Afghanistan: random and not-so-random thoughts
In no particular order:
How much of this terrible situation has been engendered by our elected and/or appointed and/or installed officials’ (or call them “elites,” or call them “leaders,” but make sure you put those scare quotes in) incompetence?
How much was stupidity?
How much was naivete?
How much was ignorance?
How much was arrogance?
How much was mendacity, including mendacity to themselves?
How much was purposefully desiring the destruction of America and the West?
How much was a lust for their own power for power’s sake?
How much was about money and what they stand to earn from China or elsewhere? In other words, simple corruption?
Did I leave anything out? Probably. And the total can certainly add up to more than 100$.
What’s more, how many people who voted for this administration – and there are plenty of them, whether Biden won by fraud or not – are thinking “What have I done?”
How many are quite content with the events?
How many don’t care?
How many are paying attention?
Now let’s go to this question: how many Americans are left in Afghanistan right now? The military doesn’t seem to know:
The Biden administration’s Department of Defense spokesperson admitted in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that it does not know how many American citizens remain in Afghanistan.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told CNN that there are “certainly thousands of Americans … we don’t have an exact count.”
“Best guess … between five and ten thousand that are near Kabul,” he continued. “
They don’t have an exact count? It sounds as though they actually don’t have a clue.
More:
On Sunday, as the situation in Kabul deteriorated markedly, the State Department issued a security warning to all Americans remaining in the country, telling them to avoid coming to Kabul airport and, instead, shelter in place until their security could be guaranteed. On Monday, amid the crush of thousands of Afghans flooding the military runway at Kabul’s airport, trying to catch a flight out rather than live under Taliban rule, the U.S. suspended evacuations.
Evacuations began again Monday night.The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin noted on Monday that there could be as many as 10,000 Americans still trapped in and around Kabul, many struggling to reach safety. It is also not clear whether the airport is in American control. Just 700 people were evacuated on Monday.
It occurs to me – and I certainly hope nothing even remotely like this happens – that more Americans could die trying to evacuate than died in twenty years of the Afghanistan war. This may be as good a time as any to state that I think describing the conflict as twenty years of war is somewhat of a misnomer. In its later years it was closer to an occupation that included attacks from terrorists and saboteurs, but not really what is traditionally thought of as war.
Who is responsible – or, most responsible, because I think there’s plenty of blame to share – for the abominable way the withdrawal was handled?
Biden and/or whoever is in charge of him?
The State Department?
The military?
The “intelligence” community?
Again, that first list of questions comes into play: incompetence, stupidity, malice, etc.?
Biden’s attempt to say his hands were tied by Trump would be risible if it weren’t so awful and so transparently false: with record speed he reversed nearly everything Trump did and could easily have changed this, plus of course the exact manner of the retreat was not determined by Trump.
Meanwhile the world laughs at us, and rightly so. This nation has become a mockery of what it once was, and it’s not just on the presidential level but it’s on a host of important other levels as well. For this post I’ve left out agencies and branches of government such as the DOJ and the CDC and the FBI and the IRS and the courts and Congress, because they don’t seem to be especially involved in this particular debacle. But they are to be included in the larger scheme of things. Is there a single part of the federal government that is actually competent, or that has America’s well-being at heart? I don’t think so.
‘How many don’t care?’
A lot. Probably more than half.
Biden should probably be impeached for this epic disaster. But doubtless he’ll be protected by our wonderful media and tech oligarchs.
It’s clear that our various “Intelligence” agencies are run by self important, supercilious ninnies of low moral character who hold most ordinary Americans in contempt. They seem to place far more effort and concern on domestic threats (whether real or imagined) than foreign ones as evidenced by their illegally spying on citizens and ceaseless efforts to entrap excitable idiots into harebrained schemes. They’re consumed with politics rather than their actual mission.
This latest debacle in Afghanistan is just another demonstration of their deep incompetence. In a sane world all of them would be fired and at least a few of them would be prosecuted. But instead I’m sure that many of them will end up being protected and promoted because our entire system has become derranged with no accountability.
Possibly left out: “How much was nostalgia?” In 1975, Biden, as a new senator, voted with other Democrats to cut off support to the South Vietnamese army, then under assault by the North. He has since declared he is proud of that vote. For Biden, cutting off support for the Afghans may be simply reliving the glory days of his youth. As Talleyrand said about members of the French Old Regime, he’s “forgotten nothing and learned nothing.”
I put a link to a link to this in a previous thread but think it bears repeating in full.
“By the time Biden became vice president in 2009, the disastrous war in Iraq, the endemic corruption of the Afghan government, and the return of the Taliban had made him a deep skeptic of the American commitment. He became the Obama administration’s strongest voice for getting out of Afghanistan.
In 2010, he told Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that the U.S. had to leave Afghanistan regardless of the consequences for women or anyone else. According to Holbrooke’s diary, when he asked about American obligations to Afghans like the girl in the Kabul school, Biden replied with a history lesson from the final U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1973: ‘Fuck that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.'”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/we-cant-abandon-afghans-who-helped-us/618416/
Biden just did what he said he wanted to do 11 years ago and fully expects that it will cause him no harm down the road.
All of the above.
Of those who voted for this administration? Not many.
Where does the buck stop? In this case with Biden and his puppet masters, who BTW have decided this is the perfect excuse for the ‘neccessity’ of Biden’s departure. CNN, MSNBC, and all the other major networks are blaming Biden. Staring 23 seconds into this video, watch the networks begin the call for Biden’s departure . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rD_Lc5GML0
“ABC News Pummels Biden”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/abc-news-pummels-biden/
“Is there a single part of the federal government that is actually competent?”
The CCP certainly doesn’t think so.
“Emboldened China Warns Taiwan: ‘The Island’s Defense Will Collapse’ and the ‘U.S. Military Won’t Come to Help'”
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/08/16/emboldened-china-warns-taiwan-the-islands-defense-will-collapse-and-the-u-s-military-wont-come-to-help-n1470121
I don’t blame the military for not knowing how many Americans are in-country
Even State probably wouldn’t know unless they were direct employees.
We should extract them prior to Afghans.
They are in danger, this could turn out horribly. Thousands? Holy cow …
With Biden’s handlers in charge…as Ozzy Man would say, “We are so F#%$^$ed.”
First the slaughter, then get set for hundreds even thousands of American hostages. Men regularly beaten, women raped. Repeatedly.
The death cult will want its “pound of flesh”.
State ought to have a count of Americans who were in-country and who registered with the Embassy, which is recommended. But since State isn’t there any more, who knows if such data is available?
To the questions of who is responsible for this mess: All of the above, but Biden especially. He seems to think it will all blow over and there won’t be any consequences for him.
Tucker Carlson puts it all very succinctly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXtwuO-ZUR0
Geoffrey Britain:
That’s certainly possible, but if I had to bet I’d say they won’t do that to the Americans for the simple reason that, even with Biden et al, they know it would rouse such outrage that there would be some violent repercussions. I think that for now they want to keep the overt violence for the most part to their own people who helped the Americans or are Western sympathizers or who are insufficiently Islamic. As long as the Americans get out, the Taliban probably will not want to draw too much attention to their own barbarity by harming the Americans on any wide scale.
As I said, I don’t have enormous confidence in that. But that’s what I think most likely.
The Taliban is going to grab some high profile and high value Americans to hold as hostage. Think Richard Engel of NBC. They will demand that all the detainees at Gitmo – including KSM – be released.
If I was a member of the Taliban, I’d do this exact thing. It has worked in the past. Obama swapped Bo for some Gitmo terrorists and one went back to the Taliban as a general.
If the Taliban do end up with large numbers of American hostages, they can string the whole hostage drama out for years and years.
The other bad news is that the Taliban appear well-organized and coordinated. They will play their cards well.
huxley:
I think hostages are more likely than killings. Hostages have far more propaganda value and give them more leverage.
“With Biden’s handlers in charge…as Ozzy Man would say, “We are so F#%$^$ed.”
Exactly. As most of us have claimed for quite awhile, Biden is just a puppet. He didn’t make this fiasco. As Ozzy would say, it’s all those leftist wankers manipulating him, and now they’ve been exposed. I don’t have much hope that this will get us anywhere though, as very few libs/Ds will change their minds about what they voted for last year.
Not that it matters, but I think the Pentagon brass thought that they could roll, manipulate, or gently persuade the President like they’ve done dozens of times before. Persuade him to greatly delay or at least delay the process enough to implement a passable plan.
But someone was whispering in Joe’s ear. Maybe.
An alternative and more scary option, is that the White House and cabinet staff are actually treating Biden like an intelligent and competent President, and he decided he wasn’t going to be manipulated. You show ’em who’s boss Joe.
TommyJay:
Anything is possible. I get that the brass were overruled, but still to have planned so badly….
They turned over Bagram Air Base to the Afghan Army on July 1. The Afghans surrendered Bagram to the Taliban on Sunday.
What could we really, really use right now?
An airport we completely control with our military.
These afghans don’t watch TV and don’t know anything about “Rambo” and “James Bond” movies, so they don’t scare us, they see nothing but occupied intruders and they have to get us out no matter how much they understand, so all our weapons and psychological wars against them don’t work.?…..
This is what the US military tweeted recently——————————————————————
Blaming President Biden or Trump is absolutely ridiculous!
Time to Go, 20 Years, $2 Trillion, 2,000 Americans Killed. How much are we supposed to do? The Afghan army outnumbered the Taliban 3 times, they lay down their arms and surrender.
These people have no interest and importance in fighting the Taliban. The British couldn’t control that country, the Russians couldn’t, and neither could we! Stop blaming President Biden or Trump or any American it’s time to go. We must also leave Iraq as soon as possible. You must learn how to defend your land.
I get that the brass were overruled, but still to have planned so badly…. — huxley
Yes, but … You are still assuming that there was a Pentagon plan that was implemented. That is, that Joe picked plan C or D of those available. I think we are now observing Joe’s none-of-the-above plan or his consigliere’s plan.
“Is there a single part of the federal government that is actually competent, or that has America’s well-being at heart? I don’t think so.”
– Probably not in the upper echelons, no. But I do think there are many federal employees in mid range management position who are very competent, patriotic and just as dismayed at the state of this country as we are.
TommyJay:
So. no one is really in charge and people are improvising and hoping it works out?
There seems to be an element of that.
The problem is that our “elites” are full of hubris (“we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for”) and completely disconnected/protected from reality. They have zero real-world experience but we’re told that they’re “the reality based community”. The meltdown of the Afghan army was as predictable as a Democratic Party talking point. All you had to do was spend 5 minutes over the past 20 years to see the obvious – a national military requires a nation state and Afghanistan is a tribal state. The smart move would have been to set up a Republic but there’s more opportunity for graft in a centralized theft system (oops, that should be “government”).
However, I’m glad Biden was installed President. The withdrawal would have been much smoother under a President Trump (real-world experience) but the endless “best military withdrawal ever” tweets would have been unbearable. That’s just too much winning. Oh, look, prices are going up and everything else is going down… that’s more like it!
PS – you can’t ignore the media buffoons in all the current and coming calamities. You should never take the advice of people who have “Losing is the Best Winning” motivational posters on the wall.
Why do I keep hearing the Critical Drinker in my head?
–The Critical Drinker, “Nah, it’ll be fine!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uFQMKW53I4
TCD does movie reviews and this is his standard interjection when the characters decide to ignore an obvious warning and blunder ahead.
Considering how many plans “for” (contingencies) exist in the Pentagon files, I would be surprised if a plan didn’t exist for evacuation. It’s possible it was put together some time back and not updated. That nobody thought to order a staff subsection to put together at least a skeleton plan is not computing.
“But I do think there are many federal employees in mid range management position who are very competent, patriotic and just as dismayed at the state of this country as we are.”
Oh really? I’m not hearing from a dozen. I’m not even hearing from one.
Richard Aubrey:
I have read that they had plans and Biden rejected them. Who knows what’s true? But I believe they did have plans of some sort, and that Biden and company wanted to do it their own disastrous way instead.
Hubris.
…. is not computing.
Richard Aubrey:
Likewise.
I don’t have much faith in the Biden team and the current military planners, but this seems like everyone figured that everything was someone else’s job, hoped it would work, then cut out early for some beers by the pool and some gossip about Obama’s Birthday Bash.
I wish I could share Neo’s feeling that there won’t be rapes of American, or Western, women.
huxley on August 17, 2021 at 6:24 pm said:
Keep it there. It’s …
Super easy. Barely an inconvenience!
neo. Those old Greeks had a way with words. Yes. Hubris. I
t’s one thing to do your own thinking and come up with what you think is a better plan. It’s another to dismiss something without analysis because it came from “those people”. I have no doubt the Biden rodeo did the latter.
Kate. Likewise. But why should American or other western women be immune from what is imposed on local women?
It is the time to invoke the 25th Amendment, but the problem is that would require action by Biden’s Cabinet, an awful assortment of people like SecDef Austin (black) who worries most about systemic racism in our military, Sec State Blinken, a huge lying cockroach, and the little man from South Bend who is someone’s “wife”.
Let us face it, the Democrats have long been the party of evil, and the US has been slowly throttled by the Administrative State ever since the income tax made its monstrous growth over the past century possible. It is composed of registered Democrats who cannot be removed from their desks.
It is not just Afghanistan that is in mortal throes, it is also America.
Oh, they won’t be immune, Richard Aubrey. In fact, they might be even more likely prey for random attacks than will Afghan women. Afghan women and girls will be forced into marriage, keeping in mind that this doesn’t have the same meaning as a Western marriage, even as broken as it is.
As a federal contractor at an agency I don’t care to name, I can assure you that there are federal employees who care about what’s right for America. Alas, almost none are at the policy-making level.
neo,
I certainly hope you’re right and that the Taliban do not descend to the depths that I expect of them.
That said, three factors lead me to my expectations.
The Iran hostage situation, where Iran suffered no consequence whatsoever.
The Taliban have taken the Biden administration’s measure and have nothing but contempt for them.
As Cornhead pointed out, the Obama administration’s willingness to ‘trade’ prisoners for hostages.
The Taliban now have massive leverage over us and they’re going to use it.
huxley:
Screen Rant on youtube, funny in his own way.
“Super easy, barely and inconvenience!”
https://www.youtube.com/c/ScreenRant
This is what I feared would happen during the Trump administration. Some godawful cock-up that would make the Republican Party toxic for a decade or two.
It seemed possible. Trump didn’t have the usual resume for POTUS. He didn’t have a history of working and playing well with others. We kept hearing about the chaos in the White House. I couldn’t separate the bluster from the performance.
Yet … it kept not happening and the things Trump did with the economy and foreign policy worked surprisingly well.
Somehow Trump executed well as President in spite of massive disruption from the Democrats and the media.
Perhaps there’s enough competence and resilience built-in to the government that it doesn’t matter that much who’s president. One would like to think so.
Well, Biden has put the lie to that.
om:
That link just gets me to a long video on the Loki movie. Not sure what you and apparently DNW are alluding to.
I would like to though.
“Fact check: Do 97 percent of journalist donations go to Democrats?”
https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Do_97_percent_of_journalist_donations_go_to_Democrats
Now couple that with “journalist” and establishment news media performance during the four years of the Trump Administration, the Wuhan virus crisis, and the presidential election frauds.
Then tell me why I should care what the Taliban does to any American journalists it captures in Afghanistan.
Here is a somewhat long winded example from history, of what we may be witnessing in Afghanistan. My understanding is that for some period of time Pres. Lyndon Johnson actually and literally personally selected bombing targets in Vietnam. Oldflyer or others please correct me where needed.
Wikipedia on Operation Rolling Thunder
Wikipedia won’t say it, but we had an idiot, the president, personally making critical and technical military decisions.
Huxley is referring to a catch phrase used by The Critical Drinker as he harrows the shallow, derivative, and morally vapid if not outright corrupt product churned out by vomit inducing and talentless Hollywood Wokesters intent on draining the last drops of profit out of story franchises they have been murdering.
“Super easy, barely an inconvenience” is a catch phrase deliberately and repeatedly used by Ryan George portraying a talentless screenwriter character who explain to the network executive (also Ryan George) he is trying to pitch a crap screen project to, how an improbable or outrageously incoherent plot point is going to be pulled off, or swallowed by an audience of congenitally stupid movie addicts.
Star Wars, Pitch Meeting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zZFtq13c4&t=2s
Star Trek, Critical Drinker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6dkJX-ybfA
OLD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyXMyxkJQV4
I couldn’t separate the bluster [Trump’s] from the performance. — huxley
Well put. Trump certainly was long on bluster, and seemed like he was full of hubris. I think it was mainly his way of cutting through the noise and media obstruction.
If I understand recent history correctly, Trump really wanted to get out of Afghanistan in his first term, but he was not so full of hubris that he willing to do a full override of his JCS. The gravity of reckless and ignorant military action is just too great. Yet, I’ll bet a large majority of Biden voters think that Trump is Mr. Hubris and Biden is a compassionate sweetheart. It’s the ultimate con.
DNW:
You explained it well, Screen Rant laughing at what passes for talent in Hollywood nowadays, and Critical Drinker taking a more scornful take on the dreck passed off as art/entertainment.
It is the time to invoke the 25th Amendment, but the problem is that would require action by Biden’s Cabinet, an awful assortment of people like SecDef Austin (black) who worries most about systemic racism in our military, Sec State Blinken, a huge lying cockroach, and the little man from South Bend who is someone’s “wife”.
My gut tells me that Yellen, Buttigieg, and Vlisak are the three members who might be capable of making a public-spirited decision. Blinken and Garland strike me as highly credentialed swine. Austin’s a careerist, and, given that that leads him to manhandle the military, a swine. The rest seem like political hack-hack-hacks. I’ll wager that Biden’s impairments will eventually gum up the works so badly that 8 of them will be willing to put him on an indefinite leave of absence, if for no other reason than embarrassment or frustration. If I read the provisions of the Amendment correctly, the assent of the Ho’ will then be required to remove the President. Ron Klain and the other ho’ can then attempt to prevent it by having him sign a contrary declaration. At that point, Congress will have to adjudicate. In order to persuade the Democratic caucus to side with the cabinet, it would likely be helpful to have the bulk of them agree to the president’s removal, rather than just 8 out of 14. It requires a 2/3 majority in both chambers to effect a removal if the president’s handlers have him sign an objection, so the whole business is quite chancy.
Re: Screen Rant Pitches….
DNW, om:
Ok-k-k-kay. I’m on deck and reporting for duty. Very funny!
I immediately dialed up the Pitch on “Prometheus,” the movie I most hate for its cruel, wanton, stupidly unbelievable destruction of the great sci-fi film franchise, “Alien.”
___________________________________
Pitcher: So now David’s head starts talking to Elizabeth and he’s like, bad news, that Engineer guy is coming to kill you.
Pitched: How does he know that?
Pitcher: Unclear!
Pitched: So now Elizabeth has to survive. Man, it’s going to be tough for her to survive an encounter with an Engineer….
Pitcher: Actually it’s going to be super easy, barely an inconvenience.
–“Prometheus Pitch Meeting”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y56kWIr-RjI
___________________________________
I couldn’t believe how stupid “Prometheus” was.
Wait a minute. It’s all coming together.
The Woke Folk don’t believe in logic and rational plotting. It’s all, Unclear! Whatever! From Hollywood pitch meetings to the inner sanctums of the White House and the Pentagon.
Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
huxley:
🙂
Tommy Jay. Jack Broughton, wing leader of F105 flying out of Thailand, wrote “Thud Ridge” about the fighting and alluding in part to target interference.
Then came “Going Downtown”, the air war against Washington and Hanoi.
Read a memoir about the war by a pilot. Interesting. One raid in particular was detailed including various forces–top cover, refueling, etc–against a ferry landing site. A FERRY LANDING SITE! A smooth portion of a riverbank. W T Fing F?
TommyJay at 8:05
Yes, Johnson would go down to the situation room and personally choose bombing targets. He was intimidated by the Kennedy insiders like McNamara who thought they could run the war using spreadsheets. Idiots. The Joint Chiefs, who had actually fought in WWII, were old school General Sherman types who knew war is hell so you make it as massive and bloody in the shortest time possible to get over it quickly. Right wingers as Wikipedia says. In the end, after four years of a war we shouldn’t have been fighting, the JCS got their way and the North came to the negotiating table. ‘Nam was also the CIA’s first great screw up, triggering it without Kennedy’s permission.
om:
There’s also a great deconstruction of “Prometheus” during the Hitler “Downfall” fad of several years back.
______________________________________
Hitler [anguished]: Nothing these characters do seems to make sense.
Shaw has an Alien Baby but nobody asks her about what just happened. Who the hell tries to cuddle an Alien Cobra?
This was supposed to be the sci-fi movie of the decade. Finally, an Alien movie we could be proud of.
I swear this is all that Jew Lindelof’s fault [creator/showrunner of “Lost”]. He couldn’t write himself out of a wet paper bag. Jars of black goo that create contortionist zombie people.
What do you expect from the guy who wrote “Lost”? Six seasons of pure cockteasing.
–“Hitler hates the movie Prometheus”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3BV2u8YWps
In my readings about the Vietnam War I never touched bottom on whether the war was impossible from the start, morally incorrect, botched to failure in numerous ways or sabotaged by Walter Cronkite after Tet.
I may be out of my depth on many things I spout off about, but not military stuff. I Just Don’t Know.
huxley ‘nam was impossible from the start. That way, when the US is looking at another adventure which could inconvenience the left’s plans, it is “another Viet Nam” and thus unwindable so don’t even start.
As to the other issues….compared to WW II…yeah, over controlled.
Richard Aubrey:
I’m still curious, but if the Iraq War is a quagmire for discussion, the Vietnam War doubly or trebly so.
DNW:
Why should you care?
(1) Because they are human beings.
(2) Because they are Americans.
(3) Because it gives the Taliban more power and makes America look even weaker if it can’t protect its own.
Richard Aubrey; huxley:
I wrote a ton of posts on Vietnam, and the gist of my opinion (based on several books) is that if Congress had not cut off financial aid, South Vietnam most likely would have held them off.
Here’s one of my posts on the subject.
Art+Deco,
I base my suspicion that it has already been decided and at the highest levels, that its time for Biden to depart. I base that on the coverage of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, etc. Their coverage is full on, no equivocation, condemnation of Biden’s handling of the pullout.
I think it most likely that Biden’s doctor will sign off on Biden’s decline now being too severe for him to any longer do the job. That gives the Cabinet members cover, who will be told that they can stay on under Harris. Who it will be expected to do as she is told. Though IMO she’s unstable and so may surprise them.
neo,
I agree with 1 and 3. But 99% of them are TWANLOC. So I would say that not one soldier’s life is worth the risk of trying to free them. If they can get to the airport for evacuation, fine. Of course, the military will be ordered to make rescuing journalists the highest of priorities. Regardless of how many military lives it takes.
Gotta keep the democrat’s propagandists safe.
Then tell me why I should care what the Taliban does to any American journalists it captures in Afghanistan. — DNW
I don’t believe there are thousands of journalists still trapped in Afghanistan. Most of them I imagine are American workers in various support capacities plus maybe some spouses and possibly (though I hope not) children.
I guess for the philosopher opposition to cruelty to animals does not extend to humans.
This may unleash a tome.
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
This is What a Whole of Government Epistemic Failure Looks Like
“The Afghan army and government the Soviet Union left behind lasted over 3-yrs.
The Afghan army and government the USA left behind lasted barely 1 month.”
There should be a lot of resignations immediately from the Executive Branch, State, the IC, and the DOD (Joint Chiefs and down). Congress should demand resignations and terminations. A massive failure.
“How much of this terrible situation has been engendered by our elected and/or appointed and/or installed officials’ (or call them “elites,” or call them “leaders,” but make sure you put those scare quotes in) incompetence?”
Or call them arrogant bastards.
Or call them assholes.
Hoo boy…
Brutal take down of the US military leadership echelon…from someone in the thick of it,
with hard-hitting suggestions on how to deal with the rot:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/468442/
“China dispatches Warships, and Fighter Jets off coast of Taiwan…”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/china-dispatches-warships-and-fighter-jets-off-coast-of-taiwan/
Barry Meislin,
Thank you for that link to commentary that reflects knowledge, experience and common sense. That said, political realities will prevent the rot from being dealt with as suggested.
Barry,
Excellent post on Instapundit. But we’ve been here before, and not that long ago. See the late Col. Harry Summers’ “On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context” (1982); or Gabriel and Savage’s “Crisis in Command: Mismanagement in the Army” (1979). Exact same problems, exact same diagnoses.
The problem is cultural and deeply rooted. It has to do with how we recruit, educate, and select military officers for promotion. And not just military officers. Foreign service officers, intelligence officers, and national security apparatchiks of all types. The system rewards grifters, careerists, and mediocrities. It is designed to reward grifters, careerists, and mediocrities. See Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Good thing the higher education industry is solely a meritocracy focused on the pursuit of knowledge ….
It is staggering…but of course very human.
The best intentions—let’s assume—inevitably(?) create a ever-growing monster with an insatiable appetite. (Though I’m not convinced that it necessarily HAS TO BE this way; but maybe that’s being naive…)
And the money keeps coming—somehow (“national interest”? “security”)—to feed the beast.
(So that if “Biden” bankrupts the nation…he’s really doing us all a huge favor?)
Yes, all understandable. Someone must be put in charge with the ability and spine to say “No”. (The bureaucratic anti-bureaucrat?).
Wonder if this is the real reason why Trump—or rather Flynn?—was loathed/feared by those who may have not been amused by the prospect of seeing their gravy train upended….
But yes, the law of bureaucracy. And everyone says that bureaucracy takes on a life of its own… But how does one “solve” (or somehow neutralize it/tame it….)
File under: Deutronomy 32:15….
Barry Meislin —
Also read this: https://amplifiedbeing.com/2021/08/15/what-just-happened/
tl;dr: We didn’t spend 20 years in Afghanistan, we spent the same year 20 times. Constant changes of direction by the general/diplomat/politician du jour in search of headlines or big successes made it impossible to achieve long-term strategic goals executed over multiple years.
om said:
“Good thing the higher education industry is solely a meritocracy focused on the pursuit of knowledge ….”
They have their own definitions of “merit,” “knowledge,” and especially “truth,” to which they adhere. They are a part of one head of the hydra that is rumbling through the world.
In Afghanistan we see a triumph by a part of the the other hydra head. When they together have devoured the world they will turn on each other as only one head can rule all.
Both are on their own “journeys.”
https://pjmedia.com/columns/raymond-ibrahim/2021/08/17/the-real-lesson-of-afghanistan-the-journey-of-jihad-marches-on-n1470276
Re: Bagram Airfield…
Below is from AlJazeera, so caveats. But everything else was handled so ineptly, why not.
Boy, it sure would be handy to have an Afghanistan airbase controlled by our military.
Boy, it sure would have been handy to get the civilians out before the military.
Nah, it’ll be fine!
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The United States left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.
The US announced on Friday it had completely vacated its biggest airfield in the country in advance of a final withdrawal by the end of August of all but a few hundred US troops from Afghanistan.
“We [heard] some rumour that the Americans had left Bagram … and finally by 7:00 in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” General Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram’s new commander, told The Associated Press.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/5/us-left-bagram-airfield-without-notice-afghan-officials-say
huxley:
Leaving from behind to build back Bagram (Biden).
Super easy! Barely an inconvenience.
Almost inconceivable.
I base my suspicion that it has already been decided and at the highest levels,
Good point. If the state media has turned on Biden, that suggests that the quote-mongers the reporters use are on board with his removal.
Hadn’t though of his doctor. Evidently, the clinic at the White House is run by a retired Air Force officer who has looked after Biden on-and-off for 12 years. Evidently (I had no idea), St. Bonaventure University – which is a small residually Franciscan school located in Olean, New York, has some sort of pipeline program to a set of medical / osteopathic schools. He was for four years the administrator who ran the program. Certain aspects of his resume you’d expect to see in a small town doctor – satisfactory, but not ace. Same deal with the doctor who looked after Trump.
That gives the Cabinet members cover, who will be told that they can stay on under Harris. Who it will be expected to do as she is told. Though IMO she’s unstable and so may surprise them.
I think if she’s unstable, its because she’s a Sammy Glick character who has never thought of what she wanted to do with the office once she landed it. She was willful and ambitious enough to blow Willie Brown, so I don’t think she’ll cotton to taking orders from Ron Klain. (By some accounts, she’s also a terror to work for).
Some argue the Dems are in a bind if they must replace Biden with Harris because Harris would no longer be the tie-breaking Senate vote and it would take a Senate vote to confirm a new VP.
It would then be tough for Dems to push their big bills through the Senate without the tie-breaking VP vote.
It might take McConnell some time and persuasion to confirm a Dem VP.
Dunno how well that would play out in reality.
______________________________________
The Twenty-fifth Amendment states: Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress. Thus, in the absence of a majority the candidate would be denied the office.
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/33128/confirming-a-new-vice-president
Re: Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy…
You put the first group in charge of evaluating the performance of another org’s second group. Reports every 6 months. 3 consecutive failures to score a ‘B’ results in the second group’s firing.
Art Deco,
I do suspect that a President Harris would be even more disruptive than Biden has been. Her behavior as President might well doom the democrat party to oblivion for the next 50 years. Of course never underestimate the stupidity of liberal fools and that also presumes that America survives the coming debacle that liberals have enabled.
neo,
Somethings up with the website. I’m getting the message that I’ve already made that comment. When I refresh the page, it shows my comment but without the 4 minute correction window. I’m using Chrome and this first started a day or two ago.
BUT… when I clicked to post this message, it posted correctly… so its an intermittent problem.
The Instapundit piece is good, but I don’t buy the notion that Biden gave the Pentagon 5 months or so to plan the withdrawal and this fiasco was the best they could do in the limited time. I still think this is a White House plan. Though it’s possible that the JCS thought that Biden would blink at the last minute and cancel the pullout.
Over at Am. Thinker someone claims that Kamille Harris is currently hiding out in Vietnam on pre-planned trip. Any chance that the fiasco will be so big that she won’t even want to ascend to the Presidency? Maybe she’ll say, “I’m not feeling well and I need to spend more time with my husband.” Insiders may offer her a few carrots to leave too.
I still think this is a White House plan. Though it’s possible that the JCS thought that Biden would blink at the last minute and cancel the pullout.
TommyJay:
I’m leaning in this direction too. I suspect this also means it was Biden’s call, not Ron Klain or Jill Biden or whoever. Maybe Biden thought the withdrawal would be his masterstroke.
Who recalls this Biden foreign policy gem from 2010?
Biden is uncanny. Save this man’s brain.
__________________________________________
I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.
You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.
I spent — I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months — three months. I know every one of the major players in all of the segments of that society.
It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.
https://www.whitehousedossier.com/2014/06/12/biden-2010-iraq-obamas-great-achievements/
Tommy Jay:
They are saying that Kamila will take the Simone Biles mental health sabbatical?
Geoffrey Britain:
I haven’t heard of anyone else having the same problem, so it might be something about your computer or perhaps your browser. I just tested comments for me, and the edit function seems to be working as usual. Please let me know if it gets better for you or if it continues.
“Dunno how well that would play out in reality.”
I imagine the Democrats will just change the rules. Or try to.
And call it—what’s that Orwellian term?—“reconciliation”?
It’s one of the things they do really well.
…But hold on! It looks like Durham’s coming to town, riding on a white donkey no doubt.
Now THAT might stir the pot just a bit….
Me? I’m waiting for one of those ballot magicians to come out of the closet and say he/she is disgusted with “Biden” and is sorry he/she participated in the Grand Heist.
I guess that qualifies me for the “Dreamer” program…
Barry Meislin,
This country was bankrupted long ago, we just haven’t run out of green ink yet.
Art Deco,
I agree that President Harris would be no shrinking violet, nor would she be willing to take the fall for anything. Biden is almost certainly much easier to control (or circumvent).
I have occasionally had the commenting issue Geoffrey Britain described; 2 or 3 times. It’s been awhile and I forget the exact details but the deducing I did at the time convinced me it was a local thing, perhaps with my browser.
To Paul in Boston:
I had the honor of having had dinner with the general who coordinated the selection of bombing sites for Johnson. You’re right that he selected them personally from a list. What you didn’t know was that he would do it while sitting on the toilet. He would take the list into the john in the morning, then emerge with his selections.
American women will be considered captives and enslaved. They will be sold and raped repeatedly as dictated by Sharia and the Koran. It isn’t considered rape, there is no concept. It’s what happens to women who are spoils of war.
neo on August 17, 2021 at 11:09 pm said:
I’m sorry, that will not do. More radical analyses and justification are needed nowadays.
The first two reasons are not “reasons” anymore, but merely morally empty declarations that do not suffice. The implicit solidarity and like-kind arguments that used to buttress such shorthand, containing the standard but unstated enthymemes that once gave internal weight to such pronouncements no longer obtain, nor carry any logical validity in a postmodern moral environment wherein half the observable population is by their own reductive definition. soulless appetite-things.
The world is full of human beings. The Taliban are reputedly human beings.
Americans? Nancy Pelosi is an American, technically. Gavin Newsome and Andrew Cuomo and Hillary Clinton are “Americans. So what? They are also existential enemies in a somewhat slower war.
and #3? Well, “America” cannot in fact protect “its own” so-called. American mayors in fact refuse to protect those who are nominally – but not to the mayors’ ideological lights – their own.
“We”, are well past this “we” crap. The enemy within is as dangerous to liberty and a to wholesome fulfilling life, as the enemy without.
Between the two, it is just a rat fight as far as I am concerned. Taliban versus the Drag Queen show for children held at your local library.
Golly Bless “uhmurica”
William Graves,
What didn’t Johnson do while sitting on the toilet?!
A very odd duck.
DNW:
Those American civilians stuck in Afghan are almost entirely workers/contractors doing jobs to support the war over there. In some cases they have their spouses with them and in some cases, I was sorry to learn, children.
Well, well, well, 11 years ago I had the choice of going to North Dakota as a Directional Driller trainee or to Afghanistan as a construction QA guy for a multinational engineering corporation. I was conservative then too. I chose North Dakota. Good thing I survived and didn’t choose the A-stan, for philosophically if I were stuck there now, I’d just as soon be dead.
If the Dems get rid of Biden, either by 25th, impeachment, or resignation, they have a problem. Harris becomes president. She would no longer be able to vote to break ties in the Senate. McConnell can block the appointment of a replacement. The Dems would no longer be able to move their legislative agenda through the Senate.
“huxley on August 18, 2021 at 7:22 pm said:
I’m getting a sense of deja vu here. I thought I had already responded to a similar observation, you made concerning a lack of trapped journalists – with a rueful remark about a journalist version of St Bartholomew’s Day in Afghanistan, and the Taliban’s probable ignorance of the commemoration.
Yeah, here it is. You said:
huxley on August 17, 2021 at 11:55 pm said:
And I said, so I thought, yada yada yada. But I guess I did not.
Had I said it though, I would have been perfectly serious and willing to say it in person to the face of any Godforsaken miscreant employed in “journalism”, right to their cursed and soulless faces.
But as you may have noticed, most of the media outlets no longer allow responses to their postings. I guess they are tired of being told that their leap backwards into entropy is seen as a good thing by many of their audience.
The contractors, of course, are another matter. They earn their money the old fashioned way; and the killing they do, if and when they do it, or contribute to it, is not sanctimoniously passed off as a noble, disinterested, act of public service.
William Graves:
What they need to do is to replace Harris first, before giving Biden an ice cream cone and a pat on the head to seek some quality elder care.
Perhaps that’s what the anti-Harris trial balloons were about a month or so ago.
I just went out of my way to another blog to try and get Zaphod’s attention and to inform him that Neo is willing to welcome him back – provided, I implied, that he not engage in too much schadenfreude or vitriol.
I don’t expect any thanks, but for some, the potential return of their preferred chew toy should prove a real boon.
Whatever. Knock yourself out patting yourself on the back.
@DNW:
And much appreciated, too. Thanks!
Zaphod’s back Om. I did that for you. He won’t mind. Gives you something to do. Easier on the furniture. Just remember not to bite at the front tires.
Hahaha.
I knew you would not mind. Meanwhile, I have some catch up work in the Great North.
Wear boots, and keep your ankles safe.
DNW:
You may not have noticed, being the center of the universe and all metaphysically speaking, that when Z isn’t shilling for a benign autocracy (prefers the CCP and PRC because they don’t hate him) or throwing down the race card, I don’t have much to say to Z. You may not have noticed a lot about what Z writes. Others have. Do you have all the same hates as Z? That would be TMI.
Oh, off topic, did Daniel Pearl deserve his fate, being a journalist and all? Or those guys at Charlie Hebdo? Or Laura Logan? How about Michael Kelly, former editor at The Atlantic, who died covering the Iraq war in 2002? Philosophize some more or not, Whatever, Nimrod.
huxley said:
“What they need to do is to replace Harris first, before giving Biden an ice cream cone and a pat on the head to seek some quality elder care.”
This is the Agnew-Ford-Nixon-“almost got” Rockefeller swap out that the left talked about back in the late 70s as a way to get someone unelectable into the oval office.
DNW:
I suspect that neo had more to do with Z being back than you. But you are the authority after all and modest too. Quite the pair.
William Graves,
Are you claiming that McConnell could legally block the Senate approving of a Vice President?
If so, that presumes that none of the 17 RINOs who just voted for an ‘infrastructure’ bill would vote with the democrats.