So here we are: helicopters hastily retreating into the skies, with scared civilians desperately clinging to them. This was Saigon, 1975, and that helicopter taking off from the American embassy was the sorry capstone of our involvement in Vietnam.
It didn’t matter that we never lost a single battle against the North Vietnamese Army of their Viet Cong allies. It didn’t matter that our military presence ended three years earlier and our South Vietnamese allies were capably holding on. In the end, it didn’t matter.
It was a humiliation, no two ways about it. Yet the American people were built of sterner stuff back then. Together with some patriotic leadership from The Gipper, we were able to bounce back from that. The problem however was that even though our military was once again supreme, the cultural rot that was slowly undermining our socio-political culture would in time erode our military, only on a more delayed basis.
Hold that thought. We’ll get back to it shortly. Right now, I’d like to direct your attention to another such moment, one which is probably more germane –and more indicative of where we really are–than that bleak day in Saigon.
The “moment” I am talking about is the Suez Moment.
In 1956, Col Gamel Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, nationalized the Suez Canal. The British and the French (who owned the Canal) were outraged and together with the Israelis launched an attack in order to dislodge Nasser from power. This coalition was able to handily defeat the Egyptian defenders and so, with his back against the wall, Nasser gambled it all and sank 40 ships in the Canal, clogging it (and the world’s economy). For eight tense days, the world’s attention was on Suez and there was a very real worry that it could ignite a third world war.
Ironically, both the United States and the Soviet Union were united in their outrage. President Eisenhower even told the British that he would cause a run on the pound sterling if they didn’t immediately cease military operations. This would have devalued it and plunged Great Britain into a depression. World outrage against the three allies was swift and vocal and so, bowing to American, Soviet and international pressure, Great Britain, France, and Israel withdrew their troops. Against all odds, Nasser had won. He achieved what he wanted to do, which was to nationalize the Canal.
The humiliation to the United Kingdom was particularly acute. It was no longer the empire upon which the sun never set. According to Clarissa Churchill, the widow of Antony Eden (Britain’s prime minister at the time), “the eight days of the Suez crisis marked the great divide between the words ‘British Empire’ is still taken seriously and being a sneering punchline.” (For a really good analysis about the comparisons between then and now, please read this excellent essay from Mark Steyn: https://www.steynonline.com/11598/the-scale-of-humiliation )
A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay about Gen Mark Milley and his stunning incompetence. Simply put, the entire show-trial proceedings entitled the “1/6 Commission” was a sham. His “concerns” about “white rage” were laughably insane. In any event, it amounted to a dereliction of duty. Since then, I’ve called him both a fool as well as a jackass. What we are seeing in Kabul is just the capstone of a mediocre military career, one which was more concerned about homosexual couples, transsexuals, and flight suits for nursing mothers, than about military readiness.
In retrospect, I was being unkind. Not wrong, mind you, just unkind. Because you see, Milley is not one of a kind; he’s not just some incompetent who, because of his political connections and devotion to cultural Marxism, rose to the top of his heap. He’s emblematic of a whole class of mediocrities who have been hobbled by a fabulist religion based on anything but reality. He’s merely a drop of water in the ocean of insanity that makes up the ideology of America’s ruling class.
At the risk of belaboring the point, he’s also emblematic of the corruption that besets America as we head into the last days of our empire. It’s all about lying. You have to lie to get ahead. It doesn’t matter about what, just as long as you believe that Wypepo are incorrigible racists and there’s no difference between men and women. If you accidentally veer anywhere near reality (like the pathology of single motherhood, inner-city crime, or about the glory of Western Civilization), you’re toast. You used to be able to get away with commenting on observable reality if you worked in the hard (STEM) sciences or the private sector. Now, even in those areas there are so many taboos that it’s impossible to navigate a simple conversation. Or even dare to.
Milley sits at the top of a corrupt pyramid, one situated right in the middle of a fetid swamp which we know (curiously enough) as The Swamp. He is simply one of many Swamp Creatures, tenured mediocrities who have risen to the utmost level of their incompetence and have no accountability for the disastrous mistakes they make.
No wonder they hated a businessman like Trump. It was bad enough that he put ketchup on his steaks or had a smoking hot trophy wife; he looked for results. That last thing is like showing a cross to the D.C. vampires. Accountability and results are not what they’re about. In that city, when people screw up they merely get reassigned to another desk in the same department. The worst thing that could happen in our modern-day Versailles would be for the miscreant to lose his corner office.
Has anybody been brought to task for Benghazi? I mean other than that poor sap who made a video nobody watched, but for which he was blamed? If push comes to shove, and they actually do lose their job, they have cushy jobs on K Street waiting for them or in some “private sector” position on the board of a major corporation. This is especially true of retired Congressmen and generals. I imagine Milley’s got a gig over at Raytheon waiting for him.
So here we are; not a Saigon Moment, from which we bounced back, but a Suez Moment. Having been humiliated by goat-herders who bugger little boys in their downtime, our Potemgon is busy sharpening its knives to go after “the real terrorists”. (That would be you and me.) We may be at that point in time which (regarding Great Britain) allowed historians to put their finger on a date in which they could say: “before this, Britain had a mighty empire; after this, it became a vassal of the United States”.
That being said, Britain at least remained a unified country after the Suez Crisis. Another empire, however, one which likewise had an Afghan misadventure, was not so lucky. I’m talking about the Soviet Union. Two years after the Soviets pulled out of Kabul, the Soviet Union collapsed. And the reason was simple: there were a lot of things systemically wrong with the USSR, but the one thing that worked and which their people trusted, was their military. Afghanistan shattered that illusion. Now, nothing was working. Therefore in the Russian people’s eyes, there was no reason anymore for the Soviet Union.
We know that the days of the American Empire are all but over. That’s what our very own Suez Moment means. Britain survived; the USSR did not. Therefore, the question for us is, will the American Republic endure as a unified state? Based on “President” Joe Biden’s performance yesterday, in which he addressed the nation as to the debacle which was unfolding in real-time before our eyes, I wouldn’t bet on it.
“Britain survived…”
Err… not exactly…
Survival for the UK is a process, not an event.
If not for Suez, the SNP would likely not have begun their rise.
If not for Suez, the UK would not have joined the EEC (later the EU);
if not for which the Irish Republic would not have joined the EEC (later the EU);
if not for which there would have been no Good Friday Agreement;
if not for which the demise of the Six County entity might not have become inevitable.
God I hope not.
If we don’t remain united with one another, some part of us will unite with China, and the other part will fall. China and its propagandists would love that.
Those who unite with China NEED to go.
When George and I were at the Stop the Steal thing, we were sitting on a bench while they were setting up and this young Chinese woman came over and handed us the Epoch Times. She had been handing them out all morning. I must have had a surprised look on my face because she whispered to me the answer to the question in my head: “Not all of us support the CCP. We’re here to help you so you will help us.”
Excellent, George!,
Biden probably doesn’t survive this politically. He managed to infuriate the Samantha Powers “humanitarian intervention” liberals, neo-cons, MAGAns, et al., all in one fell swoop.
I predict they’ll take him out by impeachment, 25th Amendment or by his own resignation (hopefully persuaded by Dr. Jill). He’s become a serious danger not only to the country but to the Party. They can’t own this. They have to distance themselves from the victim. They may not succeed, but they have to try.
I’m not too sanguine about a Kamala presidency, but we’re going to see it sooner rather than later. I suspect that he couldn’t manage the multi-level thinking necessary to order a coherent, graduated withdrawal. Probably it was crotchety old man, black and white, “seen it all before with Vietnam, you youngsters don’t remember . . . has to be painful – unavoidable, details be damned”.
But the Dems put him in power knowing he was senile and that this could happen and they were the only ones around him. They own it too, root and branch. And no one need be happy because the world just got quite a bit more dangerous for us.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think they’ll take out Biden. Harris is as unlikeable as possible. While nobody likes Biden, no one has a burning hatred for him either. Everyone recognizes him as a senile puppet figure. Harris has true malice and would only exacerbate the a rebellion.
Austin, I hear ya. The Dems are left with two horrible choices. It’s a matter of deciding which one is the least horrible.
I don’t feel sorry for them.
“Austin, I hear ya. The Dems are left with two horrible choices. It’s a matter of deciding which one is the least horrible.”
Obvious incompetence makes great cover for treason and racial/religious bias put into policy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zppHZvrwJD0
Obama, “I used to say if I can make an arrangement where I had a stand-in or front-man or front-woman and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff and I could sort of deliver the lines while someone was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that because I found the work fascinating.”
Up to 40,000 Americans remain stranded:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9901361/Up-40-000-Americans-stranded-Afghanistan.html?ITO=applenews
‘America last’: Pentagon won’t give priority to Americans in Afghanistan evacuation:
https://www.wnd.com/2021/08/america-last-pentagon-wont-give-priority-americans-afghanistan-evacuation/
?. America is owned. In order for Liberty to exist and thrive, Tyranny must be identified, recognized, confronted and extinguished. Who will do this?
https://needtoknow.news/2021/06/blackrock-set-to-transfer-trillions-in-wealth-to-woke-companies/
Yes, George, we’re toast. At best we need to degenerate into smaller units of more homogenous, like minded people. Contrary to the garbage spit from above, there’s no unity in diversity. Unless it’s unity in Christ, which our fearless incompetent leaders ain’t interested in. They want to blenderize us. To paraphrase Curtis Yarvin, eff them, and eff their blender.
There’s the abundant lie that there were only 2 options in Afghanistan: engage in a forever war, or have a chaotic incompetent evac, Saigon-style. Those ain’t the only two options.
And this is far worse than Saigon. The North Vietnamese were heavily backed by China and the USSR. The Taliban have nothing like that. This was your high school baseball team beating the Yankees. The Miracle on Ice, but we’re the losers.
Our secular elites simply don’t believe a people can be motivated by faith and a desire to protect their homeland – and that that combo can defeat a “superpower.” Yet here we are. It did.
The good news is that this is a huge blow to globalhomo. Their dream of exporting LGBTQwerty to the rest of the world took a huge reality hit over the weekend.
It’s clear evidence that our secular elites view the world as they want to view it, not as it actually is. They live in fantasy.
A Russian proverb says that “God exists everywhere except in fantasy and imagination.” God ain’t with these fantasy-dwelling secular elitists. The Taliban certainly know that.
This humiliation is also good news for those of us traditional Americans to fight to get our country back. The secular elitists are frightened – their theories of how the world should work are badly shaken. This is well worth a 20-min listen: https://youtu.be/Zy57gA3wfq8
What the hell did we think would happen when our State Dept told all of our embassies to fly the flag of Sodom and Gomorrha outside all during June “Pride” month?
A hard hitting piece authored by by a couple of American Vetrans from the perspective of a Taliban fighter…
https://soldiersystems.net/2021/08/16/combat-flipflops-written-in-taliban/
God bless all.
Condoleeza Rice:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/17/condoleezza-rice-u-s-should-have-stayed-in-afghanistan-longer-than-20-years/
“[Afghans] didn’t choose the Taliban. They fought and died alongside us, helping us degrade al-Qaeda. Working with the Afghans and our allies, we gained time to build a counterterrorism presence around the world and a counterterrorism apparatus at home that has kept us safe. In the end, the Afghans couldn’t hold the country without our airpower and our support. … ”
Points to Ponder:
1) Afghans did not choose invasion and occupation by the American military.
2) The Taleban did not attack the USA.
3) The greatest danger to the US from Afghanistan is the opium trade.
Taleban 1.0 stamped out 90% of it before the US attacked them after 9/11.
After they were attacked by the US, the opium trade was resurrected.
How has this ‘kept us safe’?
4) “In the end”, Afghans “without our airpower and our support”
took back their country.
Clearly Afghans did choose the Taliban. How else did they take over the capital virtually without a fight?
In America, when an armed military force surrounds the capital to oust the country’s leader and only a handful of people die, that’s called a peaceful transfer of power. So I’m not sure why Condi is so upset. The Taliban is just practicing what we preach.
AS,
We didn’t choose Biden and the Afghans did not choose the Taliban. With 2500 troops there, the Afghan National Army was stable. It was only after Biden’s announcement of cut and run that the Taliban began gobbling up territory. And this did not gain critical momentum until we pulled out support. Everyone, including the Biden Administration, thought that the Afghan government was viable given our continued low level involvement. That was the premise of Trump’s plan. But Biden, like the Democrats in the 1970’s with Vietnam, pulled the rug out from under the Afghan Army’s feet.
The Afghan National Army outnumbered the Taliban by a minimum of 3:1 if not better. It was stable with 2500 of our troops there. It is simply a lie to suggest that the Afghans would not fight for themselves. They have lost over 60,000 soldiers in the recent past fighting the Taliban, et al. The Afghan vice president remains and there is a continuing resistance in the north of the country.
Blaming the Afghan Army is a CYA bald faced lie told by cowards to hide their incompetence. If we pull out of our bases at night, end air support and end logistical support saying the last American will be out by August 31, you increase the odds against them dramatically. That is why many gave up or turned. Not cowardice, realism.
There is absolutely no one to blame besides Biden, his upper military echelon and the Democrats who installed this regime in power. The intelligence services, whom I loathe, warned him. The Afghan president came to the US begging us for support to try to hold on before he got wise and fled for his life.
Biden, Austin, Miley, etc. This is 100% on them.
“Depraved indifference”
That is the applicable legal term. Say, for example, you fire a gun into a crowd without any particular intention to kill any specific person. Nonetheless, you can be charged with negligent homicide as having “depraved indifference to human life”; i.e., you couldn’t care less if people are killed.
That is what we are witnessing from Biden. It is ugly and despicable and can’t help but attach to the Democratic Party unless they denounce it and call for his resignation or do what they can to remove him.
Now this thing is morphing before our eyes into the Iranian Hostage Crisis 2.0. The Taliban are saying one thing, which is being reported in the MSM, and doing something else entirely, which is mostly being reported by right wing media, but to some extent by the legacy.
There is a short list of people who benefit from what is transpiring. The Taliban itself, al Qaida, ISIS, Iran and China. Though the Afghan people will never accept feminism and LGBT, that is not the same thing as welcoming back the Taliban.
To be honest, I prefer the Taliban run the country over the gay American puppet state.
George,
This is critically important to help understand why God is not on our side: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.amp.html
Americans condoned Afghan Natl Army soldiers raping little boys on base. Good American soldiers were actually disciplined for their healthy, honorable protest of this.
The Taliban put a stop to “bacha bazi,” which is one reason that they have some popular support in Afghanistan. Afghan parents tired of having their little boys kidnapped to be sex slaves.
Yet globalhomo and our cultural/political/military elite superiors can’t grasp why this is a problem.
As a dad of young boys myself, and as a >25 year American military member and war veteran, I have never despised the cultural/political/military elite in my country as I do now.
“The Taliban put a stop to ‘bacha bazi,’ which is one reason that they have some popular support in Afghanistan. Afghan parents tired of having their little boys kidnapped to be sex slaves. ”
If the Taliban indeed have suppressed this practice, I expect they’ll let it emerge again shortly, since 4 wives unlimited sex slaves has always produced situational sodomy like unto a prison environment, only with zoophilia (animals) thrown in as well. This why Islam always falls into decadence, if it can’t keep expanding, or at least have enough sectarian warfare among themselves to kill off sufficient males and seize excess women.
This is indeed a sad moment for America. But before we reminisce about how the businessman Pres Trump was all about “accountability and results” and imagine such a thing would never happen on his watch, let’s remember that it was the Trump Administration that opened talks and insisted that the Taliban would be trustworthy in conducting anti-terrorism operations with us, that it was Pres Trump who gave every concession we could easily give to North Korea (the summits, suspending exercises, etc) in exchange for nothing, that it was Pres Trump who had us literally bombing our own bases in Syria lest they fall into the hands of the Turks. What ails this republic isn’t something that can be fixed by just swapping one party for another.
You’re correct although had Xiden stuck with the original May date, it’s possible that none of this would have happened. One reason this charlie foxtrot is taking place is because all of the Afghan parties to the Trump withdrawal were outraged at the sudden delay. It showed that America wasn’t trustworthy.
The other reason is that the Afghan govt started filling their pockets with money, a lot of which was taken from the pay of the “300,000 strong army” and other bureaucrats. This created a lot of ill will and destroyed the morale of the govt workers/soldiers.
If they wouldn’t pay their army,
there should be little surprise that it wouldn’t fight for them.
Well yes, that’s what happened.
Trump would never have let anything remotely like this happen. The whole process would have been very gradual and controlled as it was during his presidency. That’s why we weren’t totally out when he left. But we only had a couple of thousand troops in country, supporting the Afghan military. That could have gone on indefinitely with a minimal footprint or, more likely, the provinces, one by one, could be turned over to regional Afghan governments comprised of current rulers with some Taliban representation. That was the purpose of bringing the Taliban into the government, let them get used to sharing power. They might eventually grow to dominate but it would not be the result of dominos falling in a military conquest but rather a gradual organic process during which we could extract our people, Afghan cooperators and then, when everyone else was out, the remnant of our military.
Again, this never, ever would have happened under Trump. To assert otherwise is disingenuous. He would never have allowed this utter incompetency and humiliation to transpire. Everyone knows it, regardless of the mud they sling.
Trump would have never closed Bagram Air Force Base ahead of the evacuation.
That said, he was surrounded by traitors.
George,
I reread your piece and the end of it sunk in deeper. You are looking at this for its geopolitical results. Excellent.
While the analogy to the Iranian Hostage Crisis is apropos in the transient sense, you are likely right that this is a major turning point in America’s world gravitas. Much like the British after Suez and the Soviets after Afghanistan. Signs of the times, so to speak.
You have the spectacle of our closest ally, the UK, reevaluating The Relationship at this point. Europe knows it can no longer count on us (do you hear that, Ukraine?). Our allies, in general, cannot trust us anymore. This was a NATO operation on which we unilaterally pulled the plug in the dead of night. The French are in country now extracting their people because of our incompetence.
Your Soviet analogy is probably on the firmest ground. The Afghan War left deep scars on the Russian psyche and contributed strongly to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In a sense, it was their Vietnam. They could not withstand one such debacle whereas we are now suffering our second (not counting Iraq falling into the Iranian orbit or our being defenestrated from Syria).
Dr. Steve Turley is onto a similar thesis at this point – that this is a major turning point in the collapse of Western Globalism. It is not just that the neo-con soft colonization is being thrown off and rejected but that the entire package of Western values is being given the heave ho.
I don’t know if you have seen the video where the female reporter is interviewing a Taliban leader and his men and are inquiring about the status of women. Her questions begin to cause his chief lieutenant to visibly crack up when she asks if women could be democratically voted into office and he has to halt the interview because of the laughing:
https://www.turleytalks.com/videos/taliban-laugh-as-globalist-order-collapses
Recall the fate of Pussy Riot at the Sochi Olympics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ozhx7TirRg
The world is tired of liberal American bs. It’s that simple. They draw the line at feminism outside the American/Western European sphere, not just LGBT. Not only is it against the natural hierarchy and socially destabilizing but it is demographic suicide. They just won’t have it.
And once the psychosis of Western Liberalism is contained to the West, inasmuch as it can no longer metastasize and spread, it enters remission even within the West.
Fantastic analysis, Misha!
Yes, I did see the videos in question. Turley is right btw. And of course we are seeing the end of 3rd Wave feminism as an ideological force.
Aside: You know, it’s interesting but all those infobabes you see on the major news networks are married women with children. Maria Shriver was the most famous of them. So while they’re preaching free love, abortion and assorted feminist nonsense, privately they’re June Cleaver.
As for globohomo, that’s going to be destroyed by Big Trannie, Inc. You can’t have “no choice”/gay+lesbian and “whatever gender I identify”/tranny operating from the same ideological sphere. Not possible. Also, Big Tranny, Inc is destroying women’s sports, thereby undermining yet another pillar from Feminazism. Ironic, hum?
Back to the broader geopolitical thesis, the cat’s out of the bag now: Afghanistan sits on a trillion dollars’ worth of rare earth minerals, particularly lithium. That’s what everybody has in their cell phones. The Taliban and China just ensured that an economic gravy train keeps on chugging along. They, not being bothered by Yankee/Puritan do-gooderism, will enjoy the fruits of their labors for decades to come.
In re-reading your response, I now realize how devastating this is not only as regards China’s unstoppable hegemony, but to the Atlantic alliance as well. You are right, this was a NATO operation and we stabbed our European allies in the back.
Perhaps Trump really is in charge and is orchestrating the end of NATO (which was long overdue).
Re: the Cossacks.
I remember reading several years ago that one of Russia’s famed motorcycle gangs road their motorbikes on the runway, preventing Madonna’s plane from landing. (She was going to perform a concert somewhere.) It worked.
Would it be possible that these same hombres do the same thing with Bartholomew’s plane, thereby preventing him from landing in Kiev?
Just thinkin’ aloud.
There must be some dissonance here, because I see the events of this last weekend as a beautiful tragicomedy. Am I the only one celebrating? What exactly is the downside of desert savages with outdated Soviet rifles defeating the Synagogue of Satan?
You guys are acting like the Taliban restoring law and order to Afghanistan like its a bad thing. I’m icky on the whole Islam law thing, but otherwise I’m having a hard time finding the downside in what happened. Better Islam than feminism. I would gladly choose to be ruled by the Taliban than the freaks in Washington.
Or as the late Byzantines said, Better the crescent moon than the Latin miter.
What a horrible prospect. Nothing good happened to the Greek people under the Ottomans. If anything, they debilitated our Church, twisting it into a caricature of what a Church should be. We’re now paying the consequences of it in spades.
Still, sometimes the Temple has to be destroyed. Byzantium couldn’t be reformed so God in His mercy allowed the suffering that was visited upon the Greek (and other Balkan peoples) to occur.
Sigh.
George,
It’s all becoming clear to me now. Different analyses pinpointed this and that as the central motivation for this Mistake (leaving in utter, unconscionable disarray). People kept going back and forth between dementia and some nefarious ulterior motive and simple stupidity. Did he know what he was doing? Is he pleasing the Chinese? Is he that stupid?
I can now see the only rational way to explain this is that Biden was driven by an arrogant desire to be able to say on Sept. 11, 2021 that all troops had been withdrawn from Afghanistan.
That’s the only thing that really makes sense. Whether the government and army collapsed was irrelevant. Whether the Taliban took over rapidly was irrelevant. Whether we got our citizens out was irrelevant. Whether we got the Afghan collaborators out was irrelevant. The objective, come hell or high water, was the photo op: 9/11/2021 – no troops in Afghanistan.
Depraved indifference.
Anyone with a brain knows that you get the civilians out first, our equipment, our collaborators and then, lastly, our troops out. But if you’re committed to troops out by a certain date, you might disregard that order. That is criminal negligence IMHO.
I’m not particularly concerned about who rules Afghanistan so long is it is not the US military. I’d prefer the Afghan National Army, perhaps wish some integrated element of the Taliban to keep the peace through power sharing. But by all means let Muslims be Muslims in their natural, infernal habitat.
The sin is not leaving, and it is good we are out, and it is good that the Establishment is utterly humiliated by this. But nothing justifies leaving American citizens behind. That is unforgivable – and I trust Biden will find that out in short order.
Sociopathic behavior.
If I were a cynic (which when it comes to politics I am), I would guess this is/was primarily a matter of getting the withdrawal out of the way about three months before the mid-term election, which everyone knew would leave any incumbent looking weak and foolish no matter how well or poorly it was done. News cycles are fleeting, and they are fully aware of the fact that the memory of most Americans is notoriously short. There will be another invention to distract from it.
https://wskg.org/news/schumer-too-soon-to-blame-anyone-for-situation-in-afghanistan/
https://www.yahoo.com/now/pelosi-remarks-disarray-surrounding-afghanistan-151900103.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALZu25H2h2QcYhqZHezSWR1CeH6RGqYVmFQVmJr1NjVOVIJp8090grRCEMGXKYE2c80U-JvQGMlgg4qb-FJ-6KudKCRmPavBGlCLNlsnjt9UFrh4vGJU9-1QwjRbJ0BRa8O0Zgbq17u48nA-xcEpsEDv1iqtW0JE12AENjRp1aTU
I would venture to wager a bottle of fine Port that within a couple of months of the dust settling they will be boasting about how they (the Democrats and the president who “leads” them) finally got us out of Afghanistan.
One more reason to despise them (and let’s face it, almost all politicians). For all their moralizing, they don’t give a hoot about human life – be it Afghan, American, or anyone else’s.
By the way, if anyone would like to take that bet, I my preference is Ruby; and I look forward to savoring every sip.
There’s also another possibility which came to me after I published this piece. And that is that the Deep State allowed this to happen in as horrible and humiliating way as possible to punish Biden. We forget (or can’t imagine that anybody would be so evil) that our DS/MIC was perfectly fine with the Afghan forever war.
The tip-off was what Condi Rice just said (as well as Liz Cheney, etc). Afghanistan for the MIC/DS was a place to try their new toys as well as to add ribbons to the chests of the desk jockeys over at the Pentagon. It was a low-level, not-all-that-dangerous “kinetic action” which gave them a purpose in life.
Hence, they’re pissed at Biden for doing the right thing (although in a horribly f*&ked-up way because he took their toys away from them.
If this is true (and I’m not saying that it is), look for another war, possibly against Russia. Or against the Homeland.
Right now, the only thing I can say with confidence is that China just became the world’s hegemon without them firing a shot. They’ve already told the Taiwanese, Honk Kong, and Macao to cut the crap and come to the table. America has been taken out, because even if they did come to your aid, you know they’re going to leave and you’ll be stuck with us anyway.
It’s bloody brilliant on their part. Anyway, in chanceries all over the world, the ineptitude of the Americans is being taken into deep consideration. The Ukrainians have already had a foretaste of this with the dropping of sanctions against the Russians regarding the NS2 pipeline.
No. I understand the tendency to see a hidden genius inside every lie they tell, but there is no way they would have stood up on Saturday and said, “Maybe after 90 days the Taliban could take over,” and then it falls on Sunday. There is no way they would want video of the Taliban capturing US military equipment. Russia and China are laughing.
If they wanted to get rid of Biden, they just had to pretend he had a brain aneurysm in the night. They could poison his food or smother him with a pillow or crash his plane, and no one would be surprised. Half the country would believe it’s a real accident. They got away with doing it to JFK.
They stole a whole election, and both parties and the entire judicial system have enforced the lie. There is no cap to the dishonesty they can get away with.
A question I’m not seeing people ask is, What could have been done to win Afghanistan? What would a win have looked like? It’s easy to make fun of them for being desert cavemen savages, but no one has ever been able to conquer them. Is Afghanistan actually an easy war, or was it really the most difficult? Was the goal Taliban genocide or feminism?
Because if they were trying to kill every Taliban member, then all the threats about weapons that can blow up a hideout based on a picture are over stated. But if they left the Taliban in place for a reason, then maybe the Empire isn’t as weak as it seems. Something to think about.
Then again, you can’t win a war with a military full of women, trannies and [minorities]. You need the southern white boys they’re trying to purge out. And they need a reason to fight beyond an undefinable ideology.
Oddly with the Taliban in charge Afghanistan is finally at peace. The intelligence services predicted a bloody civil war. They wanted a bloody civil war to vindicate our presence there..
I’m not entirely sure. 20 years is a long time and the objectives/policies change spanning 4 administrations with numerous advancements in technology along the way. In short hand the we set boots on the ground in October 2001 and drove back the Taliban in 2 months. So what did we do for the next 19 years exactly?
We tried to legitimize Kabul with a well supplied army that would be able to suppress the frontier by taming the local warlords and Taliban. I suspect the opium trade has to do with it- all of the regional players want their hand in the cookie jar (worth over $2B) probably using US favor against each other. The Taliban tried to ban opium production in 2000-2001 but that pissed their countrymen off. On the fighting front we taught the Afghan National Army (ANA) how to fight like we do- as a unified nation, well equipped, well trained, quick response, excellent intel. They are not a unified nation, better yet without us not well supplied either. So for some reason even with the security of the US and ISAF the glue didn’t hold.
Even the monarchies established in the 18th-20th centuries couldn’t tame their own people very long- nor within the royal family with coup d’état here and there. The rules for conquering Afghanistan seems to be: there are no rules.
Our first tactical mistake after winning the war against the Taliban (when we first went in) was not listening tot the consensus of the loya jirga. The council of all tribal war-lords and clan leaders. They voted overwhelmingly to bring back Mohammed Zahir Shah, the exiled King of Afghanistan. He had moral legitimacy in their eyes.
But because we have idiots who worship at the shrine of St Woodrow Wilson at the State Department, this very sage advice was ignored. Because the “Best and the Brightest” believe in Iowa caucusus and sodomic rights. You know, “democracy”.
Snark off. The ex-king could have cobbled together a country in which the majority of the ethnicities would have been happy with. As such, we could have left within 5 years. But no: we had to stay there until we proudly flew the gay pride flag from our embassy.
And now, because of our stupid Puritan Brahmanism/neoconservatism, we are paying the price.
Xenophon: “The rules for conquering Afghanistan
seems to be: there are no rules.”
Kipling: The Decline of the West
Now it is not good for the Christian’s health to hustle the Aryan
brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles, and he weareth the
Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of
the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the
East.”
Kipling: one of the greatest poets in the English language, bar none.
Both of my sons learned “If” thanks to their mother’s diligence.
I’m with you on this, and I wouldn’t at all doubt if this were the case.
My thought was a bit different: With 10-20K Americans still in Afghanistan it will be a miracle if there are no casualties (as I expect the Taliban to go full Blitzkrieg in retribution for the past 20 years).
I’m sure the U.S is banking on American casualties, think of a foreign version of 9/11 that will give the U.S an excuse to go back in and continue the “war,” or, as you mentioned, start a war with Russia.
But, you are right, China has basically won this whole thing without having to even having to fire a single shot. I really feel for the Taiwanese people.
My feeling is that the Chinese (who are ultimately the Taliban’s new overlords at this point), will tell the Taliban to “go easy” and allow for a limited, peaceful withdrawal of the 10-20K Americans left behind. No reason to rile things up while you’re winning. This will also give the Chinese added leverage over Creepy Joe.
And no, I know that many anti-neocons think that my thesis that America became a vassal-state when Creepy Joe became “pres” is wrong and that they were switching to possible war with China, that is now completely off the table. Even if it were true, it’s no longer “operative”. To paraphrase Chuck Colson: “when you grab them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow”.
They got us, the Taiwanese, the Japanese, the Fillipinos, and the Aussies by the cojones.
Worse, the Dems have now completely destroyed what was left of our military’s morale. (Not that it was that great to begin with with all of the feminization, homosexualization, and anti-white racism that is now de rigeur for the six branches of the military.)
George,
I doubt the DS did this but I perfectly understand your suspicion. Biden went against the advice of the IC and top military brass on this one by all accounts. True, they could have set him up (to get Kamala in because at least she’s lucid and can be leaned on to solid effect?). But they risk piling on the MAGA case for Trump 2.0 or DeSantis, which they presumably do not want.
But your point about China is very strong. Until, at the very least, January 2023, America is hamstrung geopolitically. China recognized it immediately and published a warning to Taiwan in their state newspaper that you cannot rely on the US and should just go ahead and surrender. If Bided did this for a reason other than incompetence, it was to help the Chinese.
These stupid mf’s do not even realize what they have done by this. You can see it in Biden’s face, the face of his spokespeople (WH, Pentagon, etc), and the MSM (Nicole Wallace). They have provided a miracle from Allah. A miracle to invigorate the Muslims to twist us using hostages and strike us again in the homeland using “refugees”. They believe now that Allah is with them. How could they not? This fell in their laps.
From The Andromeda Strain:
* * *
[Chapter 12: Recorded dialog between NASA Houston and Scoop Control about the apparently malfunctioning Scoop VII satellite.]
Houston: Scoop, Houston Projection Group has confirmed orbital instability and decay ratios are now being passed by the data trunk to your station.
Scoop: How do they look, Houston?
Houston: Bad.
Scoop: Not understood. Please repeat.
Houston: Bad: B as in broken, A as in awful, D as in dropping. – http://quoternity.com/quotations/The_Andromeda_Strain
* * *
The thing he can’t survive is making the decision to pull military out before our own civilians and Afghan cooperators. This creates a hostage crisis. Everybody told him not to do it. Somehow, they are going to remove him.
Well, the way you put it Misha, now I’m more convinced than ever that Creepy Joe was a Chinese asset from the git-go. After all, according to your scenario, he just handed over Afghanistan to them on a silver platter, didn’t he?
George,
That is possible. Things don’t necessarily have to be all due to X as opposed to Y as opposed to Z. Motivations converge.
It is probably futile to speculate at the juncture of stupidity and corruption, how much of each influenced a particular outcome. With ChiCom Joe, they go together. It is a dangerous, deadly combination, as those poor souls who fell to their deaths from the C17 discovered:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/human-remains-were-discovered-in-the-wheel-well-of-the-c-17-after-it-landed
Cui bono?
Obviously the Taliban, ISIS and al Qaida benefit from this. However, as many have pointed out, China also benefits:
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/8/17/with-economic-assets-to-secure-china-embraces-the-taliban
This is not happening in a vacuum. The Chinese have had ties to the Democratic Party since at least the Clinton years. You may recall Al Gore’s magic Buddhist nuns donating bags of cash over which there was “no controlling legal authority”.
Joe is owned by the ChiComs. It’s not a question. His son banged minors over there and it’s on video. That’s only the tip of it. The cashflow is the real issue. This was hidden from the American people by the MSM prior to the election.
Basically, at the moment you’ve got a stupid, incompetent, senile, corrupt, malfunctioning Chinese agent in the White House and there’s no end in sight:
During his final season with the New York Knicks in 1981-82, four-time NBA All-Star guard Michael Ray Richardson unleashed one of the most memorable quotes in sports history.
Reporter: What do you think is happening to the team?
Richardson: The ship be sinking.
Reporter: How far can it sink?
Richardson: Sky’s the limit.
Misha, Kamasutra is a deeply unpopular –and frankly, ridiculous–figure among so many different demographics and ideologies that it would take pages to catalogue them all.
However, she does have one thing going for her as far as the DS/MIC is concerned: she’s a “woman of color”. On her father’s side, she’s an octoroon (i.e. 1/8th black) while on her mother’s side, she’s a Hindustani. That’s all the DS/MIC needs at this point to justify their endless war narrative.
Remember, St Hussein was used to destroy the anti-war movement when Bush’s buffoonery was giving it oxygen. It didn’t matter that Obama was anti-war himself: the MIC had him by the short and curlies and he did what they wanted (even it was clear when he didn’t want to go along with their plans).
Kamasutra has the added advantage of being a woman. Look for stories of the Taliban forcing women back into burqas or gang-raping them. That’s excuse enough for the MIC to fire up the F-15s.
I’m not sure it will work this time but what other choice do they have? At this point, she’s the equivalent of throwing sh!t up against the wall and seeing if it’ll stick. As far as the Pentagon is concerned, the old cliche sticks: if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Solid rumor is she’s shopping the 25A solution. Biden may be returning to Delaware in next day or two. He may have been given an ultimatum. Cabinet seems receptive to Harris. These are the sources that predicted Klobuchar and Buttgag would withdraw from Dem primary. Likely, he’s done.
I heard the same rumor myself, that she’s “shopping the 25A”.
Keep your eye on people like Pelosi or Schumer. Also prominent women in the Senate (think Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Feinstein, etc.) See which way they go. Also keep your eye on any new “news” about Hunter and his hookers. If we hear about their ages then to avoid prosecution, he might even give up the Old Man.
In other words, listen for the drumbeat.
Trump’s call has spread:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/19/demands-for-joe-bidens-resignation-grow-during-afghanistan-blunder/
When it crosses the party line we’ll know the end is nigh. Really, the entire Democrat leadership should resign, but that would result from them having consciences, which they don’t. Self-preservation, on the other hand, is universal. They can’t save Joe from himself.
They need to have the FBI tell Biden they’ll prosecute Hunter unless he resigns. That would do it.
Probably. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if Joe throws Hunter to the wolves. It all depends on how badly Hunter’s antics implicate The Big Guy.
I’m going to start calling this the Democrat Debacle (DD):
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/another-debacle-biden-admin-scraps-plan-charge-americans-evacuating-afghanistan-public-outrage-maria-bartiromo-goes-off-video/
They were going to charge Americans $2K a piece (by promissory note) for the cost of the evacuation until this was publicized and they scrapped the plans.
If the Dems survive this, America deserves the full wrath of God.
We’re going to have to retake Kabul in order to defuse an already evolving hostage crisis. Biden is probably not capable of making that decision. He just blamed the Afghan National Army again for the Taliban victory in his Friday afternoon speech.
This gets worse as long as he is in office.
This is hilarious. Tucker is interviewing Glen Greenwald about why the media is now turning on Biden. Fast forward to about the 11 minute mark and watch to 13min.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkV_JTj7EFs
RE: “They need to have the FBI tell Biden they’ll prosecute Hunter unless he resigns. That would do it.”
The second Joe leaves his office he and his family will be prosecuted. He won’t resign.
Gail,
That’s what they said about Trump and he’s already running for 2024.
The ponderous, momentous thing is that they’re following the orders of a random events generator. They’ll figure it out in short order or they will all go down with the ship – the entire Democratic Party, maybe the entire damn country.
I agree with you Gail.
He’s too much of a sociopathic narcissist to resign. All of us from the Pa & Delaware areas have known about it for decades. He’s always been a smarmy politician, only looking out for himself.
My ar$$ he won Pennsylvania.
He and “Dr Jill” are far more interested in his own self and puffing up his inflated delusional self-image to resign. They’d rather see the country collapse first.
In America, the era of the honorable man who resigns out of complete failure or from the refusal to work with failed politicians is gone, it seems.
The only chance America has is if the silent, very patient masses stand up and take our country back.
FTS,
Events, first the border and now Afghanistan, have forced me to agree with your conclusion.
“The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” – Justice Robert Jackson
We need a revolution, regime change, by any means necessary.
“We need a revolution, regime change, by any means necessary.”
Yep, exactly.
I would add, though, that what “regime change” looks like won’t be just another version of “western liberal democracy.” That is flat out dead at this point. It won’t be just a “conservative” taking office.
What follows our previous western liberal democracy (which is dead) is some form of totalitarianism, either soft or hard. Probably soft, since Americans aren’t generally a brutal type like the Chinese or Soviets. If we were, Pelosi/Biden et al. would have no compunctions about shooting their enemies and locking thousands into concentration camps. That sort of thing still doesn’t play well in America.
What will follow is a soft totalitarian state. We need a leader who is more like a Caesar/Tsar – who uses the power of the State to crush his enemies. Trump was sort of on that track, but he didn’t know how to wield power.
The only potential good coming out of this Afghanistan disaster is that it puts front and center how impotent and fragile leftist political ideology (including woke-ism) is. No one wants it or likes it, it’s enforced from above, you can’t “change a culture” with it, and the minute the control from above stops, it collapses. Might give us some hope for taking our country back.
FTS,
The word you’re looking for is “authoritarian”. The difference between that and totalitarianism is that totalitarianism places the Almighty State in the place of the Almighty. Stalin, Hitler and the Left place the State above all. Putin, Orban, Franco and Trump recognize that the state is a vehicle subject to Christian values. That is authoritarian. This is why I consider myself a Christian Nationalist and counsel a dominant party (authoritarian) system.
PS:
They still don’t get it:
“If America could survive a James Buchanan or a Jimmy Carter, we can make it through the Biden years. This nation is more resilient than we usually give it credit for being. But Biden’s arrogant stupidity is making us question everything that makes us an exceptional nation.” – https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/22/can-america-survive-another-three-years-five-months-of-president-joe-biden-n1471781
They are taking orders from someone suffering from Alzheimer’s, and following those orders. I used to practice guardian ad litem law where we were on a list of court appointed attorneys for various things – child neglect, competency hearings, etc.. I was occasionally appointed to represent people who suffered from dementia like Biden does. I know exactly what we are looking at over the coming months.
Imagine trying to have a conversation with someone who asks you the same question every ten minutes as if it were new. Imagine someone who has forgotten that his wife has passed away and they try not to correct him when he speaks of her lest he go through the grief of loss again, only to forget again and 15 minutes later say he wants to have lunch with her.
I was charged not with doing what he wanted me to do, but doing what I believed was in his best interest. You can’t take orders from people who are in such a decline. They clear screen too often and don’t understand the consequences of their decisions.
This is truly dangerous and definitely not something we can get through like the Carter years. That will dawn on them shortly; hopefully sooner rather than later.
The reason that Moran needs to be taken more seriously is that through the Buchanan and Carter years, the United States was still a serious country in which all of its demographics were likewise serious actors. Thanks to BLM, Antifa, homosexualists, soy-boys, etc, we can no longer say that.
The glimmer of hope that the Afghan debacle provides us is the cold slap of water in the face that reality is. That there really is such a thing as human nature and it doesn’t give a rat’s ass as to the constant “triggering” that the snowflakes suffer from.
The question at this point going forward is can the pendulum swing back enough in the realist fashion to undo this fabulous unreality that we’ve been subject to (and which caused neoconservatism, liberalism, egalitarianism, etc?
My answer is that until the Pendleton Act is repealed and civil servants can be fired at whim, we won’t see any spring back to reality. And it can’t stop there:
1. Any Pentagon official from the rank of Major or Lt Commander on up must be either fired or brought under strict review. If they believe ANY of the nonsense that Milley does, then they’re out.
2. The University system must be allowed to collapse. All leftist commissars who are degrading the STEM fields must be fired, immediately.
3. Hollywood must be brought back under the old Hayes System with clear restrictions against unpatriotic and irreligious programming.
4. The mainstream media must likewise be regulated as all other professions (mine included) are. The Sullivan law must be repealed so that all citizens (not just private ones) can sue for defamation.
I say this thing as a First Amendment absolutist. The 1A doesn’t give anybody the right to defame, libel or slander any individual. Obscenity laws were perfectly compatible with 1A restrictions for decades. (That’s why Playboy magazine started publishing articles, in order to get around those restrictions.)
5. Social media violate anti-trust laws. Hence, they need to be regulated as public utilities. They must report regularly to the SEC FTC and explain their algorithms. Here’s a question: why can Donald Trump have his Twitter account deleted but not the Ayatollahs of Iran (or the Taliban)? Dorsey –a complete idiot–and Zuckerburg –a synthetic cyborg–believes that Trump somehow “violates community standards”.
6. Speaking of the military, the Service Academies must exclude women from now on. And we should return to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Transsexuals should be forbidden from enlisting.
That’s a start.
At this point, we should steel ourselves regarding what is developing before our eyes, which I shall call “The Afghan Hostage Crisis”.
There are between 10-20K American citizens stuck behind the Afghan’s blockade of the Kabul airport. They are in Kabul and other locations throughout the country, counseled by our “government” to shelter in place. Planes are leaving mostly empty.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis lasted 444 days and only ended with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. If you do not believe that the Taliban will take advantage of this situation to torment the United States, then you have no grasp of history, geopolitics or the Islamic Revival.
We have been looking at the wrong analogies. It’s not Vietnam or Bay of Pigs. It’s the Iranian Revolution all over again. “An island of stability in the Middle East” Carter called it right before it fell.
Biden doesn’t survive this politically because even the Dems know he can’t. But God knows who will lead us inasmuch as there’s no one on deck.
As far as the DS is concerned, Afghanistan provided a lot of on-the-job training for soldiers to go house-to-house and take out unfriendlies. Or used drones to take them out. Only now, we’re the unfriendlies.
They’ve already set this up via COVID, mandating vaccines, and/or identifying any white man who has a Bible and a red hat as a “domestic terrorist”. The question is whether the military will see things their way.
If the Police are now working with the militias,
the Deep State may get more than they bargained for.
Who knows? Maybe Special Forces will do as the Police do…
It is with good reason that Afghanistan is known as the “Graveyard of Empires”. Looks like it was our turn.
During the Iran-Iraq War, an Israeli rabbi was asked what he thought of said war. He replied, “I wish both sides mazal tov (good luck)!” (both countries had been threatening Israel)
So, now that the ChiComs and the Afghans have each other as a tiger by the tail – I wish both sides mazal tov!
Wayne, I think it’s going to be more sophisticated and mutually beneficial for China and Afghanistan. The Taliban are going to live like kings while selling their resources (at a fair price) to the Chicoms. This is one of those things that you have to “look at behind the scenes”: the Taliban are arch-Islamists/jihadis, are they not? Then you would think they would join the chorus of condemnation that is heaped upon China because of how they treat the Muslim Uighers. Look to see if they do. If they don’t, then you know that the Chinese got them right where they want them.
The Chinese know exactly what they are doing:
https://www.steynonline.com/11605/dead-superpower-walking
And others are catching up to our analysis on this site:
https://humanevents.com/2021/08/18/afghanistan-or-joe-biden-which-is-the-faster-fall/
What stunned me for a couple of days was that I couldn’t fathom why someone would purposefully create a hostage crisis – because that is the short term effect of this course of action. You assume people intend the consequences of their actions, perhaps morally, perhaps diabolically, but nonetheless with a certain teleology. “Why would anyone do this?”
Because the sickening truth is that this is “all of the above”: It is the Fall of Saigon 2.0 resulting in the Iranian Hostage Crisis in the short term and a Suez/Soviet Afghanistan aftermath of great power descent. What I mean is that we are at a loss to describe the monumental magnitude of this f*ck up. That’s why you have so many Republicans calling for heads, including Biden’s, to roll. That’s why you have Democrats and the MSM distancing themselves from the victim (Biden).
No one would risk this as a known likely result unless they considered it collateral damage to a greater goal. I just don’t see the DS seeking to humiliate the US this way. I don’t see the Chinese orchestrating this because it risks another coup d’etat here and may mortally wound their agent in chief. This is what happens when military sycophants follow an arrogant idiot down a rabbit hole.
You might call this the collapse of the Beta State (BS). Technology only gets you so far. Will eventually comes into play. You have Betas trying to rule Alphas at home and abroad and it’s not going to work. Losers lose. Joe Biden rightfully lost the 2020 election, as was his nature. He had practically dropped out of the primaries until he was salvaged as the best of the worst by the black vote in South Carolina. He did not win the presidency, he did not steal the presidency, it was stolen for him. And his lack of prowess is causing him and the Democratic Party to self destruct.
Attachment to the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11th became his Moby Dick. He had to have all our troops out by August 31st in order to meet that shining photo op.
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-just-handed-afghanistans-mineral-wealth-china-opinion-1620722
Now China gets a turn at the Afghans. I suspect what will happen is the Taliban will be just nice enough to the Chinese to secure lucrative deals for the extraction of minerals (upwards of a trillion dollars’ worth) while being dishonest about their lending support and refuge to Uighurs in Xinjiang. China actually has a short frontier with Afghanistan which will likely become the focal point of drama in the future. Fundamentalist Muslims in Pakistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan will not turn a deaf ear to their brother Uighurs indefinitely, if at all.
This is the perfect wound from which to bleed the Chinese, if you are a Muslim. Pakistan is right there and has a nuclear arsenal. It can guarantee the territorial integrity of Afghanistan against the Chinese. Then you have a similar situation to the Russians in the Ukraine. The Muslims can use the Uighurs as a lever against the Chinese to control them. They have both a sizeable carrot (the mineral rights) and stick (nuclear Pakistan).
Geopolitically, this is an impressive win for Islam against both the West and China, in a way, though the Chinese are simply playing up the detriment to the US. And I have to say, I like the new Afghani flag (aesthetically). It is more or less the same as the Saudi flag but instead of white on green it is black on white.
Misha, there is a LOT to unpack in your (as usual) brilliant analysis.
If you would allow me to play the devil’s advocate regarding whether the CCP would do anything to overthrow their agent, Creepy Joe. My take is this: the Chinese have thousands of actual Chinese agents here in the US (actual nationals) and tens of thousands of Chinese assets, Biden, Swallwell, Feinstein, etc. This means that their bench is both wide and deep.
In the worst case scenario, losing Biden would only set them back a little bit as I think they have the goods on all of the major Democrat players and most of the RINOs. Having said that, it’s a risk but not that big a risk. Simply because the leadership class of the United States at present is so hopelessly corrupt, benighted, and frankly, just plain stupid that it boggles the mind. It’s so corrupt that there is no accountability for any wrong-headed action. Literally. Think of Benghazi, the fall of Libya, the destruction of Syria, you name it.
If you’re a Democrat or a neocon, you can literally get away with murder. It took months to get rid of that piss-ant Cuomo and they had to dredge up rumors of him playing grab-ass. Instead, he should have been sent to E Block in Sing Sing (i.e. Death Row) for what he did with those oldsters in the nursing home.
George,
But they own Biden. Both ChiCom Joe and Hunter have seen to that. Is Harris corruptible? Certainly. By anyone. She made her bones on a mattress with Willie Brown. Not only do they know what she is, they are quite racist regarding blacks in general. Biden was totally malleable. She’s a wild card.
While I believe they have corrupted a fair share of the Democrats, I don’t think they own all of them. It’s a mixed bag. And these days, politicians don’t stay bought. You have to blackmail them if you want loyalty, and they have the goods on Hunter and possibly Joe himself.
No, while it is true that the Chinese may make the most of this by shaming the US and threatening and probably seizing Taiwan, and while they will be happy to exploit Afghan mineral resources in concert with the Taliban; nonetheless, this is a win for Islam against China due to the simple logistics of Afghanistan having a border with China, Pakistan and Tajikistan. My guess is the Uighurs are quite happy about this. Practically no one will see this facet of it until they begin acting true to form. Wait for it.
Biden could have withdrawn the military last and still managed to turn country over to the Taliban if he withdrew support afterwards. If China wanted the Taliban in there, that would have been the play they ordered.
If they wanted Joe out, they could simply tell him to resign for health reasons. It is a far stretch to suggest that they ordered this crisis for the explicit purpose of getting him defenestrated.
This is all Joe.
The Taliban are true believers. They will attempt to expand using the Uighurs as a toehold. Whatever assurances they are giving the Chinese about not harboring Uighurs in their country are mere verbiage. Recall that this whole thing started when they refused to withdraw aid from and turn over a certain Arab in their country.
The Taliban does not think in terms of “Afghanistan” or “China” or “Tajikistan”. They think in terms of the ummah, the nation of Islam. Afghans, Turks, Chechen militants, al Qaida, ISIS all want to be part of a Grand Caliphate. The Afghan Emirate is just the branch office. Uighurs are Muslims. Ethnic Chinese mostly are not. That is all that matters.
100% agree.
‘…they refused to…turn over
a certain Arab in their country.’
The Taleban said: “Show us evidence and we will hand him over.”
The Americans said: “Just hand him over.”
The Taleban said: “Not without evidence”.
This is senile denial at the helm of the Benghazi crew, some of whom were in there for Operation Fast and Furious.
The Democrats are stuck with this black hole and it will swallow them if they let it.
PS:
Biden blew off answering PM Johnson’s call from the UK for 36 hours from Monday to Tuesday evening:
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/08/20/special-relationship-biden-ghosted-johnson-over-bungled-bugout-n1471066
And the UK parliament voted to hold Biden in contempt this week:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/18/parliament-holds-joe-biden-contempt-afghanistan/
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-58264267
I’m not sure why that’s not all over the news at this point.
I hate to say this but the question of our future Afghanistan foreign policy indeed might be answered by what type and level of engagement is needed with the Taliban to sustain them as a burr in China’s ass.
George,
In the short term, I agree with you. There will be immediate benefits realized by each party.
In the long term, I’m not so sure. Counterpoint:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-20/china-s-warm-welcome-for-taliban-sparks-backlash-at-home
While a single news article is not exactly a categorical refutation of your point, I do expect to see at least a trickle of these kind of stories. I also believe that at some point the Afghans are going to object loudly to the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs. It won’t be tomorrow, but I can’t help but believe that it is coming.
I could put together quite an essay but I will only say this: politics of any variety will not change anything, only harden my heart. Putting into practice Matthew 3:2 does change me and all to whom I am interconnected by His Grace and Mercy. Try it, It works.
Anything else plays into Satan’s hands.
One of the reasons given as to why the Afghanistan Army gave up so easily is that Bidet stopped giving them US air support while the Afghanistan army did what they do best, fight on the ground on their rough terrain. When Bidet and his so called advisers made the withdrawal announcement in April the Taliban saw that it was time now to proceed. As George said the new era of Woke Generals now only interested in promoting liberal CRT policy’s in the military and in our Service Academy’s. while lining up their big bucks jobs after retirement.
While this is certainly a death knell for the US empire and we look horrible to friends and enemies alike—this will certainly precipitate the fall of Taiwan to China and the development of nuclear weapons by any country that wants them—I am not in the least bit sorry that we are out of there.
We should have gotten out 10 years ago, in 2011, when Ron Paul stood in Congress and warned us we’d be there for another decade if the funding was renewed. Which is exactly what happened. That man is a prophet.
But really, we never should have gone in—it was all fake. A multi-generational war costing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, all to kill one guy who supposedly did 9/11 and wasn’t even in the country we invaded when he was supposedly killed. It was a colossal waste.
Now that the war is over, are they going to drop the Patriot Act? Can we board planes without stripping naked? Of course not—now you need your vax and mask too. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were pretexts for the real war: against the American people and their liberties. That war continues on, and will never stop for as long as this illegitimate system—from its Constitution, to its three branches, to its agencies, all the way down to its gloved TSA schlubs—remains in place.
Urgent prayer request.
Hey guys. Please pray for me. The company through which I had my part-time job is shutting down. I am the sole support of my wife and 3 kids and don’t make enough on my full-time job to support them. It’s so hard to find something that will work with my schedule. Not to mention that even if I find something I’ll almost certainly have to work more to make less. I don’t handle changes like this well and I’m stressed to the max. I’m trying to have faith that God has a plan and will do something good here but it’s hard for me.
Seraphim, we’re praying for you, and your family!
Remember:
“God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for His sake in serving the saints, as you still do.”
+ Hebrews 6:10
Thanks for the prayers Dn. I’m trying to put my focus where it should be. As I said before, it’s just not something that comes naturally to me. My faith is a limp noodle. I guess God figures that weak muscle needs a workout.
Putting our whole faith in God is a fearsome act. But do it. Several times a day. It is not a one time shot. Saying something like this., “ I trust you God with my whole life.” Or as in the liturgy where we commit our lives to to Jesus, 6 times, if I remember correctly.
Years ago I attended a Pentecostal all night vigil. To this day I remember a short drama the pastor enacted. He stood on one side of the chancel with his Bible on his shoulder, signifying a heavy load he was carrying. Then, he walked to the other side,
knelt down in front of a chair, signifying the presence of Jesus. He handed his heavy load over to Jesus, telling Him everything. Then he stood up, thanked Jesus for everything, picked up his heavy load and walked away.
That, the pastor said, is the way we usually handle our problems. We give them to God and then take them back. We have to learn to give them to God and leave them with Him. This can be arduous. Every time worrying besets us, we have to call on God to break that cycle.
You can do it!
When I lost my son a cantankerous old bishop told me the only thing that helped: “God can be trusted.”
I will pray for you and your family, dear Seraphim!!
Prayers up, Seraphim!
May God protect and bless His servant, Seraphim and his family, strengthen his faith and grant him a bounteous sustenance.
May God bless you, Seraphim, and give you peace.
An excellent summation:
https://www.takimag.com/article/how-we-lost-afghanistan/
Browsing these comments, couple things:
Never bet against America, and don’t give up on America. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, America is freedom’s last stand, there’s nowhere else to escape to.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan has little to do with Gen. Milley’s “woke theater,” an irrelevant sideshow and distraction from the topic. (And how do we know he isn’t just trying to survive in the new administration.) There was never a good time to leave. The departure is occurring the way it is because of 20 years of choices made across multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat.
Regarding the Afghans’ will to fight, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The small American force of 2500 at the start of the Biden administration appeared to keep the Taliban at bay, not because of air support of the Afghan National Army, but rather because of our expected departure — precisely the deal that the Trump administration made. And although corruption was endemic in the ANA, there were also genuine Afghan patriots. Both things can be true simultaneously.
It’s more constructive, I think, to discuss how to proceed from the here and now, in the following areas:
– reassuring allies in other contested regions around the world (e.g. S. Korea, Taiwan) in words and deeds,
– doing a better job explaining to the American people why those alliances abroad support security at home,
– blunting the advantages which Afghanistan’s fall gives to China and Russia (e.g. China potentially extending its Belt and Road Initiative to the $1 trillion in minerals in Afghanistan’s mountains).
Michael Bauman’s recent comment about Matthew 3:2, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”, is worth a moments rumination.
These are the times which try men’s souls. Yet if one wishes to refrain from entering spiritual paradise until all others have entered, one will never arrive. We must live in the world but not be of the world.
There is no reason for angst at these developments. We mourn the dead and pray for the living. We do what we can and move forward. The fact that Biden has put Americans and foreign collaborators at dire risk does not mean we need feel their angst. To the contrary, with prayer and faith they themselves might overcome their own angst at the prospect of suffering and death. And the troubles of the dead are passed.
One day, when Christendom has fully revived, we will send missionaries into Afghanistan to convert these heathen to Christ so that there will be no more Taliban. Until then, we simply must work for the restoration of Christendom in our lands, the conversion of our own people, so that the depraved indifference and lust for power that precipitated these events is overcome by grace.
We are right to be indignant and critical of what has transpired. But let us look for silver linings as well.
For those of your readers who don’t fully comprehend what is going on with Afghanistan:
Essentially, we have a senile, callous idiot of a crash dummy giving orders like a random events generator to an incompetent administrative entourage. If you doubt the latter point, please consider the following:
https://mishaangeloff.substack.com/p/obamaclinton-20
This is the Benghazi crew, some of whom were also there for Fast and Furious. They have no idea what they are doing or how to lead vis a vis foreign policy.
And so when the White House and the State Department say they do not know how many Americans are stranded in Afghanistan, they are lying. Every American over there who didn’t sneak in through a third country (and we can’t control for that miniscule number) has a passport and that record of travel is attached to their name on a database in the State Department. All they need to do is push a button and read the total.
The fact that they are loathe to do so likely means that the number is in the tens of thousands, perhaps as many as 40-50K, and they simply can’t face the prospect that they cannot get that many people out under present conditions by the end of the month.
I.e., they are planning to strand Americans in Afghanistan.
This is, of course, political suicide. Moreover, it is a genuine hostage crisis if the Taliban chooses to take advantage of the situation, which they apparently are inasmuch as they have the Kabul airport locked up as tight as a nun’s you know what.
I’m reminded of a joke from my youth:
A man asks Hershel, “What would you do if you were standing on a hill overlooking train tracks and you saw two trains, both approaching each other on a collision course but each unable to see the other due to the winding of the track around the hill – and you don’t have time to run down and warn them or pull any levers?
Hershel thinks for a moment and then his face lights up and he says, “I’d run and get my brother Leroy. He ain’t never seen no train wreck before.”
Nobody tells stories better than you!
PS:
The political thing that no one is talking about is that though this be political suicide, it doesn’t matter, because Biden doesn’t have to run for re-election and the Democrats are probably not planning on running Kamala. Thus there is no accountability other than the 25th Amendment, impeachment or revolution.
So this must be hung around the Democrats’ neck if there is to be any relief. I repeat, it is absolutely necessary to make the Democrats own this.