It would appear the only real option in Afghanistan at the moment is picking the type of failure we want to shoot for…
…while remembering that many Afghans who worked for us and are in mortal danger are hiding out (and nationwide), and many Americans – read “potential hostages” – are “sheltering in place” as well, in Kabul.
It would appear our options are:
- Dunkirk, if we’re very lucky
- Stalingrad – the German version – if we’re not
- Mogadishu, to one degree or another – potentially leading to “Teheran, 1979” in the bargain.
Securing an urban corridor through a hostile semi-guerrilla army to try to evacuate not only thousands of civilians, but themselves, from a single-strip airport that can potentially be rocketed out of business at the drop of a hat?
Which would subject the US to a choice between:
- A humiiliating extended hostage crisis that’d make Iran in 1980 look like an episode of The Waltons, at the very best.
- Bringing in a whooooole lot of air power to blast the paratroopers out of the jam, and hope they can save anyone at all.
“Build Back Better” indeed.
This just in.
Biden is on vacation, eating his pudding, but issued a “strongly worded statement that the Taliban needs to ensure safe passage of all U.S. citizens and the protection of Afghan women and girls.” They shot two women for not wearing burkas. Yup, Emery, that’s leadership right there. You should be so proud of your hero Joey Demento.
boss, the little guy’s already tried to change the subject. That’s how proud he is of Joey Demento’s uncommon courage.
Looks like pl slow Joe gave the taliban 10,000 American hostages! And he’s just getting started. At this point there is no upside and a whole lotta downside. More troops in Afghanistan than when Trump left, and no timeline on their leaving.
I imagine that there a lot of Americans, including many, many Biden voters, who are now thinking “Oh! Now I get why they call him ‘Slow Joe!'”
Some smart ass once said “Never underestimate the ability of Joe to f*ck things up.”
Now we are finding out what the smart ass meant. This is a multi-dimensional screw up, meaning that it affects multiple critical issues in ways that we can’t yet calculate, especially when you get to follow-on effects. The “Saigon moment” of 1975 influenced American politics until we won Desert Storm (Biden voted against Desert Storm, BTW).
The reliably pro-Democrat Politico wades in, and not in an opinion piece:
Disbelief and betrayal: Europe reacts to Biden’s Afghanistan ‘miscalculation’
‘This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West,’ says senior German lawmaker.
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-reacts-bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal/
A few quotes:
“Across Europe, officials have reacted with a mix of disbelief and a sense of betrayal. Even those who cheered Biden’s election and believed he could ease the recent tensions in the transatlantic relationship said they regarded the withdrawal from Afghanistan as nothing short of a mistake of historic magnitude.
“I say this with a heavy heart and with horror over what is happening, but the early withdrawal was a serious and far-reaching miscalculation by the current administration,” said Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee. “This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.”
Röttgen, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, is no flamethrower. He has known Biden for decades and was optimistic about his prospects.
. . .
In the U.K., which like Germany supported the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan from the beginning, the sentiment was similar. “Afghanistan is the biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez. We need to think again about how we handle friends, who matters and how we defend our interests,” tweeted Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the U.K. parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
. . .
“Naturally this has damaged American credibility, along with that of the intelligence services and of the military,” said Rüdiger Lentz, the former head of the Aspen Institute in Berlin.
“
Thanks for that update ^, MP. I’ve been hoping for this. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of fuckwads.
MP: best troll I’ve seen was the Taliban in the weight room not able to press 50 pounds.
Yea, both China and Russia are having a field day with this. The ChiComs are telling Taiwan that Joey will abandon them just like he did Afghanistan.
“From 2017 to 2021 we has a US President who was himself deeply corrupt..”
Care to show any evidence of “deeply corrupt”, Em?
Seriously, folks – this is not a Joe Biden failure. He’s nothing more than a papier mache puppet for the bloody-elbowed handlers that have been lusting to get their fingers back on the knobs since Hillary imploded. The idea that Biden came up with any of this is to laugh…until you cry.
Let’s drag them out from behind the curtain…and put them up against the wall.
^ It didn’t help that from 2009-2017 we had a US president who was himself deeply corrupt — and who surrounded himself with officials who enabled him and emulated him.
FIFY, Emery. Evidence: Daleys, Rezko, Blago, Khalidi, etc.. BTW, the current guy is deeply corrupt, too.
Just watched George Stephanopolis interview Slow Joe, trying to throw him a line. But Joe makes a noose and puts his head through it. Incredible!
Interesting development from Driscoll@Instapundit. Apparently, SecDef Austin and Gen. Milley Defend Operational Decisions That Led Chaos in the Fall of Afghanistan and Biden doubles down on Afghanistan withdrawal, snaps over question about horrific scenes
I would expect to see the Little Weasel take a more aggressive perspective in the near future.
Yes, because it’s not like we could have gotten our material out of the ‘stan (or destroyed it) prior to leaving to prevent its use (or Russian/Chinese reverse engineering), and it’s not like we could have put real effort into getting U.S. citizens out of there, and it’s certainly not like we could have gotten vulnerable Afghans who had helped our efforts out of there….except that this is exactly what we did when we left Vietnam, and it’s exactly what we did as we withdrew forces from Iraq.
Biden is more or less expecting us to believe a line of bull that puts Obama and even Clinton to shame. Really, the response among general staff in the armed forces ought to be to protest and resign if necessary. Austin and Milley ought to be outright fired.
Biden to Stphanopolous: “”The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.”
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1028914771/biden-afghanistan-chaos-abc
Yeah, that’s why he went on vacation. Cuz he knew chaos was about to erupt.
Later to stephanopolous: “Look, it was a simple choice,” Biden said. “When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off — that was, you know, I’m not, that’s what happened.”
The stress he is undergoing is making him more stupid. I wonder how much ketamine he is on now? You can’t up the dosage forever.
Trump had a plan for withdrawal and told the military brass that he didn’t want so much as a bullet left behind.
Now, the jets we left behind, have been flown out of Afghanistan to parts unknown, by Taliban or Taliban affiliated pilots. Imagine the breach of military secrets on those. And yet, the Pedo Joe administration has deemed finding them “not a priority”. Lloyd Austin claims that we don’t have the ability to retrieve U.S. citizens and get them evacuated. Seriously?! What an epic failure on so many levels. Further, Orange Girl spewed that Joey “would not be making statements today”. I guess he has to find his pudding.
There is no doubt that Biden has been corrupted and is owned by China, as well as Ukraine and Russia. Now, China will exploit the mineral stores, including some rare earth types, of Afghanistan, not to mention the drug related trade.
Golly, y’know those documents the diplomats were burning at the Kabul embassy last weekend?
Turns out tht a lot of the docs were visa applications by Afghans we wanted to get out of the country.
https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1427670436180017165/photo/1
It’s not even a clown show, any more. It’s like that circle of Hell where people wander aimlessly through a swamp of brning shit.
Biden’s going beyond incompetence into what appears to be treason. I have little doubt that Chinese and Russian engineers are taking a real good look at that treasure trove of weaponry we left behind.
Let’s not take our eyes off what’s important here.
I don’t blame Pedo Joe. He doesn’t know what day it is half the time. There was never any doubt he’d be a disaster.
I blame the stinking reprobates that cheated to put him in office. They need to be identified and prosecuted, and that should be job 1 for a GOP majority next year, if we should somehow manage to have a fair election.
So, given Milley & Austin’s briefing yesterday the timeline is this:
-Abandon Bagram air base with no notice because we needed the troops to secure the embassy in Kabul.
-But the embassy falls without a shot anyway as the Afghan military collapses and the taliban waltzes into kabul.
-So then there were 2500 US troops at the airport, but they can’t handle the crowds + taliban threat, so we send in 3000 more to back them up, so the “draw down” of US forces has actually doubled their number.
-There are 10,000 American citizens in Kabul who must pass through Taliban check points in order to get to the airport to evacuate.
-The military (Austin and Milley) say they will leave soon, whether or not all Americans have been evacuated.
Pete Wehner, writing at the Atlantic echoes what I have been writing in comments about Biden for years: What the Biden foreign-policy record shows, I think, is a man who behaves as if he knows much more than he does, who has far too much confidence in his own judgment in the face of contrary advice from experts. (My hunch is he’s overcompensating for an intellectual inferiority complex, which has manifested itself in his history of plagiarism, lying about his academic achievements, and other embellishments.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/biden-afghanistan-record/619799/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
(My hunch is he’s overcompensating for an intellectual inferiority complex, which has manifested itself in his history of plagiarism, lying about his academic achievements, and other embellishments.)
Many such cases, MP. Posh lakefront homes, cornering the market…..
The extent of this disaster is just starting to be known.
During a Wednesday press briefing, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has the capability to extract some Americans in extreme circumstances, but not to gather up large groups of Americans who cannot get to the U.S.-controlled airport in Kabul after the Taliban seized near-total control of the country over the weekend.
Asked if U.S. forces would “extract” Americans not able to reach the Kabul airport for fear of being stopped or taken by the Taliban, Austin responded, “I would draw a distinction between extracting someone in an extreme condition or circumstance versus going out and collecting large numbers of American citizens.”
“We don’t have the capability to go out and collect large numbers of people,” Austin added.
When our humiliated military finally leaves, any US citizen still in Afghanistan becomes a hostage. They may not behead a US citizen, or at least the beheadings won’t end up on the internet, but they’re not coming back any time soon, and not without some cost attached.
Where is General Zia? Is he leading his troops to vanquish the Taliban? He’s had a thousand times the military resources of the Taliban.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-04-30/us-troops-are-leaving-afghanistan-but-al-qaeda-remains
Okay, class, let’s do a team-building exercise. This is about trust. Achmed, stand up here and hold your arms out to the sides.
Like this?
Yes, perfect. Now Joey, you stand behind him and catch him when he falls.
No problem, let’s see who can do more pushups. I drove a truck, you know.
No, no, just catch him. Ready? Okay, Achmed, let go. Fall back.
[thud]
Joey, what happened? You didn’t catch Achmed.
It’s Trumps fault. Why didn’t Achmed catch himself? I can’t catch everybody, you know. I’ve got to leave, it’s ten minutes to Wapner.
“EU foreign chief calls fall of Kabul “catastrophe””
STEPHANOPOULOS: How will history judge the United States’ experience in Afghanistan?
BIDEN: One that we overextended what we needed to do to deal with our national interest. That’s like my sayin’ they– they’re– they– they b– b– the border of Tajikistan– and– other– what– does it matter?
jfc…
Pedo Joe’s handlers are failing to keep a lid on just how bad things are…Reuters jumps in:
Planes, guns, night-vision goggles: The Taliban’s new U.S.-made war chest
Between 2002 and 2017, the United States gave the Afghan military an estimated $28 billion in weaponry, including guns, rockets, night-vision goggles and even small drones for intelligence gathering.
But aircraft like the Blackhawk helicopters have been the most visible sign of U.S. military assistance, and were supposed to be the Afghan military’ biggest advantage over the Taliban.
Between 2003 and 2016 the United States provided Afghan forces with 208 aircraft, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Votel and others said smalls arms seized by the insurgents such as machine guns, mortars, as well as artillery pieces including howitzers, could give the Taliban an advantage against any resistance that could surface in historic anti-Taliban strongholds such as the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
U.S. officials said the expectation was that most of the weapons would be used by the Taliban themselves, but it was far too early to tell what they planned to do – including possibly sharing the equipment with rival states such as China.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/planes-guns-night-vision-goggles-talibans-new-us-made-war-chest-2021-08-19/
This morning I listened to a recording of Biden ca. 2002 praising our nation building enterprise in Afghanistan, followed by a recording of Biden earlier this week saying that Afghanistan was never a nation building project.
The about face was bad enough, what was worse was the clear decline in Biden’s cognitive and speaking ability. The Biden of two decades ago spoke in complete sentences. He did not slur his speech or stumble over the right word or use the wrong word.
10/10 Hunter Biden is angling to get a spot on the Taliban board of directors..
If the taliban can’t operate and maintain the US equipment they got from us, the Pakistanis will tach them.
Don’t memory hole the fact that the taliban began as a project of Pakistani security.
I’m reading that the taliban surrounding the Kabul airport are trying to terrorize the poor Afghani bastards outside the fence into rushing it — in the hopes that US soldiers will shoot them down.
Should make for great optics.
Austin & Biden say we will get all of our people out.
The taliban has given us two weeks, and they control access to the airport.
We have lost the initiative and are in a near no-win situation, and we are led by the careerist, incompetent Austin and Milley.
Now the shit is hitting the fan
Chaos mars Afghan evacuation efforts; Biden criticism builds
“People must run a gantlet of Taliban checkpoints to get to the airport, with reports of beatings, whippings and intimidation. Those fleeing must hide critical documents needed to get on a flight to get past the Taliban.
Violence on the road to Kabul’s airport and chaos at the gates are hampering efforts to evacuate Americans and vulnerable Afghans looking to flee the country following the Taliban takeover.
Adding to the mayhem is mixed messaging from the [Inept Biden] State Department, which is urging Americans and those with travel documents to head to the Hamid Karzai International Airport “as soon as possible” even though the U.S. Embassy alerted people that it could not guarantee safe passage.”
Check out the video on the link…..
What a shitshow….and where is Pedo Joe? Where is Kameltoe? Where is the US government?
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/568621-chaos-mars-afghan-evacuation-efforts-biden-criticism-builds
The taliban has given us two weeks
Pedo Joe is taking orders from a bunch of illiterate, goat fucking farmers.
Reports of Taliban using their new US Army gear to impersonate US Special ops forces to get Afghanis to tell them where collaborators are.
These people are x10 smarter than the people in charge of the US.
NYT:
“With Afghan Collapse, Moscow Takes Charge in Central Asia
Along with Pakistan and China, Russia has gained broad influence in security matters at the expense of the United States and India.”
I am getting a little tired of the nick name “Slow Joe.” After all, he caused the collapse of an allied government in mere hours!
Given the pics we’ve seen from the Kabul airport this week, I suggest “Look Out Below Joe,” Or maybe “Bombadier Biden.”
“Bombadier Biden, we are over the target!”
“Roger that, lemme lower the landing gear and see if I can shake a few of those cowards loose.”
Parliament holds Joe Biden in contempt over Afghanistan
MPs and peers unite to condemn ‘dishonour’ of US president’s withdrawal and his criticism of Afghan troops left behind to face Taliban
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/18/parliament-holds-joe-biden-contempt-afghanistan/
What an incredible fucking disaster of a president.
The reasons (plural) why the UK parliament held Biden in contempt?
-Biden did not notify our allies, the Brits, that we were leaving Bagram air base. Didn’t coordinate ANYTHING with them.
-Boris Johnson called Biden Monday morning to ask Biden about Afghanistan. Biden didn’t bother to get back to Johnson until 10 PM Tuesday night.
There is something seriously wrong with Biden, and the state department and the pentagon are broken.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. This calamitous incompetence is the reason we have multiple ongoing crises (border, inflation, covid).
Just think how bad it will get in three years.
As things are going, it’s possible, maybe even likely, that the taliban will make August 16 a national holiday, named after the savior of their nation, Joseph Robinette Biden. “Hey. kids, it’s Biden Day!” They could behead an American hostage as part of the festivities. Maybe even invite Joe to attend and throw the decapitated head out at the start of one of those polo games where they use a human skull as a ball.
What a disgrace.
In a classic case of closing the barn door after the horses escaped, now Joey Demento is now considering air strikes to take out our equipment that we left behind. I’m wondering how many planes in the strike force, will be shot down by the stinger missiles that we left.
Bombing our own planes while the Afghans fiercely defend them. There’s a good comedy sketch in there.
BH, they won’t be sending manned aircraft in, it will be Predator drones. But if even one of those get shot down by one of our own missiles, it, well, it won’t be a surprise I guess.