Tag: afghanistan

Biden was hellbent on leaving Afghanistan — ignoring military advice, NATO objections and Afghan pleas: House report

President Biden was so hellbent on getting out of Afghanistan that he rebuked any advice to the contrary, ignored the pleas of the Afghan government and disregarded objections from US allies.

That was the one of the main takeaways from the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s more than two-year investigation into America’s chaotic, deadly Afghanistan withdrawal, according to a blistering report released Sunday.

“During his decades-long tenure as a Delaware US senator, eight years as vice president of the United States and nearly four years as president, Mr. Biden has demonstrated distrust of America’s military experts and advisors and has prioritized politics and his personal legacy over America’s national security interests,” the roughly 350-page report asserted.

His administration consistently lied to and misled the American public to try to convince it to support his consequences-be-damned view that the US should swiftly end its 20-year war in Afghanistan, the review said.

Former President Donald Trump’s administration had previously created and entered into the Doha Agreement with the Afghan government and the Taliban to end the US war in Afghanistan.

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The Real Tragedy of Afghanistan 

Any story of the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan must begin in the earliest days of the Obama administration, when the young president, possessed with an overwhelming mandate to end the endless wars begun by his predecessor, was rolled by members of his own cabinet—most notably Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—and his top military and intelligence advisers, who together prevented the president from doing what he was sent to Washington to do: End the disastrous wars begun under George W. Bush.

Almost alone among Obama’s advisers counseling withdrawal were his vice president, Joe Biden, and Biden’s longtime adviser Tom Donilon, then serving as Obama’s national security adviser. 

Twelve years later, President Biden must have felt some measure of satisfaction that it was he who was able to do that which his two predecessors, Obama and Trump, could or would not, when he ordered the final withdrawal of American troops from that Central Asian wasteland. 

And yet, as with anything involving Biden and his national security team of Keystone Cops, all did not go as planned. 

The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was and remains a deeply divisive one. While Biden for once showed some measure of political courage in ordering the withdrawal, the execution went badly awry. Tragically, on Aug. 26, 2021, thirteen American soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians were killed in a terrorist attack by the Islamic State–Khorasan Province at the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport.

The reaction to the botched withdrawal from America’s own militants was swift. Clutching his pearls on CBS’s Face the Nation, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham exclaimed, 

We set the conditions for another 9/11. I’ve never been more worried about an attack on our homeland than I am right now. And we did not end this war. President Biden said that he wanted to take Afghanistan off the plate for future presidents. He’s done the exact opposite. For the next 20 years, American presidents will be dealing with this catastrophe in Afghanistan. This war has not ended. We’ve entered into a new deadly chapter. Terrorists are now in charge of Afghanistan.

Needless to say, none of this came about. In point of fact, it was the Taliban, once in power, that ended up taking out the perpetrator of the Abbey Gate attack. And, as an actual military expert, the decorated combat veteran and The American Conservative contributing editor Douglas Macgregor, told TAC this week, 

The sudden, rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan removed the failed American ‘whole of government’ fiasco in Southwest Asia from the national spotlight, but at great cost, revealing the acute lack of professional military competence in the senior ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Criticism of Biden’s decision to withdraw has become a staple of Trump’s stump speeches. Missing from the criticism is the fact that the ceasefire agreement signed under Trump between the U.S. and the Taliban in February 2020 provided the US with a four-month window to withdraw—this would have been true regardless of who was president. Trump often claims that, unlike Biden, he would have kept Bagram airfield. Speaking at a rally in late July, Trump claimed, 

I was getting out. After 21 years you get the hell out, but I would have kept Bagram. It’s one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. We gave it to them so stupidly.

Translation: If I were president, we’d still be there. 

His criticism reeks of opportunism. But still more, what it misses is that the entire enterprise was a tragedy—from start to finish—because it was unnecessary. The Taliban did not attack America; Al Qaeda did. Besides al Qaeda, the main movers behind 9/11 were Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Recall that Ahmad Uhmar Sheikh, at the direction of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence director general, General Mahmoud Ahmed, wired $100,000 to 9/11 hijacker Mohomed Atta. Bin Laden was hiding out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with the connivance of ISI. 

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Biden Pentagon spokesman insisted Afghan withdrawal wasn’t chaotic but his emails say otherwise

The Pentagon’s chief spokesman has long insisted there was no “chaos” during the bungled U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, but his own email correspondence shows senior officials were acutely aware that conditions in the country were chaotic and spiraling into deadly violence, according to newly obtained government documents.

These memos and emails chronicle political efforts by the Biden/Harris administration to soft-pedal the truth to the American people about its first major foreign crisis. The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request from the nonprofit watchdog Functional Government Initiative.

The memos show, for instance, that while then-DOD Undersecretary of Communications John Kirby tried to jaw-bone reporters to portray the Afghan withdrawal as orderly like President Joe Biden had promised, he was receiving briefings from diplomats and military officials in theater who were frantic to stabilize a crisis, particularly at the Kabul airport were evacuations of Americans were taking place.

One State Department situation report emailed to Kirby on Aug. 16, 2021 — 10 days before a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. Marines — referred to “breaches” and “flightline insecurity” at the airport that resulted in the exchange of gunfire that killed five Afghans and may have wounded an American soldier. “The crowd was out of control, the firing was only done to defuse the chaos,” the email reported, citing an official U.S. statement released inside the country.

“Hundreds have flooded the flight line and in at least one case, have forced themselves onto at least one US mil (and other civilian) aircraft. Crowds continue to run alongside planes, including mil aircraft,” the report added. Several Afghans clinging to U.S. aircraft fell to their deaths.

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2008 Video Shows Tim Walz Implying He Suffered PTSD from Afghanistan Deployment

Newly resurfaced video from a hearing in 2008 shows Minnesota Governor Tim Walz implying heavily that he suffered PTSD from deployment to Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Walz was speaking to the family of a Gold Star veteran at the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Veterans and Mental Health when he made remarks that suggested he had personal experience of PTSD after serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2004 with the National Guard.

“I can tell you this, having been one of those that came back. We were in support of OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom]… when we came back, they showed us the horse whisperer and told us to be nice when we went home. And that was the extent of it. That was in 2004.”

Since Walz became Kamala Harris’s presumptive running-mate, there has been intense scrutiny of his service record. Walz has been accused of “stolen valor” for making misleading statements about his rank and operational deployments. Walz never took part in Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for US operations directly in and above Afghan territory, but was posted to Italy with the National Guard in a support role. He has also been criticized for retiring from the National Guard in order to avoid a deployment to an actual warzone, Iraq.

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Even CNN Admits There’s “No Evidence” Walz Saw Combat

It seems that Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz has repeatedly made misleading statements about his military service, and even CNN admitted Wednesday that there is no evidence to back up the notion that he ever saw combat.

CNN correspondent Tom Foreman noted that “Walz did make a comment speaking to a group, he’s done it a couple of times, where he has used language that has suggested that he carried weapons in a fighting situation.”

“As you know, with your contact with the military, I know from coming from a military family, there is a difference between being in a combat area, being involved at a time of war and actually being in a position where people are shooting at you,” Foreman continued.

Then came the kicker.

“There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was,” the correspondent urged.

Walz said in 2018 after the Parkland shooting that he wanted to ban weapons that he “carried in war.” The Harris HQ X account even boasted about the claim earlier this week.

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Tim Walz Falsely Claimed He Served in Afghanistan. When a Local Vet Called Him Out, His Office Did Nothing.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz has described himself as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” the official name of the U.S. government’s war in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. 

But Walz never deployed to the Middle East. And, when an Iraq war veteran confronted Walz’s aides with evidence of what he called “stolen valor,” his aides didn’t do much to address his concerns.

As a first-time congressional candidate in 2006, Walz’s campaign announcement described him as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” an archived version of the press release shows. Two years earlier, in 2004, Walz organized a protest against then-President George W. Bush in Mankato, Minn. A photo of the rally shows Walz carrying a sign reading “Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry.”

Such a title historically applies to someone who served on the ground in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terrorism. Walz, a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard, spent time in Norway in support of NATO forces and in Italy working in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He had never seen combat, he told Minnesota Public Radio in 2018.

Walz’s claims spurred Iraq war veteran David Thul, a sergeant in the Minnesota National Guard, to approach Walz’s aides at the Democrat’s Mankato office in 2009. Thul filmed the encounter, in which a staffer told Thul she was “not aware” of Walz serving in Afghanistan. Thul went on to present the 2004 photo of Walz, as well as Walz’s website, to another aide, who acknowledged that constituents could get the false impression that Walz served in Afghanistan.

“Operation Enduring Freedom is limited to Afghanistan and the airspace directly above,” Thul told the aide. “Congressman Walz is clearly claiming … to be an Enduring Freedom veteran. Nobody disputes the fact that he is not an Afghanistan or Enduring Freedom veteran. So this represents a fairly serious issue.” Asked whether he understood how constituents could falsely “assume that means [Walz] served in Afghanistan,” the aide responded, “Perhaps, I guess.”

The aide did not dispute that Walz was pictured in the 2004 photograph, and, indeed, a 2006 Atlantic article describes the spectacle of the future governor protesting the Bush visit with a group of high school students. The aide told Thul he would follow up with him. A source familiar with the situation said neither Walz nor his staffers followed through with that pledge.

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Two of Five State Bureaus Under Biden-Harris Regime Fail to Confirm Adherence to Vetting Requirements — Raising Concerns Over $293 Million Potentially Profiting Taliban

A recent audit report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has exposed the Biden-Harris administration’s alarming failure to comply with counterterrorism vetting requirements for significant funds allocated to Afghanistan.

The audit, covering the period from March 2022 to November 2022, found that two out of five State Department bureaus failed to retain necessary documentation to demonstrate compliance with partner vetting requirements.

This lapse raises serious concerns that extremist groups, including the Taliban, may have profited from $293 million in U.S. taxpayer funds.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) were unable to provide sufficient documentation for their programs in Afghanistan.

This failure means that SIGAR could not confirm whether these bureaus complied with State’s partner vetting policies, risking that funds could be misused or fall into the hands of terrorist-affiliated organizations.

This oversight comes at a time when the Taliban is reportedly establishing close ties with newly registered Afghan NGOs, raising fears that these entities could be funneling American aid directly into the hands of extremists.

Since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, there have been alarming reports of their efforts to secure U.S. funds intended for humanitarian assistance. SIGAR highlighted that over 1,000 new national NGOs have registered under the Taliban’s Ministry of Economy, many of which are suspected to be fraud and have links to terrorist activities.

The lack of rigorous vetting processes by the Biden administration’s State Department is not only a breach of protocol but also a potential betrayal of American taxpayers who expect their contributions to genuinely assist the Afghan people rather than bolster extremist factions.

The report indicates that while three other State Department bureaus— Political-Military Affairs, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA); Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM); and South and Central Asian Affairs, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy (SCA/PPD)— managed to comply with vetting requirements, DRL and INL’s failures are particularly egregious given the substantial amounts of money involved.

Together, these two bureaus accounted for nearly $294 million in disbursements without adequate oversight or documentation, which might inadvertently benefit terrorist organizations.

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SAS war crimes inquiry obtains huge cache of new evidence, BBC reveals

The public inquiry into alleged SAS war crimes in Afghanistan has obtained a previously deleted cache of data that could hold crucial evidence, the BBC can reveal.

The files were permanently erased from a server by a UK Special Forces contractor in 2016, during a murder investigation into the SAS.

But the public inquiry team has now secured backups of the server – part of a Special Forces communications system codenamed “Sonata” – believed to have been created before the files were erased.

The backups are likely to contain information about SAS operations on which members of the elite regiment were suspected of unlawfully killing unarmed Afghan detainees and civilians.

A spokesperson for the inquiry confirmed to the BBC that they had obtained the backups, adding: “We now hold the relevant material and are exploring a technical solution to retrieve and review the data to determine its relevance to the investigation.”

The spokesperson said the inquiry team was approached during several days of hearings about computer evidence last December by someone offering them access to the backups, but the inquiry declined to comment on the source of the offer.

This is the first time backups of Sonata have been obtained by investigators outside UK Special Forces, which blocked previous efforts by the Royal Military Police (RMP) to copy the server.

To the dismay of the RMP investigators, a contractor hired by UK Special Forces (UKSF) during the murder investigation ran a program on the server in 2016 designed to permanently erase previously deleted files.

This process, known as “zeroing”, flew in the face of explicit instructions the RMP had given to UKSF that no data should be tampered with before the server could be copied.

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Biden Has Delivered Millions in Taxpayer Money to … the TALIBAN!

A federal watchdog report reveals that after America had been at war with the Taliban for two decades, the Joe Biden administration now has delivered at least $11 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to the terrorists. Probably much more.

A Center Square report posted at Just the News explains much of the cash has been delivered through various aide groups that get federal tax dollars.

And, the report warns, “experts” suggest the actual total Biden has delivered to the Taliban could be much higher.

The Taliban, previously in control in Afghanistan, took control again within days of Biden’s abrupt decision to yank American troops out, a scheme that cost American lives and left behind tens of billions of dollars in American war machinery for the Taliban to use or sell.

Further, Biden left behind hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghanis who had worked with the American presence there for years – all in danger of death at the hands of the Taliban.

The report cited the conclusion of SIGAR, a federal watchdog, which found, “The U.S. government has continued to be the largest international donor supporting the Afghan people since the former Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.”

The report continued, “Since then, the U.S. government has provided more than $2.8 billion in humanitarian and development assistance to help the people of Afghanistan.”

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Convicted sex offender wins right to remain in UK despite doctors saying he still ‘acts inappropriately towards females’ – because judge said he faced risk of ‘mob violence’ if sent back to Afghanistan

A convicted sex offender has won the right to remain in the UK despite doctors saying he still ‘acts inappropriately towards females’ – because judge said he faced the risk of ‘mob violence’ if he was sent back to Afghanistan.

The man was convicted of ‘outraging public decency and exposure’ in 2017 but was still given permission to stay in the UK.

This is despite doctors saying he ‘continues to act inappropriately towards females’ at his asylum appeal hearings.

But in immigration tribunal judge said he could not go back to Afghanistan in 2020, because his ‘risky behaviours’ would would put him at risk of ‘ill treatment’.

It comes after Home Secretary James Cleverly called for a light to be shone on tribunal decisions, many of which are shrouded in secrecy because judges often impose draconian reporting restrictions.

The tribunal courts have allowed more than half of asylum seekers to stay in country since 2021 – with most of the unsuccessful candidates staying illegally.

Immigration adviser Jayne Mercer said there were as many as 500 living in Hull alone who are living ‘in plain sight’.

She told the broadcaster: ‘It costs a lot of money to deport people. So they’re left in a situation of limbo.

‘Quite often, after a few attempts, they do get status.

This is funded by an average of more than £34million of taxpayers’ money since 2017, analysis of legal aid figures by the broadcaster reveal.

Director of public law at Duncan Lewis Ahmed Ayeed, whose company respresented the sex offender, slammed the suggestion lawyers are to blame for the crisis- saying the British public would be left furious if they knew the extent of the system’s failings.

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