THE DOCTRINE OF THE N.A.F.T.A. GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS IS TO SERVE THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ENDLESS WAVES OF INVADING 'CHEAP' LABOR SUBSIDIZED WITH WELFARE FUNDED BY TAXES ON MIDDLE AMERICA.
In many speeches, Mayorkas says he is building a mass migration system to deliver workers to wealthy employers and investors and “equity” to poor foreigners. The nation’s border laws are subordinate to elites’ opinion about “the values of our country,” Mayorkas claims.
Anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 American lives are now held hostage by resurging Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has gone into hiding.
Last Friday, as the Taliban took four more capital cities and advanced upon Kabul, the president headed to Camp David on vacation. In the week that followed, Biden emerged only to give 20 minutes of petulant remarks on Monday and then to sit with George Stephanopoulos — the former Clinton communications director-turned-ABC News anchor — for a solo interview.
Next, Biden flies out to his family home in Wilmington with no plan to return to the White House until Sunday night.
In the best of times, a president spending ten days refusing to take a single question from his press pool would posit cause for concern. Couple with that the fact that he has been hiding throughout the biggest crisis of his presidency, and the public has a right to know — what the hell is wrong? Is Biden ill? Is he still capable of doing his job?
Instead of kissing babies, visiting COVID vaccination sites, or doing any number of the innocuous photo-ops that endear politicians (especially Democrats!) to the press, the president has simply gone missing. Either he's choosing radio silence in hopes that the media will simply move on from his Afghanistan catastrophe, or he's refusing to face the public because he cannot face the public.
I'm not a doctor and I don't pretent to be one, but Biden's cognitive decline has been hard to miss. Compared to the Biden of the Obama years, the Biden of the Stephanopoulos interview seemed a shell of a human being. Even the Biden of 2019 and 2020 seemed markedly more astute than whatever that distinctly-spray tanned old fogey was on Wednesday.
The White House could clear up all of this by having Biden hold a normal event with regular press pool access. Maybe Biden really did fumble and stammer through his responses to Stephanopoulos because he was outraged or short of sleep rather than senile.
That they continue to keep the president hidden only increases the cause for concern that something is very, very wrong with our commander-in-chief.
In the course of hectoring the United States for its “bungled and embarrassing withdraw from Afghanistan” on Thursday, China’s state-run Global Timesadmitted Beijing has a rapacious interest in Afghanistan’s vast rare-earths mineral resources and snarled it was none of America’s business if China makes deals with the Taliban to get what it wants.
The Global Times accused the U.S. of profiteering from Afghanistan for the past twenty years, without offering any theories on where all the plunder might have gone, and claimed America is only worried about China going after those mineral resources because the U.S. is jealous:
Rare-earth metals in Afghanistan were estimated to be worth anywhere between $1 trillion and $3 trillion in 2020. China may “align itself with Taliban and try to exploit Afghanistan’s rare-earth metals,” US media outlet CNBC reported on Tuesday, citing an investment analyst’s so-called “warning.”
The US has spent 20 years on its “anti-terror war” in Afghanistan, investing a huge amount of resources to support the government. It’s not hard to imagine that there are huge economic considerations behind this. Over the past two decades, US firms have enjoyed privileges in exploiting rare resources in Afghanistan. The US troops’ withdrawal and the drastic change in Afghanistan’s situation is undoubtedly a heavy blow to US economic interests in Afghanistan and the wider region. With many US businesses leaving due to losing their protection, the US may instead choose to obstruct future cooperation between Afghanistan and other countries. We cannot rule out the possibility that the US could launch its notorious sanction measures again to protect its economic interests in the region after US troops’ withdrawal.
However, the US is in no position to meddle with any potential cooperation between China and Afghanistan, including on rare earths. The so-called “warnings” in the CNBC report show that American firms doing business in Afghanistan are dissatisfied with Washington’s hasty evacuation and therefore the loss of their “privileges,” and it also reveals the US’ fear of possible advancement for China with regard to the rare-earth sector. After all, China has a much better track record in successfully cooperating with developing countries around the world.
One reason China’s propagandists are so peeved at the CNBC report mentioned above is that one of its contributors, AllianceBernstein director of emerging market debt Shamaila Khan, said it was a “very dangerous proposition for the world” to let the Taliban (and, by extension, its new best friends in Beijing) control those much-needed minerals.
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2021. Thousands of people packed into the Afghan capital’s airport on Monday, rushing the tarmac and pushing onto planes in desperate attempts to flee the country after the Taliban overthrew the Western-backed government. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
“It should be an international initiative to make sure that if any country is agreeing to exploit its minerals on behalf of the Taliban, to only do it under strict humanitarian conditions where human rights, and rights for women are preserved in the situation,” Khan said.
China is reliably enraged by discussions of its human rights abuses and rejects all Western efforts to hold it, or its allies, to high standards. Chinese propagandists portray the international human rights establishment as a scam designed to keep developing nations from reaching their full potential.
The Global Times added that China is skilled at mining rare earths and desperately needs them to fuel its industrial growth, so the civilized world should withhold its criticisms of whatever deals Beijing strikes with the Taliban to exploit those resources – or to preserve its massive existing investments in Afghanistan, such as the $4.2 billion Anyak copper mine, the China National Petroleum Corporation’s oil projects, $550 million in annual bilateral trade, and $630 billion in infrastructure projects.
Chinese street vendors and customers gather at a local market outside a state-owned coal-fired power plant near the site of a large floating solar farm project under construction by the Sungrow Power Supply Company on a lake caused by a collapsed and flooded coal mine on June 14, 2017, in Huainan, Anhui province, China. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
“As the largest neighbor of Afghanistan, China is a vigorous partner for the war-battered country to get its economy back on track, given China’s experience and capability in related areas, such as agriculture and industrial infrastructure,” the Chinese Communist newspaper lectured. “By sharp contrast, U.S.-led predatory resource exploitation in the country has not delivered tangible benefit to ordinary Afghan people or benefits to the nation’s economic growth.”
India’s Business Standardnoted on Thursday the rare earths China desires “are a key component for a host of advanced technologies like iPhones and hi-tech missile guidance systems,” as well as “rechargeable batteries for electric and hybrid cars, advanced ceramics, computers, DVD players, wind turbines, catalysts in cars and oil refineries, monitors, televisions, lighting, lasers, fiber optics, superconductors and glass polishing.”
The Business Standard observed that China is already the world’s top supplier of rare earths and controls about two-thirds of the global supply, so seizing Afghanistan’s minerals will help Beijing preserve its monopolistic position by making it harder for other countries to decouple from Chinese supply lines.
In this undated photo, employees work on a battery production line at a factory in an eastern Chinese province. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Afghanistan could become an especially important source of lithium, which is crucial for building electric car batteries. The largest established reserves of lithium are in Bolivia, but the U.S. government believes Afghanistan could have even more if enough security and political stability is given to explore the country’s mineral resources.
President Joe Biden again tried to distance himself from the political fallout of the disaster in Afghanistan, disappearing into the White House.
The president met with his national security team at the White House on Thursday morning but made no effort to speak to the American people about the growing chaos in Afghanistan.
Afghan people wait to board a U S military aircraft to leave Afghanistan, at the military airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021 after Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan. (SHAKIB RAHMANI/AFP via Getty Images)
Vice President Kamala Harris also maintained her silence, as she has not made a public appearance for seven days.
The White House did not schedule a press briefing Thursday, leaving reporters in the building idle.
Press Secretary Jen Psaki has not held a press briefing for two days after she and national security advisor Jake Sullivan tried to defend the administration’s handling of the crisis Tuesday.
White House press staff directed all administration updates about the crisis to the press briefings at the Pentagon and the State Department.
Even the White House social media accounts were slower than usual, sharing no photos of the president or vice president at work.
One social media post claimed that 7,000 people had been evacuated, but there was no update on how many American citizens had been evacuated or how many were of the estimated 15,000 were left.
White House press staff also did not detail the president’s plans for the weekend, even though he was expected to travel to Delaware, according to an FAA advisory.
After Biden Admin Warns of "Strongly Worded" Letter on Women's Rights, Taliban Kill Woman for Not Wearing a Burqa
Yesterday, Biden's UN Ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that there was "a very strongly worded press statement" expecting "the Taliban to respect women's rights."
While the Taliban had been prepped by the Qataris to say a lot of the right things, including claiming that they'll respect the rights of women within the very narrow boundaries of Islamic law, they apparently killed a woman for not wearing a burqa.
Even as Afghanistan's resurgent Taliban pledged to respect "women’s rights" in a propaganda blitz Tuesday, fighters from the group shot and killed a woman in Takhar province after she went out in public without a burqa.
And in Kabul, Taliban vehicles packed with armed militants were recorded on video patrolling residential areas for activists and government workers. Gunshots can be heard as they accelerate down the street.
Longtime Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid held his first news conference Tuesday to state that the extremist group would honor women’s rights -- within sharia law
What the Taliban's official mouthpieces and even its leaders say doesn't matter all that much.
The Taliban is a Potemkin village. A lot of its fighters appear to actually be foreign Jihadists. (Again, something our intelligence agencies and military and NSC people should have been on. If there was a major flow of foreign fighters, as locals have reported, why were we not tracking it?) They're going to follow their own orders. And many of the so-called Afghan Taliban are their own militias with their own leaders who don't necessarily take orders and certainly not from Taliban press conferences. And the Taliban are fine with that.
Before and after 9/11, the Taliban tried to use plausible deniability to avoid any responsibility. They're still playing the same old game.
Nolte: There’s Nothing Normal About Joe Biden Going AWOL for Four Days
We are entering day five of a crisis where thousands of American civilians are trapped in Afghanistan, and the president of the United States was … on vacation, is still nowhere to be found, is not talking to the American public, is totally incommunicado, is not even releasing statements or speaking to other world leaders.
This is not normal.
The White House / YouTube
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At first, over the weekend, as this crisis unfolded, I thought His Fraudulency Joe Biden’s decision to remain at Camp David was a smart one. One way to downplay a calamity is to not add to the drama with presidential appearances. The thinking being: Americans want out of Afghanistan. Let the country fall. Just make sure the embassy is evacuated.
Well, little did I know, this administration was so caught off guard by the Taliban, there are still thousands of American civilians trapped in a country overrun by Islamic terrorists, which is the equivalent of being stuck behind enemy lines during World War II with a Nazi takeover.
Let’s examine just how abnormal and disturbing Biden’s behavior is…
We have thousands of American civilians — civilians— stuck in a country overrun by jihadists who hate us, the U.S. government has already admitted it has no idea when it can get them out, has already admitted it cannot protect them as they make their way to an airport where a flight might not be waiting for them, and the president of the United States, until late last night, was hiding out at Camp David.
What’s more, the messaging from the White House is in utter disarray. White House Press Secretary Lyin’ Ginger can’t even guarantee every American will make it out safely… And the president of the United States is hiding out at Camp David.
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And when I say “hiding out,” that’s not hyperbole.
Biden was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t walk out of his Camp David retreat to take a few questions or make a statement. He’s still not releasing statements that say things like: Nothing will be left undone to ensure every American is evacuated safely. Biden isn’t doing anything. He’s hiding. Even today, back at the White House, he’s hiding. Thousands of Americans are stuck in a foreign country overrun by our mortal enemies, and their president’s gone AWOL for four full days.
This is not normal.
And where’s her Vice Fraudulency Kamala Harris? There are rumors she’s keeping hours that would embarrass a banker, strolling into the office at, say, 9:30, 9:45…
This is not normal.
When thousands of America are trapped behind enemy lines, Americans want to hear from their president. They want to know the man they hired to do the job is doing the job, is in control, is engaged, and is on top of things. They want to be reassured someone is in charge.
This is not normal.
Never in the history of American politics have I seen a president disappear during a crisis like this, not with so many American lives at risk.
But I have seen this elsewhere…
In Russia, 1941, when Josef Stalin had a psychotic break.
In June of 1941, about an hour after Stalin went to bed and two years after signing a non-aggression pact with Hitler’s Germany, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, a full-fledged invasion of the Soviet Union.
Stalin was so shocked, so caught off guard, so unprepared, so humiliated, he fell completely apart, and for three full days, as the Nazis made historic advances, killed thousands, and drove towards Moscow, Stalin refused to do anything. He was completely out of touch as his country was ravaged. The reasons for his breakdown are obvious: every disastrous decision, every strategic and political mistake he’d made with Germany, had just come home to roost, and he had no idea what to do about it.
Eventually, Stalin got his act together and repelled the German invaders, but the cost to his country and tens of millions of Russians was almost unfathomable. Hopefully, that will not be the case here.
But that is exactly what an already mentally reduced Joe Biden is facing — the terrible, world-shaking consequences of his terrible decisions. He stupidly broke the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban, which gave the Taliban license to break all their promises and invade. He stupidly removed our troops before he removed our people. He stupidly removed our troops in the summer, when the Taliban are organized, instead of the winter, when they are all back home waiting out the frigid weather. He stupidly left behind billions and billions and billions of dollars in fully operational U.S. war equipment…
And now Biden’s up and disappeared, gone into hiding, gone AWOL… His administration is in utter disarray just like any government would be without someone in charge.
This is not normal.
U.S. President Joe Biden walks away after refusing to take questions after delivering remarks on the worsening crisis in Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House August 16, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
We are entering the fifth day of the greatest foreign policy/human rights disaster in decadesand the president of the United States is in hiding.
Thousands of Americans’ lives are at risk, and the president of the United States is hiding out, is incommunicado…
Something is seriously wrong with Joe Biden.
WaPo’s Ignatius: White House ‘Shell Shocked’ by ‘Defeat’ in Afghanistan
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on Thursday sounded off on President Joe Biden’s handling of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the ensuing Taliban takeover.
Ignatius, pointing to a combative Biden who defended his decision-making, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the White House is “really shell shocked” by the “defeat” they have been handed in Afghanistan.
“My sense, as I talk to people in the White House, watched these folks on TV, is that they are really shell shocked,” Ignatius stated. “This is a kind of defeat, a level of reversal that these folks have never known in their lives. These are people who have never gotten, you know, a bad grade in school, and suddenly they find the world collapsing around them. And I think it’s been really, really difficult for them to deal with this. It’s overwhelmed every other issue for the White House.”
“You can see it with President Biden, this defensiveness, almost brittleness,” he added. “He’s trying to talk tough, the buck stops here, you know, chaos was baked in, firm presidential lines of leadership, but even within the White House, I think there are people who wish he was being more compassionate, speaking more to the human suffering that he’s seeing around them than to the toughness and resoluteness of his own decision-making.”
Host Joe Scarborough agreed that Afghanistan has been a failure for the Biden administration, calling it a “diplomatic defeat” and a “catastrophic blow globally among our allies.”
US soldiers at Kabul airport this week. (Photo by Shakib Rahmami/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. military does not currently have the capability of extending its presence beyond the perimeters of the Kabul international airport, Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin said Wednesday when asked about people wanting to leave, being prevented from reaching the facility.
Asked at a briefing about people who “can’t get into the airfield,” Austin said, “We’re going to do everything we can to continue to try to deconflict [coordinate with the Taliban] and create passageways for them to get to the airfield.”
“I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul,” he said. “And where do you take that? I mean, how far can you extend into Kabul, you know, and how long does it take to flow those forces in to be able to do that?”
There are now some 4,500 U.S. military personnel on the ground at the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), with the focus on securing the airport and facilitating the safe departure of Americans, other nationals’ civilians, and at-risk Afghans.
The personnel include two U.S. Marine battalions, a battalion of soldiers from the Minnesota National Guard, an 82nd Airborne Division brigade, a U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division infantry battalion, and some special operations forces, according to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
Asked about the possibility of deploying troops to extract Americans wanting to get to the airport but stuck behind Taliban lines, Milley said the U.S. military had the capabilities but that taking such action would be “a policy decision.”
Austin then added, “I would draw a distinction between extracting someone in extremis condition or circumstance versus going out and collecting up large numbers of American citizens.”
Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin briefs reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday. (Photo by Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
“We don't have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people.”
Over the past 24 hours, around 2,000 passengers, including 325 American citizens, had been flown out of the country in 18 Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told a separate briefing.
He said the goal was to ramp up to having the capacity to evacuate 5,000-9,000 people a day, although the actual numbers each day would depend on many factors, including “the ability to process people through the gate and to do it safely.”
But with armed Taliban fighters patrolling and manning checkpoints, the difficulties some are experiencing in trying to reach the airport continues to be a concern.
“We have seen reports that the Taliban, contrary to their public statements and their commitments to our government, are blocking Afghans who wish to leave the country from reaching the airport,” Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman said at the State Department.
“Our team in Doha and our military partners on the ground in Kabul are engaging directly with the Taliban to make clear that we expect them to allow all American citizens, all third-country nationals, and all Afghans who wish to leave to do so safely and without harassment,” she said.
Sherman was asked about an alert sent out by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul – currently operating from the airport – to the effect that the U.S. government “cannot ensure safe passage” to the airport for Americans wanting to leave the country.
“I’m wondering what this says about the competency of this mission and also the U.S. confidence in the Taliban’s commitment to provide a safe passage to the airport that you’re telling these Americans, ‘You can go to the airport if you want, but you’re not necessarily going to get there safely,’” a reporter asked.
Sherman said Kabul was an “enormous city,” and “I don’t know of any government that would be capable of reaching out to where everybody might be.”
To her knowledge, no American wanting to get to the airport had been harassed by the Taliban or prevented from getting there, she said, while conceding that such incidents may have occurred.
“So far the track record is quite good for Americans getting to HKIA, and it appears that the Taliban’s commitment for safe passage for American citizens has been solid,” Sherman said.
“Again, I don’t know every case, so I’m not making a bottom-line assessment here. But, so far the experience seems to be one that has worked.”
About 11,000 people who “self-identify as American citizens” remain in the country, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.
President Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he aimed to get Americans out by the end of August – his earlier deadline for the U.S. troop withdrawal to be complete – but added, “if there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price also suggested that the timeline may be blurring.
“The fact of the matter is we are going to do as much as we can for as long as we can,” he said in response to a question about what happens after August 31. “If the window is two weeks, we will make the most of that window. If the window is slightly longer, we will make the most of that window.”
“We are in the first instance always going to prioritize the safety and security of our diplomats on the ground, of the service members who are providing force protection, who are facilitating many of these operations, Price said.
“But we know that with every passing day, we will be in a position to bring to safety, whether through repatriation or transfer to a third country, potentially thousands of additional Afghans.”
“So, we know that time is of the essence. We will do everything we can in the first instance to make the most of the time we have, but to potentially even explore if there is more time that we may have.”
Having created one crisis after another – e.g., a broken economy, a broken border, a broken energy supply and, now, a broken Afghanistan – you’d think that Biden would at least step up and lead us into some brave new Progressive future. That, though, is not how Biden rolls. Instead, he’s either played the blame game, hidden at Camp David or in Delaware, attacked Republican governors, dismissed as bagatelles the horrors in Afghanistan, and generally been weirdly disconnected.
I’ve already commented on Biden’s dreadful statement on Monday, during which he created a straw man by contending that the main issue was whether withdrawing from Afghanistan was the right thing to do. Of course, because few disagree with the decision to withdraw, the real issue was and is the utterly appalling mess the administration, whether in the White House, the Pentagon, or the State Department, made of the withdrawal.
However, Biden having presented his straw man knew where the fault lay: With Trump. It was Trump’s fault that Biden, who has systematically reversed everything Trump did, was forced to fall in with Trump’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan. But having done so, he bravely took responsibility for that unremarkable decision.
As for the real issue – the debacle – Biden knew where responsibility for that one lay as well: The Afghans. It was all their fault, he said, that when the Americans slipped away overnight, the Taliban were able to roll through Afghanistan, enriching themselves with American weapons, vehicles, and planes along the way. After making that speech, Biden practically ran out of the room and headed back to Camp David.
If you thought that speech was as low as it was possible for an American president to go, you underestimated Biden. On Wednesday, Biden sat for an interview with George Stephanopoulos and insisted that the Afghanistan debacle was “old news” and couldn’t have been avoided in any event:
President Joe Biden angrily defended his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying on Wednesday that chaos was unavoidable and snapping when asked about horrific images of Afghans falling from planes.
‘That was four days ago, five days ago,’ he said, even though the images of people falling to their deaths emerged on Monday.
[snip]
And in a second excerpt shared ahead of the chat, Biden also insisted he’d been told by his intelligence officials that Kabul would likely avoid falling to the Taliban until the end of 2021 - instead of the mere days it took.
‘There was no consensus if you go back and look at intelligence reports,’ the president said when asked if there had been intelligence failings. ‘They said that it’s more likely to be some time by the end of the year.’
Did you hear an echo of Hillary’s “what difference, at this point, does it make?” when Biden said the collapse is old news?
Tom Cotton was incandescent over the claim that the chaos was inevitable:
Biden also insisted that he’d get all Americans out...except he really meant only those the administration could get out by August 31. As for the others, “we’ll determine at the time who’s left,” whatever that means. Currently, the State Department has made it clear that Americans are on their own getting to the airport and Central Command refuses to allow troops to leave the airport to help them. No mention was made of the fact that the Biden administration deleted a comprehensive Trump-era plan for getting Americans home from emergency situations.
Also on Wednesday, Biden gave a speech – except it wasn’t about Afghanistan, which is the most important issue for most people. Instead, it was about Republican governors who refuse to get with the COVID program. He was especially enraged that these governors are “banning masks in school.” That is, of course, a complete lie. In Texas, Florida, and South Carolina, they’ve banned forced mask mandates. Those who wish to wear masks are free to do so. But Biden’s going to use the power of the federal government to crack down on those states.
Of course, the real issue is that creating a sense of crisis about COVID is how the Democrats are consolidating their power. As long as people are kept in a perpetual state of fear, they will freely hand their liberty to the government.
It's not just that the speech was false and inappropriate. Look at Joe’s affect. This is not a well man:
Having had his say and told his lies, Biden followed his instructions and vanished without taking questions:
The whole grim situation was best summed up in the comment someone named “BooggieMan” left on a Facebook page: “This entire ‘presidency’ is like being tied to a chair and watching a toddler play with a loaded pistol.”
He walked out of the room after his speech, ignoring shouted questions from reporters who stood watching in disbelief.
The president has locked down his schedule for Thursday as there are no public events scheduled and no press briefings.
Despite Biden’s failure to address the controversy, he may be trying to squeeze another long weekend at his home in Delaware during the month of August.
A Federal Aviation Administration flight restriction notice suggested that Biden would leave the White House for Delaware on Wednesday and remain there until August 23.
But the president remained at the White House on Wednesday evening as his staff called a lid for the day.
Stubborn Joe Biden Snaps, Falls Apart in Interview as Afghanistan Crisis Worsens
President Joe Biden continued to struggle with his response to the crisis in Afghanistan after days of hunkering down and seemingly waiting for the storm to blow over.
Faced with an outcry from the press over the president’s unwillingness to answer questions about the chaotic conclusion of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, Biden did an interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos at the White House to defend his actions.
The interview was the first time Biden took questions about the crisis in Afghanistan in eight days. But he did not appear prepared.
Biden snapped at Stephanopoulos for asking about Afghan people rushing a plane as it took off the runway in the airport in Kabul, some even falling to their deaths as it took off.
“That was four days ago, five days ago,” Biden replied sharply when asked about the images, trying to dismiss them entirely.
In fact, however, the incident occurred only two days ago, which Stephanopoulos did not press him on.
U.S soldiers stand guard inside the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Thousands of Afghans have rushed onto the tarmac at the airport, some so desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country that they held onto the American military jet as it took off and plunged to death. (AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani)
When asked what he thought about the images, Biden replied that he reacted by wanting the military to get in control of the situation — avoiding any sense of emotion about scenes that shocked the world.
“What I thought was, we have to gain control of this,” he said. “We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did.”
When Stephanopoulos asked if he could have handled the withdrawal better, Biden denied it.
“No. I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that — we’re going to go back in hindsight and look — but the idea that, somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” he said.
The president also appeared defiant against his critics in the interview, calling his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan a “simple choice” rather than a task that he and his team could have planned and executed much better.
“When you look at what’s happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution, or judgment?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“Look, it was a simple choice, George,” Biden said, arguing that he could have either stayed true to the withdrawal date of August 31 or extended it further with more troops.
But in recent days, Biden has already deployed 6,000 troops to Afghanistan to help facilitate the evacuation process as the security situation in the capital city of Kabul collapsed.
All of the conciliatory messages he shared with the public during his speech at the White House on Monday melted away.
When Biden was confronted with his assertion in July that the Taliban would not take over Afghanistan, Biden admitted that intelligence suggested the Afghanistan government would collapse by the end of the year.
Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Zabi Karimi)
“Well, the question was whether or not it — the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the — somehow, the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was going to just collapse, they were going to give up,” he said. “I don’t think anybody anticipated that.”
Under pressure from Stephanopoulos, Biden finally committed to leaving American troops in Afghanistan beyond the August 31 deadline if necessary, a commitment both his press secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refused to make during a press briefing on Tuesday.
Americans should understand that we’re going to try to get it done before August 31,” Biden said and added, “If we don’t, we’ll determine at the time who’s left.” And “if there are American — if there [are] American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.”
Biden continues to struggle with criticism of his sloppy exit from Afghanistan, but the White House does not appear willing to put him back on camera to answer more questions about it.
On Wednesday, the president tried to refocus America’s priorities on the coronavirus pandemic, spending more time attacking unvaccinated Americans and Republican governors than reassuring Americans that he would get all citizens out of Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 18: U.S. President Joe Biden gestures as he delivers remarks on the COVID-19 response and the vaccination program in the East Room of the White House on August 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. During his remarks, President Biden announced that he is ordering the United States Department of Health and Human Services to require nursing homes to have vaccinated staff in order for them to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding. The President also announced that Americans would be able to receive a third booster shot against Covid-19. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
He walked out of the room after his speech, ignoring shouted questions from reporters who stood watching in disbelief.
The president has locked down his schedule for Thursday as there are no public events scheduled and no press briefings.
Despite Biden’s failure to address the controversy, he may be trying to squeeze another long weekend at his home in Delaware during the month of August.
A Federal Aviation Administration flight restriction notice suggested that Biden would leave the White House for Delaware on Wednesday and remain there until August 23.
But the president remained at the White House on Wednesday evening as his staff called a lid for the day.
Poll: Biden Approval Drops to Lowest Level After Taliban Takeover
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—President Joe Biden's approval rating dropped by 7 percentage points and hit its lowest level so far as the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed over the weekend in an upheaval that sent thousands of civilians and Afghan military advisers fleeing for their safety, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The national opinion poll, conducted on Monday, found that 46% of American adults approved of Biden's performance in office, the lowest recorded in weekly polls that started when Biden took office in January.
It is also down from the 53% who felt the same way in a similar Reuters/Ipsos poll that ran on Friday.
Biden's popularity dropped as the Taliban brushed aside Afghan forces and entered the capital, Kabul, wiping away two decades of U.S. military presence that cost trillions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives.
A separate Ipsos snap poll, also conducted on Monday, found that less than half of Americans liked the way Biden has steered the U.S. military and diplomatic effort in Afghanistan this year. The president, who just last month praised Afghan forces for being "as well-equipped as any in the world," was rated worse than the other three presidents who presided over the United States' longest war.
(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Jonathan Oatis)
A majority of American voters believe President Joe Biden is a weak leader, according to a poll conducted this week amid the collapse of the Afghan government to the Taliban.
Fifty-three percent of registered voters who responded to the Economist/YouGov poll said Biden is weak, with 47 percent calling him strong. Thirty-nine percent said they believe Biden is a "very weak" leader. The poll queried 1,500 U.S. citizens from Aug. 14-17 and had a 3 percent margin of error.
The poll covered a period that saw Afghanistan fall into chaos in the aftermath of Biden's withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country. On Sunday, the Taliban captured Kabul and toppled the Afghan government, returning to power for the first time in 20 years. The United States and other Western countries rushed to evacuate their citizens and personnel while thousands of Afghans swarmed the Kabul airport in an attempt to escape. Some clung to aircraft and fell to their deaths as the planes took off.
Biden is underwater in a number of other metrics measured by the poll. A 44-percent plurality of voters said they are pessimistic about the next four years under Biden. Forty-nine percent of voters said they lack confidence in the president's ability to deal wisely with an international crisis, with only 39 percent expressing confidence. Biden campaigned in 2020 on a promise to restore American "credibility and influence" on the world stage.
A Reuters poll conducted Monday showed that Biden's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level yet.
Joe Biden Headed Back to Camp David to Resume His Vacation After Afghanistan Speech
President Joe Biden will return to Camp David on Monday evening to resume his vacation after returning to the White House for a few hours to deliver a speech defending his handling of the troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
The White House released an updated schedule for the president, confirming he would return to Camp David, where he was scheduled to vacation until Wednesday.
In his speech, Biden tried to emphasize the importance of ending the American-supported conflict in Afghanistan but failed to accept his incompetent execution of the troop withdrawals.
Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan’s 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city’s airport trying to flee the group’s feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
“I am president of the United States and the buck stops with me,” he said. “I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face but I do not regret my decision to end America’s warfighting in Afghanistan.”
But the president did not take questions from reporters about his failure in Afghanistan, as thousands of Americans remain stranded in the country.
Biden acknowledged he was overly optimistic of Afghanistan’s ability to defend itself.
“The truth is this did unfold more quickly than anticipated,” he said.
Earlier in the weekend, the president appeared reluctant to speak publicly as the crisis unfolded over the weekend, prompting heightened criticism of his handling of the situation as the capital city of Kabul fell under the Taliban’s control.
White House staff issued photos on social media of Biden taking video calls with national security and intelligence officials as proof he was taking the crisis seriously, but it did little to stem public criticism.
Staff also issued a 600-word statement in Biden’s name defending his actions but also tried to blame former President Donald Trump for the chaos taking place on his watch.
THE DANGERS OF LAWYERS IN THE WHITE HOUSE!
LAWYER JAKE SULLIVAN AND LAWYER JOE BIDEN. SEND THEM TO GITMO!
Jake Sullivan Presides Over Yet Another Foreign Policy Disaster
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is at the center of yet another U.S. foreign policy disaster. During the Obama administration, in his role as a top aide to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and then-vice president Joe Biden, the highly credentialed wunderkind presided over some of the most humiliating failures in the history of American foreign policy.
Sullivan's extensive experience as an architect of American failure in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Iran, and Myanmar, plus the fact that White House press secretary Jen Psaki is mysteriously out of the office, made him a natural choice to defend the Biden administration's handling of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
"It is certainly the case [that] the speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated," Sullivan said Monday during an interview with NBC's Savannah Guthrie, who also asked about President Joe Biden's assessment that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was "highly unlikely" and "there's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States," as there was in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.
Fact check: False. Kimberley Motley, an international human-rights attorney who has worked in Afghanistan for more than a decade, described the situation in the country as a "nightmare" that was "like Saigon on steroids."
Sullivan was unable to muster a compelling response. "To be fair, the helicopter has been the mode of transport from our embassy to the airport for the last 20 years," he said as the network rolled footage of Taliban militants streaming into Kabul.
In 2011, as a top adviser to then-secretary Clinton, Sullivan helped orchestrate the "kinetic military action" in Libya. Even though the intervention resulted in the death of dictator Muammar Qaddafi, it is widely viewed as a failure. The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was assassinated during the Benghazi terrorist attacks in 2012, and the country would eventually become a haven for Islamic State militants.
Less than a month before Stevens was killed, Sullivan was among the team of experts advising then-president Barack Obama on the escalating civil war in Syria. Obama warned Bashar al-Assad, the Russian-backed dictator, that the use of chemical weapons was a "red line" that would "change my calculus" regarding U.S. military action against the regime.
Assad crossed the red line on multiple occasions, and the United States responded by taking negligible action to deter the slaughter of civilians. Assad remained in power, Russia flexed its military muscle, and the Islamic State established a caliphate in northeast Syria, wreaking havoc in Iraq as well.
During an interview with the New Yorker in 2019, Sullivan said he considered it "a great regret of mine" that "we were not able to more effectively play a role in stopping hundreds of thousands of people from dying in Syria and millions and millions more losing their homes."
By 2014, Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" on chemical weapons in Syria had changed Vladimir Putin's calculus regarding Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Once again, the United States took no significant action to deter Russian forces from destabilizing the country and annexing Crimea. The conflict would claim thousands of lives, including the 298 people aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down with a Russian-made missile over eastern Ukraine.
Less than a month after Biden was sworn in as president, the government of Myanmar was ousted in a military coup conducted by individuals responsible for the genocidal atrocities perpetrated against the country's Rohingya population. Foreign Policymagazine called it "a failure of U.S. diplomacy orchestrated by some of [the Biden administration's] own players nearly a decade ago."
In other words, people like Jake Sullivan. In 2011, he was advising Clinton when she described meeting Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as an "inspiration" and touted the Obama administration's efforts in the country as a diplomatic victory. The celebration was short-lived. Aung San Suu Kyi would go on to assume a senior role in the country's government but would be widely condemned for her refusal to denounce the military's campaign of violence against the Rohingya.
Sullivan, who played a key role in negotiating the failed Iran nuclear deal in 2015, is currently leading the Biden administration's efforts to revive the controversial agreement. He will almost certainly have a major role in crafting the pathetic U.S. response to China's inevitable invasion of Taiwan. He is the Forrest Gump of American decline, and one of the best rebuttals to the American system of meritocracy.
None of these policy failures will hurt Sullivan's glowing reputation among members of the Liberal Élite. After all, his credentials are impeccable: Yale University (Phi Beta Kappa), Rhodes scholar, Yale Law School, Brookings Institution. He was a debate team champion and president of the student council in high school, where he was voted "most likely to succeed." He clerked for Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer and worked as chief counsel for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), where he was presumably traumatized by the abuse he suffered.
In any event, these colossal blunders will likely pale in comparison to what he will be able to accomplish as U.S. secretary of state in the Kamala Harris administration.
McConnell: Biden Ignored Military’s Advice on Afghanistan
'It was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen' if Biden bucked military advice, Senate minority leader says
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said President Biden directly ignored the advice of military leaders during briefings on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
"I was in a number of these briefings over the last couple months, it was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen," McConnell said Monday. "I know for a fact that the president's military leaders argued against this decision. I think the president himself felt strongly about this and overruled his own military leaders to do it, and he owns it."
McConnell slammed the Biden administration for its incompetent withdrawal of thousands of Americans and Afghans. Footage emerged Monday of havoc at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, that caused civilian casualties.
"Honestly, this administration looks to me like it couldn't organize a two-car funeral," McConnell said. "It is a sad day for the United States of America."
President Biden responded Monday to critics of his withdrawal, saying he stands by his decision.
"We will continue to support the Afghan people," Biden said. "The way to do it is not through endless military deployments, but diplomacy."
Poll: Nearly 70 Percent of Americans Disapprove of Biden’s Handling of Afghanistan
Nearly 70 percent of Americans disapprove of President Joe Biden's handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a national poll of likely voters.
The poll, conducted over the weekend by the Trafalgar Group, found that 69 percent of Americans disapprove of Biden's botched pullout, with nearly 60 percent saying they "strongly disapprove." Democrats also see the Biden administration's actions—which saw the Taliban take control of Afghanistan's civilian government in mere hours—as a failure. Forty-eight percent disapprove of Biden's military actions in the country, while just 40 percent approve.
The findings came as Biden prepared to address the American public on the ongoing crisis, cutting short his Camp David vacation. While Biden reportedly planned to wait a "few days" to discuss the fiasco, he returned to the White House Monday afternoon as U.S. evacuation efforts at the Kabul airport spiraled into a frenzy.
Just hours before Biden's scheduled speech, the White House released talking points on the issue, which state that the administration planned for a "quick fall" of Kabul. Just weeks before, however, Biden and top administration officials expressed confidence that Afghanistan's civilian government would retain control of the capital city for months, allowing American troops, civilians, and allies to exit safely.
"The jury is still out, but the likelihood there is going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely," Biden said in July.
According to Convention of States Action president Mark Meckler, the poll shows "there is absolutely no question that the American people are not buying the lies on Afghanistan."
"This is Saigon, and it's far worse," Meckler said in a statement.
Fmr CIA Analyst Zeller: Biden Lied, No Plan to Stop Allies Being Slaughtered by ‘Nazi’ Taliban
Former CIA analyst Matt Zeller told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace Monday on her show “Deadline” that President Joe Biden lied to the American people during his address on the chaotic evacuation of Afghans that worked with our military over the last 20 years.
On Biden’s speech, Zeller said, “I feel like I watched a different speech than the rest of you guys. I was appalled. There was such a profound bald-faced lie in that speech, the idea we planned for every contingency? I have been personally trying to tell this administration since it took office. I have been trying to tell our government for years this was coming. We sent them plan after plan on how to evacuate these people. Nobody listened to us. They didn’t plan for the evacuation of our Afghan war-time allies. They’re trying to conduct it now at the 11th hour.”
He continued, “I have Afghans on the ground right now who are telling me the Taliban going door to door in Kabul and making lists of people who used to work with us. They’re telling them with smiles on their face, evil smiles. They will be back for them once we leave. So we either take them now, or these people are going to die. I have been trying to tell anyone who will listen that this is a never-again moment in the making. This is an administration that seems to be a profound champion and defender of human rights. Well, sometimes, human rights have to be defended at the barrel end of a gun. The Taliban are a modern version of the Nazis.”
Zeller added, “I’m not going to sit and list eastbound to a president that I voted for. I was happy this man took office. I’m now appalled at that speech. I’m not going to sit here and have him lie to the American people. We did not plan as a government for this contingency. The American people, the advocates who have been pleading with the government, did plan for it. You can go to our website, evacuateourallies.org. We have had a plan. We have receipts. I put them on social media. No one got back with us. No, no, I’m not going to let them get away with this. We have to take these people. We have to take them now, or they are going to die.”
He concluded, “These people went on to the next unit and the next mission time and time and time again, and how dare us to even contemplate leaving them behind to, again, what I consider to be a modern equivalent of the Nazi Party.
Watch: In 2003, Joe Biden Defended Nation-Building in Afghanistan
President Joe Biden repeatedly condemned the idea of “nation-building” in Afghanistan during his speech on Monday, but in 2003 he defended the idea of standing with the Afghan people.
During a February hearing that year on rebuilding Afghanistan in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden warned the United States needed to stay involved in the country.
“In some parts in the administration, nation-building is still a dirty phrase but the alternative to nation-building is chaos,” Biden said, warning that the ensuing chaos only generated more terrorists, warlords, and drug trafficking.”
The Senate hearing took place with Interim President Hamid Karzai, where Biden defended the idea of staying in the country.
“The facts make one thing very clear, we have a great deal of work left to do in Afghanistan and a continued obligation to the men sitting in front of us to allow them to be able to do the work that needs to be done,” Biden said.
Biden warned that when warlords and drug traffickers took over a country, it became a haven for terrorism.
“That’s what happened under the Taliban and I believe if we’re not careful it’s going to happen again,” he said.
Dem Rep. Moulton: Current Afghanistan Operation a ‘Failure’ and Biden Didn’t Plan for This Situation
On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) said the ongoing operation in Afghanistan is a “failure” and President Joe Biden’s claim that his administration planned for every possibility in Afghanistan is false, because “if they had planned for this contingency, then they would have gotten our friends and allies out of Afghanistan a long time ago” like some in Congress urged the administration to, and then “we wouldn’t see the chaotic scenes at Kabul Airport today.”
Moulton said, “[W]hat matters today is the operation that’s ongoing in Afghanistan. That’s the failure that we’re talking about. That’s the operation that we need to fix. Because there are thousands of innocent lives on the line, and, make no mistake, it is still within the power of the United States to save those lives. So, I appreciate the fact that Joe Biden made, in some ways, a compelling case for his decision, but what we should be focused on right now is what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan.”
He added, “Well, the president said in his speech that they planned for every contingency. But if they had planned for this contingency, then they would have gotten our friends and allies out of Afghanistan a long time ago. And that’s why I’ve been calling on the administration, for the last several months, to evacuate our allies, to evacuate American citizens, dispense with this bureaucratic special immigrant visa process, you can sort that out once they get to a safe place, just get these people out. If they had done that, we wouldn’t see the chaotic scenes at Kabul Airport today. So, I don’t see how he can make the case that he planned for this contingency. It’s clearly catching us by surprise.”
Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) argued the warnings signs for what has occurred in Afghanistan after the precipitous U.S. withdrawal of military forces were ignored by the Biden administration.
The Florida Republican said the vacuum left behind could also mean the return of al Qaeda to the region.
“Sean, not just did I tell them, but it was a bipartisan warning, OK?” he said. “You look at the intelligence, you look at everything before us, it was clear that not only it was the worst-case scenario out there, it was the likeliest outcome that was going to happen, and we kept insisting, what is the plan of this happens? What is the plan? And they arrogantly, and they smugly ignored it. They ignored everyone who was warning them because they’re the experts, they know everything, and now we’ve seen the consequences.”
“There are two things now to keep in mind,” Rubio continued. “Number one is Joe Biden was elected promising competence, the return on normalcy, the return of expertise to foreign policy, and we see that they can’t even execute on something like this and ignore the people who know something about it. That does encourage people like China — countries like China and other adversaries not just to go out and try to undermine confidence in America, but actually test America and think they can get away with it.”
“And the other is something that the Pentagon’s already saying, and we’ve already been saying for close to nine months, the biggest problem here is going to be now that al Qaeda is coming back to Afghanistan, let there be no doubt,” he added. “They are coming back. They will reconstitute. They will pose a threat again, and this administration has no plan whatsoever to prevent that from happening.”
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