What was the purpose of today’s terrorist attack outside of the airport in Kabul?
The answer is obvious; it was motivated by a desire to humiliate President Biden, the United States and the West in general.
How long will it be before the Taliban turns over the former American Embassy in Kabul to the Russians or the Chinese?
My guess is that we might see that by the end of this year.
Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and Joe Biden (or as Maureen Dowd calls them Wynken, Blynken and Nod) all have one thing in common; that deer in the headlights look.
I thought this piece by Matthew Yglesias lays out a pretty good case that many people including Claire, Vivek, Thomas, Monique and WigWag really didn't care that much about Afghanistan and if they did really care about Afghanistan they would have given Russia a pass for example for invading Crimea and Dunbas in order to get Russia's help to stabilize Afghanistan(Or Iran for that matter).
It looks to me as if Biden & Co. are prepared to skedaddle out of Afghanistan on August 31, even if a whole lot of US citizens remain stranded there. No doubt they'll offer the excuse that those remaining behind chose to stay behind.
It may seem incredible that a US president would do such a wicked, cowardly thing—but then everything that Joe Biden has done since he ignited this crisis suggests that (1) he doesn't mind lying and (2) that he's a poltroon. Will no one resign in protest over his utter spinelessness and gross dereliction of duty? Probably not. No doubt he and his minions are crossing their fingers and hoping that the whole thing will blow over. But hard on the heels of the withdrawal is the twentieth anniversary of 9/11—and not all the spin in the galaxy can uncouple them. Imagine how revolting it will be to see this man—who makes Neville Chamberlain look like Bismarck—presiding over the solemn commemorations of that terrible day.
Incidentally I spoke to my daughter—as you may recall, an Afghanistan veteran—and she is utterly disgusted, not to mention brokenhearted over the soldiers she knew who were wounded or killed during her tour of duty. What could I say to her? What can anybody say?
You may be interested to know what veterans are saying about this calamity Below is the text of a recent post to Facebook by Alex:
I find it ironic that the phrase most commonly associated with 9/11 is “Never Forget” because it seems as though we have forgotten why America still had interests in Afghanistan. It was our insurance policy to make certain that the events of 9/11 could never be born and bred in that area again. Twenty years ago, we did not have that insurance, and almost 3,000 innocent Americans paid the price for it in their blood on 9/11. Since then, thousands of American soldiers have died, while countless others left pieces of themselves, physically and mentally, in defense of this insurance policy. I see why Americans wanted out of Afghanistan, but the way this was done is absolutely disgraceful. The images of the war started with Americans jumping out of the Twin Towers to escape the events caused by Islamic terrorism. Now, they conclude with images of Afghan citizens attempting to evade the same terrorism, while clinging to, and later falling from, American aircraft as they flee. Thank you, Mr. President."
Today we learned from White House communications director Kate Bedingfield that the chaos in Afghanistan is "not acceptable" to President Biden. That's just one more lie to add to a very long list—for obviously the chaos in Afghanistan is acceptable to Joe Biden. Recall that in his interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos he described that chaos as inevitable: something he'd expected all along. And that claim of course contradicted pretty much everything he said in his now-notorious July 8 statement on the Afghanistan withdrawal:
This lamentable performance raises a pointed question: Why should anybody, anywhere, now believe a single thing that Joe Biden says? His credibility is shot—and because as president he speaks for this country, America's credibility is gone.
There have been attempts to portray Biden as a hard-eyed, hard-hearted practitioner of Realpolitik, but a glance at the total record shows the absurdity of such characterizations. This man has long been known as a fabulist and spinner of phony narratives. His record on on foreign policy and national security issues is a pig's breakfast of misjudgment, error and magical thinking. And on top of that there's the fact, increasingly obvious, that he's mentally unfit, incapable of performing the duties of his high office. This is a crisis that transcends the Afghanistan debacle.
All, there was a pretty good article I found in the National Interest that gives I think a pretty coherent case as to why Joe Biden has acted so much in objection that of the readers and writers of the Cosmopolitan Globalist.
Basically the article suggests Biden views the people who run things in Kiev as being just as corrupt as those who run things in Kabul and is basically saying sayonara if you really like corruption which both groups have been shown to do then you will be sure to like life under the thumb of Russia and the Taliban. Where I think the Cosmopolitan Globalist response would be is this is a very harsh form of collective punishment. Many people in Ukraine and Afghanistan who genuinely are not corrupt are going to thrown under the bus and run over by Biden although some might say the same about Margaret Thatcher fight with the British coal miners.
Quote: "Just as corruption doomed your nation-building fantasies in the Middle East—and, most recently, Afghanistan—Biden has seen the swamp of corruption in Ukraine’s oligarchic economy close up. Petroleum rents—“unearned” income just for sitting between a seller and a buyer—are like an addiction for the Ukrainian elite, fueling that corruption. Of course Ukraine isn’t Iraq and we won’t just cut Kiev off. We agree to help Ukraine kick its addiction, transition to clean energy, and bolster its security. But it’s time for realism on Ukraine, not more misguided idealism that has led to repeated regime change in the Middle East and endless NATO expansion toward Russia—policies that aggravate relations with Russia, fuel Middle East instability, and drive huge refugee flows, all major political crises for us."
Aug 19, 2021Liked by Claire Berlinski, Rachel motte
The more I brood over this self-inflicted defeat, the angrier I feel. What is going through my mind was well expressed by Winston Churchill's speech in the House of Commons on October 5, 1938, after the signing of the Munich Agreement:
“I will, therefore, begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat…
“And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”
These words strike like an arrow at the gnarled little heart of the Biden Administration. The damage he and his minions have done, the shame they've brought upon the United States, the aid and comfort they've given to our enemies, the hell to which they've condemned the people of a prostrate nation, will reverberate down the years and decades. As Churchill said of Munich, this week's humiliating spectacle is but a foretaste of a terrible reckoning. And worst of all, for the next three years the leaders, so called, who engineered this cowardly defeat and surrender will remain in charge. As long as Joe Biden occupies the White House, the urgently necessary "recovery of moral health and martial vigour" is scarcely to be expected.
Aug 19, 2021Liked by Claire Berlinski, Rachel motte
Particularly disheartening was yesterday’s sorry performance by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which I can only characterize as a stain on the honor of the armed forces of the United States. In effect they shrugged their shoulders over the plight of the US citizens stranded in Afghanistan, not to mention the plight of tens of thousands of Afghans whose lives are forfeit because they cooperated with the US. To hear the leaders of the world’s most powerful military plead that they “lack the capacity” to do what’s necessary to bring those people out made me cringe and turn away from the TV screen.
I wore the uniform of the US Army for twenty-eight years, in war and peace, and until this week that was for me a point of pride. I’m not sure how I feel about it now.
Aug 18, 2021Liked by Claire Berlinski, Rachel motte
“Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.” (Winston Churchill)
Churchill’s words sum up the foreign and defense policy—if policy it can be called—of the Biden Administration. There was no good reason for the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan. All the hand-wringing over "endless war" & etc. conveniently overlooks the fact that US ground troops were no longer engaging in combat against the Taliban. As a matter of fact, the mission had returned to its roots: counterterrorism. And as I have noted elsewhere, though it would have been better to wipe out the Taliban, enforcing a stalemate that kept them out of power was an acceptable alternative: a high-payoff, low-cost strategy. The situation was not ideal, but then the situation never is.
The argument in favor of Biden’s bug-out boils down to a claim that America is incapable of sustaining a long-term security commitment. Really? Where Afghanistan was concerned, it's simply ridiculous to assert that the necessary military commitment was unbearably onerous, or that the American people were clamoring for withdrawal. While it’s true that polling showed low support for the Afghanistan commitment, it’s also true that for the vast majority of Americans it was an abstract issue. Only a tiny minority of American families have members who serve or have served in the armed forces since 9/11. Especially once the casualty count dwindled to single digits, the public paid scant attention to what was going on in Afghanistan. So in reality, there was no pressure on the US to withdraw. We could have stayed on—greatly to the benefit of Afghanistan, not to mention to the benefit of our own national security.
Unfortunately, that’s all over now.
Who would have predicted that Donald J. Trump’s replacement would turn out to be even more incompetent and mendacious that he was? But here we are. Not only did Joe Biden make a colossal strategic blunder, he bungled the withdrawal itself. Right now in Afghanistan, an unknown number of Americans are stranded, with no way out. Think about that. Biden came into office determined to get out of Afghanistan. There was ample time to plan an orderly retreat. But this fool—I cannot mince words—abandoned a secure air base and pulled out all our troops in advance of any civilian evacuation. So of course the troops had to be sent back in, but to Kabul airport, access to which is controlled by the Taliban.
And if that’s bad news for US citizens, it’s a death sentence for Afghans who worked with the US for twenty years. We may be sure that their names are included on the Taliban’s kill lists. No doubt some have already been killed. The charge that a politician one dislikes has “blood on his hands” is much misused. In this case, however, it sticks. Joe Biden’s hands drip with blood: “Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
We’re supposed to believe that Biden & Co. were surprised by the speed with which the Afghan armed forces collapsed. I don’t know why. What did they expect to happen after depriving the Afghans of the logistical support on which they depended? Worse still, Biden kneecapped the Afghan army, then mocked it for its unwillingness to fight—which was simply despicable. Remember when he said that “America is back”? Remember when he said that on his watch, America would once more be trusted by our allies and respected around the world? Well, I doubt that our allies around the world repose much faith or trust in Joe Biden’s America. I doubt that America is viewed today with anything but contempt and scorn. Our adversaries, on the other hand, must be delighted with Biden’s America.
I’m a veteran of the Vietnam War. My younger daughter, a former US Army MP, is an Afghanistan veteran. I swore to myself that I’d do all I could to make sure that the indifference, ingratitude and plain hatred meted out to my generation of veterans would never come my daughter’s way. But when it comes from a president of the United States and his supporters—what’s to be done?
One possibility to consider is in the next few days the Taliban will find it irresistible with a couple of thousand US troops sitting right at the Kabul Airport and perhaps up to the 10 to 20 thousand Western Civilians not to pick a fight i.e. kill, take hostages, create a causus belli, etc and then this whole thing blows wide open. Interestingly if you want the US to stay in Afghanistan you should be hoping for a direct Taliban provocation. In some sense I would argue the Taliban is at as greater risk of getting into a direct fight with the US anytime since the days before and after September 11 2001.
If the Taliban reason for being is to fight the West they have a perfect opportunity to do so right now. If there reason for being is to get control Afghanistan and keep the West out well they have incentive to get everyone of the ideological opponents out as safety and smoothly as possible. The thing is they might not actually know what they and more importantly they leadership might not be able to control there ranks. The rank and file of the Taliban might be believe their purpose in life isn't to govern Afghanistan but instead to fight the West and if the Taliban doesn't pick a fight with the remaining US presence on the ground right now in Kabul it will be a show of weakness and lack of ideological dogma on the part of the Taliban leadership.
During the Iran hostage crisis or doing the fall of Saigon there weren't still thousands of US troops right on the frontlines that could have caused a direct conflict with the US going back in so to speak.
Walter Russell Mead asked an interesting question this morning,
“How many thousands of American, western and other foreign potential hostages are now behind Taliban lines? How will they be treated? What will be the price for their release?”
Will Biden be forced to do what his former boss did; deliver pallets of cash to the enemy?
In addition to the valuable information in this essay, it would be interesting to read an informed description of what the elements of an orderly retreat would have looked like given the decision of the Biden Administration to leave.
There are numerous other questions that need to be addressed. One that comes to my mind is how will this impact the negotiations on reviving the JCPOA? Will the already hardline President of Iran become emboldened in his demands as a result of an obvious American defeat? In light of how weak the United States looks now, won’t the Biden Administration also insist on conditions that won’t open it up to domestic charges of forging an agreement with Iran full of loopholes?
If all of this makes a return to a revived JCPOA unlikely and the new and improved JCPOA that Biden promised during the Campaign impossible, doesn’t this dramatically increase the chance of war with Iran?
After all, neither Israel or the United States (or the world for that matter) can tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Biden’s capitulation to the Taliban put a spike through the heart of his fervent desire to facilitate a detente with Iran?
Everyone’s asking what this means for Taiwan; I wonder what it means for Japan. How emboldened will China be now that American credibility has suffered. It would be interesting for the Cosmopolitan Globalists to weigh in on what the options are for Taiwan or whether it’s out of options. Does the western defeat in Hong Kong foreshadow the end of democracy in Taiwan or does that nation still have an escape hatch?
If the United States won’t leave 2500 troops in Afghanistan to stabilize a country that gave sanctuary to terrorists who murdered thousands of Americans, what chance is there that the United States would launch a retaliatory strike against China if China attacked Japan with either conventional or nuclear weapons? Doesn’t the defeat in Afghanistan reveal the American nuclear umbrella, at least outside of Europe, to be a charade?
NATO appeared to be a paper tiger before the Afghanistan debacle. Wasn’t the fecklessness of both the EU and NATO revealed when all it’s member nations were reduced to doing what they do best, stomping their feet and launching platitudes?
My take is that there is a solution to some of this. We need political leaders in the West who focus more on nationalism than internationalism. Only nations focused on the needs and aspirations of their own citizens will be strong and cohesive enough to participate as “good citizens” of a scaled back but still vibrant international community.
Until elites stop obsessing about the importance of international law and fatally flawed experiments like the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the World Health Organization and even the EU, the West will never regain the strength it needs to sustain a more reasonable effort at international cooperation.
Let’s look at who’s on the way up and who’s on the way down. Nations that fantasize about the resilience of the international community are on the way down; the United States and Europe being the best examples.
Who’s on the way up? Nations that eschew internationalism (or in the case of China, merely pay lip service to it). China is rising and so is Russia (which makes Putin a genius despite being a monster).
There’s a lesson in all of this; will the West learn it before it is too late?
What was the purpose of today’s terrorist attack outside of the airport in Kabul?
The answer is obvious; it was motivated by a desire to humiliate President Biden, the United States and the West in general.
How long will it be before the Taliban turns over the former American Embassy in Kabul to the Russians or the Chinese?
My guess is that we might see that by the end of this year.
Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and Joe Biden (or as Maureen Dowd calls them Wynken, Blynken and Nod) all have one thing in common; that deer in the headlights look.
I thought this piece by Matthew Yglesias lays out a pretty good case that many people including Claire, Vivek, Thomas, Monique and WigWag really didn't care that much about Afghanistan and if they did really care about Afghanistan they would have given Russia a pass for example for invading Crimea and Dunbas in order to get Russia's help to stabilize Afghanistan(Or Iran for that matter).
https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-national-security-establishment
It looks to me as if Biden & Co. are prepared to skedaddle out of Afghanistan on August 31, even if a whole lot of US citizens remain stranded there. No doubt they'll offer the excuse that those remaining behind chose to stay behind.
It may seem incredible that a US president would do such a wicked, cowardly thing—but then everything that Joe Biden has done since he ignited this crisis suggests that (1) he doesn't mind lying and (2) that he's a poltroon. Will no one resign in protest over his utter spinelessness and gross dereliction of duty? Probably not. No doubt he and his minions are crossing their fingers and hoping that the whole thing will blow over. But hard on the heels of the withdrawal is the twentieth anniversary of 9/11—and not all the spin in the galaxy can uncouple them. Imagine how revolting it will be to see this man—who makes Neville Chamberlain look like Bismarck—presiding over the solemn commemorations of that terrible day.
Incidentally I spoke to my daughter—as you may recall, an Afghanistan veteran—and she is utterly disgusted, not to mention brokenhearted over the soldiers she knew who were wounded or killed during her tour of duty. What could I say to her? What can anybody say?
You may be interested to know what veterans are saying about this calamity Below is the text of a recent post to Facebook by Alex:
I find it ironic that the phrase most commonly associated with 9/11 is “Never Forget” because it seems as though we have forgotten why America still had interests in Afghanistan. It was our insurance policy to make certain that the events of 9/11 could never be born and bred in that area again. Twenty years ago, we did not have that insurance, and almost 3,000 innocent Americans paid the price for it in their blood on 9/11. Since then, thousands of American soldiers have died, while countless others left pieces of themselves, physically and mentally, in defense of this insurance policy. I see why Americans wanted out of Afghanistan, but the way this was done is absolutely disgraceful. The images of the war started with Americans jumping out of the Twin Towers to escape the events caused by Islamic terrorism. Now, they conclude with images of Afghan citizens attempting to evade the same terrorism, while clinging to, and later falling from, American aircraft as they flee. Thank you, Mr. President."
Things just keeps getting worse.
Today we learned from White House communications director Kate Bedingfield that the chaos in Afghanistan is "not acceptable" to President Biden. That's just one more lie to add to a very long list—for obviously the chaos in Afghanistan is acceptable to Joe Biden. Recall that in his interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos he described that chaos as inevitable: something he'd expected all along. And that claim of course contradicted pretty much everything he said in his now-notorious July 8 statement on the Afghanistan withdrawal:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-drawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/
This lamentable performance raises a pointed question: Why should anybody, anywhere, now believe a single thing that Joe Biden says? His credibility is shot—and because as president he speaks for this country, America's credibility is gone.
There have been attempts to portray Biden as a hard-eyed, hard-hearted practitioner of Realpolitik, but a glance at the total record shows the absurdity of such characterizations. This man has long been known as a fabulist and spinner of phony narratives. His record on on foreign policy and national security issues is a pig's breakfast of misjudgment, error and magical thinking. And on top of that there's the fact, increasingly obvious, that he's mentally unfit, incapable of performing the duties of his high office. This is a crisis that transcends the Afghanistan debacle.
All, there was a pretty good article I found in the National Interest that gives I think a pretty coherent case as to why Joe Biden has acted so much in objection that of the readers and writers of the Cosmopolitan Globalist.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/nord-stream-and-beyond-rescuing-ukraine-while-repairing-russia-ties-190838
Basically the article suggests Biden views the people who run things in Kiev as being just as corrupt as those who run things in Kabul and is basically saying sayonara if you really like corruption which both groups have been shown to do then you will be sure to like life under the thumb of Russia and the Taliban. Where I think the Cosmopolitan Globalist response would be is this is a very harsh form of collective punishment. Many people in Ukraine and Afghanistan who genuinely are not corrupt are going to thrown under the bus and run over by Biden although some might say the same about Margaret Thatcher fight with the British coal miners.
Quote: "Just as corruption doomed your nation-building fantasies in the Middle East—and, most recently, Afghanistan—Biden has seen the swamp of corruption in Ukraine’s oligarchic economy close up. Petroleum rents—“unearned” income just for sitting between a seller and a buyer—are like an addiction for the Ukrainian elite, fueling that corruption. Of course Ukraine isn’t Iraq and we won’t just cut Kiev off. We agree to help Ukraine kick its addiction, transition to clean energy, and bolster its security. But it’s time for realism on Ukraine, not more misguided idealism that has led to repeated regime change in the Middle East and endless NATO expansion toward Russia—policies that aggravate relations with Russia, fuel Middle East instability, and drive huge refugee flows, all major political crises for us."
The more I brood over this self-inflicted defeat, the angrier I feel. What is going through my mind was well expressed by Winston Churchill's speech in the House of Commons on October 5, 1938, after the signing of the Munich Agreement:
“I will, therefore, begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat…
“And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”
These words strike like an arrow at the gnarled little heart of the Biden Administration. The damage he and his minions have done, the shame they've brought upon the United States, the aid and comfort they've given to our enemies, the hell to which they've condemned the people of a prostrate nation, will reverberate down the years and decades. As Churchill said of Munich, this week's humiliating spectacle is but a foretaste of a terrible reckoning. And worst of all, for the next three years the leaders, so called, who engineered this cowardly defeat and surrender will remain in charge. As long as Joe Biden occupies the White House, the urgently necessary "recovery of moral health and martial vigour" is scarcely to be expected.
Particularly disheartening was yesterday’s sorry performance by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which I can only characterize as a stain on the honor of the armed forces of the United States. In effect they shrugged their shoulders over the plight of the US citizens stranded in Afghanistan, not to mention the plight of tens of thousands of Afghans whose lives are forfeit because they cooperated with the US. To hear the leaders of the world’s most powerful military plead that they “lack the capacity” to do what’s necessary to bring those people out made me cringe and turn away from the TV screen.
I wore the uniform of the US Army for twenty-eight years, in war and peace, and until this week that was for me a point of pride. I’m not sure how I feel about it now.
Can Biden's political career survive this? Does this kill his chance at re-election? When even NPR is critical you know it's bad.
“Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.” (Winston Churchill)
Churchill’s words sum up the foreign and defense policy—if policy it can be called—of the Biden Administration. There was no good reason for the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan. All the hand-wringing over "endless war" & etc. conveniently overlooks the fact that US ground troops were no longer engaging in combat against the Taliban. As a matter of fact, the mission had returned to its roots: counterterrorism. And as I have noted elsewhere, though it would have been better to wipe out the Taliban, enforcing a stalemate that kept them out of power was an acceptable alternative: a high-payoff, low-cost strategy. The situation was not ideal, but then the situation never is.
The argument in favor of Biden’s bug-out boils down to a claim that America is incapable of sustaining a long-term security commitment. Really? Where Afghanistan was concerned, it's simply ridiculous to assert that the necessary military commitment was unbearably onerous, or that the American people were clamoring for withdrawal. While it’s true that polling showed low support for the Afghanistan commitment, it’s also true that for the vast majority of Americans it was an abstract issue. Only a tiny minority of American families have members who serve or have served in the armed forces since 9/11. Especially once the casualty count dwindled to single digits, the public paid scant attention to what was going on in Afghanistan. So in reality, there was no pressure on the US to withdraw. We could have stayed on—greatly to the benefit of Afghanistan, not to mention to the benefit of our own national security.
Unfortunately, that’s all over now.
Who would have predicted that Donald J. Trump’s replacement would turn out to be even more incompetent and mendacious that he was? But here we are. Not only did Joe Biden make a colossal strategic blunder, he bungled the withdrawal itself. Right now in Afghanistan, an unknown number of Americans are stranded, with no way out. Think about that. Biden came into office determined to get out of Afghanistan. There was ample time to plan an orderly retreat. But this fool—I cannot mince words—abandoned a secure air base and pulled out all our troops in advance of any civilian evacuation. So of course the troops had to be sent back in, but to Kabul airport, access to which is controlled by the Taliban.
And if that’s bad news for US citizens, it’s a death sentence for Afghans who worked with the US for twenty years. We may be sure that their names are included on the Taliban’s kill lists. No doubt some have already been killed. The charge that a politician one dislikes has “blood on his hands” is much misused. In this case, however, it sticks. Joe Biden’s hands drip with blood: “Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
We’re supposed to believe that Biden & Co. were surprised by the speed with which the Afghan armed forces collapsed. I don’t know why. What did they expect to happen after depriving the Afghans of the logistical support on which they depended? Worse still, Biden kneecapped the Afghan army, then mocked it for its unwillingness to fight—which was simply despicable. Remember when he said that “America is back”? Remember when he said that on his watch, America would once more be trusted by our allies and respected around the world? Well, I doubt that our allies around the world repose much faith or trust in Joe Biden’s America. I doubt that America is viewed today with anything but contempt and scorn. Our adversaries, on the other hand, must be delighted with Biden’s America.
I’m a veteran of the Vietnam War. My younger daughter, a former US Army MP, is an Afghanistan veteran. I swore to myself that I’d do all I could to make sure that the indifference, ingratitude and plain hatred meted out to my generation of veterans would never come my daughter’s way. But when it comes from a president of the United States and his supporters—what’s to be done?
One possibility to consider is in the next few days the Taliban will find it irresistible with a couple of thousand US troops sitting right at the Kabul Airport and perhaps up to the 10 to 20 thousand Western Civilians not to pick a fight i.e. kill, take hostages, create a causus belli, etc and then this whole thing blows wide open. Interestingly if you want the US to stay in Afghanistan you should be hoping for a direct Taliban provocation. In some sense I would argue the Taliban is at as greater risk of getting into a direct fight with the US anytime since the days before and after September 11 2001.
If the Taliban reason for being is to fight the West they have a perfect opportunity to do so right now. If there reason for being is to get control Afghanistan and keep the West out well they have incentive to get everyone of the ideological opponents out as safety and smoothly as possible. The thing is they might not actually know what they and more importantly they leadership might not be able to control there ranks. The rank and file of the Taliban might be believe their purpose in life isn't to govern Afghanistan but instead to fight the West and if the Taliban doesn't pick a fight with the remaining US presence on the ground right now in Kabul it will be a show of weakness and lack of ideological dogma on the part of the Taliban leadership.
During the Iran hostage crisis or doing the fall of Saigon there weren't still thousands of US troops right on the frontlines that could have caused a direct conflict with the US going back in so to speak.
Fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time.
Walter Russell Mead asked an interesting question this morning,
“How many thousands of American, western and other foreign potential hostages are now behind Taliban lines? How will they be treated? What will be the price for their release?”
Will Biden be forced to do what his former boss did; deliver pallets of cash to the enemy?
In addition to the valuable information in this essay, it would be interesting to read an informed description of what the elements of an orderly retreat would have looked like given the decision of the Biden Administration to leave.
There are numerous other questions that need to be addressed. One that comes to my mind is how will this impact the negotiations on reviving the JCPOA? Will the already hardline President of Iran become emboldened in his demands as a result of an obvious American defeat? In light of how weak the United States looks now, won’t the Biden Administration also insist on conditions that won’t open it up to domestic charges of forging an agreement with Iran full of loopholes?
If all of this makes a return to a revived JCPOA unlikely and the new and improved JCPOA that Biden promised during the Campaign impossible, doesn’t this dramatically increase the chance of war with Iran?
After all, neither Israel or the United States (or the world for that matter) can tolerate an Iran with nuclear weapons. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Biden’s capitulation to the Taliban put a spike through the heart of his fervent desire to facilitate a detente with Iran?
Everyone’s asking what this means for Taiwan; I wonder what it means for Japan. How emboldened will China be now that American credibility has suffered. It would be interesting for the Cosmopolitan Globalists to weigh in on what the options are for Taiwan or whether it’s out of options. Does the western defeat in Hong Kong foreshadow the end of democracy in Taiwan or does that nation still have an escape hatch?
If the United States won’t leave 2500 troops in Afghanistan to stabilize a country that gave sanctuary to terrorists who murdered thousands of Americans, what chance is there that the United States would launch a retaliatory strike against China if China attacked Japan with either conventional or nuclear weapons? Doesn’t the defeat in Afghanistan reveal the American nuclear umbrella, at least outside of Europe, to be a charade?
NATO appeared to be a paper tiger before the Afghanistan debacle. Wasn’t the fecklessness of both the EU and NATO revealed when all it’s member nations were reduced to doing what they do best, stomping their feet and launching platitudes?
My take is that there is a solution to some of this. We need political leaders in the West who focus more on nationalism than internationalism. Only nations focused on the needs and aspirations of their own citizens will be strong and cohesive enough to participate as “good citizens” of a scaled back but still vibrant international community.
Until elites stop obsessing about the importance of international law and fatally flawed experiments like the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the World Health Organization and even the EU, the West will never regain the strength it needs to sustain a more reasonable effort at international cooperation.
Let’s look at who’s on the way up and who’s on the way down. Nations that fantasize about the resilience of the international community are on the way down; the United States and Europe being the best examples.
Who’s on the way up? Nations that eschew internationalism (or in the case of China, merely pay lip service to it). China is rising and so is Russia (which makes Putin a genius despite being a monster).
There’s a lesson in all of this; will the West learn it before it is too late?
Or is it already too late?