With the incredible failure in planning and leadership, not to mention the almost belligerent reluctance to act on the part of the Biden administration on the issue of Afghanistan – and the subsequent posturing by the mainstream media and the political Left, the time has arrived for serious self-examination.
What have we become as a country when we can elect such politically self-absorbed narcissists into leadership? Who are we as a people if we elect such unaware, arrogant, and ineffective embarrassments to office?
In one of the most embarrassing and chilling responses to a question posed by a member of the media, a question about Afghan’s falling to their deaths from the exoskeletons of US Air Force C-17s departing from Kabul airport, our president, President Joe Biden, said – annoyed that he was even being questioned on the matter, “That was four or five days ago!”
What kind of a human being responds to a question on an issue of that magnitude so dismissively? What kind of a politically opportune narcissist callously attempts to deflect from a question like that?
And then we have the President either lying directly to the American people or disclosing the fact that he doesn’t have a handle on what his own administration is doing, in his insistence that he was caught off guard by the swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the shadow of the US withdrawal.
The Wall Street Journal reported, as conveyed by Blaze.com:
“The July 13 cable signed by nearly two dozen Embassy staffers went through the Department of State’s confidential dissent channel and warned of swift ground gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and it also supplied suggestions on how to mitigate the crisis and expedite an evacuation, the two individuals said, according to the outlet.
“‘The cable, sent via the State Department’s confidential dissent channel, warned of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and offered recommendations on ways to mitigate the crisis and speed up an evacuation, the two people said,’ the Journal reported. ‘The cable, dated July 13, also called for the State Department to use tougher language in describing the atrocities being committed by the Taliban, one of the people said.’”
And then we have the nauseating declaration by the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, that the United States military doesn’t have the ability to provide safe passage to Americans and US assets out of Afghanistan.
As reported by The Washington Examiner, Austin told reporters:
“I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul…We don’t have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people.”
But this sentiment is exposed as another blatant lie from a member of the Biden administration, and one that is tangibly putting American lives and the lives of American assets in grave danger.
Again, from The Washington Examiner and analyst Tom Rogan:
“[US] Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue has told his British Army counterpart, a high-ranking field-grade officer of the British army’s 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, that British operations were embarrassing the United States military in the absence of similar US military operations…
“…I understand that the SAS has conducted operations to bring American citizens, as well as British citizens and at-risk personnel, through checkpoints and to the airport. This is not an indictment on US capabilities or special operations intent, but rather, it’s a reflection of political-military authorities.”
So, again, the actions of our duly elected federal government in Afghanistan – and in addressing Afghanistan – beg the question: Who are we as a people; what have we become?
The idea that the Taliban was sincere in its declaration that the government they intend to establish is to be “inclusive” and equitable toward women is so far beyond the realm of reality it defies even disillusion. The Taliban is not “Woke” and never will be.
And yet the US State Department, UNICEF, and the United Nations issued almost identical statements declaring they were “optimistic” about the Taliban’s declaration, UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Afghanistan, Mustapha Ben Messaoud, going as far as to say, “We have not a single issue with the Taliban…”
Meanwhile, Taliban Islamofascists have brutally massacred members of the minority Hazara community in the Ghazni province despite public claims that the Taliban would provide amnesty across Afghanistan.
According to Amnesty International, Hazara men have been shot and “three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off.” The human rights group said the Taliban “killings likely represent a tiny fraction of the total death toll inflicted by the Taliban to date, as the group has cut mobile phone service in many of the areas they have recently captured, controlling which photographs and videos are then shared from these regions.”
Providing a first-hand warning in an interview with India’s News 18 of what is to come for the women of Afghanistan, Khatera, an Afghani woman, insisted the Taliban will not respect or honor women’s rights despite the Islamofascist group’s assertions to the contrary.
Khatera, 33, told of a horrific attack that took place in 2020 when her father – a Taliban fighter – tipped off the local Taliban faction that his daughter was employed (women, under Sharia law, are not permitted to work).
In October of that year, Khatera said that her father conspired with the local Taliban faction to attack her as she returned home from work. During the attack, Khatera – who, ironically worked for the police in a US-NATO controlled area – was shot at least eight times, stabbed, and had her eyes knifed out of their sockets before Taliban fighters left her for dead. She was pregnant at the time.
In a statement by the leader of the underground church ministering to Christians in Afghanistan, a first-hand account of the realities on the ground in that Taliban-controlled territory serves up monstrous details:
“The Taliban has a hit list of known Christians they are targeting to pursue and kill. The US Embassy is defunct and there is no longer a safe place for believers to take refuge…
“All borders to neighboring countries are closed and all flights to and from have been halted, with the exception of private planes. People are fleeing into the mountains looking for asylum…
“The Taliban are going door-to-door taking women and children…The people must mark their house with an ‘X’ if they have a girl over 12 years old, so that the Taliban can take them. If they find a young girl and the house was not marked, they will execute the entire family. If a married woman 25 years old or older has been found, the Taliban promptly kill her husband, do whatever they want to her, and then sell her as a sex slave.”
The responsibility for the wholly inept execution of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan rests exclusively with President Biden and his administration. They had the ability to change course up to the very last minute and, instead, chose to ignore reports from responsible underlings in deference to whipping the political agenda vehicle that is COVID, an event that is all but over.
In fact, the British Parliament, the governing body of our greatest ally, voted to condemn not the United States, but President Biden himself for the disaster the withdrawal has turned out to be.
The Daily Mail reported:
“The speed of the Taliban’s gains after the US-led forces withdrew the bulk of their troops from Afghanistan surprised the West, leaving many nations having to scramble to get their diplomats and Afghans who had helped them out of the country.
“Several lawmakers on Wednesday focused on the US decision to withdraw – a move which Johnson admitted left Britain with no choice but to pull out its own forces – and Biden’s subsequent criticism of Afghan forces’ surrender…”
Former British Prime Minister Theresa May, said on the floor of Parliament, “Was our understanding of the Afghan government so weak? Was our knowledge of the position on the ground so inadequate? Or did we just feel that we have to follow the United States and hope that, on a wing and a prayer, it would be alright on the night.”
A recent poll exclaiming that President Biden has hit a low-water mark in his approval rating reveals that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of Mr. Biden’s performance. Additionally, approximately 1-in-10 Democrats regret their 2020 vote with 15 percent of Black Americans regretting their vote.
But what of the other 10 Democrat voters who still support Mr. Biden? What of the 46 percent of the electorate that believes Mr. Biden’s performance is a positive thing?
Higher gas prices. Higher food prices. Higher construction material prices. Higher taxes. The dissemination of our economy. An exploding national debt. The diminishment of America’s standing in the world. The facilitation of the rise of China. And now the facilitation of the enslavement and slaughter of millions of innocent, trusting Afghanis.
So, again, some questions beg to be asked.
What have we become as a country if we can elect such inept and politically greedy people to positions of power?
Have we become so addicted to “being right,” to “winning at all cost for the sake of winning,” so blind to the actions of the charlatan activists who run for public office that the difference between right and wrong simply doesn’t matter any longer?
Have we, as a nation, become a pathetic gaggle of self-absorbed, self-centered, elitist cry-babies that places more priority in “being offended” by gender pronouns and claiming victimhood for the wrongs of generations past than in preventing the enslavement and slaughter of an entire nation, acts facilitated by our ridiculous “Woke” cultural disability?
We cannot claim the mantle of righteousness if we do not stand up to tyranny in real-time when Islamofascist tyrants are slaughtering people and enslaving young girls and women as sex slaves. We cannot feign outrage at the slavery of America’s past if we do nothing to stop the enslavement of women and children today. We cannot claim to be the last best hope of freedom on Earth if we turn our backs on those begging for freedom.
Today, the people who have tasted freedom for the last 20 years in Afghanistan are crying out for help. They are begging for our help so they can hold on to freedom as bloodthirsty Islamofascist barbarians begin their slaughter in the name of their demented religion.
And as they beg, as they plead, as they fall from in-flight C-17 aircraft to their deaths in attempts to escape the certain deaths; the grisly deaths that await them if don’t at least try, our President is more concerned with who is wearing COVID masks and who isn’t, even as his order facilitates that slaughter and slavery.
If we, the American people, stand at this moment in time, as we witness the uncaring cruelty that our government is unleashing on the Afghan people and especially their females – and especially those who aided us in good faith over the last 20 years, we must all ask ourselves: What have we become as a nation if we allow this to happen without lifting our voices to the Heavens in protest to force our elected officials to do the right thing.
It is time to dispense with the Alinskyite politics of win at all cost. It is time to do the right thing. If we don’t, then who are we really? What have we become?
Frank Salvato is the executive partner at The CompassPoint Group, LLC. He is the co-host of the Underground USA podcast as heard on iHeart Radio, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, and anywhere podcasts are heard. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His analysis has been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, National File, and Accuracy in Media, and is nationally syndicated. Mr. Salvato appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel and is the author of six monographs examining internal and external threats facing our country. He can be heard twice weekly on “The Captain’s America: Third Watch” radio program syndicated nationally on the Salem Broadcasting Network and Genesis Communications affiliate stations.