The documents include highest-level “snowflake” memos written by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the George W. Bush administration, critical cables written by U.S. ambassadors back to Washington under both Bush and Barack Obama, the deeply flawed Pentagon strategy document behind Obama’s “surge” in 2009, and multiple “lessons learned” findings by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) – lessons that were never learned.
The US embassy in Afghanistan has issued a security alert advising American citizens to avoid travelling to Kabul’s airport.
In its advisory on its website, the embassy warned of “potential security threats outside the gates” of the airport.
“We are advising US citizens to avoid travelling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a US government representative to do so,” it said.
Thought Joe had this under control?
“CIA officers were bribing aging warlords with Viagra. The Americans knew all about the young boys the tribal leaders kept in their camps; because the sex drug helped Afghan elders rape more boys more often, they were beholden to” the agency.
When politicians and journalists talk about Afghanistan, most of them do not know what it really is. That is to say, they are distracted by the fact that it has had a flag, a territory, and a name, and until recently, its official representatives participated in a variety of international forums, such as the United Nations.
The rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s armed forces may have surprised President Biden but dozens of reports from a federal watchdog revealed how the U.S. bungled efforts to shore up the country.
From millions spent on military planes left rotting at Kabul’s international airport to the billions of dollars wasted trying and failing to eradicate the country’s opium crops, the dispatches from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Illustrated the fraud and abuse that derailed a $145 billion effort.
‘If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that could sustain itself and pose little threat to U.S. national security interests, the overall picture in Afghanistan is bleak,’ John Sopko concluded in his most report published this week.
“… The Afghan army didn’t “surrender”.
Its Pashtun members surrendered to the Taliban who are fellow Pashtuns. Hazaras fled to Iran and took our equipment with them for the benefit of Hezbollah, the Houthis, and any other Shiite terrorists. The Uzbeks fled to Uzbekistan.
There’s no Afghanistan. It’s a collection of tribes whose members are loyal to their own.”
One of the most insightful reports I’ve seen about the state of evacuation outside of a Clarissa Ward segment on CNN. David Fox works in Kabul, is married to an Afghan woman, and has a young son with her. One would think that would make them a priority for evacuation, but there’s a problem: The crowding outside Karzai International Airport is so chaotic that they simply can’t get to a gate to make contact with troops or diplomats within.
Not only did Presidentish Joe Biden leave UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the dark over “how it planned to withdraw [and] the pace of its withdrawal” from Afghanistan, Biden basically ghosted Johnson for 36 hours as the crisis unfolded in Kabul.
TALIBAN propaganda channels are showing brazen fanatics tooled up in the streets of Kabul in what appears to be stolen US-made military gear.
The ISIS-style video shows troops armed to the teeth with modern military equipment — rather than the militants’ signature AK-47 slung over the shoulder.
Europe’s politicians have had enough of President Joe Biden, the man whose arrival in the Oval Office just eight months ago they were treating like the second coming of the Messiah.
Leaders such as Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Angela Merkel have been careful not to make direct criticisms. But their parliaments have done an excellent job of doing their dirty work for them.
President Joe Biden vowed Friday to ‘mobilize every resource’ to get Americans and Afghan allies out of Afghanistan – and took questions, from a pre-approved list of White House reporters, about the conflict for the first time in nine days.
‘This is one of the largest difficult airlifts in history and the only country in the world capable of projecting this much power on the far side of the world with this degree of precision is the United States of America,’ Biden said.
He insisted that the chaotic takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, leading to disarray at Kabul’s airport as westerners and Afghans flee, did not taint the U.S.’s global reputation.
.@DavidMuir: "The president said he has no intelligence that the Americans have not been able to get [to the Kabul airport]. The question, obviously—does that square with reporting on ground?"@IanPannell: "I mean—just totally not."
Read more: https://t.co/6U5QW2IOjc pic.twitter.com/DTuyOZBmmn
— ABC News (@ABC) August 20, 2021
“Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” An unforgettable line from the classic movie Patton. George C. Scott, in the title role as the legendary General George Patton, is surveying the battlefield from his command post. He senses that his U.S. forces will rout the Germans, led by the brilliant Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, in this pivotal World War II tank battle in Tunisia. Why would the Americans be blessed with victory? In large part because Patton, himself a military genius, took the time to thoroughly study Rommel’s book on battlefield tactics and strategy during the previous war, World War I. Patton believed in the value of knowing his history, learning from his adversaries and avoiding the mistakes of his predecessors.
“President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Evacuation of American Citizens and Their Families, SIV Applicants and Their Families, and Vulnerable Afghans”
Allegedly starts at 1 PM.
The fact-check to top ALL fact-checks –> Kyle Becker takes Biden’s #Afghanistan interview apart lie-by-lie in receipt-filled thread
On Nov. 4, 1979, militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages. It was hell for the captured Americans, and Jimmy Carter’s inability to extricate them helped doom him to a one-term presidency.
The way things are shaping up in Kabul, that national humiliation is being recreated on a far, far bigger scale — it is no hyperbole to say that it is starting to look like America’s worst hostage crisis.
That may be the right call.
Afghanistan: Danger lies on Kabul’s airport road to freedom
As thousands of citizens and foreign nationals attempt to flee Afghanistan, scenes outside Kabul airport have become increasingly desperate.
Since the Taliban took control of the country at the weekend and closed land border crossings, the capital’s airport has become the only way out of the country for many.
But the militants have said they don’t want Afghans to leave the country. They have set up checkpoints on Airport Road – shown in yellow, below – the main route to Hamid Karzai International Airport, and have attacked people.
“If my family get executed or any other family get executed, know that you have their blood on your hands,” she said.
“The only person who is going to be responsible for the murder, merciless murder of the interpreters in Afghanistan, that will be only — and only — the leader of this country and that’s going to be Justin Trudeau.”
