Never Ever Say Kabul Can't Possibly Get Worse

It may feel good to complain that Biden shouldn't let the Taliban dictate our actions at Kabul. But from Biden's own decisions it is too late for America to be forceful with the Taliban. Only our level of groveling to escape is in doubt.

American forces are already starting to leave, as American troops are hollowing out their presence at the Kabul airport. Some are calling for America to defy the Taliban deadline to get all of our people out.

You know, I'm open to hearing how we can defy the Taliban and stay as long as we need at the Kabul airport to get our people and local friends out of Afghanistan. But explain some things to me. 

First, how do we secure the perimeter of the airport from indirect fire and anti-aircraft interdiction? Oh, and add suicide truck bombs or drones or even captured aircraft used as kamikaze attackers as threats. Think Dien Bien Phu. Or maybe "just" the Beirut barracks bombing.

Also, how do we get the people trapped in the city of Kabul behind Taliban lines who want to get out? Helicopter missions that will attract anti-aircraft traps? Think Black Hawk Down.

Repeated ground convoy forays that eventually get ambushed or trapped? Again, Black Hawk Down. Or maybe Task Force Baum.

To avoid going over the same territory repeatedly and risk ambushes, won't we need to capture the entire city of 5 million people? Perhaps destroying the city in the process? Let's talk Fallujah now. People might actually rally to the horrible Taliban at that level of destruction, no?

How many troops will this require? And who will provide the territorial access to landlocked Afghanistan for this massive aerial troop movement and logistics effort? Pakistan? Iran?? Russia??? With winter coming, will it be Stalingrad for our troops?

With a huge American force on the ground reliant on aerial resupply over potentially hostile territory how do we maintain that for long and what about the degree of difficulty in pulling all that out via airlift? Dunkirk will look like child's play. And the mind boggles at the amount of far more modern equipment used to expand the territory we control that we'd have to abandon to evacuate our troops.

Further, with any forceful measure, how do we keep the Taliban from grabbing our people behind their lines and moving them farther away before we can get to them? What then?

What do we do about troops or air crews captured during the battle? Expand the war to get them back, too?

Oh, and even if that works what about the people we want to rescue who haven't even gotten to Kabul? 

We've had no combat deaths for the last year and a half in Afghanistan helping the Afghanistan government fight the Taliban. How many casualties would we endure fighting the Taliban in this type of mission?

Explain how we get around these obstacles and I'll get back to you. 

Say, no worries, right?

European nations offered stark warnings Thursday about the waning days of a massive airlift to bring people out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, with a British official saying an “imminent attack” could target Kabul’s international airport.

As nice as it is to think we could be forceful at this late date, that option requires a friendly Afghanistan state with security forces still holding major bases, Kabul, and other cities. We had that with only 2,500 troops. But Biden decided that was not important. 

So the ship of American defiance has sailed. Now we are just in the position of minimizing the humiliation. And I have doubts about our leadership's ability to do that.

UPDATE: Worse:

An explosion went off Thursday outside Kabul's airport, where thousands of people have flocked as they try to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Western nations had warned of a possible attack there in the waning days of a massive airlift.

Is this the first of many or the opening bid in negotiations for how much money we have to pay to stop such attacks?

UPDATE: The U.S. says it was a "complex" attack. Which means it used more than a single means of attack. So more than a suicide bombing.

UPDATE: There are reports that 4 American Marines were killed in the blast.

UPDATE: Eleven Marines and a Navy medic were the American troops killed in the suicide attack.

UPDATE: Bush 43 was believable when he stood on the rubble of the Twin Towers and pledged to destroy the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11.

Who on Earth believes Biden, as he skedaddles from Afghanistan, is credible issuing threats after today's Kabul suicide bombing? 

"To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this –– we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay," the president said in a somber White House address.

Biden forgot as soon as he walked away from the podium.

UPDATE: How hard are the Taliban laughing right now at that threat?

Pretending We Needed to Do the Impossible

For all the accurate comments that America could not build a nation in Afghanistan, we didn't have to do that to achieve our objective of preventing Afghanistan from being a terrorist haven.

To be clear, we had won in Afghanistan and could defend that win with time to correct weaknesses and mistakes. With our support, the Afghan security forces--designed by America to work with American and NATO support--was fighting and dying every day with that support while killing jihadis for us.  Yet Biden claimed: 

No amount of military force would ever deliver a stable and secure Afghanistan.

But who said we needed a "stable and secure" Afghanistan? We needed a pro-American government that prevents al Qaeda and other international jihadis from having a sanctuary there. And 2,500 American troops seemed to be doing that. Without a combat casualty in the last year and a half. 

Biden set up a straw man to conceal his incompetence: 

Contrary to his and others’ cliches about "endless war," though, U.S. troops had not been in major ground operations, and had endured very modest casualties, since 2014. Mr. Biden statically measures the dollar costs of staying in Afghanistan. Yet there will be costs, potentially high ones, attached to a botched withdrawal, too. A small U.S. and allied military presence — capable of working with Afghan forces to deny power to the Taliban and its al-Qaeda terrorist allies, while diplomats and nongovernmental organizations nurtured a fledgling civil society — not only would have been affordable but also could have paid for itself in U.S. security and global credibility.

In order to do less than we needed to win, Biden is pretending we needed to do the impossible to win. 

So Biden "ended" the war before the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 al Qaeda terror attacks by needlessly losing it. Which means the Taliban and their jihadi terrorist allies will have reason to celebrate on September 11, 2021.

 Have a super sparkly day.

Another Sermon From the Church of Asymmetry

Taiwan needs to spend more money on defense to have a hope of defeating or deterring a Chinese invasion rather than worshiping at the altar of the Church of Asymmetry.

I think this condemnation of Taiwan buying Paladin artillery is completely wrong.

Make no mistake: Paladins are a bad idea. They are outdated, based on a design that dates back to the Vietnam War. They are also expensive. Taiwan will spend $750 million on 40 howitzers. That is before training, maintenance, and ammunition costs are factored in. Worst of all, Paladins will be sitting ducks in a shooting war. At 10 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 30 tons in weight, these vehicles are ill-suited for the island’s endless winding roads, narrow bridges, and waterlogged fields. 

The fact is that Paladins are exactly the sort of weapon that defense experts have long tried to get Taipei to stop buying. Most serious analysts think that Taiwan already spends too much on small numbers of expensive platforms. Since Taiwan's military cannot possibly afford enough jets, ships, and tanks to offset the ever-growing cross-Strait military imbalance, over-investing in these weapons makes the island dangerously vulnerable to first strike and preemption.

American analysts and think tanks have instead tried to get Taiwan to adopt an asymmetric force posture. Asymmetry means reorganizing the island’s defense around large numbers of cheap things—weapons like drones, coastal defense missiles, naval mines, portable air defenses, and mobile ground forces. It also means training combat units to wage a prolonged defense in depth instead of trying to engage an invasion force in a decisive battle for the beaches. 

It is the result of worshiping at the altar of the Church of Asymmetry. Which is a concept a lot of people don't really get. 

Paladin systems are advanced and mobile, and only superficially resemble the artillery piece that dates back to the Vietnam War. They can be used against Chinese ships trying to land troops and against Chinese troops that have landed. 

And the advice in that initial article is internally inconsistent. For all the emphasis on coastal defense, if the Chinese get ashore, Paladins within a mobile ground force are a crucial part of a defense in depth.

One of the problems these authors hint at with their claim that Taiwan must focus on invasion, but which other authors are more explicit about, is that asymmetry can sink China's invasion force. Drones, land-based anti-ship missiles, and naval mines--add in small missile boats, too--truly are important for that. But building a crust defense that begins and ends with trying to stop the Chinese from landing on Taiwan dooms Taiwan. Ruling out a battle for the "beaches" (also consider airheads and direct port assaults, as I wrote about long ago when imagining a Chinese invasion) guarantees the Chinese stay shore if they get past that crust.

Which is insane. It guarantees Taiwan's defeat by ensuring that if the Chinese manage to get a foothold, the Chinese will eventually destroy Taiwan, as I discussed in Military Review last year. 

I readily concede that the weapons listed in that article that Taiwan needs are good weapons to have. But Taiwan can afford to buy relatively cheap stuff like that and also have a potent conventional ground force capable of driving Chinese ground forces into the sea. 

Taiwan needs to spend a lot more on defense. Which they can afford if they value their island democracy. That would be better than relying on dubious advice from credentialed foreign analysts and think tanks.

Misguided acolytes of the Church of Asymmetry are trying to kill Taiwan.

Send in the Arab Cannon Fodder

While you can't blame Biden's Afghanistan debacle for Iran's desire to kill Jews soon, you can't say that the image of our eagerness to embrace defeat is deterring Iran. But how does Israel fight that war?

War?

Iran is openly calling for its foreign minions in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria to unite in a joint massive attack on Israel. Iranian hardliners believe their allies are getting weaker and that Israel will never be this vulnerable to attack. Some of the hardliners also understand that the religious dictatorship is in danger of being overthrown. The IRGC faction needs a win. The decision to pull the trigger has not been made yet because even in the IRGC and Quds Force there is disagreement about just how effective and reliable Iranian allies are. Many of those foreign supporters believe Iran will order an attack and then not participate themselves. This is a common and often used Iranian tactic. 

If Iran pulls the trigger on this grand offensive, will Israel invade Lebanon, exploiting Lebanese anger directed at Hezbollah?

Or might Israel strike Iran's nuclear facilities or maybe oil export facilities on Kharg Island in response?

Would Biden really try to rein in Israel with threats so soon after abandoning our Afghan allies and bolstering the view of America as an unreliable ally?

"America is Back!" ... and Pushed Out?

Rather than "restore" trans-Atlantic relations with NATO that Trump was actually rebuilding, Biden has kicked NATO in the teeth and strengthened the European Union which only wants America out of Europe.

America's reputation took collateral damage in our defeat:

America’s power to deter its enemies and reassure its friends has diminished. Its intelligence was flawed, its planning rigid, its leaders capricious and its concern for allies minimal. That is likely to embolden jihadists everywhere, who will take the Taliban’s victory as evidence that God is on their side. It will also encourage adventurism on the part of hostile governments such as Russia’s or China’s, and worry America’s friends. Mr Biden has defended the withdrawal by arguing that Afghanistan was a distraction from more pressing problems, such as America’s rivalry with China. But by leaving Afghanistan in such a chaotic fashion, Mr Biden will have made those other problems harder to deal with.

NATO, our most important security partner that holds Europe for the good guys, fought with us in Afghanistan under the only time NATO's Article 5 has been invoked. And what did our allies get? Less attention and respect than Biden's ice cream vendor:

Yet everything about Mr. Biden’s Afghan withdrawal has been a slap to those allies. They didn’t want the U.S. to leave, but he did. The botched execution has left them scrambling to airlift out thousands of their citizens and thousands more Afghan translators and others who assisted each nation’s war effort.

And the snubs keep coming from Washington. In his Monday speech, Mr. Biden made only a glancing reference to NATO and none to America’s European allies in his account of the conflict. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly had to wait a day and a half after requesting a call with the President to get Mr. Biden on the phone.

This defeat and the complete lack of consultation with Europe exposed a fact that the EU apparatchiki will emphasize:

From London to Paris, Brussels to Berlin, the sudden fall of Kabul shone a light on Europe's limited diplomatic heft, military capacity, and political stability. ...

[Multiple European officials and diplomats] now fear the humanitarian and political consequences of mass migration from a country run by militants who've historically harbored terrorists and that is connected to mainland Europe by land.

Without the might of America to keep a lid on the situation, Europe is undeniably more exposed. As one EU official put it: "When America reversed course on Syria it sparked a crisis in Europe, not the US."

Biden's complete display of contempt to our European NATO allies will only strengthen the proto-imperial EU's desire to build a military capacity that starves NATO and results in the end of major American influence in Europe. The EU will argue that it, and not NATO which America dominates, must be the primary military organization in Europe. Mind you this is a case of the EU exploiting the Afghanistan debacle to do what they want to do anyway. It is not a case of Biden's debacle causing the EU to move away from America.

Unless that trend in Europe is reversed, Afghanistan won't be the only ally suddenly turned into a threat by the incompetence of our Turing Test POTUS.

But still, no mean tweets. That has to be reassuring.

UPDATE: The European Union won't waste this Afghanistan crisis:

“I think that what has happened shows that Europe needs to develop this famous ‘strategic autonomy' in order to be ready to face challenges that affect us eventually,” European Union High Rep. Josep Borrell, a former Spanish politician who now leads the bloc’s diplomatic corps, told reporters Tuesday.

The EU won't build the capabilities that in any way match what NATO can provide. Nor will the EU display the will to use such military power. The EU just wants the authority that such power provides. 

UPDATE: Should NATO seek a global mission to stay "relevant"? I don't think NATO has to go "out of area or out of business." In fact, I think going out of area will kill NATO.

NATO members have trouble working up the resolve to defend the eastern border of NATO. How much worse will it be if we ask Belgium and Portugal to defend the South China Sea? How many countries will withdraw from NATO if they think they have to send its troops to die around the globe?

And if NATO starts to go abroad for potential enemies when Europe faces Russia, Islamic terrorism, and migrants waves from the Third World, the European Union will have more ammunition to argue that the EU should have the military mission of defending Europe rather than NATO. Will those NATO countries that don't want to fight in Asia decide that switching to the EU that simply--on the surface--wants to defend Europe is the best choice?

All I want from NATO is for it to hold Europe in the Western column while having common military operating standards to allow European militaries to volunteer to help America out of area. Trying to do more is just a gift to the proto-imperial EU that wants its own armed forces to strip away the prefix.

Who Goes Next?

We didn't like failing to win in Afghanistan. We'll like losing in Afghanistan even less if it emboldens our enemies.

Former Obama Secretary of Defense Panetta on the Afghanistan Skedaddle: 

"It just struck me that they were crossing their fingers and hoping chaos would not result. And it doesn’t work that way. ...right now it just does not look like we have our act together[.]" He "expressed surprise at the seeming lack of preparation." 

If our enemies aren't lining up to exploit this window of opportunity to get stuff while the getting is good, they are fools. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, and Iraq--and our mall and airport operators--had best be watching their enemies very closely right now. And doubling the guard and checking ammo. 

Because in America, the adults are back in charge with Smart Diplomacy® and a woke military, baby!

I'm not on board Steyn's view that the Taliban were inevitably going to win. Our humiliation is our own doing.

His very correct condemnation of our newly woke-adjacent senior military leadership on this war is a part of the reason for the defeat, to be sure. I want heads to roll. Actually, I want a bunch of senior military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials to have the honor and decency to resign. But who am I fooling with that hope?

Even those who warned against hasty and ill-timed withdrawal won't resign in protest. They didn't before when it might have stopped the disaster. And they won't now. Hell, they probably won't even leak anything that might damage Biden as opposed to just covering their butts. The contrast with bureaucrat behavior under Trump when they eagerly testified in Congressional committees and spilled their guts to friendly reporters in order to change policy is easy to predict.

But despite the problems we faced in Afghanistan, I think we could have stumbled along without disaster if it hadn't been for Biden's disastrous decision to bug out when we did. The Afghan forces, with our help, were good enough for government work. Which is enough when it comes to war.

But Steyn is absolutely right that this humiliation isn't just about Afghanistan: 

I was on a panel with the great Bernard Lewis a couple of years ago - actually six or seven years ago - and Bernard said that the danger here is that America risks being seen as harmless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend... It's a very dangerous lesson to teach the planet.

Biden has inverted the Marine aspiration of being no worse enemy and no better friend.

Have a super sparkly day.

Kabul Syndrome

America is held hostage in Kabul. Understand that fact and our actions make more sense.

There is a lot made of the fact that British (and French) troops are going out of the airport perimeter to retrieve their citizens from Kabul while America does not:

Large-scale U.S. military operations beyond the Kabul airport perimeter would entail significant risk absent prior Taliban approval. But there is a sense, at least by allies, that the U.S. military could be doing more to leverage the Taliban into providing greater ease of access to the airport for those most at risk.

Without defending the clusterfuck that the Biden administration "planned" in its Afghanistan debacle, let me say that the British and French can carry out those missions only because America holds the Kabul airport. Our allies do understand this:

All these allies admit, however, that only the U.S. military could provide the airfield defense and air traffic control capabilities now on display.

Can we afford to send troops away from defending the perimeter? Or afford to anger the Taliban by defying their victory by waltzing troops through their city at will?

Might the Taliban look the other way while other jihadi groups fling suicide bombers at our perimeter if we exceed what the Taliban considers acceptable?

Recall, too, that we have relatively recent experience from the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down) of small forces getting caught by much larger enemies in enemy territory without adequate support. 

As distasteful as it is, we rely on the permission of the Taliban to evacuate civilians and even the troops. So we endure the humiliation because Taliban artillery (and simple mortars would do) and anti-aircraft weapons around the perimeter would cut all of us off from leaving. With all the Americans out there, operations would need to be fairly large and last some time.

Do you really think these two things aren't connected? 

As the Biden administration scrambles to evacuate American personnel from Afghanistan, it is overlooking the Taliban's plans to seize some $10 billion in assets held by Afghanistan's central bank, according to congressional foreign policy leaders.

Without a permissive environment we'd have to do a Desert One-style landing--but to a land-locked country reliant on Pakistan perhaps for permission--at another Afghanistan airport. We'd have to use helicopters to ferry troops and civilians from Kabul airport to whatever airport we hold open to fly them out.

God help any pilots and passengers who go down during the mission. And it would take a lot of time to complete that mission because of all the people involved. Further, once we started such a mission anybody not under our protection would be captured and held hostage. We simply could not make sure we left nobody behind.

If we're lucky, the Taliban will take the money as the price of letting us escape. If we aren't lucky, the Taliban will take the money and bring in the mortars and anti-aircraft guns.

So good for the British and French. But they rely on our humiliation to look like the heroes. 

I just hope the humiliation is limited. Pray this Kabul Syndrome doesn't become Stockholm Syndrome for the Biden administration. 

I mentioned we screwed the pooch on Biden's Afghanistan debacle, didn't I?

UPDATE: Biden wants to extend our stay at Kabul airport if we need more time to evacuate people.

But what price will the Taliban leadership demand for that concession?

And can the Taliban leadership enforce that permission among the various jihadi groups and even among all the Taliban factions?

UPDATE: Don't think the fall of Kabul is as bad as it can get:

At some point, we will have to transition from getting non-combatants out of Kabul to simply getting our remaining 6,000 uniformed Americans and even more allied forces out. That will be a point of the most extreme danger when the masses of civilians realize their clock is out. We will be totally at the mercy of the Taliban at that point, even more than now.

Have a super sparkly day. 

UPDATE: Jen Psaki denies that Americans are stranded in Afghanistan.

 

UPDATE: The director of the CIA is asking the Taliban for more time to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan. I wonder what the price in money and humiliation will be?

UPDATE: A lot of Americans could be left behind in Afghanistan (via Instapundit). That's a lot of hostages. 

Still, what aren't we seeing? Given that Taliban control is thin across much of Afghanistan, I don't rule out that American and other special forces are getting Americans out overland to Pakistan and Central Asian states while so much attention is on Kabul. 

Or even getting people to staging areas in friendlier areas of Afghanistan where our helicopters are lifting people out.

I mean, the carrier Reagan was sent to the region to help with air strikes. What air strikes? Was that a cover for a rescue option of some sort? Did Reagan carry MV-22s to stage through Pakistan? Recall that a carrier carried helicopters secretly for the Desert One Iran hostage rescue mission back in 1980.

Fingers crossed. 

UPDATE: And I mention those possibilities for unseen success because I want to be fair. Seeing the debacle in Afghanistan makes me alternately furious and depressed. I can only imagine what actual veterans of the war must be swinging between. 

But just because this defeat reeks of incompetence doesn't mean I should assume nothing smart or brave can be going on. And maybe some of our leaders are accepting the stench of this defeat to cover actual success taking place.

Or maybe this is simply as bad as it seems, of course.

UPDATE: But as long as I'm looking for bad historical precedent. What would a jihadi truck bomb do at the airport if it is aimed at a loaded C-17 on the runway? 

Our enemies have many ways to make this worse. Are we counting on their restraint?

UPDATE: To meet the August 31st Taliban deadline, American troops are hollowing out their presence at the Kabul airport: "These [several hundred] troops represent a mix of headquarters staff, maintenance and other enabling functions that were scheduled to leave and whose mission at the airport was complete,", according to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. Let's hope that when the last several hundred combat troops holding the perimeter have to leave that they don't have to be covered getting to the last plane on the ground by circling gunships and MOABs.

UPDATE: Hints of resolve and competence amidst the wreckage of policy:

The CIA has launched clandestine operations to rescue Americans in and outside Kabul in recent days, according to U.S. and other officials. The missions are using American military helicopters but under the control of the CIA, a typical arrangement in such operations.

Fingers crossed.

Building a State

Iraq needs state-building more than military assistance now.

With ISIL not a threat to Iraq's territory, America needs to shift to strengthening Iraqi institutions:

Our posture in Iraq must focus a lot more on helping the Iraqis build defense institutional capacity so they can take full advantage of all the hardware we’ve given them and protect the security gains they’ve made.

The main hindrances to the Iraqi army’s tactical and operational effectiveness are serious weaknesses on the strategic level, where policies, strategies, plans, and material and human resource management systems typically are formulated. 

Yes, building Iraqi defense bureaucracy effectiveness is vital to using what they have. But the problem is far broader than making the military Iraq has more effective. The Iraqi state needs to be stronger to resist Iranian influence that exploits Iraqi corruption.

Early in the Iraq War, before the armed threats were gone (and indeed before the war itself), I was calling for a future battle to improve rule of law.

So yeah, work the institutional capacity problem to solidify victory--yes, we won the Iraq War--rather than bug out and issue an invitation to our enemies to win as we did in Afghanistan.

Weekend Data Dump

The war on terror began twenty years ago with Americans leaping from burning towers that a terror group in Afghanistan destroyed with hijacked planes flown into our buildings. It ends with Afghans falling from planes that a terror group in Afghanistan made Americans fly out of Kabul airport. As Jen Psaki would say, America circled back. Let's see how much of this data dump will be non-Afghanistan as I work through my disgust, fury, and depression at needlessly losing this war.

I'm so old, I remember when Democrats said the Afghanistan war was the "good" war. But they stopped thinking that after we ended combat operations in Iraq. And then conservatives joined the left in deciding we don't need to win the Afghanistan war--even when American casualties were rare. We will find out the difference between not winning a war and losing a war.

Russia continues to upgrade armored vehicles rather than plow money into producing their wonder tank and wonder infantry fighting vehicle.

As I noted in my Sunday post covering the fall of Afghanistan, after 9/11 America pulled off a blitz while outnumbered by the Taliban, in part with suitcases of money to bribe pro-Taliban commanders. Well, the Taliban returned the favor: "Hollie McKay, a foreign policy expert and war crimes investigator who covered war, terrorism, and crimes against humanity for Fox News Digital for more than a decade, is reporting today from Afghanistan that the Taliban is paying off military commanders to abandon their posts and surrender their cities." Troops who have been fighting were willing to fight until leadership abandoned them. Then they became armed mobs and not units. And the reporter is right, corruption was the biggest threat to the government. You know I've droned on a lot about rule of law over the years. Also, note that our huge intelligence apparatus failed to discover that diabolically clever and unimaginable Taliban plot to bribe leaders.

Democratic "Smart Diplomacy®" is really compiling an amazing record of disaster.

Chinese threat perception: "In addition [to the People's Armed Police], there is the national local police, which has 20 percent more personnel than the PAP. Together these two police organizations have combined budgets nearly equal to the military budget." It is interesting that internal threats get almost as much money from the Chinese Communist Party as the military which has high tech equipment and weapons to buy and maintain with its budget. The PAP also has the job of supporting the People's Liberation Army in war. So it is proper to count this police spending as defense spending, really. If China ever conquers Taiwan, the PAP will get the occupation duty.

OPEC said no to Biden's request for more oil production: "OPEC and its allies, including Russia, believe oil markets do not need more oil than they plan to release in the coming months, despite U.S. pressure to add supplies to check an oil price rise, four sources told Reuters." The Saudis are in the driver's seat for oil production swings. And they helped us bankrupt Iran during the Iran-Iraq War by pumping more oil (with an assist from our Alaska production). Why would Saudi Arabia lower oil prices to their detriment when we refuse to treat Iran as the enemy Iran's mullahs insist we are? While also showing the spinal column of Gumby with our abandonment of Afghanistan? Say, maybe Biden could ask Canada?

Is it possible to more stupid and evil? New York is now encouraging people to kill people by subsidizing violent people! Tar. Feathers. Stupidity is much easier to implement with other people's money. Really, since I'm a white male shouldn't I be getting this stipend right now? I've been told I'm a huge threat to America because of my demographics. Should society take that chance? But a grand a month will totally calm me right the ef down, eh? Tip to PJ Media.

Whether or not most Americans agree with me now or in the future, I will not forgive Biden for losing the Afghanistan war. I shared the desire to leave. But losing the war was not a price I was willing to pay to do that.

Thoughts on possibilities in Afghanistan. The Taliban toppled the government we backed. That's different than actual exercise of control. I'll ask why wouldn't our enemies recognize the Taliban government in order to rub our nose in our defeat?

We withdrew from Afghanistan because we thought we paid too high a price for where we were. But that price was paid. We can't get any of it back. But we will pay a steep price for losing going forward.

Mostly non-"death to America" demonstrations in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. 

For 19 years after America overthrew the Taliban in response to the 9/11 terror attacks, the Taliban were unable to reclaim power. It took just 7 months of Biden for the Taliban to achieve decisive and total victory in Afghanistan. I'm sure that is just a coincidence. America The Taliban is back!

No! Way! "The collapse of the Afghan government and takeover of the country by the Taliban is stirring concern in foreign capitals that chaos and instability engulfing the country could spill over to its neighbors and possibly drive a tide of refugees as far as Europe. [para] There was also an undercurrent of criticism of the U.S. for the speed of its departure after nearly 20 years, colored by Washington’s failure to establish a stable government that could stand without American military support." I was told Europeans were deliriously happy that "America is back" under Biden and that there are no more mean POTUS tweets!

Our State Department in Kabul sure had the pulse of the country! "The U.S. Embassy in Kabul posted a job opening days before staffers were ordered to destroy classified documents and other sensitive materials in preparation for an evacuation from Afghanistan after several major cities fell under Taliban control."To be fair, the American people elected the State Department's boss who can't use his TV remote control let alone guide a global superpower that other people rely on for their safety. For God's sake, my phone's Siri could do a better job than our Turing Test POTUS.

America Heroin is back! "Taliban mulls flooding the West with heroin to shore up Afghan economy". But really, that's more than a reasonable price to not have mean POTUS tweets.

Rogue Taliban or leading indicator? "The Taliban are reportedly hunting down and threatening people who don't show up for work in Kunduz, one of the first cities they reclaimed, in a sign of what may be in store for the rest of the country." Let's hope they, at least, are mostly peaceful.

China wasted little time exploiting our defeat in Afghanistan: "From what happened in Afghanistan, [the Taiwanese] should perceive that once a war breaks out in the [Taiwan] Straits, the island's defense will collapse [within] hours and the U.S. military won't come to help. As a result [Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party] will quickly surrender, while some high-level officials may flee by plane." And China doesn't even need to be right about America's willingness to fight for Taiwan to make a war more likely. The Chinese just have to think they are right.

Best buddies? "Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu hailed joint war games with China as a sign of increasingly close ties and vowed to further expand military cooperation between the two countries." Sure, the Russians say nice things now.

China's disposable single-mission amphibious ships. I keep saying don't judge China's amphibious lift capability for invading Taiwan by the standards of our Navy-Marine Corps team now. I still wonder if a lot of older PLAN warships sent to the Chinese coast guard crammed with troops could be used to assault ports. And other transports could be used to unload at captured ports. I go into these options in this invasion scenario.

The risk of adding too much new technology at one time. I would not be surprised if we build few Ford-class carriers because they are super expensive platforms in a network-centric naval world.

We abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban, but the Taliban are supposed to tremble over a red line around the Kabul airport? "In a resolute and, at times, defensive speech explaining the swift fall of U.S.-trained security forces in Afghanistan to the Taliban and his decision to pull troops from that country, President Biden also drew a red line Monday for the use of future military force." I'm honestly worried about a massacre of American troops trying to hold a small perimeter and still fly out without leaving anybody behind. Pro Tip: A speech isn't resolute if everyone is laughing at the very idea that you are serious.

The American war in Afghanistan was undermined--even at the last minute when we weren't really fighting a war anymore--by the failure of so many Americans to cherish what we have: "The West’s post-9/11 bluster was continually undermined by the West’s broader descent into moral relativism. How can you assert the civilisational authority of Western values when your entire educational and university system is devoted to questioning and demeaning Western civilisation? You cannot partake in a clash of civilisations if you loathe your own civilisation." Why do we hate us, as I've asked before. Too many Americans think we deserve to lose. And Biden is their president to make good on that campaign promise.

I'm so old I remember when Democrats were outraged that Trump "abandoned" the Kurds. He didn't. But Afghans? Oh well. Sucks to be them. Wouldn't want to hand off keeping them from being massacred to another American president, eh?

Afghanistan is shattered, under control of the Taliban. Top American military leaders should resign for the disgrace of overseeing this debacle in Afghanistan. We're seeing leaks that military advice and intelligence predictions were ignored by Biden. Well why didn't any of those military, diplomatic, national security, and intelligence leaders resign rather than carry out a policy they knew would lead to this? And having failed to show some honor by resigning to prevent this American defeat, they should at least have the Goddamn decency to resign now in remorse for not doing the right thing when it might have mattered. If there are no resignations, the leaks are just ass-covering like any petty bureaucrat would do rather than the actions of leaders with honor and the ability to feel shame and accountability. I'm sickened by this entire calamity. Biden doesn't have enough honor to resign. Those who swore an oath to protect America should belatedly salvage some of their own. But at least we weren't defeated there by the so-called bigger threats of climate change and white supremacists rampant throughout the military!

Democrats have long claimed they want an "exit strategy" before starting a war. Biden ordered our exit from Afghanistan but had no strategy. Disaster followed. This is sadly too accurate: "‘You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.' Winston Churchill’s words to Neville Chamberlain following the Munich agreement echo grimly across Washington this week as the Biden administration reckons with the consequences of the worst-handled foreign-policy crisis since the Bay of Pigs and the most devastating blow to American prestige since the fall of Saigon." As I warned 25 years ago about exit strategies, "Such an approach seeks to minimize our losses under the assumption that we will at some point lose, so we had better know when to cut our losses and get out. It also assumes that the situation allows for an exit and that our enemy will allow it." Will our jihadi enemies let us go? Or will they grip their hatred tightly and again try to kill us at home?

Biden refused any blame for his Afghanistan debacle. The burning sensation means it's working! "'If anything,' Biden declared in his defensive speech, 'the developments of the past week'—the harrowing string of Taliban victories culminating in the seizure of Kabul, the capital, on Sunday—'reinforce that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.'" Biden created this defeat. And he welcomes it. Damn him for that. Tip to Instapundit.

My car caught Covid-19. Well, the transmission died. And while it luckily is under warranty, because of the pandemic-created (or lockdown-created, if you prefer) chip shortage the dealership has no idea when the auto company will ship them the particular chip needed to replace my transmission for free. So it sits at the dealership for some unknown amount of time. I'll deal. The timing could have been much worse--the transmission barely lasted through a series of problems I had to deal with which required mobility. If nothing miraculously happens by the last several days of the month I'll need to do something to bridge the gap. Thanks for the virus Xi Jinping and thanks for the economic disruption all you lockdown Western leaders!

Do not condemn the Afghan security forces for not fighting. They've suffered heavy casualties year after year defending their country. Nearly 66,000 died over 20 years! And after organizing Afghan forces to rely on air power and our logistics, maybe we could have given the Afghan forces more time than a week to adjust to the lack of our air power and logistics support. I did not think even Biden could be so sand-pounding stupid.

Well, they got what they wanted with "America is back!" Biden: "Senior politicians in NATO countries that supported the US-led operation in Afghanistan expressed concern about the speed with which the fall of the capital occurred, as dramatic scenes unfolded in Kabul on Monday." For all the talk of Biden and his multilateral diplomacy that includes our allies, how much consultation was done with NATO? For the first time in its history, NATO declared 9/11 an attack that triggered Article 5 assistance to America. NATO went in with us. And Biden decided we'd all flee. Just feel the strength of Biden's trans-Atlantic commitment. Still, no mean POTUS tweets!

 

New York City begins new policy of disproportionately keeping minorities out of restaurants and gyms. 

Making Taiwan "sponge worthy."

Fear, itself: "New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a nationwide lockdown on Tuesday after a new case of COVID-19 was discovered in the biggest city of Auckland." Tip to Instapundit.

Actual Resistance. Tip to Instapundit.

Social media is designed to increase extremism among users. Let me note that I do not use social media. And I don't allow comments. Which I explained in Sources and Methods. Heck, I rarely even comment on articles where I can. So I am in little danger of not having dignified rants when needed, I think. But you already know you come here for the perspective.

One thing that really depresses me about our defeat in Afghanistan is how unnecessary it was. We'd won the war on terror as a major military problem. In both Iraq and Afghanistan where many brigades and regiments of American troops once battled hard against jihadi enemies in close combat, we created imperfect allies who killed jihadis who are our common enemy. We were in the position of shifting from a war on terror to a struggle on terror dominated by intelligence, police, and allied direct action all bolstered by our assistance behind the frontlines. But rather than perceive we are in an Age of Global Troubles to hold down jihadi threats with far lower levels of American sacrifice, we continued to see ourselves in an endless war demanding high sacrifice. That misconception led to our getting tired of holding Afghanistan even though we hadn't had a combat casualty there in a year and a half. We almost screwed up by withdrawing from Iraq in 2011 but recovered. And so now we wait to see if the troubles reverts to something closer to war because our jihadi enemies won in Afghanistan and may be convinced that Allah will deny them no victory if they believe enough and try hard enough to kill us. Have a super sparkly day.

We abandoned Afghanistan and denied them the support we designed their military to need, but somehow expected them to fight and die for Kabul to shield our withdrawal: "'All of our plans were predicated on the notion that we thought that the Afghans were going to be able to hold Kabul,' said William Wechsler, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism in the Obama administration." Wow. That's really dumb.

Jesus Christ, I really think our diplomats believe the Taliban tremble in fear of our cancel culture if they are called out for being mean to women and girls. What is our major malfunction? But (tip to Instapundit) cancel culture means something else entirely for vicious jihadi killers like the Taliban who do not restrict their cancellations to getting you banned from Twitter or fired from your job. Many Afghans embraced our chance to advance out of the 8th century. Those who won are looking for them. God help these poor people. Because we won't. And God help us. Because we apparently can't be bothered to do that, either.

Shy Russia shields their shame from the sky. 

Last week, I wrote "I'm hoping that Democrats and their media allies will see the collapse of Afghanistan as a learning opportunity" and prepared this helpful illustration:

But one of the leading imbeciles of the Left failed to demonstrate any synapse activity at all. Tip to Jim Treacher, via Instapundit.

With any luck, the election of Joe Biden to be our president will turn out to be Peak Stupid in America.

I will not fly my American flag on 9/11 any more. I always flew it not at half-staff as a memorial to those who died in the al Qaeda terror attacks, but full-staff as a sign that we are at war with the jihadis. It was my demonstration of my desire to win the war the jihadis started. Biden lost that war. I will not fly the American flag to commemorate a defeat that Biden inflicted on America for no reason other than to meet a calendar milestone.

It's a sad day when Facebook's attacks on freedom of speech can be used by the Taliban to shield their looming oppression of women. Tip to Instapundit.

So she won't do the compassionate "right" thing until the government forces everyone to do it? "Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib's annual financial disclosure shows that she made thousands of dollars in rental income last year, despite being a co-sponsor of a bill to cancel rent during the COVID-19 pandemic." Huh. Tip to Jim Treacher. 

Will Biden's presidency last longer if Democrats withdraw support for him than the Afghanistan government lasted after Biden withdrew American support?

I'd enjoy the justice of this punishment for losing Afghanistan except for the fact that Kamala Harris is next in line. And after her it's Pelosi. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the multiple raging dumpster fires.

The real lesson that flows from the reality that defeating committed jihadis is so difficult is that killing jihadis whenever we find them is the best solution. Only that fate can reduce the appeal of joining the jihad for the majority of potential recruits who are less than fully fanatical.

Sigh: "In the South China Sea, a late July British-led international FONOP (freedom of navigation operations) in the South China Sea was revealed to be less of a proper FONOP than advertised. None of the eight ships in the task force came within 22 kilometers of any of the Chinese islands (many of them artificial) built as military bases and declared sovereign Chinese territory[.]"

Yes, fire them if they don't resign: "The brass and agencies will complain that it was Biden who ultimately made the call. Indeed, they are already furiously leaking to that effect to the press. Maybe they’re right. But it’s up to voters to fire the president at the ballot box. If they thought what Biden planned was disastrous, they should have resigned in protest. But they didn’t." Lots of people need to be fired if they don't have the Goddamn decency to resign in shame. They should have publicly resigned when their advice wasn't heeded in order to prevent the disaster. But no, they carried out the orders they knew would be disastrous. So they get no sympathy from me for their now-leaked advice. They collaborated with the stupidity that led to our defeat. Failure this massive should not be rewarded or even tolerated. Damn it, I'm furious with our so-called leaders. Austin, Milley, Blinken, and whoever that small child standing at the national security advisor's podium is should be gone by September 11th. And for God's sake, fire the Fuck-Up Fairy immediately.

Can China take advantage of our defeat in Afghanistan given their other foreign policy objectives and internal problems? Or will those internal problems lead China to think they must challenge America as the most likely target that can be beaten to suppress internal problems with a short and glorious war? Russia should thank us if that is so.

Wait. What? I've been told be planned this? Did we plan this inability to rescue Americans, as Secretary of Defense Austin states? "I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul." Good Lord. "With all the American troops on the ground at the Kabul airport at the mercy of the Taliban, we'd best have tactical nukes ready to destroy Taliban forces around that perimeter and really crush any attempt to overrun or trap our force. For those who shudder at this suggestion, are you ready to have 6,000 American troops, 10,000 or more American civilians, and who knows how many allied troops and civilians die or be captured by the Taliban if we don't use all our weapons to stop that? I'm absolutely not. And I doubt conventional power flying from distant bases can do the job. Start with MOABs, but that has to be the warning shot for the big stuff. Lord, what a clusterfuck. And remember, I wasn't in favor of bugging out when Trump was proposing it. I feel ill just thinking about how badly Biden has fucked this up. I could weep thinking about the American troops who died for nothing with this idiotic decision to lose. Damn our leaders.

As long as the Taliban don't write mean tweets, Twitter won't suspend their accounts. One must maintain one's standards, mustn't one? I eagerly await the learned commentary on what part of the Koran supports the idea that Twitter rules are supreme over Allah's will.

Iran's home-built warships. Iran's navy focuses on the Indian Ocean and Caspian Sea while the Revolutionary Guard navy is assigned to the Persian Gulf.

The "kinder and gentler, evolved" Taliban in action. Tip to Treacher.

Will the slowly unfolding Durham investigation be the Democratic Party's vehicle for easing Biden out of office? Throw the Republicans a senior but irrelevant Democrat to take the fall and then move on? Biden's return to Delaware might be the first step: "President Biden is once again scheduled to head home to Delaware Saturday, as thousands of Americans and Afghan allies remain stranded in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover last weekend." This sounds a lot like parents telling their children that the family cat hit and killed by a car was actually "sent to a farm to live." I assume that Biden's home has all the advanced medical care on par with Chelsea Clinton's apartment. Really, "Something is wrong with President Biden, and we are all being asked to pretend we don’t notice." A lot of people noticed long ago. Our allies and enemies abroad are starting to notice. I think even Democrats can't pretend they don't notice.

If Trump's withdrawal plan for Afghanistan was a "ruse" it was possibly more deluded than Biden's. Really, we were trying for a deal that would bring the Taliban into the Afghan government in exchange for American special forces remaining? That's just a two-step defeat with a slaughter of our best fighters thrown in as a jihadi bonus for playing the game. 

Via The Morning Briefing, Rachel Maddow, who based her show on deposing Trump, is in tears over abandoning our Afghan translators to the tender mercies of the Taliban:

More than our translators, including thousands of American citizens, are at risk of being abandoned. But seriously, at least the "adults" are back in charge.

What part of "we were retreating from Afghanistan and our enemies want to make things worse rather that help us" is unclear?

Well, duh. The Russias have the largest arsenal of nukes that can reach America: "Russia, with its array of hard-to-detect cruise missiles and advanced submarines, poses the primary military threat to the American homeland today, the commander of U.S. Northern Command said Tuesday." Or do they?

Is opposition to the Taliban forming in the north? I had hoped northerners might rally resistance to a Taliban conquest of Kabul. That didn't happen. Can northerners resist locally now? Will any external power back them? There have been reports of protests in cities the Taliban have conquered. Will signs of resistance be effective? And will the Taliban split apart after victory?

Wow, not even mean tweets caused this kind of reaction from our best ally!  It's depressing. Note that Biden effed this up so badly while alienating Britain , our best ally! What is depressing is that so many Democrats and moderates couldn't predict that Biden would ef up everything he touches so badly.

Acceptable collateral pandemic damage? This would have gotten a pass in the media even without a recall election for California's Democratic governor, the resignation-in-disgrace of New York's democratic governor, and Biden's astoundingly inept debacle in Afghanistan to soak up the news cycles.

President Obama promised  "to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims," in 2009 at a speech at Cairo University. In August 2021, the Taliban demonstrated how they want that new beginning to look like. But don't say that we didn't have a hint of how jihadis want to define 9/11. 

Keep in mind that we didn't create a mirror image of our military in Afghanistan despite the claims. We actually did learn from the past and focused on wheeled vehicles and propeller-driven aircraft. They required help maintaining them but it would be easier to get to self-sufficiency with these weapons rather than jets and tracked vehicles.

Meanwhile in Nigeria and Africa. 

Meanwhile in Cuba, a brief experience of feeling free.

Don't forget Obama's role in our Afghanistan defeat. Will Biden close our jihadi prison at Guantanamo Bay now?

Improvising in war.

Pity our armed forces don't focus on the many enemies they highlight when requesting appropriations for weapons: "In a sane world, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense would resign. We have heard for too long their careerist boasts about assigning climate change as their chief challenge. For too long they have virtue-signaled their critical race theory credentials to Congress. For too long they have bragged about rooting out alleged white supremacists from their ranks. For too long they have sparred with journalists while fighting Twitter wars and issuing cartoonish commercials attesting to their woke credentials." Do read it all. It's an Institutional Kasserine Pass.

Remember the extraordinary effort to defeat Trump that  Molly Ball described in “Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”? Sure, it was legal and technically not election fraud. "But what Time did uncover is disturbing enough, even if most of those involved are proud of what they did to help elect President Biden: underhanded methods made all the more galling by the preening self-righteousness of those who deployed them. [para] As the magazine reports, a secret alliance of left-wing activists, union leaders and corporate CEOs worked together to help craft unprecedented changes in the rules governing the way America votes. They did their best to encourage and facilitate mail-in voting on an unprecedented scale." So any regrets from our "best and brightest" about deforming our institutions and norms for the results?

I think this was the real election "fraud" based on exploiting a pandemic crisis with politically motivated rules that had nothing to do with the crisis: "A monthslong investigation into the 2020 presidential vote has found that Democrat-run cities and states used the COVID-19 crisis to change the rules that likely helped Joe Biden’s ascent to the White House." Democrats engineered opportunities for fraud and or undetectable error that probably shifted the 2020 election to Biden. You didn't need much of either to be decisive in the swing states that gave Trump the 2016 election.

Pandemic science!

Remember that "over-the-horizon" strikes against jihadi terrorists in Afghanistan will have to be carried out with drones that will have little loiter time over the territory. Because if a manned aircraft develops mechanical problems which bring it down in Afghanistan, the crew is not getting out alive.

This failure to find any evidence is pretty impressive when you consider how evidence was manufactured to bolster the bogus Trump-Russia collusion charge: "The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials." It was a riot. Which was reprehensible for those involved. But it was not an insurrection. Tip to Instapundit.

"Goodlife". (Note)

I worry that the Taliban value crushing America by isolating our airport airhead more than they value international recognition. My worries over our line of supply to Afghanistan are nothing new.

Maybe I'm in the minority of people who are furious. But I doubt many Americans will be proud of the clusterfuckBiden that we are witnessing in Afghanistan: "President Joe Biden is brushing off criticism of his administration's chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal because he and his aides believe the political fallout at home will be limited, according to White House allies and administration officials."

Without computer-assisted design software. 

CO2 akbar!

Remember when liberals said Afghanistan was the "good" and "necessary" war that Iraq prevented America from focusing on? I've long known that was a lie. Vox says that 20 years of "hawk" policies that did not result in a debacle are the real reason for Biden's complete debacle that shocked even the Biden administration for its rapidity. But you know, Rupar. And Vox.

I'd like to make another defense of Afghan security force willingness to fight. Losing 50,000 dead just over the last 7 years should be enough. But I guess not. Note that Europe has great worries about refugees flowing to Europe now that the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. Why wouldn't NATO stay when Europeans had many more troops than we had? With all the contractors to help? The Europeans did not stay because without American support even advanced European military forces could not sustain themselves in Afghanistan. If even Europeans couldn't fight without American support, is it really right to blame the more poorly trained and basic Afghan security forces for collapsing without our support?

Ninety-one years of Russian paratroopers.

Too bad the media disbanded or reassigned all those fact checkers. 

Hard to argue against this:

Resistance: "Groups of armed Afghans attacked the Taliban on Friday, driving Afghanistan's new rulers out of three northern districts, the first assault against the Islamist militants since they swept into Kabul last week and seized control of the government." I imagine most Afghan security force people were smart enough to take weapons and ammo with them when they scattered. And corruption will help those resisting gain access to the weapons captured by the Taliban.

Some Afghan pilots escaped the Taliban with their planes and passengers.

Self-inflicted wound: Biden Edition: "President Joe Biden told key allies in June that he would maintain enough of a security presence in Afghanistan to ensure they could continue to operate in the capital following the main U.S. withdrawal, a vow made before the Taliban’s rapid final push across the country, according to a British diplomatic memo seen by Bloomberg." America is back, baby! Strengthening those trans-Atlantic ties that Democrats claimed Biden would repair! Why would Biden tell our allies that we'd maintain "critical U.S. enablers" to keep Kabul sufficiently secure and then reverse course and pull every damn support out? It is mind boggling.

That's nice and all, but that doesn't do much for our problems in the mountains of Afghanistan right now: "For months, top officials at the Defense Department have been working toward declassifying the existence of a secret space weapon program and providing a real-world demonstration of its capabilities, Breaking Defense has learned." I mean, unless it is a Star Trek "transporter beam" that helps us get everyone out.

A global Britain should not forget the Baltic Sea. I don't think post-EU Britain has forgotten the Baltic Sea. And I'm all on board the British and the rest of NATO being able to fight there. But by all means, it justifies attention.

Well, it's something: "U.S. forces rescued 169 Americans who had been in hiding in a hotel in Kabul and brought them safely to the Kabul airport. It’s believed to be the largest such rescue beyond the grounds of the airport to date." 

If Minneapolis wants to do this, I say they are free to commit municipal suicide. Why should I care?

Even if the Taliban can control all their factions to allow America to leave Kabul airport, how quickly can other jihadis get to the scene to attack us? "Potential Islamic State threats against Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the airport in Kabul, a senior U.S. official said Saturday, adding a new complication to the already chaotic efforts to get people out of the country after its swift fall to the Taliban." Fancy that.

Sucks that we need this, but good we will do this: "Military leaders in Canada and the United States plan to work together to modernize the North American Aerospace Defense Command, jointly investing in new sensing and command and control capabilities to protect the continent from new ballistic missile threats."

Defeat in Afghanistan hurts them? "For senior military and Pentagon leaders, this week's news was profoundly personal." Then why the fuck didn't they loudly and publicly resign when their advice to remain in Afghanistan wasn't heeded by Biden?! I guess it wasn't personal enough to get in the way of careerism and post-career positions on boards of directors. Spare me their personal anguish. I'm disgusted with our senior "leaders".

Sure, the 82nd Airborne Division is in command of the Kabul airport defense because it is trained to capture and hold airheads. But that skill won't matter if jihadi mortars are sweeping the airfield and if anti-aircraft weapons are shooting down slow moving, loaded aircraft trying to leave. 

Yeah: "In just seven days, any lingering dreams of a free Afghanistan died." Yeah, a week ago I observed: "In the space of a week I went from hope that the next 5-6 months would be key to fear that Biden effed things up so badly that we probably won't make it long enough for Biden to celebrate that 20-year anniversary he seems to cherish."

For God's sake! How is this legislation not racist as f*ck?

Russia has decided that it is ideal to let the Israelis strike their Syrian ally's territory while simply pretending to be shooting down all those Israeli missiles. Wag the dogski, everywhere!

Well of course it was based on faked data. Tip to Instapundit.

The U.S. may activate planes in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to help evacuate people from Afghanistan. We need to get our people out and we need to get the people who helped us out. In a perfect world we'd trade our Antifa/BLM fascists for these people who have a deep understanding of the value of being free. I assume none of the CRAF planes will fly into Kabul. I imagine they will be to pick up evacuated people moved from Kabul to a Gulf region airport. [And later I read that is what will happen.]

Justin Trudeau called for a snap election in Canada. He said he is worried about the "she-cession". If Canadians reelect this buffoon they deserve to never win a Stanley Cup ever again.

It is unlikely that the Taliban can fully exploit the capture of the Afghan air force. They'd need pilots and maintainers. While I can see those people using their skills to work for the Taliban, then the issue is the spare parts. I'm not too worried. Nothing is high tech despite the numerous cries that we lost critical equipment. Please. We did not equip Afghanistan with a mirror image of our Air Force. We provided a simple force geared to ground support. There were 23 A-29 propeller-driven attack planes, 4 C-130 cargo planes, 33 Cessna Caravan civilian planes adapted for military uses, and about 150 helicopters. The Russians and Chinese aren't going to learn anything examining them. To this day, Iran has troubles keeping their air force in operation. The Taliban are unlikely to do better. Of course, if Pakistan or China helps the Taliban that's another story.

Say, more than 20 years after Clinton intervened, American troops are holding the line in Kosovo: "Security in Kosovo remains stable overall. But Washington and its NATO allies have no plans to reduce the Kosovo Force — or KFOR — which is still considered essential in maintaining peace between the Albanian majority and Serb minority, whose rivalry erupted in a war in the late 1990s in which at least 10,000 people died." But we couldn't do that in Afghanistan?

American forces will assist with Haiti earthquake relief operations. 

The Europeans thought Biden represented nuanced foreign policy that any European could love. But they're not loving what they discovered they got. Oh well. Sucks to rely on Biden for your security.

As Tropical Storm Henri threatened America, I assumed Biden would remind Americans that we've been in a futile battle with such storms for 245 years and so he's abandoning our coastal areas to the threat and wishing residents there the very best of luck. Everyone knows they're doomed, he might say, so why bother wasting any more efforts on protecting them? It's been that kind of a week, eh? 

Are Biden's voters happy with the price of no more mean tweets? "Your boy Dementia Joe owns it all now — the catastrophe in Kabul, open borders, rampant inflation, skyrocketing urban crime, the destruction of American energy independence, endless nonsensical lockdowns over a mild virus that is killing almost no one, not to mention so many public misstatements by the doddering old clown that his own cabinet secretaries have to correct his insane lies even before he shuffles off to Marine One for the flight back to his weekend assisted-living facility in Delaware." Tip to Instapundit.

Airport capacity isn't the problem in getting people out of Afghanistan through the Kabul airport. The problem is lack of ability to get through Taliban siege lines to reach the airport and--shockingly--the obstacle of paperwork. Is nothing a crisis big enough to get bureaucrats to act like something is an emergency? No wonder the Taliban think Allah is on their side.

An underwater volcano has made a new island for Japan. How long before China claims it as historic Chinese territory? 

Rather than counting on a farcical aquatic ceremony deal to halt Iran's nuclear weapons drive, Israel wants America to support a broad and persistent strategy of hurting Iran: "Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett presented President Biden in their meeting today with what Israeli officials described as “a death by a thousand cuts” strategy against Iran." I imagine this is Israel's price to rule out an earlier resort to a strike campaign against Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

Petraeus doesn't think we can really mow the jihadi grass in Afghanistan from over the horizon; and he defends the willingness of the Afghan security forces to fight and die provided we supported them.

I'm still numb from the needless defeat in Afghanistan that the Biden administration delivered this month. Complete incompetence.