Afghanistan: Biden Admin Pleads Taliban to ‘Spare’ U.S. Embassy, Russia and China Hold Joint Military Drill
“In just the last 24 hours, the country’s second- and third-largest cities — Herat in the west and Kandahar in the south — have fallen to the insurgents as has the capital of the southern Helmand province…”
As Taliban forces advance on Afghan capital Kabul, President Joe Biden’s administration is pleading with the Islamic terrorist militia to “spare” the U.S. Embassy.
The Biden White House threatened to withhold U.S. aid to the country if the diplomatic mission is attacked. “American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul if the extremist group takes over the country’s government and ever wants to receive foreign aid, three American officials said,” The Times reported.
News reports suggest that the Taliban’s gains come as a big surprise to the Biden White House, and 3,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers are being dispatched to Afghanistan to facilitate an orderly evacuation. “Faced with unexpectedly rapid military gains by the Taliban, the United States decided on Thursday to dramatically scale down its embassy in Kabul and send about 3,000 troops temporarily to aid the evacuation of staff,” Reuters reported on Thursday.
The UK has also undertaken similar measures. “Paratroopers are being rushed back to Kabul to evacuate thousands of British and Afghan citizens as the Taliban tighten their hold on Afghanistan,” The Times of London reported on Friday.
The Taliban forces have encircled Kabul, with key cities and supply routes falling into their hands. Significant victories for the jihadis came on Friday, as they seized Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, and captured the capital of Helmand province. They now control 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals.
The Associated Press reported the Islamic terror group’s rapid advance as of Friday:
The Taliban completed their sweep of the country’s south on Friday as they took four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that is gradually encircling Kabul, just weeks before the U.S. is set to officially end its two-decade war.
In just the last 24 hours, the country’s second- and third-largest cities — Herat in the west and Kandahar in the south — have fallen to the insurgents as has the capital of the southern Helmand province, where American, British and NATO forces fought some of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.
The blitz through the Taliban’s southern heartland means the insurgents now hold half of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals and control more than two-thirds of the country — weeks before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops. The Western-backed government in the capital, Kabul, still holds a smattering of provinces in the center and east, as well as the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
With U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan by next month, China seeks to fill the power vacuum. Beijing has shown willingness to work with the Taliban. “China is preparing to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government,” Politico reported on Friday.
The Taliban is equally eager to embrace its Communist neighbor to the north. Last month, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen described China as a “welcome friend” in a future Mujahideen-governed Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is key to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the multi-billion dollar railway and road network that links the Asian giant to Europe and the Middle East. “China has said it will seek to expand substantially Belt and Road Initiative projects to Afghanistan and deepen the ‘dialogue mechanism’ for the region, in an apparent effort to raise its influence after the US withdraws its troops from the country,” the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post reported in June.
China is projecting its power in the region by staging a joint military exercise with Russia, the former soviet-era big brother now acting as Beijing’s junior partner.
The drill highlights growing military ties between Beijing and Moscow. “For the first time the two armies used a joint command and control system,” The South China Morning Post reported on Friday.
“About 10,000 troops from China and Russia are carrying out joint military exercises in northwestern China to test some of the People’s Liberation Army’s newest weapons and signal unity on common security concerns such as Afghanistan,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
[Author served as personal assistant to the German ambassador to Uzbekistan during the early years of U.S. deployment in Afghanistan]
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At least there are no mean tweets right. sarc.
When it comes to failure, Biden is no slacker. He gives it 150%.
This Roert Gates quote is aging well
“Joe Biden has been wrong on almost every foreign policy and national security issue for the last four decades.’”
Robert Gates
Man… Took less than a year to go from holding them by the nose and kicking them in ass to begging them not be mean to us.
Pathetic…
this is what we are reduced to: begging.
The United States BEGGING for someone to be nice to us.
We should be warning them that the will vanish if they attack the embassy, and actually follow through. Such an attack is an act of war.
“President Joe Biden’s administration is pleading with the Islamic terrorist militia”
Now there’s something he could put Kamala in charge of.
No one in his administration has more experience on her knees.
Nah. Just follow the money. You’ll find it stuffed in Biden’s pockets, Pelosi’s pockets, Kerry’s pockets, Obama’s pockets, McConnell’s pockets, Lloyd Austin’s pockets — just keep going. And then there’s Kamala Harris, whose pockets are in waiting (if not her orafices).
Our government is COMPLETELY corrupted. Every fubar nowadays is about the corrupt hacks in charge making bank.
Then there are the Lori Lightfoots, Eric Garcettis, Bill Di Blasios, Alexandra Cortez’s: these people are put in place as distractions from the looting at the federal level.
Lori lightfoot must be president!
The return of the Taliban is something that will haunt the US down the road. But a far more immediate problem is the stolen 2020 presidential election and the rise of the American Communist regime that seeks to put its jackboot on our collective necks.
Still … at least there are no more mean Tweets, amirite?!
Oh, and the Generals (who had zero problems when Joe Biden threatens American citizens with F-15s and Nukes) sure did pwn Tucker Carlson, didn’t they? LOLZ!!
If you are Lloyd Austin, and you are in the pocket of Raytheon, future (and coming) war is good for your bank account. .
Biden Defense Pick to Get Up to $1.7 Million From Raytheon Role:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-10/biden-defense-pick-to-get-up-to-1-7-million-from-raytheon-role
And Austin is a but a new moron on the block. Imagine the wealth Pelosi, Kerry, Biden, Bush, Feinstein, McConnell and the like have squirreled away?
Thoroughly predictable and what happens when you have generals more concerned with ‘diversity’ than with winning a fucking war. Afghanistan has been a joke forever, it’s a playground for graft and corruption of contractors and the corrupt and incompetent Afghan government being propped up because MAH DAMACRACY.
The trash Democrat loyalists in charge were more concerned with the APPEARANCE of stability than actual stability.
Under the current crop of fools we could stay there for 20 more years and the same thing would happen.
Look on the bright side: the self-declared geniuses who run the US military will keep their 76-year losing streak intact. When it comes to futility, incompetence, and bone-headed stupidity, not even the ‘62 Mets can match our woke Pentagon brass.
And can the Mets boast of getting thousands of American soldiers killed for no reason whatsoever, maiming thousands more, and leaving still thousands more with PTSD and homelessness while the top brass focuses laserlike on white nationalism, Twitter wars, and using the correct pronouns?
So……..uh……….hooray?
The ‘diversity’ bit is a feint. It’s about MONEY.
The Taliban has major military units within 50 miles of Kabul. Herat and Kandahar are now controlled by the Taliban.
Kabul will fall to the Taliban by next Friday. No one will stop them; no current member of the Afghan government or Afghan National Army will put themselves in the way. The psychology is clear: the Taliban have won, and they’re coming with blood in their eyes.
Get ready for more bloodbaths. Does anyone think the Taliban aren’t already executing a fair number of their opponents in the cities they’ve just taken? So it will be in Kabul, though the western media won’t report it.
Afghanistan is gone. It was never really a nation, and it certainly won’t be one now.
And of course all the warmongering RINO morons will never asked to be consistent.
Namely asked that if, as they claim, we are in Afghanistan to suppress the Taliban, why the fuck the Taliban are capable of putting 70,000 fighters in the field mere months after we started to pull out.
It’s almost like the whole ‘suppressing the Taliban’ was total bullshit and that’s the excuse they used to keep the graft and corruption money flowing to all their contractor cronies.
A lot of US weapons left for the Afghanistan military seems to be ending up in the hands of the Taliban.
It would be ironic – although not surprising – if some of those weapons eventually ended up in the hands of BLM and Antifa to be used in “mostly peaceful protests”.
It would also not be surprising if some of our military contractors started sending salesmen to Afghanistan to sell the Taliban spare parts and other supplies for the captured equipment.
GE certainly. The only thing American with them is their mailing address.
The guns of our military will soon be turning against us (us ‘terrorists’, that is). The Taliban are a distraction.
DHS Issues New Terrorism Threat Alert as 9/11 Anniversary Approaches:
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-08-13/dhs-issues-new-terrorism-threat-alert-as-9-11-anniversary-approaches
Your optimism is commendable. Will the Taliban prevent the Marines from landing or shut down the airport once they’ve landed? Planes landing, taking off, and parked are the most vulnerable. At least in Vietnam helicopters from carriers could reach Saigon. My expectation is Kabul will be much worse than Saigon. Video will be posted on the internet.
Kabul is at the far end of a long supply line. The administration is begging the Taliban to respect the embassy. Do they understand to whom they are speaking? The embassy will be a prime target because we value it.
under 30 miles if reports from this morning are correct.
Hey, that’s a pretty good deal. Biden’s Admin promises the Taliban they can attack all the cities and take over the country and still receive foreign aid from the US as long as they promise not to hurt our embassy. We’ve been fighting to protect that country for twenty years and didn’t realize all we really needed to do was just ask the Taliban to not hurt our embassy. It wouldn’t surprise me if Biden’s Admin said pretty please.
Come on Dems make a sign “#don’t take over our embassy”.
And, Does anyone know where all those left over WIN buttons went? Repurposing, you know c
Benghazi ….anyone? anyone?
Libya, yes. Ukraine, too. Iraq before that in a prelude to transcontinental (world) war.
Well Russia will, once again, intervene, with Chinese interests leading the way. Trump is gone, our military is undergoing transgender conversion therapy, and taking a knee to diversity, inequity, and exclusion, and Biden will sustain a legacy of unforced defeat.
Maybe he will send Tranny Team One to rescue hostages in a sand storm too.
On 9/11/21 the Joseph Goebbels media will focus most of its coverage on the real threat to national security: White nationalism. People claiming to be survivors (or families of survivors) of the attack on the Twin Towers, NY fire and police, soldiers who fought in Afghanistan will all solemnly inform us that the rise of “right wing hate” (read: opposition to the Biden* regime) was the real cause of the terrorist attacks two decades ago.
Oh – and Governors DeSantis and Abbott are trying to kill everyone on the planet with the Delta Tau Chi variant of the Wuflu, or something. Whatever.
Meanwhile, the Taliban will party like it is 9/11/01 on the streets of Kabul.
Surprised? These are the people who didn’t give a s**t about the diplomatic staff, including the ambassador, in Benghazi; all that they wanted was to see their “Arab spring” fantasy continue…. Of course they will be avoiding anything that makes their withdraw look like a mistake. Its all about the optics.
There should be a carpet bombing starting about 10 minutes after the last people have been extracted…. to destroy all the infrastructure and equipment left behind and take out all who wish to get close to the embassy.
Please don’t hurt us and we’ll give you our money. Great message of strength.
I just hope the folks on ground prioritize the primary mission; evacuate the staff, then the visa applicants without being tempted to avoid bad media or photos. While ensuring contingency plans are realistic with a very loose ROE.
If it takes helicopters on the roof then do it. Don’t put lives at risk trying to avoid photos of lines of bedraggled folks to board an aircraft. Y’all don’t have long to get it accomplished.
The visa applicants are going to get cut loose. The pieces of trash like Miley are more concerned with optics than helping them.
Likely true. The part I don’t understand is that all the Afghan nationals who were terps or otherwise worked closely enough with US forces all had some differential level of clearance/background vetting. They have a work history with multiple reporting periods from US government employers.
Why is it so difficult? They have a better, clearer snapshot of whether they are eligible for resettlement in the US than almost any other people who apply for asylum.
I suspect that the Biden Admin State Dept was dragging their heels and significantly overestimated the timeline. I don’t know one Veteran who didn’t see this coming almost exactly as it is playing out.
Many of our Afghan “partners” were extremely corrupt and completely immoral. The US chose one of the many tribes to rule over the rest of them and now that tribe is going to receive its just desserts, 20 years and more than a trillion spent, all for nothing. Nothing but lies and fairy tales. 20 years they could have united all the disparate factions and shared power and the largesse from the crazy Americans. Nope, they were too dumb and corrupt to even try. Now, as the last cities fall they want to buy Russian attack helicopters, lol. Great load of good those did for the Soviets in Afghanistan.
No, not many. Almost all are corrupt by Western standards, though not by their cultural standards, which is beside the point.
Here we are discussing the terps and other Afghans who are already vetted and already have a performance history. They are either reliable or not.
Set a basic easily discernable standard for qualifying, apply that standard, select who qualifies and ship them out. The rest who didn’t meet the standard ban eff off; actions have consequences.
In any event we already have the information needed for this small group. It shouldn’t take months to select and transport them.
IMO, the gov’t dragged their feet to create another reason to delay the departure of US forces. Slow walking the implementation of decisions from higher HQ you disagree with is a time honored tradition.
“Afghanistan: Biden Admin Pleads Taliban to ‘Spare’ U.S. Embassy, Russia and China Hold Joint Military Drill ”
In short, Joseph Stolen begs, real men set aside differences and make plans.
The new American army
https://giphy.com/gifs/stickr-monty-python-military-fairy-x0unEoXB4F87m?utm_source=media-link&utm_medium=landing&utm_campaign=Media%20Links&utm_term=
Nation-building in Afghanistan was doomed to fail from the start. The government and politicians have been lying to us for 20 years about all the progress they were making. There was zero progress.
We could shortly see a cascading preference change. Everybody will see who is the strong horse. Tomorrow morning all is Taliban because refusal is suicide.
And we will see a rise in islamic terrorism throughout the world because of the inept Biden admin.
A little late to the party Joe!!
In the same week as Biden begs the Taliban to not take the embassy (and to be very, very nice), he asks OPEC (really, Saudi Arabia) to increase oil production.
This is after an assault on domestic oil production AND committing diplomatic arson by attacking Mohamed bin Salman publicly over the murder of Khashoggi. He makes the US look like fools in the world’s eyes.
Next, he will attack inflation by spending few trillion dollars that the US doesn’t have. And he’ll raise taxes to destroy capitalism and “white supremacy.”
It’s pathetic. It’s horrible. It’s the #AmericanCulturalRevolution
people call me all sorts of names for advocating use of tactical nukes. when an entity is our enemy the goal should be to annihilate (not decimate as many people wrongly use, I want to kill more than 10% of them) the enemy with as little loss to our service members lives as possible.
yet from Korea onwards are goal has been fight to a draw using our citizens lives as the fodder of attrition.
Well, Son Of A Bitch…..this isn’t working out quite like Ukraine is it Joe?
How hypocritical are both Muslim terrorists and Chinese communists? The former groups in Iran and in the Taliban are happy to get into bed with China, despite its persecution of Muslims in China, while the Chinese communists are happy to get into bed with Muslim terrorists, despite their crackdown on all religions, generally, and, “Submission,” in particular.
When these evildoers are willing to align with each other as a marriage of convenience, we should rightly be concerned.
They won’t need our money.
China will give Afghanistan all the aid they want if the Taliban gives the world the optic of a weak, pathetic USA.
That embassy is coming down or the Taliban flag is going on top of it.
Or both.
Why are we leaving any Americans there?