Cave paintings as prehistoric flip art

The New Neo Posted on by

I find this wondrous:

Reconstructions of the original grease lamps produce a circle of light about 10 feet in diameter, which is not much larger than many images in the cave. Geneste believes that early artists used this small area of light as a story-telling device. “It is very important: the presence of the darkness, the spot of yellow light, and inside it one, two, three animals, no more,” Geneste says. “That’s a tool in a narrative structure,” he explains…

What’s more, a flickering flame in the cave may have conjured impressions of motion like a strobe light in a dark club. In low light, human vision degrades, and that can lead to the perception of movement even when all is still, says Susana Martinez-Conde, the director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. The trick may occur at two levels; one when the eye processes a dimly lit scene, and the second when the brain makes sense of that limited, flickering information…

… The end result for early humans who viewed cave paintings by firelight might have been that a deer with multiple heads, for example, resembled a single, animated beast. A few rather sophisticated artistic techniques enhance that impression…

…igh on the Nave’s right wall, an early artist had used charcoal to draw a row of five deer heads. The images are almost identical, but each is positioned at a slightly different angle. Viewed one at a time with a small circle of light moving right to left, the images seem to illustrate a single deer raising and lowering its head as in a short flipbook animation.

Marc Azéma, a Paleolithic researcher and filmmaker at the University of Toulouse in France, has studied dozens of examples of ancient images that were meant to imply motion and has found two primary techniques that Paleolithic artists used to do this. The first is juxtaposition of successive images—the technique used for the deer head—and the second is called superimposition. Rather than appearing in sequence, variations of an image pile on top of one another in superimposition to lend a sense of motion. Superimposition can be seen in caves across France and Spain, but some of the oldest examples come from Chauvet cave in France’s Ardèche region. Burned wood and charcoal streaks along Chauvet’s walls indicate that campfires and pine torches lit the cave.

The deer heads:

The Afghanistan bugout: the GOP “hawks” called this one

The New Neo Posted on by

When you look back at the reactions to Biden’s fateful April 14, 2021 announcement of a plan to pull out of Afghanistan by 9/11, you will find that almost the only people criticizing it at the time (the article appeared the day after) were those much-excoriated neocons:

[Lindsey] Graham is among the most passionate deniers of Biden’s decision for troop withdrawal, calling it “dumber than dirt and devilishly dangerous.”

President Biden will have, in essence, canceled an insurance policy against another 9/11,” Graham said in a statement reported by The Hill.

He went on to say that a residual counterterrorism force would essentially be the US’s insurance policy against the rise of radical Islam in Afghanistan. This insurance, if taken away, he said, could pave the way for “another attack against our homeland or our allies.”

Graham continued to repeat claims that a US withdrawal from Afghanistan would spark another 9/11 in a Fox News interview, telling Sean Hannity that Afghanistan will “disintegrate into civil war.”…

Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said: “The administration decided to abandon U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, which have helped keep radical Islamic terrorism in check. And bizarrely, they’ve decided to do so by September the 11th.”

“Apparently, we’re to help our adversaries ring in the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by gift-wrapping the country and handing it right back to them,” he added.”

He went on to call the withdrawal of US forces a “retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished, and an abdication of American leadership.”

Well, they get to say “I told you so.” That’s scant comfort, though.

There are others in that article, too: Liz Cheney of course, and Jim Inhofe (“No one wants a forever war, but I’ve consistently said any withdrawal must be conditions-based”). At least one Democrat, military veteran Tammy Duckworth, protested as well: “You don’t tell your enemy what your actions are going to be that’s just common sense.” And Mitt Romney, with whom I have disagreed over so many things ever since he entered the Senate, was right about this one:

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney opposes President Joe Biden’s plan to pull American troops from Afghanistan, putting him at odds with other GOP members of Utah’s congressional delegation…

…Romney said the president’s decision to withdraw all troops by September is an error that could have serious consequences for U.S. national security interests.

“The U.S. and our allies maintain a small number of troops with an outsized ability to prevent the Taliban from providing terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS the ability to train and flourish,” Romney said in a statement.

I didn’t write anything in reaction to Biden’s April speech, but my viewpoint on withdrawing from Afghanistan was similar to that expressed in all these quotes, and it was summarized in this post from four years ago and never substantially changed.

On leaving Bagram, on leaving Afghanistan

The New Neo Posted on by

If the whole thing was really motivated by a conspiratorial desire to undermine America, then the decision to leave Bagram prematurely doesn’t need explaining. It explains itself.

But let’s work on the other theory that remains plausible: incompetence and misjudgment. Even if one assumes those twin flaws, the military’s actions in Bagram were so obviously stupid, so egregiously over-the-top FUBAR, that they warrant some sort of attempt at explanation. Some thought process, however deeply erroneous, must have been going on.

Here’s my attempt at reconstructing the basic elements of that thought process, in particular the assumptions and goals. In it, I’m going to assume that Biden himself was a major player in these decisions, although I’m well aware that he might not have been. But to me, the process bears the stamp of his mind.

It may have gone like this:

(1) Joe Biden, who is commander-in-chief and has the final say, wanted out as soon as possible. He had wanted out even in 2009 as VP, and they didn’t do what he said. He waited twelve long years for this and he wasn’t going to wait any longer. One of his top priorities was leaving by the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and being able to brag about what he’d done – something that no one, not even Obama the Great, had been able to accomplish.

(2) The military leaders had poor intelligence, both in the usual sense of the word (not intelligent) and the military sense (information on enemy movements, goals, and the like). Therefore they were initially unaware of the strength of the Taliban, or of their newer methods such as the propaganda the Taliban successfully spread throughout the entire country with the innovative use of Facebook and WhatsApp.

(3) Because of #2, the military planners actually became convinced that the Taliban were not going to take over and certainly wouldn’t be doing it soon, and that the US military would have plenty of time to rescue people beforehand. This was obviously short-sighted and just plain wrong, and a quick Taliban takeover should have been planned for anyway to maintain some flexibility of action in case it started to happen. But this was not done.

(4) It was May of 2021 when the Taliban began to take territory in earnest – which it did shortly after Biden’s April 14, 2021 announcement that troops would be out by September 11, 2021. In my opinion, the timing was no accident, and should have triggered an announcement by the Biden camp that the Taliban had violated the conditions of the agreement and the agreement was moot. It should also have triggered a reevaluation of the Taliban’s chances of achievhing a total takeover, and much quicker than expected. But it seems to have done neither – probably because the Biden administration was completely focused on getting out before the 9/11 anniversary and had basically washed its hands entirely of Afghanistan. Whether or not Biden actually said “f-k that” in 2010, as reported, when “asked if the US had an obligation to protect Afghans from the Taliban,” he certainly acted in accord with that sentiment.

(5) With the push for a drawdown, and a very quick one at that, the generals felt they didn’t have the resources to defend both Bagram and the airport in Kabul. They opted for the defense of the latter, which makes no sense in terms of holding off the onslaught. But if you consider that they stupidly ignored the signs that the takeover was imminent, it begins to make a bit more sense. They “reasoned” (I use that term advisedly) that the Afghans could hold Bagram for at least as long as it took for all the Americans to depart (a literally fatal miscalculation). After that? – well, f-k ’em. The fact that it would not only hurt the Afghans if the Taliban took control, but that it would hurt us (and the western world) as well, didn’t seem to enter into the picture because they had tunnel vision: get out, and fast. The Kabul airport was easier to get to – Bagram being somewhat distant from the city – and if the goal was to defend the embassy and evacuate people, the Kabul airport seemed to make sense to them.

(6) So, despite the terrible risks that were made obvious by the Taliban advance since May, Biden did nothing to stop them and the military did nothing. Did they want to, and did he block them? I don’t know, because at that point I think the flawed reasoning was shared: the sooner we go the better, and the Taliban won’t take over before we get out. Those were the guiding assumptions, and they had no backup plan, so arrogant were they about their correctness.

If that’s the way it went down, it at least partially explains why they didn’t destroy the weapons and didn’t worry about the prisoners. The Afghan military would hold for a while – I think the original estimates were at least a year – and after that it would be Afghanistan’s problem, and we washed our hands of that.

Let me add that I was not in favor of a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, nor was I in favor of nation-building. But I was in favor of a non-trivial presence there to deter a takeover that would once again promote the growth of radical Islamic terrorism. I wrote this post presenting my views on the subject almost exactly four years ago, and I believe they are a pretty good description of my views right along. It was interesting to look back and read the whole thing in light of what’s happened since. Here’s an excerpt:

Afghanistan has presented a knotty problem for several previous administrations. It’s dangerous to not be there, it’s dangerous and frustrating to be there. Once there, pulling out is a terrible option. How important is Afghanistan to the fight against Islamic terror, and how far should we go to secure it or to attempt to change it? Is it possible to fight terrorists there (and/or prevent more of them finding a haven there, as they did before 9/11) without some sort of “nation-building”? And what is “nation-building” anyway

As Paul Mirengoff points out, “it has been a while since we have done any serious nation-building in Afghanistan.” I would go even further and say that while I think we engaged in “serious,” or at least semi-serious, nation-building in Iraq,…our nation-building in Afghanistan was never as intense. And neither effort involved anything like the commitment of a full-scale occupation (which I’m not recommending, by the way)…

I’ve long thought that it is wishful thinking to believe we can disengage from these places at this point or in the near future. However, that sort of wishful thinking is indulged in by most liberals and by some in the isolationist wing of the right. It is an attractive but unrealistic and impossible suggestion, and we saw the consequences of such withdrawal when Obama left an Iraq that was substantially pacified but which required an American presence to sustain that state. What followed was a disaster for Iraq and also for the world, including the Western world and Europe in particular.

Wishful thinking is not a recipe for good military planning and execution.

[NOTE: I plan to follow this post up with one about the GOP reaction to Biden’s April 14 announcement about the pullout by 9/11.]

Open thread 8/28/21

The New Neo Posted on by

I took this photo recently. The boat looked like it was on fire, but it was just the reflection of the setting sun. The picture doesn’t really do the moment justice; the fire illusion was much brighter in real life:

Drone strike kills an ISIS-K “planner”

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s what happened:

“U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner,” said Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, in a statement. “The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties.”

The ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the “martyrdom attack” on Thursday that involved a suicide bomber who detonated an explosive belt at the airport’s gate, killing 13 U.S. service members and more than 110 Afghans. More than 100 were wounded in the blasts.

I think it’s quite astounding that as the Taliban marched through Afghanistan, claiming territory and setting their sights on Kabul, that the Biden administration did nothing. They just kept going forward with their plan to leave. And – contrary to Biden’s constant blaming and excuse-making – they were not the least bit bound by any agreement Trump had made, and one reason for that was that the Taliban had violated it in their push to conquer territory. The agreement was moot, and either Biden is so far gone he’s unaware of that, or far more likely he’s simply lying through his teeth when he implies otherwise.

Biden and company have managed to singlehandedly turn back the clock to September 10th, 2001, just in time for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack. The release of thousands of imprisoned terrorists when the US abandoned Bagram at the behest of our hideously stupid and/or wretchedly traitorous president and his generals empowered the terrorists as much (or more) as the enormous amount of military equipment we left behind as an anniversary present.

Drone strikes cannot possibly change the picture in any important way, and we gave up our capacity to do much more, and I see no sign that the Biden administration has any plans to reclaim it.

I hope that the many people who are not committed leftists trying to bring this country down and yet who voted for Joe Biden in November because they bought the lie that he had some sort of competence – I hope they finally realize, or at least are beginning to realize, the enormity of the error they made in voting for a mendacious, weak, corrupt, stubborn, stupid, and now cognitively-challenged man. They voted for him because they either weren’t paying attention, or they believed the media that was covering up for Biden, or they just had grown to hate Trump so much that they decided to roll the dice and elect the obviously incompetent (or worse) Joe Biden to lead the country instead. I hope they learn that that isn’t ever the way to make voting decisions, and that they must pay more attention and never again trust the MSM or the party that led them so astray.

I don’t think they will – after all, a mind is a difficult thing to change.

But I can hope, anyway.

SCOTUS reminds Biden of what he already knows – or should know

The New Neo Posted on by

SCOTUS has ruled on Biden’s eviction moratorium:

A District Court had ruled the moratorium illegal, but stayed its decision pending appeal. In a prior visit to SCOTUS, the stay was left in place because the moratorium was about to expire anyway, but a majority made clear that the moratorium was illegal. But after the moratorium expired, it was quickly reimposed in a slightly modified format, basically thumbing their noses at SCOTUS.

The case came back to SCOTUS, and this time the majority of Justices, with the usual suspects dissenting, ruled that the CDC exceeded its authority.

It was a summary proceeding.

The vote was 6-3, which means that all the liberal-appointed justices thought the moratorium was okay, or at least didn’t think it should be stopped without a full hearing on the merits. Breyer said the following in his dissent, joined by the other two liberals:

Applicants raise contested legal questions about an important federal statute on which the lower courts are split and on which this Court has never actually spoken. These questions call for considered decisionmaking, informed by full briefing and argument. Their answers impact the health of millions. We should not set aside the CDC’s eviction moratorium in this summary proceeding.

If there had been a full hearing on the merits, my guess is that those three would have allowed the eviction moratorium to stand.

Kurt Schlichter asks the generals to resign. And I second the motion.

The New Neo Posted on by

Not that they’ll ever do it. That would take far more integrity than they possess.

But we can ask anyway [my additions in brackets]:

Yeah, we know your boss is a senile old fool with delusions of competence. His failure will be addressed at the ballot box [perhaps]. But your failure, generals and admirals, is something only you can address, at least until President DeSantis [that would be nice] comes and separates the wheat from the chaff in the Pentagon.

Yeah, we know, you have to follow the orders of the civilian authorities – though not if it’s Trump, since he was not part of the in-crowd you aspired to join as adjunct military members. Your passive-aggressive mutiny against the guy the American people elected set back civil-military relations 250 years. You took the one institution most Americans still trusted and turned it into a roiling cauldron of hot garbage [they had a lot of help, including that of President Obama]. And don’t try to hide behind “You gotta support the troops.” We do. But you suck, and we know you suck, and you know you suck.

If you didn’t suck, you’d have quit.. When President Durwood told you to ditch Bagram Air Base, you joint chiefs should have got together, realized this was going to get a bunch of the guys that America entrusted to you killed, and decided to resign. You can’t disobey, but you can take a stand.

Exactly. En masse.

Schlichter points out several more things that I think are true, and I’ve said some of them before, but they need saying again by someone who might be heard by all of America. The first is that it was obvious, and would have been obvious even to a child, that leaving Bagram when they did (and I would add in the manner they did) was a terrible decision in the tactical sense. The second is that the generals are almost certainly too focused on their own careers to do the right thing. And the third is that an en masse resignation, or even the threat to resign that way, almost certainly would have been effective. It would almost certainly have prevented what I believe is the worst military and foreign policy debacle in American history, one that has harmed our country (and probably the world) enormously.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s some background on who made the decision to close Bagram, and what they said about it.]

Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd gives an interview outing himself as Ashli Babbitt’s killer

The New Neo Posted on by

Seems like it was only yesterday that we were being told that authorities could not reveal any details at all about the killing of Ashli Babbitt except that it was justified, and that the identity of the Capitol Police officer who shot her must remain secret in order to protect him from terrible death threats from the right.

Now they are pulling an Emily Litella:

The police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt, who took part in the pro-Trump invasion of the U.S. Capitol, will reveal his identity for the first time in a televised interview set to air Thursday evening.

And that’s exactly what happened. His identity was revealed to be what everyone on the right has known it to be for many months: Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd. And we already knew about this history regarding Byrd:

In 2019, Byrd left his Glock 22 pistol inside a bathroom at the Capitol Visitor’s Center and was later found during a routine security sweep of the premises. The Capitol police said an investigation would occur and “the appropriate actions will be taken in accordance with the Department’s official policies and procedures.” Byrd was back on the job a few days after the incident and allegedly told colleagues he would “be treated differently” because of his rank.

Why is it okay to tell us now? He was not charged criminally and he was exonerated by an internal investigation – although somehow we’re not allowed to see the report describing why – and yet Ashli’s family’s lawsuit against him is proceeding apace and his identity was to be revealed anyway. So it stands to reason that this was his way of trying to get ahead of the story. It also helps to get the left’s narrative out there, so for the MSM and the Democrats it’s very useful.

He not only feels he did nothing wrong, but he is very proud of his actions that day. I have no way to judge whether I agree with his exoneration unless I were to read a report detailing the reasoning behind it, and also see a variety of surveillance videos from many angles and hear an analysis. So I can’t say that I know either way. But I do know that if the races had been reversed in this incident (Byrd is actually black and Babbitt was white), the story told in the media of his shooting and killing of “an unarmed woman” would be very very different.

In the interview Byrd said:

“I know that day I saved countless lives,” Byrd said. “I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger. And that’s my job.”

He would be within his rights saying he believes he saved “countless lives.” But he knows he “saved countless lives”? Is he aware there were no firearms in the Capitol except those carried by the police, and that the FBI has made it clear that there was no plan on the part of the rioters to kill people or to stage an insurrection?

Byrd can think or believe he saved countless lives, but he doesn’t “know” it. Nor do we. I’ve seen no actual evidence that indicates it is the case.

Byrd also said: “I think I showed the utmost courage on January 6, and it’s time to do that now.” Wow – the utmost courage. I have actually never heard a hero say something like that of himself or herself; it’s rather odd and uncharacteristic and unheroic. Heroes are almost always humble and downplaying their actions, saying they are being overpraised and either were just doing their jobs or just doing what anyone else would have done, even though that’s not necessarily true.

Looking at the transcript, I have these further observations:

Byrd begins (at least, the interview as edited and shown begins) by talking at length about the death threats he has received. He characterizes them as racist (which I’m sure some of them were). Clearly this first part of the interview is designed to feed into the “white supremacist” narrative about the “insurrectionists,” and also about how incredibly brave Byrd is to even give this interview.

Interviewer Lester Holt says to Byrd that there were “reports of shots fired” by the demonstrators that day, and Byrd says he had heard such reports. Of course, we know that there were no shots fired by demonstrators. But although it is almost certainly true that there were reports of such, that is another way the interviewer has of influencing the viewer to think there were shots fired, without actually lying and saying so.

Holt does mention that there were other officers there in the same circumstances (even at the same moment) who did not use their weapons. Byrd can’t explain that, and Holt doesn’t press him on it.

The transcript ends with this paragraph (written by NBC):

More than 570 people face criminal charges related to the attack, which resulted in at least five deaths and temporarily sent lawmakers into hiding as they sought to formalize Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

Typical MSM “facts” expressed in their typical manner. There’s nothing that is exactly a flat out boldfaced lie there, but the sentence is very misleading. NBC is almost undoubtedly aware that the criminal charges the demonstrators face almost entirely consist of variations on the “trespassing” theme, and that a significant number of those may be tossed in court because there is video evidence that many demonstrators were let in by the Capitol Police. But CBS doesn’t point that out and it is virtually certain that they are counting on the reader to assume something more in line with the narrative they’re pushing, that the riot was extremely violent and dangerous.

Worst of all is the statement that the attack “resulted in at least five deaths.” That may or may not be technically true, although since four of those five deaths were of completely natural causes we don’t know whether they would have occurred anyway. But the statement is carefully framed to nevertheless suggest to readers the truth of the previous false story the MSM has been pushing right from the start – that the rioters caused the deaths in a more direct manner. And what on earth does “at least” mean? I believe they are implying that the Capitol Police suicides that occurred in the weeks and months since the riots were also caused by the attacks. But we have no idea whether there is any connection, and we haven’t heard much if anything about the lives of these people and what may have actually motivated their suicides.

At this late date, what we now do know (and what the right suspected much earlier) is that four of the non-suicide deaths were all from natural causes and unrelated to any direct actions of the rioters themselves. We also know that the only death that was not of natural causes that day was that of Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by none other than Officer Byrd. And yet she is included by NBC in that five-count.

For a long time NBC and the rest of the MSM lied outright and blatantly – not with subtlety – about one of those naturally-caused deaths, that of Officer Sicknick. They said the rioters had hit him on the head with a fire extinguisher and he died a few hours later of his injuries. None of that is true; not the fire extinguisher, not the injuries, not the cause of death, and not even the time of death. The MSM is well aware that he died of natural causes, and if they’re not aware they’re negligent. But they also know that many of their readers don’t know, so they can get away with repeating the implication that the rioters may indeed have killed five people, something the media knows is utterly untrue.

But as I said, this is typical of the MSM’s approach, and it’s a very useful one in terms of propaganda. I’d love to see a poll on how many Americans continue to think that the rioters killed Officer Sicknick. I bet the numbers would still be high.

Our new partners for peace, the Taliban

The New Neo Posted on by

What is wrong with these people?:

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

You may think my question that began this post was a rhetorical one. No; I actually meant it, as in: (1) Are they abysmally stupid and mindbogglingly, criminally ignorant? (2) Are the American officials in charge there – and perhaps elsewhere or even everywhere – moles? Not just one mole, but mole after mole after mole? In other words, is it moles and spies and traitors all the way down? (3) Were they acting on their own or did they get orders from the higher-ups to do this? And if so, who were those higher-ups?

More:

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

In other words, they are asking to remain anonymous in order to protect themselves from retaliation. Can’t say I blame them – although actually, I do. I wish people were more courageous, but I can’t say that I would be any more courageous if I were in their shoes; I just don’t know. At least they’re speaking to the press and getting the word out – unfortunately, way too late (it’s not clear when they themselves learned about the policy).

More [emphasis mine]:

…In the earliest days of the evacuation, the joint U.S. military and diplomatic coordination team at the airport provided the Taliban with a list of people the U.S. aimed to evacuate. Those names included Afghans who served alongside the U.S. during the 20-year war and sought special immigrant visas to America. U.S. citizens, dual nationals and lawful permanent residents were also listed.

“They had to do that because of the security situation the White House created by allowing the Taliban to control everything outside the airport,” one U.S. official said.

Yes, you were between a rock and a hard place – and it was entirely of the US’s own making. The Biden administration put us in the position of relying on the Taliban to protect the very people the Taliban would like to torture and kill. That’s unconscionable. Did no one not think of that as the Taliban made their way unimpeded through city after city in Afghanistan?

Or perhaps they did think of it and considered it a feature rather than a bug, because learning that we did this would discourage anyone, in any country that was experiencing anything similar, from ever cooperating with the US again. Who would risk it?

Here are some of the perpetrators – and I don’t mean the Taliban:

In written and verbal communications, Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, head of U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan, have referred to the Taliban as “our Afghan partners,” according to two defense officials.

The Biden administration has been coordinating the evacuation effort and airport security with the Taliban, which is running the checkpoints outside the airport’s outer perimeter. Officials have been “in daily communication” with Taliban commanders about who to let in, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters this week.

I wrote the title of this post before I had read that part of the linked article. I had no idea that the people in charge had actually called the Taliban our “partners.” I was being sarcastic; they were not.

And then there’s this:

After the attacks, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) appeared to criticize the Biden administration’s strategy of coordinating with the Taliban, writing in a statement: “As we wait for more details to come in, one thing is clear: We can’t trust the Taliban with Americans’ security.”

Is it clear now, Bob? Was it clear before, Bob? And if not, why not? Because it’s been clear to the rest of us for more than twenty years – crystal clear. What’s becoming more and more clear is that we can’t trust our own government with Americans’ security.