My latest in PJ Media:
On Monday, Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) tweeted: “As the Afghan government fell, the Taliban gave US officials the option to take control of Kabul. They PASSED and instead opted to willingly surrender the city to the Taliban and control only the airport till 8/31! HOW MANY MORE COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED?!?” It’s a question to which we will never know the answer, but Hice had abundant good reason to ask it. Even the Washington Post, which usually does all it can to make Biden’s handlers look good, reported Saturday that as the Taliban were sweeping through Afghanistan, they gave the United States the option to secure Kabul, which would have allowed untold numbers of people who are still trapped there now to have gotten out safely. But Biden’s military refused, opting instead for control only of Kabul’s airport, leading directly to the disaster we have seen unfold over the last two weeks.
The WaPo quotes “a senior U.S. official” saying: “He not only abandoned his country, but then unraveled the security situation in Kabul.” This official was not, however, referring to Old Joe Biden, but to the president of the U.S.-backed Afghan national government, Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country as his military was collapsing before the Taliban’s advance.
Yet the parallels between Ghani and Biden are numerous. The Post notes that as the Taliban took city after city in Afghanistan, “Ghani’s lack of focus on the threat that the Taliban posed mystified U.S. officials, in particular, Marine Gen. Kenneth ‘Frank’ McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, and Ambassador Ross Wilson.”
These two reportedly tried to push Ghani to be more prepared: “In a July meeting with Ghani in Kabul, the two men told the Afghan president that his team needed a ‘realistic, implementable and widely supported plan to defend the country’ and must drop the idea of defending all 34 provincial capitals, said an official familiar with the meeting.” The Post quotes an unnamed official saying: “They had to focus on what they could actually defend. All provinces are important, but some were integral to the defense of Kabul.”
Yet nothing was done: “Ghani appeared to agree, but there would be no follow-through, the official said. ‘Advice would be given, the right things would be said, and nothing would happen,’ the official said. ‘They never did it. They never came up with that plan.’”
Hey, that sounds like the befuddled occupant of the Oval Office and his woke military minions. Back in June, the commander of CENTCOM, Marine Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., gave an interview to Military Times in which he declared confidently: “We have workable plans to evacuate any scale of people that we would be directed to do. That’s one of the things that we have done. I’ve talked to the secretary about it.” We know now that either no such plans ever existed or they were never implemented.
There is more. Read the rest here.
ConstantineXI says
Add this to the ongoing list of blunders such as:
1. Giving up Bagram
2. Leaving Behind 80 Billion Dollars in Military Equipment
3. Giving Jihadists an Enormous Propaganda Victory
4. Setting an arbitrary deadline to evacuate creating panic based situations whereby people were clinging to airplanes trying to leave
5. Giving the Chinese and Russians enormous access to advanced US technology.
6. Deliberately leaving Americans and Afghan Allies behind
And the list goes on.
gravenimage says
+1
mortimer says
The greatest military debacle in American history which substantially empowered one of America’s most determined enemies.
The entire Dem government should be held accountable for this criminal NEGLIGENCE and STUPIDITY.
The country can afford no more bungles from this cabal of smug dunces.
CogitoErgoSum says
What worries me most is that we still have to endure another three and half years of these idiots. They are just getting started.
maria says
Yes and if talibans and iran cooperate Israel and the US are in a danger.
The democRats are the traitors and enemies of theUS.
They must indict all of them , start med Biden, Harris and Pelosi.
tim gallagher says
On this gigantic stuff up in Afghanistan, how could all the advisors, the military advisors and such like, be so hopeless and incompetent? Joe Biden is quite obviously off with the pixies a lot of the time, seemingly due to dementia, but i don’t get how all the advisors around him seem to have also contributed to this massive stuff up, as listed by ConstantineXI up above. I am amazed that things could have been done quite this badly.
gravenimage says
You are right, Maria:
“Taliban moving U.S. military vehicles to the Islamic Republic of Iran”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/09/taliban-moving-u-s-military-vehicles-to-the-islamic-republic-of-iran
GreekEmpress says
+2
Uma says
You are very much correct sir
Ade Fegan says
That’s eighty FIVE billion !
bill says
The Islamists everywhere are emboldened by the glorious Islamic ‘victory’ over the infidels.
Watch out USA and Europe there is trouble ahead, bad trouble. The next 9/11 is no doubt in the planning stage
bill says
Remember the song “anything you can do I can do better” Now they have uniforms and bullet proof vests. Any jihadi can pass himself off as US soldier now.
Terry Gain says
ConstantineXI
That’s a very good list. My 10-year-old granddaughter could’ve come up with a better plan. Mind you, she is very bright.
RegT says
It’s far worse than that:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/08/as-afghanistan-fell-taliban-gave-the-u-s-the-option-to-secure-kabul-the-u-s-refused
nicholas tesdorf says
Biden is the new Benedict Arnold.
mortimer says
He is President Chauncey Gardner, the idiot played by Peter Sellers in the film ‘Being There’.
Facebook and Twitter helped steal the election and are hugely responsible.
gravenimage says
As Afghanistan Fell, Taliban Gave the U.S. the Option to Secure Kabul. The U.S. Refused.
……………
If this is accurate it is even more appalling.
David M says
When the Taliban were preparing to take Kabul they were heading there in long convoys of vehicles, & would have been sitting ducks from an aerial strike by US planes. I guess Biden wasn’t interested in actually taking out the Taliban though.
mortimer says
This White House negotiates by going for broke. They have no idea about making a deal of any kind. It’s all about their ideology and airy-fairy dreamland.
They are lost in neo-Marxist-globalist fantasies.
mortimer says
David M mirrors my thoughts exactly. With the Taliban all out in the open, it would have been the best time to exterminate these ducks in a barrel. A once in a lifetime opportunity to destroy over half of these sadistic savages filled with hate and threats.
Terry Gain says
David M
I’ve been wondering why Biden’s military advisers did not advise him to tell the Taliban to stay a certain distance from Kabul or they would be attacked from the air if they advanced beyond a certain point. What excuse is there for not threatening to use over the horizon weaponry if the Taliban advance beyond a certain point?
James Lincoln says
No excuse, Terry.
Fred van de Bunt says
I would strongly advice Americans to stick together. They are not each other’s common enemy.
The common enemy is also not the bombing and killing Taliban, that just recently have become to most moderates of moderate Muslims, since even an innocent child would not believe that.
The common enemy is the infidels among us that strongly believe the Taliban have become moderates. The common enemy is any infidel that thinks you can trust strong believers in holy sharia laws, which laws allow any tactic to be used against the infidel to establish holy sharia laws.
Terry Gain says
Fred Have Another Mint.
I disagree with you. It seems to me that America is at war with itself. The Marxist Democrats are more serious threat to America than any foreign entity. HR1 purports to outlaw Voter ID across the nation. Stick together behind Biden? Good grief.
James Lincoln says
Agree, Terry.
The Marxist Democrats are the most serious threat to America, islam being in second place.
CogitoErgoSum says
I think maybe I have figured out Joe Biden’s secret plan. He figures that since the Taliban will not take the covid-19 vaccine that in just a few more months they will all start dropping like flies. In the meantime our troops will be outside Afghanistan safe from any possible infection and once the Taliban have all dropped dead we can go back into Afghanistan with no resistance at all and take our weapons back. It’s a brilliant strategy really. Just don’t anybody tell the Taliban that Joe Biden is really a military genius. Everything depends on Joe appearing to be a total idiot … and so far the plan seems to be working.