America is cowering in place
Finally paid off the family sedan. Took forever. Paid way too much. Too many costly repairs. Now that we own it free and clear we’re leaving it at the curb for whatever lawless, illiterate punks want to take it for a joy ride. Keys in it, full tank of gas — but no liability insurance. So be careful out there! The streets of Madison just became a little more dangerous.
Surrendering to reckless drivers. Tired of fighting the social justice warriors. Mayor Satya and Progressive Dane alders like Nikki Conklin and Yannette Figueroa Cole are free to attack the police.
Hard-working shop keepers can stay boarded up. More gay lawmakers will beaten in the streets. Remaining statues of historic heroes will be toppled, opposition leaders shouted down.
Escape to safe haven in Waunakee and Fitchburg while you can.
It was an analogy, people!
The United States did expend too much blood and treasure in Afghanistan.
But we got to where we had a small footprint: 2,500 boots on the ground — fewer than in Korea. We were spending less than one percent of the Pentagon budget, with the ability to snuff out incipient terrorist groups, and provide logistic support for the indigenous fighters. This in the world’s most unstable region. For our 20-year investment (compared to 70 in Korea) we suffered not a single terrorist attack on American soil. Thursday 08-26-21 a retreating America suffered more combat deaths than in 10 years.
Our incredulous allies are watching the United States of America cut and run, bug out, turn tail. As the Wall Street Journal laments, dependent “on the victorious enemy that has spent years trying to kill Americans to detect jihadists bent on killing Americans.”
We reaped that bitter harvest even before abandoning our ally. The Taliban is either unable or unwilling to stop one of the seemingly endless variants of ISIS or al Qaeda from killing innocents.
“Kabul is new capital city of global jihad.”
— U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-NB
Christmas morning for terrorists
The satiric Babylon Bee jests that the Taliban is opening a chain of Army Surplus stores. Don’t you get the hardware out after you get the people out and before you abandon Bagram? (An accounting here.) A highly defensible air force base? (The Taliban has no air power.)
Give him credit, Joe Biden delivered an empathetic — and at times, powerful speech Thursday afternoon. Tied the heartache of the loss of his son Beau (Abel to Hunter’s Cain) to the death of 13 U.S. military and now up to 170 Afghans, plus scores more injured. Vowed “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Good one-syllable Anglo-Saxon words in the mode of Churchill. But as policy it was shameful. Joe is more Neville than Winston. Could we not have told the Taliban we leave when we get our people, our friends, and our stuff the hell out!? You decide whether that is sooner or whether that is later?!
We will make the terrorists pay? How? We may have “over the horizon” ability but drones and jet fighters need someone to paint the target. Who would that be? Our Afghan ears and eyes either have left aboard Air Force C-17s or are cowering in their basements on some crooked street, fearing that midnight knock on the door.
The Dispatch asks, “Given the West’s apparent foreknowledge of an impending attack, how were Islamic State jihadists able to carry it out so successfully?”
China says thank you
Had to evacuate in order to concentrate on China? China just took title to Afghanistan’s lithium deposits.
Speaking of Trump, which we weren’t, David French writes, “Trump wanted out, and he wanted to get out sooner than Biden. In fact, he agreed to leave in May, and he recently bragged about putting in place a process that Biden “couldn’t stop.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Thursday’s slaughter in Kabul says America will be forced to return to Afghanistan — minus the assets for which we had paid so dearly. We were winning. We just didn’t know it.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
21 responses to “Snatching defeat from victory”
Bin Laden got out on a mule.
Peggy Noonan lays blame on GW et al for not getting Bin Laden when we could have on 2001.
Instead, the US focus went to Bush’s fiasco in Iraq.
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Churchill?!????
Who hacked this blog?
Biden nearly fell asleep yesterday in front of the cameras.
His son died of cancer not combat, or a terror attack, and he wasn’t abandoned in Afghanistan like we are about to see happen with countless American citizens.
What the F?
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Good points. But this blogged condemned the man’s feckless policy.
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Yes you did. But CHURCHILL?!!! I am trying to imagine in what universe he would nearly fall asleep in front of the world after this absolute disaster of a withdrawal that may only get much, much worse. The toll from the terror attack yesterday includes 3 Britons, one a child, and I doubt Churchill would have been lulled into a state of near-sleep after waxing lyrical about his late mother.
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I think I wrote one-syllable words like Churchill but policy more like Neville Chamberlain.
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Not to mention the fact that the Administration virtually went into hiding after the chaos started. It took something like 24 hours after the carnage for Biden to talk to the media?? I expect my president to be front and center immediately, and available to the press during times of crisis.
And did you catch Biden say something like “I was instructed to talk to (said reporter) first.”
Instructed? The President of the United States is being INSTRUCTED on whom to talk to first?
The man clearly has cognitive issues. I feel badly for him personally, but that doesn’t mean he has the capacity to be the leader of the freest nation in the world. That people around him allowed this to happen, and that Republicans aren’t more forcefully demanding accountability for this sham is shameful.
Indeed, what the F?
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Biden’s speech reminded me of the runt who just got beaten to a pulp by the neighborhood bully; he waits until the bully is out of earshot, then blusters about how he’ll get even.
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Kamala speaks for the entire Washington Party when she says “They’re not going to pin this shit on me!”
We must beg our enemy’s permission to save our people.
And there is no what else. Unless its OK with our enemy,
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“Kamala speaks for the entire Washington Party when she says “They’re not going to pin this shit on me!”
The political class are like pigs at the trough.
It’s why we were willing to endure Trump’s arrogance and “mean” tweets. I’m pretty certain that the families of those soldiers and of those innocent Americans & allies who are stranded, are getting burned alive, beaten, and having their heads lopped off feel the same about now.
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I thought Dave C was writing a guest column for you. The naive idealism expressed here boggles the mind. The truism is proven correct – Afghanistan is where empires go to die. Hopefully this does not turn out to be our whimpering Waterloo.
We never had control of Afghanistan. We were occupiers. We literally shoveled money into the place by the pallet load. We spent $300_million_dollars per day there – https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/08/16/the-war-in-afghanistan-cost-america-300-million-per-day-for-20-years-with-big-bills-yet-to-come/?sh=3d5de1247f8d
Here’s a quote from the Afghanistan Papers, published in WaPo:
“One unidentified contractor told government interviewers he was expected to dole out $3 million daily for projects in a single Afghan district roughly the size of a U.S. county. He once asked a visiting congressman whether the lawmaker could responsibly spend that kind of money back home: “He said hell no. ‘Well, sir, that’s what you just obligated us to spend and I’m doing it for communities that live in mud huts with no windows.’ ”
From the Forbes article above:
“And the costs are even greater in terms of lives lost. There have been 2,500 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan, and nearly 4,000 more U.S. civilian contractors killed. That pales beside the estimated 69,000 Afghan military police, 47,000 civilians killed, plus 51,000 dead opposition fighters. The cost so far to care for 20,000 U.S. casualties has been $300 billion, with another half-trillion or so expected to come.”
This is an epic f-up on a scale never seen before in US history.
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I remember a Vietnam War combat veteran pleading with me not to enlist in the Army. He tried his best to explain that the Global War on Terrorism is a money laundering scheme with the sole purpose of lining the pockets of the global financial syndicate. As a headstrong seventeen-year-old, I knew better. What a fool I was.
More war only creates more death for us and more money for the International ***.
Also, the people who hate us for our freedom are not the Taliban. It’s our own government.
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Agree with you and Michael L. And thank you for your service!
We should have gotten out long ago and yes, Afghanistan was a wealth creator. That people prioritize their power and wealth over lives is unfathomable to me.
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“Trump wanted out, and he wanted to get out sooner than Biden. In fact, he agreed to leave in May, and he recently bragged about putting in place a process that Biden “couldn’t stop.”
Biden undid just about every policy Trump ever put into place, but now that it hits the fan, it’s somehow Trump’s fault that we planned a May withdrawal?
The argument isn’t about whether we should have gotten out, but HOW we got out.
I’m not a military strategist but if you were planning an exit, wouldn’t you FIRST have a contingency plan for every American and ally months ahead of time instead of letting them fend for themselves? The fools in the State Dept couldn’t even tell us how many Americans were still stranded. Telling Americans to find their way to the airport, that they couldn’t be responsible for their safety? And we’re actually negotiating with the Taliban? Are you freaking kidding?
Also, wouldn’t you secure all our military equipment and make it clear to the Taliban that if any American is hurt, that there would be hell to pay?
The “exit” strategy was a disaster, as was his speech. Can’t believe people are defending either, or even having the audacity to claim that 1/6 was worse than this.
I get that people hate Trump, but so much so that you let that hatred cloud your good judgment? Country first, then party.
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Don’t disagree. Biden could have undid Trump’s declaration. Doesn’t make Trump right. Proves the opposite.
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And no, Trump wouldn’t have left our people to flounder like this. He sure as holy H wouldn’t have negotiated with the Taliban or hid more than 24 hours before giving media interviews. And he wouldn’t have said “I’ve been instructed to call on your (reporter) first.”
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You have an uncanny ability to predict the past.
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A good predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Trump has always been forceful with our enemies. Democrats negotiate with them.
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The fact that fewer than 3,000 troops held bad folks at bay, and gave succor to the Afghan government is noteworthy. That the Afghan government left immediately after the withdrawal announcement puts the blame squarely on the fecklessness of that correctly termed S’hole country. But the further acquiescence of the current administration will be infamous. And the US monetary costs in the future will beyond our belief. One step FWD, 2 steps back….
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“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to eff hings up.”
— Barack Hussein Obama
And BHO knows a thing or two about effing things up.
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Oh boy drone strikes after damage is done. Why not when these fundamentalists were province hopping in toyotas. Churchillian wow david, yeah his speech writers got the job done. So much warm fuzzys cuz orange man bad is gone. The last time saw a such black spaced saucers for eyes it was ted thompson for packers gm and he clearly was addled his las few years as gm of the packers. This man is in charge of the football
Seriously , churchillian. In the words of van halen. Come on dave, give me a break!
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Any foreign leader, coming to meet Po’ Slo’ Joe or the Ho’ has to ask only one question:
“How much does Hunter need?”
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