https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/one-thing-we-never-understood-about-afghanistan-daniel-greenfield/

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out I’m not the only one to think that likely.
“Europe’s Latest Terrorism Threat Report”
Violent jihadists who killed and plotted in 2020 illegally crossed borders first; distant terror-travel warning bells for an out-of-control U.S. border
https://cis.org/Bensman/Europes-Latest-Terrorism-Threat-Report

Even NBC sees it:
“The international Jihadi movement is reinvigorated”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/the-international-jihadi-movement-is-reinvigorated/

It also is obvious that the Left will use terrorist attacks as an argument for a nationalized, ‘quick reaction’ police force.

Of course, such a force would naturally pay close attention to “domestic terrorists”… who after all are “the greatest threat to national security”.

Re: “(Except that I also agree with Zaph: Islam is unreformable. And cannot be made into any “model” ideal we can accept.)”

I’ve been asserting that Islam cannot be reformed since June of 2010. See: “The Theological Nature of Islam” https://geoffreybritain.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/the-theological-nature-of-islam/

Pointing out the same fact based logic as I do above to Richard. I’ve made it many times here and across the web.

No one has ever refuted it.

John Guilfoyle,

I think it prudent to qualify that I am not in agreement with the common view that, “if we react as ruthlessly as they, then we’re no better than them”. That IMO is a formula for defeat and an error in reason. But also a very slippery path at the edge of a moral cliff.

First, you are correct. Democrats adjust history to suit themselves. Always.
Then they start to believe it.

Second, that Tweet & its companion make a pretty blunt accusation.

@ian_mckelvey
“Well, it looks like I was right.

Biden: (in 2010) “ *** that. We don’t have to worry about that (Afghanistan). We did it in Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.”

The debacle in #Afghanistan was intentional.”

“I can’t help but feel that what has happened in Afghanistan over the past 72 hours was deliberate. This was the execution Biden’s plan. He, his vice president, and his press secretary remain on vacation. Complete silence from the Democrats. It has to be intentional.”

The Saigon evacuation should have clued people in (been the final nail in the coffin) that Democrats couldn’t be trusted with foreign policy ever again, but they voted them in anyway.
Maybe.

Maybe Mr. Rogin’s “blame game” will answer some of those questions later. The suggestions are coming in piece-meal right now, and they don’t look good for the Administration at any level.

The only thing I’m sure of is that none of the perpetrators of this debacle will be declared Domestic Terrorist and locked up in solitary without bail.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/16/biden-must-rescue-thousands-us-citizens-trapped-afghanistan/

As the situation on the ground in Afghanistan’s capital continues to deteriorate, thousands of U.S. citizens are trapped in and around Kabul with no ability to get to the airport, which is their only way out of the country. As Taliban soldiers go door to door, searching for Westerners, these U.S. citizens are now reaching out to anyone and everyone back in Washington for help. The Biden administration must get moving on a plan to rescue them before it’s too late.

There will be plenty of time later to look back on how and why the 20-year American intervention in Afghanistan failed so miserably, why the U.S. withdrawal was so badly mismanaged and how the U.S. government failed to predict that the Taliban would take over the country with almost no resistance. But right now, the No. 1 job of the U.S. government and the roughly 7,000 U.S. troops*** in or on their way to Kabul must be to rescue American citizens first and then all the Afghans who risked their lives based on America’s promise of safety.

The U.S. Embassy staff have all been safely transported to the Kabul airport, officials say. But as the U.S. military struggles to even secure the airport grounds, thousands of U.S. citizens who didn’t make it there yet are hiding and hoping someone saves them before roaming Taliban gangs find them. In Washington, several congressional offices are scrambling to help, but complaining that the Biden administration is dropping the ball.

“My office has heard from over 100 Americans who need help getting out of Afghanistan,” Sen. Tom Cotton** (R-Ark.) told me. “We can’t fly planes or open gates, but we can at least give people information. The Biden administration needs a plan to get our fellow Americans out.”

Several congressional staffers told me that American citizens in Kabul have been flooding their office’s phone lines, complaining that after being told on Sunday by the State Department to shelter in place and not to come to the embassy or the airport, they have not received any further information and are scared for their lives. Cotton’s office set up an email address for Americans in Kabul who want to be evacuated (evac@cotton.senate.gov) to try to get them more help.

“We’ve been screaming at the State Department over this issue,” one senior GOP Senate staffer told me. “This is a s—show everyone saw coming, and they didn’t do a damn thing about it until about 24 hours ago, after days of pounding on them by the Hill.”

There’s no single tally of U.S. citizens in danger in Kabul. President Biden didn’t address the issue of how the U.S. government will assist Americans who aren’t already at the airport during his remarks to the nation Monday afternoon.

An administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record told me that there are an estimated 10,000 U.S. citizens in the country, with the vast majority in or near Kabul. Some are residents, journalists or aid workers who may not want to leave. Most are scrambling to escape. Some are dual nationals or children of Americans who may not have the proper passport or visas, but the State Department has not told them how to fix their paperwork.

The State Department and the Defense Department basically have two options: negotiate safe passage for American citizens with the Taliban, if possible, or send the U.S. military out into the city to bring Americans back to the airport before the Taliban gangs find them. Officials working on these cases inside the government told me they have no clear guidance from the White House and not enough support.

“We need more troops from the Pentagon, and we need more State Department resources to evacuate Americans,” the official said. “I feel like I’m working against my own government to get my own country’s people out.”

The State Department is also dealing with more than 80,000 visa applications for Afghans who worked with the U.S. government or find themselves at risk, the official said.

Asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson pointed me to a website where U.S. citizens in Kabul can fill out a “Repatriation Assistance Request,” which puts them on a list of Americans in need of help. But several congressional staffers told me that Americans who have registered still have no idea what they should do or how the U.S. government will help them.

In a joint statement Sunday, the State Department and the Pentagon said the most urgent mission was to secure the Kabul airport. “Tomorrow and over the coming days****, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan,” as well as thousands of Afghans who are in danger, the statement said.

But even the mission to secure the airport is going awry. On Monday, U.S. troops shot dead at least two armed men who were among the masses storming the airport, according to a U.S. military official. As of Monday afternoon, U.S. officials said the flights to and from the airport had stalled. Meanwhile, those Americans who aren’t at the airport haven’t received any updates.

“American citizens’ houses have been ransacked, and they are in hiding because the Taliban are terrorizing and tormenting neighborhoods. That’s happening all over Kabul,” said another senior GOP congressional staffer who has been fielding calls and emails from Americans in Kabul. “There are a lot of people who are falling through the cracks. [The administration] didn’t have a plan to handle this on a mass scale. . . . For the people in Kabul, they’ve basically said it’s up to them to get to the airport.”

Biden administration officials are very busy trying to spin the fall of Kabul away from a story about their own incompetence. They argue that the intelligence was wrong, that the Afghan government didn’t stand firm, that the Taliban would have won eventually. Some officials are even claiming that they planned for this contingency. But the frantic calls of U.S. citizens begging for information render all those explanations and excuses irrelevant for the moment.

The blame game can wait. Thousands of Americans could become hostages or worse. Every hour that goes by without action places them in greater danger. Rescuing them is the most important thing right now.

I’m sure Rogin will be happy to join in blaming Trump and the Republicans later, but he’s right that the first priority is saving lives. Of course, that was true in Benghazi as well, and we know how that played out. Any bets on how many Democrats will be forced to resign?

*”Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post. He writes about foreign policy and national security. Rogin is also a political analyst for CNN. He previously worked for Bloomberg View, the Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper.”

**Remember when the NYT purged their staff for daring to print an op-ed by Senator Cotton?

***And just what are those troops going to do when they get in theater? Fight off the entire Taliban contingent in Kabul, and the rest throughout the country? Take back the planes at Bagram, which any competent planner would have used as evacuation vehicles in the first place?
(…school buses in New Orleans come to mind…)

****Hope is not a plan. There are no “coming days” left.

It is possible we might all agree that after the first “purple fingers” were visible in Iraq and a defensive perimeter & capacity built in post-Taliban Afghanistan, a draw down of US military (South Korea style not South VietNam style) may have been the best outcome for which any of us could have prayed.
That we were there for 20 years…

It should be axiomatic by now that you cannot build democracy where the internal mechanisms for it do not exist. Islam is not the fertile soil of Christendom out of which our Western liberal democratic institutions grew…It. Never. Will. Be. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

We should have been out long ago & at least taken our people & our gear with us, and if attacked again…
“Just take it? Nuke em? What other alternatives are there?
How do you respond to the assertion that, if we react as ruthlessly as they, that we’re no better than they?”
Acting less ruthlessly has brought us to this moment…But maybe. We knew where the camps were? We knew where their mountains hideouts were? Did we? Could we have airborne ordinance rearranging the geography until even the roaches were dead? I don’t have that answer to hand.

What I know is there will be a bloodbath and a refugee crisis the likes of which we have never seen before unless all the surrounding nations close their borders, then we’re back to bloodbath.

This is what failed nation-building has wrought. This is what happens when empires fail…as ours is failing. Stolen elections have consequences. And everybody who continually beat the “next war” drums & rejoiced when President Trump was ousted…this one’s on you.

Thousands of people trying to flee. Maybe thousands of people should turn around and fight!

Perhaps no civilians are allowed to have weapons, to begin with.