This afternoon.

Via CNN:

Biden’s political and geopolitical rivals rush to exploit his mistakes, the true magnitude of the crisis can only be judged in the human tragedy of a people again subject to Taliban persecution. And a failure to fulfill the now apparently near-impossible tasks of evacuating all the Afghan translators, workers and fixers on whom the US relied and who now face Taliban retribution would besmirch America’s conscience and global reputation.

…Biden remained at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland on Monday morning, amid rising pressure for him to address the nation on the crisis. Senior national security officials appeared on television news shows in an apparent effort to counter the impression that the administration had been badly overtaken by events.

After video emerged of Afghans flooding the tarmac at Kabul airport, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer admitted that the airport was crowded with “desperate” Afghans wanting to leave, but insisted on CNN’s “New Day” that the US had the forces in place “that are necessary to bring stability and security to that airport.”

Meanwhile…

Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan deflected the blame for the scenes of chaos in Kabul, saying on ABC News that the President would speak to Americans “soon.” And he blamed Afghan armed forces for folding in the face of the lightning Taliban advance.

“(Biden) thought the Afghan national security forces could step up and fight because we spent 20 years, tens of billions of dollars training them, giving them the best equipment, giving them support of US forces for 20 years and when push came to shove, they decided not to step up and fight for their country,” Sullivan said.

Biden’s botched Afghan exit is a disaster at home and abroad long in the making (CNN)

Earlier: The Great Game

Meanwhile…

Sponsored Link

Related posts:

A Heartbeat Away “Would You Shut Up, Man” The Two Presidents The Great Game

41 thoughts on “Mujoehiding”

  2. Nigel

    ‘(Biden) thought the Afghan national security forces could step up and fight because we spent 20 years, tens of billions of dollars training them, giving them the best equipment, giving them support of US forces for 20 years and when push came to shove, they decided not to step up and fight for their country,” Sullivan said.’

    This says more about the quality of US support, traiining and oversight than it does about the Afghans, but it’s awesome that you invaded that country, occupied it for twenty years, and somehow failed to turn it into a functional state or, with all the might of the US military, to defeat the terrifying armed insurgency group within its borders.

      1. Nigel

        No the Afghans climbing into the wheel wells of airplanes or the Afghan women being thrown out of jobs and universities.

          1. Nigel

            Well they have lots of guns, they’re better trained, organised and motivated than the Afghan army, such as it was, and someone’s probably sending them lots of money. I wonder who that might be. Goes a long way.

      2. bisted

        …maybe crooked Hillary was right with her approach in Libya…just bomb them back to the stone age…reintroduce the open slave markets…we came, we saw, he died…

        1. Nigel

          Obviously the really smart play would be to become their bestest pals, like Putin’s angling for.

    2. Kdoc

      Nigel makes an interesting point: follow the money. The Taliban have been fighting the most powerful military machine in the world for decades. Who is funding these men in sandals and flowing robes? What is to be gained by financially supporting them.

    1. Junkface

      Remember on the campaign trail or one of the debates Joe Biden said : “If you don’t vote for me, vote for the other Biden!” ?
      Well, no one with their full collection of marbles would have said that. His mind has deteriorated badly in 2 years or so. He’s all over the place, even in softball interviews.

      2. Slave to the Rhythm

        Why do they interview him about softball? How do they expect a 77 year old to be an expert on that?

        1. Slave to the Rhythm

          Ah now he didn’t do that on his own scottser, that’s where the illuminati come in

  5. Mr T

    Afghanistan recently enough had what could be the worlds largest lithium deposits discovered by geologists – expect China to make peace with the taliban so they can strip the earth and extract all the resources they can from Afghanistan.

    2. Junkface

      Of course! The CCP are the biggest gangster government in the world! Xi is trying to turn himself into an almost religious icon like Mao. They regularly assassinate any opposition, even if they are millionaires. China is only concerned with growing wealth and creating an untouchable circle at the top of their chain of command. Humans are always expendable, a good source of energy to feed the monster.

  6. ida

    TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has called on the Taliban to show restraint and to uphold international law

    Mother of God, m e h o l e really is delusional

  7. goldenbrown

    fingers crossed for the reported 20-odd Irish trapped out there

    hopefully Coveney managed to take a break from the yacht to ferrero rocher up some arrangement or other

    presumably the SAS will fix it for them in any case

    (although they might be grand if they’re working for some Russian or Chinese outfit)

    1. Slave to the Rhythm

      100%, I hope our great and good can postpone their holidays for a day or two to sort this out…

  8. Nigel

    From Dec 9, 2019

    ‘At war with the truth
    U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.’

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

    “The history of military conflict in Afghanistan [has] been one of initial success, followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. We’re not going to repeat that mistake.”

    — President George W. Bush, in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute

    ‘Year after year, U.S. generals have said in public they are making steady progress on the central plank of their strategy: to train a robust Afghan army and national police force that can defend the country without foreign help.
    In the Lessons Learned interviews, however, U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.”
    None expressed confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off, much less defeat, the Taliban on their own. More than 60,000 members of Afghan security forces have been killed, a casualty rate that U.S. commanders have called unsustainable.’

    ‘At first, Afghan poppy farmers were paid by the British to destroy their crops — which only encouraged them to grow more the next season. Later, the U.S. government eradicated poppy fields without compensation — which only infuriated farmers and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.’

    ‘Other senior officials said they placed great importance on one statistic in particular, albeit one the U.S. government rarely likes to discuss in public.
    “I do think the key benchmark is the one I’ve suggested, which is how many Afghans are getting killed,” James Dobbins, the former U.S. diplomat, told a Senate panel in 2009. “If the number’s going up, you’re losing. If the number’s going down, you’re winning. It’s as simple as that.”
    Last year, 3,804 Afghan civilians were killed in the war, according to the United Nations.
    That is the most in one year since the United Nations began tracking casualties a decade ago.’

    1. goldenbrown

      thanks for those nuggets Nigel
      I imagined the oul skag would be a part of this equation alright

    2. Nigel

      I will say this in vague defence of Biden – if all this was known, then there was absolutely no way, no how that a withdrawal was going to turn out any other way. The choice was to keep lying and pretending that they were making ‘progress’ or just get the hell out. The withdrawal seems like a shambles, and hopefully that will hang over him forever, but I have to wonder if they were literally on the brink of collapse and this was the best they were ever going to manage. If Trump were still in charge… the feckin’ Taliban would be storming Washington by now.

      1. Nigel

        (Just to be clear everything about this fiasco, from the invasion to the wasted money, to the kleptocratic government and the corrupt and Taliban-riddled Afghan security and defence forces, is entirely the fault of succesive US administrations, and the lack of preperation for the withdrawal in terms of protecting civilians is all on Biden. But FUPP George W Bush.)

  9. John F

    “…..we spent 20 years, tens of billions of dollars training them, giving them the best equipment…”
    So effectively, they have armed the Taliban with state of the act military equipment. And I am sure that some of the national army are sympathetic to them and will now fight under their banner. Perhaps that’s why they capitulated so quickly, who knows?
    Hopefully this will mark the end of American imperialism and wars of aggression. It’s getting harder and harder for war hawks in the American political system to sell wars to the public.
    It’s a shame that things are so polarised politically right now. Rational discussion and argument goes out the window in times like these. Perhaps that’s the design behind it who knows. People should be talking about and debating whether the financial cost and human cost is worth it for installing a temporarily friendly regime……… and eventually the ousted regime will return eventually.
    Rather people are mostly talking about Biden’s mental health. The orange man bad crowd have painted themselves into a corner defending him at every turn.
    His handlers were probably concerned of Joe getting flustered and having a breakdown at a press conference or something. That is why he is being hid away from the public.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie