Amid all the exit fanfare yesterday from feckless Joe Biden and his inept senior military and diplomatic cadres, I was deeply moved by a single sentence that sums up what was conceived as an orderly troop drawdown under Donald Trump, but devolved into a disgraceful retreat under Biden.

“In what f***ing world was it a good idea to just hand over a country to these people.”

Those words were from Operation Enduring Freedom combat veteran and former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw (R-TX). Crenshaw referenced a video, now believed incorrectly identifying a man being hung from a helicopter – though there are far worse examples of Taliban terror. Crenshaw and other Afghan (AFG) war veterans are deeply concerned about the fate of Afghan allies with whom they worked. The Taliban has been brutal in its slaughter of our Afghan allies, civilians and journalists as they advanced to Kabul.

Despite the assertion by Biden and his Leftmedia parrots that our AFG mission is over, take no comfort — this was NOT the end of the war. It is the beginning of a violent purge of those Joe Biden just abandoned — our allied Afghans and their wives and children. Also at risk are hundreds of American citizens who were seeking to exit but Biden left behind.

This is the ugly dawn on a new era of terrorism — Biden has reseeded al-Qa'ida’s turf, and demonstrated to far more powerful tyrants in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea that they have nothing to fear from Biden.

For Biden’s boundless ineptitude, we will pay a price much heavier than the disaster we left in Afghanistan. Brace yourself, America.

We disgracefully abandoned our citizens after Biden’s commitment not to do so. We also abandoned more than 80,000 Afghan “Special Immigration Visa” holders — those who were already vetted as being clearly allied with our military and now marked for death — along with tens of thousands of others who were waiting on visas. That disgrace was captured by these words from our national security analyst, Gen. B.B. Bell, U.S. Army (Ret.), who described the circumstances as “the single most dishonorable act by my country that I have witnessed since my first day of military service on 5 June 1969.” Gen. Bell added: “Today I am ashamed of my country. I am ashamed of my country’s political leadership. I am ashamed of our military leadership. Today, in my heart, America died. I hang my head in shame. I’m so very sorry for those Americans and our Afghan allies we have abandoned. May God protect them as we have not.”

Announcing mission over but certainly not accomplished, Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, declared: “I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the mission to evacuate American citizens, third country nationals and vulnerable Afghans. The last C-17 lifted off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 30, this afternoon at 3:29 pm East coast time…” He added, “No words from me could possibly capture the full measure of sacrifices and accomplishments of those who served, nor the emotions they’re feeling at this moment.”

Well, here are a few words that put numbers to that sacrifice: Over the last 20 years, 2,461 of our military personnel, including 13 last week, were killed by Taliban militia and surrogates, the Islamist extremists who invaded Afghanistan in 1996 and became the hosts of terrorist who struck out against the world, including those who perpetrated the 9/11 Islamist attack on our nation. We suffered more than 20,000 injured veterans, many of whom endured life-altering injuries. We spent $824.9 billion on military operations, but we have spent far more than that when considering care for injured veterans. Over the same two decades, our allied Afghan deaths top an estimated 69,000, and an additional 47,000 civilians were killed.

So we leave the AFG theater, and the Taliban thugs are now in a much more powerful position than when we arrived in 2001. They are far more dangerous and deadly because of billions of dollars in U.S. military equipment Biden left behind, and Afghanistan is a fully restored breeding ground for the world’s most deadly terrorists.

The catastrophic failure of our mission and retreat was certainly not because of any deficit of courage and commitment from our warfighters, but the abject ineptitude of Biden’s senior military leaders. And as I have noted, with Biden as commander in chief, the problem was not the plan; it was the man.

According to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.” How could that be? As Tucker Carlson noted: “Our intelligence agencies received a combined $85 billion last year. For perspective, that’s more money than Russia, Germany, and the UK spent on their entire annual military budgets.”

What Milley, Austin, and the other Beltway high command failed to see was the red flag right in front of them the whole time: Joe Biden. And it is because the Taliban had no fear of Biden that this evil overran the Afghan government and people in just days. With Trump gone, the Taliban summarily discarded all the conditions he set for withdrawal and ousted the Afghan government.

After McKenzie’s announcement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken paused his vacation in the Hamptons long enough to issue notice that, “As of today, we have suspended our diplomatic presence in Kabul.”

Biden then delivered a few prepared remarks thanking his commanders for such a fine job. Political analyst Rich Lowry describe Biden’s self-congratulatory accolades as an “arsonist bragging about how many fires he has put out.”

Meanwhile, the Taliban was taking over Kabul airport and celebrating the additional armaments and aircraft we left there — and all the caged military service dogs.

Even the Washington Post editorial board declared Biden’s retreat was a “moral disaster.” They are much too kind.

Regardless of how Biden et al. attempt to spin this disaster, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was clear about the national security threat outcome. He noted, “This is one of the worst foreign policy decisions in American history, much worse than Saigon,” because the withdrawal from Vietnam did not signal a significant threat to Americans. To that point, he added: “Just because we decided to stop fighting doesn’t mean the terrorists go away. So they’re still out there. They’re invigorated. They’re emboldened. They’re excited about the success they see in bringing America to its knees in Afghanistan.”

The compressed Afghan exit schedule was motivated by Biden and his Beltway cadres’ desire to take a political victory lap ahead of the 20th observance of the 9/11 Islamist attack on our nation. There will be NO victory lap. There WILL be more Islamist attacks against the U.S.

Brace yourself America.

(Updated)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776