Who would have thought that Joe Biden – the guy who openly berated voters on the campaign trail and challenged them to physical contests, all while saying he would have taken Trump out behind the school gym to pummel him – would be so benign and complacent to the Taliban?
Yet here we are. In the haste to exit Afghanistan, we are being told by the Taliban to leave by August 31st or there will be consequences. And today Joe decided to keep the August 31 date, despite the G7 members imploring him to extend. Despite reports of thousands of evacuees being turned back, papers destroyed, beaten, and in some cases killed at Taliban checkpoints in Kabul, all while trying to get to the airport to leave. This includes Afghans that supported and worked for the U.S. on the ground and at the embassy, as well as US citizens.
Let’s put one item to rest right away: The plan that was being put in place by the last administration to leave Afghanistan had very strict components to it, including a heavy-handed response to any group that stood in the way of evacuees. It had also imposed very strict rules for how the Taliban was to conduct themselves, or face overwhelming response including placing troops back on the ground to enforce it. It was a no-nonsense, no BS approach that all parties agreed to; they had no alternative. The point they all understood was that the past administration was not afraid, at all, to inflict a massive blow to even the slightest violation. And our adversaries, especially the Taliban, knew it. This plan was ultimately shredded by the current administration.
When Joe Biden entered office, our adversaries saw immediate weakness (IMHO). They saw it on our southern border. They saw it in our response to Russia in the Black Sea and Ukraine. They saw it in the South China Sea. They saw it with our renewed desire to get back into the JCPOA with Iran, virtually begging them to come to the table to talk in Europe. They saw it with China laying our Secretary of State out flat, using Democrat-bolstered BLM rhetoric against us, at their Alaskan summit a few months back. So, our adversaries in Afghanistan took action: The overwhelming build-up of Taliban in conjunction with Biden’s withdrawal timeline was well-known in the DoD and CIA, and was communicated up the chain – all the way up. And was ignored. This was even all over the media – EVERYONE knew it. And here we are. Afghanistan has fallen in days, not weeks or months or even at all… it has fallen in days. Its leadership fled the country two weeks ago. Those of us that remember Saigon… Here we are. Again.
And today it’s been revealed (via State Department leaked memos) that only 4,400 Americans have been safely extracted, and up to 20,000 more still remain across the country with no time left to get them out, since we are playing in the Taliban timelines. This will quite possibly lead to a hostage crisis of immense proportions. Since Biden abandoned our bases (e.g., Bagram, that you recall we left in the dark of night, without informing the Afghan leaders at the SAME base), we have no extraction point except Kabul – for the entire country of evacuees.
Let’s not forget in our haste to withdraw, we have left: Over 30 Blackhawk helicopters; somewhere near 300 Cessna Air Force combat aircraft; over 600,000 small arms and ammo; thousands of night-vision scopes and goggles; dozens of pieces of heavy equipment (armored carriers, etc.), 10 US-built airbases, all fully functional; and just announced today: A state-of-the-art biometrics surveillance system with over 80% of the Afghan population stored within its database. Now under Taliban control and use.
This was a poorly-planned move that flew in the face of advice from military leadership, every single G7 ally, and was even criticized by the Singapore PM to VP Harris directly, in person, yesterday during her visit. He essentially said “we can’t trust the US as a part in this region right now”. Anyone surprised? Anyone?
Change in Washington can’t happen fast enough, folks. This should have never happened this way. A planned, structured, military-controlled exit with all the tools necessary to engage and stay for as long as was needed to get the exit right, and severe consequences to those that stood in our way, was the path ignored. This will be the Vietnam black eye we swore to never let happen again. Only this time, we also endangered our allies. Memories last a lifetime, and we just created a huge, avoidable, bad one.
