Quotes of the Day:
"Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough."
- Emily Dickinson
"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious."
- Stephen Hawking
"Only the educated are free."
- Epictetus
1. Biden Defends Afghanistan Withdrawal
2. Reinforcing U.S. Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific After the Fall of Afghanistan
3. Biden's Afghanistan fiasco is a disaster for Asia
4. Why doesn't the U.S. win wars anymore?
5. Biden Plays the Long Game as He Justifies the End of the ‘Forever War’
6. The Two Blows America Is Dealing to the Taliban
7. Opinion | The U.S. government left its own journalists behind in Afghanistan
8. Oklahoma congressman threatened embassy staff as he tried to enter Afghanistan, US officials say
9. Opinion | Joe Biden’s Critics Lost Afghanistan
10. The Story Of The Mysterious White 727 That Appeared In Kabul After The Bombing Of Abbey Gate
11. Secret Gate Used By Special Operators To Sneak Evacuees Into Kabul's Airport
12. China cuts amount of time minors can spend on online games
13. Explaining the globalist dimensions of Chinese nationalism
14. Taliban members escorted Americans to gates at Kabul airport in secret arrangement with US
15. Taliban offered US chance to secure Kabul after Ghani fled country
16. Creating American hostages, abandoning Afghan allies
17. When the Refugees Landed
18. The US Appears More Dumber Than Dumb – OpEd
19. Opinion | Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan took real courage
1. Biden Defends Afghanistan Withdrawal
As we examine the last 3 weeks/ 3 months (and really going back to inauguration day when the new administration took over and established new strategic guidance for Afghanistan) we should ask some fundamental and very basic questions to help us assess and AAR the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the military's actions.
1. Did we have a clear understanding of the strategic aim set by the President for this withdrawal and if so what was it?
2. Did we have a clear understanding of the end state required to achieve the strategic aim? (or was it just to get the hell out of dodge?)
3. Did we identify the friendly and enemy centers of gravity, decisive points, and culmination?
4. What were the operational objectives required to produce the end state?
5. Did we war game and determine the sequence of actions necessary to most likely achieve the operational objectives?
6. Did we adequately organize and apply the resources of the force to accomplish the sequence of actions.
And lastly and very importantly, what were the constraints and limitations placed on the military for the conduct of this operation?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Biden Defends Afghanistan Withdrawal
President offers response to criticism of his decision to pull out U.S. troops
WSJ · by Tarini Parti and Ken Thomas
“Leaving Aug. 31 is not due to an arbitrary deadline,” Mr. Biden said. “It was designed to save American lives.”
After campaigning on completing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Mr. Biden and top administration officials have been confronted by images of chaos as Afghans seek to flee the country and the deaths of 13 service members and dozens of Afghans in a terrorist attack attributed to ISIS-K at the Kabul airport.
Republicans were divided on continuing the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, but many say the administration’s handling of the withdrawal undermines the president’s promise to provide competent leadership and serve as a steady hand on foreign policy.
“ Joe Biden had exactly one advantage on foreign policy and that was a promise of stability and predictability. This looked neither stable nor predictable nor strong,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist advising Senate candidates in battleground states next year.
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said voters from both parties supported leaving Afghanistan and would understand the difficulty for Mr. Biden in going through with the withdrawal.
“Doing hard things is hard, and sometimes you pay a short term price, but I think that’s what leadership looks like, and I think he’s got the big thing right on Afghanistan,” Mr. Maloney said. “Most Americans want the hell out of Afghanistan and every other argument is some version of let’s stay longer.”
A poll conducted by Pew Research Center between Aug. 23-29 found that 42% of those surveyed said the Biden administration had done a poor job in handling the situation in Afghanistan. About 26% said it had done an excellent or good job, and 29% said it had done a fair job. The same poll found that 54% said the decision to withdraw was the right one, while 42% said it was wrong.
Mr. Biden is preparing for key votes in Congress after the Labor Day holiday—a period that could help shape voter perceptions ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Congress will also be tasked with raising the federal borrowing limit, called the debt ceiling, before the government runs out of money to pay its obligations.
And lawmakers face the expiration of the government’s current funding by the end of September—a deadline that will require them to either pass new spending bills or extend current funding levels to avoid a partial government shutdown.
“Leaving any American citizen behind is unacceptable, and I will keep pushing this administration to do everything in its power to get our people out,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.) said in a statement Monday evening.
Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), who has supported ending the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, said she is concerned about people who will be at risk under Taliban rule.
“The idea that everybody didn’t get out horrifies me,” she said.
Michael McAdams, spokesman for the House GOP’s campaign arm, said Mr. Biden and Democrats “own one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in our country’s history, leaving hundreds of Americans behind enemy lines and equipping dangerous terrorists with billions in U.S. military equipment. You can be sure voters are going to hold them accountable for this debacle.”
Mr. Todd, the GOP strategist, predicted that while the focus of the 2022 midterms may hinge on the economy and the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal could still play a role in the minds of many voters.
“Big moments define executives: Governors are defined by how they handle hurricanes and natural disasters, and presidents are defined by how they handle foreign policy crises,” he said.
Mr. Biden hasn’t made changes to his national security team in the wake of the withdrawal.
“It’s going to be extremely difficult to turn the page without the president holding individuals accountable for this debacle,” said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and former chief of staff to Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.).
Mr. Biden’s administration now will need to help the remaining Americans find safe passage from the country and attempt to help thousands of Afghans who once helped American forces and could face reprisals from the Taliban.
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Other factors also will make it difficult for the White House to shift the focus away from Afghanistan.
Members of Congress have discussed holding hearings on the administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
In addition, Mr. Biden will soon mark the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which will bring more attention to the war’s aftermath. And U.S. allies such as Italy have been pressing for a special Group of 20 meeting on Afghanistan.
Italy will host this fall’s G-20 summit in Rome, which is expected to be Mr. Biden’s first foreign trip since the fall of Afghanistan to Taliban rule.
—Lindsay Wise and Eliza Collins contributed to this article.
WSJ · by Tarini Parti and Ken Thomas
2. Reinforcing U.S. Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific After the Fall of Afghanistan
Conclusion:
The disaster of Afghanistan's second fall to the Taliban will not soon be erased. An important objective now may be to help those remaining in Afghanistan get out and mitigate the impact of the Taliban takeover on America's interests in the Indo-Pacific.
Reinforcing U.S. Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific After the Fall of Afghanistan
U.S. adversaries like China and North Korea are already seizing on this development to press their own political warfare messages. Both want to shake the confidence of U.S. allies and partners by claiming that when the chips are down, Washington won’t show up. Fortunately, neither Taiwan nor the Republic of Korea — the two countries most exposed to the threat of conquest by a hostile communist adversary — remotely resemble Afghanistan. But Washington could still benefit from efforts to shore up its deterrence credibility in the Indo-Pacific.
To start, the strategic logic of the U.S. withdrawal could helpfully be regularly and consistently reiterated. President Biden’s remarks made clear that reducing an expensive commitment to Afghanistan better prepares the United States to defend its core alliances and interests elsewhere, including Asia. Asia was regarded by the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations as the world’s political and economic center of gravity, and the Indo-Pacific was designated as the military's priority theater. The Biden administration's March 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance identified a key priority was promoting a "favorable distribution of power to deter and prevent adversaries from threatening the United States and our allies," with the Indo-Pacific the foremost regional focus. The U.S. national security team could regularly and consistently reemphasize this commitment to Taiwan, South Korea, and America’s other allies in the region.
To counter the narrative being pushed by Beijing and Pyongyang, U.S. diplomats and intelligence agencies could highlight how, even during the darkest moments of the collapse of the Afghan National Government, the United States military still sought to assist Afghans fleeing the Taliban. By contrast, China held meetings with the Taliban leadership in late July to lay the groundwork for maintaining its mining operations in Afghanistan and to ensure that the Taliban wouldn’t interfere in China’s efforts to continue perpetrating genocide against the millions of Uyghur Muslims, including those it has penned up in concentration camps in Xinjiang.
The U.S. could also announce targeted steps aimed at improving deterrence. One possible move could be accelerated development and deployment of a more resilient command, control, communications, computers, information, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture such as the Joint, All-Domain Command and Control concept. Another could be publicizing the procurement and prepositioning of a deeper and more diverse stockpile of long-range, anti-ship cruise missiles and other precision-guided munitions, including the U.S. Army’s new Common-Hypersonic Glide Body munition. Such weapons could hold at risk the ships and strike platforms China would use to threaten or invade Taiwan while remaining at a distance where the PLA would struggle to target them.
The Department of Defense could choose to accelerate the development and deployment of large numbers of unmanned platforms of a variety of sizes, roles and missions that would allow commanders to accept greater risk and operate in increasingly contested areas, as the Marines' Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations concept has called for. Additional resources could be used to reduce the strain on the Navy by funding more training and maintenance, which would improve readiness, operational efficiency, and ultimately deterrence.
Finally, Washington could consider the importance of being perceived to be keeping faith with those who partnered with the United States. The Biden administration could consider accelerating and expanding its existing efforts to help Afghans escape the Taliban and resettle in the United States or elsewhere. Since the end of the Vietnam War, over 1.6 million Vietnamese have moved to the United States, taking on citizenship, building families and businesses, and representing an important connection between the United States and Asia. Afghans who come to the United States will similarly bring with them skills, values and connections that could make America stronger. While screening will likely be important, calls to reject such refugees out of fear that they will be involved in terrorism could unduly stigmatize this vulnerable community.
The disaster of Afghanistan's second fall to the Taliban will not soon be erased. An important objective now may be to help those remaining in Afghanistan get out and mitigate the impact of the Taliban takeover on America's interests in the Indo-Pacific.
Scott W. Harold is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.
3. Biden's Afghanistan fiasco is a disaster for Asia
I wanted to say wait, Afghanistan is not Asia. But Afghanistan is in Asia (not the middle east).
Note the impact on India and a good question on the non-NATO ally status for Afghanistan and especially Pakistan.
Excerpts:
One definite loser from the Afghanistan debacle is India, whose security risks coming under siege from the Taliban-Pakistan-China coalition. India, one of the largest aid donors to Afghanistan, had a big presence in that country, but its diplomats and civilians were among the first to flee.
Since last year, India has been locked in military standoffs with China, its leading adversary. But if India now faces a greater terrorist threat from across its western borders, it will have less capacity to counter an expansionist China. Afghanistan's fall will likely strengthen the anti-India axis between the Taliban's sponsor, Pakistan, and Pakistan's main patron, China.
Will Biden now revoke the major non-NATO ally (MNNA) status enjoyed by Afghanistan and Pakistan, which engineered the U.S. rout through its proxy? Fifteen other countries, including Japan, Australia and Israel, have MNNA status, which carries security benefits under U.S. law.
By empowering the Taliban, Biden has strengthened all jihadi groups, promising the rebirth of global terrorism. And by betraying one ally -- the elected Afghan government -- he has made other U.S. allies feel that they too could be betrayed when they most need American support. Nowhere will the U.S. costs for its Afghanistan blunder be more visible than in Asia, where an emboldened China is set to up the ante.
Biden's Afghanistan fiasco is a disaster for Asia
Self-inflicted defeat sends message that allies cannot count on US
Taliban fighters patrol inside the city of Kandahar on Aug. 15: historians will be baffled that the world's mightiest power waged war for two decades to make the Taliban great again. © AP
Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and author of nine books, including "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan."
The Kabul Airport massacre is a reminder that the geopolitical consequences of America's Afghanistan fiasco -- one of the biggest foreign policy failures under any U.S. president since World War II -- will likely play out for years.
According to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's potential successor Armin Laschet, this is the "biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we are standing before an epochal change."
U.S. President Joe Biden paved the way for the Taliban sweep of Afghanistan by pulling the rug out from under the Afghan military's feet. The sudden withdrawal of some 18,000 U.S. civilian contractors effectively disabled the Afghan military's planes and helicopters, leaving ground troops without close air support and emergency logistics, including medical evacuation, and rendering the reputable special forces immobile and out of action.
Historians will be baffled that the world's mightiest power waged war for two decades to make the Taliban, the world's deadliest terrorists, great again. But the immediate message from Biden's Afghanistan disaster is that U.S. allies cannot count on America when the chips are down. The damage to America's reputation and credibility could potentially herald a paradigm shift in international geopolitics.
Already, the image of America's betrayal of its Afghan allies and capitulation to the Taliban has become etched indelibly in the global imagination. Indeed, a secret meeting between CIA Director William Burns and the Taliban leadership in Kabul on Aug. 23 has only underscored the troubling U.S. equation with an Islamist militia whose brutality has been a hallmark of its fundamentalism.
With Biden quickly blaming a local ISIS affiliate for the airport bombing and ordering reprisals against the group, the U.S. has been left to draw specious distinctions between good and bad terrorists.
Given Afghanistan's strategic location at the crossroads of Central, South and Southwest Asia, the greatest strategic fallout from Afghanistan's security and humanitarian catastrophe is likely to be felt in the Asian region. This is ironic because Biden sought to justify his withdrawal as necessary to focus on the great-power competition with China.
In reality, the void opened by America's retreat has only given greater strategic space for China, Russia and Iran to expand their strategic footprints. For securing oil deliveries, the Taliban are now paying a cash-strapped Iran in dollars from their lucrative narcotics trade.
China, with its long-standing ties to the Taliban, including supplying weapons via Pakistan, has taken the lead in portraying the U.S. as a declining power whose ditching of the Afghan government demonstrates that it is an unreliable partner for any country.
America's self-inflicted defeat and humiliation in Afghanistan has also blunted U.S. leverage to determine China's coronavirus culpability, including pressuring Beijing to share lab records, genomic samples and other data relevant to finding out how the COVID-19 virus originated. It is thus no surprise that the Biden-ordered U.S. intelligence inquiry, at the end of its 90-day deadline, has failed to reach a definitive conclusion on the virus' origins, although time is running out to find reliable answers.
If the intelligence inquiry -- like the recent report by congressional Republicans -- had concluded that the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab, it could have further ruptured already fraught relations with China, which has been demanding that the U.S. stop tracing the origins of the virus.
At a time when Biden is grappling with an Afghan disaster of his own making, he can ill afford a crisis in ties with China, which explains why he did not extend the term of the intelligence inquiry but instead called on a recalcitrant Beijing "to cooperate with the World Health Organization's Phase II evidence-based, expert-led determination into the origins of COVID-19."
President Joe Biden delivers remarks about Afghanistan on Aug. 26: at a time when Biden is grappling with an Afghan disaster of his own making, he can ill afford a crisis in ties with China. © Reuters
After Kabul's fall, China's victory lap included a state-media warning to Taiwan that the U.S. would abandon it too in the face of a Chinese invasion, prompting Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to declare, "Taiwan's only option is to grow stronger... It is not our option to do nothing and only rely on others for protection."
One definite loser from the Afghanistan debacle is India, whose security risks coming under siege from the Taliban-Pakistan-China coalition. India, one of the largest aid donors to Afghanistan, had a big presence in that country, but its diplomats and civilians were among the first to flee.
Since last year, India has been locked in military standoffs with China, its leading adversary. But if India now faces a greater terrorist threat from across its western borders, it will have less capacity to counter an expansionist China. Afghanistan's fall will likely strengthen the anti-India axis between the Taliban's sponsor, Pakistan, and Pakistan's main patron, China.
Will Biden now revoke the major non-NATO ally (MNNA) status enjoyed by Afghanistan and Pakistan, which engineered the U.S. rout through its proxy? Fifteen other countries, including Japan, Australia and Israel, have MNNA status, which carries security benefits under U.S. law.
By empowering the Taliban, Biden has strengthened all jihadi groups, promising the rebirth of global terrorism. And by betraying one ally -- the elected Afghan government -- he has made other U.S. allies feel that they too could be betrayed when they most need American support. Nowhere will the U.S. costs for its Afghanistan blunder be more visible than in Asia, where an emboldened China is set to up the ante.
4. Why doesn't the U.S. win wars anymore?
Interesting analysis and "paradox." Makes me feel somewhat better (note sarcasm).
But we did win in Afghanistan in October- December 2001 and in Iraq in March-April 2003 (mission accomplished?)
Excerpts:
Indeed, the two paradoxes are connected. American power helped usher in the age of interstate peace, as Washington constructed a fairly democratic and stable "free world" in the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, and East Asia, fashioned institutions like the United Nations, and oversaw a globalized trading system. But this left intractable civil wars as the prevailing kind of conflict. And American power also tempted Washington to search for monsters to destroy in far-flung locations. In other words, power and peace are the parents of loss.
No one wants to go back to the days of weakness, war, and winning. A favorable record in major conflict is poor compensation for global catastrophe. But as we enjoy the fruits of power and peace, we should steel ourselves for more battlefield setbacks. The dark age of American warfare looks set to endure. In the future, conflict will likely remain dominated by civil wars. American strength will continue to lure presidents into foreign intervention. The U.S. military will resist preparing for counterinsurgency. Guerrillas, by contrast, will learn and adapt — and bloody the United States.
Why doesn't the U.S. win wars anymore?
Paradoxically, we lose wars because the world is peaceful and the U.S. is powerful.
31 August, 2021
- The type of wars that Americans win — major wars between the great powers — no longer occur.
- The type of wars that Americans lose — civil wars in foreign countries — are the ones that remain.
- American strength will continue to lure presidents into foreign intervention.
We live in an age of power, peace, and loss. Since 1945, the United States has emerged as the unsurpassed superpower, relations between countries have been unusually stable, and the American experience of conflict has been a tale of frustration and defeat.
This raises the first paradox: We lose because the world is peaceful. The decline of interstate war and the relative harmony among the great powers is cause for celebration. But the interstate wars that disappeared are the kind of wars that we win. And the civil wars that remain are the kind of wars that we lose. As the tide of conflict recedes, we're left with the toughest and most unyielding internal struggles.
It's also hard to win great victories in an era of peace. During the golden age, the United States faced trials of national survival, like the Civil War and World War II. The potential benefits were so momentous that Washington could overthrow the enemy at almost any cost in American blood and treasure and still claim the win. But in wars since 1945, the threats are diminished. Since the prize on offer is less valuable, the acceptable price we will pay in lives and money is also dramatically reduced. To achieve victory, the campaign must be quick and decisive — with little margin for error. Without grave peril, it's tough to enter the pantheon of martial valor.
There's a second paradox: We lose because we're strong. U.S. power encouraged Americans to follow the sound of battle into distant lands. But the United States became more interventionist just as the conflict environment shifted in ways that blunted America's military edge. As a result, Washington was no longer able to translate power into victory. If America was weaker, its military record might actually be more favorable. With fewer capabilities, the idea of invading Iraq would have stayed in the realm of dreams.
Indeed, the two paradoxes are connected. American power helped usher in the age of interstate peace, as Washington constructed a fairly democratic and stable "free world" in the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, and East Asia, fashioned institutions like the United Nations, and oversaw a globalized trading system. But this left intractable civil wars as the prevailing kind of conflict. And American power also tempted Washington to search for monsters to destroy in far-flung locations. In other words, power and peace are the parents of loss.
No one wants to go back to the days of weakness, war, and winning. A favorable record in major conflict is poor compensation for global catastrophe. But as we enjoy the fruits of power and peace, we should steel ourselves for more battlefield setbacks. The dark age of American warfare looks set to endure. In the future, conflict will likely remain dominated by civil wars. American strength will continue to lure presidents into foreign intervention. The U.S. military will resist preparing for counterinsurgency. Guerrillas, by contrast, will learn and adapt — and bloody the United States.
5. Biden Plays the Long Game as He Justifies the End of the ‘Forever War’
Is this only a news cycle issue?
Excerpts:
Still, after a half-century in national politics, Mr. Biden knows better than most how quickly the news cycle moves on. His advisers and allies expect another round of tough criticism around the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with pictures showing the Taliban flag flying over Kabul.
Within days or weeks of that, though, they assume that attention will shift back again to the coronavirus pandemic, the president’s proposals for large public works projects and social welfare programs, and a dozen other issues that will absorb the public more than far-off Afghanistan.
Biden Plays the Long Game as He Justifies the End of the ‘Forever War’
News analysis
President Biden is banking on the assumption that he will be remembered for finally extricating the country from the war in Afghanistan, not for how he did it.
President Biden delivered his remarks almost 20 years after the United States ousted the Taliban from power following the Sept. 11 attacks.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Aug. 31, 2021
The forever war is over, but the forever debate may be only beginning. As he presided over the end of a lost 20-year mission in Afghanistan, President Biden on Tuesday touched off a prolonged argument for history over his decision to get out, how he handled it and what it means for the future of America.
In declaring an end to America’s misadventure in nation-building halfway across the world, Mr. Biden was playing a long game, banking on the assumption that he will be remembered by posterity for finally extricating the country from a quagmire, not for how he did it. While his approval ratings have sagged to the lowest levels of his short tenure, most Americans in polls still support leaving Afghanistan, and the White House assumes that they will quickly move on to other issues like the pandemic and the economy.
“We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan,” the president said from the East Room of the White House, where so many important speeches about Afghanistan have been delivered by four American presidents over the past two decades. “After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago.”
He cited the more than 120,000 Americans and Afghan allies evacuated in the two weeks since the Taliban seized power in Kabul, boasting that “no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history.” And he maintained that after more than 2,400 American combat deaths, it was past time to disentangle from a country where the United States has no vital national interest in staying.
But the images of pandemonium at the Kabul airport and the president’s failure to evacuate every American as he promised just days ago raised questions about his leadership that may prove damaging in the long run as well. They could fit into a broader indictment by Republicans portraying Mr. Biden as an unreliable, ineffective commander in chief who humiliated America on the international stage — never mind that the withdrawal was based on an agreement negotiated with the Taliban by President Donald J. Trump.
“President Biden’s unseemly victory lap was detached from reality,” Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, wrote on Twitter after the president’s speech. “His callous indifference to the Americans he abandoned behind enemy lines is shameful.”
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, a member of the House Republican leadership, chastised Mr. Biden for refusing to take responsibility for the messy pullout. “Shouting at and blaming the American people is not what was needed in this speech,” she said. “For Joe Biden, the buck stops with anyone and everyone but himself.”
Supporters of Mr. Biden’s decision pushed back, saying he demonstrated political courage in sticking with the withdrawal in the face of powerful blowback.
“There was no perfect time or way to exit Afghanistan,” said former Representative Justin Amash, a former Republican from Michigan who left his party during Mr. Trump’s presidency. “President Biden directed the evacuation of more than one hundred thousand people and got our troops out. I disagree with the president on a lot, but I’m grateful he pushed through despite all the pressure.”
A poll released this week by Reuters and Ipsos found that the vast majority of Americans wanted Mr. Biden to keep troops there beyond the deadline if needed to ensure all Americans were out. Forty-nine percent said the military should stay “until all American citizens and Afghan allies have been evacuated” and another 25 percent said they should remain at least until all American citizens were out. Just 13 percent said that troops should “evacuate immediately.”
Overall, 38 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the pullout. But they do not hold him solely at fault — 20 percent say he deserved “most blame for the current state” of Afghanistan, while 10 percent named former President George W. Bush, who opened the war after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and 9 percent singled out Mr. Trump, and others pointed to the Afghans, the generals or others.
Beyond the politics will come debate about what the Taliban victory means for America’s place in the world. Mr. Biden is intent on setting a new course for foreign policy, somewhere between the muscular, trigger-ready internationalism prevalent under Mr. Bush and, at times, President Barack Obama, and the “America First” isolationism of Mr. Trump.
“The world is changing,” Mr. Biden said on Tuesday, citing the challenges of China, Russia, cybersecurity and nuclear proliferation. America must lead, he added, but not always with military force. The withdrawal from Afghanistan signals the end of “an era of major military operations to remake other countries.”
Even so, even some European allies have expressed concern that the defeat of the United States-led coalition in Afghanistan will embolden terrorist groups and weaken American standing in the world.
Taliban leaders surveying the Kabul airport on Tuesday after taking control. In a poll, most Americans said the United States should wait to pull out until all Americans and Afghan allies, or at least all Americans, were evacuated.Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
Part of Mr. Biden’s political trouble in handling the Afghan withdrawal has been reconciling his own words with the reality on the ground. He was the one who vowed in April to conduct the withdrawal “responsibly, deliberately and safely” and added in July that it was “proceeding in a secure and orderly way.”
But on Tuesday, he suggested it was unrealistic to have expected that. “Now, some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner and, ‘Couldn’t this have been done in a more orderly manner?’” he said. “I respectfully disagree.”
“The bottom line,” he added, “is there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, threats we faced. None.”
Likewise, he was the one in July who said it was “highly unlikely” that the Taliban would take over the country and that there was “no circumstance” of an embarrassing, chaotic exit akin to the helicopters lifting off the embassy in Saigon in 1975.
And he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News after the Taliban took over Kabul that he would keep United States troops in Afghanistan beyond his self-imposed Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline if necessary to evacuate any Americans still on the ground. “If there are American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out,” he said then.
With 100 to 200 American citizens left in Afghanistan who wanted to leave, Mr. Biden made no effort on Tuesday to explain why he did not then extend the deadline as he said he would. But he suggested that most of those still there were dual citizens who “earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan,” only to later change their mind.
Instead, he pointed to the 5,500 Americans who were successfully evacuated. “The bottom line: Ninety percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” he said. (The White House later corrected him and said it was 98 percent.) “And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.”
Still, after a half-century in national politics, Mr. Biden knows better than most how quickly the news cycle moves on. His advisers and allies expect another round of tough criticism around the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with pictures showing the Taliban flag flying over Kabul.
Within days or weeks of that, though, they assume that attention will shift back again to the coronavirus pandemic, the president’s proposals for large public works projects and social welfare programs, and a dozen other issues that will absorb the public more than far-off Afghanistan.
6. The Two Blows America Is Dealing to the Taliban
More interesting analysis from David Frum (the father of the axis of evil terminology):
Offering refuge in the West to tens of thousands of Afghan allies is a dramatic humanitarian act. It’s a display of power, too—not only the organizational and economic power involved in moving so many people so fast and so far, but also the cultural and social power of the superior attractiveness of the modern world that so appalls the Taliban. Afghanistan needed the people now leaving. The systems that the Western alliance left behind in Afghanistan—computer networks, roads and railways, even the helicopters and munitions the Taliban has inherited from the Afghan armed forces—will rapidly break down without the people whom the Western alliance is removing.
The second blow may hurt the Taliban even more: the propaganda blow. When the Taliban first took power in Afghanistan, in the 1990s, Islamic militancy looked like a wave of the future. Islamic militants could reasonably believe that their war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan had wrecked one of the world’s two superpowers. Hezbollah terrorism had driven the United States out of Lebanon in 1983. New communication technologies were carrying radical preachings to Muslims all around the world, and many seemed to be absorbing and adopting those preachings. Al-Qaeda already existed, and would soon launch an even bloodier jihad against the United States.
The Two Blows America Is Dealing to the Taliban
The exit from Afghanistan may seem like a failure. But it can also be seen as a display of power.
Imagine how the scene at the Kabul airport looked to the suicide bomber in the last seconds before he committed his act of murder yesterday: thousands of men, women, and children queuing and jostling in desperate escape from the coming Taliban regime. These were not randomly selected men, women, and children either. These were people with technical skills: medicine, computers, electrical engineering. These were people who spoke foreign languages. These were people who could navigate the modern world and its complex demands. These were people who could do work that could fetch dollars and euros and yen and rupees from the world outside Afghanistan.
The people at the Kabul airport wanted no part of the Taliban’s future. They were risking their lives to flee that future. In the end, that flight cost them their lives, as well as those of U.S. Marines guarding and guiding them on their way out to new and freer lives.
This latest terrorist atrocity casts further gloom upon America’s already grim exit from its longest war. It will further embitter the already polarized American recriminations over that war’s end. It may also portend the next phase of violence inside Afghanistan, as different factions of Islamic militancy turn against one another.
But it also illuminates some other truths less likely to get American attention: The airlift out of Kabul feels humiliating to Americans. Yet at the same time, the airlift is dealing two powerful parting blows against the seemingly victorious Taliban.
Offering refuge in the West to tens of thousands of Afghan allies is a dramatic humanitarian act. It’s a display of power, too—not only the organizational and economic power involved in moving so many people so fast and so far, but also the cultural and social power of the superior attractiveness of the modern world that so appalls the Taliban. Afghanistan needed the people now leaving. The systems that the Western alliance left behind in Afghanistan—computer networks, roads and railways, even the helicopters and munitions the Taliban has inherited from the Afghan armed forces—will rapidly break down without the people whom the Western alliance is removing.
The second blow may hurt the Taliban even more: the propaganda blow. When the Taliban first took power in Afghanistan, in the 1990s, Islamic militancy looked like a wave of the future. Islamic militants could reasonably believe that their war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan had wrecked one of the world’s two superpowers. Hezbollah terrorism had driven the United States out of Lebanon in 1983. New communication technologies were carrying radical preachings to Muslims all around the world, and many seemed to be absorbing and adopting those preachings. Al-Qaeda already existed, and would soon launch an even bloodier jihad against the United States.
Thirty years later, things look rather different. Perhaps in repulsion from the atrocities of ISIS, perhaps in reaction against local Islamists, people in the Arab world are becoming measurably less religious. The concept that Islamic peoples could form some kind of unified global political community looks ever more hollow as China represses its Muslim minority with the acquiescence of the leaders of Pakistan, Turkey, and even the ISIS terror group. The global center of Islamic militancy has shifted from the Middle East to West Africa—powered in great part by the lengthening gaps of African Muslims behind their Christian neighbors in education and wealth—just as the Taliban’s sponsors in Pakistan fall progressively further behind the Indian state they regard as a civilizational enemy. Millions of young Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa and beyond yearn to emigrate to Europe or North America or other liberal democracies.
Almost two decades ago, President George W. Bush prophesied that someday the ideologies of Islamic terror would join Nazism and communism in “the unmarked grave of discarded lies.” That prophecy has not yet fully come to pass. But the people trying to board the planes in Kabul have rejected the lie, and the urgency in their faces tells their story. That was the story a suicide bomber tried to silence. The story reverberates more powerfully than ever in the bloody aftermath of this latest crime committed in the name of faith.
This story was originally published by The Atlantic. Sign up for their newsletter.
7. Opinion | The U.S. government left its own journalists behind in Afghanistan
Oh no.
Excertps:
Their initial optimism was rooted in what they claim were assurances that these U.S. government employees and contractors (RFE/FL is an independent grantee, whereas VOA is a U.S. government agency), would be taken care of. Administration officials deny that any explicit promises were made. On Aug. 23, the acting head of USAGM, Kelu Chao, wrote to President Biden, thanking him for the ongoing efforts of his national security team but warning him that the staff still had not managed to get into the airport. On Aug. 25, a group of 67 lawmakers wrote a private letter to Biden urging him to focus on the USAGM employees before it was too late.
Several senior administration officials repeatedly reassured RFE/FL not to worry, Fly told me, but even top level officials couldn’t overcome the utter dysfunction and lack of communication between Washington and Kabul. At one point, Fly was on the phone with senior military officials who were trying to admit the group, waiting just outside the gate, but the message simply never got to the soldiers standing at the gate, and the group returned home.
USAGM attempted several other bold gambits to get its people out. Two weeks ago, RFE/FL secured seats for its people on Czech airliners departing Kabul, but the people were turned away at the airport’s gates and the planes left without them. Last week, USAGM worked with the State Department to charter three planes and bring the people to Spain. But before the planes could land in Kabul, the Islamic State attacked the airport and the Pentagon canceled all further scheduled charters.
In the final days before the Aug. 31 deadline, the State Department told USAGM their people would be included among the last tranche of locally employed U.S. government staff, who had been given special priority at that time, Fly said. But as the deadline came and went, the USAGM employees simply never got the call to come to the airport.
Opinion | The U.S. government left its own journalists behind in Afghanistan
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Josh RoginColumnist Today at 6:04 p.m. EDT · August 31, 2021
Now that the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete, many stories of heroic efforts to save Americans and Afghan allies are pouring out, each describing one facet of the chaos and dysfunction that plagued the effort to evacuate all of those in Kabul who had placed their trust in the United States. Among the most tragic examples is the story of how the Biden administration left behind more than 100 government-sponsored journalists, plus their families, after putting them through three weeks of hell.
The administration was warned early and often about the 600 or so employees, contractors and family members who worked for U.S.-sponsored news organizations under the umbrella of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a federal agency funded by Congress. They include journalists working for the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio LIberty (RFE/RL) who have worked in Afghanistan for years — at great personal risk. The Taliban has killed four RFE/FL journalists since 2016 through suicide bomb attacks, and the company’s journalists routinely receive death threats from the extremists.
Now, the leaders of these organizations say the State Department promised to get their vulnerable people out of the country before the Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline, only to later renege on that promise amid the chaos and confusion at the Kabul airport. They describe a harrowing ordeal for these Afghans, who were repeatedly turned away by our own troops at the airport gates and whose personal information was handed over to the same Taliban fighters they are fleeing from.
“It is disheartening that so many professional journalists employed by American-funded news organizations have now been left behind, with their families,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who worked behind the scenes trying to help them, told me. “These Afghan allies are among the people most endangered at the present moment for the good work they have done over two decades. Urgent attention must now turn to finding the best way to get them to safety.”
On Sunday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN that all the groups the U.S. government prioritized for departure made it to the planes. But that’s simply not true, according to other officials and sources I’ve spoken with in the groups that scrambled to save their staffers over the last three weeks. Those organizations include the American University of Afghanistan, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Humane Society and several other civil society organizations that are now facing the worst-case scenario for their people.
The USAGM journalists and staffers had every connection a group of potential evacuees could wish for, and their expectations were correspondingly high. After all, the U.S. government had moved heaven and earth to get Afghan journalists from private U.S. news organizations to safety. Surely, they assumed, it wouldn’t abandon the reporters for whom it was directly responsible. But they were wrong.
The RFE/RL journalists and their families made several independent trips to the airport, often spending long days and nights waiting just outside the gates, but never managed to get inside, RFE/FL President Jamie Fly told me during an interview. And now, they are stranded.
“You would have expected that the United States government, which helped create the space for journalism and civil society in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, would have tried to do more over the last several weeks to assist journalists who made a decision that it was best for them to leave the country,” Fly said. “But they consistently failed to do that.”
Their initial optimism was rooted in what they claim were assurances that these U.S. government employees and contractors (RFE/FL is an independent grantee, whereas VOA is a U.S. government agency), would be taken care of. Administration officials deny that any explicit promises were made. On Aug. 23, the acting head of USAGM, Kelu Chao, wrote to President Biden, thanking him for the ongoing efforts of his national security team but warning him that the staff still had not managed to get into the airport. On Aug. 25, a group of 67 lawmakers wrote a private letter to Biden urging him to focus on the USAGM employees before it was too late.
Several senior administration officials repeatedly reassured RFE/FL not to worry, Fly told me, but even top level officials couldn’t overcome the utter dysfunction and lack of communication between Washington and Kabul. At one point, Fly was on the phone with senior military officials who were trying to admit the group, waiting just outside the gate, but the message simply never got to the soldiers standing at the gate, and the group returned home.
USAGM attempted several other bold gambits to get its people out. Two weeks ago, RFE/FL secured seats for its people on Czech airliners departing Kabul, but the people were turned away at the airport’s gates and the planes left without them. Last week, USAGM worked with the State Department to charter three planes and bring the people to Spain. But before the planes could land in Kabul, the Islamic State attacked the airport and the Pentagon canceled all further scheduled charters.
In the final days before the Aug. 31 deadline, the State Department told USAGM their people would be included among the last tranche of locally employed U.S. government staff, who had been given special priority at that time, Fly said. But as the deadline came and went, the USAGM employees simply never got the call to come to the airport.
A senior State Department official told me that the USAGM group “was until the very last moment the highest priority,” but the clock just ran out. The State Department was barely able to bring out its locally employed staff by the Aug. 31 deadline, the official said, adding that the high threat of another terrorist attack also hampered the evacuation in its final days.
“The State Department and Department of Defense worked around the clock to facilitate departure USAGM and RFE/RL via both military and charter aircraft,” the official said. “As the situation outside of [the Kabul airport] grew increasingly dangerous, we advised all seeking evacuation to shelter in place while we continued to develop departure options.”
U.S. government assurances now provide little comfort to those journalists and their families, who continue to report the story even as they wait for an indication of how the U.S. government intends to put those words into action.
“It’s incredibly frustrating. These are journalists who have spent their lives trying to provide news and information for the Afghan people and who have often come under assault for doing so,” Fly said. “The future scenario for journalism in Afghanistan is incredibly tenuous.”
A spokesperson for USAGM confirmed that their people were among the many on the ground who have not been evacuated, but declined to discuss numbers or specifics because of safety concerns.
“Our focus continues to be getting our people to safety,” the spokesperson said. “This is a life and death matter for many of our journalists and their families, and their safe passage remains our highest priority.”
Biden administration officials are touting the end of the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan as well as the U.S. military evacuation, which they say resulted in more than 120,000 people being rescued. To be sure, many lives were saved. But to call the mission a success is an insult that adds to the injury of the tens of thousands of Afghans who didn’t make it out and remain there now in fear for their lives.
The least the U.S. government can do is devise a plan to get these people to safety that does not depend on the good graces of the Taliban — which, according to reports, is already starting to take revenge on its opponents. It is a matter of U.S. honor and credibility, but also a matter of life or death.
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Josh RoginColumnist Today at 6:04 p.m. EDT · August 31, 2021
8. Oklahoma congressman threatened embassy staff as he tried to enter Afghanistan, US officials say
Is this a case of one upmanship among Congressmen? What is he thinking?
He would be a helluva prize for ISIS-K. We should be very concerned about his behavior (and his constituents should be really concerned).
Excerpts:
As of late Tuesday, U.S. officials said they were unsure of Mullin’s location. Mullin’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment before this story published. After it published, Meredith Blanford, a spokeswoman for Mullin, put out a statement saying that Mullin “has been and is currently completely safe” and that he and his office “will continue to do anything in our power to bring home all Americans from the war zone that President Biden abandoned.” The statement said the office had no further comment.
“To say this is extremely dangerous is a massive understatement,” said one State Department official, requesting anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation.
Oklahoma congressman threatened embassy staff as he tried to enter Afghanistan, US officials say
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) is shown in his official press photo. (Markwayne Mullin)
The call to the U.S. ambassador to Tajikistan came in Monday. On the line, two U.S. officials said, was Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., with an unusual and urgent request: He needed assistance in transporting a huge amount of cash into the country, saying he was going to neighboring Afghanistan to rescue five American citizens, a woman and her four children, stuck in the country. They planned to hire a helicopter for the effort.
Mullin told the embassy that he planned to fly from Tblisi, Georgia, into Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, in the next few hours and needed the top diplomat’s help, according to the two U.S. officials familiar with the incident, who requested anonymity to disclose private conversations about a sensitive matter.
The answer was no. Embassy officials told Mullin they could not assist him in skirting Tajikistan’s laws on cash limits on his way to visiting one of the most dangerous places on earth.
Mullin was outraged by the response, the officials said — threatening U.S. ambassador John Mark Pommersheim and embassy staff and demanding to know the name of staff members he was speaking with.
The episode marked Mullin’s second attempt to travel to Afghanistan in as many weeks for an unauthorized evacuation effort despite the perilous security environment. Last week, Mullin traveled to Greece and asked the Department of Defense for permission to visit Kabul. The Pentagon denied Mullin’s request, an administration official said.
As of late Tuesday, U.S. officials said they were unsure of Mullin’s location. Mullin’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment before this story published. After it published, Meredith Blanford, a spokeswoman for Mullin, put out a statement saying that Mullin “has been and is currently completely safe” and that he and his office “will continue to do anything in our power to bring home all Americans from the war zone that President Biden abandoned.” The statement said the office had no further comment.
“To say this is extremely dangerous is a massive understatement,” said one State Department official, requesting anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation.
The remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan left on Monday, bringing an end to America’s longest war. The U.S. military helped evacuate more than 120,000 people, including U.S. citizens, allies and at-risk Afghans. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said Monday that fewer than 200 American citizens remain in Afghanistan. The department suspended embassy operations and relocated its mission to Qatar, where diplomats are trying to find ways for the remaining Americans and at-risk Afghans in the country to leave.
The State Department reissued a level 4 travel advisory for the country on Monday urging Americans not to travel there “due to civil unrest, armed conflict, crime, terrorism, kidnapping, and COVID-19.”
The State Department declined to comment on Mullin’s travel or interactions with the embassy. The White House declined to comment on Mullin but referred to press secretary Jen Psaki’s comments from last week urging Americans not to travel to Afghanistan.
Mullin, 44, grew up in Stilwell, Okla., where he was a standout wrestler and earned a scholarship to Missouri Valley College. Injuries derailed his athletic career, and at the age of 20, he took over his father’s plumbing business. He was also briefly a professional mixed martial arts fighter, and after being elected to Congress in 2012, he became known on the Hill for leading intense workout classes. A member of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Mullin voted against the certification of the 2020 election results.
Unlike Moulton and Meijer, Mullin did not serve in the U.S. military. He has been an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s exit from Afghanistan.
“This is a sad day for our country,” Mullin said in a statement Monday night. “Americans have been stranded in Afghanistan by the Biden administration and are now left to defend themselves from terrorists overrunning the country. One motto of our military is ‘leave no man behind.’ But today, that’s exactly what President Biden did.”
Mullin’s repeated attempts to enter Afghanistan follow multiple efforts by the Biden administration to dissuade members of Congress from traveling to the country after Moulton and Meijer’s unauthorized trip last week. The two members, who arranged for their own transportation into the country, said they wanted to provide oversight on the evacuation efforts at the airport. They eventually left on a flight used for evacuating Americans and Afghans.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has issued several warnings against lawmakers trying to travel there.
“We don’t want anybody to think that this was a good idea and that they should try to follow suit,” she said last week.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., concurred: “I don’t think it’s smart for others to go,” he said last week. “You’re putting yourself — not just yourself, but you’re putting Americans — in harm’s way, if the military has to protect you, which they will do.”
On Tuesday, McCarthy went silent and walked away after being asked if he had spoken to Mullin or if he knew where the Oklahoman was.
The Washington Post’s Paul Kane contributed to this report.
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9. Opinion | Joe Biden’s Critics Lost Afghanistan
Excerpts:
Again, Biden deserves plenty of criticism. But like the Trump administration in its wiser moments, he is trying to disentangle America from a set of failed policies that many of his loudest critics long supported.
Our botched withdrawal is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.
Small wonder, then, that making Biden the singular scapegoat seems like a more attractive path. But if the only aspect of this catastrophe that our leaders remember is what went wrong in August 2021, then we’ll have learned nothing except to always double down on failure, and the next disaster will be worse.
Opinion | Joe Biden’s Critics Lost Afghanistan
Ross Douthat
Joe Biden’s Critics Lost Afghanistan
Aug. 31, 2021
Credit...Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
By
Opinion Columnist
A month ago I thought I was a cynic about our 20-year war in Afghanistan. Today, after watching our stumbling withdrawal and the swift collapse of practically everything we fought for, my main feeling is that I wasn’t cynical enough.
My cynicism consisted of the belief that the American effort to forge a decent Afghan political settlement failed definitively during Barack Obama’s first term in office, when a surge of U.S. forces blunted but did not reverse the Taliban’s recovery. This failure was then buried under a Vietnam-esque blizzard of official deceptions and bureaucratic lies, which covered over a shift in American priorities from the pursuit of victory to the management of stalemate, with the American presence insulated from casualties in the hopes that it could be sustained indefinitely.
Under this strategic vision — to use the word “strategic” generously — there would be no prospect of victory, no end to corruption among our allies and collateral damage from our airstrikes, no clear reason to be in Afghanistan, as opposed to any other failing state or potential terror haven, except for the sunk cost that we were there already. But if American casualty rates stayed low enough, the public would accept it, the Pentagon budget would pay for it, and nobody would have to preside over anything so humiliating as defeat.
In one way, my cynicism went too far. I guessed that the military and the national-security bureaucracy would be able to frustrate the desire of every incoming U.S. president to declare an endless-seeming conflict over, and I was wrong. Something like that happened with Obama and Donald Trump in their first years in office, but it didn’t happen with Joe Biden. He promised withdrawal, and — however shambolically — we have now actually withdrawn.
But in every other way the withdrawal has made the case for an even deeper cynicism — about America’s capacities as a superpower, our mission in Afghanistan and the class of generals, officials, experts and politicos who sustained its generational extension.
First, the withdrawal’s shambolic quality, culminating in yesterday’s acknowledgment that 100 to 200 Americans had not made the final flights from Kabul, displayed an incompetence in departing a country that matched our impotence at pacifying it. There were aspects of the chaos that were probably inevitable, but the Biden White House was clearly caught flat-footed by the speed of the Taliban advance, with key personnel disappearing on vacation just before the Kabul government dissolved. And the president himself has appeared exhausted, aged, overmatched — making basic promises about getting every American safely home and then seeing them overtaken by events.
At the same time, the circumstances under which the Biden withdrawal had to happen doubled as a devastating indictment of the policies pursued by his three predecessors, which together cost roughly $2,000,000,000,000 (it’s worth writing out all those zeros) and managed to build nothing in the political or military spheres that could survive for even a season without further American cash and military supervision.
Only recently the view that without U.S. troops, the American-backed government in Kabul would be doomed to the same fate as the Soviet-backed government some 30 years ago seemed like hardheaded realism. Now such “realism” has been proven to be wildly overoptimistic. Without Soviet troops, the Moscow-backed government actually held out for several years before the mujahideen reached Kabul. Whereas our $2,000,000,000,000 built a regime that fell to the Taliban before American troops could even finish their retreat.
Before this summer, in other words, it was possible to read all the grim inspector general reports and document dumps on Afghanistan, count yourself a cynic about the war effort and still imagine that America got something for all that spending, no matter how much was spent on Potemkin installations or siphoned off by pederast warlords or recirculated to Northern Virginia contractors.
Now, though, we know that in terms of actual staying power, all our nation-building efforts couldn’t even match what the Soviet Union managed in its dotage.
Yet that knowledge has not prevented a revival of the spirit that led us to this sorry pass. I don’t mean the straightforward criticisms of the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal. I mean the way that in both the media coverage and the political reaction, reasonable tactical critiques have often been woven together with anti-withdrawal arguments that are self-deceiving, dubious or risible.
The argument, for instance, that the situation in Afghanistan was reasonably stable and the war’s death toll negligible before the Trump administration started moving toward withdrawal: In fact, only U.S. casualties were low, while Afghan military and civilian casualties were nearing 15,000 annually, and the Taliban were clearly gaining ground — suggesting that we would have needed periodic surges of U.S. forces, and periodic spikes in U.S. deaths, to prevent a slow-motion version of what’s happened quickly as we’ve left.
Or the argument that an indefinite occupation was morally necessary to nurture the shoots of Afghan liberalism: If after 20 years of effort and $2,000,000,000,000, the theocratic alternative to liberalism actually takes over a country faster than in its initial conquest, that’s a sign that our moral achievements were outweighed by the moral costs of corruption, incompetence and drone campaigns.
Or the argument that a permanent mission in Afghanistan could come to resemble in some way our long-term presence in Germany or South Korea — a delusional historical analogy before the collapse of the Kabul government and a completely ludicrous one now.
All these arguments are connected to a set of moods that flourished after 9/11: a mix of cable-news-encouraged overconfidence in American military capacities, naïve World War II nostalgia and crusading humanitarianism in its liberal and neoconservative forms. Like most Americans, I shared in those moods once; after so many years of failure, I cannot imagine indulging in them now. But it’s clear from the past few weeks that they retain an intense subterranean appeal in the American elite, waiting only for the right circumstances to resurface.
Thus you have generals and grand strategists who presided over quagmire, folly and defeat fanning out across the television networks and opinion pages to champion another 20 years in Afghanistan. You have the return of the media’s liberal hawks and centrist Pentagon stenographers, unchastened by their own credulous contributions to the retreat of American power over the past 20 years. And you have Republicans who postured as cold-eyed realists in the Trump presidency suddenly turning back into eager crusaders, excited to own the Biden Democrats and relive the brief post-9/11 period when the mainstream media treated their party with deference rather than contempt.
Again, Biden deserves plenty of criticism. But like the Trump administration in its wiser moments, he is trying to disentangle America from a set of failed policies that many of his loudest critics long supported.
Our botched withdrawal is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.
Small wonder, then, that making Biden the singular scapegoat seems like a more attractive path. But if the only aspect of this catastrophe that our leaders remember is what went wrong in August 2021, then we’ll have learned nothing except to always double down on failure, and the next disaster will be worse.
10. The Story Of The Mysterious White 727 That Appeared In Kabul After The Bombing Of Abbey Gate
There are many fascinating stories that will come out of this evacuation.
The Story Of The Mysterious White 727 That Appeared In Kabul After The Bombing Of Abbey Gate
Safe Air
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The evacuation of Kabul is like none other in history. With open-source intelligence tools abound, including daily satellite images, flight tracking, and even a live camera feed overwatching Hamid Karzai International Airport, the average person can keep tabs on this historic event and unprecedented multi-national military operation in their own homes. In the panopticon that is today's internet age, peculiarities stand out. One such surprise was seeing a gleaming-white, but quite geriatric 727-200 appear on Kabul's ragged skyline, landing at the under siege airport amongst the constant flow of C-17s, A400Ms, C-130s, a few modern airliners, and other usual suspects.
While all-white airframes aren't supposed to attract much attention, that paint scheme is also synonymous with clandestine operations, including "whitewashed" aircraft often used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) for low-profile operations abroad. With that reality in mind, keen observers keeping an eye on traffic at Hamid Karzai International rightfully started thinking this may be some CIA asset that was slipping in on a unique mission. It turns out, that wasn't necessarily the case. Thanks to a wonderful story by Erika Gibson of South Africa's Mail and Guardian, we learned the backstory on this most interesting of participants in the tumultuous aerial evacuation of Afghanistan.
Twitter Video Screencap/Reuters
The 727, which belongs to a firm called Safe Air Company, takes off from Kabul.
It turns out that Niel Steyl, the Captain of a four-decade-old 727-200 that flies for Safe Air Company, an airline and charter outfit based in Kenya, answered an emergency call from the U.S. State Department for immediate airlift assistance after a complex terrorist attack, which started with a suicide bombing, killed 13 U.S. troops, as well as at least 170 Afghans, on August 26th.
At the time, Steyl, his crew, and their 727, which carries the Kenyan registration number 5Y-IRE and is aptly nicknamed Irene, were forward based out of neighboring Kulob, Tajikistan. In the past, they had supported what was a relatively steady drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan before the final dangerous push out of Kabul, which fell to the Taliban on August 15th.
Steyl told the Mail and Guardian:
“We received a desperate call from the US state department’s officials in Kabul after the suicide bombing attack on Thursday night asking whether we would be willing to assist with mercy flights... The urgency became critical to evacuate a group of Afghan special forces and their families. They have been assisting the US forces in the country for many years. As such, they would certainly have been killed by the Taliban as they are seen as traitors"
Their cargo for the dangerous sortie would be hundreds of ex-Afghan special operations forces that were being lodged in a warehouse within the confines of the airport. These troops had worked with the Americans for years and they would be top Taliban targets, but finding room on military airlifters leaving the country became a huge challenge. Hence the mercy flights by Irene.
It only took just 40 minutes to load up 308 people onto the cargo-configured 727, which would normally carry between a half and a third of that load during the type's career as an airliner.
Steyl recounted the following about the flight to the Mail and Guardian:
“We expected a haggard group but were pleasantly surprised by the well-spoken and neatly dressed group – despite them being holed up in a warehouse under trying conditions for a week. It was humbling to experience the sheer relief and appreciation from their side that we came in time to save them.”
Here's a video of Irene in action, albeit on a far less volatile mission:
Because the soldiers and their families could not fit on a single 727 flight, another trip would be needed.
On the second trip, they had to stop all movement on the ground at Kabul and could not load and depart quickly because U.S. forces were executing a departure ceremony for the 13 Americans who died during the bombing at Abbey Gate. Once cleared to load and leave, the second flight saw 329 souls packed aboard the old 727. All of the refugees were taken back to Tajikistan where they would wait in a tent community until a further airlift arranged by the U.S. government could move them on to other locations once the evacuation of Kabul was complete. The passengers didn't even know where they were when they landed, they were just happy to be out of Afghanistan and away from the Taliban.
While Safe Air and Irene's crew are no strangers to flying into dangerous areas in Africa, basically saving hundreds of people, entire families, from the clutches of the Taliban certainly must have been very rewarding. Still, an old 727 loaded with over three hundred people, while not having the millions of dollars worth of defensive capabilities that their military airlifter counterparts have, and flying into what is basically a war zone under extreme terrorist threat in the middle of the day, takes guts.
Irene and her crew are one of many groups of heroes that risked life and limb for others during this tragic endcap to the two-decades-long war in Afghanistan. Once the last American boots leave Kabul and the dust settles, we know that there will be many other incredible stories to tell. But this one, about the little old 727 that could, is definitely worth spreading.
You can check out Erika Gibson's Mail and Guardian piece on Irene's missions into Kabul, which includes more details and some great photos, here.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com
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11. Secret Gate Used By Special Operators To Sneak Evacuees Into Kabul's Airport
If accurate I am sure someone will criticize this effort and ask why more people could not have used it? Of course the answer is it would have been quickly compromised and then no one would have been able to get out (or in) through this gate(s).
Conclusion:
Regardless, these reports of secret gates operated by American special operators, the use of coded signals, and deals with the Taliban, only add to the still growing and oftentimes bizarre-sounding story of the final days of America's nearly two-decade-long military presence in Afghanistan. We can only expect more stories of ingenuity, heroism and unusual agreements of convenience to emerge as time goes on.
Secret Gate Used By Special Operators To Sneak Evacuees Into Kabul's Airport
A report from CNN today says that the U.S. military made an agreement with the Taliban that saw the latter group escort American citizens safely into Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan's capital Kabul at various times in the past two weeks. During these runs, the Americans would enter the airport through a "secret gate" in the perimeter managed by U.S. special operations forces personnel.
CENTCOM
A US Marine helps lift an Afghan into Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021.
"The officials said Americans were notified to gather at pre-set 'muster points' close to the airport where the Taliban would check their credentials and take them a short distance to a gate manned by American forces who were standing by to let them inside amid huge crowds of Afghans seeking to flee," according to CNN. "One of the key muster points was a Ministry of Interior building just outside the airport's gates where nearby US forces were readily able to observe the Americans approach."
"US special operations forces set up a 'secret gate' at the airport and established 'call centers' to guide Americans through the evacuation process," the piece adds. "Americans were notified by various messages about where to gather."
This secret gate allowed Americans to avoid the more widely known official gates into Hamid Karzai International Airport, which were constantly jam-packed with thousands of Afghans hoping to secure entry and presented significant security risks. Last Thursday, terrorists from Afghanistan's branch of ISIS launched a deadly attack outside one of the formal gates, known as Abbey Gate, which killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans, and wounded many more.
"It worked, it worked beautifully," a U.S. government official told CNN of the secret gate and the arrangement with the Taliban that serviced it.
CNN's story does not say when the Taliban began escorting Americans to the airport or how many total U.S. citizens were brought there in this way. It does say that at certain points the Taliban were moving groups of people "several times a day."
U.S. Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), had alluded to all of this in his remarks yesterday where he announced the end of America's military presence in Afghanistan after nearly two decades. He had also highlighted the Taliban's contributions to the evacuation operations multiple times, often talking about his former enemies in unusually positive ways. However, he had indicated that the U.S. special operations-led effort had also brought in non-Americans, as well.
"Additionally, U.S. Special Operations Forces reached out to help break in – bring in more than 1,064 American citizens and 2017 SIVs [individuals eligible for Special Immigrant Visas], or Afghans at risk, and 127 third-country nationals, all via phone calls, vectors and escorting," the CENTCOM boss had said. "They [the Taliban] were actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations."
CENTCOM
A US Marine pulls an Afghan into the perimeter of Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021.
There are also multiple reports that indicate that this U.S. special operations forces effort may have at least interfaced to some degree with a number of ad hoc groups, as well as individuals, working to get at-risk Afghans safely inside the airport. Active and retired U.S. service members inside Afghanistan and in the United States, as well as a host of others, have reportedly been involved in these activities. These rescue missions were largely coordinated using secure message boards and chat programs, as well as other online tools, in what became dubbed a "Digital Dunkirk." This is a reference to the famous U.K. government-led evacuation in 1940 of elements of the British Expeditionary Force from France during World War II.
Last week, in an episode of the Zero Blog Thirty podcast, which you can listen to in full here, U.S. Marine Corps Major Thomas Schueman shared his own story of how he helped an interpreter he had worked with in Afghanistan get to the airport. That interpreter and his wife and four children, all under the age of five, who are seen in the picture in the Tweet below, are now safely out of the country. However, he is still only referred to as Zak to protect his immediate family, as well as other family members and individuals connected to him that are still in Afghanistan.
Schueman specifically mentioned the use of a "secret gate," where Zak would have been challenged to say a coded phrase, like something one would expect to see in a spy thriller, as one option that was considered. It's not clear if this is the same gate mentioned in the CNN report or if there were multiple such passageways in operation over the course of the evacuations. Ultimately, the Marine officer was able to coordinate directly with U.S. military personnel at the airport who plucked Zak and his family out of a crowd right next to a Taliban checkpoint and pulled them inside.
Earlier this week, a report also came out about a group called Task Force Pineapple that had spirited hundreds of Afghans into the airport, including as many as 500 as part of a single push dubbed Operation Pineapple Express. That effort was going on right up until last week's terrorist attack. Though that story does not specifically mention the use of secret gates, it does describe the employment of specially-designated individuals who would challenge evacuees to say coded phrases or present some other form of password to get into the airport, such as a picture of a pineapple on their phones.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
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12. China cuts amount of time minors can spend on online games
Rebellion among the youth could be very dangerous. Is this an inflection point? (it will likely take a few years to see the effects)
China cuts amount of time minors can spend on online games
By REUTERS Reuters2 min
People play online games at an internet cafe in Fuyang, Anhui province, China August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer
SHANGHAI, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Chinese regulators on Monday slashed the amount of time players under the age of 18 can spend on online games to an hour of gameplay on Fridays, weekends and holidays, in response to growing concern over gaming addiction, state media reported.
The rules, published by the National Press and Publication Administration, said users under the age of 18 will only be able to play games from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time on those days, according to the Xinhua news agency.
Online gaming companies will be barred from providing gaming services to them in any form outside those hours and need to ensure they have put real name verification systems in place, said the regulator, which oversees the country's video games market.
Previously, China limited the total length of time minors could access online games to three hours on holiday or 1.5 hours on other days.
The new rules come amid a broad crackdown by Beijing on China's tech giants, such as Alibaba Group (9988.HK) and Tencent Holdings (0700.HK), which has unnerved investors, hammering Chinese shares traded at home and abroad. read more
The National Press and Publication Administration also told Xinhua it would increase the frequency and intensity of inspections for online gaming companies to ensure they were putting in place time limits and anti-addiction systems.
Reporting by Brenda Goh Editing by Alison Williams and Mark Potter
13. Explaining the globalist dimensions of Chinese nationalism
Excerpts:
Along with the BRI, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is seen as a gradual modification of Asian financial order. Whether the AIIB can set up a Chinese model for regional or global finance remains an unanswered question. Studies show that the AIIB, together with China’s national development banks, has provided significant complementary finance to areas that have not previously been covered by multinational development banks. The global assets of China’s national development banks have also grown larger than the total global assets of all other development banks in the rest of the world combined.
The launch of the BRI in 2013 was driven by Chinese elites’ dissatisfaction and unmet leadership aspirations under existing international arrangements. The BRI is widely considered a long-term strategy for China to reclaim its global influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping asserts that the BRI will eventually lead to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Meanwhile, the ‘Action Plan on the Belt and Road Initiative’ confirms that, with its unprecedented size and influence, the BRI intends to deepen China’s opening-up and lay the ground for new models of international cooperation and global governance. In this sense, China’s recent global strategies are the expressions of Chinese leaders’ nationalist aspirations to restore the country’s place at the centre of the world.
Explaining the globalist dimensions of Chinese nationalism
Author: Zeying Wu, Boston University
Some scholars have argued that China’s economic opening-up was a result of Chinese leaders’ acceptance of neoliberalism. But unlike neoliberal economists who consider economic openness as a goal itself, Chinese leaders treated economic openness as a strategic means to achieve domestic goals.
It was when the domestic market experienced sluggish demand in the mid-1990s that then-president Jiang Zemin launched the ‘going out strategy’. The strategy encouraged competitive Chinese industries and enterprises to capture a greater share of the global market and to gain access to global capital, technology and know-how.
Before globalisation became a popular narrative in China, at the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1993, Jiang had already mentioned the strategic principle of fully utilising the ‘two resources and two markets.’ This principle stressed Chinese enterprises’ penetration into foreign markets and utilisation of foreign resources on the one hand, and relative protection for domestic market and resources on the other. It became the core of the ‘going out strategy.’ That Jiang’s concerns for domestic needs came prior to the arrival of the globalisation narrative in China suggests that he was instrumental to China’s further opening.
China’s pragmatic opening-up has also been reflected in its protectionist measures against foreign business and its selective openness in sectors where China has more to gain from being open. Until the early 2000s, China’s economy was still regarded as a non-market performer that many international organisations refused to embrace. The difficult path China took to join the World Trade Organization and its ongoing trade disputes with other countries are evidence of China’s selective and strategic openness.
China’s selective opening may lead to suspicion regarding the influence of economic liberalism on Chinese leaders. Yet, Chinese leaders’ enthusiastic pursuit of a global China is as real as that of leaders in liberal economies. Like other economic superpowers in modern history — the United States after the Second World War and Japan in the 1970s–80s — China has become an active champion of economic cooperation and free trade. Chinese leaders have become ‘global nationalists’ who imagine the Chinese nation in a global context and aspire to claim China’s leadership at least in the economic sphere, if not in others too. Chinese leaders are true believers in nationalism rather than neoliberalism.
As economic nationalists who aspire to achieve supremacy through economic development, Chinese reformist leaders view globalisation as a battlefield where economic competition determines which countries will be richer and stronger. They link China’s greatness to participation in intensifying global economic competitions. So far, China’s winnings from global competition — ranging from GDP growth to technological innovation — have tremendously boosted national pride and confidence among the Chinese public, and fostered even greater trust in the CCP.
Certainly, participation in globalisation has not always benefitted China. It has often led to economic crises at home. The reason Chinese reformist leaders are still enthusiastic about economic globalisation, according to Min Ye, is that Chinese state leaders find globalisation to be an effective solution to various recurrent domestic economic and political problems. In particular, the nationalist narratives used by the central government to mobilise different sectors and players to participate in their proposed global strategies are effective in solidifying the central government’s authority under China’s fragmented political system.
At different moments of crisis, Chinese reformist leaders have successively launched global strategies, such as the most recent Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In contrast to previous global strategies like the ‘going out strategy’, the BRI appears to be more proactive, intending to provide alternatives to the existing international system.
Along with the BRI, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is seen as a gradual modification of Asian financial order. Whether the AIIB can set up a Chinese model for regional or global finance remains an unanswered question. Studies show that the AIIB, together with China’s national development banks, has provided significant complementary finance to areas that have not previously been covered by multinational development banks. The global assets of China’s national development banks have also grown larger than the total global assets of all other development banks in the rest of the world combined.
The launch of the BRI in 2013 was driven by Chinese elites’ dissatisfaction and unmet leadership aspirations under existing international arrangements. The BRI is widely considered a long-term strategy for China to reclaim its global influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping asserts that the BRI will eventually lead to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Meanwhile, the ‘Action Plan on the Belt and Road Initiative’ confirms that, with its unprecedented size and influence, the BRI intends to deepen China’s opening-up and lay the ground for new models of international cooperation and global governance. In this sense, China’s recent global strategies are the expressions of Chinese leaders’ nationalist aspirations to restore the country’s place at the centre of the world.
Zeying Wu is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Boston University.
14. Taliban members escorted Americans to gates at Kabul airport in secret arrangement with US
This should not be a surprise. We had to use multiple lines of effort to get our people out if the priority was to get our people out.
Taliban members escorted Americans to gates at Kabul airport in secret arrangement with US
CNN · by Barbara Starr and Brianna Keilar, CNN
(CNN)The US military negotiated a secret arrangement with the Taliban that resulted in members of the militant group escorting clusters of Americans to the gates of the Kabul airport as they sought to escape Afghanistan, two defense officials told CNN.
One of the officials also revealed that US special operations forces set up a "secret gate" at the airport and established "call centers" to guide Americans through the evacuation process.
While one of the military officials said the arrangement with the Taliban "worked beautifully," Americans involved in an unofficial network dedicated to helping Americans and vulnerable Afghans said there were problems -- particularly in the beginning -- as the Taliban turned away US citizens and legal permanent residents the militant group was supposed to allow through.
The two US defense officials said Americans were notified to gather at pre-set "muster points" close to the airport where the Taliban would check their credentials and take them a short distance to a gate manned by American forces who were standing by to let them inside amid huge crowds of Afghans seeking to flee.
The US troops were able to see the Americans approach with their Taliban escorts as they progressed through the crowds, presumably ready to intervene in case anything happened.
Read More
Multiple sources in the US who were in contact with people trying to escape reported that American citizens and passport holders in Kabul were in disbelief that they were being told they would receive safe passage from the Taliban. Many thought they were misunderstanding the directions and sought clarification.
The stateside sources said they had to assure those attempting to use a muster point at the Ministry of Interior Affairs that the Taliban would indeed allow them through.
The two US defense officials spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the arrangements, which have not been disclosed until now because the US was concerned about Taliban reaction to any publicity, as well as the threat of attacks from ISIS-K if its operatives had realized Americans were being escorted in groups, the officials said.
The ISIS offshoot, a sworn enemy of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack at a gate to the Kabul airport last week that killed 13 American service members and more than 170 Afghans.
The US has had military and diplomatic contact with the Taliban for years through political talks and deconfliction efforts, but the secret evacuation arrangement between the militant group and the US military reflects an unprecedented level of tactical coordination. While it's not known whether there is any connection, CIA Director William Burns paid a highly unusual visit last week to Kabul, where he met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar as the Biden administration struggled to get airlift operations running smoothly.
Throughout the evacuation, Biden administration officials stressed that the Taliban were cooperating and senior officials repeatedly emphasized that the militant group had committed to provide "safe passage" for Americans.
The Taliban escort missions happened "several times a day," according to one of the officials. One of the key muster points was a Ministry of Interior building just outside the airport's gates where nearby US forces were readily able to observe the Americans approach. Americans were notified by various messages about where to gather.
"It worked, it worked beautifully," one official said of the arrangement.
But Americans who created an unofficial network to help Afghans and Americans find a route out of Afghanistan heard differently from the vulnerable men, women and families they were trying to guide to safety.
In some instances, Americans and green card holders were turned away at the Interior Ministry muster point during the course of evacuations, according to people in the network who were in touch with several Afghans attempting passage through the secret route.
In one instance, the network described failed escape attempts where several US citizens and legal permanent residents, or green card holders, were denied access by the Taliban at the Interior Ministry rendezvous point.
It's unknown how broadly the Taliban's refusal to admit some people with passports or green cards into the Interior Ministry muster point affected US efforts to evacuate those people as they tried to escape Kabul.
US forces and officials were not present at the muster point and CNN is relying on reports from American officials off site, from people who attempted passage and their stateside contacts, including family members, former military and intelligence officials and others who lent support to Afghan Americans and Afghans attempting escape.
It's also unclear if Americans and green card holders who got turned away at the Interior Ministry eventually made it to the airport during subsequent attempts at passage through the ministry or through another route to the airport.
At least one American citizen turned away at the muster point had to secure an alternative way to enter the airport for himself and his family, which included children, according to one network of Americans supporting other Americans and Afghans trying to escape.
Another family of six green card holders, including small children, was turned away at the muster point but was able to gain entry at the Interior Ministry muster point another night. Their family member in the US reported that once they arrived at the airport, they lined up in an organized fashion to show their documents and were processed in an orderly manner.
That family flew from Kabul to a US base overseas in a flight facilitated by the US military and are awaiting return to the United States.
Initially, the process for getting people evacuated through the Interior Ministry muster point was bumpy, according to one network of US-based Americans who were communicating with a green card holder in Kabul who exited via the rendezvous point early on.
That American resident, along with family members, including at least one US citizen, waited for several hours with the Taliban at the muster point along with more than 20 other families.
There was confusion that night, one of the first nights the Interior Ministry was used, as armed Taliban took possession of American passports, green cards and cell phones, and the group of more than 100 Americans and passport holders and their family members huddled in the cold for several hours at the muster point, according to multiple members of the network who were assisting in the situation. Eventually the documents were returned and the group made its way to the airport.
The process became smoother as coordination between the US and Taliban played out over many nights, people in the unofficial network said.
As of Monday, when the US completed its withdrawal, more than 122,000 people in total had been airlifted from Hamid Karzai International Airport since July and more than 6,000 Americans civilians evacuated.
In another separate secret arrangement not disclosed until the operation was over, troops from the elite Joint Special Operations Command and other special operations units were also on the ground helping Americans escape by contacting them through "call centers," one of the officials said.
Special operations forces set up their own secret gate at the airport and were at times in direct communication with Americans telling them exactly where to walk to find the gate and be able to get inside the airport.
The secret gate allowed the US military to offer some protection to Americans by avoiding the publicly known and highly vulnerable gates to Afghanistan's only airstrip for international flights.
As the evacuation got underway, thousands thronged to the airport gates hoping to get inside and onto flights, raising concerns about a terrorist attack focused on one of those entrances.
On Sunday, August 22, as he confirmed his decision not to extend the evacuation deadline beyond August 31, President Joe Biden acknowledged the growing threat ISIS-K posed to the airport.
'Threats outside the gates'
"Every day we're on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both US and allied forces and innocent civilians," Biden said.
Last Wednesday, a US defense official told CNN that based on a very specific threat stream, it seemed clear that ISIS-K planned to attack crowds outside the airport. The US Embassy in Kabul warned US citizens at airport gates to "leave immediately" and noted "security threats outside the gates."
On Thursday, the ISIS offshoot struck with its suicide bomber.
Commander of US Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie first publicly revealed the involvement of special operations forces at a Monday press conference saying those forces helped evacuate more than 1,000 American citizens and more than 2,000 Afghans "via phone calls, vectors, and escorting."
Special operations forces "reached out to help bring in more than 1,064 American citizens and 2,017 SIVs or Afghans at risk, and 127 third-country nationals all via phone calls, vectors, and escorting," he said. But in public comments, McKenzie did not specify the involvement of JSOC which includes forces that carry out the most dangerous counterterrorism missions such as the Army's Delta Force and Navy SEALS.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN · by Barbara Starr and Brianna Keilar, CNN
15. Taliban offered US chance to secure Kabul after Ghani fled country
I will take this one with a grain of salt. If it is true that such an offer was made I would suspect a trap - We had already withdrawn and we would have had to insert a security force which likely would not have been sufficient in size. The Taliban may have wanted to orchestrate a last fight that would drive us out once and for all. Or try to orchestrate a formal "turnover" ceremony (which would be propagandized as a surrender ceremony).
Taliban offered US chance to secure Kabul after Ghani fled country
Biden TURNED DOWN Taliban offer to let America secure all of Kabul after President Ashraf Ghani fled country, report claims
- The Taliban offered the US a chance to take charge of Kabul during evacuations but Gen. McKenzie turned them down according to a bombshell report
- The Taliban, along with the US, were left in shock when President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and weren't expecting to take over the city that day
- 'We were so happy. Most of our fighters were crying,' a Taliban commander said of when his troops took control of the city streets
PUBLISHED: 10:52 EDT, 31 August 2021 | UPDATED: 13:40 EDT, 31 August 2021
Daily Mail · by Morgan Phillips, Politics Reporter For Dailymail.Com · August 31, 2021
The Biden administration refused an offer by the Taliban's co-founder to take control of the security across all of Kabul before the chaotic evacuation because the president was determined to keep his promise to pull US troops out, according to a report.
Senior US military officials including Gen. Kenneth McKenzie hastily met face-to-face with Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban's military wing, who made the US a weighty offer, as reported by
'We have a problem,' Baradar said, according to a US official. 'We have two options to deal with it: You [the United States military] take responsibility for securing Kabul or you have to allow us to do it.'
But Biden was determined to keep his promise of a full withdrawal, even with the collapse of the Afghan government. So, McKenzie and other military officials said the US only needed control of the airport until Aug. 31 and the Taliban could secure the city.
If the Biden administration had taken control of the whole city, they could have evacuated thousands more Afghan allies and avoided Taliban roadblocks that stopped people getting to the airport.
The fleeing of President Ashraf Ghani left both the US and the Taliban in shock, as they had reportedly been in talks for an orderly transition of power from Ghani to the Islamist group.
Ghani had reportedly received faulty intelligence that Taliban fighters were going room to room in the presidential palace looking for him. In reality, the Taliban had said it was encroaching on Kabul but would honor the peaceful transfer agreement.
With Ghani's departure, chaos broke out in the streets of Kabul. The Taliban had never planned to take control of Kabul on Aug. 15, according to the report, but did so to establish order.
The Taliban offered President Biden a chance for the situation in Afghanistan to play out entirely differently, telling the US it could either take control of security in Kabul or allow them to do so
'The government has left all of their ministries; you have to enter the city to prevent further disorder and protect public property and services from chaos,' read a message to Taliban commander Muhammad Nasir Haqqani.
'We couldn't control our emotions, we were so happy. Most of our fighters were crying,' Haqqani said of when his soldiers overtook the streets. 'We never thought we would take Kabul so quickly.'
At the same time, the Taliban freed between 5,000 and 7,000 of its most hardened fighters imprisoned at Bagram Air Base on Aug. 15. The prison, Pul-e-Charkhi, contained a maximum security cell block for al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.
Afghan government troops surrendered control of the base without a fight after the US handed it over to them in July.
Asked at a briefing Monday if it was true that the Taliban had offered US control of Kabul, White House press secretary Jen Psaki replied: 'I have not seen this reporting.'
DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment on the report.
But White House chief of staff Ron Klain seemed to hint at its accuracy. He like a tweet along with an opinion piece from Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall arguing: 'No. We were right not to take over security in Kabul when the Taliban asked if we wanted to.'
'The idea that a few thousand US Marines or soldiers could take over security for a city of 5 million during a process of state collapse is frankly insane,' the editorial argues.
Taliban fighters sit at the table inside the presidential office at the palace in Kabul on Sunday after claiming victory
The Taliban were in full control of Kabul's airport on Tuesday, after the last U.S. plane left its runway, marking the end of America's longest war
Taliban forces flying their flag drive down the runway at Kabul airport in an American Humvee after troops withdrew
Planes, helicopters and vehicles left behind by western forces have now fallen into the hands of the Taliban
The US sent in roughly 5,000 troops to help Americans and American allies escape Taliban rule, before pulling out on Monday almost 24 hours ahead of the deadline, worried of the prospects of yet another terrorist attack.
A suicide bombing outside Kabul airport last week left 170 dead, including 13 American troops. Islamic State Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, took credit for the attack and the US responded with airstrikes allegedly killing two associated with ISIS-K and reportedly an entire family, including children, according to relatives of the dead.
Since the Taliban took over Kabul, the US has been scrambling to evacuate as many as possible, though some Americans and many Afghan allies remain. The US has approximately 116,700 people since Aug. 14, including 5,500 American citizens.
Marc Thiessen, speechwriter under President George W. Bush, tore into the president for reportedly turning down the Taliban's offer in a Washington Post op-ed.
'The Biden administration had the chance to control Kabul while we evacuated, but chose to cede it to the Taliban. That is a dereliction of duty unlike any we have seen in modern times,' Thiessen wrote.
'Our leaders made a conscious choice to put the safety of American civilians, service members and Afghan allies in the hands of terrorists rather than the U.S. armed forces — a decision that led directly to the deaths of 13 Americans in an Islamic State attack on the Kabul airport last Thursday at the hands of a suicide bomber. It is a national disgrace.'
'If the reports are true, and the Biden administration willfully gave control of Kabul to the Taliban, they have yet again shown their complicity for a terrorist takeover,' Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., wrote on Twitter.
'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?!?' wrote Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga.
Daily Mail · by Morgan Phillips, Politics Reporter For Dailymail.Com · August 31, 2021
16. Creating American hostages, abandoning Afghan allies
Excerpt:
In the end, Trump and Biden shared a low opinion of America’s Afghan allies and it influenced their collective decisions to pull the plug on the 20-year venture. Like their predecessors, neither saw the value to U.S. national interest in an indefinite, low-level, lower-cost U.S. presence devoted to counterterrorism and sufficient to contain the Taliban’s ambitions. Today’s shame and tragedy is all on Biden. Tomorrow’s will flow from two decades of limited presidential vision and unwillingness to level with the American people.
Creating American hostages, abandoning Afghan allies
The Hill · by Joseph Bosco, opinion contributor · August 31, 2021
Today, Aug. 31, 2021, is another day that will live in infamy — but not because of foreign aggression against America. The recent incompetence and callousness of our government toward both the Afghan and American people make it also a day of national shame. The Afghanistan debacle will forever mark the Biden tenure as a disaster, and a bitter validation of Robert Gates’s 2020 indictment that Biden had been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy issue in the last 40 years.”
Yet, his entire presidential campaign was premised on his claim of unique foreign policy judgment and experience to serve as commander in chief. The world now sees that the U.S. president’s judgment may be permanently flawed and that he has learned nothing — or all the wrong lessons — from his long government service.
Biden pays lip service to “taking responsibility … the buck stops here,” while pointing the finger of blame at a) former President Trump, b) the Afghan government, c) the Afghan army, d) U.S. intelligence, e) his own generals, and finally, f) the Afghan people for resisting emigration until it was too late.
Adam Bates of the International Refugee Assistance Project took offense at Biden’s blame-the-victim charge: “President Biden’s repeated claim that Afghan refugees don’t really want to leave is false and appalling.” Biden’s other excuses for his own willful failures also do not pass muster.
It is true that Trump pledged to end the “forever war” in Afghanistan every bit as strongly as Biden said he would terminate the “endless war.” And Trump did negotiate with the Taliban, even planning to invite its leaders to Camp David, believing he could win them over as successfully as he believes he had charmed China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Trump also showed U.S. goodwill by following the example of former President Obama who released five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo — including two senior commanders linked to the killings of American and allied troops and thousands of Shiites in Afghanistan — in exchange for the return of U.S. defector Bowe Bergdahl in May 2014. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump criticized the Obama deal as well as his other prisoner swap with Iran.
In 2018, however, the Trump administration urged Pakistan to release one of the Taliban’s imprisoned founders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, as a likely good-faith negotiating partner to facilitate an orderly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Baradar met with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department on Sept. 12, 2020.
In February 2020, the Trump team reached an agreement with the Taliban, which committed itself to “prevent the use of the soil of Afghanistan by any group or individual against the security of the United States and its allies.” By July 15, 2020, the U.S. would reduce its forces to 8,600 and, along with its Coalition allies, would withdraw all their forces from five military bases. Trump actually reduced forces to 2,500.
In addition, “as a confidence-building measure,” Washington committed the Afghan government, which was not part of the negotiation, to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghan soldiers. The last 400, the most hardcore Taliban, were released just before the Baradar-Pompeo meeting.
The final provision of the agreement obligated the Taliban to negotiate with the Afghan government for “a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire [and] the future political roadmap of Afghanistan.” It also stated that all “parts above are interrelated.” As Trump and Pompeo have argued, the agreement was “conditions-based” — and the Taliban did not meet its obligations either to negotiate in good faith with the Afghan government or to eliminate the threat to U.S. and Coalition forces from other terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS-K.
U.S. departure from Afghanistan was to be completed by May 1, 2021. Biden officials say that when they took office on Jan. 20, “there was no interagency planning on how to execute a withdrawal.” If true, that meant Biden’s team had to develop such a plan over the next 100 days, extend the withdrawal date to allow more time for an orderly pullout, or cancel and renegotiate it. They chose to extend the withdrawal date to Aug. 31, but apparently did little to implement their own interagency planning during the first three months or during the additional four. Getting out fast, and at all costs, was Biden’s priority. Chaos inevitably ensued.
Biden argues, “There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict.” The reality was otherwise. Military experts have stated that a minimal force — 3,000 to 4,000 troops — could have at least preserved the status quo while allowing for the orderly exit Trump and Biden say they wanted.
Trump calls on Biden to resign “in disgrace” and asserts, “If I were now president, the world would find that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be a conditions-based withdrawal. … Taliban leaders … understood what they are doing now would not have been acceptable.” Given Trump’s record, the claim is credible.
But Trump also disturbingly validated an especially dishonorable Biden hypothesis for the collapse of the Afghan army. “I knew they weren’t going to fight. … Why are these Afghan soldiers fighting against the Taliban? They were doing it for a paycheck because once we stopped, once we left, they stopped fighting. So all of the people that talk about the bravery and everything … we were sort of bribing them to fight.” That will afford little comfort to the widows and children of the tens of thousands of dead Afghan soldiers.
In the end, Trump and Biden shared a low opinion of America’s Afghan allies and it influenced their collective decisions to pull the plug on the 20-year venture. Like their predecessors, neither saw the value to U.S. national interest in an indefinite, low-level, lower-cost U.S. presence devoted to counterterrorism and sufficient to contain the Taliban’s ambitions. Today’s shame and tragedy is all on Biden. Tomorrow’s will flow from two decades of limited presidential vision and unwillingness to level with the American people.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies and a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.
The Hill · by Joseph Bosco, opinion contributor · August 31, 2021
17. When the Refugees Landed
Jillian Johnson and Americans supporting the evacuation effort at all points are what makes America great.
When the Refugees Landed
Evacuees from Afghanistan filed out of the airport security checkpoint quietly, a few groups every 20 minutes: men in beige waistcoats, veiled women with curly-haired babies, toddlers clutching juice boxes.
The very first United Airlines evacuation flight from Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, on Sunday had 300 passengers on board, and those passengers had many questions. Some wondered where the flight was headed and how long the trip would be. Others asked crew members where their luggage was, whether it had made it out of Hamid Karzai International Airport, and whether it would catch up to them in America. Many people asked about the Wi-Fi; it wasn’t working, so they couldn’t tell their family members that they were alive. A few asked for medical attention: One person had sliced open his foot running barefoot toward the airport in Kabul; another person had broken a leg in the crush of the crowd. Children begged flight attendants for bread and candy.
Jillian Johnson, a 35-year-old crew member, tried her best to answer all of the questions. Through an interpreter, she told the evacuees from Afghanistan that they were landing at Dulles International Airport, in Virginia; that it would be a nine-hour flight. She didn’t know anything about their luggage, but she could help them sign into the Wi-Fi. She tried to make people comfortable; she handed out chocolate-covered cookies to the kids and played with them while their parents slept. She practiced the few Dari words she’d learned before the flight: Salaam. Bale. Ne. She listened to their stories of the violence at the airport, the gunfire and the bodies.
Johnson’s passengers had fled Afghanistan just in time: Four days later, a terrorist group set off a bomb at the Kabul airport, killing at least 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members, and stalling America’s evacuation efforts. Thousands more people are still attempting to reach the airport, risking everything to escape, but the United States’ deadline for withdrawal is fast approaching. When that first United flight landed at Dulles, many of the passengers applauded. A little girl presented Johnson with a pair of earrings—tiny purple roses—as a thank-you gift. The child’s family was safe, but they still had a long way to go.
On Wednesday afternoon—three days after the United passengers had been processed and dispersed to military bases throughout the United States—I went to Dulles airport to speak to other evacuees as they emerged from a security checkpoint near the Saudia ticketing desk.
They’d already spent so much time waiting. Some of them had waited for days in the Kabul airport, days more in Qatar, hours on a hot tarmac, and hours more on the flight from Ramstein or some other air base. Now here they were, waiting again, in a row of folding chairs behind a navy-blue privacy curtain. They waited on COVID-19 test results, and after that, they waited for a man in an Army T-shirt to escort them onto a bus, which would take them to a nearby facility, where they would wait a while longer before traveling elsewhere to begin the resettlement process.
While I watched, I thought that if I had to spend so much time waiting in airports and checkpoints, I’d be screaming at agents or crying with impatience. But the Afghan evacuees I met were calm. They filed out of the security checkpoint quietly, a few groups every 20 minutes: men in beige waistcoats, veiled women with curly-haired babies, toddlers clutching juice boxes. Each person wore a stripe of blue electrical tape on their shoulder with a four-digit identification number.
As people came out from behind the curtain, I asked them to talk with me—to wait for just a while longer—and most of them did, though they generally declined to share their last name, fearing Taliban retribution. A 35-year-old man with sunken eyes named Mo smoked a cigarette while he waited to board the bus. He’d worked as a translator for the U.S. military for the past 15 years. Afraid of being targeted by the Taliban, he’d fled the country, leaving his wife and four children back in Kunar province. At some point, he hopes to bring his family over too. He didn’t care where in America he ended up, he said: “I’m happy anywhere.”
A few minutes later, a U.S. citizen named Noorullah came out from behind the curtain. He had been visiting his mother and extended family in Kabul when the Taliban entered the city. He’d previously worked for the Afghan government, as had his father-in-law, who had fled to the Afghan countryside. So when the Taliban began going door-to-door in his neighborhood, searching apartments and interrogating residents, he rushed to the Kabul airport. Noorullah waited in the crowd outside the airport for three days before he finally made it in. He watched members of the Taliban shoot people scaling the airport walls, and he saw two different women give birth on the street. Now Noorullah was heading back through security to board another flight home to California, where his wife and daughters live.
While I talked with people, volunteers with World Central Kitchen wheeled carts piled with boxes of Chex Mix and raisins and bananas into the private screening area. Others hauled in plastic containers full of hot food. Through gaps in the curtain, I could see nurses in face shields and scrubs administering tests and barking orders to their colleagues. Near me, family members of evacuees milled around while they waited to take their loved ones home. One Virginia man had been waiting for 13 hours to pick up his brother-in-law; another worked on a Rubik’s Cube while he hoped for updates from his wife.
I stopped a small group of women as they walked toward the buses out front. The only one who spoke English, an 18-year-old woman named Khatera, was traveling with her younger sister and her elderly mother, who clung tightly to her arm. Khatera’s other sister, who lives in California, had managed to get them the right documentation to come to America. The journey so far had been arduous, but upon landing at Dulles, she and her family finally felt a measure of relief. “We are safe, and we can learn and we can go to school,” she said. “Now our solution is good.” I asked Khatera if she knew where the bus outside would take them—maybe the Dulles Expo Center, where I’d read that other refugees were being housed? “Miss, I don’t know from here where we go,” she replied.
I watched Khatera and her family board the bus and choose their seats. In the coming days, they will probably travel to a military base in New Jersey or Wisconsin for processing. They might be able to request the state where they will be resettled; maybe they’ll go to California to be near Khatera’s sister. The refugees might receive a small stipend from the U.S. government, but after that, they’ll be on their own. Outside the bus, the driver had opened up the lower luggage compartment for passengers to drop off their bags. The bus had filled with people, but the luggage compartment was still empty.
18. The US Appears More Dumber Than Dumb – OpEd
Ouch!
Conclusion:
One now wonders whether the US can even be trusted with the nuclear arsenal it has! After all you have a senile president with that power with a press of a button. The conclusion is that where the US is concerned, it is no longer the fact that what you see is what you get.
The US Appears More Dumber Than Dumb – OpEd
When an ISIS-K fighter managed to go pass the Taliban’s check points and get within five meters of the American soldiers ending up killing 13 of them and some 170 Afghanis, the blame fell squarely and immediately on ISIS-K. But it doesn’t take a CIA or Mosad agent to know that it is in the interest of the Taliban to use the Americans as a tool against ISIS-K. It is simply dumb to think that the Taliban didn’t intentionally allow the bomber to pass through. Do the Americans know that? It is possible they do and are keeping quiet just to appease the victors, the Taliban. But it is just as possible that they don’t.
Just as not all of the Taliban fighters believe that women should wear full Burka, not all of them were responsible for harbouring Bin Laden. It would have made more sense to go after Taliban leadership rather than the whole of the Taliban when the towers came down. Why? Simply because with a full invasion the cost would far outweigh the benefits as it has indeed played out over the past twenty years.
So when the US resorted to invading Afghanistan as revenge against the Taliban refusal to hand over Usama bin Laden, given Americas presumed long term vision, the world believed that the attack on America on 9/11 was in fact perpetrated by the US itself to be used as a pretext to invade Afghanistan for other long term strategic considerations.
It turns out as demonstrated by the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan; the US isn’t a long term visionary or anything of the sort. It is actually often times a whimsical force that has no idea what it jumps itself into. The Invasion of Afghanistan was nothing more than a dumb idea driven by the need to flex muscles by the then George W. Bush and his circle. A country of over 300 million people can in fact be driven into disaster after disaster by a whim of a few dumb people who happen to have been elected to power at any given point.
The only war that was dumber than the US-Taliban war is that between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. It was caused by a football match. The difference is that that war was far shorter and far less costly in terms of lives and fortune.
While China and Russia were busy modernising their armies in the past two decades, the Americans were busy fighting a ghost-like force which is now once again firmly in control of Afghanistan and which ironically the US will need as an ally in its fight against ISIS.
Usama Bin Laden who ignited this two-decade war once said that: America has a powerful economy that sits on a fragile base. Perhaps what he meant to say is that the US is weak at its core and strategically bankrupt.
The fact that the military left its citizen on a battle field only to return and evacuate them chaotically and the fact that the war was started whimsically would indicate that Bin Laden was right. Where was the FBI, CIA, Congress, US strategists, academics, high tech satellites, etc, in allowing the war to start in the first place and worse yet allowing the military to flee and leave its citizens and Afghan allies stranded!?
One now wonders whether the US can even be trusted with the nuclear arsenal it has! After all you have a senile president with that power with a press of a button. The conclusion is that where the US is concerned, it is no longer the fact that what you see is what you get.
Zaher Mahruqi
Zaher Mahruqi follows world events, and seeks to shed light on the Arab and Muslim perspectives on regional and world events. The author can be contacted at sonofmajan@gmail.com.
19. Opinion | Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan took real courage
So many diverse views about what just happened in Afghanistan.
Excerpts:
He may have been wrong about Iraq in 2003, but Biden is right about Afghanistan in 2021. “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghans — Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?” he asked the day after Kabul fell. “How many more lives — American lives — is it worth? How many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery?”
He vowed to “not repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past,” mistakes that include “attempting to remake a country through the endless military deployments of U.S. forces.”
America’s longest war is over. And it was the guy whom I once dismissed as “the hawkish chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who provided cover for Bush's dodgy and dishonest arguments about WMDs” who, astonishingly, gets credit for that. To borrow a line from the president himself, it’s a “BFD.”
Opinion | Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan took real courage
msnbc.com · by Mehdi Hasan, MSNBC Opinion Columnist · August 31, 2021
During the 2020 presidential primaries, I was aghast at the prospect of an Iraq War supporter winning the Democratic nomination. I reminded readers that Biden was the only Democratic candidate “to have voted for the Iraq War” and had “(falsely) claimed the United States had ‘no choice but to eliminate the threat’ from Saddam Hussein.” I said his “hawkish” foreign policy record should be “disqualifying.”
I never expected Biden to be anything other than belligerent once he was seated inside the White House Situation Room.
Yet as of Tuesday evening, Biden has done something that three previous presidents either wouldn’t or couldn’t: ended the longest war in American history. The last U.S. troops left Afghanistan on schedule and ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Aug. 31, 202106:05
But Biden has also done something that no other president has managed to do in living memory: He has stood up to the generals.
In 2017, Donald Trump’s first year in office, the new Republican president’s instinct was to wind down the war in Afghanistan, but his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, pressured him to send more troops. McMaster reportedly presented Trump “with a black-and-white snapshot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul, to show him that Western norms had existed there before and could return.”
In 2009, Barack Obama’s first year in office, the new Democratic president debated with his advisers whether to “surge” troops into Afghanistan. On one side, Obama had a bevy of military leaders — Adm. Mike McMullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Army Gen. David Petraeus, the head of Central Command; and Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan — urging him to escalate.
On the other side, Obama had Vice President Biden, who, according to Obama’s memoir, viewed the conflict as a “dangerous quagmire.” On one occasion during the discussions about a surge, Obama recalls, Biden grabbed him by the arm and said, “Maybe I’ve been around this town for too long, but one thing I know is when these generals are trying to box in a new president.” He leaned into Obama’s face and whispered, “Don’t let them jam you.”
Less than three months later, Obama signed off on sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
Fast-forward to 2021, Joe Biden’s first year in office. The new Democratic president could have easily ditched the February 2020 agreement the Trump administration signed with the Taliban in Qatar to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan this year. He could have listened to his top military advisers, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a retired general, and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, both of whom reportedly urged him to keep a small force of 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
But Biden didn’t let them “jam” him. In April, he ignored the entreaties of his top generals and announced that all U.S. troops would be leaving Afghanistan ahead of Sept. 11, 2021. Since the Aug. 15 fall of the Afghan capital to the Taliban and the chaos in and around the Kabul airport, a chorus of hawkish generals, journalists, pundits, comedians, Afghans, Republicans and even Democrats has lambasted Biden for his handling of the pullout and for sticking to his Aug. 31 pullout date. His approval rating has taken a hit, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wants to impeach him.
Yet Biden didn’t budge. Lest we forget, it’s shamefully easy for presidents to start wars and much, much harder to end them. Biden’s decision to withdraw now is not, as his critics say, “an indelible stain on his presidency” or a “cowardly betrayal” or a sign of “weakness.” It is perhaps the boldest foreign policy move by a president in my lifetime.
Other leftist critics of Biden agree. Podcaster Kyle Kulinski, who says he “despises” Biden, tweeted: “It takes tremendous courage to put your middle finger up to the CIA, the pentagon, defense contractors & leadership of *both* parties.”
Lest we forget, it’s shamefully easy for presidents to start wars and much, much harder to end them.
He’s right. Biden’s “tremendous courage” was tested last week when a terrorist attack at the Kabul airport killed more than 113 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. There was intense pressure on the president to extend the deadline for departure. He resisted. “Ladies and gentlemen, it was time to end a 20-year war,” Biden told the press corps at the White House.
It is worth pointing out that more than 100,000 people were evacuated from Afghanistan since the middle of August, including the vast majority of U.S. citizens who had wanted to leave the country. That milestone came in the wake of claims that Biden was abandoning our Afghan allies and suggestions that evacuating even 50,000 people would be impossible.
To be clear: The withdrawal didn’t come without one last American-made tragedy, when 10 innocent civilians, including kids, were reportedly killed in a U.S. drone strike Sunday. It was a final reminder of the horrors caused by our two-decade bombing campaign in Afghanistan.
Biden and his advisers also, of course, should have prepared better for the mass evacuations. And it was a monumental error of judgment for the president to have expressed so much confidence in the Afghan government and security forces, to the point where he foolishly declared in July that there would “be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy.”
Aug. 31, 202103:40
But in which alternative universe could Biden have single-handedly ended the Bush/Obama/Trump 20-year war in Afghanistan without a resurgent Taliban taking over the country? Without scenes of desperate Afghans and Americans being airlifted from the Kabul airport? Without violent attacks on departing U.S. troops?
President Joe Biden didn’t lose this war. It was lost in October 2001, when President George W. Bush refused to accept the Taliban’s offer to hand over Osama bin Laden to a neutral third country, and in December 2001, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to accept Taliban surrender terms.
It was lost as U.S. politicians, diplomats and generals, as the Afghanistan Papers revealed, “failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan ... making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”
He may have been wrong about Iraq in 2003, but Biden is right about Afghanistan in 2021. “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghans — Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?” he asked the day after Kabul fell. “How many more lives — American lives — is it worth? How many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery?”
He vowed to “not repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past,” mistakes that include “attempting to remake a country through the endless military deployments of U.S. forces.”
America’s longest war is over. And it was the guy whom I once dismissed as “the hawkish chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who provided cover for Bush's dodgy and dishonest arguments about WMDs” who, astonishingly, gets credit for that. To borrow a line from the president himself, it’s a “BFD.”
msnbc.com · by Mehdi Hasan, MSNBC Opinion Columnist · August 31, 2021
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
