed that there was going to be a firm deadline date, that’s the point at which I think they should have begun bringing those people out. You’d have to be pretty naïve not to assume things were gonna go downhill once that withdrawal was complete,” he said.

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Gates said that he and others who shaped U.S. policy in Afghanistan had made significant errors.

“I think that we created an Afghan military in our own image. And one that required a lot more sophisticated logistics and maintenance and support than, say, the Taliban,” he said.

“Instead of being light and tactical and basically self-resourced as the Taliban were, we created a logistics-heavy, sophisticated-equipment-heavy military,” Gates said.

That the military collapsed was not unexpected, he said.

“And when you pulled that rug out from under them, and you add on top of that the corruption of the senior military leaders and so on, it’s not a surprise to me that the Afghan army collapsed,” the former secretary of defense said.

Gates also said the Biden administration’s concept that it can gather intelligence without being on the ground is not likely to pan out.

“This notion that you can carry out effective counterterrorism in Afghanistan from a great distance, it’s not a fantasy, but it’s just very, very hard,” he said.

Two months after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, desperation is ravaging the people America left behind.

In White House remarks after the last Americans left Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said it was time to look forward  “to a future that’s safer, to a future that’s more secure.”

But to Afghan families spiraling deeper into poverty with every passing day, the future is bleak and desperate.

A report in The Wall Street Journal quoted a woman it named Saleha, who said she sold a 3-year-old daughter to satisfy a $550 debt.

This is heartbreaking.

As Afghanistan Sinks Into Destitution, Some Sell Children to Survive
U.N. warns that 95% of Afghans aren’t getting enough to eat as winter approaches. https://t.co/5Ox3Gl79Dd

— Murtaza Solangi (@murtazasolangi) October 16, 2021

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That child may be the lucky one, said Saleha, 40, who says she earns 70 cents a day and whose husband does not work.

“If life continues to be this awful, I will kill my children and myself,” Saleha said. “I don’t even know what we will eat tonight.”

The Journal report said that it tracked down Khalid Ahmad, who took the girl as payment.

“I also don’t have money. They haven’t paid me back,” he said. “So there is no option but taking the daughter.”

The Journal report is not an isolated incident.

The economic situation of the Afghan people is getting worse every day because there is no work, money, no salary&income, the cold, hard winter is coming, but it does not make any difference to the Taliban, yesterday they destroyed it with suicide, explosion. Today with Poverty. pic.twitter.com/XHZ1NCQ49l

— Mariam Alimi (@alimi_alimi1) October 16, 2021

Last month, former police officer Mir Nazir said he was expecting to sell his 4-year-old daughter for $580, according to a report in the New York Post that was originally in the Times of London.

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“I would prefer to die than be reduced to selling my daughter,” Nazir, 38, said.

“But my own death wouldn’t save anyone in my family. Who would feed my other children? This isn’t about choice. It’s about desperation,” he said.

“I received an offer from a shop owner, a man I knew who had no children,” said Nazir, who has five children.

“She may have a better future working in a shop than staying with me, and the price may save my family,” he said.

Last month, a United Nations Development Programme report predicted the country was heading for “universal poverty,” according to Axios.

The report predicted that poverty, which is estimated now at 72 percent of the population, will hit 97 percent.

Only God knows what pain she has going through let the poverty and hunger alone. https://t.co/uBnN0OW0y1

— Afghan Politicking (@Informer786) October 14, 2021

“Afghanistan pretty much faces universal poverty by the middle of next year,” said Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Director.

“That’s where we’re heading – it’s 97-98 percent no matter how you work these projections.”

Once a terrorist, always a terrorist? Don’t tell that to President Joe Biden.

A new report from Fox News revealed that Afghan citizens who were part of the repressive Taliban regime that was overthrown at the dawn of the Afghan war will be welcomed with open arms into America.

The report said that civil servants who helped the Taliban carry out its policies during the years from 1996 to 2001 will be exempted from rules that bar other terrorists from entering the country.

Fox said it obtained a draft document from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The document reportedly indicated the Department of Homeland Security will allow Afghan citizens who collaborated with the Taliban in the past, which would normally ban them on what are called terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds, into the United States — choosing not to hold their past against them.

The USCIS website says, “The definition of terrorism-related activity is relatively broad and may apply to individuals and activities not commonly thought to be associated with terrorism. As a result, Congress created a statutory exemption provision through which the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State may exempt individuals from the grounds of inadmissibility.”

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The document tried to indicate that many of those the Biden administration wants to let into America might not have fully embraced the Taliban’s terrorist regime.

“Many individuals who worked in civil service positions before the declaration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996 continued to do so after the declaration,” the planning document said, according to Fox News. “Some did so under duress or other situations of hardship.”

“Some used their positions in humanitarian capacities to mitigate the repressive actions of the Taliban regime, often at great personal risk. Some of these civil servants later worked for or helped the International Security Assistance Force, the U.S. government or the Afghan government that was established in Dec. 22, 2001,” it said.

The Obama administration had first proposed the exemption that Biden, who was vice president during the Obama era, now seeks to implement. However, the exemption was proposed in January 2017, and the administration was out of office before it could act.

Fox said it was told by an administration official it did not name that the change would not alter other parts of the vetting process.

“The effect [of the memo] is that people who worked as doctors, grade school teachers, civil servants or low-level government employees wouldn’t automatically be barred from ever entering the United States because they worked in those professions,” the official said.

The document Fox reviewed said individuals who helped the Taliban carry out their brutal regime must pass “all background checks and pose[s] no danger to the safety and security of the United States, and other threshold requirements.”

The exemption comes in the context of the Biden administration seeking to resettle about 95,000 Afghan citizens.

Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell of New Mexico has said that after visiting Fort Bliss, where many Afghans are being held pending resettlement, she has questions and concerns, according to Fox News.

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“We already know there’s weakness in the vetting process and the screenings, and we want to make sure as this continues, we can make sure the American people can feel safe and secure about the entire process,” she said.

Herrell said that despite the efforts of those working with refugees to care for their needs, the overall process is not what it should be.

“There’s no accountability, this was a rushed process by this administration,” she said. “We know it is flawed.”

In the wake of President Joe Biden’s horrific Afghanistan withdrawal, American-made weapons that were abandoned by the Afghan National Security Forces were seized by the Taliban.

This was an $83 billion investment, according to The New York Times, flushed down the toilet because the Biden administration sloppily executed the removal of our troops from the fragile nation.

We trained and trusted the Afghan military to hold the line against the Taliban, which turned out to be a huge mistake.

Those weapons, which could be seen as American secrets in physical form, are now ending up in Afghan gun stores, according to a recent report from the Times.

Weapons dealers in southern Afghanistan told the paper that dealers have been paying off Taliban fighters for the equipment in order to resell it for their own businesses.

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In Kandahar, it has now become a lucrative business for Afghans to sell these the matériel, which includes everything from guns to binoculars.

While some of these dealers are selling in the nation, others are reportedly smuggling them to Pakistan as well.

The Pentagon has conceded that American weapons still remained in the country after the bloody end of U.S. involvement in August but said that aircraft had been disabled.

“Since 2005, the U.S. military has provided the Afghan national defense and security forces with many thousands of small arms, ranging from pistols to medium machine guns,” Defense Department spokesman Maj. Rob Lodewick told the Times.

Some in the Taliban, however, vehemently deny that they are selling these weapons in the marketplace.

“I totally deny this; our fighters cannot be that careless,” Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi told the paper, despite others in the terrorist regime admitting that they are being sold.

“Even a single person cannot sell a bullet in the market or smuggle it.”

The dealers’ customers base was described by the Times as “entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens,” which is presumably not a bad thing.

There are likely thousands of Afghans looking for tools to fight back against the Taliban or defend themselves against other injustices in their communities.

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On the flip side, these weapons being out for sale could mean that they get into the hands of extremists (again), which could ultimately bring harm to innocent civilians.

“American-made weapons are in great demand, as they work very well and people know how to use them,” an anonymous merchant told the Times.

Regardless of who will be owning these weapons, it is embarrassing for the United States to have taxpayer-funded equipment become this vulnerable.

The ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), is demanding answers from the Biden administration about the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.

McCaul rallied a group of GOP representatives to send a Resolution of Inquiry (ROI) to the White House, demanding that the administration, including the State Department, turn over all documents, communication, intelligence, and assessments related to ending the war and withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The ROI is one of the ways House members can get information from the executive branch within a two-week period.

“There should be no delay in the investigation into the disastrous events in Afghanistan,” McCaul said. “I and my Republican colleagues are hopeful that this Resolution of Inquiry will be supported by Democrat Leadership in order to hold this administration accountable for the actions that led to the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan and the deadly aftermath.”

During the committee’s hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal on Tuesday, McCaul criticized the Biden administration’s reason for the deadly withdrawal.

“President Biden and officials in his administration have continued to push the notion that only two options were available in Afghanistan: one, to fully withdraw in this chaotic and bloody way; or two, to keep tens of thousands of troops on the ground indefinitely,” said McCaul, adding, “But I believe this is a false premise.”

McCaul said Biden could have listened to the advice of U.S. military leaders who advised him to retain troops in Afghanistan until after the evacuation of Americans and allies.

“We have abandoned hundreds of American citizens and lawful permanent residents behind enemy lines. And we have left thousands of our Afghan partners behind—all with a bullseye on their backs and all at the mercy of the Taliban. If they are caught, they will surely be executed,” said McCaul.

“In other words, as General Milley said recently, our withdrawal from Afghanistan was a, quote, ‘strategic failure,’” McCaul continued. “So much is left to be uncovered and there are many lessons to be learned from this debacle.”

Chairman of the committee Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said the hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal is for the purpose of preventing such a mistake in the future.

“This committee’s oversight effort isn’t simply to determine whether we should blame the Bush or Obama or Trump or Biden administrations. This committee seeks to understand and learn what went right, what went wrong over the course of 20 years, so that we don’t again repeat the mistakes of the past,” said Meeks.

The White House did not respond to the request to comment on McCaul’s request.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/house-gop-members-demand-documents-from-biden-administration-related-to-afghanistan-exit_4033730.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Chinese “wolf warriors” and their sycophants in China’s state-run media have been crowing for weeks about the strategic defeat suffered by the United States in Afghanistan.

During a telephone call on Aug. 16, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed that the U.S. Secretary of State expressed hope that China would help in “stabilizing Afghanistan.” Here is an agitprop headline from state-run China Daily on Sept. 27 that reinforces the Chinese regime’s goal to replace the United States in world leadership: “US leaving Afghanistan signals accelerating end of its hegemony.” The PLA Daily took its agitprop shot with an article titled, “Why US military interference constantly ends in debacles,” claiming that since the end of World War II, “the US has never stopped invading other countries, fighting ‘proxy wars’ and supporting pro-America regimes.”

Part of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda offense has been aimed directly at Taiwan by planting seeds of doubt in President Tsai Ing-wen’s inner circle of military and domestic advisers as to whether the United States and its allies would truly come to their aid in the event of a cross-channel kinetic attack by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Toward that end, note this headline from China Military Online, “What US retreat from Afghanistan means for Taiwan.” That article claims that Taiwan is “just a card that can be played”—and as easily discarded—by the United States depending on the situation.

The preceding represent the propaganda associated with the messages that the CCP would have the world believe in support of its geopolitical goals to achieve world economic and military dominance: the United States is in decline, the United States cannot be trusted to live up to its agreements, the United States will bail out on allies when it is convenient to do so, etc. But are those the real “lessons learned” from Afghanistan, or are there some far more important lessons that are in the process of being learned?

As the world’s premier constitutional republic, the United States has been historically able to change courses of action and policies that have failed—through vigorous debate and the reaching of consensus, both within the political class and also among the citizenry at large, about strategic goals and objectives and associated required actions. The Civil War abolished the institution of slavery, with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and other legislation completing the process of fully integrating black Americans into U.S. society. Long-standing U.S. isolationism was set aside during World War I and World War II to deal with national security threats, with the defeated countries subsequently converted to strong allies through U.S. economic and security investments. South Korea was saved from being overrun by the Chinese military during the Korean War.

But since then, the commitment of the U.S. military to overseas ventures has seemingly gone off the rails for a variety of reasons.

Much has been written about the inept withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, and much more will be discerned as Congress interrogates the decision makers who were involved in the debacle. Serious corrective actions are entirely possible, as the root causes are identified and debated. Some of these include the following:

• The failure of the policy/political theory that “building democracy” can be easily achieved in countries with no democratic history or without the laying of the long-term foundations necessary over many decades for it to flourish.
• The failure to address the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 that divided up the Middle East into arbitrary lines on a map without consideration of the ethnicities and tribal organizations of the indigenous populations, which sowed the seeds of inevitable future wars.
• Lack of the political will to use all available means to achieve total victory when U.S. military forces are committed overseas.
• The unchecked influence of interests heavily invested in prolonging endless overseas wars, including politicians, allies, military industrialists, U.S. flag and general officers, and others.
• The demonstrated ineptitude of senior U.S. military leaders with respect to strategic and operational planning and execution.
• The absence of clear-cut mission success and exit criteria that needlessly prolonged the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, as well as shifting rules of engagement that were politically motivated and not focused on achieving victory on the battlefield.

The CCP sees Afghanistan as an inflection point in world history that demonstrates that the balance of geopolitical forces is shifting in favor of its own long-term strategic goals. It would be happy if the United States were to retreat from treaty obligations, the defense of human rights around the world, and international conventions and organizations established in the aftermath of World War II. That’s not going to happen.

If anything, the last year and a half has red-pilled Americans and many other people around the world as to China’s long-term intentions and the aggressive means being used by the CCP in pursuit of those objectives. The CCP’s aggressive tactics include the following:

• The lying and obfuscation about the origins of and medical forensic information associated with the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
• The hoarding of medical supplies during the “pandemic” and selling of those supplies to countries in need.
• The ongoing Uyghur genocide in East Turkestan (Xinjiang).
• The continuing persecution of Falun Gong adherents.
• The ongoing PLA intimidation of China’s neighbors such as Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and others.
• The emergence of belligerent “wolf warriors” in the Chinese diplomatic corps.
• The continued use of debt trap diplomacy in advancing Chinese economic, political, and military goals among 42 nations via Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, as known as “One Belt, One Road”).

In light of the above CCP aggression, does the “rest of the world” wish to see the United States replaced as the world leader by communist China? Recent actions would indicate otherwise. As the old idiom goes, “necessity is the mother of invention.”

The aforementioned items have driven neighboring nations into each other’s arms. The following are a few examples:

• A Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the “Quad”) has been formed by the United States, Australia, India, and Japan to improve “security and economic ties as tensions with China rise,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
• Japan and Vietnam have improved their defense cooperation by signing a new agreement that facilitates the transfer of Japanese defense equipment and technology to Vietnam.
• Taiwan and Japan held security talks for the first time on Aug. 27.
• Japan is increasing defense spending beyond its long-standing cap of 1 percent of GDP, and others in the region believe that Japan will begin playing a wider role in regional defense and security matters.
• The European Parliament has recommended that the European Union adopt a new strategy to defend democratic values against ongoing Chinese aggression.
• Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States entered into “an enhanced trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS,” according to the BBC, which is aimed at deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.
• The British, French, and German navies have deployed ships to the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait in recent months for freedom of navigation operations and as a deterrent to PLA-Navy aggression in the region.

But what has the United States itself learned in the wake of Afghanistan, and how might the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul serve to reset U.S. foreign and national security policies, especially in the Indo-Pacific in response to continued Chinese aggression?

Republican senators (and others) are pushing the Biden administration for more forceful actions in responding to Chinese statements in the aftermath of the evacuation. They also seek accountability for the disorganized withdrawal and the poor decision making that was involved. Will this pressure result in a change in U.S. policy relating to the commitment and withdrawal of U.S. military forces overseas? The door could finally be opening for achieving consensus on a policy that involves the following key points:

1. Ensure that there are clearly defined mission success and exit criteria before committing U.S. combat power overseas. Ensure the top-level criteria are publicly debated and endorsed in Congress, and understood by the American people and the forces who are committed to battle.
2. Hold military leaders personally responsible for the operational planning and execution needed to achieve those criteria and associated objectives. Give those leaders the means and the flexibility to achieve the criteria and objectives.
3. Delegate the setting of tactical rules of engagement to the lowest possible command level (not to anyone out of theater).
4. When combat forces are committed overseas, use all means necessary to achieve total victory in the shortest time and with the least U.S. and allied casualties. All other considerations are secondary, including “bad press” (the Achilles heel of the current U.S. political class).
5. Broadcast the new policy as a deterrent against potential adversaries around the world.
6. Act decisively to execute the above policy when U.S. interests are threatened abroad, as well as in support of allies, alliances, and signed treaties.

Then, let the chips fall where they may, including in the South China Sea. In naval parlance, the new policy would be a badly needed “shot across the bow”—and decidedly NOT the U.S. lesson learned and corrective action from the Afghanistan disaster that the CCP is seeking.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-correct-response-to-china-in-the-aftermath-of-the-afghanistan-debacle_4028336.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Pakistan’s support for the Taliban is not surprising. The international community needs to take stock of Pakistan’s moves in the Taliban-led Afghanistan, and to observe how the Pakistan-China nexus will be played out in the war-torn country.

The nexus is already taking root in Afghanistan as witnessed in the coordinated efforts between Islamabad, Beijing, and the Taliban. That is, while Pakistan called the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul “breaking the chains of slavery,” China has endorsed the new “interim government” of the Taliban by calling it a “necessary step” to restore order and “end anarchy.”

Furthermore, on Sept. 8, the Pakistani government led the initiative of organizing a foreign ministers’ meeting on the Afghan issue, which was attended by China, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. At the meeting, China announced that it would donate 200 million yuan ($31 million) worth of aid, including grains, winter supplies, and COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan. Speaking to the G20 foreign ministers via a video link, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged for humanitarian assistance to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan without any delay. Besides, Beijing has also expressed its interest in starting investment projects in Afghanistan when the situation becomes conducive.

While China has been quick to make its strategic moves in the war-torn country, it is still too early to gauge how China’s clout will play out in Afghanistan. However, what remains certain is that Afghanistan, under the Taliban, will become the new frontier of the Beijing-Islamabad nexus—further broadening the scope of the ties. This brings the “all-weather friendship” between China and Pakistan into perspective—India’s major concern.

India has always been wary over the “all-weather” ties between China and Pakistan. One of the key factors that bind Beijing and Islamabad is their common interest in the context of sovereignty and territorial dispute with India. This is exemplified by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, as known as “One Belt, One Road”) that connects the port city of Gwadar in the province of Balochistan with the Chinese city of Kashgar in the landlocked Xinjiang region. The CPEC violates India’s territorial sovereignty as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). However, Beijing dismisses New Delhi’s sovereignty concerns by arguing that the CPEC is an economic project and not aimed at any third country.

With the Taliban back in power in Afghanistan, India will have to face new dimensions of the so-called “two-front” scenario—the Taliban’s ties with China and Pakistan. This situation can be read in three ways. First, the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan will further add to India’s dilemma over Chinese intentions along India’s periphery. Second, China’s increasing affinity with the Taliban will provide a boost to Beijing’s interest to mediate between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And third, if Beijing succeeds in its role, it will try to export the “China model,” which will not be in India’s interest. While Pakistan has always been a concern for India regarding the Taliban, the added China factor will only make matters worse.

Therefore, India’s anxiety over Afghanistan is not just about the Taliban. To quell the risks, India held its first diplomatic talks with the Taliban this month and made it clear that “Afghanistan’s soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner, according to the Ministry of Affairs.

As the uncertainties loom large, New Delhi would have to make difficult and uncomfortable decisions to secure its interests in the Taliban-led Afghanistan. And more specifically, to counter the “all-weather”ties  between China and Pakistan as both countries’ interests in Afghanistan have an India quotient.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-pakistan-nexus-in-afghanistan-a-worry-for-india_4021674.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Three of the U.S. military’s top officials have told Congress that they realized within hours that a botched Aug. 29 drone strike had killed innocent civilians—contradicting earlier military statements about what the government knew in the aftermath of the incident.

“We knew the strike hit civilians within four to five hours after the strike occurred, and U.S. Central Command issued a press release saying that,” Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie told members of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on Sept. 29, in responding to questions from Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.).

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also said the Pentagon knew about civilian deaths within “several hours” of the strike, as did Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

However, the latter part of McKenzie’s statement is false. CENTCOM statements following the drone strike don’t note civilian deaths.

The first Aug. 29 CENTCOM release regarding the incident said CENTCOM was “assessing the possibilities of civilian casualties, though we have no indications at this time.”

When media reports trickled out later that day about civilian deaths, CENTCOM issued a follow-up statement also failing to acknowledge the deaths.

“We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul today,” the second release reads. “It is unclear what may have happened, and we are investigating further.”

The same statements from CENTCOM also note that the drone strike eliminated an “imminent ISIS-K threat” to the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, and that secondary explosions may have occurred—both of which also proved to be untrue.

McKenzie also told HASC members on Sept. 29 that the Pentagon learned “a few days later” that the strike didn’t hit its intended target. But the Pentagon didn’t admit that until Sept. 17.

For weeks, U.S. military leaders repeatedly portrayed the strike as a successful attack, even as family members of the deceased insisted there was no connection between them and the ISIS offshoot.

“At this point, we think that the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike,” Milley said on Sept. 1, painting the strike as a proper course of action to retaliate against a suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. service members.

But after a Sept. 10 New York Times investigation raised doubts about the veracity of the military’s claims, the Department of Defense admitted that the drone strike killed 10 civilians, seven of which were children—and no terrorists.

“We now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died were associated with ISIS-K or were a direct threat to U.S. forces,” Milley said Sept. 17. “I offer my profound condolences to the family and friends of those who were killed. This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport.”

Secretary Austin made similar remarks on the same day.

“I offer my deepest condolences to surviving family members of those who were killed, including Mr. Ahmadi, and to the staff of Nutrition and Education International, Mr. Ahmadi’s employer,” he said, referring to Emal Ahmady, who said he translated for a U.S. company for three years starting in 2011.

“We now know that there was no connection between Mr. Ahmadi and ISIS-Khorasan, that his activities on that day were completely harmless and not at all related to the imminent threat we believed we faced, and that Mr. Ahmadi was just as innocent a victim as were the others tragically killed.

“We apologize, and we will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake.”

CENTCOM didn’t respond by press time to emailed requests for comment on the contradiction between what McKenzie told Congress and what the releases stated. When reached by phone, a public affairs officer told The Epoch Times that no one was available to answer the inquiry.

CENTCOM is conducting an internal investigation of the incident.

McKenzie and the other generals declined to answer other HASC questions about the incident—such as whether they knew a U.S.-registered NGO was in the target area—citing the investigation.

“There’s a lot of questions I have that have to be in a classified environment, but I hope that you guys know that I also sit on a different committee that has different insight on this, and I think it’s important that we know who authorized this, at what level—and that we hold the right people accountable,” Kelly said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/congressional-testimony-on-deadly-afghan-drone-strike-contradicts-records_4022899.html?utm_source=News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-09-29-3&mktids=f525732bd8b53a3c6d830e7f73155587&est=iOclGfaKeTve8oYbsZI5gOs4tbgucfwMANkz3xB30B9yxZfiQZQZQB9OxOEpDTYORw%3D%3D

Several days after the fall of Kabul on Aug. 15, President Joe Biden sat for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. He insisted he had not been advised by his military to leave a small number of troops in Afghanistan to keep the country from falling to the Taliban.

“Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops,” Stephanopoulos said.

Biden abruptly cut him off. “No they didn’t. It was split. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.”

“They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“No, not in terms of whether we were going to get out — in a time frame — all troops. They didn’t argue against that,” the president said.

Stephanopoulos tried again. “Your military advisers did not tell you, ‘No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that’?”

Biden answered: “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.”

FLASHBACK: In August, Biden insisted that “no, no one” advised against his withdrawal timeline.

Today under oath, Generals Milley & McKenzie confirmed they recommended against Biden’s withdrawal timeline and warned him about the impending collapse of the Afghan government. pic.twitter.com/HejzUb5FIf

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 28, 2021

In addition to the fact that Biden’s remarks didn’t sound particularly convincing, two of his top military advisers contradicted him in testimony before Senate lawmakers on Tuesday morning. And a third testified he was sure the president had “received this input.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, addressed members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Both Milley and McKenzie said they had recommended leaving 2,500 troops in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from taking over the country, according to CNN.

Milley told lawmakers: “In the fall of 2020, my analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal without meeting specific and necessary conditions risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan, damaging US worldwide credibility, and could precipitate a general collapse of the Afghan government, resulting in a complete Taliban takeover or general civil war.”

The Joint Chiefs Chair said his view all along was “that we should keep a steady state of 2,500 and it could bounce up to 3,500, maybe, something like that, in order to move toward a negotiated solution.”

McKenzie echoed Milley. According to Fox News, McKenzie told the committee, “I won’t share my personal recommendation to the president, but I will give you my honest opinion and my honest opinion and view shaped my recommendation. And I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.”

GOP Rep Lays Out the 8 Ways Joe Biden Is Making the World a More Dangerous Place

“I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government,” he added.

To make things worse for the president, Austin was asked if he was certain Biden “received the input” from Milley and McKenzie. Austin replied, “Their input was received by the president and considered by the president for sure.”

It’s abundantly clear: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ignored the advice from the military and mislead the American people.

Biden’s botched Afghan withdrawal could have been prevented and American lives could have been saved. https://t.co/wUCd3C0xt0

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 28, 2021

Milley also told the senators, “I think that our credibility with allies and partners around the world, and with adversaries, is being intensely reviewed by them to see which way this is going to go. And I think that ‘damage’ is one word that could be used.”

I think so too.

Notably, both Milley and Austin blamed the Doha agreement negotiated by the Trump administration with the Taliban in February 2020 for a precipitous drop in the morale and the performance of Afghan troops.

This issue was raised when senators questioned why the Biden administration didn’t have a better sense of the limitations of the Afghan forces, according to CNN.

“It’s my judgment that the Doha Agreement did negatively affect the performance of the Afghan forces in particular by some of the actions the government of Afghanistan was required to take as part of that agreement,” McKenzie said. “[The Doha deal] did affect the morale of the Afghan security forces.”

This is more an excuse for poor judgment than a cause of the debacle. Biden has repeatedly blamed the chaotic U.S. exit on the Trump administration’s peace deal with the Taliban.

In fact, The Associated Press explored the veracity of that claim days after the fall of Kabul and found it lacking in substance. Its fact check determined that Biden was not bound by the Doha, Qatar, agreement. The deal contained an “escape clause.”Do you believe that Biden is responsible for the disaster in Afghanistan?Yes No
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“The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed,” the AP wrote. “They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September.”

Former President Donald Trump and his officials were realistic. In defense of the Trump administration’s efforts, it must be said that they were well aware of the forces they were dealing with. They were always clear that the Taliban would be monitored and “conditions on the ground” would determine the path forward.

All along, Trump warned of significant military retaliation if the Taliban reneged on its obligations.

His administration was criticized for giving legitimacy to a terrorist group, but the Taliban is such a dominant force in the country, how could it have been otherwise? The U.S. and the Afghan government could ignore the group at their peril.

Biden was so determined to get out of Afghanistan that he ignored the most important words in the Doha agreement: “conditions on the ground.”

The Doha deal had not been ratified by Congress and it could and should have been changed as conditions changed. Biden had no problem with changing any other policy and program implemented by the Trump administration.

Milley says putting a specific date on withdrawal went against his advice, says conditions-based approaches are superior.

— Punchbowl News (@PunchbowlNews) September 28, 2021

The other excuse offered by the generals was that the collapse happened so quickly. What they believed would take months occurred over 11 days, they claimed.

But that’s just not true.

Tucked away inside the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) July 30 report is a timeline of events leading up to the disaster in Afghanistan.

The report lists the key events since U.S. Central Command began its formal military drawdown on May 1.

Here are the most relevant developments.

June 22: “Taliban seize Sher Khan border crossing to Tajikistan.”

June 23: “General Milley says 81 district centers are under Taliban control.”

Jun 25: “President Biden meets with President Ghani and High Council for National Reconciliation Chairman Abdullah in Washington, DC.”

July 8: “Taliban capture Islam Qala border crossing in Herat Province, key trade route to Iran.”

July 12: “General Austin Miller relinquishes command of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and NATO Resolute Support Mission.”

July 12 – 15: “Four media outlets publish maps indicating Taliban control majority of Afghan districts, with many taken since May 1.”

July 14: “Taliban capture border crossing at Kandahar Province’s Spin Boldak, connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

July 17: “High-level Afghan delegation meets with Taliban in Doha to expedite stalled peace talks.”

July 21: “General Milley says Taliban control more than 210 districts [out of a total of approximately 400].”

The report indicates the Taliban was executing a preplanned, systematic takeover of the country, that U.S. military leaders were well aware of it and allowed it to continue.

By June 23, 20 percent of the districts in the country were under Taliban control. Milley told Congress about it.

Exactly four weeks later, on July 21, 50 percent of the districts were held by the Taliban. They had also captured at least three border crossings.

It’s likely the Biden administration knew long before June 23 that the takeover had begun. I would be willing to bet the administration was aware of it in real-time.

But even giving them the benefit of the doubt, officials knew about it for nearly two months rather than the 11 days Milley referred to at the Senate hearing.

The bottom line is that contrary to what Biden told Stephanopoulos, his military advisers recommended that he leave 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. The Biden administration could have torn up the Doha agreement at any time. And Biden officials were aware that the Taliban was sweeping through the country, swallowing up districts for far longer than 11 days.

The Taliban could gain control of nuclear weapons as a result of their lightning conquest of Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s hurried abandonment of the county, according to former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

“The Taliban in control of Afghanistan threatens the possibility of terrorists taking control in Pakistan too. … If the whole country gets taken over by terrorists, that means maybe 150 nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists,” Bolton told host John Catsimatidis a WABC-AM interview on Thursday.

Bolton elaborated upon the threat in an Op-Ed in The Washington Post last month in which he said that Pakistan could become an extremist country in the aftermath of the fall of Afghanistan.

“For decades, Islamabad has recklessly pursued nuclear weapons and aided Islamist terrorism — threats that U.S. policymakers have consistently underestimated or mishandled. With Kabul’s fall, the time for neglect or equivocation is over,” he wrote.

The Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan elevates the risk that Pakistani extremists will increase influence, or threaten to seize control. Pakistan could have well over 100 nuclear weapons, which in the hands of an extremist regime is an unthinkable threat. https://t.co/kueRiCB6zH

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) August 24, 2021

Biden National Security Advisor May Be Guilty of Perjury Related to Clinton Campaign’s ‘Collusion’ Claims Against Trump: Report

“The Taliban’s takeover next door immediately poses the sharply higher risk that Pakistani extremists will increase their already sizable influence in Islamabad, threatening at some point to seize full control,” he wrote.

Bolton said the nuclear threat could be even worse than that from Iran.

“While Iran still aspires only to nuclear weapons, Pakistan already has dozens, perhaps more than 150, according to public sources,” the former national security advisor wrote.Has Joe Biden set back hopes for world peace?Yes No
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“Such weapons in the hands of an extremist Pakistan would dramatically imperil India, raising tensions in the region to unprecedented levels, especially given China’s central role in Islamabad’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs,” he said. “Moreover, the prospect that Pakistan could slip individual warheads to terrorist groups to detonate anywhere in the world would make a new 9/11 incomparably more deadly.”

Bolton said the United States must ensure Pakistan does not become either an ally or a client of the Taliban.

“Acknowledging the enormous uncertainty, given Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities, the United States must now come down hard on Islamabad if it continues supporting the Taliban and other terrorists,” he wrote.

America must also avert a potential disaster, Bolton said.

“Most important, we must devote maximum attention to Pakistan’s nuclear stockpiles and weapons-production facilities. If a future terrorist regime in Islamabad (or even today’s government or like-minded successors) appears ready to transfer nuclear capabilities to terrorists, we should take preventive action,” he wrote.

Barbaric Taliban ‘Justice’ Returns to Afghanistan Just One Month After Biden’s Hasty Retreat Doomed the Country

Bolton, who was national security advisor to former President Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019, said during his Sunday interview that President Joe Biden embarrassed himself and the nation with his bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Allies are “wondering if he has a grip on his own administration’s foreign policy,” Bolton said in the Aug. 23 Op-Ed.

He said China is more of a threat than the Biden administration seems to understand.

“China, which already has a lot of influence in Pakistan, is going to increase its influence and put more pressure on India. This is a big development in that part of the world,” Bolton wrote.

“I think the United States must look at China and the threat it poses across the board. They’ve been stealing our intellectual property for decades … They discriminate against foreign companies and investors. They manipulate the World Trade Organization. They are building up their military… And they are very aggressive politically,” he said.

“The United States needs to come to grips with this threat … and needs to be prepared for a long struggle across the full spectrum of potential power — economic, political and military. …

“I don’t think the administration is focused.”

Taliban Endgame: Former National Security Advisor Warns Extremists Could Secure 150 Nuclear Weapons (westernjournal.com)

Afghanistan’s justice system is returning to a pre-U.S. form of barbarism as suspected criminals are subject to being strung up in public spaces under the rule of the Taliban.

The Associated Press, citing a witness within the country, reported that in the major city of Herat in western Afghanistan, an alleged kidnapper was killed by gunfire and then hanged from a crane on Saturday.

A man who operates a pharmacy in the city told the AP that the Taliban was responsible for securing a man’s body to the crane and then displaying it in the city’s main square.

Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi said that four men were killed during an attempted kidnapping. He added that one of the men was hanged in the Herat main square.

The other bodies were dragged away to be displayed in other areas of the city, he said.

Such displays were once common under the Taliban’s previous rule over the country. But the 2001 U.S. ground invasion of Afghanistan put hard-line Islamists on the ropes.

Throughout the last two decades, many Afghans have enjoyed a relatively westernized system of justice. But Herat was taken by the Taliban in mid-August, as were many other areas.

With Sharia law in place across the country, or set to be enacted, public and brutal displays are resuming.

A high-ranking Taliban official and the enforcer of its view on justice told the AP on Friday that people accused of crimes will not be subject to a system of due process common in westernized countries.

Public executions, torture and amputations for shoplifters are going to be used, said Mullah Nooruddin Turabi.

Turabi carried out enforcement of the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Sharia law in the 1990s. He brushed off criticism about his use of public spaces to punish accused criminals in the past.

In the 1990s, he and others in power sometimes used a Kabul stadium for executions and amputations, the AP noted.

“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said during an interview with the AP. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”

The man tasked with enforcing Sharia for the Taliban wants to take the country’s legal system back to where it was before 2001.

Reporter Discovers ‘Thousands’ in Kabul Still Attempting to Flee, Including US Citizens and Green Card Holders

“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he said during his Friday interview. He and other Taliban leaders are currently working to adopt a policy with regard to handling public punishments.

Speaking on amputations in particular, Turabi touted them for their ability to deter crime.

The goal, per Turabi, is to bring back a system of strict punishment while keeping in place some social reforms accomplished during U.S. occupation of the country, such as having female judges.

Barbaric Taliban ‘Justice’ Returns to Afghanistan Just One Month After Biden’s Hasty Retreat Doomed the Country (westernjournal.com)

Fox News on Wednesday ran a scroll listing the many controversies plaguing the Biden administration during its eighth month, and the moment really put things into context.

We’re n deep trouble.

Not that we didn’t already know our country has descended into complete chaos. That much has been obvious for some time. It’s everywhere you go, actually.

Grocery stores, gas stations, airports and the passable portions of the country’s southern border are all reminders of how terrible President Joe Biden has been for America.

Walk by a TV, though, and the larger picture comes into focus.

That was especially true on Fox News when “America Reports” anchors Shannon Bream and John Roberts rolled out a list of the ongoing crises, tragedies and other disasters plaguing the country and its inept leadership.

“It’s been eight whole months, but it looks like the honeymoon is over,” Bream said while Fox viewers were reminded of the many failings of the Biden administration.

A graphic displaying “current controversies” scrolled upward as the pair commented on the 18 different issues the network had keyed in on. Bream declared that not even the “mainstream media can ignore” all the trouble.

Those troubles include reports that thousands of Haitian migrants who have been camped out along the border in Texas are being released into the country. That occurred after the White House assured that no such thing would happen.

Roberts then noted that Biden was “getting called out for not calling out China by name at the United Nations” when he addressed the global body this past week and managed to make no mention of the world’s largest human rights abuser.

Fox’s scrolling Biden crisis graphic reminded viewers that while they face being treated as second-class citizens if they’re not vaccinated against the coronavirus, no such mandates exist for people who are literally breaking the law by being in the country.

It also pointed out Biden’s mixed messaging about COVID-19 booster shots, which are now not being recommended for the general population by the Food and Drug Administration. Biden sure stopped talking about that subject quickly.

The adults are back in charge, right?

The current administration has managed to anger France, the country’s oldest ally, while also moving to leave the Israeli people vulnerable to attacks from Hamas terrorists.

Landowners Fight Back Against Biden Plan to Control Americans’ Property

In case anyone had forgotten that the U.S. military surrendered full control of Afghanistan to the Taliban last month, Fox’s crisis meter reminded them.

That’s all going on, and we can expect, any day now, a capitulation to Iran over nuclear weapons. It feels like a matter of time before pallets of cash start landing in Tehran.

There was also present on Fox’s list the fact that not one single person in the White House or the president’s Cabinet has claimed responsibility for a drone strike in Kabul that killed seven children. There has also been no accountability over the fact that the Pentagon left American citizens behind in Afghanistan as troops were ordered out.

Labor shortages, rising prices on basic commodities and high gas prices are all still with us as domestic issues to remind everyone just how bad the Democratic Party’s ideas are.

The opening segment from Bream and Roberts on Wednesday served as a sobering reminder of just how much trouble this country is in. Simultaneously, it somehow also failed to capture the magnitude of the situation.

The good news: There are just under three and a half years left of this madness — if we’re lucky.

Fox News Runs Devastating List of Every Single Current Biden Controversy, It’s Worse Than You Think (westernjournal.com)

China, Russia, Pakistan, and Iran have maintained their embassies in Afghanistan. Taliban representatives also met with those governments, as well as the government of Turkmenistan, before assuming power. India and the United States, by contrast, closed their embassies and recalled their diplomats.

At a recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, both Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, called on the international community to engage with the Taliban, particularly on the subject of antiterrorism. It is estimated that there are between 8,000 and 10,000 foreign terrorists in Afghanistan, roughly 6,000 of whom are from Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

The so-called Iron Brotherhood—the relationship between China and Pakistan—has been strengthened by the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan as the two countries find that their policies on the Taliban running Afghanistan broadly align.

Both Pakistan and the Chinese regime welcome the Taliban into power as they hope that the Taliban can help curb terrorism in their respective countries and because a Taliban takeover will complicate decision making for India and the United States. Pakistan applauded the U.S. withdrawal because it meant an end to India’s influence in Kabul.

China and India have had several border clashes, which have resulted in a year-long standoff in the Himalayas. India got on well with the previous Afghanistan government. The Taliban, on the other hand, is likely to become India’s adversary, particularly if it aligns with China. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) engagement with the Taliban will ensure that India has no influence in Kabul.

The United States has been fighting the Taliban for the better part of two decades and is expected to remain at odds with the terrorist organization. At the same time, the relationship between Beijing and Washington continues to be adversarial in terms of economics, trade, and national defense. Consequently, the CCP and Pakistan strengthening ties with the Taliban has put the United States in a difficult position.

Pakistan sees an opportunity to expand its geo-economic interests, connecting Central Asia with the Arabian Sea at Gwadar Port. These hopes hinge on the assumption that the Taliban could stabilize Afghanistan and that the Taliban could and would prevent terrorist attacks from being launched from Afghanistan into Pakistan, China, and Central Asia. But so far, the U.S. pullout has emboldened terrorists across the region as they see this as a major victory. The Syria-based chapter of the Turkestan Islamic Party issued a congratulatory statement when the Taliban took Kabul.

Although the Taliban has promised to clamp down on foreign terrorists, it has not given any indication of how to do that.

Terrorist attacks on Chinese targets in China are rare, but the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an obvious, soft target. CPEC projects have come under attack in the past, either because the Pakistan Taliban resented China’s presence in Pakistan or as reprisals for the CCP’s repression against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is allied with the Taliban in Afghanistan, has increased its attacks in Pakistan, killing seven Pakistani soldiers near the Afghanistan border and in a separate incident, killing 13 civilians on a bus, as well as claiming responsibility for a suicide attack in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan. Consequently, the TTP has been identified as one of the greatest threats to stability in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has offered a pardon to TTP members if they promise not to get involved in terrorist activities, but the offer has been rejected. He has since expressed his hope that the Taliban would help convince TTP members to drop their armed insurgency. Meanwhile, there are reports that TTP fighters were released from Afghanistan prisons when the Taliban took over the country.

The Taliban has said that it would like to join CPEC. While this may seem like a win-win situation, it would require providing additional investment and taking more risks by Beijing. It is possible the Taliban will cooperate with the Chinese regime, in some limited way, preventing terrorist attacks, in exchange for recognition and financial support. But it is unclear if the Taliban would have the power or the willingness to do that.

One motivation for the Taliban to make good on its antiterrorist promises to Beijing is that it is hoping China will extract the $1 trillion to $3 trillion of minerals—including lithium for electric car batteries—that are sitting idle under the earth in Afghanistan. Economic support from China has become even more important for Afghanistan as international financial institutions have frozen bank accounts and other overseas assets, and international donors have stopped sending money.

As there will most likely be no money from the West, the Taliban knows that China may be its only major source of funding. But this does not guarantee the safety of Chinese investments. In the past, Taliban promises of protection for Chinese projects proved ineffective. Meanwhile, in addition to attacks by the Taliban, Chinese investments will be vulnerable to attacks by other militant groups—foreign or anti-Taliban groups.

Even under the relative stability of the U.S. involvement, China had made little progress on its existing investments in Afghanistan and had not even begun the extraction of Afghanistan’s rare earth minerals. On the other hand, Beijing may be encouraged to invest in Afghanistan just to extend the country an economic lifeline. The CCP probably does not need a pariah state, another North Korea, on its border.

Aside from terrorism and security concerns, alignment between the CCP and the Taliban could have economic implications for the domination of Central Asian markets and geopolitics. As the influence of Russia slowly diminishes in the region, India hoped to benefit, filling some of the void. In 2016, the CCP briefly established a military base in Tajikistan to conduct counterterrorism operations against ethnic Uyghur separatists. Through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing has increased its engagement with and influence over Central Asia, working to counter independence movements by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement from destabilizing China’s Xinjiang region. Chinese investment in the region has already eclipsed Indian investment, and Beijing hopes to widen the gap.

The CCP’s propaganda machine is exploiting the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as a signal of diminishing U.S. hegemony, military, and geopolitical power. Beijing has warned both Taiwan and India that the United States may no longer be a reliable ally. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh similarly said that “Biden had ‘dealt a blow to Indian national security’” and that India-U.S. ties would suffer as a result.

The Times of India, an Indian English-language daily news media, however, has interpreted the U.S. pullout a bit differently, saying that the Taliban has not won a war. It has simply “exploited the flawed policies of a fatigued American president,” rather than the United States itself. Whether Delhi turns away from the United States remains to be seen. India has more than $3 billion in investments in Afghanistan, which it may want to preserve.

It is possible that India and the United States may allow a Taliban-led Afghanistan, as long as it ends regional terrorism. India is also a major economic player. So the Taliban may be willing to engage economically with India as a way of counter-balancing Chinese influence.

President Joe Biden has moved the U.S. foreign policy away from overseas nation-building, instead, focusing on maintaining U.S. primacy, ahead of China and Russia. As such, the United States may be satisfied with a stable Afghanistan and an end to international terrorism, rather than be concerned about Afghanistan’s internal affairs or whether China and Pakistan maintain most of the influence in the country.

In spite of Beijing’s warnings to U.S. allies, there is no reason to believe that the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan signals a lessening of U.S. commitments to its partners and allies, including India. India currently participates in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, one of the primary U.S.-led strategies to contain Beijing.

The task of creating a functioning economy and a stable civil society in Afghanistan will now fall on Pakistan and China, neither of which has much experience in these areas. It is possible that that task will be an expensive and painful one for them, providing the United States and India more room to plan and maneuver.

The China-Pakistan-Taliban Dynamic: What It Means for the US and India (theepochtimes.com)

Thousands of people are still seeking to flee Afghanistan, including Americans, more than three weeks after the Biden administration pulled U.S. military forces from the Taliban-controlled nation.

“Thousands of people are still trying to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan,” Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yings wrote in a Twitter post on Thursday.

“U.S. Green Card holders. People who live and pay taxes in the United States are trapped.

“We met a man today who runs two businesses in Atlanta. He’s stuck with his family right now in Kabul,” he added.

Thousands of people are still trying to flee Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

U.S. Green Card holders. People who live and pay taxes in the United States are trapped.

We met a man today who runs two businesses in Atlanta. He’s stuck with his family right now in Kabul.

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) September 23, 2021

“We also talked to a group of former U.S. embassy workers,” Yingst added in another tweet.

“They are still in Kabul, despite promises they would be evacuated,” he added.

We also talked to a group of former U.S. embassy workers. They proudly showed me photos inside the embassy, working for the Americans. One had an email from the Deputy Chief of Mission. They are still in Kabul, despite promises they would be evacuated.

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) September 23, 2021

Especially concerning was Yingst’s report that U.S. citizens remain trapped in the country.

“There are still U.S. citizens here as well. The daughter of that man from Atlanta has a U.S. passport,” Yingst tweeted.

“We’ve met multiple American passport holders still in Kabul. Some made it out on Qatari flights, others did not,” he said.

There are still U.S. citizens here as well. The daughter of that man from Atlanta has a U.S. passport. We’ve met multiple American passport holders still in Kabul. Some made it out on Qatari flights, others did not.

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) September 23, 2021

Yingst’s latest video featured one man with a green card seeking help to escape Afghanistan.

Our live coverage from Kabul continues on @FoxNews. Tune in. pic.twitter.com/gLL3JOk0TU

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) September 23, 2021

The report follows news last week of an elderly California couple who is returning home after being trapped in Afghanistan for weeks following the U.S. military’s departure from the country, according to California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa.

“This is a cause for celebration and the result of almost countless hours of work under very difficult conditions,” Issa said in a statement.

“Our team simply would not give up, and today it paid off and we got them home.”

The names of the couple are reportedly being withheld at the family’s request due to fear of violence toward relatives who remain in Afghanistan.

Issa’s office said it has helped 33 Americans and holders of American visas to escape Afghanistan.

“While we have made extraordinary progress, but we’re not stopping until everyone comes home,” Issa said.

House Rules Committee Democrats quietly extended a rule earlier this week in the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that effectively bars Republicans from obtaining information on President Joe Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, say GOP representatives.

The provision was adopted during the Rules panel’s Sept. 20 hearing on the defense bill, and it includes a continuing resolution on spending and a measure designed to nullify state laws limiting abortion access at any time during a pregnancy.

The provision, which has been extended by Democrats multiple times since the original adoption, reads as follows:

“24. Provides that House Resolution 188, agreed to March 8, 2021 (as most recently amended by H. Res. 555, agreed to July 27, 2021), is amended by striking ‘September 22, 2021’ each place it appears and inserting (in each instance) ‘October 27, 2021.’”

The provision continues one of the chief tools House Democrats have used in the rules adopted in January for the 117th Congress to frustrate the ability of Republicans to demand and receive information from the Biden White House and the executive branch using the resolution of inquiry (ROI).

The wording of ROIs “will vary depending on the person to whom the resolution is directed. The House traditionally ‘requests’ the President and ‘directs’ the heads of executive departments to furnish information,” according to the House parliamentary procedures manual.

The Rules panel’s action comes as Republicans on the House Foreign Relations Committee seek an investigation of the administration’s actions in the Afghanistan withdrawal.

The ROI is an effective investigative tool because it puts the authority of a congressional committee behind a legislative request rather than causing representatives of the minority party to rely on letters and telephone calls seeking needed information and data.

It’s much more difficult for executive branch officials to ignore a request backed by an ROI, while telephone calls aren’t returned and letters from lawmakers are easily and often ignored.

The ROI is also more difficult for the majority to defeat because House rules require such a measure to be marked up within two weeks of its introduction or it becomes a privileged motion for the whole House. If the resolution is approved, the ROI then becomes a request of the House, not just a committee.

Rules committee member Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) offered a motion on Sept. 21 to end the ROI ban, saying that “in light of President Biden’s failed Afghanistan withdrawal and evacuation, it is absolutely imperative that we restore this tool to get to the bottom of this administration’s avoidable debacle.”

Reschenthaler said he was “concerned that the majority maintains this provision simply to shield the administration from addressing the very real concerns that members on both sides of the aisle have” on the Afghanistan situation.

Rules member Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), spoke in favor of Reschenthaler’s motion, telling the panel the ROI ban should be terminated because “we can’t get phone calls answered from the administrative state. This is not right and it needs to change. … I urge the majority to restore minority rights” under the ROI process.

Burgess also seeks the passage of an ROI concerning the Biden administration’s treatment of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children coming across the U.S. border from Mexico.

Reschenthaler’s motion was defeated 9–4, marking the fifth time Democrats, led by Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), have rejected efforts to restore ROIs. ROIs were first adopted in 1879.

A spokesman for the Rules panel majority didn’t immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

During debate on a previous attempt, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the panel’s ranking Republican, said: “The speaker and the Democratic majority have ruled with an iron fist, beginning in earnest at the start of the 117th Congress. In one fell swoop, they eliminated two critical minority tools, motions to recommit and the use of resolutions of inquiry.”

Besides the ROI, Cole was referring to limits during the 117th Congress on the minority’s ability on the House floor to offer motions to recommit bills to committees with instructions to change them rather than having votes on final passage.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Foreign Relations Committee, told The Epoch Times the ROI ban has prevented effective legislative oversight on multiple issues.

“Democratic Leadership has suspended a centuries-old House rule that allows for more congressional oversight—all to protect President Biden from scrutiny for the multiple disasters his failed leadership has caused,” McCaul said.

“Whether it’s the deadly catastrophe in Afghanistan or the crisis at our southern border, the American people expect Congress to hold the Executive Branch accountable for their mistakes. The majority needs to lift this indefinite ban on resolutions of inquiry and allow for vigorous oversight.”

Republicans on the foreign relations panel have been frustrated by having to depend on letters to gain needed oversight information on the Biden administration’s lax administration of congressionally mandated sanctions against, for example, Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Europe.

The Biden administration didn’t answer questions posed by House Republicans in a March 5 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Questions also went unanswered from an April 22 letter from McCaul to Blinken concerning Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal.

In the April letter, McCaul predicted the withdrawal would “hand the Taliban an undeserved victory, damage U.S. credibility as a counterterrorism partner, and gravely endanger the lives of Americans and Afghans alike.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/house-democrats-use-obscure-rule-to-stifle-gops-kabul-probe_4010514.html?utm_medium=epochtimes&utm_source=telegram

Surgeon Joseph Sakran said Trump could use politics to compromise vaccine’s approval process

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe employed a left-wing doctor who questioned the efficacy of the vaccine during the Trump presidency to portray his GOP opponent as anti-science.

In an ad released Friday, McAuliffe trotted out trauma surgeon Joseph Sakran to argue Youngkin “won’t listen to doctors and scientists.” While the ad presents Sakran as an unbiased expert who merely cites “the science,” Sakran himself sowed doubt about the vaccine during its development and has a long history as a liberal activist and donor.

Sakran in May 2020 questioned a Moderna announcement that touted “promising vaccine results,” suggesting that the company only did so to manipulate its stock price.

“Moderna announced promising vaccine results…..and the executives then sell 30 million in stocks,” Sakran wrote. “Something smells funny!” Months later, he contended that the Trump administration could use “political pressure” to “circumvent” health experts and create “an expedited vaccine making healthy people sick.”

Prominent liberals echoed Sakran’s rhetoric at the time. MSNBC host Joy Reid, for example, asked in September if “anyone at all” will “ever fully trust the CDC again” as “Trumpist nonsense has infected everything.”

“And who on God’s earth would trust a vaccine approved by the FDA?” Reid added. She has since claimed “anybody rational was hesitant” to take the vaccine because “Donald Trump was out there controlling the CDC and controlling the FDA and manipulating them and making them put out falsehoods.” Reid now regularly criticizes those who express vaccine hesitancy.

Sakran, meanwhile, called the vaccine “promising” just weeks after he warned that Trump could use politics to compromise its approval process—and just days after Biden won the November election. In December, he praised the Food and Drug Administration for recommending authorization of the Pfizer vaccine and declared himself “ready to get vaccinated.”

Sakran told the Washington Free Beacon he has “always been clear that vaccines work and ha[s] always encouraged their use” but declined to answer questions about his vaccine rhetoric during the Trump presidency. McAuliffe did not return a request for comment.

In his McAuliffe campaign ad, Sakran also made questionable claims to criticize Youngkin’s positions on coronavirus-related measures. Sakran, for example, said Youngkin “is against requiring masks in schools, even though the science has made clear that’s how we prevent outbreaks in schools.”

That science, however, is far from clear. Many American allies in Europe have exempted children from wearing masks in schools, and the World Health Organization advises against requiring masks for children ages 5 and under.

“Scientists have an obligation to strive for honesty,” hematologist and oncologist Vinay Prasad wrote in September. “And on the question of whether kids should wear masks in schools—particularly preschools and elementary schools—here is what I conclude: The potential educational harms of mandatory-masking policies are much more firmly established, at least at this point, than their possible benefits in stopping the spread of COVID-19 in schools.”

McAuliffe’s embrace of Sakran could also undermine the Democrat’s position as a supporter of Israel. Sakran, a self-identified “Palestinian American,” has referred to Israel as an “apartheid” state and condemned former president Donald Trump’s “reckless” decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. As governor, McAuliffe notably denounced the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement but has since welcomed an endorsement from an activist group that staunchly defends the anti-Israel campaign. Sakran did not respond to a request for comment about his past Israel rhetoric.

Sakran has long supported liberal causes and politicians. He created “Doctors for Hillary” in 2016 and gave nearly $7,000 to support failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He went on to launch gun control advocacy groups that caught the attention of Democratic officials—Sakran attended the 2019 State of the Union address with Rep. Mike Thompson (D., Calif.). In addition to his Clinton contributions, Sakran has donated nearly $9,000 to Democrats since 2016, including a $2,800 offering to President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.

With Election Day quickly approaching, McAuliffe leads Youngkin by just 3 points, according to a September Washington Post poll. The pair will square off at the polls on Nov. 2.

McAuliffe Taps Onetime Vaccine Skeptic To Slam Youngkin on COVID (freebeacon.com)

When 13 United States service members were killed last month by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, it was clear the Biden administration’s rushed exit from the country had cost innocent American blood.

New information now suggests the administration is even more culpable than it initially appeared.

According to India’s Firstpost, the ISIS-K suicide bomber has been identified as Abdul Rehman. He was a jihadi who had been in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison for the last four years.

Indian authorities learned Rehman was allegedly part of a plot from ISIS-K to stage suicide bombings in New Delhi, where his father frequently traveled for business. The authorities had him arrested and incarcerated in Bagram prison in 2017, Firstpost reported.

Indian intelligence officials said he was handed over to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency by the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s foreign intelligence agency, in September 2017.

Yet when President Joe Biden began implementing his reckless and ill-planned withdrawal strategy in Afghanistan, chaos ensued. This very chaos allowed thousands of suspected and convicted terrorists to escape Bagram unscathed on Aug. 15, including Rehman.

Just 11 days later, Rehman allegedly carried out the attack that killed 13 American service members and well over 100 civilians.

“America’s disorganized retreat from Afghanistan has led to hundreds of highly competent and highly committed terrorists being set free to rejoin the Islamic State, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups,” an officer who worked on the Rehman case told Firstpost.

“Literally a decade’s work on counterterrorism has been undone by the U.S.’ failure to secure key prisoners in Bagram.”

Those are pretty damming words from an officer who was reportedly involved personally in the counterterrorism effort.

While it may sound dramatic, Rehman’s deadly actions showed just how quickly things can get off track in terms of terrorism. If other prisoners who escaped also end up participating in violence, it will not be that far-fetched to suggest that the Biden administration undid many if not most previous counter-terrorism efforts in the region.

Firstpost reported that Rehman was selected to lead the bombing plot in New Delhi because he was familiar with the area. But after intercepting communications, India’s RAW was able to send in an agent posing as a jihadi.

The agent convinced Rehman he had amassed enough people and explosives to carry out the attack, which led Rehman to communicate with his commanders. The CIA was then able to exploit those conversations and arrest Rehman.

He was sent on a special flight to Kabul, Afghanistan, where the CIA led an investigation. Questioning by the CIA alongside Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security exposed multiple ISIS leaders, whom the U.S. then killed via drone strikes in 2019.

“There’s no clarity on what happened to Abdul Rehman between his escape from Bagram and the suicide attack,” an intelligence official said. “It is possible he wanted revenge, or that he was persuaded by his old jihadist friends to atone for his role in the killings of his associates in this manner.”

Obviously, the path to apprehending Rehman was long and meticulous. All that work was wiped away in a matter of days thanks to the Biden administration’s incompetence.

To make matters worse, Rehman is just one of the thousands of prisoners who escaped Bagram in August. Who’s to say others are not going to be seeking revenge as well?

We already knew that Biden’s incompetence led to horrible conditions at the Kabul airport and ended with thousands of Americans stranded in Afghanistan.

The fact that the administration’s incompetence also led to the escape of thousands of terrorists, at least some of whom are willing to commit suicide bombings and kill civilians, is just the icing on the hugely disappointing cake.

New Evidence Reveals How Biden Set Free ISIS-K Member Who Ended Up Killing 13 Service Members by Suicide Bomb: Report (westernjournal.com)

The gut-wrenching reality of what it means to be an American citizen left in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan when the U.S. government will not help was brought home vividly when a woman trying to flee the country shared her story on Fox News.

Jennifer Wilson, the COO of the nonprofit Army Week Association who works with the group Project Dynamo to rescue Americans trapped in Afghanistan, joined Fox News’ Dana Perina on “America’s Newsroom” along with a woman whose name was given as “Julie,” a U.S. citizen trapped in Afghanistan.

“I’m not doing, I’m just sitting,” she said.

“They broke me, you know, the United States broke me because I’m a U.S. citizen,” she said.

“I’ve been through a lot of,” the woman began, until an eruption of misery brought a flood of tears and a halt to her words, “very bad in my life.”

“I just come to get married here to have life with my family and get back there,” she said.

Then came the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and what she said was her abandonment by the State Department.

“Basically, I’m dying,” she said as time goes by and she remains trapped.

She said that Wilson was her best hope, because the State Department would do nothing for her.

“I call them so many times. I email them. They just take the phone. They say, ‘I’m sorry we can’t do anything for you,’ and that is the answer,” she said.

“And I said, ‘What’s going on with you guys? I’m a U.S. citizen,’” she said, adding that, “And I just lose a lot of family here.”

After “Julie” was no longer able to speak because of her tears, Wilson took over.

“What she is not able to tell you at the moment is, she went back to get married. She got the letter from the U.S. Embassy telling her and her family they could get into [Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport] back when it was still open, and they went there and 18 members of her family were killed in the bombing,” Wilson said, apparently referring to the Aug. 26 suicide bomb attacks that killed 13 U.S. service members and an estimated 170 Afghans.

Officials Discover Major Felons Among Refugees Vetted by Biden Admin and Brought to US

Wilson said that “currently only she and her daughter hold U.S. passports” and Project Dynamo can only bring those two bring out of the country.

“I had to have a conversation with her. Do you want to leave with your daughter and leave the rest of your family because I can’t get them out right now. All I can get out is you and your daughter because you hold the right passport,” Wilson said. according to Fox.

“She will tell you just, all she has left is who is left in her family from the bombing. She can’t leave them. I could not make that decision with a member of any of my family,” she said.

“Being faced with that after losing 18 family members two weeks ago. I am not smart enough and I don’t have the emotional intelligence to know what she is going through,” Wilson said.

Wilson said that she can evacuate “Americans and NATO passport holders. So, my call list is about 500 Americans, NATO and their family members.”

“It was in those vetting calls that I found Julie. I called up, basically just to say ‘are you an American?’ She told me her story and it broke me,” Wilson said, according to Fox News.

“It hit different. I have been doing this for four weeks. I have not felt like that yet. It was awful,” Wilson said.

Terrified American Trapped in Afghanistan Breaks Down on Live TV, Pins It on Biden Administration (westernjournal.com)

If the Biden administration had hoped that media coverage of its disastrous exit from Afghanistan would fade anytime soon, new billboards gracing the highways in central Pennsylvania say otherwise.

According to USA Today, Scott Wagner, a Republican former Pennsylvania state senator and 2018 gubernatorial candidate paid for the signs, which show a smiling President Joe Biden dressed in Taliban military garb holding a rocket launcher with the caption: “Making the Taliban Great Again!”

Quality trolling. https://t.co/aWB6kcLGu8

— #Marcher󠁧󠁢 (@MarcherLord1) September 16, 2021

Giant ‘Making the Taliban Great Again’ billboard showing President Biden appears on Pennsylvania interstate https://t.co/yQ3JRs1wvG pic.twitter.com/WCdGnXLGzV

— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) September 14, 2021

And they’ve gotten plenty of attention.

Joe Biden “Making Taliban Great Again” Billboards Go Up in Pennsylvania… pic.twitter.com/NIOk8vheOY

— Covid-1984 (@NeverSleever) September 16, 2021

vDarknessFalls Telegram 😆

Joe Biden billboard –
“Making the Taliban Great Again!” 🤣 pic.twitter.com/2ka5ieXSIS

— Dark II Light (@SheLuvsTGA) September 14, 2021

According to the York Daily Record, Wagner purchased the signs for $15,000 through Trone Outdoor Advertising.

Wagner told the media outlet he blames Biden for the situation in Afghanistan which he sees as “an absolute mess and a tragedy.”

He was especially concerned about $85 billion of U.S. military vehicles and equipment left behind. He said, “I was watching an evening news show one night and saw the Taliban in American personnel carriers.”

“It’s like Vietnam, even worse,” he added.

Asked for a comment by WHTM News 27 in Harrisburg — the Pennsylvania capital — Wagner replied: “I saw the image [of Joe Biden]. I got it from a friend a few weeks ago. The picture tells the story.

“We pulled out of Afghanistan too quickly, and we left so much of American equipment. Joe Biden has made us look like a fool. I feel so bad, words can’t describe what I would say to someone who was wounded or someone’s family who had a soldier pass away in the country after all this happened.”

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Fritzi Schreffler responded to a WHTM inquiry in a statement that read: “The Department permits such outdoor advertising to private entities through an application process, bound by law and regulation. Specifically, the Outdoor Advertising Control Act of 1971 (Federal Law) and Title 67, PA Code, Chapter 445 (PA Commonwealth Regulation) do not regulate or control billboard advertising content. Generally, advertising content is protected by the First Amendment under the US Constitution.

“Therefore, if the advertising message is legal per State or Federal laws and regulations, recourse is not warranted. While we understand the message on the Interstate 83 billboard may be unpleasant to some, it is our understanding that the message is legal. As such, the Department has no basis to require this message be changed.”

According to PennLive, the billboards have been placed along “the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 83, and Routes 322, 11-15, and 15.”

They’ve have created quite a stir in the Keystone State, which was one of the keys to Biden’s still-questionable victory in the 2020 election.

Americans are angry about the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. This sorry episode should not and will not be forgotten. To use Biden’s famous remark to former President Barack Obama after the passage of Obamacare in 2010, “This is a big f***ing deal.”

The fall of Kabul to the Taliban was a tipping point in U.S. history. In a rare moment of responsibility (with some exceptions), the mainstream media actually committed journalism. There really was no choice.

I would go so far as to say it altered the balance of power in the world. The biggest winners are the Taliban and China. The biggest loser, obviously, is the United States, the country Biden is supposed to be leading.

In addition to our nation’s diminished status on the world stage, the Biden administration’s many missteps left 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans dead. The Biden Pentagon’s “retaliation strike” against the terrorist group ISIS-K ended in the deaths of 10 innocent Afghan civilians including seven children.

I hope to see more billboards highlighting our current president’s profound stupidity pop up across the nation. Biden and his entire administration deserve to be humiliated.

Republicans must continue this messaging as the country moves closer to the 2022 midterms and into the 2024 presidential race.

I suppose the silver lining to the Afghanistan crisis and all of this administration’s other destructive policies is that it will (at least it should) deliver a blow to the progressive cause for years to come.

Biden ‘Making Taliban Great Again’ Billboards Pop Up in State Biden Won (westernjournal.com)

What happened to the weapons, fuel, drones, planes, and other resources the United States provided to the now-defunct Afghanistan government? What happened to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and police officers who abandoned their posts? What happened to the Afghan women and girls, and the others who supported the failed nation-building project?

Those are just a few of the questions that Special Inspector General for the Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko intends to investigate before his office closes in about a year, he said on Sept. 14.

Sopko and his SIGAR agency are the authors of what has been dubbed the “Afghanistan Papers”—a previously secret history of the war, akin to what the Pentagon Papers were for the Vietnam War. His work revealed in December 2019 that U.S. officials had falsely told the public about alleged progress in Afghanistan for years while acknowledging in private that the nation-building efforts were failing miserably.

Sopko spoke with the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) on Sept. 14, saying his work isn’t finished.

“We have a number of indictments and investigations and audits that we’re finishing up,” Sopko told POGO. “But then there’s other questions we think need to be answered.”

Sopko said that along with the questions mentioned above—“and many more”—he also intends to investigate the future of the Afghan narcotics trade. His 2018 report states that illicit narcotics account for 60 percent of the Taliban’s annual revenue.

“I directed my staff today to investigate what has happened to the narcotics trade since then, and what can we predict is going to happen?” he said. “We spent billions on fighting narcotics, and I think the American people would like to know about that.”

Sopko doesn’t have much time to find the answers to his questions. SIGAR is set to expire along with the Afghanistan reconstruction project, and the inspector general said he thinks he has about a year left to complete the task.

During the wide-ranging interview with POGO, Sopko also spoke about why he thought the Afghanistan reconstruction project was such a dismal failure.

He said U.S. officials were overly optimistic because that’s the way they could advance their careers—“people who made their career on happy talk,” he described it. The special inspector general also said the U.S. government demanded signs of progress on too short of a timeline.

To illustrate his point, Sopko spoke about what he called perhaps the “dumbest” project throughout the 20-year war.

“They brought in sexy white Italian goats to breed with the Afghan goats and improve the wool production. … We talked to the woman who they bought the goats from, who was tearing out her hair over how stupid it was—because they wanted to show success in a year or two,” Sopko said.

“She said, ‘This takes 10 to 20 years to do this!’”

All the Italian goats eventually died, according to Sopko.

“You could not make up some of the programs we had over there,” he said.

POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian asked Sopko why his work has had such an impact on discourse when so many other inspector generals have been relatively ineffective.

“Many IGs are acting under a conflict of interest because the administration dangles an appointment in front of their face, so they kind of lose some of their ardor for oversight,” Sopko said. “And we’ve had too many IGs who are fat, dumb, and happy.”

Sopko didn’t just focus his ire on U.S. security officials or his fellow IGs; he also criticized The Washington Post for trying to ascertain the identities of the Afghans he interviewed for his various reports.

“The Washington Post sued us for not divulging their identities. They said, ‘You have to tell us who your whistleblowers are,’” he said. “Isn’t that ironic? This is the same Washington Post that for 30-some years defended someone’s name and never revealed it. I think the name was ‘Deep Throat’ or something like that.

“You have to defend whistleblowers. Anyone in this town should know that. Especially reporters.”

Afghanistan Watchdog to Investigate Unanswered Questions (theepochtimes.com)

Republicans concerned aid money was ‘ransom payment’ to get stranded Americans home safe

A coalition of Republican foreign policy leaders in Congress is demanding that the Biden administration turn over all internal documents and communications related to plans to provide the Taliban with cash assets, a move the coalition says would incentivize the terror group’s taking of American hostages.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest GOP caucus in Congress, is spearheading a probe that requires the Biden administration to disclose if the Taliban has insisted on U.S. financial aid in exchange for allowing Americans stranded in the country to return home. The State Department announced last week that it is sending $64 million in humanitarian aid to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, generating concerns that the Biden administration has agreed to a quid pro quo in which the terrorist group gets aid dollars in exchange for providing safe passage to those still stranded in the country.

“We have serious concerns about negotiations with the Taliban leading to the payment of ransom—whether marketed as humanitarian assistance or sanctions relief—which will give the Taliban resources that could be used to attack the United States or our allies,” a group of 21 RSC lawmakers wrote in a letter exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon and sent Tuesday to the State Department. “The payment of ransom to terrorists, likely including the September 13 announcement of $64 million dollars in humanitarian aid to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provided without guardrails, will only further place Americans in harm’s way by incentivizing the Taliban, and other terrorist groups, to kidnap more Americans.”

The latest investigation is one of several helmed by Republicans in Congress who want to know why the Biden administration pulled U.S. forces from Afghanistan without a plan to stop the Taliban from regaining control of the country. The Biden administration is under intense criticism for leaving Americans and vulnerable Afghans behind in the country as the Taliban angles to use them as leverage in negotiations with U.S. diplomats. The State Department still “has not presented a plan before Congress illustrating how it will ensure that Americans will not be left behind through diplomatic negotiations,” the RSC wrote in its letter.

The State Department has 10 days to provide Congress with detailed internal information about negotiations with Afghanistan’s recently formed Taliban government that could see economic sanctions on the group lifted, according to a copy of the investigation documents obtained by the Free Beacon. The investigation is backed by 21 GOP lawmakers, including Rep. Tracey Mann (Kan.) and Rep. Jim Banks (Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Banks, the chairman of the RSC, told the Free Beacon that any deal that gives the Taliban access to hard currency will send the message that “holding Americans hostage is an effective way to make money.”

The lawmakers say they want detailed information about any plans the Biden administration has to unfreeze billions of dollars in assets held in U.S. accounts on behalf of the former U.S.-aligned Afghan government. This includes “any sanctions relief, or financial assistance to the Taliban in exchange for providing them safe passage of American citizens or lawful permanent residents out of Afghanistan,” according to the document request letter.

They also want the State Department to provide copies “of all documents and communications” related to the administration’s ongoing dialogue with Taliban leaders regarding frozen funds.

Mann told the Free Beacon that “the American people deserve to know whether the United States has provided any financial assistance to the Taliban in exchange for the release of American citizens, or whether the Taliban has requested such assistance, which amounts to ransom.”

The State Department’s failure to inform Congress about its ongoing discussions with the Taliban has fueled GOP concerns that money will be exchanged for concessions from the Taliban, including the release of Americans and vulnerable Afghans still inside the country.

“The Biden administration’s lack of planning and execution created the conditions for the Taliban to hold Americans and our Afghan allies hostage and allows the Taliban to use them as bargaining chips to unfreeze assets, withdrawing sanctions, or gain international recognition,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas), who signed the letter, told the Free Beacon. “We cannot negotiate with terrorists and we certainly cannot acquiesce to their demands.”

GOP Lawmakers Probe Biden Admin Humanitarian Aid to Taliban (freebeacon.com)

Plenty of people have pointed out what went wrong in Afghanistan, but far too few people have asked who should now be held accountable for this national disgrace.

The debacle in Afghanistan should be setting off alarm bells in Washington. We surrendered the country that we’d been defending to a seventh century tribe, which had endured immense casualties and was unable to defeat the United States on the battlefield. But the Taliban was able to defeat America politically and psychologically.

In a healthy country, the Taliban takeover would be a real crisis—one that causes a fundamental rethinking within the Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence community about how they’ve been operating.

How can we have spent 20 years, thousands of lives, and trillions of dollars and then lose to a band of medieval thugs with no air force? This is the kind of question the generals, diplomats, and analysts should be asking in the halls of government.

It’s troubling how unphased many of our leaders appear to be, especially the principals of the Biden administration. What they don’t seem to understand—or perhaps worse, don’t recognize the importance of—is that what happened in Afghanistan isn’t just about Afghanistan.

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, other jihadists—they’re all taking note of what’s transpired over the past several weeks. The world now sees America as completely unreliable. We need to show that we’re both reliable and dangerous.

Accountability is absolutely crucial to come to grips with how big a problem this is and to reestablish respect among allies and enemies. The leaders who, through their shameless incompetence, threw away two decades of sacrifice in a matter of days, left Americans behind enemy lines, betrayed our Afghan allies, and left Afghanistan to reemerge as a terrorist haven must be held responsible.

Someone who’s trying to hold these people accountable is retired Maj. Gen. Joseph Arbuckle, a decorated veteran who first entered the Army in 1969. Currently, Arbuckle is the founder and spokesperson of Flag Officers 4 America, an organization of retired military officers dedicated to supporting and defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Flag Officers 4 America just organized an open letter from retired generals and admirals regarding Afghanistan. The letter, signed by Arbuckle and 160-plus retired military leaders, demands accountability for the botched withdrawal and for both Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to resign for their handling of the situation.

Arbuckle told me why he wrote the letter and analyzed the scene in Afghanistan last week on my podcast, “Newt’s World.” As the general explained, this was a difficult decision, but accountability is a foundational principle of the military. President Biden’s military advisers knew the fiasco that would ensue by not extending the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline. When Biden decided to push ahead with his plan, Arbuckle said, Austin and Milley had two choices: resign in protest or follow the order and take responsibility for the outcome.

Unfortunately, no one is taking responsibility—not Biden, not Austin, not Milley. And the nation will suffer as a result, with its leaders refusing to learn lessons from their failures. This should be unacceptable to the American people.

For those interested, Flag Officers 4 America recently partnered with the Committee to Support and Defend so that civilians and veterans who are non-flag officers can also have a voice and sign onto similar letters to the one organized by Arbuckle.

As Arbuckle and I discuss, with our military leadership focusing on critical race theory rather than warfighting, the country is in trouble. Holding leaders accountable is the first step to getting us back on track—and earning back the respect of the rest of the world that was lost in Afghanistan.

From Gingrich360.com.

Time to Hold Our Leaders Accountable for Afghanistan Fiasco (theepochtimes.com)

Credit Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) with posing the critical question during Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Sept. 14 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After declaring he was not speaking on a partisan basis and that “there is not enough lipstick in the world to put on this pig (the Afghanistan withdrawal),” Risch asked a nervous Blinken: “Who is responsible? Who made the decisions on this? Was it the president of the United States?”

“Ultimately, the president makes the decisions,” Blinken replied. He quickly added a string of qualifications. “Hundreds and thousands of decisions …,” Blinken opined, “… go into a situation as complex as this one.” The president makes “big strategic decisions,” but “tactical and operational decisions are made by different agencies, agency heads and agency officials.”

Risch is the committee’s ranking minority member. He didn’t need to hear a truism-packed sermon on trickle-down bureaucratic decision-making calculated to appear to take responsibility without really doing so. But that’s what he got.

As I scanned a transcript of his testimony, I noticed Blinken sidestepped discussing decisions (made by unnamed individuals) that on-the-ground action in Afghanistan had proved to be utterly wrongheaded and destructive.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Blinken that if he were just reading Blinken’s prepared testimony, then he would think the withdrawal “was a smashing success. But I do read the news, as most Americans do, and we realize this is a complete debacle … what concerns me the most … is the detachment from reality …”

In the Biden administration, political “optics” overrule reality. Blinken repeats, with premeditation, the Biden administration’s most grievous strategic error: focusing on managing political perception instead of executing policy actions that address on-the-ground facts.

On Aug. 31, Reuters confirmed that harsh truth when it published the 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 … 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.”

Biden knew his poorly planned and incompetently executed withdrawal was failing, but perhaps he could fool the public. Now Blinken continues to wage perception warfare against American citizens, attempting to hide a planning failure that amounts to dereliction of duty.

The debacle’s principal component was a Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO). By U.S. doctrine the State Department serves as the lead agency in a NEO. However, withdrawal from a combat zone requires military forces to maintain security, which means the State and Defense Departments must constantly coordinate with allies in planning the evacuation and in all phases of its execution. Moreover, in a complex situation like Afghanistan, the U.S. president must be willing to send military reinforcements to respond to surprises—like unanticipated enemy attacks.

An experienced planner can sketch a basic NEO plan in 10 minutes, one designed to set conditions favorable to a successful evacuation.

The following are some of the key elements. Identify and secure evacuation corridors. In a landlocked territory (like Afghanistan), secure multiple airports, even if that means temporarily sending in more troops. Stock the air bases with food and medical supplies. Alert and begin staging airlift assets, to include commercial and contract aircraft. State Department consular teams (protected by security units if necessary) seek out American citizens. The State Department surges Special Immigrant Visa processing and arranges for third-country safe havens for SIV and noncitizen evacuees. What processing cannot occur in-country, safe havens can handle.

Many of these suboperations could have begun April 14, the day Biden gave the withdrawal order.

Common-sense advice: Don’t set firm dates for completing the evacuation if you can avoid it—tipping off the enemy is a bad idea. Withdraw security forces based on the threat. As the evacuation nears completion, the military begins to “shrink the perimeter” while maintaining punitive strike-back capability.

The sad thing is the United States has the institutional resources and experience to conduct a successful evacuation. But the tragic results tell us Biden administration senior leaders had no clue how to organize them, much less use them.

Biden Administration Strategic Errors Led to Afghan Debacle (theepochtimes.com)

There are many ways in which to divide humanity—the decent and the indecent, the happy and the unhappy, the cowardly and the courageous, those who lead and those who follow, etc.

Two major divisions that are less often noted but highly consequential are between those who want to control others and those who have little interest in controlling others, and between the related categories of those who are comfortable with being controlled by others and those who detest being controlled by others.

Those who seek to control others and those who seek to be controlled by others would seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum. But they are not. Both groups are overwhelmingly populated by individuals on the Left.

They currently dominate four of the five English-speaking countries (the United Kingdom may be the one exception). The ease with which Australians, Canadians, and New Zealanders have accepted the loss of liberty in their respective countries has been the saddest and most frightening development since the rise of totalitarianism in the early 20th century.

Even sadder and more frightening has been the acceptance of authoritarianism by half of the American people. America has been the beacon of liberty in the world. America was the country to which France gave the Statue of Liberty. America has been, as President Abraham Lincoln characterized it, “the last best hope of Earth.” America’s self-image has been that of a “sweet land of liberty” and of “the land of the free and home of the brave.”

Then came a new virus (one with a survival rate in the 99 percent range for nearly all age groups except older adults who are also very sick), and suddenly, in the name of “public health,” no amount of suppression of liberty, no matter how irrational, has been resisted by the majority of Americans or almost any citizens of the other English-speaking countries.

The citizens of Australia’s biggest states are not allowed to leave their homes for more than a few hours a day, not allowed to congregate with other citizens even outdoors, not allowed even to speak with one another outdoors. For more than a year and a half, Australians have not been allowed to leave their country without the express permission of their government, which will decide whether they have a good enough reason. And, of course, church services are forbidden. Australians, Canadians, and New Zealanders, most of whom are thoroughly secular, have only contempt for their compatriots who wish to attend religious services.

In many arenas of life, most Australians have fewer rights than most Soviet citizens did. Like Australians, Soviet citizens could not leave their country without permission, but they were allowed to leave their homes, to speak with people in the street, and to visit dying relatives in hospitals.

Meanwhile, a large percentage of Americans support a president of the United States who offers government and an enormous number of private-entity workers a choice between getting vaccinated—no matter how young they are, and whether they already had COVID-19—or losing their job. In other words, many Americans support firing any unvaccinated fellow citizens who work for the government, the medical professions, or privately owned companies with 100 or more employees.

Half of America supports a president who portrays the other half of America as an enemy, their fellow Americans as people for whom they should have hatred. No American president has ever given as divisive a speech as the one in which President Joe Biden announced his vaccine mandates (something he denied wanting to impose only nine months ago, in December of 2020). Lincoln, despite the Civil War, a war in which more Americans were killed than in all other American wars combined, called on Americans to have “malice toward none.” Biden, as mean-spirited a president as this country has ever had, has called for malice toward 100 million Americans, declaring, “our patience is wearing thin.”

There is a three-pronged left-wing assault on liberty: in the name of public health (COVID-19); in the name of “anti-racism”; and in the name of saving the planet (climate change). By ratcheting up fear and hysteria, the Left is using each to end individual liberty, including freedom of speech, for the first time in American history.

Will the Left succeed?

Unless Americans fight the Left as hard as the Union fought the slave states, the answer is yes.

Why Freedom Is in Serious Jeopardy (theepochtimes.com)

The announcement comes as DHS continues to respond to the crisis in Afghanistan and the damage caused by Hurricane Ida

Karen Olick, the chief of staff for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, announced today that she’s leaving her position.

Olick is said to be pursuing a new, unspecified opportunity and will leave the department by the end of the month.

In an email to DHS staffers, Mayorkas said, “We are grateful to Karen for her service during the critical first nine months of the new Administration.”

POLITICO: Department of Homeland Security chief of staff resigns

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) September 13, 2021

Olick led the ballot initiative practice for a Democratic strategic communications firm before joining the federal government. Additionally, she worked on political campaigns for Joe Biden and former U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu. She previously served as an aide to Senator Barbara Boxer for over ten years including serving as chief of staff until 2007. On January 20, 2021, Olick was appointed to the chief of staff position with DHS. 

In a message to DHS, she wrote, “Though too often underappreciated by our fellow citizens, I am continually struck by how many millions of Americans sleep in safety every night because so many at DHS do not sleep.” 

According to Politico, “Employees and senior officials at DHS have also been working non-stop on other crises that their department is taking a lead on including responding to the impacts of Hurricane Ida and helping vet tens of thousands of Afghan refugees who the U.S. evacuated from Kabul in August.”

Earlier this year, Mayorkas was under fire for his handling of the southern border. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham called on the DHS secretary to change his policies or resign.

In a statement, Graham said the Biden administration has “lost control of the border” and that Mayorkas “doesn’t have either the will or capability to fix the problem.” 

During his testimony to a House committee, Mayorkas “admitted his department released illegal immigrants into communities without testing them for the coronavirus. Local officials say up to 25% of the migrants are COVID-positive,” per The Washington Times.

The chief of staff position will be temporarily filled by Jennifer Higgins, the associate director of Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. She has worked for the federal government for over 20 years.

Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Resigns | TIMCAST IRL

During a Monday hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, accusations flew from partisans on both sides of the political aisle. Democrats, hoping to defend President Joe Biden’s unpopular handling of the withdrawal, blamed the Trump administration for the catastrophe. Republicans, riding the wave of increased apprehension toward Biden after the fiasco, went on the offensive, blaming Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for their handling of the situation.

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the committee, said in his opening statement that “disentangling ourselves from the war in Afghanistan was never going to be easy.”

He continued: “And for my friends who presume a clean solution for the withdrawal existed, I would welcome hearing what exactly a smooth withdrawal from a messy, chaotic, 20-year war looks like. In fact, I’ve yet to hear the clean withdrawal option, because I don’t believe one exists.”

Meeks accused Biden’s critics, who have come from both major parties since the fall of Afghanistan, of “inject[ing] domestic politics into foreign policy.”

Starting a trend continued throughout the meeting by his Democratic colleagues, Meeks shifted the blame to former President Donald Trump, referencing a 2020 deal that would have fulfilled one of the president’s campaign promises to get the country out of the war.

The former president has been heavily critical of Biden’s handling of the withdrawal. In discussions of the situation, Trump has been open about the deal that he and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made with the Taliban, but has remained insistent that this deal would have been reliant on the Taliban meeting several conditions and that his administration would have handled the situation much differently.

Afterward, ranking minority party member Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) spoke for Republicans in his opening statement, shifting the blame to Biden’s handling of the situation.

He began, “This did not have to happen, but the president refused to listen to his own generals and the intelligence community who warned him what would happen if we withdrew.” The outcome of the situation, he said, was essentially “an unconditional surrender to the Taliban.”

He roasted Blinken and Biden for their “betrayal” of U.S. allies in the region after promising them that they would be evacuated safely. In the wake of this betrayal, McCaul said, “a dark veil of shariah covers Afghanistan,” leaving not only longtime allies to the Taliban’s retribution but also “stripp[ing] away in a matter of weeks” all efforts to bring rights to women and girls in the country.

McCaul said, “We’re here today to better understand how this administration got it so wrong.”

Blinken Defends Biden Administration Handling

In his own opening remarks, Blinken defended the efforts of the administration and downplayed critics’ accusations.

He began by saying that the United States had two main goals in going into Afghanistan in the first place: “bringing justice to Al Qaeda” for its role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and ensuring that the country could not be used as a launching point for another such terror attack. These goals, said Blinken, were “completed long ago.”

Still, Blinken indicated that the current administration felt forced into conforming with the deal made by Trump with the Taliban. Biden had two choices when he came into office and inherited this deal, Blinken said: “ending the war or escalating it.”

Blinken then pointed to the successes of the administration during the crisis.

He said that in March, just weeks after Biden took office, the State Department was telling Americans to leave the country and offering to help them do so. At the same time, he claimed, the administration worked to speed up the processing of special immigrant visas (SIVs), a usually long and arduous process under standing law; the Trump administration, he added, had done little on this front.

Repeating an often-stated refrain, Blinken said that the rapid decay of the country’s political and military situation defied all predictions. Blinken said that “even the most pessimistic prediction” did not indicate such a quick collapse.

Later, Blinken was asked whether the Trump administration left behind information on Americans in Afghanistan or on its plans for U.S. withdrawal.

Again pushing the blame to Trump, Blinken responded curtly that the administration “inherited a deadline, we did not inherit a plan.”

Democrats, Republicans Hurl Accusations

During a heated part of the debate, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) accused the president of lying about the situation since it began. Wilson cited claims by the president that there would not be a collapse of the country to the Taliban, that there would not be Vietnam-like scenes of evacuation, and that there would be significant air support for fleeing Americans and Afghans, among others; about each of these, Wilson claimed, Biden lied.

In an equally-heated retort to Wilson, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) snapped at him and other Republicans, accusing them of being “selective” in their concerns about terrorists, again pointing to the Trump administration’s negotiations with the Taliban.

In another showdown, Blinken was asked a question about a phone call from Biden to the now-former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani obtained by Reuters. In the call, Biden is alleged to have told Ghani to lie about the severity of the situation. Blinken refused to comment, neither confirming nor denying the call’s veracity.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) defended the administration’s handling of the crisis. At the height of the evacuation, Sherman said, the Kabul airport was experiencing a constant “stampede.”

“There is simply no way the administration can have an orderly or successful stampede,” Sherman ruled.

Republicans Grill Blinken on Afghanistan, Democrats Blame Trump (theepochtimes.com)

Art denouncing Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey as the leader of the “TaliBAN” appeared across San Francisco on the eve of September 11th, depicting Dorsey as a bearded mullah.

The art appeared in various locations around the city, including outside city hall, at bus stations, and outside Twitter’s headquarters on Market St. The art references Republican political candidate Laura Loomer and cartoonist and Islam critic Bosch Fawstin, both of whom are banned from the platform.

‘TaliBAN:’ Street Art Denouncing Twitter Censorship Covers San Francisco (breitbart.com)

Laura Loomer has had street art of Jack Dorsey plastered all around Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.

The posters feature Dorsey as a member of the Taliban, as they allow them to remain on Twitter while banning conservatives — including Loomer.

The art was designed by Loomer and drawn by Bosch Fawstin, a former Muslim who won the “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” that was attacked by ISIS in Garland, Texas.https://www.youtube.com/embed/g9jScXWr8BQ?feature=oembed

TRENDING: EXCLUSIVE: Large Sections of the Border Wall Have Been REMOVED and Left WIDE OPEN Along Heavily Trafficked Drug Route in Southern Arizona

“For years, I have been raising awareness about Twitter’s alliance with Islamic terrorist organizations and their willingness to platform enemies of America. This is a concept I have referred to as Silicon Sharia, as Twitter has shown they have no problem banning millions of Americans for their constitutionally protected speech, including myself and sitting President Donald Trump during our elections, while they happily provide a platform for recruitment and propaganda for actual terrorists,” Loomer said in a statement provided to the Gateway Pundit.https://www.youtube.com/embed/CQNmpVU4xw0?feature=oembed

“OPERATION TaliBANNED was created to highlight this absurdity and how Big tech tyrants like Jack Dorsey continue to wage digital jihad on free speech in America with widespread bans rooted in the false Left-wing notion that conservatives and Trump supporters are the real terrorists,” Loomer continued. “Twenty years ago, Twitter did not exist, but it would have been unfathomable to every American that someday in America, the leader of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world would aid and avert Islamic terrorists in the digital public sphere. Jack Dorsey has made it clear that thanks to people like him, Americans are less safe than they were 20 years ago.”

Fawstin pointed out that the issue, for him, is not that Twitter bans people — but who they ban and who they don’t.

“The issue with leftist-run tech companies like Twitter is not about whether they have the right to ban people from their platform, it’s about who they consistently target for banning and why, and who they don’t ban, no matter what. They banned a sitting president, Trump, over the lie that he was the leader of an ‘insurrection’, which the FBI now admits there was no proof of,” Fawstin said.

Fawstin said that Twitter acts “in full accordance with Shariah blasphemy laws” by banning critics of Islam from the platform.

“Twitter bans Islam critics like me and Laura, acting in full accordance with shariah blasphemy laws, while allowing Islamic terrorists who murder Americans to spread their propaganda on their platform. That’s evil, whether or not they have the technical ‘right’ to ban whomever they want. And I do wonder that if our government ever were to officially declare war on the Islamic terrorist enemy, if this aiding and abetting of an enemy in a time of war that Twitter engages in would be legally recognized as such.”

Those who wish to contribute to Loomer’s activism can do so here.

TaliBANNED: Laura Loomer Has Street Art of Jack Dorsey Plastered All Around Twitter HQ (VIDEOS) (thegatewaypundit.com)

President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has ruined, perhaps for decades, America’s most important bilateral relationship of this era.

If Washington is going to deter a militant China, it needs the support of democratic India. Unfortunately, India looks like the country most immediately—and perhaps most adversely—affected by the Biden-created debacle. As a result, New Delhi could decide to side not with America but with a Chinese ally, Moscow.

New Delhi was one of the staunchest supporters of the American-backed Afghan government and was working alongside Washington in the war against the Taliban and other insurgents. For instance, Indian intelligence was instrumental in breaking up an Afghan ring of Chinese spies working with the Haqqani Network. The Trump administration believed that the Chinese members of that ring, taken into custody last December, were, among other things, offering cash to kill American troops in-country.

India saw the Afghan government as a friend in blunting extremism in neighboring Pakistan, which has always defined itself as India’s enemy. Islamabad continually foments trouble in India-controlled Kashmir and has continually backed insurgents targeting India. The Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists who attacked targets in Mumbai in November 2008, for instance, came from Pakistan and relied heavily on Pakistani government resources.

The fall of the Afghan government was, therefore, a blow to New Delhi. Worse, the inability of the Biden administration to orchestrate an orderly withdrawal resulted in compounding the damage to Indian interests.

“The U.S. left behind reinvigorated jihadist networks, tens of billions of dollars in weapons and communications systems, critical strategic infrastructure, and even, reportedly, intel not only on who was working with the U.S. but some who were working with India,” Cleo Paskal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Gatestone. “Physically, the closest target for this massively armed and confident jihadist resurgence is India. As a result of decisions taken in Washington, India is dramatically less secure today than it was a few months ago.”

To obtain security, New Delhi had been looking toward the United States. Consequently, Russia’s and China’s friends in Indian policy circles were losing influence, a trend especially evident after the Chinese incursions in Ladakh beginning in May of last year. Russia’s friends were delegitimized by that event because Moscow had assured New Delhi that the movement of Chinese forces in Tibet, which occurred immediately before the invasion, was only a drill.

As a result of Ladakh and other incidents, the government of Narendra Modi had been working fast to build military ties with the United States. In the wake of the fall of Kabul, however, relationships with Washington have been put on ice. “Indian strategists who have been saying that the way forward is working more closely with the U.S. are being openly taunted by those who have a more pro-Moscow bent,” Paskal, also associated with Chatham House, reports.

“There is a reassessment going on,” she added. “One possible outcome is that Delhi works more closely with Tokyo, and possibly Canberra and Taipei.” Japan, Australia, India, and the United States form what is known as the Quad, which up until the fall of Kabul was coming together as an effective grouping. Now, all bets are off.

Another scenario is that New Delhi decides to work more closely with Russia, reviving decades-old ties. Russia, of course, is increasingly aligned with China.

In the wake of the fall of Afghanistan, Taiwan has become the critical test of American resolve, especially as President Biden has justified the withdrawal as a strategic move to counter Russia and China. “The world is changing,” he said to the American people on Aug. 31. “We’re engaged in a serious competition with China. We’re dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia.”

It is significant, therefore, that on Aug. 27 USS Kidd, an American guided-missile destroyer, and USCG Munro, a Coast Guard cutter, transited the Taiwan Strait. The transits come on the heels of Vice President Kamala Harris’s welcome comments in both Singapore and Hanoi on China’s “bullying” in the South China Sea.

The Biden administration may in fact be willing to defend Taiwan, but that is not all that counts at this crucial time. What also counts are perceptions, and the perceptions that especially count are those in Beijing. Chinese propagandists promoted two narratives as Kabul fell: The United States will not defend Taiwan and an America unable to deal with the Taliban cannot hope to stand up to China.

Those two narratives appear to in fact reflect Chinese thinking, especially because the withdrawal from Afghanistan signaled to Beijing a complete failure of the U.S. intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the White House national security apparatus. Chinese exercises in areas adjacent to Taiwan in August and an Aug. 13 simulated attack on Taiwan with a short-range missile are, in this context, ominous.

The other perceptions that count are those in New Delhi, which had been inching toward closer cooperation with Taiwan. Indian thinkers realized that they needed to challenge China in its peripheral seas as China was challenging India in its nearby waters. India’s close ties with Vietnam are an indication that India perceives its security as dependent on an open South China Sea and even East China Sea. Taiwan, which sits at the intersection of those bodies of water, is essential in keeping sea lanes there open.

America more than ever needs India’s help in ensuring peace in the ring of countries surrounding China and its surrounding waters. Now, however, India could desert America as America has just deserted India. Said Paskal, “To say there is a crisis in trust in current U.S. policymaking in New Delhi is an understatement.”

From the Gatestone Institute.

Chaotic Afghanistan Pullout Puts Important Relationship With India in Peril (theepochtimes.com)

For 20 years since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. presidents have been saying their anti-terrorism policies have worked, as evidenced by no new attacks on America. While we should be grateful another attack hasn’t occurred, past performance is no guarantee of future success. Fanatics are nothing but patient, as we have seen in Afghanistan.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley has said the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to civil war and the possible “reconstitution of al Qaeda.” That should come as no surprise as the goals of our enemies in the Middle East have been expressed openly for decades. Their actions have proven a commitment to killing Americans and destabilizing democracies and their economies.

Underestimating one’s enemy is always a fatal error as we saw on 9/11. President Obama once dismissed al-Qaeda as the “JV team.” In fact, they are the varsity. It is difficult to deter or destroy an ideology whose adherents are willing to die for its cause, especially when they believe they are carrying out orders from their god.

In its March 2015 issue, The Atlantic noted a New York Times story about confidential comments made by Major General Michael K. Nagata, at the time the Special Operations commander for the U.S. in the Middle East. Gen. Nagata reportedly admitted he had yet to figure out the appeal of one of many terrorist organizations. About the Islamic State, he said, “We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.” Whose fault is that?

With their win in Afghanistan, terrorists by whatever name, can only be further motivated to conduct new attacks. What might those look like? From experience we know they prefer the big event, such as crashing airliners into buildings and blowing up high value targets. There are other options when big targets are not vulnerable.

Lone suicide bomber incidents can also strike fear into a nation, especially if they are sustained and coordinated.

In 2003, Tom Clancy wrote a novel called “The Teeth of the Tiger” about terrorists who sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border and in coordinated attacks shoot up suburban shopping malls. Fear of terrorists slipping over the border is not fiction, but of growing concern.

Small-scale attacks, undetectable in advance, have been occurring since 9/11.

Two recent incidents demonstrate what we’re up against.

On the Sunday before the last American military planes left Kabul, a gunman shot and killed a Lyft driver in Garland, Texas. He then drove to a nearby police station and began shooting at people inside. The gunman was identified as Imran Ali Rasheed. Police killed him.

The FBI said Rasheed “may have been inspired by a foreign terrorist organization to commit these crimes.” Ya think? Suspected terrorists are crossing our southern border at “unprecedented level,” according to the outgoing U.S. Border Patrol chief. In New Zealand, a man named Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen stabbed seven people inside a store where he had bought a knife. Police shot and killed him. Authorities drew the obvious conclusion, calling it a “terrorist attack.”

Who knows how many—if any—terrorists are among the thousands of Afghan refugees now pouring into America? The Biden administration claims the vetting system should weed out anyone who means us harm, but there are no guarantees and the radicals can be expected to lie and perhaps even have forged papers.

After turning back German General Erwin Rommel’s forces in what Winston Churchill called “The Battle of Egypt,” Churchill famously said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Given the commitment and resourcefulness of this modern enemy, I’m not sure we are even at the end of the beginning.

The Next Terrorist Attack (theepochtimes.com)

A couple of weeks before the completion of the catastrophe of the American presence in Afghanistan—or, if you believe President Joe Biden, the “extraordinary success” of the American evacuation—a Russo-British comedian named Konstantin Kisin published a brilliantly funny thread on Twitter headed: “You’re struggling to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant. Let me help you.”

The “let me help you” megathread, as he called it, consisted of example after example of so-called “expert” opinions that have turned out to be completely wrong—beginning with the British vote for Brexit and the American vote for President Donald Trump in 2016, both of which elections the top experts at the time confidently assured us would go the other way.

Actually, Kisin’s spiel could be considered as a belated gloss on one of the most famous quotations to come out of the Brexit referendum, that of the Brexiteer and veteran government minister Michael Gove who said: “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts.”

I think that Trump was striking the same responsive chord with Americans when he disparaged what he called “political correctness”—still ravaging the county after four years of his administration—which was also the product of that breed of experts who call themselves “intellectuals.”

If people were fed up with experts in 2016, think how much more reason they have to be so five years later! Kisin does, and he goes ruthlessly through the whole catalog of errors from Russian collusion to “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” to “toxic masculinity” and the abolition of sex in favor of the nebulous idea of “gender.”

And of course we mustn’t leave out the conflicting and often mendacious pronunciamentos of “the Science” on the coronavirus, which have culminated in the distrust, not so much of the vaccines themselves, but of “the experts’” attempts to demonize those who remain skeptical about them.

And all this was before the collapse of the Afghan government and army under the onslaught of the Taliban gave us what may be the best reason ever for thinking that we, too, have had enough of experts in this country.

“Afghanistan: the graveyard of experts,” wrote Tim Black at Spiked Online.

“US ‘experts’ who created Afghanistan mess should be fired for malpractice,” wrote Rebekah Koffler for The New York Post—though of course they won’t be. They never are. They’re the experts.

A writer on Substack named Richard Hanania compared the galaxy of American Ph.D.’s (including the now-deposed president of Afghanistan himself, Ashraf Ghani, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia) who got us into Afghanistan with the madrassa-educated Taliban and wrote that, “It’s as if Wernher von Braun had been given all the resources in the world to run a space program and had been beaten to the moon by an African witch doctor.”

Unsurprisingly, there were a great many negative comments appended to Kisin’s bonfire of the experts, most of them to the effect that, just because some people have been wrong about some things it doesn’t mean that other people are going to be wrong about other things—especially when those things include vaccines which, as there are sound scientific reasons for believing, can be life-saving.

Nor should we neglect to consider that the lives saved are not only of those who receive the vaccines but also those of the immunosuppressed and other vulnerable people who come in contact with them.

They have a point. But so has Kisin. The latter is certainly right in thinking that the experts, particularly those who write for the partisan media, have taken too little care of their own credibility in the past, instead expecting to be trusted and believed as right, just because of who they are. When they then turn out to be wrong, they have no one but themselves to blame if people don’t believe them the next time.

Some people are always going to be wrong about almost everything, but the case is altered when the people who are wrong have set themselves up in the profession of being right. These are the people we call “experts” solely because they have the recognized credentials of experts—advanced degrees from top universities or awards for their expertise from other experts—whether or not they have any real-world experience or expertise.

Their authority is what the anthropologists call “positional”—like that of the parent who answers a child’s question of why? by replying: “Because I said so!” or “Because I’m your mother.”

The experts treat us all like those children—and then they wonder why they are resented and distrusted.

They are the people who identify themselves with their beliefs to the extent that they can never admit it—and so never learn from their mistakes—when those beliefs turn out to be wrong.

That’s how you get to Biden’s calling an obvious disaster of the first water an “extraordinary success”—with no more than an occasional raised eyebrow from the compliant media.

Much publicity in the last week or so was given to a Reuters report of a conversation between Biden and Ghani in the dying days of the latter’s government, as the Taliban were closing in. What he had to worry about, said the American president to the Afghan one, was the “perception” that he was losing the war, not the fact that he actually was losing it.

All he had to do to get American help, said Biden, was change this perception, “whether it is true or not.”

I think a lot of the criticism of this extraordinary conversation was misdirected. The problem wasn’t that Biden told Ghani to lie. Lying to the enemy has a long and honorable tradition in the history of warfare.

No, the problem was that he was foolish enough to think he could lie in that situation: that he (or Ghani) could get away with spinning the enemy as he himself was used to spinning the American media—as, of course, he would go on to do again with the claim of an “extraordinary success.”

A man whose self-assurance and self-absorption is such that he believes reality can make no claim against him that he can’t pay off with the experts’ counterfeit currency of interpretive ingenuity and rhetorical sleight-of-hand is a man who can only lead his country and himself into more disasters.

Bonfire of the Experts (theepochtimes.com)

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)

A radical left-wing activist group organizing a pro-abortion protest outside the home of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh had some interesting advice for prospective attendees. An addendum to the notice announcing the protest urged activists “to be as inclusive as possible in your language” while making a ruckus outside Kavanaugh’s home in Washington, D.C.

“Women and girls are not the only people who can get pregnant and need abortions,” the organizers from ShutDownDC wrote. That’s going to be rather inconvenient for anyone who was planning to reuse old signage about stopping the “war on women,” but at least they’ve been given a few days to prepare. Alas, “Stop the war on people who can get pregnant” has far too many syllables to incorporate into a catchy chant.

Additionally, the protest organizers cautioned attendees to “please avoid comparing U.S. abortion-restricting politicians to the Taliban” because it would be unfair to the Taliban. (No, seriously.) “The former are a distinctly homegrown phenomenon and ignoring that in favor of such comparisons is Islamophobic,” they explained.

Since the Taliban’s rapid takeover in Afghanistan, even prominent Democrats have delighted in comparing people they don’t like to the militant Islamist group. “Have you noticed how strikingly similar both the mindsets and actions are between the suicide bombers at Kabul’s airport, and the anti-mask and anti-vax people here?” wrote Arne Duncan, an Islamophobe who served seven years as former president Barack Obama’s secretary of education.

The protest is scheduled to take place on the evening of Monday, Sept. 13. ShutDownDC, a left-wing activist group that purports to use “strategic direct action to advance justice and hold officials accountable,” said they intend to “make our voices heard” by calling for Kavanaugh’s resignation and telling him to “keep your oppressive ideology out of our bodies.”

Earlier this year, ShutDownDC organized a small gathering outside the Virginia home of Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), where protesters used a bullhorn to yell at his wife. (The senator wasn’t there.) They also left a copy of the U.S. Constitution on his doorstep. It was very sad.

Lib Activist Group Warns Protesters: Men Can Have Abortions Too, Comparing GOP to Taliban is ‘Islamophobic’ (freebeacon.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)

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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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)

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)

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)

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

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 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)

‘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)

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

Afghan man who helped the US on the ground: ‘I have no idea how to leave’

Horrifying audio of distant gunshots appears to confirm reports of “house-to-house executions” as the Taliban asserts control of Kabul and Afghanistan after the U.S. military’s departure on Monday evening. 

An Afghan man who worked with Americans on the ground provided Fox News with the chilling audio featuring distant gunshots.

“I think there’s a conflict between the Taliban, I have no idea where I’m located. From everywhere I hear the sounds of shooting, gunfire. I have no idea how to leave,” the Afghan man said in the audio clip, recorded around the time the final U.S. plane left Kabul.

Distant gunshots rang in the background in the audio clip.

TALIBAN BRAGS: US TROOPS LEFT KABUL, AFGHANISTAN ‘GAINED FULL INDEPENDENCE

Taliban militants were carrying out “house-to-house executions in Kabul” after the U.S. departure, a senior U.S. source told Fox News Investigative journalist Lara Logan.

President Biden did not deny a Politico report, confirmed by Fox News, that U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies in an effort to grant them entry to the airport which resulted in outrage from military officials behind the scenes. The president said “there may have been” such a list. “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” one defense official told Politico.

Hours after the departure of U.S. troops, the official Taliban Twitter account celebrated the withdrawal. 

“The last American soldier left Kabul airport at 9pm Afghan time tonight and our country gained full independence. Thank God and blessings,” the Taliban account tweeted. 

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Vincent Boles told Fox News that the Taliban should not get too comfortable. 

“Be careful what you ask for,” Boles said. “Now they have to show they can govern a nation and people that are very different than when they left power. Will the Taliban go forward to the future or pull Afghanistan back to the past? The answer will be in their behavior… behavior is believable.”

“From everywhere I hear the sounds of shooting, gunfire. I have no idea how to leave.”— Afghan source who worked with Americans on the ground.

Last Wednesday, a former translator for a high-ranking U.S. Army Ranger told Fox News the Taliban had started executing allies of the U.S. in public, in provinces away from the media attention of Kabul.

“They are not doing really bad stuff in Kabul right now because there’s a lot of media focus on Kabul, but they already started public execution in other provinces where a lot of media is not available or covering it,” the interpreter said.

What’s more, in holding to his Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, President Biden appears to have broken his promise to stay in Afghanistan until every American has been evacuated.

“We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out,” Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commander of U.S. Central Command, admitted Monday evening.

On Aug. 18, Biden had told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that the U.S. military’s objective in Afghanistan was to get “everyone” out, including Americans, Afghan allies and their families.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“That’s what we’re doing now, that’s the path we’re on. And I think we’ll get there,” he said. “If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.”

Yet a senior State Department official told Fox News that a “small number” of Americans remained in Afghanistan, putting the number at “below 250.”

Taliban commit ‘house-to-house executions’ in Kabul after US exit as chilling audio demonstrates Afghans’ fear | Fox News

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)

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)

Baitulmaal gives financial support to families of Palestinian terrorists

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) on Wednesday shared a tweet that advertised a fundraiser for an organization with ties to Hamas and the Taliban.

Tlaib, who has a long history of anti-Semitic rhetoric, retweeted a post from critical race theorist Khaled Beydoun that urged donations to Baitulmaal, a Texas-based nonprofit. Experts say Baitulmaal helps fundraise for Hamas and distributes aid to the “families of martyrs of the Palestinian people.” And the group’s leader, Mazen Mokhtar, has been accused of working with the Taliban and other terrorist groups.

The retweet isn’t the first time Tlaib expressed support for terrorists. Days after she became a congresswoman, the controversial Democrat hosted Abbas Hamideh, a pro-Hezbollah activist who has repeatedly compared Israelis to Nazis. She shared a post last year that included an anti-Semitic phrase frequently used by Palestinian terrorist groups that seek to destroy Israel. She subsequently unshared the post.

Baitulmaal works closely with Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, according to a 2020 analysis by the Middle East Forum. The group, which received $10,000 in emergency coronavirus funding last year, frequently partners with Unlimited Friends Association for Social Development, a Palestinian group that describes itself as a “a social, developmental, educational NGO.”

The Unlimited Friends Association works with Baitulmaal to hand out cash to the families of Palestinian terrorists, according to the Middle East Forum. These donations complement the Palestinian Authority’s formal “Pay to Slay” program, which has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian terrorists. The Palestinian government this year paid $42,000 to the family of a Palestinian terrorist who stabbed two Israelis to death and wounded two more, including a two-year-old child.

The association, which lists Baitulmaal on its website’s partners and donors page, is openly hostile towards Israel. The group’s Facebook page contains references to “the filth of the most dirty Jews” and “Nazi Zionist jails.” The association also partners with Islamic Relief, a group with which the State Department cut ties this year because of “anti-Semitism exhibited repeatedly” by its leaders.

In 2004, federal agents in Connecticut investigated Mokhtar for running a website that “solicited funds for the Taliban and Chechen mujahideen.” Mokhtar was not convicted. Three years later, he was arrested on a multi-count indictment for filing false tax returns. The lead prosecutor was former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R.).

Baitulmaal also partners with West Bank-based Hamas organizations. The organization hosted a 2008 fundraiser for the Yazour Medical Clinic in Nablus, an offshoot of Hamas. One Palestinian newspaper reports that Baitulmaal and the Hamas offshoot have been working together “for years.”

Anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour last year hosted a fundraiser for Baitulmaal that raised tens of thousands of dollars.

Tlaib and Baitulmaal did not respond to requests for comment.

Rashida Tlaib Promoted a Fundraiser for Group Tied to Hamas, Taliban (freebeacon.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