Posted on 08/18/2021 4:05:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
Like most Americans, the debacle surrounding the fall of Afghanistan’s capital city to the Taliban caused me great concern. In fact, we are witnessing failures of leadership decision-making and foreign intelligence analysis worse than any in modern history; certainly, worse than the failures that lead to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
To a degree, this conclusion is based on my personal experiences of having lived in that part of the world in my youth (I graduated from high school in Tehran, for example), having worked at the CIA for eight years in the 1970s, and having served in the Congress before, during, and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Even without this background, however, the many negative short and long-term ramifications of this debacle cannot be overestimated.
Broadly speaking, there is more than enough blame to go around leading to the dismal situation in Afghanistan that President Biden inherited on January 20th, including mistakes by all three of his immediate predecessors (one Democrat and two Republican). But the final series of decisions – or non-decisions – leading directly to this fiasco, were made by this administration, and efforts by Biden to shift blame to others is an act of cowardice.
The lenses through which this administration viewed events in Afghanistan were deep rose-colored. This caused them to overlook the otherwise obvious weaknesses in both the Afghan military and its civilian government. They persisted in the narrative that the fall of Kabul to the Taliban was only a “possibility,” and certainly not an “inevitability.” Even worse, they concluded that this possibility was months away, and therefore we had adequate time to arrange for an orderly exit.
Last weekend’s collapse of both the Afghan civilian leadership and its military was either not foreseen at all by Biden, or even worse its fact was presented to him and ignored.
Regardless of which of these two horrible options prevailed over the past several weeks, during the course of 20 years, 2,300 military lives lost, and two trillion dollars, it appears that the Intelligence Community screwed up so badly as to make the pre-9/11 intelligence failure pale by comparison.
Whether our military leadership tried to save face after failing to mold the Afghan army into some semblance of a fighting force after two decades of tutorial, or whether civilian intelligence is simply that ineffective in the Middle East (even inside a country the U.S. government effectively ran), there is no legitimate way to attribute the gulf between expectations and reality in Afghanistan to a “miscommunication” or “bad intel.”
What appears to have happened is beyond fundamentally incompetent, and borders on intentional and deceptive.
The intelligence shortcomings resulting in our failure to stop the 9/11 terror attacks were devastating, but for the most part played out behind the scenes. Also, the 9/11 attacks were an American tragedy; they did not undercut our reputation with allies, or adversaries. If anything, the attacks engendered a rare bit of empathy from the international community, while providing an opportunity to remind the world the dangers of awakening the “sleeping giant filled with terrible resolve.”
Afghanistan’s fall is far different. The intelligence failures here happened in real-time, on live television, across the world. Worse, rather than being exclusively an American blunder, the international coalition of allies who helped with the U.S. effort means the decades of blood and treasure lost this week are theirs to share as well. There is no question their anger and distrust will reverberate years down the road if the United States seeks future coalitions.
America’s adversaries will be emboldened at our stunning defeat in Afghanistan. Already China is looking to move into the vacuum left in America’s wake, and seizing the opportunity to escalate saber-rattling over Taiwan. Their enhanced foothold in the Middle East will be employed to weaken ours. Had policy makers in Washington – Republican and Democrat – cared to read the long history of China and the so-called “Silk Road,” some in Washington might have seen this coming; but apparently not.
American citizens and the rest of the freedom-loving world, deserve better than what our Intelligence Community has become – a dangerous hive of self-serving bureaucrats.
As with the 9/11 Commission, Congress owes it to us all to find the truth behind the fall of Afghanistan, and the role America’s civilian and military intelligence services played in the government’s decision-making. If answers and learning do not then follow, the damage to our national security will be brutal and long-lasting.
Spark in the center fuel tank.
Countries all over the globe are now importing Afghani refugees.
Seems to me this serves the purposes of various Deep States.
Spoken like a career political hack who hasn't earned an honest living in his life.
Congress needn't waste its time with such nonsense, because no rational American has any reason to trust Congress on this any more than we'd trust the 9/11 Commission.
This is not an intelligence failure. The “intelligence community” is no ally. They’re enemies of all that is decent and good in this world.
If people don’t recognize that after all of the so-called intelligence failures of the past few decades, they never will - imbeciles.
Exactly!
Was it an intelligence failure? Or did the intel agencies know and the administration ignored them?
Blinken family probably happy:
21 June 2021: World Tribune Special: Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s family ties to George Soros run root deep
There is an archive at George Soros’ Central European University in Hungary named for Donald Blinken, now 95, and his second wife, Vera, who survived the Holocaust, in part for their support of the “democratization process in the United States and in Hungary.”
The archive is actually named the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives.
Donald Blinken is mentioned in Soros’s Open Society Foundations’ 2005 Annual Report as a Board of Trustees member (right alongside George Soros himself) for the progressive globalist billionaire’s Central European University, which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has labored to shut down as an institution seeking to destroy Hungary...
https://www.worldtribune.com/secretary-of-state-antony-blinkens-family-ties-to-george-soros-run-root-deep/
Wikipedia: Antony Blinken
Blinken attended the Dalton School in New York City until 1971. He then moved to Paris with his mother Judith and Samuel Pisar, whom she married following her divorce from Donald. Pisar was the lawyer and confidant of British publisher Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken
with that idiot in the people’s house it’s hard to tell.
failure for some means success for others:
18 Aug: Arutz Sheva: Erdogan has a warm spot for the Taliban
It is no coincidence that the only embassy of a NATO member country left open in Kabul is Turkish.
Op-ed.
In mid-July, the al-Arabiya broadcaster reported that the Muslim Brotherhood was moving its leaders from Turkey to Afghanistan, a rumor that, at least for the moment, has not yet found official confirmation. When General Al Sisi deposed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Taliban immediately sided with the latter...
Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan (and China) are the four countries on which the Taliban are counting in building their new Islamic Emirate. Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan are the triad of the new Sunni Islamic power, but also of the link with Beijing...
And the talks between the Americans and the Talina for the de facto surrender of Kabul took place in Doha, Qatar, which has very strong ties with Erdogan.
Finally, it is certainly no coincidence that Erdogan has offered to take charge of the security of the Kabul airport and that the only embassy of a NATO member country left open in Kabul in these terrible hours is the Turkish one...
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/311983
Erdogan, the godfather of the Muslim Brotherhood; Qatar (Aljazeera) the home of the Muslim Brotherhood.
16 Aug: Eyewitness News: AFP: HAMAS CONGRATULATES TALIBAN ON ‘COURAGEOUS LEADERSHIP’
The group, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, has fought four wars against Israel.
https://ewn.co.za/2021/08/16/hamas-congratulates-taliban-on-courageous-leadership
Are you kidding me??? What "truth" came out of the 9/11 commission when those with blood on their hands were part of the commission? Gorelick as a member? To quote Xiden "come on, now." And Sandy Burglar stealing evidence in plain sight? We're never going to get the truth of all this.
We’ve heard that Biden ignored his generals and IC reports and recommendations. If that’s true where are the whistleblowers that came out of the woodwork everytime Trump farted in their direction?
I'm leaning towards that later. And why not? The performance of the Intel agencies over the past few years has left a lot to be desired.
why Obama won’t be complaining:
25 Nov 2020: JNS: Antony Blinken’s track record
by Yoram Ettinger, former ambassador and head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative.
Blinken’s close ties with Biden, dating back to Biden’s chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, make him, potentially, as influential as were Henry Kissinger and Jim Baker during the presidency of Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush respectively.
He also objects to the aggressive Saudi policy towards Qatar, which is a strategic ally of Iran’s ayatollahs and Turkey’s Erdoğan, as well as a chief financier of Muslim Brotherhood terrorists—three major threats to the House of Saud.
In 2009, Blinken supported the human rights-centered U.S, policy toward Egypt, courting the Muslim Brotherhood opposition, which led to its 2012-2013 rise to power, while toppling the pro-U.S. President Hosni Mubarak (similar to President Carter’s policy, which betrayed the Shah of Iran, providing a tailwind to the rise of Iran’s ayatollahs)...
Driven by his globalist, multilateralist, joint leadership worldview (contrary to unilateral U.S. national security action), Blinken was closely involved in the formulation of the game-changing 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran...
https://www.jns.org/opinion/antony-blinkens-track-record/
21 June 2021: World Tribune Special: Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s family ties to George Soros run root deep
There is an archive at George Soros’ Central European University in Hungary named for Donald Blinken, now 95, and his second wife, Vera, who survived the Holocaust, in part for their support of the “democratization process in the United States and in Hungary.”
The archive is actually named the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives.
Donald Blinken is mentioned in Soros’s Open Society Foundations’ 2005 Annual Report as a Board of Trustees member (right alongside George Soros himself) for the progressive globalist billionaire’s Central European University, which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has labored to shut down as an institution seeking to destroy Hungary...
https://www.worldtribune.com/secretary-of-state-antony-blinkens-family-ties-to-george-soros-run-root-deep/
Wikipedia: Antony Blinken
Blinken attended the Dalton School in New York City until 1971. He then moved to Paris with his mother Judith and Samuel Pisar, whom she married following her divorce from Donald. Pisar was the lawyer and confidant of British publisher Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine)...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Blinken
What intelligence failures? Intelligence was things would deteriorate immediately and Taliban would dominate the nation.
The failure is the willingness to listen to it.
The Afghan debacle was caused by Biden selling out to the CCP.
As Cuba is a major trading partner with the CCP, Afghanistan will be a major trading partner with China plus China wamts the minerals there as they acquired in the African Continent. Seems this is part of the billions China dropped on Hunter and the Dem party so Joe was told to sellout the American people as it is his part of the deal.
Anyone care to respond to this jackass?
There was no intelligence failure. This was 100% planned as it is happening.
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