Purge 'Em All, Let God Sort Them Out

Our flag officers who seemingly blow with the left-wing political winds need to be purged after the Afghanistan debacle with an old fashioned Roman "decimation". There is hope from the ranks of the military leaders who actually fight.

We can say that Biden--or whoever guided his hand to sign the appropriate documents--created the Afghanistan debacle. But nobody in the military leadership was willing to talk the administration out of this error. Nor were they willing to leak to the press to build pressure to stop the error. Nor were they willing to publicly resign and explain why they were doing so in order to stop the error. 

While officers ultimately have to follow orders from the civilian side, the alternative of quitting rather than carrying out disastrous orders is the last resort. Honor required that. Their oath of duty required that. But they remained silent until they needed to cover their butts.

A Marine lieutenant colonel called out senior leadership for bad advice on the Afghanistan withdrawal for failing to stand up against bad decisions (tip to Instapundit):

Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, "Hey, it's a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone?" Scheller, in uniform, said in the video. "Did anyone do that? And when you didn't think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, "We completely messed this up?" 

There was a failure by our flag officers to accept responsibility. That LTC accepted that his public statement trying to fix the military he loyally served justified his superiors relieving him of duty. So double respect for the man. He rightly called out leaders for this debacle to help America. And he accepted the punishment without complaint for his action. 

But where are the flag officers? This absence has pissed me off the most the last couple weeks. It is far more dangerous than even a major defeat abroad, as Afghanistan certainly is.

Although I suppose I have some hope for belated responsibility once our troops are pulled out. 

But if that sense of responsibility doesn't happen from those top officers, hope amidst the ruins of the Afghanistan debacle is stirring within the military: 

The general officer U.S. military ranks have a big problem: The field grade officer and noncommissioned officer ranks have had enough of the double standards applied to leadership.

Top line: Whereas those out in the field are held strictly accountable for any failure, real or imagined, general officer ranks are rarely held accountable for far worse leadership failures that have a far greater impact.

Hell, I faced consequences just for dropping my bayonet. And I was aware I had dropped it.

It has long been said that while the American military went to war after 9/11, the American people went shopping. That division of attention clearly stands not between troops and civilians but at the general officer rank. 

Our officer corps is surely the most technically proficient in our history. The mechanics of the withdrawal from Kabul demonstrate real proficiency. But the senior officers spent too little time on Clausewitz and too much time on management, and lately "white rage" bullshit, to be military leaders who pursue victory above all else.

I want uniformed heads figuratively on pikes outside the Pentagon. Soon. Decimate their ranks.

Branded. But without the innocence.

Finally, a call for accountability:

Nearly 90 retired U.S. generals and admirals penned an open letter asking Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to resign from their positions following their “negligence in performing their duties primarily involving events surrounding the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

As the joke about lawyers at the bottom of the sea goes, Austin and Milley are a good start.

And if the American people don't do the same to civilian rulers in November 2022 to exact a price for this humiliating and needless defeat, well that's pretty damning. As a country we must not accept "progressive" leaders that we see at the state level like Newsom and Cuomo; or at city levels like in Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, Minneapolis, and Portland, where they have surrendered civilization to the barbarians under the guise of being compassionate.

Remember, the worst thing isn't having bad leadership during a war. The worst thing is having bad leadership while we believe we have good leadership. At least that belief died in Afghanistan.

Our jihadi enemies still hate us and still want to kill us. We don't get to "end" that war. We only get to pretend--for a while--that we ended that war. We'll need civilian and military leaders when that pretending is stopped, whether by jihadis or by our great power foes who take their shot at America. 

Have a super sparkly day. 

UPDATE: I added an old meme I forgot about.

Strategery

I have little patience for those--on the right or left--who now say we should have pulled out of Afghanistan after wrecking the Taliban and routing al Qaeda by early 2002. Had we done that the people we supported to topple the Taliban might have been defeated again in renewed fighting. 

And then Americans would have wondered how we could be so stupid as to walk away from a victory and let enemies win. And jihadis--led by Osama bin Laden--would have been encouraged and enabled to renew their war on us at home many years ago. 

We needed to build a state in Afghanistan. I think we should have tried to build a decentralized state, as I wrote about in early 2009 regarding a potential surge, that would have withstood the fall of Kabul:

The end result in Afghanistan, if all goes well, will be a nominal national government that controls the capital region and reigns but does not rule local tribes and which actually helps the locals a bit rather than sucking resources from the locals, who in turn do not make trouble for the central government or allow their areas to be used by jihadis to plan attacks on the West. We press for reasonable economic opportunities, with bribes all around (I mean, foreign aid), to keep a fragile peace.

And we stick around this time, unlike after the Soviets left Afghanistan when we ignored the place, for a generation or two to see if we can move Afghanistan into the 19th century (hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves).

In 2002 we had little choice but to help the winners keep the jihadi losers out. 

I'll put in George Friedman's analysis because I respect him despite disagreeing with him on the inevitability of the Taliban victory. I don't think any war outcome is "inevitable." We only think they are in retrospect when we describe how a victory was achieved. Gather all those reasons and victory that often rests on the knife's edge looks inevitable. The Taliban are a minority in Afghanistan and we had allies who hated the Taliban. 

Sure, nation-building was a mistake. But we had to build a state. And if we didn't use the form of democracy even though the society lacked the basis for rule of law which must exist for democracy to really work, what could we do that would be acceptable? 

With continuing American and NATO support, Afghanistan could have gotten through the morale danger zone. Heck, beginning our withdrawal during the winter might have achieved that alone. The Taliban could have been stymied from capturing the country even if it could not have been prevented from carving out their own territory in the south adjacent to Pakistan. This near-total defeat wasn't inevitable. We screwed the pooch. 

 

I'm stunned we stopped keeping our enemies out of power this year after paying the price we did over two decades. Especially because the price we've paid in recent years has been low in casualties as Afghan forces fought and died in large numbers during the last seven years.

God! It was such a rookie policy mistake to base a Afghanistan withdrawal decision on costs already paid rather than the price going forward.

Did we get our dead troops or treasure back by losing?  

But no mean tweets! America is back! The adults are back in charge. We are restoring trans-Atlantic relations. And Smart Diplomacy.® Did I miss a Newspeak Dictionary description of this clusterbiden, which are designed to hide Biden's debacle?

UPDATE: Huh (via Instapundit):

President Joe Biden waived a mandate in June that would have forced the Pentagon to provide a detailed report to Congress about the risks of leaving Afghanistan.

Under the federal statute, the administration was barred from reducing troops in Afghanistan below 2,000 without first briefing Congress about the expected impact on U.S. counterterrorism operations and the risk to American personnel. Biden waived the mandate in June, arguing that providing this information to Congress could undermine "the national security interests of the United States."

Yeah, providing that information could have led to a national security disaster, eh? 

And I don't remember any stories on this. Perhaps reporting on that violation would have undermined the political interests of the Biden administration.

Unclear On the Concept

China won't give America the information we need to determine if China made the Xi Jinping Virus that came from Wuhan, China. Wait. What?

I think my head hurts after reading this (via Instapundit):

The US intelligence community has told President Joe Biden it couldn’t come to a clear conclusion on COVID’s origins — because China wouldn’t provide the needed information.

Doesn't America spend approximately a gazillion dollars per year on various intelligence agencies because enemies don't simply hand over the information we want?

I mean, am I the one unclear about what intelligence agencies do? They don't take information from people trying to hide stuff? They only receive it from people willing to give it? 

That's how this works? Wouldn't our intelligence budget be much lower if we just needed a PO box, an 800 number, a web site, and a Twitter handle?

Did China blackmail America for this gift of ignorance? Oh, I'm not talking about Hunter-related stuff.

But what if China knows that Biden is desperate to tamp down the string of disasters on his watch? 

What if China told us they'd ship no more personal protection gear--like masks--if we persisted on exposing the Chinese Communist Party's responsibility for this pandemic?  

Or maybe China offered not to invade Taiwan--whether or not the CCP planned to--before the 2022 elections here if we claimed ignorance.

I'll hope that instead we got one Hell of a concession from China to deliver this cow patty of an intelligence non-finding. Surely, not every news story can be driven by Biden administration incompetence and weakness, can it?

Are Americans Really Fine With Losing and Having Our Nose Rubbed in Defeat?

We are all going to learn the difference between "not winning a war" and "losing" a war. Biden may learn that while Americans don't care much about the former, a lot of Americans care very much about the latter.

Mistakes are made in all wars. A big problem is that it is easy to get discouraged by our ease of seeing our own problems--real or imagined--while not being able to see enemy problems with the same detail. Even the "greatest generation" screwed up a lot in World War II. 

So yes, we made mistakes waging war in Afghanistan. But none were critical enough to result in losing the war. The latest mistake was the biggest, and Biden made it by abandoning the Afghanistan government. Consequences will follow:

No doubt mistakes have been made over the years, but we’re about to be reminded what failure really looks like. For nearly 20 years the American-led presence has kept at bay the terror threat and prevented Afghanistan from being used as a haven for extremists targeting our homeland.  No longer. Stability is an undervalued asset in international relations. In diplomacy, as in life, you never fully appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

Biden seems to be counting on Americans not caring about this debacle that his decisions created to avoid being blamed: 

This week, President Joe Biden made a dark political bet that Americans would forget a 20-year war. Biden and his aides, many of whom have lived and worked inside the bubble of Washington for most of their adult lives, believed the political fallout would be limited because people were war-weary.

I believe I mentioned that Biden may have erred in assuming that Americans who were frustrated at not winning the Afghanistan war will not forgive him for losing it so spectacularly.

I'm sure his public polling analysis--more important to him than military and intelligence analysis--reassured him that he could bug out cleanly. But he may be counting on Americans not caring about winning the war after all this time.

Handing America a sudden and spectacular defeat that has shocked our allies as much as it has delighted our enemies might be a completely different matter.

As we lost Afghanistan, I noted there is a big difference between "not winning a war" and "losing" a war. That difference may apply to the public's view of Biden decision and decision-making capacity. His cloudy thinking in the days after the Taliban overran Kabul may bounce his political rubble even higher.

I mean, Jesus Christ, were any viewers but our enemies comforted by the dumpster fire of a press conference Biden held? 

I really don't think this is a matter of Biden's public opinion ratings surviving this debacle. I think his presidency is about to end. I really do. His staff and media allies can't hide his mental capacity any more. And more important, I don't think they want to hide it any more. And when our last troops fly out of Kabul, I think Biden's days are numbered.

And God help us, regardless of Biden's political fate, I don't know if our humiliation is over.

UPDATE: Via Instapundit: The Taliban offered to allow America to control Kabul and the airport in order to withdraw? 

As long as Biden relied on the Taliban for keeping the airport open, why not put the troops into the city in order to evacuate Americans and others? We could have contracted our area of control in the city as we moved people closer to the airport. 

Good Lord, did the Biden administration decide it didn't want the opportunity to rescue that many people? Was it afraid that if it left people behind when under our protection rather than under Taliban control that it would be more obviously Biden's fault?

Tar. Feathers. Soon. 

UPDATE: Screw you guys, we're going home:

The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan late Monday, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of more than 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, some barely older than the war.

Well, it could have ended much worse if our enemies decided not to just let us go.

I wonder how the war will unfold between their suicide bombers and our over-the-horizon efforts?

Weekend Data Dump

Never say Biden isn't willing to reinforcing Afghanistan! "Shortly after taking office, Biden reversed President Trump’s executive order to keep Gitmo open and is lining up inmates to transfer out of the prison with the goal of emptying it and shuttering it — even though the remaining prisoners have long been classified by military intelligence as the worst of the worst and too dangerous to release." Does Biden really believe he ended the war on jihadi terror rather than just losing one campaign? Tip to Instapundit.

The headline that Israel "apparently" violated the laws of war by striking an apartment building does not match the facts. That conclusion relies on knowing nothing more than the fact that Israel struck an apartment building. Saying this is a war crime requires you to assume it is a purely civilian target. But the strike is fully legal if, as the Israelis say, Hamas was "using the buildings for military purposes and turning their occupants into human shields[.]" Did Hamas let that Human Rights Watch closely examine the building? Saying HRW "found no evidence" of Hamas using the building for military purposes is not the same as saying HRW investigated. Looking at what Hamas lets them see or looking at news videos is not an investigation. Does HRW even want to investigate rather than assume Israel is guilty until proven innocent? Despite the fact that Israel has a track record of trying to reduce civilian casualties while Hamas has a track record of using buildings for military terrorist purposes and using civilians as human shields? I have no reason to trust HRW.

The Chinese Communist Party may find it doesn't have enough people to man its modernized security forces: "A critical problem is that future generations of well-educated Chinese recruits will be smaller and less eager to choose a military career. The key problem is that too many young Chinese cannot afford to marry and raise more than one child. [para] ... China has become increasingly alarmed at the impact of its 'one-child' policy and its inability to keep things from getting worse. " To be fair, I assume the CCP would prefer to use robots instead of unreliable humans who may resist social credit score control and turn against their CCP masters. I've been on this demographic problem behind the GDP-growth headlines for some time.

Even as reporters are finally asking hard questions to the president over his Afghanistan debacle, it is instructive to see the reporters still being polite and orderly in contrast to their rowdy behavior when Trump actually answered questions. Still, that was a fleeting moment of lucidity before the White House could whip them into line to believe them rather than your lying eyes. I fear our lying eyes will see a lot worse before this is over if our enemies bombard the Kabul airfield and shoot down planes trying to take off. Brush up on Dien Bien Phu for a taste of what we may yet experience.

Another story explaining AIS (Automated Identification System) issues and recent Russian efforts to manipulate the signals for reasons that elude me while assuming their sanity.

The idea that America can bomb the equipment we left behind in Afghanistan is a fantasy. By the time it is safe to do that--assuming the Taliban and jihadis allow us to pull out smoothly--the equipment will be scattered and/or surrounded by human shields. 

Yes, watch for the jihadi infiltrators during the evacuation.

Biden didn't end the Afghanistan war. He ended a major campaign in the global war on jihadi terrorism: "When participants in the worldwide Salafist-jihadist movement look at the developments of the last week, they don’t see reasons to quit their mayhem. They see the chaos, panic, violence, disorder, and American retreat as a vindication of their ideology and a spur to further action." As the author goes over, the fall of Saigon in 1975 encouraged communists around the world and the retreat from Iraq in 2011 spurred the rise of ISIL. Yes, America recovered from both needless shots into our own foot. But it could be an ugly 5 years until we do recover. If we in fact recover this time without major enemy victories in our danger zone of weakened credibility.

For some reason the term "fucking morons"leaps to mind: "As a reminder, here’s what 70 so-called Republican national security officials said when endorsing Biden in August 2020: 'We believe Joe Biden has the character, experience, and temperament to lead this nation. We believe he will restore the dignity of the presidency, bring Americans together, reassert America’s role as a global leader, and inspire our nation to live up to its ideals.'" On the bright side, a future Republican president has a list of people who should never serve in a Republican administration. To be fair, Biden is proving to be as competent as those 70 endorsers. Tip to Instapundit.

The terrorist group situation in Afghanistan is a complex mosaic. But: "Besides the Taliban themselves, the most significant beneficiary of recent events is al Qaeda. As we approach the 20^th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States, the jihadist group is in a position to regenerate its networks throughout South Asia. In particular, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) will benefit from the Taliban’s ascendance." Will the Taliban 2.0 really suppress al Qaeda this time? The Taliban is divided enough to have al Qaeda fanboys within its ranks who would resist that as-of-now theoretical goal. And even if the Taliban want to do that, do they have the power to do so? Smart Diplomacy® is awesome. Still, no mean tweets.

While Japan is buying the American 5th generation F-35, Japan is working to build its own 6th generation fighter, dubbed "Godzilla." Quality will matter a lot in a war against China on a narrow front. That initial article also summarizes the characteristics of jet generations.

What if American forces can't get all of the Americans out of Afghanistan before the Taliban call an end to this slow-motion humiliation of America? Will Democrats argue it is a blessing, really, when those Americans would just have to come home to face death from white supremacists and global warming?

The difference between not winning a war and losing a war: "For the past two decades, 'winning hearts and minds' was the fundamental strategy of triumph in the war on terror. Today, it is clear that breaking hearts and minds is the strategy of surrender in that fight."

Well sure, China's project to add 250 ICBMs that can reach America will act to deter and constrain American actions. But those missiles can reach Russia, too. Russia has escalated its doctrine for nuclear use to deter territorial losses. So China has more incentive to really be focused on Russia, as I noted regarding another article on China's nuclear missile expansion: "The article highlights America as a potential threat. But America isn't going to nuke China over Taiwan. However, Russia might not be appeasing China any more in five short years. If China decides that is the time to make a move on parts of Russia's Far East, China doesn't want Russia to be able to threaten massive nuclear strikes on China. So China had best start preparing for that day, eh? For the record, I doubt that China's nuclear arsenal is as small as we think it is." Remember where China's "century of humiliation" continues.

It has been bewildering to a lot of people to see our Turing Test POTUS flailing about defending his policy as the best possible plan that his team designed that he had no choice in implementing because of the Bad Orange Man. Truly, his speeches and utterances have been horrifying. But are we making a major mistake in thinking Biden is doing this? What if Biden's cabinet members and staff who designed this policy are simply putting words in front of Biden in order to deflect blame from the forces behind the curtain to the front man in a suit?

I think American power has more reach in Kabul than in Portland. Antifa doesn't think the Taliban should have all the fun in this new summer of love.

I'm actually jealous of Canadians. Their leader Justin Trudeau is a woke joke. But at least Trudeau is deliberately saying stupid things, in contrast to our meat sack POTUS.

It looks like China exported its virus and dictatorial instincts to Australia: "The country is included in the group of western democracies globally and among the Five Eyes intelligence community members. Yet, the nation’s response to the pandemic can only be described as authoritarian." Seriously, WTF Australia. Have you gone mad? Your reputation in America used to be pretty bad ass based on Crocodile Dundee,  Foster's commercials, and a vague awareness that you like Marmite. A reputation for arresting people for leaving their homes and for shooting dogs is not what your tourism bureau needs. Not that America can't follow. I can only report with horror that (tip to Instapundit) nearly half of our public is ignorant and badly in need of instruction on our Constitution and our freedoms. 

I lived through and remember the needless fall of Saigon and South Vietnam, as well as the inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s. And now we have the needless fall of Kabul and Afghanistan, as well as the re-ignition of inflation with insane spending levels. Here's hoping we all live through this period to see the re-birth of American confidence with economic growth and strength in the face of enemies.

Biden is back in the White House just in time for yet another fake "recovery summer!" All he had to do was get out of the way of the American people. But no.

Discount Persian drones.

Afghan troops weren't unwilling to fight. They were unable to fight because of lack of American support. The fact that 50,000 died in the last 7 years with our support while fighting the Taliban should have been a clue. Are the same people now saying Afghan security forces wouldn't fight the same people warning that the past rate of Afghan security force casualties was unsustainable?

Don't hobble your economy and your economy won't hobble. Tip to Instapundit.

Yes, American geography means we have the framework to recover from the our defeat in Afghanistan. Unlike the Afghan government which basically held the cities and so had no depth to fall back and regroup once Biden cut off the support their military relied on. But I strongly disagree with the idea that Iraq was a defeat. How that victory is overlooked so easily astounds me. But our leadership needs to improve. Although perhaps even good leaders are doomed in the byzantine bureaucracy we have accumulated since World War II. Truly, the Afghanistan debacle symbolizes its failure despite more than ample resources that have flooded its corridors. A transformation of our very structure to adapt will take place over the next decade. So strap in and brace yourself until we resolve our issues.

Not only are adults not in charge of America, the people who advise the president aren't adults.

I'm all in favor of trying to split Russia away from China. But granting favors to Russia that ignore Russia's past hostility against European allies and friends, as this author thinks is a proper basis, is a bad idea and won't work. It won't work as long as Russia is too afraid of Chinese latent but for-now-muted threats to reclaim Russian Far East territory. So no, that author's article won't one day be a seminal article.

It never fails to impress me how ex-felons are natural supporters of Democratic politicians.

Ford is getting ready to sail with the fleet. I have long had issues with the carrier and concept.

When you see how much some of our ruling class hates Americans, do you wonder why Trump has gotten such support?

Republicans pounce on weaponize Democratic clusterfuck. Maybe Republicans wouldn't "pounce" if the media treated Democrats like it treats Republicans.

Huh: "The lightning-fast changes in Afghanistan are forcing the Biden administration to confront the prospect of a resurgent al-Qaida, the group that attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001[.]" I could have sworn all the smart people in the White House told us we no longer had a reason to secure Afghanistan. Also, "changes in Afghanistan"? You mean the debacle of losing Afghanistan needlessly? Is that the change you are talking about? FFS.

Are we already at the point of Biden's Afghanistan defeat when the Taliban rub our nose in our defeat? "The Taliban, who have a notorious history of oppression and violence toward women, are poised to seat a representative on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women should they form a recognized Afghan government, a former U.N. ambassador says."

I hope the vice president is fine, but this hardly inspires confidence abroad. The woke effed up California.To be fair, they could ef up a wet dream. Tip to Instapundit.

I'm just going to say it. I'm not outraged at the money we spent in Afghanistan. I'm outraged that losing the war means it was almost completely wasted. I say almost because losing today later might be better than losing twenty years ago. Maybe we are better prepared to fight jihadis at home. Or maybe 20 years of media expansion just makes our defeat more publicized. Time will tell. I'm not upset at the money because in a war money is ammunition. And we have a huge country and a huge budget. Even $100 billion per year seems almost pocket change the way our leaders are throwing money around these days. God forbid that the $3.5 trillion faux-infrastructure bill is enacted. Sure, some of the money spent in Afghanistan is an obvious outrage. But coping with the corruption generally meant we had to accept some losses from locals as the price of the effects or not spend the money at all. If we'd not lost, that reality would have been something to work on but no reason to throw the war. But by losing the war, the money spent over two decades all looks like a waste.

I certainly hope our military--especially our ground forces--is finally alarmed enough about Russian and Chinese electronic warfare capabilities to do something about it. I do recall being alarmed in the 1970s when I read about Army chaos when occasionally exercising under electronic warfare attack. Can we count on escaping that weakness in the future the way we did in the Cold War? "Another lesson learned during the Cold War was that you go to war with the forces you have, not the ones you are developing for use sometime in the future."

Après l'amérique, le déluge. In the last data dump I noted that NATO could not stay in Afghanistan to protect their interests without American help. The British did try: "Britain responded to Biden’s decision by putting together an alternative coalition to hold the balance, but it was impossible without U.S. logistical support." Via Instapundit.

Jen Rubin is not the only person who Trump broke. Sadly, even with Trump out of office, the damage is likely to last a lifetime. But I'm sure she's happy in her new role as Democratic Party "goodlife."

Don't talk to me about less-capable frigates when the cost--so far--is nearly a billion bucks a copy and we are only building 20. The Constellation-class is a capable multi-mission ship that only lacks the range and depth of action of a single larger Burke destroyer. Losing one Burke is a big deal. To make up for that we really need lots of frigates to reduce the effects of losing single ships. The Constellation does not appear to be that. Rather than a high-low mix we have a high-medium mix.

Huh: "'People are furious and disgusted,' said a former U.S. intelligence official who declined to be quoted by name. A defense official said he grew nauseated as he considered how many Afghan allies would be left behind." For all that fury and disgust, none of them leaked about the disaster to stop it. None came out as "whistle blowers" to stop it. None signed a letter of protest with may others equally furious and disgusted before the disaster unfolded. Nobody at the top publicly resigned to reverse the stupidity. So spare me their anguish now. Put out a weepy-sounding hashtag to signal your virtue as the woke taught you.

American woke scum can only wish they had this kind of cancel culture power: "This is the moment an Afghan comedian continued mocking the Taliban as fighters from the insurgent group dragged him away from his home before later executing him by firing squad." That is brave Resistance to tyranny. Via Instapundit.

America suffered nearly 2,500 dead fighting in Afghanistan over nearly 20 years. That broke our will to fight, it seems. America suffered close to twice that just at one place on June 6, 1944. Yes, defeating the Nazis was a bigger objective. We'll see if the objectives in Afghanistan were truly so much less important that we could not continue to hold the place with few casualties and few troops committed.

I've noted the ominous coincidence that Kabul international airport is KIA. To be fair, the official abbreviation is KBL.

Huh. That's new to me:  "A trio of B-2s from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., arrived in Iceland on Aug. 24, ahead of a Bomber Task Force mission in which they will conduct training across Europe and Africa." Does Iceland have the special shelters found in Missouri, Guam, and Diego Garcia to sustain the bombers in action? Or is this only a quick staging deployment with maintenance capabilities minimal for brief missions? Because Russia's base complexes around the Kola Peninsula and Baltic are sure tempting targets in case of war.

I've always kind of enjoyed forcing navigation to recalculate the route when I deviate from its directions. Nor do I add data to streaming services by liking or disliking what I watch to get recommendations. On the other hand, I often feel compelled to listen to the voices in my head telling me to hurt myself. So it's a wash, I suppose. But perhaps I've shared too much.

Why yes, boast about  how fast and vast your humiliating retreat from Afghanistan is.I'd be comforted if this administration was brazenly lying to avoid accountability. But I fear they are actually inept enough to believe this crap.

A hate crime that isn't newsworthy. Tip to Instapundit.

From the "Well, Duh" files which Biden apparently doesn't read: "Al Qaeda is not gone from Afghanistan. And now that the Taliban are the unquestioned rulers of the country, Al Qaeda once again has friends in high places."

I expected Afghan resistance to the Taliban to form in the north. It is: "The fledgling anti-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan's unconquered Panjshir province is reportedly growing, but it's so far been unable to find any takers in its appeal for international support, The New York Times reports." Let's hope it managed to grab weapons and equipment from the government's bases when it fell. And let's hope when our hostage crisis in Afghanistan is over our intelligence services will provide that support. It ain't over until the Panjshir Lady sings.

At its 30th independence day anniversary, Ukraine vowed to reclaim territory that Russia annexed.

Am I wrong to assume that the Taliban will get this money as part of the price not to interfere with our retreat from Afghanistan? "The Taliban may have seized control of Afghanistan - but for now, the group can't access the nearly $10 billion in reserves in the country's central bank, most of which is reportedly held by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York." Of course, that's a best-case scenario at this point.

Fighting for rule of law is not just for foreign Third World countries.

Building Army ground-based anti-cruise missile and anti-drone defenses. While fine for bases and higher echelons, I still think we need drone combat air patrols for the tip of the spear, as I advocated in Army magazine.

China is getting more aggressive in their unlawful territorial claims in the South China Sea. There is a reaction: " While the Philippines admits it cannot stand up to China in a war, they can use Chinese tactics and disrupt Chinese military and civilian operations in the South China Sea. Other nations suffering from the Chinese aggression are similarly fed up and going Chinese on the Chinese."

Acting East: "In the South China Sea Filipino and Indian warships carried out joint training exercises. Five days earlier the two Indian warships had carried out similar training with Vietnamese warships off the Vietnamese coast. India has become a more active part of the growing coalition of nations opposing Chinese claims on the South China Sea." Background.

The Navy's floating mobile homes. 

The LCS will be the backbone of the Navy's forward presence. Is the ship lethal or lousy? Well, the important thing is that the marginally adequate ship is expendable. As that article explains about the LCS out there, "But if it is reliable, it could be effective in showing the US flag and freeing up more capable platforms like destroyers and cruisers for more vital missions, Herzinger and other analysts said." Sucks to be a tripwire.

Japan and Taiwan are strengthening ties. Taiwan needs all the help it can get to repel China while Japan needs Taiwan to help secure its sea lines of communication south. 

Our future friend and nuclear deal buddies, mullah-run Iran.

HMS Queen Elizabeth and USS America conducted F-35B training together in the Pacific, among other things.

Enshrining election rigging in plain sight. Tip to Instapundit. It's the same old thing:

When Trump won in 2016, Democrats predicted a dystopian America. Almost five years later their prediction came true.

Whatever wokeness touches turns to sh*t. In case you went off suicide watch after watching Biden's Afghanistan debacle unfold.

From the "Well, Duh" files: "Israel reduced the amount of intelligence it shared with the US this spring as then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not trust President Joe Biden's administration, The New York Times reported." Why would Israel want to be thrown under the bus by Biden in order to reach out to the love of his life?

Building on the success of telling Putin what American targets should not by cyber-attacked, the Biden administration tries it again with death on the line (tip to PJ Media): "U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that's prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials." Getting people to help us will be no problem going forward, eh? I'm hoping this news is an error in reporting. Although the media rarely makes a mistake that puts a Democrat in such a bad light.

The Afghanistan Taliban victory will strengthen the Pakistan Taliban who try to overthrow Pakistan's government. Not because the Afghan Taliban likes the Pakistan Taliban, but because America and allied Afghan government forces used to strike them. That's over. I worry because Pakistan has nukes. And while it would be bad for a jihadi group to get nukes, it is even worse if a country with nukes is taken over by jihadis. I sure hope we have a plan for that scenario.

The sailor shortage for the ships that bring all of us our stuff.

Smart Diplomacy®: "Two months ago, the European media and political leaders who had been hostile to Donald Trump celebrated Joe Biden and his “America is back” rhetoric. Now, the celebration is over. Instead, they are fretting over migration and terrorism. They worry how Beijing and Moscow may try to exploit U.S. weakness. And they wonder if they can ever trust this Administration again." It's bad enough that NATO is weakened. But the European Union will try to exploit that. And God help us, it could get worse or even catastrophic.

The idea that the very fact of American withdrawal would cause the collapse of the Afghan government was well established all year. I was worried. Not that I predicted collapse. But I was very worried. Yet perhaps foolishly I clung to hope because I remained in denial about Biden's ability to guarantee defeat by not doing nearly enough. So remember that Afghanistan didn't build that debacle. The Biden administration did.

I know some Republicans are worried that getting rid of Biden just leaves us with Kamala Harris as president. But I'm thinking that it is better to get rid of Biden for two reasons. One, gross incompetence and disability should be punished and dealt with. Two, Biden's handlers are effed things up so bad that the stench of his failures racked up in only 8 months will linger on her and make reelection very difficult.

 

Good news: "With the Taliban growing more violent and adding checkpoints near Kabul's airport, an all-volunteer group of American veterans of the Afghan war launched a final daring mission on Wednesday night dubbed the 'Pineapple Express' to shepherd hundreds of at-risk Afghan elite forces and their families to safety, members of the group told ABC News."

The huge difference between an airlift to defend all of the people from ruthless killers and an airlift to flee ruthless killers with only some of the people.

Well, the Biden administration has already set the standard of abandoning an unpopular allied ruler of a dysfunctional state: "Vice President Kamala Harris has canceled plans to stump for California Gov. Gavin Newsom amid a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the governor's campaign confirmed Thursday." Tip to Instapundit.

If Ukrainians needed a reminder on their 30th year of independence from the Russians/Soviets, they discovered a mass grave for Stalin's victims.

We have nothing to fear but pandemic panic port itself.  Work the damn problem. Don't surrender to it. And obviously, if your or your family risks are higher you take different steps than I do. Total respect for that. Tip to Instapundit.

Cleanup in Aisle 1600: "Word out of the White House this week is that Joe Biden, or at least his handlers, intend to recapture the narrative on his colossal Afghan exit screw-up. Good luck with that tardy effort."

Here's hoping Hurricane Ida misses New Orleans by the time this post is published.

So what if Biden's people sent Vice President Harris abroad to deny her a chance to organize a 25th Amendment removal of Biden? Biden's people are clueless abroad, but they are ruthless political operators. Perhaps by the time Harris returns there will be a Kamala pee tape fabricated. (I kid on the last part. Or should I?)

News from Friday: "'U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner,' said Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, in a statement." The Taliban doesn't mind that America hits a rival. So there was no problem conducting the strike while our troops are still on the ground. I imagine that the Taliban also didn't mind the ISIS-K attack that killed 10 Marines, 2 Army soldiers, and a Navy corpsman. It was a useful warning shot for what could happen if America doesn't skedaddle by the time the Taliban said we have to leave. And they both do hate us, after all. But there are "separate" jihadi groups that the Taliban clearly embrace. So perhaps the Taliban gave us a list of who not to strike. Lists are all the rage in the Biden administration, after all.

This is not "aid": "The United States is taking steps to allow humanitarian work to continue in Afghanistan despite U.S. sanctions on the Taliban, which seized power 11 days ago." This is ransom to not kill the Americans who "choose not to leave" Afghanistan before American troops have to leave Kabul airport: "The Taliban deployed extra forces around Kabul's airport Saturday to prevent large crowds from gathering after a devastating suicide attack two days earlier, as the massive U.S.-led airlift wound down ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline."

How often have I said that it is a crime against language to think "liberal minded" is a synonym for "open minded"? So yeah:

The troubled, late, but vital Russian submarine construction.

Adjust your Newspeak Dictionary accordingly: "If you’re at Brandeis University and want to tell someone they’re “killing it” or to follow a “rule of thumb,” you better bite your tongue. [para] The phrases, among many others, are considered violent according to a recently expanded 'suggested language list' put together by the Prevention, Advocacy and Resource Center at the Waltham university."

With only one good jihadi the result, was America's strike in Afghanistan only technically retaliation for the ISIS-K suicide bombing at Kabul? 

American ships waved to China: "A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer and Coast Guard cutter steamed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday, continuing monthly transits of warships through sensitive waters off China’s mainland, the Navy said in a news release." 

Why I hate the media, part N+1: How the media lied to imply 901 Floridians died of the Xi Jinping Flu in one day. That day's total may be as low as 8. Layers and layers of fact checkers, indeed. Tip to Instapundit.

Putin loudly proclaims an image of Russian naval revitalization:  "Speaking in a video call, Putin gave orders for two nuclear submarines armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles along with two diesel-powered submarines and two corvettes at shipyards in Severodvinsk, St. Petersburg and Komsomolsk-on-Amur." But nuclear missile subs, conventional subs, and small surface warships give away the game. Russia is building a fleet designed to protect a sea-based nuclear deterrent and protect Russia's vast coastline. Which is wise, because Russia does not need and cannot afford a blue water navy.

Ouch:

It took four years of relentless propaganda to demonize Trump. And a year of relentless propaganda to simulate lucidity in Biden. It is a damning record of election interference to give America the catastrophe we behold: "Seven months into the Biden regime, the truism that dare not speak its name is now almost too obvious to bear stating. It was a catastrophic error to evict Donald Trump. No one, and certainly not I, would try to whitewash the stylistic infelicities of Donald Trump. He said many things that were toe-curlingly embarrassing coming from the holder of so great an office. But he proved in government as he had in the private sector that he was capable and forceful, and although he had the terrible handicap of personalizing everything and escalating all disagreements, he had a clear conception of domestic and foreign national interests and pursued them very successfully." Throughout 2019, I believed that a Biden nomination would be a signal the Democrats expected to lose in 2020. That they would not want to waste a real candidate. Then the pandemic and the crazed lockdowns paved the way for Trump's loss. So we got the throw-away sacrificial goat as our Turing Test POTUS. They say that which does not kill you makes you stronger. Pray Biden doesn't kill us.

Remember that the Afghanistan government that the Soviets left behind was equipped with heavy armor to allow Afghan resupply convoys to bull through opposition to supply forces in isolated bases. That government lasted three years after the Soviets withdrew in good order. America was unable to withdraw before our Afghanistan government collapsed. But we built Afghan resupply around airlift. And before we left we crippled the air power of the Afghan government making resupply--or any kind of air support--impossible to sustain. Strategery.

Ten Marines, 2 Army soldiers, and a Navy corpsman died in the Kabul suicide bombing. Eighteen personnel were wounded. Plus a lot more casualties among civilians.

The Chechen family business.

No, we did not manage to plant a rule-of-law democracy in Afghanistan. But we gave them an opportunity for something better than they had. After twenty years of freedom from jihadi cruelty and opportunities beyond imagination before we came, will the Afghan people be easy to rule by the Taliban? My hope is that a taste of freedom and hope for the future will one day return Afghanistan to a path to eventual better days without producing and hosting jihadi killers."A

Iran continues to back their local Houthi proxies in the Yemen civil war: "A missile and drone attack on a key military base in Yemen’s south on Sunday killed at least 30 troops, a Yemeni military spokesman said. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the country's civil war in recent years."

Feeling cocky after recent events? "Iran and Syria vowed on Sunday to take 'mighty steps' to confront U.S. sanctions imposed on the two regional allies, saying their relations will strengthen under Iran’s new leadership." And keep in mind that Assad, having gotten Iran's help to survive the multi-war, wants Iran out of Syria at this point. Does Assad think Iran is a strong horse now?

Everybody is a globalist progressive policy wonk if you are patient enough: "Joe Biden apparently thinks, or says he thinks, the Taliban will make nice because it is in their interest to do so." Like I wrote a couple weeks ago: "It's almost cutely naive that our State Department thinks Taliban terror to intimidate their enemies into silence and surrender can be swayed by this nonsense: 'We condemn the Taliban's violent new offensive against Afghan cities,' the U.S. Embassy said. 'These Taliban actions to forcibly impose its rule are unacceptable and contradict its claim to support a negotiated settlement in the Doha peace process. They demonstrate wanton disregard for the welfare and rights of civilians and will worsen this country's humanitarian crisis.' Yeah, the 'peace process' is clearly not a Taliban priority. It's as if State believes the Taliban want to be invited to international catered conferences more than they want victory[.] The Taliban are smart enough to know that victory will get them the invitations." The White House is sending out the invitations even as we retreat.

The mean tweets are starting to be seen as the price of doing successful business: "As the Afghanistan debacle has unfolded, I have been following the coverage in various foreign newspapers. The coverage I have seen has been harshly critical of the Biden administration, to a degree that more or less equals what we see in the conservative press here in the U.S." Tip to Instapundit.

I call it a success when repeated beatings with the clue bat can have an effect: "The vast majority of [George Mason University] students who said they voted for or supported Biden’s nomination expressed regret for supporting him. One student said, 'He’s failed a lot on a lot of his promises'. Another, speaking on Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, called it a 'disaster.'" Although I imagine they'll vote for a different Democrat convinced that with just a little bit more woke leftism it will work out great. 

Much of the arsenal America abandoned to the Taliban doesn't worry me. The same Afghan government corruption that made it difficult to keep the big pieces of equipment in action will affect the Taliban. And it will take place more quickly without outside financial and logistics support. For the smaller weapons, corruption will send a lot of that out to drug dealers, resistance, and rival jihadis in Afghanistan and neighboring states that pay. Hell, our CIA could probably buy a lot of it. But enemy countries aren't likely to be interested in any of it for intelligence purposes--assuming such countries didn't buy copies even before the Taliban take-over. Not that this dispersal is necessarily good, but it will not be a Taliban arsenal for long. I worry more about specialist gear like night vision goggles and sniper rifles which could make terrorists more lethal. Or artillery ammunition that could be taken apart for explosives to build terrorist IEDs.

Our own medieval turn. It's not just for Islamist nutballs. You will be made to believe: "Hysteria has become 'the business model of the neoliberal age' as one writer aptly put it. In this environment, even supposed devotees of 'science' often adopt attitudes which resemble Inquisitors more than empiricists, marginalizing dissenters and even threatening them with jail, dispossession, humiliation, or just public obliteration."

There will be some ugliness in Kabul after we evacuate our troops. Assuming we get out cleanly. Never say it can't get worse at Kabul. Wait. What? There might be a UN resolution? "France, Britain and Germany are working on a United Nations proposal aimed at establishing a safe zone in Kabul to allow safe passage for people trying to leave Afghanistan, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday." Well never mind my worries, then! Still, with enough money given to the Taliban leaders I'm sure the Taliban will be happy to at least pretend to allow safe passage. Until they are tired of pretending.

I know stories can't include everything, but there is nothing in this story about prepositioning supplies and troops at the edges of the impact zone to react to Hurricane Ida once it passes through. Surely this can't be a looming debacle, too, can it?

Some good jihadis and a sign of things to come when we fight jihadis from "over the horizon": "A U.S. drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying “multiple suicide bombers” from Afghanistan's Islamic State affiliate on Sunday before they could attack the ongoing military evacuation at Kabul's international airport, American officials said. An Afghan official said three children were killed in the strike." Good that we made some good jihadis and protected for withdrawal. But the dead children will be enemy propaganda whether it happens or not every time we strike. I assume the "Afghan official" is Taliban, at this point.

Please excuse my repeated bitter bewilderment regarding the sheer incompetence of the Biden administration being displayed with the whole Afghanistan debacle. I regularly cycle through fury and depression at what I am witnessing in Afghanistan and in our Washington, D.C. government press conferences. Lions led by donkeys. And the donkeys are in civilian and military attire. Pray for the lions at the pointy end of the stick trying to retrieve something positive from the jaws of defeat. This year I will not fly the American flag on Patriot's Day. Maybe next year if it looks like America is again serious about fighting jihadis and preventing another 9/11. Pray for all of us.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The memes, they are a changin'

 

 

An Infantry Revolution

A recent article looks at guided bullets under development. This is a really big deal and a danger to our infantry quality dominance.

This is impressive:

First off, it’s classified, and we don’t know if it is in use with American forces, covert or otherwise, in some part of the world.

Secondly, experts say this technology could very well revolutionize the job of military sniper.

Lastly, imagine a bullet as a self-guided weapon, able to make course corrections in mid-flight.

It sounds a bit crazy, but apparently this is a pet project of those mad scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Guided bullets will be revolutionary for far more than snipers:

Initially, given the increased American emphasis on snipers in infantry units, this will be great, as this quoted part of a Strategypage post describes:

In Afghanistan and Iraq the locals quickly got to know when American troops were fighting in the area. They were the ones firing single shots. The other guys fired their AK-47s on full auto. But it was the sparser American firepower that dominated. Better training, and high tech sights, made the U.S. troops very accurate. This led to wider use of snipers, with up to ten percent of American troops qualified and equipped for this kind of shooting. Snipers alone have greatly changed American infantry tactics.

And when it reaches all American infantry, this long trend of pushing precision down the military echelons will be astounding.

But when the enemy has it--even ill-trained militias and insurgents--it will require a massive change in how America prepares infantry for combat, replacing shooting training time with tactical training time for troops and lower level leaders, as I wrote in the USNI Blog a couple years ago:

The May 1972 “Battle of the Bridges” in which U.S. aircraft destroyed targets that had long resisted dumb munitions announced the arrival of a new precision method of waging war that promised “If you can see it, you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can destroy it.” That was described as the first phase of a revolutionary change in the nature of warfare.[22] That battle won with expensive but effective “remotely piloted munitions” fired from expensive planes by expensively and extensively trained air crews has filtered down to the level of rifles carried by even ill-trained individual fighters. Will U.S. Marines be prepared to win on such a battlefield of tomorrow?

Yes, technology will still give U.S. Marines a competitive shooting advantage if Marines have expensive guided rounds while enemy combatants have cheaper DBC[*] rifles. But the relative edge based on technology will be smaller than the current advantage produced by trained soldiers firing single aimed shots versus ill-trained enemies firing full auto with little thought to aiming. Just as air crews, ship captains, and tankers have adapted to precision fire capabilities, Marine infantry must now adapt to the same challenges to ensure battlefield dominance.

We're reaching the point when American tactical superiority based on individual marksmanship will need to be realigned and based on superior tactical training and expertise.

Say, look what the Marines are doing:

The Marine Corps is conducting a series of pilot training programs designed to enhance the capabilities of infantry elements.

The new course reflects Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger’s planning guidance contained in recent publications, including “Force Design 2030,” in which he concurred with findings that “current entry level and advanced infantry training programs and policies will not meet future demands of our infantry elements.”

I mentioned this Marine training trend before. While it is directly related to dispersed operations in support of the Navy's sea control mission, it is also applicable to direct infantry combat against even poor quality troops with only rudimentary shooting technology.

*DBC, or dumb but controlled, is a term for precision-aimed but non-guided rounds that I coined for the article.

At the Intersection of Irresistible Force and Immovable Object

Our enemies see our Afghanistan retreat and defeat as a sign that America won't fight. Dangerous miscalculations can flow from that.

The image of the sudden and shocking collapse of our ally Afghanistan, which ends our ability to fight jihadis in that part of the world, will no doubt convince enemies that they too can jump on the desiccated corpse of our resolve to achieve their objectives. And worry allies that they can't count on our support.

Despite objective measures of power that favor us, the intangible of resolve will appear to change the balance of power enough to justify risking war.

Some enemies will be right about our lack of resolve making our power too little to stop them. Especially if the timing of their pushes means we have to confront multiple threats at once. Or an enemy could be right if their lower tier threat comes first and because of insufficient power we keep our powder dry for a higher level of threat.

But eventually, in an effort to repair America's reputation left in tatters by this debacle, America will react on a hair trigger to a threat and react strongly against a potential enemy threatening us, an ally, or a friend.

The example of Iraq invading Iran in 1980 on the belief that a normally stronger Iran was temporarily too weak to prevent Iraq from gaining its objectives should be a warning about how that can go wrong. But it won't deter all enemies. Some of our enemies will only see opportunity dangled before them, just as Saddam did.

The problem isn't just from enemies. Some friends and allies will drift away under enemy threat, cutting deals with enemies just in case even if they don't change sides. So we will face losses without war.

Perhaps an ally or friend unwilling to switch sides will, too worried to wait for American help, take military actions in the face of enemy threats that risk war. And we will offer a "blank check" out of fear of looking unreliable.

Our enemy, still operating on the belief that America is an easy target, will not back down as they might have before the collapse of Afghanistan.

The result could be that an enemy believes it can push America and get away with it; while America believes it must do whatever it takes to stop that enemy in order to reestablish the deterrence of American power.

And so we will have a war. At this point the best-case scenario is that we have a war against a small power rather than against a major power.

In 1975 President Ford's strong military response in the Mayaguez crisis was motivated in part by a desire to negate the image of American defeat after the fall of South Vietnam. That military operation didn't achieve that. But at least we didn't fight a major power.

Although the al Qaeda belief that we could be easily defeated eventually led to a long war with them. A war that will be more difficult now.

Eventually, the reputation for not having the will to fight will wear off. In part because allies want to believe that we have the will to defend them. Because most of these allies may have few alternatives to alliance with America. And no doubt some of those allies will believe they are special in ways Afghanistan--or other American allies--aren't in American calculations.

And indeed, given time, Afghanistan might encourage some allies. This is a good point: 

So our friends in capitals like Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran ought to reflect: if Americans will mount a twenty years’ war to defend Afghanistan, a place of peripheral U.S. interest, what burden might they bear, what price might they bear on behalf of a long-time friend, kindred democracy, and geopolitically important country like Taiwan? One of these places is not like the other—and might warrant an entirely different strategy from Washington.

I've certainly read that the Soviets drew a similar conclusion about America's willingness to fight for NATO given the long and bloody fight in South Vietnam.

But how much time must pass before that aspect will be considered by our "friends" in foreign capitals pondering taking advantage of our defeat?

And for some enemies, like jihadis, the image of American weakness will not fade. Their belief that America won't stand and fight will be renewed by Afghanistan, adding to Somalia and Vietnam in their belief system.

Have a super sparkly day.