In light of everything that’s happened, shouldn’t Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley, Avril Haines, William Burns, Antony Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan all be fired tomorrow?
Do you think that maybe General Milley should have paid a little more attention to what was happening in Afghanistan instead of spending his time figuring out how to introduce critical race theory to our nation’s armed forces?
Is our nation safe with these clowns calling the shots? In light of the incompetence they’ve demonstrated in their current roles (and the roles they played in the Obama Administration) could we win a war with China or Russia if these morons were in charge?
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Afghan women are about to enter a form of bondage few of us can imagine, mostly because of the cluelessness of leaders of an American political party that pretends to champion the rights of women.
Does Biden see any irony in his decision to demand that Andrew Cuomo step down for sexual misconduct while a mere few days later he abandons Afghanistan to a group of monsters who will rape and pillage any woman they damn well please while preventing girls from going to school? Or in his dotage, has cognitive decline hampered Biden’s ability to perceive irony?
It’s fine to be horrified and say that Biden owns this. But if you voted for Biden, don’t you own a little piece of it too?
Do the Cosmopolitan Globalists now realize that their preference for Biden over Trump was a big mistake?
Yes, Trump wanted to pull out of Afghanistan too and he negotiated with the Taliban. But does anyone think that he would have permitted the Taliban to humiliate both the United States and him the way the Taliban has humiliated the United States and the current President?
It’s obvious, there’s simply no way he would have permitted it without the most forceful of responses. With Biden calling the shots, the Taliban realize they have nothing to fear.
In just the past few months, we’ve experienced the collapse of democracy in Hong Kong, a deterioration in the situation in Ukraine, an unfolding calamity in Iran, a failure to respond assertively to Belarus aggression and an assortment of domestic failures almost too numerous to actually enumerate. Of course the border situation, which straddles the line between domestic and foreign policy, is a bigger mess than ever.
This is what happens when you project weakness masquerading as sophistication. Speak loudly and carry a small stick seems to be the credo Joe Biden has adopted. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Biden, Harris, Blinken, Malley, Wendy Sherman and the rest of Biden’s “A-team” are little more than sheep in sheep’s clothing.
Trump was surely no genius and he had some truly loathsome qualities, but he had one thing that his successor has none of; a modicum of common sense and an understanding that appeasement and weakness rarely lead to stability, much less victory?
Let me propose a rule of thumb; anyone who would have been comfortable attending Barack Obama’s recent soirée in Martha’s Vineyard should never be allowed anywhere near a position of influence in the United States. If that’s too complicated maybe a simpler rule would work better. We should simply exclude anyone who attended an Ivy League school from leadership positions in the Executive Branch, Congress or the Judiciary.
Here’s my question to the Cosmopolitan Globalists? When will you acknowledge that in the contest between Trump and Biden, you picked the wrong side. The global community was more peaceful and stable with Trump in the White House than Biden. A functional international order was safer when Trump was calling the shots than the candidate you preferred.
Is there a single member of the Cosmopolitan community willing to admit that the picked the wrong horse; the weak horse? Everything globalists cherish is collapsing before their eyes. The fall of Afghanistan isn’t the canary in the coal mine, it’s a perfect metaphor for everything that’s about to befall the world community. And all of it is brought to us courtesy of the “experts” who were going to rescue us from Trump and his Neanderthals.
Had Trump been re-elected the Cosmopolitan Globalists would have been very unhappy but not as unhappy as they are now.
Guess what, Cosmopolitan Globalists, you got it wrong. It’s time to fess up.
Something that bothers me that no one here including here including Claire and Vivek seems to get that Afghanistan is a landlocked country and the US doesn't particularly have good relations with any of it's neighbors. Essentially even the ability to evacuate the remaining US Embassy staff is dependent on the cooperation of Pakistan.
So there are two options as I see it. One is find another one of Afghanistan's neighbors like Iran that can be used as an entry point into the country. The second is to bring the fight directly to Pakistan i.e. for the US to declare war on Pakistan instead of the Taliban. What frustrates me is people like Thomas Gregg seem to reject the first option as completely out of the question given there dislike of the Iranian regime and people like Claire as much as they are calling the current situation in Afghanistan a disaster don't seem to have any stomach for US-Pakistan conflict involving tactical nuclear weapons especially given Claire just 15 days ago was calling the most urgent global existential crisis to be the use of nuclear weapons NOT what is happening today in Afghanistan.
This essay by Vivek Kelkar is far and away the most informative discussion of this topic that I’ve seen anywhere. It’s really a treat to be able to subscribe to this terrific site.
In 2009, journalist Nicholas Schmidle, published a book highlighting the two years he spent traveling on the Afghan/Pakistan border. Mr. Kelkar’s article motivated me to go back and reread it; it’s still brilliant. The book is entitled “To Live or to Perish Forever.” Schmidle’s interviews with Taliban fighters are particularly fascinating. See,
The impending Afghan disaster puts me in mind of the saddest outcome of the Afghanistan imbroglio; the American service members who’s lives were devastated by what will go down in history as America’s greatest defeat since Viet Nam.
Prior to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers injured so grievously that they required the amputations of either three or four limbs almost never survived. As a result of medical and especially surgical advances, triple and quadruple amputees from our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq often survived their injuries.
I’ve met several of these young servicemen and I can assure you that it’s a humbling and remarkably emotional experience.
My interactions with these young men came from some small volunteer activities I’ve undertaken with the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
For those unfamiliar with the organization it was founded to honor the memory of Stephen Siller, a New York City fireman who lost his like when the second tower collapsed on 9/11.
The story goes like this; On September 11, 2001, Stephen, who was assigned to Brooklyn’s Squad 1, had just finished his shift and was on his way to play golf with his brothers when he got word over his scanner of a plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Upon hearing the news, Stephen called his wife Sally and asked her to tell his brothers he would catch up with them later. He returned to Squad 1 to get his gear.
Stephen drove his pick up truck to the entrance of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (which connects Brooklyn to Manhattan) but it had already been closed for security purposes. Determined to carry out his duty, he strapped 60 lbs. of gear to his back, and ran on foot through the tunnel to the Twin Towers, where he gave up his life while saving others when the second tower collapsed.
To honor Stephen’s sacrifice, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation was established to support first responders and service members injured in 9/11 or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that 9/11 inspired.
One of the organization’s most important projects is building specially equipped homes for triple and quadriplegic amputees who returned home from America’s wars in the Middle East.
These homes are especially expensive to build because of the special accommodations required for people missing three or four limbs. Everything from the faucets to the toilets to the door knobs need to be custom made. Special lifts are required to facilitate movement. On average the cost of these accommodations increases the cost of these homes to close to $1 million each. On top of designing, building and paying for the homes, the Foundation attempts to negotiate real estate tax abatements for these soldiers because their disability payments don’t provide them with adequate income to pay property taxes on homes that cost this much.
I’ve been to a few of the “openings” of these houses and while the service members are invariably thrilled to get these houses at no cost, it solves only a small portion of their numerous difficulties.
Many of these warriors come home to find that their spouses have left them because they are not able to face what a lifetime of providing care would mean. Often, these men have to invite their moms to live with them to provide the necessary care. How many men in their mid 20s to early 30s look forward to the prospect of living with their parents, potentially for decades? What happens when their parents become too infirm to provide care?
One of the most psychologically difficult realities these men face is that they are usually incapable of performing sexually. The emotional damage this inflicts can’t be imagined by most of us. The suicide rate of these men is quite high and is only held down by the fact that because of their injuries it is often physically difficult for these men to actually kill themselves.
As we reflect on the loss of Afghanistan, we should not forget these men who must be realizing that their tragic loss ended up being in pursuit of a lost cause.
Nor should we forget who’s to blame; the dimwitted George W. Bush and the haughty Barack Obama who were both convinced that we could introduce the Afghans to Thomas Jefferson and everything would work out just fine.
What a perfect picture we had last weekend; Barack Obama partying with his sophisticated friends on Martha’s Vineyard just as the scope of disaster in Afghanistan was becoming obvious to everyone.
Has the Democratic Party or the establishment wing of the GOP learned anything from the Afghan disaster? Are liberal internationalist or neoconservative elites even interested in learning anything?
With the wisdom of hindsight perhaps signing an agreement with Taliban in Doha, one which didn’t include the Afghan Government, may have been unwise.
In light of everything that’s happened, shouldn’t Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley, Avril Haines, William Burns, Antony Blinken, Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan all be fired tomorrow?
Do you think that maybe General Milley should have paid a little more attention to what was happening in Afghanistan instead of spending his time figuring out how to introduce critical race theory to our nation’s armed forces?
Is our nation safe with these clowns calling the shots? In light of the incompetence they’ve demonstrated in their current roles (and the roles they played in the Obama Administration) could we win a war with China or Russia if these morons were in charge?
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Afghan women are about to enter a form of bondage few of us can imagine, mostly because of the cluelessness of leaders of an American political party that pretends to champion the rights of women.
Does Biden see any irony in his decision to demand that Andrew Cuomo step down for sexual misconduct while a mere few days later he abandons Afghanistan to a group of monsters who will rape and pillage any woman they damn well please while preventing girls from going to school? Or in his dotage, has cognitive decline hampered Biden’s ability to perceive irony?
It’s fine to be horrified and say that Biden owns this. But if you voted for Biden, don’t you own a little piece of it too?
Do the Cosmopolitan Globalists now realize that their preference for Biden over Trump was a big mistake?
Yes, Trump wanted to pull out of Afghanistan too and he negotiated with the Taliban. But does anyone think that he would have permitted the Taliban to humiliate both the United States and him the way the Taliban has humiliated the United States and the current President?
It’s obvious, there’s simply no way he would have permitted it without the most forceful of responses. With Biden calling the shots, the Taliban realize they have nothing to fear.
In just the past few months, we’ve experienced the collapse of democracy in Hong Kong, a deterioration in the situation in Ukraine, an unfolding calamity in Iran, a failure to respond assertively to Belarus aggression and an assortment of domestic failures almost too numerous to actually enumerate. Of course the border situation, which straddles the line between domestic and foreign policy, is a bigger mess than ever.
This is what happens when you project weakness masquerading as sophistication. Speak loudly and carry a small stick seems to be the credo Joe Biden has adopted. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Biden, Harris, Blinken, Malley, Wendy Sherman and the rest of Biden’s “A-team” are little more than sheep in sheep’s clothing.
Trump was surely no genius and he had some truly loathsome qualities, but he had one thing that his successor has none of; a modicum of common sense and an understanding that appeasement and weakness rarely lead to stability, much less victory?
Let me propose a rule of thumb; anyone who would have been comfortable attending Barack Obama’s recent soirée in Martha’s Vineyard should never be allowed anywhere near a position of influence in the United States. If that’s too complicated maybe a simpler rule would work better. We should simply exclude anyone who attended an Ivy League school from leadership positions in the Executive Branch, Congress or the Judiciary.
Here’s my question to the Cosmopolitan Globalists? When will you acknowledge that in the contest between Trump and Biden, you picked the wrong side. The global community was more peaceful and stable with Trump in the White House than Biden. A functional international order was safer when Trump was calling the shots than the candidate you preferred.
Is there a single member of the Cosmopolitan community willing to admit that the picked the wrong horse; the weak horse? Everything globalists cherish is collapsing before their eyes. The fall of Afghanistan isn’t the canary in the coal mine, it’s a perfect metaphor for everything that’s about to befall the world community. And all of it is brought to us courtesy of the “experts” who were going to rescue us from Trump and his Neanderthals.
Had Trump been re-elected the Cosmopolitan Globalists would have been very unhappy but not as unhappy as they are now.
Guess what, Cosmopolitan Globalists, you got it wrong. It’s time to fess up.
Something that bothers me that no one here including here including Claire and Vivek seems to get that Afghanistan is a landlocked country and the US doesn't particularly have good relations with any of it's neighbors. Essentially even the ability to evacuate the remaining US Embassy staff is dependent on the cooperation of Pakistan.
So there are two options as I see it. One is find another one of Afghanistan's neighbors like Iran that can be used as an entry point into the country. The second is to bring the fight directly to Pakistan i.e. for the US to declare war on Pakistan instead of the Taliban. What frustrates me is people like Thomas Gregg seem to reject the first option as completely out of the question given there dislike of the Iranian regime and people like Claire as much as they are calling the current situation in Afghanistan a disaster don't seem to have any stomach for US-Pakistan conflict involving tactical nuclear weapons especially given Claire just 15 days ago was calling the most urgent global existential crisis to be the use of nuclear weapons NOT what is happening today in Afghanistan.
https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/the-most-urgent-global-existential
This essay by Vivek Kelkar is far and away the most informative discussion of this topic that I’ve seen anywhere. It’s really a treat to be able to subscribe to this terrific site.
In 2009, journalist Nicholas Schmidle, published a book highlighting the two years he spent traveling on the Afghan/Pakistan border. Mr. Kelkar’s article motivated me to go back and reread it; it’s still brilliant. The book is entitled “To Live or to Perish Forever.” Schmidle’s interviews with Taliban fighters are particularly fascinating. See,
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FOANDVY?ref=KC_GS_GB_US
The impending Afghan disaster puts me in mind of the saddest outcome of the Afghanistan imbroglio; the American service members who’s lives were devastated by what will go down in history as America’s greatest defeat since Viet Nam.
Prior to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers injured so grievously that they required the amputations of either three or four limbs almost never survived. As a result of medical and especially surgical advances, triple and quadruple amputees from our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq often survived their injuries.
I’ve met several of these young servicemen and I can assure you that it’s a humbling and remarkably emotional experience.
My interactions with these young men came from some small volunteer activities I’ve undertaken with the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
For those unfamiliar with the organization it was founded to honor the memory of Stephen Siller, a New York City fireman who lost his like when the second tower collapsed on 9/11.
The story goes like this; On September 11, 2001, Stephen, who was assigned to Brooklyn’s Squad 1, had just finished his shift and was on his way to play golf with his brothers when he got word over his scanner of a plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Upon hearing the news, Stephen called his wife Sally and asked her to tell his brothers he would catch up with them later. He returned to Squad 1 to get his gear.
Stephen drove his pick up truck to the entrance of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (which connects Brooklyn to Manhattan) but it had already been closed for security purposes. Determined to carry out his duty, he strapped 60 lbs. of gear to his back, and ran on foot through the tunnel to the Twin Towers, where he gave up his life while saving others when the second tower collapsed.
To honor Stephen’s sacrifice, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation was established to support first responders and service members injured in 9/11 or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that 9/11 inspired.
One of the organization’s most important projects is building specially equipped homes for triple and quadriplegic amputees who returned home from America’s wars in the Middle East.
These homes are especially expensive to build because of the special accommodations required for people missing three or four limbs. Everything from the faucets to the toilets to the door knobs need to be custom made. Special lifts are required to facilitate movement. On average the cost of these accommodations increases the cost of these homes to close to $1 million each. On top of designing, building and paying for the homes, the Foundation attempts to negotiate real estate tax abatements for these soldiers because their disability payments don’t provide them with adequate income to pay property taxes on homes that cost this much.
I’ve been to a few of the “openings” of these houses and while the service members are invariably thrilled to get these houses at no cost, it solves only a small portion of their numerous difficulties.
Many of these warriors come home to find that their spouses have left them because they are not able to face what a lifetime of providing care would mean. Often, these men have to invite their moms to live with them to provide the necessary care. How many men in their mid 20s to early 30s look forward to the prospect of living with their parents, potentially for decades? What happens when their parents become too infirm to provide care?
One of the most psychologically difficult realities these men face is that they are usually incapable of performing sexually. The emotional damage this inflicts can’t be imagined by most of us. The suicide rate of these men is quite high and is only held down by the fact that because of their injuries it is often physically difficult for these men to actually kill themselves.
As we reflect on the loss of Afghanistan, we should not forget these men who must be realizing that their tragic loss ended up being in pursuit of a lost cause.
Nor should we forget who’s to blame; the dimwitted George W. Bush and the haughty Barack Obama who were both convinced that we could introduce the Afghans to Thomas Jefferson and everything would work out just fine.
What a perfect picture we had last weekend; Barack Obama partying with his sophisticated friends on Martha’s Vineyard just as the scope of disaster in Afghanistan was becoming obvious to everyone.
Has the Democratic Party or the establishment wing of the GOP learned anything from the Afghan disaster? Are liberal internationalist or neoconservative elites even interested in learning anything?