To get out of Afghanistan, hold Biden, his team and the generals to account

By John Kass

Because the empty husk that is President Joe Biden wanted to make a speech on Sept. 11—the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in America—and crown himself with glory as the hero who got us out of Afghanistan, this is what he did:

He delayed and then rushed his disastrous and ill-conceived withdrawal from that medieval nation of tribes.

And now, at least 13 members of the U.S. Armed Forces–including at least 12 Marines and a Navy corpsman–have been killed in a terrorist bomb attack at the airport in Kabul. More than 70 Afghans were also killed at the airport and at a nearby hotel.

What did the president do? He tried to wash the blood from his hands while reading from his teleprompter. While presenting himself as the guy taking responsibility for the disaster, he blamed his predecessor and engaged in sophistry, arguing he had no choice but to withdraw quickly. He had a choice. He’s the president.

Biden talked tough about revenge, and to the terrorists he said “We will hunt you down and make you pay.” But even as he talked tough, the weasel words came out of the sides of his mouth to cover his  flanks, to give him an excuse on how it won’t be his fault if he leaves Americans behind.

Except in the opinion polls, the president hasn’t paid a price.  The Marines and the Navy corpsman  paid the price. They died in that terrorist bombing, after the bombers were let through the Kabul airport perimeter by the Taliban, who Biden had given the job of providing security.

That’s where America is now under Biden, relying on the murderous Taliban to protect our people. And as of this writing, none of his White House team and the military brass have resigned.

Afghans paid the Biden price too, all those desperate souls trying to leave, pressed together at the airport as perfect soft targets. Their bodies were blown into the open sewer at the Abbey Gate, mothers and fathers and children. They were face down in it, dead.

Yes, be angry. Be sick to your stomachs. If you don’t feel anything after that carnage, you’re not human.

But think first of the families of those dead Marines and the Navy corpsman. Think of their families seeing the car approach the house. Think of them watching the uniformed personnel walking somberly to the front door.

They hear the knock. And they know how it ends, with a tightly folded American flag handed to them at the grave.

Consider the Afghan dead, believing what America had promised, that if they helped us in that obscene war—with generals and politicians and policy makers lying to them and to us for 20 years—that America would be there for them.

When you’re done praying for them, consider Biden. Wasn’t it just the other day that the Biden administration was demanding that the media applaud the White House for “defying expectations” and “over performing?” and that any questions about leaving Americans behind were “irresponsible?”

Do not believe them now when they and their media jesters tell you that criticizing Biden is wrong, immoral, insensitive and unpatriotic, that we need to rally around our president after the tragedy in Kabul.

That is the worst thing we could do.

Because rallying around Biden now would be to protect him from his role in this debacle. This is his. He owns it. He’s the president. And if you buy their spin, that the same would have happened to any president, that Biden personally did not fail, then you’re being herded like livestock, just as we were herded 20 years ago, when America occupied Afghanistan in the hopes of building a modern nation.

Defending Biden in the face of his incompetence risks undermining the effort to get out. Because, if Biden, his team, and the military brass are not held to account, if “it had to be this way” as the White House says, then the fault really isn’t Biden’s mismanagement, is it?

Instead, by their logic, it is the inevitable consequence of any withdrawal. That’s the putrid reasoning used to keep American forces in Afghanistan for decades.

It satisfies the worm-tongues. Because what they want is more war.

Rallying around Biden would be a lie, yes, but it would also be consistent with all the other lies we’ve been told out of Afghanistan, that “victory” was within reach, that we secular Westerners could “build” a national army and a modern secular nation from a medieval Muslim people, with American diplomatic shepherds flying rainbow flags and telling them how to raise their families, how to treat their wives and daughters.

Giving Biden a pass will embolden the War Party—those generals and “bi-partisan” establishment politicians and bureaucratic entrepreneurs who lied to us for 20 years—to leverage our desire for revenge into a permanent return.

Because isn’t that what they want? But to go back in, to offer an effort to retake the Bagram airfield as a wise tactical step, without calling the leadership into account, you must understand it could morph into to more American boots on the ground, more defense contracts, more leverage and clout won by American blood.

But not their boots, not their sons and daughters in coffins, not their families accepting the folded American flag at the graveside. They talk of pain and sacrifice and honor, but they’re politicians. They don’t sacrifice. Instead, they cash in, they sit on boards, they show up as talking heads on cable news as the faces of empire. They’re silkies, the most dangerous creatures on the planet.

I’m reminded of Ben Rhodes, one of former President Barack Obama’s architects of the disastrous Iran Nuclear deal. The media loved Obama, king of the silkies, and they fawned on him as they do most other Democrats. Though the media was besotted with Obama, and eagerly carried Rhodes’ water on Iran, selling the deal to the American people, Rhodes  viewed them with absolute contempt.

“Most of the [media] outlets are reporting on world events from Washington,” he told The New York Times. “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

So, here’s what you can count on from many of the useful idiots among the pro-Democrat corporate media. They’ll try to protect him. And, like witch doctors, they’ll shout and wave their Trump rattles topped with the orange haired demon, in hopes of spreading the blame.

And here’s what you can count on from the War Party and its establishment leaders, including  Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

They will flick their forked tongues to gauge the right temperature to strike. They talk of impeaching Biden even while supporting his talk of revenge. But what they really want is an excuse to push U.S. Armed Forces back into Afghanistan. The warmongers have always hated the notion of leaving.

Biden’s threat, that after Americans leave Afghanistan, he’ll hunt the terrorists down and make them pay sounds nice, until you consider that Afghans who would help hunt the Isis-K terrorists are in hiding. Biden‘s decision to close the Bagram airfield in the middle of the night triggered panic among the Afghans forces. They broke.

Those who haven’t been airlifted out are in hiding.  According to Politico, the Biden administration gave out a kill list to the Taliban.  In it were the names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies, ostensibly to allow them passage into the “militant-controlled” outer perimeter of the airport in Kabul.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official quoted by Politico, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

Watching Biden on Thursday would make anyone feel unclean. He projected weakness. He put his head down on his hands. His eyes were wet.  Yet even with the wet eyes, even as he vowed to hunt the terrorists down like some character in the Hollywood movie in his mind, the weasel words poured out of him.

“We will complete our mission, we will continue after our troops have withdrawn to find means by which we can find any American who wishes to get out of Afghanistan, we will find them and we will get them out”

Really?

The Biden White House has been all over the map as to how many Americans are still there, and while few Americans believe them anymore, they’re still adding weasel words to that heaping pile of Biden road apples they’re leaving as nourishment for pro-Biden media to eat.

A Chicago lawyer, highly skilled in deciphering BS, explained:

“They are all using the phrase, ‘We remain committed to getting any and all Americans that want to leave.‘ What the hell does that mean? How does the ‘G’ know who are all the people who want to leave? It’s a cover, so they can blame the Americans he leaves behind.”

And he’ll leave them behind.

As the president walked stiffly away from his news conference, he said “Ladies and gentlemen, it was time to end a 20-year-war.”

He’s correct on that. But ending it requires accountability for the horrendous withdrawal. It has to start at the top, with Biden and his people and the military brass.

But there’s one thing we must not do.

We must not help him wash the blood from his hands.

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(Copyright 2021 John Kass)

 

 

 

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