"Why are American troops in such a difficult-to-defend position?" WSJ Who Abandoned Bagram Air Base? Biden says the military, but the military says he gave them little choice. The terrorist threat to U.S. troops, civilians and Afghans continues to loom over the frantic evacuation of Kabul airport. Thursday’s suicide bombing, which killed 13 Americans and nearly 200 Afghans, has been claimed by an Islamic State affiliate, which is plotting more. Why are American troops in such a difficult-to-defend position? The evacuation is taking place at an urban airport with a civilian wing, and perimeter security is being provided, unbelievably, by the Taliban. Only about 40 miles away is Bagram airfield, the military base that the U.S. vacated in the dead of night in July, without even warning America’s Afghan allies. President Biden on Thursday essentially blamed his generals for the Bagram pullout. “They concluded—the military—that Bagram was not much value added, that it was much wiser to focus on Kabul,” he said. “And so, I followed that recommendation.” What Mr. Biden neglected to mention is that the President sets the constraints under which the military draws up plans and evaluates options. At a briefing last week, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that securing Bagram took “a significant level of military effort,” and “our task given to us at that time, our task was to protect the Embassy in order for the Embassy personnel to continue to function.” As a result, he added, “we had to collapse one or the other.” When the decision was made, which was long before the Afghan government fell, the military thought using Kabul airport did not entail substantially higher risk. That option was judged, Gen. Milley said, “to be the better tactical solution in accordance with the mission set we were given and in accordance with getting the troops down to about 600, 700 number.” TO READ THE FULL STORY
The to-be-expected reporting is that the Isis suicide bomber passed through a Taliban checkpoint. I am shocked!! Who could have ever foreseen the kind of problems that might arise from Biden using the Taliban as TSA Agents to get into the airport???????? They said they would be good!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess, that as with all other frig-ups related to this disaster, that the lefty explanation is that "the Trump Plan" required Biden to do that. Yeh, that's it. Biden is president of the United States and has his own Defense Secretary and intel and military people but he was powerless to do anything other than hand the operation over to the Taliban because Trump made him do it. Idiots.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...biden/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr Can the world afford another three and a half years of President Biden? Britain has grown used to a strong America. Now, it must contend with a weak leadership in retreat DOUGLAS MURRAY27 August 2021 • 8:00pm The White House’s press spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, made an interesting claim earlier this week. Asked about America’s disastrous exit from Afghanistan, she refused to hear any criticism. The US was overseeing an operation that is now on track to be the largest airlift in American history, she said. “So no, I would not say that it is anything but a success.” That is an interesting redefinition of the word “success”. Though it is in line with a style that has marked out America of late. The nation’s sporting stars like to single themselves out for a range of skills: best taking of the knee; strongest raising of the fist; fastest turning of the back on the national anthem. The world’s other nations send their athletes to international events in order to win. While America each time gets caught up in another round of self-absorbed gesture-politics. Advertisement Similarly much of the world outside of America believes that, if you use your armed forces, you should use them in order to win. Only a White House under this current administration would actively be seeking praise for a defeat. It is success solely in a category of America’s own making: biggest retreat ever, in record-breaking time. Outside of the White House there is nobody who could consider anything about the past weeks to be a success. Even some of President Biden’s Amen-chorus in the US media are starting to worry. The portrayal of Biden as a knowledgeable, capable and wise leader has not survived its first encounter with reality. Every day has seen a new array of retreats. Often from claims that the White House made just a few days before. At the start of this week, for example, both Psaki and her boss were still insisting that no Americans would be left behind in Afghanistan. Then they said that there could be, but they would get them out. By the week’s end they were reduced to saying that although they might not get everyone out before the deadline of the end of the month, they would try to get them out after that. Advertisement Similarly, although the US retreat was not meant to arm the Taliban, it now transpires that America left behind billions of dollars in armaments as well as the biometric data of Afghans who helped the West. Leaving the Taliban with almost everything it needs to hunt down those Afghans who thought that the Americans were their friends. Such retreats have become a trend of the Biden White House. It was the same last month when the Afghan national army was said to be more than capable of standing on its own two feet. A claim that also did not survive its first encounter with reality. Then we had the President’s insistence that al-Qaeda is “gone” from Afghanistan. Only for suicide bombers to turn up at Kabul airport on Thursday and massacre at least 90 Afghans waiting to be evacuated. That attack has been claimed by Islamic State in Afghanistan. So not precisely al-Qaeda. But it all adds up to much of a muchness when the body parts are flying across the terminal. In the ultimate temptation to hubris, earlier this week the Biden administration was still boasting that no US service personnel had been killed in Afghanistan since last year. But that boast also proved too tempting for the various jihadis in Afghanistan. Thirteen US soldiers were also killed on Thursday in the suicide bombings and resulting assault by gunmen. It was the deadliest day for the US military in Afghanistan for a decade. More attacks are expected. Advertisement In response to all this the President appeared on television. Even for Biden at this stage in his career it was a fumbling, bumbling performance which gave out exactly the opposite of the reassurance which the American and international publics need. The President seemed to completely lose his train of thought at several stages, appeared to be on the brink of tears, stared at the cameras as though through a fog and flipped his way through his presidential briefing binder. “They gave me a list here,” he said. “The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O’Donnell from NBC.” This was the equivalent of reading out “President speaks” and “Pause” while reading from a teleprompter. It was not just the infirmity which were on such painful display, but a visible manifestation of the global weakness that Biden now embodies. Over a dozen US servicemen had just been killed and Americans needed reassurance. Biden remembered to say that America “would not forgive” the massacre of its troops. Which must have had the Taliban and others quaking. He then vowed to “hunt down” the people responsible. Though of course hunting down successful suicide bombers is not as easy as it sounds. Advertisement By any estimation the first seven months of the Biden presidency have been a devastating period for America’s standing in the world. There are pros and cons to the American presence in Afghanistan as there are to its leaving. But the manner of the withdrawal and the range of basic incompetence on display is something that the rest of the world will not easily forget. America’s competitors – principally China – will be very happy about it. America’s enemies – particularly jihadist groups around the world – will be emboldened by it. And America’s friends and allies will, understandably, continue to be deeply worried. A poll out this week charted favourable versus unfavourable opinions about America since the fall of Kabul. Many countries had a smallish fall-off in favourability ratings towards the US. But one of the countries with the biggest changes was the UK. This country saw a 10 point drop in favourability ratings towards the United States. And while to many of us that is deeply regrettable it is also understandable. Advertisement For the last century this country, like our allies across Europe, has looked to the United States as the guarantor of the global world order. The world’s top policeman, if you will. Most of us have had criticisms of it, but of all the nations who might like to be the world’s policeman, the US was far and away the most benign and the most sympathetic to our own worldview. The move from a British and European-based world order to an American-based world order was perhaps the smoothest transfer in world history. Our values aligned. Our cultural and economic models were in sync. And while America did the heavy lifting (and spending) to protect the global order, we were happy, as were the Europeans, to pay our way in supporting the US in turn. Now all of this looks vulnerable. The way in which America has treated its allies on the ground in Afghanistan will worry any potential friend of the US. While the way in which Biden has treated his allies – principally by ignoring us – will worry all of us in turn
No. Nobody is going to knock criticizing decision makers, but the “military” is much larger than generals. Don’t play that I didn’t mean it stuff either. Just don’t be stupid going forward.
This is a shit take. Characterizing our withdrawal as a retreat, however poorly executed, is a cheap shot. Especially coming from the British as of late - who are actually in retreat and under the security of the American military. Fuck this guy.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/in...m/news-story/418a5ebfb4e6ce7234efc3578431296b Lazy Joe Biden's gift to global jihadism This is the world that Joe Biden has wrought – the return of mass-casualty terrorism, multiple deaths of US soldiers in terror attacks, rejoicing and celebration by extremists around the world, confusion and demoralisation for America’s allies internationally, and death for many of its Afghan friends. The two explosions near the Kabul airport were the most comprehensively forecast terror attacks in modern history. Yet the mighty American military, the most powerful and bravest force in the world, was depending on suicide terrorists and Islamist extremists – the Taliban, who had dedicated much of their lives to killing Americans – to provide their security. The grievously diminished Biden had just reassured the world, in one of those surreal Biden-speak ellipses of reality when time and space cease to coincide, that the Taliban was providing security and allowing Afghans to travel peacefully to Kabul Airport. ISIS-Khorasan Province, a breakaway from the original ISIS, did the bombings. The Taliban and ISIS-K are at odds, but this has not prevented occasional co-operation. Taliban fighters were all around the airport. They had extorted money from people trying to get through. They had beaten some of them. They took names for future reference for people who tried but failed to get out. Yet somehow, although everyone knew that the terrorist bombings were coming, the Taliban missed the ISIS-K suicide bombers with their large explosive vests. There is every reason to suspect Taliban complicity. The way the US withdrawal has gone – the chaotic, rushed evacuation at Kabul airport, conducted at the Taliban’s pleasure – has been the greatest possible boost to the Taliban, and to global jihadism. US strategic credibility is not destroyed, but it is gravely damaged. Biden has advantaged every enemy of America on the planet. He has also revealed what a feckless president he is, and what a clumsy, incompetent and capricious administration he heads. Afghans gather on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabu. Picture: AFP I have written in praise of the Biden administration’s words on China, and Asia generally, but the sheer incompetence of the Afghanistan withdrawal, suggests that talking is the only thing the Biden administration does well. This criticism does not extend to US troops. The bravery of American personnel, and the Australians for that matter, at Kabul airport is magnificent. In the long war on terror, there is no more courageous soldier than the American, and it’s typically an American who stands for lonely hours at a check point to vet folks who come along, for any one may spell his death. The disaster in Afghanistan has serious implications for Australia, not only because it encourages and empowers terrorists, not least in Asia. Not only because it emboldens America’s rivals, in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, to test American resolve. Not only because it diminishes US influence. But mainly for the huge question mark it puts over US policy competence. It also throws into stark question just what value Biden truly puts on America’s alliances. Here is a stark and shocking fact. Since the fall of Kabul more than 10 days ago, Biden has not had a telephone conversation with Scott Morrison. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not spoken to Foreign Minister Marise Payne. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has not spoken to Defence Minister Peter Dutton. No one could support the USalliance more than I do. It’s fundamental to Australian security. But this is grotesque. For most of the past 20 years, Australia has been the largest non-NATO contributor to Afghanistan. Some 39,000 uniformed Australians served there. More than 40 were killed. We spent billions of dollars on aid and military operations in Afghanistan. We were there with the Americans at the beginning. And we were there with them at the end. Yet in this greatest strategic debacle for the West at least since 9/11, none of the American leadership thinks it’s worth talking to their Australian counterparts. There is no criticism of the Morrison government here. At the cabinet’s first National Security Committee meetings after the fall of Kabul it was thought there might be 900 people needing evacuation – Australian citizens and Afghans who had worked closely with Australia. In the event we evacuated 4000 people, including 3200 with close Australian connections. No Australian was killed in the process. This was tough, professional and resolute. Everyone who went to Kabul airport put their life at risk. US Vice President Kamala Harris and Vietnam's President Nguyen Xuan Phuc during a billateral meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam. Picture: AFP So how come the Biden administration has nothing to say to us, or hear from us? This is largely down to the irrefutable weirdness of Joe Biden. I thought Donald Trump was the weirdest American president I’d ever seen. But Biden has a weirdness all his own. This calamitous chain of events in Afghanistan came about without serious or effective US planning. There was no detailed consultation with allies. Appalling mistakes abounded such as abandoning the defensible Bagram air base because Biden hadn’t left enough US troops to cover the withdrawal. Biden was just going on holiday when it all turned to custard and, after an initial statement of bromides and platitudes, planned to resume his holiday. It was obvious during the election that Biden was way past his prime intellectually, to put it kindly, but the hope was that, as when Woodrow Wilson was sick, or later when Dwight Eisenhower had a stroke, the US system around Biden would run well. But Biden appointed mere talking heads to his cabinet, no one of the standing of George Shultz or Colin Powell or Robert Gates, or even Hillary Clinton, who was a big national figure when she became secretary of state under Obama and was effective in office. Instead, he appointed talking heads with no national profile and no ability to drive the vast complexities of the US inter-agency process. Biden is a lazy president who exudes lassitude. This has infected his administration. Because the US media is still so relieved that Trump is gone, until the fall of Kabul they were giving Biden a very easy run, seldom showing his many gaffes and terrifying efforts to form coherent sentences when not reading from a teleprompter. But there was one disturbingly illustrative incident on Fox TV when Chris Wallace interviewed Blinken. Wallace is the least partisan figure on Fox and if anything was anti-Trump at the election. His interview with Blinken was polite but devastating. Wallace played a series of Biden statements that were bizarre in their disconnection from reality. Wallace played Biden saying: “We have no indication that they (Americans in Kabul and Afghans with American visas) can’t get through. We have an agreement with the Taliban to let them through.” Biden said this after extensive reporting of Taliban brutality towards those seeking to leave. About five minutes after Biden’s statement, the US advised Americans not to go to Kabul airport. Wallace played a clip of Biden fatuously declaring: “I have seen no questioning of our credibility from our allies.” He then played clips of the German successor to Angela Merkel calling Biden’s Afghan retreat NATO’s worst debacle, and the immensely respected Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the UK House of Commons foreign affairs committee, describing Biden’s words and actions as “shameful”. Wallace showed Biden asking that with al-Qa’ida gone from Afghanistan, what interest does America have there? He then showed excerpts of a UN report, which no one challenges, showing al-Qa’ida has hundreds of fighters in Afghanistan, enjoying the active hospitality of the Taliban. There was also Biden a couple of weeks previously saying there would be no chaos and Kabul would not fall to the Taliban, and then more recently saying it would not be possible to have had an American withdrawal without all the chaos. Blinken listened courteously but made no defence of Biden, for there was no defence to be made. Donald Trump was half mad and gratuitously offensive, but internationally he was intermittently formidable and people were scared of him. Biden is half asleep and never offensive, but internationally he is never formidable and no one is scared of him. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Picture: AFP So when Biden told the terrorists: “We will hunt you down and we will make you pay”, how much were the terrorists really scared? Does anyone believe anything he says? Biden has suffered a huge setback politically. The mainstream media was devoted to him. Many conservative Americans had grown tired of the Trump drama and just wanted normality. Friends of America all over the world hoped for a return to normality and predictability in Washington. But Biden emerges from Afghanistan as an almost uniquely weak president, surely already a lame duck as the idea of his running for re-election at 82 is beyond imagining. The Afghan withdrawal may be his equivalent of Jimmy Carter’s chaotically failed military effort to rescue American hostages from Tehran in 1979. For the first time, more Americans disapprove of Biden’s performance as president, than approve. The latest USA Today poll puts his approval rating at 41 per cent, which is Trump territory. The famous question: is the country moving in the right direction or is it on the wrong track, is often seen as a barometer of presidential performance. According to the latest Economist/YouGov poll, under Biden right track gets 30 per cent, while wrong direction gets 58 per cent. Most Americans wanted to leave Afghanistan, but only a tiny minority approve of the way Biden did it. Most Americans rightly conclude that the threat from terrorism will now rise substantially. Chinese academics and semi-official spokespeople warmly welcomed the Taliban to power, casting it in the light of anti-imperialism and resisting US hegemony. One senior Chinese academic said the Taliban demonstrated the spirit of the communist People’s Liberation Army in 1949. The brilliant Sinologist, Geremie Barme, commented that there was a lot of truth in this – not just in its anti-Western sentiment, but in its fanaticism, violence, intolerance and extremism. For the first time, the liberal media in the US has turned against Biden. His staggering incompetence was this week repeatedly flayed in The New York Times, The Washington Post and on CNN, which previously have treated Biden like an endangered species in a conservation park. Biden’s administration, and some international interlocutors seeking reasonably to put the best face on a diabolical and humiliating defeat, argue that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is part of its rebalancing towards the overwhelmingly more pressing and important priority of the growing Chinese security challenge in the Indo-Pacific. There are several intractable problems with this immensely appealing idea. One, the US will struggle to focus more on the Indo-Pacific if its attention is once more diverted to countering a big wave of terrorism. The Taliban may have the sense to take time to consolidate, but this is a massive, motivating victory for international jihadists of every stripe. They all certainly think so because they celebrated with great enthusiasm. Biden has a weirdness all his own. Picture: AFP Two, a superpower needs to be able to wield influence in many parts of the world, not, assuredly, to fight many simultaneous wars, but to shrewdly arrange the combination of its soft and hard power such that its vital interests – as in denying terrorists complete power over a sovereign nation – are protected. Biden has been a disaster in the broader Middle East, with a fatuous approach to Iran and an alarming loss of influence with the Gulf Arabs. And three, if the US loses strategic credibility it will tempt China to overreach, and so Washington will need to do much more to establish its position in the Indo-Pacific. Everyone hopes the Taliban has moderated. But there is not the slightest evidence for that wish. Last time they took power in Kabul, in 1996, just like now, they promised no revenge and to respect women’s rights. As they were making that vow they took the former head of government, Mohammad Najibulah, from the UN premises where he had sheltered, castrated him, killed him, dragged his body through the streets and hung him, and his brother, from a lamp post. It’s what they do that counts, not what they say. Same with Biden.
The political and military command deserve nothing but our contempt. The have blown this operation every step of the way. Any success in the evacuation is in spite of the command, not because of it. And who is paying the price for this fiasco, who is dying as a result of this jaw dropping incompetence? Is it the brainiacs over at the State department? Maybe some of the Intel secret squirrel types? Might it be one of our glorious Generals? Nope, they aren't anywhere near the fight. They're nice and safe. The people dying as a result of their ineptitude are as usual, the troops on the ground. People in the streets. That is who pays the ultimate price for this colossal fuck up.
The military there is able to go out and get some of the Americans but the Taliban and their American command bitches said no. Now we are going into months and years of hostage misery. Many will get out, via non-military methods if that makes any here feel better. Not doing much for me. There is some attempt by the administration to divert and beat their chest over the drone attack. NO! The plusses of the drone strike being noted it is nevertheless a disgusting underscoring of how Biden and Milley are the Taliban's bitches. They had permission from the Taliban - stated or implied- to take out a sworn enemy of the Taliban BUT they won't take action against the Taliban at least for the purpose of evacuating, too late anyway. Can't unscramble that egg of a disaster at this point. The basic strategy of Central Command is to dial 1-800-Taliban and find out what they are allowed to do. They dialed that number and Taliban said "yeh, ISIS sucks so that is okay, just don't make any of our Taliban guys angry or you bitches are going to get it even more." Then, Biden and Milley say: Thank you. You guys have actually been kind of sweet and cooperative. Thank you again. Have a nice day. Our troops will deliver coffee to your TSA guys at the checkpoints around 10:00 as you instructed us." The military there is able to go out and get some of the Americans but the Taliban and their American command bitches said no. Now we are going into months and years of hostage misery. Many will get out, via ex-military vets and methods if that makes any here feel better. Not doing much for me. Astute viewers will note that even I gave the Taliban a break here. Yes, Isis is an enemy of the Taliban but they clearly let those fuckers through the checkpoints to kill Americans. They are laughing at us, and they are killing Americans while they are doing it and our Commander in Chief is their bitch. He has totally failed the troops.