Sunday, August 22, 2021

Falling Back On The WHY While Disregarding The HOW. CNN Throws In The Towel? Meltdown And Rise. Blinken, Resign.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
By leaving those we profess we wish to rescue out in the open they become vulnerable to suicide attacks and death by radical Islamists and/or being taken hostages.

Neither makes sense nor is smart. Has Biden made a deal with the devil?  Is he fearful of casualties sustained by our rescue forces? Is he so challenged mentally he does not comprehend the consequences of his dereliction?

I listened to most of  Sunday's press conference and he continues to justify the why and ignore the how. Most Americans are glad to be out of Afghanistan. They are not happy to be out the way he did it when he had alternatives such as waiting until the winter when the Taliban cease their attacks etc.  

He also ignores the fact how he armed the Taliban and  other  terrorists  because of the enormous equipment loss.

Biden Keeps US Troops at Kabul Airport While Brits and French Rescue Their Citizens

Analysis US Military 

By Paul Crespo

Soldiers hold the line in Kabul / Screenshot via Sky News

As President Biden and Defense Secretary Austin stick to their shameful plan to only secure Kabul airport and not send U.S. forces into greater Kabul to get U.S. personnel and Afghan helpers to safety, British and French forces are doing just that to rescue their citizens. And they are doing it with far less troops than the U.S. has available.

The Daily Mail reported that earlier in the week, following reports of Taliban hunting down former Afghan government officials and Brits stuck behind Taliban checkpoints, the UK sent another 300 troops to Kabul specifically to extract trapped British nationals, for a total of just under 1,000 soldiers.

And within hours of arriving, these British troops had rescued 200 British nationals from around Kabul.

According to former Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger the British military has even stepped in to evacuate some American citizens who were left behind in Afghanistan following the Biden administration’s chaotic pullout of U.S. forces and the nation’s quick fall to Taliban terrorists.

“The United Kingdom right now, I know that they’re running patrols into Kabul to get British citizens, Afghans and in some cases Americans that they encounter, and helping bring them to safety,” Pottinger, a former Marine, told FOX Business  on Thursday.

He added that NATO allies “in some cases, at the risk of the lives of their own diplomats, have been arranging for Americans and students, journalists, Afghan staff who have been working at the American university in Kabul, for example” to flee the war-torn nation amidst Biden’s disastrous withdrawal.

France has also responded with a similar rescue operation, France 24 reports. French President Emmanuel Macron thanked French security forces on Twitter for executing a ‘sensitive operation’ which evacuated more than 200 French and Afghans.

Nearly 200 Afghans who worked for France or who are threatened have just been evacuated from Kabul. As well as French and foreign nationals. To our armies, police officers and diplomatic teams who organize these sensitive operations, thank you. We continue.

News of these allied rescue operations is angering many Americans who are demanding answers as to why the U.S. isn’t doing the same. On Thursday the Pentagon was pressed to explain why the U.S. isn’t rescuing Americans outside of the Kabul airport as the British and French are doing for their citizens.

At a press briefing, Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin said: “General Taylor, British paratroopers are leaving the airport, going into Kabul to rescue and evacuate some of their citizens who are trapped [and] can’t get to the airport because of the Taliban.”

“Why isn’t the U.S. doing that?” she asked. Fox News reported that:

Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, who serves as deputy director of the Joint Staff Regional Operations, replied that the U.S.’ focus was on securing Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA).

“At this time, our main mission continues to be to secure HKIA, to allow those American citizens and other SIVs to come in and be processed at the airfield.”

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby was asked during the same press conference whether he knows how many Americans remain stuck in Afghanistan. He replied: “I don’t know.”

Earlier this week, another 1,000 paratroopers were sent to help evacuate U.S. personnel and Afghans who provided assistance during the war. ADN


PAUL CRESPO

Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Defense News. A defense and national security expert, he served as a Marine Corps officer and as a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at US embassies worldwide. Paul holds degrees from Georgetown, London, and Cambridge Universities. He is also CEO of SPECTRE Global Risk, a security advisory firm, and President of the Center for American Defense Studies, a national security think tank.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It should be noted Blinken said this while on his knees holding hands with  Colin Kaepernick.

To make matters worse Blinken ignores the fact, as noted above, Biden armed terrorists with American equipment and now they have a small potent air force.

Sec. Blinken Decides Now’s the Right Time to Cosplay About Terrorism

The following story is brought to you courtesy of Red State. Click the link to visit their page and see more stories.

On Saturday, in honor of “those we have lost to terrorism, at home and abroad,” our nation’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken threw this message out on the Twitters for the world to point and laugh at.

On this International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the #VictimsofTerrorism, we honor those we have lost to terrorism, at home and abroad. The United States stands resolute in our commitment to holding terrorists to account.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Second quarter earnings are behind us, domestic and foreign disturbing news persists and September, historically, is a quirky month. Hunker down, don't over re-act.  Stay invested and nibble on re-actions.  I would focus on health care, value utility stocks, consumer staples, reasonably price technology, and semiconductors maybe even quality energy stocks with decent dividends.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Has CNN finally thrown in the towel?  CBS Poll indicates the majority of Americans have.


CNN Refutes White House Claims Kabul Airport Now Under Control

| By: Sally Kent| Foreign Affairs,Media,Military


If Joe Biden says “jump” CNN is usually the first in line to ask “how high” but the network seems to have finally found its limit to how far it will go to try and make the administration look good. Despite the White House claiming the Kabul airport is under control and Americans are slowly but surely being evacuated CNN’s coverage paints a drastically different and likely more accurate story.

According to The Daily Wire:

CNN reporter Clarissa Ward, who has been covering the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan from outside the relative safety of Kabul airport’s military sector, called the situation Wednesday “mayhem” and “nuts,” despite White House assurances that the airport is secure and evacuations are proceeding.

The White House said Wednesday that the United States military is in full control of Kabul airport and that flights are up and running, with a plan to evacuate as many American citizens and Afghan nationals with visas as possible before the U.S. withdrawals completely at the end of August.

But the situation outside the Kabul airport gates appears to be very different from the scenes inside, according to CNN’s Ward — and it is more in line with State Department statements made Tuesday afternoon that the U.S. government could not guarantee the safety of Americans traveling to Kabul’s airport, and statements made by Biden administration officials indicating that there are no official plans to rescue Americans located outside of Kabul.

“It’s definitely chaotic,” Ward told CNN’s Brianne Keilar in a morning report from Kabul. “It’s definitely dangerous.”

And:

NEW POLL: More than half of Americans deem Biden unfit for president, doctors say he has two health conditions linked to dementia!

Full Story Here

Meanwhile:

Putin chimes in:


Putin welcomes Taliban's rise to power in seeming alliance of convenience at the expense of America discredited by Biden

Full Story Here

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What Biden doesn't understand 

By Salena Zito


Biden fails to understand why the United States is transfixed by these images and reporting. In televised statements and interviews, he has repeatedly failed to make the distinction between the decision to leave Afghanistan and his appalling execution of that evacuation.

He made a bet based on internal polling that no matter how we left it was the leaving that all he was interested in and the American people would be fine with that.
 


Click here for the full story.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Meltdown?

Meltdown of a Superpower

by Mark Steyn
The Fall of Kabul, the Fall of America

A week after the Fall of Kabul, the flailing hegemon continues to embarrass itself:
America's official deadline for total withdrawal from Afghanistan is August 31st, so half the remaining time has already elapsed, and in that time, according to the Department of Defense, it has evacuated just 2,500 Americans - or about 350 per day. That seems an under-performance - or, as The New York Post's front-page headline distills it, "DUMKIRK".

The soi-disant "superpower" now resembles one of those stories you see from time to time on Eyewitness News: the 700-lb bedridden guy unable to get up, even to go to hospital, and requiring the fire department to slice off the upper wall of the house just to winch him out of there. The inability of Lloyd Austin, Thoroughly Modern Milley, Tailspin Taylor and the other beribboned buffoons of the Potemtagon to adapt swiftly and effectively to ground conditions that are changing hour by hour is as telling as anything.

It is not just that General Milley and the Joint Buffoons of Staff cannot plan; they cannot execute. Compare the 2,500 Americans evacuated from Kabul over this last week to the 7,000 Americans and allies choppered out of Saigon in just nineteen hours. Can Milley do anything in nineteen hours other than call his tailor and order up his next row of ribbonry?

The Taliban know an American humiliation when they see one, and for the moment they're content to let Austin and Milley and the rest of Washington's worthless elite dig deeper. Aside from that, the mullahs are waggish enough to tease western media with hints of a "broad-based government", although we all know that in the end the broad-based government won't be based on broads. Other than that, the Sharia crowd confine any direct engagement with the Great Loser Satan to social media trolling, such as recreating (in American uniforms left at Bagram or elsewhere) Iwo Jima with the Taliban flag (top right).

Funnier than Colbert and Fallon and the other court eunuchs, but who isn't? And once again you get the feeling that these guys know us rather better than all the Ivy League tosspots of the world's most ludicrous "elite" know them. On the subject of which, see the Tweeted video of the brother of Afghanistan's president (the guy who fled with 169 mil in American tax dollars) joining the Taliban.
Enjoy it while you can: the big beards are not going to audition for Comedy Central indefinitely. Having won a spectacular victory, the beneficiaries of two decades of American "nation-building" will at some point want their international airport back.

This is a human tragedy for those desperate to flee Afghanistan. But, as I've said repeatedly, for everyone else this is a story about America. We like to think of our site as a big-picture pad, so what would that be in this scenario? Well, the big picture is that, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States blew its unipolar moment and has chosen to surrender the world, after half-a-millennium, to post-western dominance. Whatever the truth of Biden's charge that the money-no-object Afghan National Army went over to the other side, there is no question that key elements of American national power have gone over to China's side: the Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood, the NBA, not to mention the Wuhan Institute of Virology's protectors at the CDC and NIH; oh, and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, at least two of whom have checked out with respect to anything to do with China...
Beijing has won without firing a shot, which is the way to do it. They have no desire to occupy Afghanistan or to prioritize (as did Washington, confusing the Great Game with the Gay Games) Pride Month in Kandahar. Your average goatherd will barely notice the ChiComs' presence, except insofar as the best tables at the only Michelin restaurant in Spin Boldak seem to go to the visiting Chinamen. But, an hour south of Kabul, Chinese development of the world's second largest copper mine will proceed apace. We were there for two decades, but all the lithium will go to Chairman Xi, just in case you thought the Chinese didn't have a tight enough hammerlock on the world's batteries, without which all your high-tech toys are novelty paperweights and doorstops.

After the US abandonment of Bagram air base, the Germans began moving their people out last month, quietly and without fanfare. Also in July, Mullah Baradar, the Taliban honcho now back in Kabul, flew to China to meet with Xi's Foreign Minister. And the government of Greece (which no German or Scandinavian would consider a functioning administration) somehow managed to anticipate a looming Afghan migrant tide and construct and complete a border fence with Turkey, in order to prevent another 2016 "refugee" stampede.

Everyone - Greeks, Germans, Chinese - knew where this was headed (and very quickly) ...everyone except the decadent, decayed hyperpower in nominal control of the timeline.

On Friday the chump who serves as US Defense Secretary was asked why his US troops at Kabul Airport couldn't do (as the French, British and others are doing) and fan out into Kabul and surrounding provinces and extract their nationals. Mr Austin replied that American forces don't have "the capability" - and, as a hack lobbyist formerly on the board of Raytheon, he should know.

But what exactly does America have "the capability" to do? The "Special Immigrant Visa" for loyal Afghans who made the mistake of trusting the infidel takes two years to process. What's so "special" about that? Well, the regular visas take five-to-ten years. Impressive as the government's comparative SIV urgency is, if you're in Jalalabad and your application isn't already in the mail, you'll find it quicker to bicycle over the Khyber, take a rusting steam packet from Karachi to Mexico and use the Rio Grande express check-in.

Which is what will happen. The implosion in Afghanistan and the dissolution of America's southern border will converge, and thousands of excitable young Mohammedans will wind up in the Lower Forty-Eight - while the few actual loyal Afghan support staff get stuck back in Kabul to be beheaded on jihadist snuff videos.

Why cannot the great flabby leviathan rouse itself? Why do French paratroopers have the "capability" and not their more lavishly funded Yank counterparts? Why can the Greeks build a border wall in a month but in America a winning presidential candidate can merely campaign on it for a year and a half and then get screwed over by his own corrupt donor-beholden party leaders?

Last week I was chided by a couple of commenters for not proposing "solutions". The solutions are being enacted by everybody else, in the face of a crapped-over superpower's meltdown:
~The soi-dissant Euro-pussies leave the airport every hour, go out and get their people, bring them back to "Hamid Karzai International" and fly them home - and by "home" I don't mean the now overflowing "processing" center in Qatar: Every day the BBC shows flights from Afghanistan landing back at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

~Greece, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria build border barriers; America's "conservative" party thinks border chaos in a pandemic is a fundraising opportunity, and, after raking in the dough, they'll do nothing.

For what's happening right now, that's "solution" enough: be France, be Greece, be Poland - and yeah, such comparisons are totally embarrassing for America, but not as embarrassing as Austin and Blinken and Milley explaining why they have no "capability".

Yeah, yeah, I know... Somewhere across the fruited plain a transgender Hispanic is shattering a glass ceiling... Our schoolchildren are, on the rare days their unionized "educators" are willing to tolerate their physical presence masked or unmasked, taught by the very best Critical Race Theorists... The Los Angeles Times is denouncing Larry Elder, a black man, as a white supremacist, because next thing you know all the black white-supremacists will be putting on viking horns and storming Governor Newsom's French Laundry... Ooh, and the new host of Jeopardy has just resigned in disgrace because he said something about "boobies" on a podcast and suggested that women in one-piece bathing suits look "frumpy" - whereas the actual boobies at the Pentagon will never have to resign in disgrace, and they never look frumpy because every cock-up comes with another rainbow row of diversity ribbons.
Our "experts" have expertise in nothing that matters - identity politics, micro-aggressions, statue-toppling, transgender sports... Much of American "conservatism" meets the civilizational vandals halfway - no, two-thirds of the way - so that the conversation is never anywhere near where it ought to be: No one could look objectively at an American TV network or newspaper and think this the public discourse of a serious power.
And yet apparently over half the nation does.

Until that changes, this is China's world.
+++

And rise of The Taliban?

Taliban Forces Are Now Using American Gear and Weaponry


This week, propaganda videos posted on the Taliban channel show insurgents in the Badri 313 Battalion holding U.S.-made weapons and U.S. gear stolen from the Afghan forces. Propaganda posted by Taliban affiliated channels also shows the insurgents brandishing the U.S. weapons, gear, and uniforms while watching parts of the Afghanistan capital. 

The Taliban is now using U.S.-made weaponry and gear
In one picture posted by the Taliban affiliated channel, the insurgents are raising a Taliban flag in the same way as the iconic World War II photo wherein six U.S. Marines were hoisting the U.S. flag during the Battle of Iowa Jima. 

Shiv Aroor, a television anchor and senior editor at India Today, stated that these videos and pictures published by the Taliban-related channels were recently revealed. He added that these insurgents are special operations forces of the Taliban. They are being deployed not only in Kabul, but in other parts of the country. He added that the pictures show a completely different image. 

The Indian news anchor also noted that these images show the Taliban are not the sons of shepherds, farmers, or a bunch of terrorist groups; rather, they are now groups of special operations that are comparable with the best forces in the world. 

Aroor likewise noted that there is plenty of reason to believe the terrorists could increase their strength now that the Taliban forces are in power. He added that the world should expect to observe more of the Taliban’s special forces in the upcoming weeks and months. 

Billions spent by the U.S. to Afghan forces benefitted the Taliban
On the other hand, the Sinclair Broadcasting Group likewise echoed the same message, stating that the Badri 313 group of the Taliban is different from any other Taliban forces. They noted that they were dressed to look like U.S. forces, wearing camouflage, body armor, and combat boots.

Now, the Taliban are likewise carrying M$ carbines and uses armored Humvees that were supplied by the United States. Ian Bremmer, the founder and president of Eurasia Group, also posted a picture of Taliban insurgents with a caption stating that they are wearing their new “American gear.” 

According to a U.S. official, between the years 2002 to 2017, the United States supplied the Afghan forces weaponry with an estimated amount of $28 billion. However, all of the weaponry that has not been destroyed is now owned by the Taliban. The Taliban’s seizure of U.S. weapons, including advanced aircraft, serves as propaganda equipment since they cannot operate the plane without the proper skills and training.

Elias Yousif, the Deputy Director Security Assistance Monitor of the Center for International Policy, stated that whenever armed militants seize U.S. weapons, it is a psychological win and serves as a status symbol
+++

Meanwhile Biden wants to disarm Americans while he just armed terrorists:

Republican Attorney Generals Unite Against Biden’s Gun Control Agenda
 

In the little over seven months that Joe Biden has been America’s president, he’s been pushing hard for a gun control agenda. Biden’s worked to make this happen not only via executive action, but he’s also been pressuring Congress to pass various Second Amendment infringements.


Throughout this entire fiasco, Republicans and conservatives nationwide have made clear they won’t stand by and let this president chip away at Second Amendment rights. The right to keep and bear arms remains in the Bill of Rights, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.

This is why 20 Republican attorney generals have joined forces to halt Biden’s gun control agenda once and for all, as Breitbart News confirms.

GOP Attorney Generals vs. Biden’s Gun Control Agenda
Thus far, President Biden has been unsuccessful in getting Congress to pass gun control. Therefore, his only recourse has been gun control via executive action. One of Biden’s latest orders entails pushing the Justice Department to regulate firearms kits and parts.

To be precise, the 46th president ordered that serial numbers be added to guns printed 3D by Federal Firearm License holders (FFLs). The executive order additionally mandates that serial numbers be printed on gun parts within firearm kits.

Now, the Gun Control Act acknowledges that Americans are within their rights to build their own firearms; however, Biden wants to infringe upon this. Thankfully, Republican attorney generals aren’t letting the president do this unchecked.

These attorney generals maintain that Biden’s regulatory orders against firearms kits and parts treat individual firearm construction as a problem, rather than an inherent right. Republican attorney generals furthermore argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives does not have the right to regulate unfinished firearm parts.

An Unconstitutional Power Grab from a Mad President
The type of gun control Biden seeks to implement via executive order is unconstitutional; however, disregarding the Constitution is par for the course for this president. For decades, Biden built his career on opposing gun rights and attempting to dismantle gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.

Now that Biden has the Oval Office in his clutches, there are no lengths he won’t attempt to employ. In addition to regulating firearm kits and parts, Biden also aims to regulate stabilizer braces on AR-pistols. It is worth mentioning that stabilizer braces help injured people (like veterans) shoot firearms.

Of course, Biden wants them shut down.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


 

No comments: