Afghanistan

When President Barack Obama released five Taliban commanders from the Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for an American deserter in 2014, he assured a wary public that the dangerous enemy combatants would be transferred to Qatar and kept from causing any trouble in Afghanistan.

In fact, they were left free to engineer Sunday’s sacking of Kabul.

h/t HallsOfMacademia

Afghanistan’s military collapse: Illicit deals and mass desertions

KABUL — The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government’s lowest-ranking officials.

The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official.

Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with more than a dozen Afghan officers, police, special operations troops and other soldiers.

Via Twitchy

The worst possible message to our enemies across the world.

The Biden administration’s feckless withdrawal from Afghanistan is sending the worst possible message to our enemies across the world. Our rivals are already convinced of our lack of morale and our fear of the consequences from a response serious enough to concentrate their minds. Twenty years after 9/11, and we still haven’t figured out the nature and aims of those who for decades have in word and bloody deed told us we are an enemy they want to destroy.

Instead we cling to our shopworn belief that “diplomatic engagement” can deter and stop a fanatic enemy, hoping words can substitute for deeds. But all we’ll achieve is further damage to our already fraying national prestige.

America’s humiliation in Afghanistan confirms that the woke West is utterly incapable of standing up for itself.

Everyone is saying it’s like Saigon in 1975. Helicopters evacuating an American embassy. Chaotic, distressing scenes at the local airport as American allies, or just plain fearful people, desperately try to flee the country. American officials convincing absolutely nobody with their unhinged claims that the ‘mission has been successful’ (in Anthony Blinken’s words). It’s clear for all to see, commentators insist: Kabul in 2021 is a replay of Saigon in 1975. America humiliated, its enemies ascendant.

Yet here’s the brutal truth: what is happening right now is worse than Saigon.

Sickening images show two men being paraded through an Afghanistan street with their faces tarred black — and being pulled by nooses around their necks.

“Taliban accused these men of theft, their faces were colored with black color — to embarrass them,” tweeted Bilal Sarwary, one of Afghanistan’s leading journalists, who said he was sent the images late last week.