Category: United States Foreign Policy

Simple answer: not good at all — unless you’re a Taliban leader or fighter.

Isn’t the radio-silence of the Mainstream Media (MSM) and even the Biden Administration about the botched withdrawal of our military from Afghanistan deafening? If the departure from that Asian haven for Islamic terrorists was really the great success they’ve portrayed it to be, Pres. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan would certainly continue to trumpet that great success. Why haven’t we heard from them in the past week or so?

There’s no success story to crow about!

In fact, the MSM is complicit with the Biden Administration in hiding the facts. I won’t pontificate about the “alleged” horrors underway in Afghanistan and what “might” be happening to stranded Americans there. It WILL point to the ONLY thing that really matters about OUR leader in the withdrawal: President Joe Biden.

Our American military has always had one never-changing commitment regarding our service members caught up in a military conflict: we never leave even one of them behind — even if they’re deceased. Yet the Commander-in-Chief promised numerous times that Americans (many of whom are non-active military persons who have been working actively assisting our military there for the past 20 years) would ALL be taken out in safety before we would leave Afghanistan.

President Biden lied about that.

Numerous Americans and those Afghan U.S. patriots are still prevented from leaving Afghanistan by the Taliban. And Secretary Blinken has told us repeatedly that the Biden Administration “trusts” the Taliban to work with us to get Americans and Afghans who worked with the U.S. safely out of the country. This Administration’s policies and actions are actually preventing private NGOs from getting many of those out of Afghanistan!

The Afghanistan horrors are mind-boggling. This past weekend, a live video documented the Taliban beheading a member of the Afghan military who they painted as a turncoat. We’ve seen reports from inside Kabul detailing the Taliban hangings, shootings, and even more beheadings of Afghan people who worked with the U.S. Everyone of those people was promised by the U.S. that if/when we left Afghanistan, they and their families would be removed and in U.S. care before our military left. 

Again, President Biden lied.

That’s enough of my rage. I thought it would be better to hear from people who have been on the ground in Afghanistan watching the Taliban and even Al Qaeda terrorists perpetrate their horrors on the Afghan people the last 20 years. So we’ll turn to them for the “true” perspective of life today in that country.

The “True” Afghan-Taliban Reality Today

A sobering piece. I didn’t enjoy it…

Written in Taliban:

“The first time I saw you was in the Khyber Pass.  You came with your technology, elite fighters fueled by revenge, and the hubris to believe you could disprove history.

This was a war that you didn’t have the stomach to fight.  But I’m glad you tried.

We bled you the same way we bled the Soviets in our Holy Land.  We bled you the same way the Vietnamese bled you in their homeland.  We did it patiently and deliberately.

Patience.  Something Westerners never learn.

Our history is millennial.  We don’t yearn for an early victory when the Infidel ravages our Holy Land.  Our victory is celebrated decades from now.  We’ve endured, then ravaged every standing military that crossed our borders.   Why? How?  We’re patient.

In 30 days, we’ll be stronger, richer, and have control over precious natural resources that you need for your pathetic life that’s dictated by comfort.  We will have women, riches, land, guns, and ownership of one of the greatest chapters in military history.

You lose.

If you want to try again, we welcome the challenge.  You will fail regardless of how much money you burn in our deserts. For pity, here is free advice that may contribute to your future success, should you ever decide to invade again.

You recruit your warriors and supporters from a drug-addicted, distracted, disillusioned population that’s obsessed with comfort and entertainment.  A population obsessed with altering their mundane reality.  Alcohol, marijuana, pills, and our new favorite — Tide Pods.  Every time your doctors prescribe opiate painkillers, you line our coffers with gold.  Your population’s thirst for our pristine heroin has never been more lucrative for our warrior tribes.   We will keep feeding you poison for as long as you keep your hands out.

If your population wasn’t so spineless, undisciplined, and self-loathing, then you might be able to compile a raiding party with enough tenacity to outthink ours.

Our fighters are born into war.  Raised in it.  It’s a way of life that evades your “first world” nations. They live a life of such immense misery and pain that they’re willing to fight barefoot in the snow for the opportunity to martyr themselves. They yearn for the opportunity to die.  When they do have the blessed opportunity to sacrifice themselves, they sit above Mohammed at the right hand of God.  Blessed is Allah for eternity.

What honors do your fighters receive?  Their empty sacrifice is remembered in the form of a “three-day weekend.”  The majority of your population uses this sacred time to get drunk and grow fatter as a way to celebrate their fallen warriors. Sadly, we pay tribute to their death more honorably.

The colored pieces of cloth you pin on their chests are similar to the jewelry worn by our women.  What good are accolades and vanity if you don’t have the stomach to endure a fight?   We don’t offer the burden of healthcare to our fighters as they often want to die for Allah.  Your fighters fight to live.  Their inability to reconcile the inevitable outcome of our patience leads them to kill themselves.  Your medications, counselors, and non-profits will never undo the pain and suffering you’ve forced them to endure.  It will never remove the pain we’ve caused your broken nation.  You are your own worst enemy.

We will give your fighters credit.  Some are creative, tenacious, and fierce. They outgun us in every way possible.  But again, we simply wait them out.  Allah is patient.  You cycle them through our Holy Lands every 3 to 12 months for their combat rotations. After their tour is complete, they return to the comfort of their warm beds and endless entertainment.  If you left them here, in our Holy Land, with no way out but to win, then you might have had a chance of success.  The longer you poisoned our Holy Land with your presence, your “rules of engagement” only strengthened our position. There is only one rule in war – that is to win.

Your commanders made you fight with your hands tied behind your back. Your rules also confused our fighters too.  “We’re clearly the enemy. Why are they letting us go?”  Thank you for your compassion, as it allowed our fighters to kill more Infidels.  We began to feel as if your commanders were on our side.  We’re thankful your most vicious dogs were never allowed off their leash.

Your showcase Generals make us laugh.  You spend millions of dollars flying them around our country, inventing new ways to win while ignoring the guidance of our most capable foes.  Your Generals make decisions to minimize risk to their fragile reputation with the ultimate goal of securing a lucrative retirement–jobs with suppliers that fuel your losing force. A self-serving circle that’s built on the backs of your youngest and most naive fighters.

Your retired Generals “earn” tens of thousands of dollars talking to your political, industrial, and financial leaders about “teams, winning, and discipline.”  It’s a mockery of the war they refused to fight.  It’s a mockery of the Infidel warriors who died in our lands. We urge you to continue following their vacuous personalities so we can further watch your once great nation collapse.

Your statesman and elected officials are spineless, narcissistic, and more cowardly than your Generals. They crave power over you above all else. They come to our country, hide behind blast walls, and only heed the word of the indigenous leader they put in power.   I believe your soldiers call this a “self-licking ice cream cone.”

They’ve burned billions of dollars in a wasted effort to bring clean water, electricity, business, education, agriculture, and exports to a region that didn’t ask for it.  You should have saved yourself the effort and simply given the money directly to us.  Don’t worry; your diplomatic friends gave us plenty of your American tax dollars.  If you want to give it another shot with your “soft power,” send those with real experience, not fancy degrees and silver tongues.

Over the next few months, we will make the world understand that you failed worse than any fighting force that’s ever invaded our lands.  Today we celebrate victory.

As you evacuate your embassy, our fighters will be standing in the shade. We thank you for the parting gifts.  You’ll find surface-to-air missiles staged in the back of Toyota pickup trucks that you purchased for us.   Our marksmen will be patient.

We saw what Extortion 17 did to your nation and the morale of your fighting force.  Do your citizens even remember that victory? We’ll be repeating and improving upon our victory while your citizens and sympathizers evacuate in disgrace.  Every one of your foes around the world will know exactly how to break you.

You are welcome to fly your empty drones, target our cell phones, and send your spies.  But they, too, will ultimately fail.  We’ll use their failures to show the world that you’re not all-powerful.  You’re a false front—an empty shell. You lie, cheat, steal, and are easily defeated because you lack the spine to fight.  This is your history now.  We’re grateful Allah gave us the opportunity to show the world how to defeat the Infidels.

We look forward to seeing you again across the battlefield.

Praise be to God,

The Taliban

 

***Authors’ Note***

“If you’ve read this far.  Thank you.  I’ve spent the past week trying to find a way to communicate this to the American people in a manner that would cause anger, rage, action, and understanding.  Writing in the voice of a Taliban felt right. 

If this made you angry, cry, or contemplative–then our goal is achieved.  Our hope is that it inspires you to take action with your elected officials.  They’ve been repeating the same failing playbook since World War II with your sons, daughters, and tax dollars.  If you want this to keep happening, do nothing.  If you don’t, then do something.  If we all do a little, together we do a lot.”

About the Authors:  

Matthew Griffin is a 2001 United States Military Academy Graduate, Army Ranger, Combat Veteran with the 75th Ranger Regiment (3x Afghanistan, 1x Iraq), CEO of Combat Flip Flops, author, and 2019 Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Global Leadership Institute.

Scott Chapman is a 2000 Murray State University Graduate, Army Ranger Fire Team Leader from Alpha Company 2/75th Rangers (‘01 – ‘05), OGA Blackwater Alumni, entrepreneur, and author. Combat Veteran ( 21x Afghanistan, 1x Iraq)

Summary

The signature of a good leader in politics and in the military is this: Each always tells the truth about every event that may be critical to the nation as a whole and/or to Americans individually, even if the truth makes that leader look bad.

Do I need to say anything else about our political and military leaders in the travesties still happening in the wake of the abandonment of Afghanistan by the U.S.?

Want an example of this very thing that moments ago hit the U.S. headlines?

Secretary Blinken: ‘About 100 Americans in Afghanistan’ Remain Hostage to Taliban 

To Download Today’s (Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021) “TNN Live” show, click on this link:

 

Russia spent ten years in Afghanistan trying to stabilize the government and find some way to use Afghani resources for the former Soviet government. Moscow learned that things in Afghanistan are much tougher than even the gulags of the Motherland. They went packing, licking their considerable wounds and mounds of cash left in the caves of Afghan terrorists.

Then came the United States.

Who can forget what the Bush 43 Administration did after 9/11? All of America was convinced the Twin Towers fell at the hands of al-Qaida on the orders of Osama Bin Laden. Dick Cheney convinced W. that Iraq somehow was responsible for the deaths of 3000 Americans, so we went after bin Laden there at the same time hunting down those WMDs stashed by Sadaam Hussein. There were NO WMDs in Iraq no Bin Laden. After finding Hussein and his execution by Iraqis, America got word Bin Laden was deep in the mountain caves of Afghanistan. So off we went.

Twenty years later we had accomplished just one of our objectives in heading to the desert mountainous terrain full of caves that were perfect to hide terrorist training camps: we found and executed Osama Bin Laden. Part 2 of the Afghanistan hunt for Osama was to level any al-Qaeda terrorist camps or training operations that we discovered underway by al-Qaeda with the approval of the Afghani government. We soon discovered what the Russians learned: Afghanistan is NO cakewalk and it’s no place to win an easy war. Twenty years later, Uncle Joe pulled the plug, and America was exposed as being a weak nation with ineffectual White House leadership.

Here We Are Today

Kabul has fallen. Twenty years after 9/11, when Osama Bin Laden orchestrated the deaths of almost 3,000 people in the United States, and George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan to enforce the law against unrepentant terrorism by the Taliban and al-Qaeda, America’s mission in the country is coming to a humiliating end. For now. Americans, British, Australians, and Indians are scrambling to get out. But the airport in Kabul is now impenetrable for the regular Afghans, including over 3 million peacefully religious Sufis, who fear massacre at the hands of extremist Taliban fighters in the street.

The Taliban is going door-to-door looking for foreigners. Thousands are “sheltering in place,” per the instructions of their home governments, rather than risk arriving at the airport before their time, and being engulfed by the surging Afghans who also wisely seek to escape the Taliban’s terrible brand of Sharia “justice.”

Afghans clinging to, and then falling, from an American military cargo plane as it lumbered in a steep climb from the tarmac symbolized America’s retreat, and will always be mocked in Beijing and Moscow. But like the shocking scenes of Americans jumping to their deaths from the Twin Towers, these lost lives are the fault of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, not America. They are the fault of authoritarian countries around the world, including China and Russia, as well as Pakistan, who have given financial, military, or diplomatic aid to the Taliban over the past 20 years. Without that aid, without state support from abroad, the Taliban could never have “won” this war against America, its allies, and the idea of democracy.

The former director-general of ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence services, remarked that “the ISI defeated America in Afghanistan, with America’s help.” It’s a true statement and one that America’s leadership must seriously contemplate.

What went wrong in Afghanistan was American strategy. We must get tougher and smarter. We must go to the roots of the problem, or we will die of a thousand cuts. When America dies, democracy dies. The effects will be global and irreversible.

The Taliban won through Maoist tactics, perhaps learned from Chinese intelligence or allies. Taliban tactics included surrounding the cities from the countryside, and buying off political, military, and police leadership so that when the signal came, most Taliban could walk into Kabul without a shot fired. In fact, as you read this, thousands of American citizens, Afghans who were sources for American intelligence agencies, and even U.S. workers in Afghanistan with defense contractors are locked outside a ring of Taliban fighters who have circled the airport to control who gets access to the airport to get out.

The speed and ease of the Taliban’s victory shocked and surprised the world. But it shouldn’t have. The indicators of a corrupted political leadership in Kabul, and on military bases around the country, drunk on profits from Taliban opium networks, financial scams, and “bags of money” from Iran, according to former President Hamid Karzai, were there for all to see.

America had been too lax with Afghanistan’s leadership, who were often in it for themselves, rather than for ideals like democracy, human rights, rule of law, and religious tolerance. We looked the other way while the Taliban ran opium fields and trafficking networks that benefited corrupt Afghan leaders. America wanted to buy victory on the cheap, and without rocking the boat. It turned out to be the most expensive way, in blood and treasure. We failed because we were too soft, on drug trafficking and the corruption of Afghan officials, on the Taliban’s military and intelligence enablers in Pakistan, and on Pakistan’s enablers in Beijing.

Instead of fighting all of the above, at 100 percent, we told our soldiers to walk on eggshells. We wanted to maintain trillions of dollars of U.S. investments in China, and our “allies” in Pakistan (which has in fact long been a Chinese ally). We paid Pakistan billions of dollars to allow the transport of materiel to our troops in Afghanistan when Pakistan should have pitched in itself. We paid millions more for their promises to secure their own illegal nuclear weapons so terrorists wouldn’t use them against us. Our aid to Pakistan peaked in 2010, the year before the drawdown started. That’s called highway robbery. It’s giving into terrorism.

America, with all of our idealism, now looks like the sucker. We rightly want to bring peace, stability, democracy, and human rights to the world, and we were willing to pay for it as we remembered the alternatives, like World War II. The United Nations was our answer to a world war never happening again. We tried through the U.N. to ensure that countries would never again take the territory of other countries, countries would respect the human rights of their populations, and never again commit genocide. Boy, was that a HUGE and expensive mistake.

Now with China’s rise, the founding values of the U.N. system, which were determined by American and British design, are being wiped out. China doesn’t like the origins of the U.N. and does not care about any of its principles. It just wants to use the organization to further its own goals of power and control on a global level. It’s interesting that the first international organization that the Taliban invited to stay is a U.N. agency.

We see China’s hypocritical support for the U.N. in Beijing’s two genocides in its own country, its immediate support for the Taliban, its apparent willingness to compensate the Taliban to allow it to grab resources like copper from its $3 billion mine at Mes Aynak, and in the process destroy the ruins of an ancient Buddhist city. Beijing’s hypocrisy is on full display in its willingness to support Pakistan with billions of dollars of investment even as Pakistani military and intelligence elements support the Taliban, which regularly planted bombs in the middle of market day, assassinated human rights activists, and killed Americans and allies with IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

The fall of Kabul, and with it the stumbling of democratic ideals that America and its allies attempted to build in Afghanistan, is a blow not only to America but to all freedom-loving people around the world. It indicates increased influence in Central Asia by China and the terrorist elements that the Chinese Communist Party covers, including in Pakistan.

What’s Next For The U.S. In Afghanistan?

Nothing is going to happen for a long time regarding U.S. involvement there. World leaders were shocked as were millions of Americans to watch the U.S. turn its back on Afghani people who swore their lives to a government that swore its unfailing commitment to protecting those Afghan citizens who went all-in to assist the U.S. military. Tuesday we learned the Taliban started knocking door-to-door in Kabul seeking those Afghanis who worked for the U.S. On their march to the Afghan capital, in 17 different provincial capitals, the Taliban did the same thing and executed every one of those “informants” aligned with the U.S.

Do you think ANY foreign leaders feel they can trust this U.S. Administration?

Here’s the REALLY tough spot the Biden blanket retreat from Afghanistan has put the U.S. in: no country, no people, and no government can afford to trust the United States and President Biden on ANY international matters after the Biden surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

One thing is in our favor: we cannot afford to wash our hands of Afghanistan. Remember: we just vacated a massive airbase that we built that is just 200 miles from the border of China! That airbase is the closest military operation we’ve ever had to China. It will certainly take time while people from every country watch how the U.S. moves forward under Biden. They will be hesitant to work with us. Why? They cannot trust us. Will they ever get over those feelings? Only time will tell. Don’t forget that the resources of our nation are the impetus for EVERY country to want to be “U.S.-aligned,” if not a direct ally.

If America and our allies come back, and we must, we are going to have to come back swinging harder and smarter. And “smarter” is the key to any future success there we may have. We simply cannot lose the logistics of the location of Afghanistan. And, don’t forget: the Afghan people deserve to be relieved from the oppressive Sharia law that is now being imposed on every Afghani.

Someone needs to fix all this! And it will not be Joe Biden.

To Download Today’s (Wednesday, August 18, 2021) “TNN Live!” Show, click on this link: