↓
 
Home » I’m tempted to give up discussing what Blinken says on Afghanistan or anything else

I’m tempted to give up discussing what Blinken says on Afghanistan or anything else

The New Neo Posted on by

What’s the point, when nothing the man says can be trusted? Of course, I shouldn’t single out Blinken. It’s that way for the entire administration.

And yet I feel duty-bound to mention this story. Note the way Blinken phrases his words:

“We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage life situation in Mazar-i-Sharif,” Blinken said during a joint news conference with Qatar’s top diplomats and defense officials in Doha.

Blinken did, however, reveal that the U.S. has identified a “relatively small number” of Americans who are trying to depart from the airport. He also said the administration has been “assured” by the Taliban that American and Afghan citizens with valid travel documents will be allowed to exit.

So, we are not aware. Even if that were true, that doesn’t mean something isn’t happening just because we are “not aware” of it.

And of what are we “not aware”? No one is on an aircraft, as far as “we” know. How reassuring. Where are they, then? In the airport? At home, waiting, having been to the airport and not allowed to depart the country? Also, he is also only speaking of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Another thing of which we’re not aware: whether anyone is being held in a hostage life situation. In other words, at the moment we know of no Americans who have a gun held to their heads with a threat to blow them away?

And what is that “relatively small number”? Is the State Department capable of counting? They’ve given little indication of being able to do so, but if they can, then what is this number? And “relative” to what?

One thing of which Blinken may be aware – but we the public are not – is what promises the Biden administration is making to the Taliban in exchange for letting people out.

As for assurances from our new good buddies the Taliban, that is both ludicrous and insulting to any listeners Blinken thinks he’s addressing here. But actually, I don’t think anyone believes him. The left is just happy to have its talking points, and the right long ago justifiably lost trust in these self-serving habitual liars.

As has the rest of the world.

Here’s another statement by Blinken:

And again, we intend to hold the Taliban to that,” he added.

How do you propose to do that, when you’ve given away your leverage, and have shown your extreme propensity to go belly up?

And now something from the past. Blinken has been with Biden for a long time and has worked on previous policies formulated by Biden:

Blinken worked to help Biden formulate one of his most idiotic foreign policy proposals, the partitioning of Iraq into three separate regions along ethnic lines — “Sunnistan”, “Shiastan”, and “Iraqi Kurdistan.” Other than the fact that it was rejected by the US military, the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and Turkey, it was a fabulous idea.

The ultimate indictment of Blinken as unsuited to serve as Secretary of State comes from the fact that while the 2008 Democrat Presidential Primaries involved Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and Tom Vilsack, among others, Blinken chose to work in the “Biden for President” campaign. Apparently, he never recognized in his years of working for Joe Biden that Biden was a moron.

When Obama and Biden were elected, Blinken became National Security Advisor to the Vice President. He served Biden in that capacity for four years.

In 2014, Obama nominated Blinken for Deputy Secretary of State, and John McCain spoke out against that. Now, McCain said a lot of things and did a lot of things with which I take issue. But he certainly seems to have been prescient about Antony Blinken. Please listen to this short excerpt from a speech McCain made back then, and pay particular attention to what he predicts about Blinken and Afghanistan (at :55 to 1:17):

It’s not really the same movie that we’ve seen in Afghanistan as we saw in Iraq, though. It’s a much worse one.

Comments

I’m tempted to give up discussing what Blinken says on Afghanistan or anything else — 44 Comments

  1. Perhaps Blinken never noticed Biden is a moron because he also is a moron.

    I am not inclined to believe anything Blinken says.

  2. Think about it. I have. The TB has been at war with the great Satan for 20 years. Thousands of the TB have been killed by us. Thanks to their women, they have reloaded their infantry over the years. They have now humiliated and defeated the number one superpower. Time to celebrate and drive the knife home.

    TB are religious fanatics and cave men. They want revenge. They want the whole world to know that our defeat is total and complete.

    This Saturday the TB will reveal to the world how many Americans they have hostage. They will demand that all the Gitmo detainees must be released in exchange for the hostages. This will be so big that MSNBC, CNN, NYT and WaPo will have to cover it. “Day 20, Day 21 ….”

    What I have written above is no surprise. If I was in the TB, it’s exactly what I would do. Any fool can see this; except for the Ivy League idiots at State.

  3. Blinken: Dalton School, Harvard, Columbia Law. Master of the Universe.

    Cornhead: Creighton Prep, Creighton University, Creighton Law. Master of the Universe.

  4. Gave up the keys, all the armaments and bugged out so fast no one knew,
    Leverage and intelligence got tossed out with it.
    Oh wait, the only leverage will be plane loads of cash flown in.

  5. The blame does not rest with Blinken or with Biden. The blame lies with the people who voted for Biden, didn’t vote, or voted for another candidate. And, yeah, I include George Bush – who proudly proclaimed his vote for Condoleezza Rice.

  6. Eva Marie:

    Plenty of blame to go around. Primary blame to Biden, Blinken, etc.. Secondary blame to the press. Third in line the Biden voters.

  7. Binken’s another reminder that the hallmark of the elites in our time is their brazen mendacity. They lie like normal people breathe.

  8. “….valid travel documents will be allowed to exit.”

    Taliban determines validity of documents. Modification of requirements pretty simple.

  9. Fullmoon, that is just what I was about to note. To me that is the key issue.
    Just can’t listen to Winkin, Blinken and Nod.

  11. Eva Marie:

    Do you mean Susan Rice instead of Condoleeza Rice? The latter was W’s NSA and a good Foreign Affairs person. The former has managed to F up almost as many things as Biden himself. It was Susan who kept the UN from intervening in Rwanda, when the killings were in the 100,000 range. They ultimately grew to 1 million, more or less.

  12. @F:

    Both of them souls-sold-to-the-devil Swamp People. Just because Condoleeza Rice wore what you thought was your team’s jersey doesn’t make her any kind of good. Having hitched ones star to and risen up with the Bush Family Mafia is no great improvement on belonging to the Clinton Mafia. Not when you bump up against Osiris and his Scales and his Feather.

    Arguably less bad than Susan Rice… but you’re comparing dioxin and cyanide… Not $%^& and ice-cream.

  14. Eva Marie, et al. Re blame (credit): no one cares mention the stringpuller in chief, ex Prez Zero — aka Barack Obama.

    Whether directly or indirectly through Susan Rice, all cred or blame accrues to Obama and his Thirdworldism, which blames the West in principle — especially Great Britain and the US — for it’s backwardness and abject primitivism and failure to develop because Evil Capitalism!

  15. Biden is another judas and a traitor. Blinken a craven toady. Austin and Milley dishonorable self-promoters. Psaki a deceitful liar.

    Whatever is said by them, believe just the opposite.

  17. I’m tempted to repeat what I said on another thread (with a few edits):

    Open letter to all the Biden voters (who are not reading this blog and its comments), and in particular to anyone who aided and abetted the changes in elections that facilitated fraud, even if you didn’t personally : obstruct the cleaning up of voter registrations (and anything similar maintenance), obstruct the implementation of voter identification, dump unsolicited ballots at unverified addresses, harvest ballots unethically (it was all made “legal”), cast an illegal ballot, manipulate the counting, or insist that there was “no evidence of fraud” despite all the blatant evidence of exactly that.

    Every death in Afghanistan from this debacle is on your head as much as it is on Joe Biden’s and that of everyone in his administration who either organized or failed to stop the Killing-field-formerly-known-as-Kabul.

  18. From The Hill’s story:
    “The secretary said the Taliban’s “commitment” has been upheld in at least one situation in the past 24 hours, when the insurgent group allowed a family to leave Afghanistan through an overland route.”

    ONE family? That’s the bragging rights memo now?
    Allowed them to leave, or just didn’t catch them in time?
    Family of what? Americans, dual citizens, Afghan allies, or Taliban supporters who will now be introduced into the USA?

  19. @ Kate > “Perhaps Blinken never noticed Biden is a moron because he also is a moron.”

    The ultimate indictment of Blinken as unsuited to serve as Secretary of State comes from the fact that while the 2008 Democrat Presidential Primaries involved Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and Tom Vilsack, among others, Blinken chose to work in the “Biden for President” campaign. Apparently, he never recognized in his years of working for Joe Biden that Biden was a moron.

    When Obama and Biden were elected, Blinken became National Security Advisor to the Vice President. He served Biden in that capacity for four years.

    Maybe not so stupid – he probably recognized that Joe, being a moron, was an easy target for both graft and manipulation.

    And we may be looking at the puppet-master, or at least one of them; there seems to be some competition and confusion about who is in charge of The Puppet of the United States.

  20. If we give up talking about Blinken, we could talk about what’s happening “behind our backs” while we have been held spell-bound by the Afghanistan debacle:

    https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/571038-mypillow-guy-becomes-a-nightmare-for-a-jan-6-rioter-and-for-justice
    BY JONATHAN TURLEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 09/07/21
    (RTWT of course; I would have copied the entire post but that’s not fair)

    In “A Man for All Seasons,” Sir Thomas More confronts Richard Rich, a former protege who lied in court to convict him in exchange for being named attorney general of Wales. As Rich passes by, More asks: “For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for Wales!”

    The scene came to mind after Doug Jensen, one of the Jan. 6 rioters, was rearrested for listening to an online speech by Trump supporter and pillow magnate Mike Lindell. Jensen agreed not to use the internet as a condition of bail … but to violate those terms for the MyPillow Guy?

    I have long been a vocal critic of Lindell and all those who rioted in Congress. Yet the Jensen case raises a concern about the conditions placed on bail by courts and the message that “rehabilitation” or remorse can be convincingly shown only by denouncing past political viewpoints or association.
    …
    Let’s be clear on a couple of points: Jensen deserved to be charged and deserves to go to jail for participating in a riot in the Capitol — and he clearly broke the conditions of this bail.

    The concern, however, is that courts increasingly demand political reform as a prerequisite for bail or more favorable sentencing. The “close call” for Judge Kelly was resolved by Jensen denouncing those, such as former President Trump, who accused Democrats of stealing the 2020 presidential election.

    Most of us view QAnon as a bizarre group of conspiracy theorists, one of the most active on the internet on either the left or the right. However, it is a bit unnerving to hear judges asking defendants if they are or have ever been a QAnon member. Kelly made clear that, if Jensen did not renounce the views of figures like Lindell and Trump, he would be left to wallow in jail.

    We have seen this before. In the 1950s, liberal writers, unionists and others were pulled before Congress to state whether they were or ever had been communists. The very status of “fellow traveler” was enough to be blacklisted, investigated, even arrested. When Sen. Joe McCarthy waived his list of “known communists,” he was identifying not just “card-carrying members” but those “loyal to the Communist Party.”

    The troubling aspect of Kelly’s bail decision is the message that if you believe a “pack of lies,” you should not be granted freedom pending trial. Cutting Jensen off of the internet was directly linked to preventing him from listening to such lies.

    For civil libertarians, the concern should be that such conditions can become a type of thought-crime.
    …
    To even voice such free-speech concerns is to invite an internet mob to accuse you of being a QAnon defender or an insurrectionist. Yet, governments always start to limit speech with the least popular, most-hated among us.*

    The focus of the Jan. 6 cases is the riot itself. I would have the same objection to courts demanding that arrested Black Lives Matter (BLM) or antifa followers renounce their views as a condition of bail. ** Hundreds were arrested over the past year in violent rioting, including pre-planned attacks to take over or torch city halls, police stations and courthouses.It would be outrageous for courts to demand that BLM or antifa supporters not listen to these political movements or related political figures; they were arrested for arson and rioting, not holding “toxic ideologies.”*** For that reason, while I have long denounced antifa, I opposed the use of sedition charges against them in defense of free-speech rights that they would deny to others.

    Even Jensen’s lawyer called his interest in right-wing sites an “addiction.” However, it shows the futility of trying to coerce people to give up their political viewpoints. Germany has outlawed Nazi symbols and material since World War II, but that has done little to quell the neo-Nazi movement. The only solution to bad speech remains better speech, not censorship and coercion.****

    Doug Jensen has been cut off from the MyPillow Guy — but that hardly makes me sleep better at night.

    * And the persons who are least popular or most hated change over time, and with political administrations and/or cultural controllers.

    ** Most of them were freed without bail, or with negligible bail, under no conditions whatsoever. In fact, MOST of them were never arrested at all. “Hundreds” doesn’t even begin to cover all of the rioters in so many locations over the last year.

    *** Not that any of them WERE judicially admonished to eschew their ideological pastimes.

    **** Kind of depends on how you define “solution” – the cancel culture caretakers seem quite satisfied with the solution they are imposing.

  21. We could talk about this as well, because I’m happy they are having nightmares (not quite the same ones as Turley’s), but the message (as noted before) is to downgrade the magnitude of the Afghanistan Debacle into “business as usual” territory.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/570825-democrats-stare-down-nightmare-september

    Democrats are staring down a nightmare September, a month jam-packed with deadlines and bruising fights over their top priorities.

    The numerous legislative challenges in a condensed timeline will test Democratic unity and provide plenty of opportunities for Republicans to lay political traps * just a year out from the 2022 midterm elections, where they are feeling increasingly bullish about their chances.

    When lawmakers return to Washington, they’ll have to juggle averting a government shutdown in a matter of days with Democrats’ self-imposed deadline for advancing an infrastructure and spending package that is at the center of President Biden’s economic and legislative agenda and sparking high-profile divisions.

    That’s on top of a looming decision about the debt ceiling, a voting rights clash set to come to the Senate floor in mid-September, lingering Afghanistan fallout **and, in the wake of a controversial Supreme Court decision, a heated fight over abortion.

    There’s a bit of lingering fallout over the Covid Catastrophe as well, given the Democrats’ worship of all things Fauci.

    * The GOP doesn’t have to “lay political traps” because the Democrats are doing fine on their own. I’m surprised the author didn’t add “and then pounce” to his warning.

    ** The Media are doing their best to make that lingering as short as possible. I hope there are enough voices of sanity to stretch it out instead, because the bad things are going to keep happening whether the Democrats-with-bylines write about them or not.

  22. The real nightmare of September will begin the evening of Sept. 10th when it hits midnight 9/11 in Kabul. And it isn’t the Democrats who will be fully immersed in the nightmare, but those they abandoned to the tender mercies of their marvelous “Partners in Peace” from the religion of the same.

  25. @geoffb has a point. Get your September 11 predictions in early.

    I’m going to stick my neck out and say that the Taliban might do a few minor rubbing-your-noses-in-it photo ops in Kabul but not much else in-country. They’ve had a good few months. Not going to push their luck too far and cop a fuel air bomb on a victory parade… although a Taliban Victory Parade would be amusing to see — can you imagine them trying to do anything in straight lines.

    There has to be more than usual US and other US Satrapies’ military guys and hardware milling about Pakistan in the aftermath. A truly evil mastermind would have a whack at some of these on September 11. More levels of chicanery and Russian Doll Deep State Incestuousness and Paki ISI mirth and all-round plausible deniability than a Grand Sanhedrin of NYT editorial boards past, present, and future could ever hope to tease any tattered threads (purple, like my prose) of Truth out of. Plus Raisins. Remember those? 🙂

  27. Whenever I see Blinken’s name, I go back to a childhood poem of yore:
    ________________________________

    Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

    Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
    . Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—
    Sailed on a river of crystal light
    . Into a sea of dew.
    “Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
    . The old moon asked the three.
    “We have come to fish for the herring-fish
    . That live in this beautiful sea;
    . Nets of silver and gold have we,”
    . Said Wynken,
    . Blynken,
    . And Nod.
    …
    Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
    . And Nod is a little head,
    And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
    . Is a wee one’s trundle-bed;
    So shut your eyes while Mother sings
    . Of wonderful sights that be,
    And you shall see the beautiful things
    . As you rock in the misty sea
    . Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—
    . Wynken,
    . Blynken,
    . And Nod.

    –Eugene Field (1850-1895)
    https://poets.org/poem/wynken-blynken-and-nod
    ________________________________

    Gorgeous. (More at the link.)

    Night.

  28. @ huxley – an old favorite of mine as well; still have my kids’ board book in some box; much too good for this Blinken.
    (I’ve seen Winken attributed to both Harris & Sullivan, but Nod is always Biden).

    https://bravenewworldmedia.com/winken-blinken-and-nod-are-running-the-american-government/

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/opinion/afghanistan-kabul-biden-blinken.html
    (Maureen Dowd, behind a paywall)

    Interesting trivia here, for anyone who wants to play Jeopardy:

    https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/11/mr-blinken-has-been-at-mr-bidens-side.html

    From “Biden Chooses Antony Blinken, Defender of Global Alliances, as Secretary of State/The president-elect is also expected to name Jake Sullivan, another close aide of his, as national security adviser, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a 35-year Foreign Service veteran, as his ambassador to the U.N.” (NYT).

    I’m pleased to see such boring choices. Remember — a couple weeks ago, the news was that Pete Buttigieg wanted the U.N. ambassador job? I was sarcastic about that: “of course it makes sense that his background as mayor of a small city in the midwest sets him up well to deal with international affairs.”

    IN THE COMMENTS: Rocketeer said:
    So will I be the first to start referring to the VP, SOS, and POTUS as Winkin’, Blinken and Nod?
    Meade read that out loud to me and I immediately recited…

    Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
    Sailed off in a wooden shoe–
    Sailed on a river of crystal light,
    Into a sea of dew.
    “Where are you going, and what do you wish?”

    I couldn’t continue verbatim and I couldn’t free-style rhymes about Biden and Harris, so I’m not bragging about my poetry expertise. Just saying I loved those Eugene Field poems when I was a child.

    I’m just seeing now that Eugene Field’s father was the lawyer who represented Dred Scott:
    His father was Roswell Martin Field, an attorney who once represented Dred Scott, an African American man known for the 1857 U. S. Supreme Court case in which he sued for his freedom. Many believe the denial of Scott’s bid by the court prompted the U. S. Civil War.

    And here’s the poem done with animation by Disney and music by Donovan:

    The Silly Symphony cartoon is delightful, and has the additional verses.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sal_pp_ptJQ

  29. @ TommyJay > “…then when the State Dept. greets them as they are crossing out of Afghanistan, they take credit for the save.”

    Just like they tried to take credit for Trump’s plan, which they didn’t use, while also blaming him for their fiasco.

    The State Department said it will not formally approve the departure of chartered planes from Afghanistan carrying Americans and allies — complicating efforts by private citizens to complete the evacuation of the left-behind,

    Yeah, Biden’s really gonna get them out by any means – why not just declare the charters “official deputy US State Dept. flights” and let them land wherever they can.
    Sort everything out later, exactly as they are doing with their own flights full of unvetted, unidentified Afghans (and possibly other nationalities), some of whom are already known to be on the terrorist or criminal watch lists.

    After 6 paragraphs telling how the US government is obstructing private rescues, we get this:

    White House press secretary Jen Psaki argued last week that the notion that the Biden administration was stopping such initiatives was incorrect.

    She lied about several things in that speech.

    I really cannot even imagine Donald Trump either directing or accepting the weaselly sniveling drivel that State, DOD, and WH are handing out.
    IF his own plan had gone bottom up (and I don’t think it would have, although AFAIK Kash Patel or others have not released any details about it), he would have then ordered a “by any means necessary and get it done NOW” operation.

    #StillMyPresident

  30. Glenn Reynolds points out the potential danger of the current course the WH & Deep State & DOD seem to be on.
    https://nypost.com/2021/09/07/us-troops-rage-at-their-leaders-will-grow-unless-theres-deep-reform/
    (Starts with a good summary of the military situation)

    As this debacle unfolds, the field- and company-grade officers — captains through colonels — are complaining about a double standard in military management: If they screw up even a little, their careers are over. But when the generals screw up, there are no consequences, even when lives or billions of dollars are wasted; then they retire to fat contractor paychecks.

    Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller resigned his commission after Kabul to demand accountability from his superiors. He couldn’t stay, he said, because he had lost trust and confidence in them. His words have been echoed, publicly and in private, by many others of similar rank. (I received an e-mail from a serving general making the same points.)

    This is against the background of endless loose talk by our high political leaders about “coups,” “insurrections” and “sedition.” The laughable Capitol “riot” certainly didn’t rise to that level, but in a show of insecurity, the Capitol was ringed by 25,000 troops, several times as many as were sent to rescue Americans from Kabul. Banana republic stuff.

    Generally speaking, a nation where the civilian leadership fears its citizens and has lost the nation’s confidence, and where the senior military leadership has lost the confidence of those down the chain of command, is a nation in trouble.

    Elsewhere, such circumstances would be supply the dry tinder for a military coup. Fortunately, the United States is a bit more resistant. With so much of our government, and even our domestic military force, divided up among the states, a coup is much harder to pull off. And with our institutions, weakened as they are, still comparatively strong, we aren’t likely to see a “Seven Days in May” scenario in the near future.

    But while unlikely, that scenario is now more likely than it used to be. And that’s because the people responsible for our great institutions, civilian and military, aren’t doing their jobs. In particular, they aren’t keeping faith with the people they are supposed to serve.

    Afghanistan collapsed overnight, because its people lacked faith in its institutions and in those who led them. And no nation is immune to that collapse, if run badly enough for long enough.

  31. I generally avoid National Review, because, TDS for four years, but Powerline recommended a post by Jim Geraghty that has more details about the current situation, including State’s attempt to claim credit not due them.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/secretary-of-state-blinken-this-is-not-a-hostage-crisis/

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken: This Is Not a Hostage Crisis

    On the menu today: Veterans groups contend that many more Americans are stranded in Afghanistan than the “about 100” figure from Secretary of State Antony Blinken; the administration still cannot say how many U.S. green-card holders remain in Taliban-controlled territories; the Taliban begins executing pregnant women for working with the previous regime; and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin concedes that without U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan, “It will be more difficult to identify and engage threats that emanate from the region.”

    To hear Secretary of State Antony Blinken tell it, there are no American hostages in Afghanistan. In his account, the lack of Americans leaving the country in the past week is just due to a routine disagreement about paperwork and visas that is leading to delays:
    …
    The fact that Blinken is citing the case of a family of four suggests that American departures from Afghanistan are now few and far between.

    Regarding the family of four that Blinken mentioned, a group of veterans using private donations got the mother and three children out of the country, and those veterans accused the U.S. State Department of attempting to take credit for their work. Cory Mills told Fox News that, “The fact that they’re spinning this, trying to take 100 percent credit when they didn’t track this family, when they placated this family, when the mother, who was under extreme stress and extreme pressure, reached out to the State Department multiple times and got no help.” The account of the woman, identified only as Mariam, is harrowing: ( details)
    …
    The Taliban actions described above do not sound anything like “letting anyone with valid travel papers leave Afghanistan if they choose.”
    …
    This weekend, Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, appeared on Fox News Sunday and contended that the administration was undercounting the number of Americans still in Afghanistan. “I’ve been given the answer in the classified space but it’s in the hundreds. We have hundreds of American citizens left behind enemy lines in Afghanistan as I speak. And also, very sadly, the interpreters who worked with our special forces, almost all of them were left behind and were not let in the gates at the airport at [Hamid Karzai International] to get out.” Speaking Sunday morning, McCaul said that “zero” Americans had left the country since U.S. troops departed. McCaul’s estimate aligns with that of veteran-led rescue groups, who point out that the administration simply isn’t saying much of anything about U.S. green-card holders who are still in Afghanistan:
    …
    Some of the details of McCaul’s account were verified by the director of a relief organization, speaking to NPR: “Multiple planes meant to ferry hundreds of people who say they are fearful of life under the Taliban’s rule, including American citizens and green card holders, spent another day parked on an airstrip in northern Afghanistan Monday. …”
    …
    One of the complications that the administration’s statements choose to ignore is that the Taliban is not a particularly coherent, disciplined, or coordinated governing force. An assurance from one Taliban leader about safe passage may not filter down to the men in their late teens with M4 rifles at any particular checkpoint. Even if the Taliban wanted to keep their promises about safe passage — an extremely debatable contention — they may not be capable of keeping it; there are simply too many hot-tempered, heavily armed young men who are enjoying their newfound power over everyone they encounter.

    Some longtime Biden allies are starting to criticize his administration. Connecticut Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal declared on Twitter Monday that:

    My staff and I have worked night and day to secure the safe passage of two planes waiting in Mazar-e Sharif to take American citizens, at-risk Afghan allies, and their families to safety. . . . I haven’t yet spoken publicly about these efforts because we worried that heightened attention would only escalate tensions & put these people at even greater risk of being targeted. I have been deeply frustrated, even furious, at our government’s delay & inaction. There will be plenty of time to seek accountability for the inexcusable bureaucratic red tape that stranded so many of our Afghan allies. For now, my singular focus remains getting these planes in the air & safely to our airbase in Doha, where they have already been cleared to land. I expect the White House & State Department to do everything in their power — absolutely everything — to make this happen. These are Americans citizens and Afghans who risked everything for our country. We cannot leave them behind.

    …
    CNN still has enough sources on the ground to give us a sense of how the new, more moderate Taliban are operating: The Taliban murdered a pregnant policewoman in front of her family on Saturday night, according to her son. Her death, in the central Afghanistan province of Ghor, adds to mounting concerns about the repression of women under the Taliban’s rule.
    …
    In Doha, Blinken was joined by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who made a curious comment during the press conference, admitting that there is “no question that it will be more difficult to identify and engage threats that emanate from the region.” That is the opposite of what President Biden assured when defending his drawdown decision.

    On July 8, Biden said, “Our military and intelligence leaders are confident they have the capabilities to protect the homeland and our interests from any resurgent terrorist challenge emerging or emanating from Afghanistan. We are developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region, and act quickly and decisively if needed.”

    Was anything Joe Biden said in that July 8 press conference true?

    ADDENDUM: The Associated Press reports that, “After a torrent of crises, President Joe Biden is hoping to turn the page on an unrelenting summer and refocus his presidency this fall around his core economic agenda.”

    It’s time to “turn the page” on Afghanistan!

    I think Blumenthal has good intentions, but there will not be “plenty of time to seek accountability for the inexcusable bureaucratic red tape that stranded so many of our Afghan allies” AND citizens AND many others. Once the Democrats “turn the page” on anything detrimental to their continued power, they essentially throw away the book.

    If we want anyone held accountable (which may be a pipe dream anyway), the pressure has to stay on as long as the crisis lasts, and thereafter as well.

  32. Cornhead —

    There won’t be any “Day 20, Day 21 ….”, because Biden, Blinken, Rice, and Milley will just immediately fold and hand them whatever they ask for.

  33. “Blinken”? Seriously.

    What positions are held by Winken and Nod?

    And yeah, it seems amazingly appropo that Biden works with Winken, Blinken, and Nod.

    SMH.

  34. }}} Edward+R+Bonderenka on September 7, 2021 at 10:37 pm said:
    I blame the people that stole the election.

    I blame the FauxtUS, myself…

  35. Blinken is typical and representative of the current day U.S. State Department. They live in a bubble of their own making that is impervious to objective facts.

    I have seen it close up and it frightened me then that these were the people formulating U.S. foreign policy. I seenow that I had every reason to be frightened.

  36. “Blinken: Dalton School, Harvard, Columbia Law. Master of the Universe.”

    Y’see, this right here is why Neo rules, dominating all credentialed chowderheads like Blinken.

    I’ve known some like him my entire life. Y’know what’s worse than a spoiled child that’s never been told no? A spoiled adult that’s never been told no. And I reckon Tony is the king/queen/zween(?) of that species.

    If I bring up a point in a discussion, they immediately attack with ad homina, non sequiturs, and various other Latin named assaults on logic before stomping off. Usually these are of the strawman variety.

    But Neo takes ’em on, and takes no prisoners!

  38. AesopFan:

    Do today’s parents read “Wynken, Blynken and Nod” to their children?

    People can argue whether Afghanistan will stick to Biden or not, but I have no doubt that the bulk of those in the military, their families and close friends will not forget.

  39. So where are the (ahem) ‘non-hostages’ if they’re not at the airport? Must be home eating Hormel instant dinners and watching Fox News on the satellite? BTW…I think we know who ‘Nod’ is? That leaves Wynken as SecDef?

  40. Two serious questions I have,

    What is coming on the 11th ?

    What are the consequences of the near revolt in the military below O-6?

  41. What is coming on the 11th ?

    Mike K:

    I worry about something hitting the US. Those entrusted to our defense seem a bit … distracted these days.

  42. I’m sure we all know “We are not aware,” means “You can’t make us admit it,”

  43. @ Huxley
    Some parents still read the old classics – at least, they are still in the bookstores and libraries, but not as much as our generation.

  44. Blinken is a fool, as are Joe, Kamala and the rest. It doesn’t matter. Biden has proven that we don’t really need a president. Blinken proves that we don’t really need a secretary of state. The country is run by the administrative state and the intelligence apparatus.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

↑