“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” —[George Washington](https://patriotpost.us/alexander/12704) (1793)

In the wake of the disastrous Biden/Harris surrender and deadly retreat from Afghanistan (AFG), the administration is seeding a lot of deliberate obfuscation about the difference in the Afghan exit plan negotiated by Donald Trump and that executed by Joe Biden, with Kamala Harris’s approval.

Attempting to defend their retreat and surrender, Biden declared the day after, “[We] ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history.” He added: “I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not going to extend a forever exit. To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask, ‘What is the vital national interest?’”

It will become painfully clear what our vital national interest was and is, soon enough. As I have detailed, “The War Is NOT Over.”

The faux line Biden is still pushing regarding Trump’s negotiations goes like this: Biden ended the longest war. The exit was difficult, but that was Trump’s fault because he negotiated with the Taliban, thus he bears the blame. But thanks to Biden, we are out and all is good.

That is a colossal dumper of bull manure.

Trump’s drawdown plan was contingent on the Taliban meeting two primary and finite conditions: First, that the Taliban had to demonstrably cut their ties with al-Qa'ida, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), and other terror groups; and second, that they successfully negotiate and maintain peace with the Afghan government. Trump’s plan included leaving at least 2,500 troops on the ground to ensure compliance for some unspecified period of time.

Had the Taliban dared to cross Trump, he would have smoked ALL of them, just like he did ISIS. (Remember them?) And Trump warned Taliban leaders with a direct threat to their lives.

Trump was right, but the conditions he set were discarded when Biden folded in surrendered. And the consequence for countless thousands of Afghan civilians, especially women and children was deadly, as was this disgraceful display of weakness, which then empowered Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and more recently the Iranian surrogate attacks on Israel.

Former Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell concurs: “The Taliban onslaught started coming once Joe Biden got into the White House. The Taliban knew they couldn’t make the move when Trump was in office.”

And, according to seasoned political analyst Brit Hume, “If you believe the Biden administration’s claim it was bound by the Trump-Taliban deal and thus had to get out fast,” you need to get your facts straight. He added: “[Biden] is fond of saying, ‘Well, we were bound by the Trump administration’s deal with the Taliban.’ In fact, when that deal was struck in February 2020 [our negotiators] made it very clear that this was conditions-based and if the Taliban did not [meet those conditions] we were under no obligation to remove our troops. One of the key provisions of that deal was that the Taliban and the Afghan government would negotiate a [peace agreement]. They never did that. On that score alone, Biden was not obligated to pull our troops out.”

Of course, the Biden/Harris Beltway cadres and their Leftmedia parrots are leading that disinformation campaign.

Typical of the leftists’ rhetoric supporting that manure is this from Juan Williams, Fox News’s perfunctory peddler of Biden’s party-line tripe: “I think this is a bold headline day for America that forever war is over. I think we accomplished the goals that we set when we went in there 20 years ago, that Afghanistan was not used as a terrorist launching site. The American people want this war over. And when you think about the 13 American service personnel whose bodies came home this weekend … you know what, those people died in a good cause. They are the last people who will have died in this, you know, America’s longest war…” (Killed by terrorists harbored by the Taliban.)

In fact, assuming the American citizens Biden abandoned behind enemy lines, (about 175 of them according to Biden’s equally inept Secretary of State Tony Blinken versus thousands left behind according to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) get out safe, this war is far from over for the Afghan allies we left behind, some 80,000 of whom were already approved “special immigration visa” holders, and who will now be targeted for extinction. And this war is far from over for those who will become targets of violence perpetrated the Taliban’s terrorist surrogates worldwide in the coming years.

Williams then invoked the blame-spreading: “I think that when you look at this, and you’re looking at four presidents, you look at President [George W.] Bush, who chose to go in there and didn’t know how to get out. You look at President [Barack] Obama… He really didn’t know how to get out. Trump negotiating with the Taliban. And now, President Biden underestimated the strength of the Afghan government. There are a lot of mistakes here.”

Let’s clear up who is responsible for the deadly exfil “mistakes.”

Biden is repeatedly attempting to blame-shift his AFG failure to Trump.

Asked last week who was responsible for the Kabul bombing and AFG cluster, Biden correctly said, “I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that’s happened of late.” But, predictably, he qualified that response: “But here’s the deal: You know — I wish you’d one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former president made a deal with the Taliban…”

That was a lie.

As note previously, Trump’s exit plan was with the Afghan government but included terms that the Taliban had to meet. Biden abandoned that plan for his own politically-expedient surrender and retreat.

Ironically, Biden attempted to defend his own coordination with and dependence on the Taliban by insisting the bombing was ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), not the Taliban. He lied about this distinction.

For the record, this is the same Sunni Islamist Taliban who, according to the Department of Defense (DoD), just released “thousands” of Sunni Islamist ISIS-K terrorists from Bagram Air Base just 25 miles north of Kabul a week earlier, and the same Taliban whose leader proclaimed last week that Sunni Islamist Osama bin Laden had no connection to the 9/11 Islamist attack on our country.

And recall that Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, a principal leader in the brutal al-Qa'ida-aligned Haqqani terror network, is a high-profile terrorist who has an FBI $10 million bounty on his head. This was the same terrorist who was in charge of airport security in Kabul when “security forces” allowed the bomber access – killing 13 Americans and more than 100 Afghan citizens.

Haqqani, who The New York Times gave featured Op/Ed space right after Biden took office, has now been designated as the Taliban’s Interior Minister – head of state security.

Additionally, four of the “Taliban Five” terrorists Barack Obama exchanged for the return of Army deserter and traitor Bowe Bergdahl, are now filling senior key positions in the Taliban regime.

Meanwhile Biden’s equally inept Sec. Blinken has raised strenuous objections because of the lack of women the Taliban has appointed to senior government positions: “We have made clear our expectation that the Afghan people deserve an inclusive government.”

What could go wrong?

Political analyst Rich Lowry describes Biden’s remarks last week as “the arsonist bragging about how many fires he has put out,” and notes, “Honor has always had an enormous influence on human affairs and the conduct of governments — until, evidently, the advent of President Joe Biden in the year 2021.”

Biden and his cadre spent the last month speaking of the Taliban as if they were some trustworthy and legitimate government entity, rather than the amalgam of violent Sunni Islamist terrorists who invaded Afghanistan from Pakistan after the Soviet retreat — and have now rapidly reconstituted. There is virtually NO degree of ideological separation between the so-called “Taliban government” thugs and their surrogate terrorist groups, just doctrinal differences. And there is now no doubt that the more violent Sunni ISIS-K Islamists (also from Pakistan) and Sunni al-Qa'ida Islamists have risen just as rapidly as surrogates under the Sunni Taliban protectorate. To insist that ISIS-K and al-Qa'ida are not under the Taliban umbrella is a distinction without a difference.

Then yesterday, defending his decision to abandon Americans behind enemy lines, Biden again blamed Trump while taking credit for “the extraordinary success of this mission.” “Extraordinary success”? Perhaps from the Taliban’s perspective. As for criticism of his “success,” Biden added, “Couldn’t this have been done in a more orderly manner? I respectfully disagree.”

For the record, on average, the number of illegal aliens Biden has invited across our southern border every two weeks since he took office, is equivalent to the total number of people evacuated from Afghanistan in his two week air lift.

Biden asserts: “My predecessor, the former president, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove U.S. troops by May 1, just months after I was inaugurated. … The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces. … But if we stayed all bets were off, so we were left with a simple decision. Either follow-through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war. That was the choice — the real choice. I was not going to extend the war.”

Referencing an investigative report published a week earlier, “Was Biden handcuffed by Trump’s Taliban deal in Doha?” the authors concluded: “U.S. officials made clear at the time that the agreement was conditions-based and the failure of intra-Afghan peace talks to reach a negotiated settlement would have nullified the requirement to withdraw. One day before the Doha deal, a top aide to chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad said the agreement was not irreversible, and ‘there is no obligation for the United States to withdraw troops if the Afghan parties are unable to reach agreement or if the Taliban show bad faith’ during negotiations.”

That is all nonsense, leftist blame-shifting smoke and mirrors.

In first-hand detail, Trump’s former chief of staff at the Pentagon, Kash Patel noted: “Trump instructed me to arrange a conditions-based, methodical exit plan that would preserve the national interest. The plan ended up being fairly simple: The Afghan government and the Taliban were both told they would face the full force of the US military if they caused any harm to Americans or American interests in Afghanistan. Next, both parties would negotiate to create an interim-joint government, and both sides had to repudiate al Qaeda. Lastly, a small special-operations force would be stationed in the country to take direct action against any terrorist threats that arose. When all those conditions were met — along with other cascading conditions — then a withdrawal could, and did, begin.”

Patel added, “We successfully executed this plan until Jan. 20, 2021.”

In fact, terms set forth in Trump’s four-page agreement in order for withdrawal of our forces by 01 May of this year, were clearly not met. A month after Biden took office, a congressionally chartered bipartisan panel led by a former Joint Chiefs chairman, Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, issued a report calling for extending the 1 May exit in order to seek better conditions.

In one particularly devastating summation about Biden’s failure, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) made clear who failed: “The President made the decision to trust the Taliban. The President made the decision to set an arbitrary August 31st deadline. The President made the decision to abandon Bagram Air Base. The President made the decision not to expand the perimeter around Karzai International Airport. The President made the decision to undermine our NATO allies. The President made the decision to break our word to our Afghan partners. The President made the decision to tell one lie after another as the crisis unfolded. The President made the morally indefensible decision to leave Americans behind. Dishonor was the President’s choice. May history never forget this cowardice.”

Worth including in that list is the fact that in June, Biden waved a federally-required mandate that the Department of Defense provide a detailed assessment of risks if the U.S. leaves Afghanistan. So DoD never produced that assessment for the chambers controlled by Pelosi and Schumer. Hmmm.

A month later, there was an undisclosed urgent cable from our embassy in Kabul warning of the imminent collapse of the Afghan government.

But most important, despite Biden’s contradictory assurances (LIES) about being advised that a rapid Taliban takeover was inevitable if all forces were withdrawn, it is clear that he ignored the dire warnings from Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, our commander in the AFG theater. After U.S. forces left, in order to meet Biden’s photo-op timeline, Miller indicated in his Senate testimony that he warned the administration that the country would fall quickly and that they should stick with Trump’s plan to retain up to 2,500 fast-strike military personnel to ensure that did not happen. According to The Hill, “The former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan told senators he opposed a full withdrawal from the country and advised Pentagon leadership [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, and U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Frank McKenzie] of his position…”

We now know that, in addition to dire warnings from Gen. Miller, Biden lied last month about being advised by his top military officers to keep 2,500 troops in AFG, in keeping with Trump’s plan. According to Senate testimony, it is clear Milley, McKenzie and Austin recommended retaining troops in AFG, believing that a full withdrawal would lead to the rapid collapse of the government. That has been clear since Trump initiated negotiations for a drawdown of forces.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): “General Milley, it’s your testimony that you recommended 2,500 troops approximately stay in Afghanistan?” Milley: “Yes, my assessment was back in the fall of ‘20 and it remained consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of 2,500, and it could bounce up to 3,500, maybe something like that in order to move toward a negotiated gated solution.”

Sen. Cotton: “General McKenzie, do you share that assessment?” Mckenzie: “Senator, I do share that assessment.” (Mckenzie stated earlier, “I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. And I also recommended earlier in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time.”)

Sen. Cotton: “Secretary Austin, President Biden last month…said that no military leader advised him to leave a small troop presence in Afghanistan. Is that true?” Austin: “Their input was received by the president and considered by the president for sure.”

Recall that when Biden was asked in a national interview if his “top military advisers…wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops,” he responded, “No, they didn’t. … That wasn’t true. … No one said that to me that I can recall.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) declared: “We heard enough to know that there are inconsistencies between what the administration has said and the truth. Clearly, President Biden didn’t listen to all the military advice given.”

Milley also testified: “It’s a real possibility in the not too distant future, six, 12, 18, 24, 36 months, that kind of time frame, for reconstitution of al-Qa'ida or ISIS-K. … Terrorist organizations seek ungoverned spaces so that they can train and equip and thrive and, and so, there is clearly a possibility that that can happen here, going forward.” He added, “I would just say it’s not preordained that we will go back or have to go back into Afghanistan again. But if we do, the military will provide good, credible options to be able to do that and to be effective.”

In other words, he has confirmed that Biden’s surrender and retreat is a complete disaster and by not sticking with the Trump conditional withdrawal, and leaving a minimal force of 2,500 troops in AFG, we may now have to go back and fight an adversary we just armed.

Milley said in July: “There’s a possibility of a complete Taliban takeover… Strategic momentum appears to be sort of with the Taliban. There clearly is a narrative out there that the Taliban are winning. In fact, they are propagating an inevitable victory on their behalf.”

Consequently, according to the Wall Street Journal, as a result of Biden’s ineptitude: “The Afghan withdrawal is the greatest U.S. foreign-policy humiliation in decades. The damage is made worse by the failure of accountability, starting with the Commander in Chief.”

National Review’s senior political analyst Jim Geraghty outlined Biden’s litany of lies beginning with this whopper: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” That comment sure didn’t age well.

Keep in mind, regarding “commander in chief” Biden’s Vietnam-era “draft dodges,” he received five student draft deferments and once he graduated in 1968, he was disqualified because of an “asthma condition” he claimed to have as a teenager – though his memoir, “Promises to Keep,” makes no mention of such health issues. That notwithstanding, when it came to drafting others, in 1974, then-Senator Biden noted his support for military conscription: “I support the draft.”

As president, Biden claimed, while speaking to Naval Academy graduates, that he “was appointed to the [Naval] Academy in 1965,” another bold-faced lie for the list of Biden’s serial lies.

So, who will believe Biden now?

Commentator Tammy Bruce observed: “Biden says Taliban was in its strongest position ever when he came into office. … Then how is it that he insisted just a few weeks ago that the Taliban we’re not going to take over the country?”

Regarding those false assurances, a month before the Taliban swept over Kabul, Biden instructed Afghan president Ashraf Ghani in return for additional military support: “I am not a military man…but…the perception around the world…is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. There’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.” That deception is an impeachable offense.

Barack Obama’s former senior adviser, David Axelrod, concluded: “You cannot defend the execution here. This has been a disaster. … It is heartbreaking, it is depressing, and it’s a failure. And he needs to own that failure.”

To the point of Biden’s inept leadership in every sense, recall that a year before this deadly debacle, Barack Obama declared, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.” Apparently he has taught his understudy, Kamala Harris, well.

Of course, Operation Enduring Freedom was not about “winning a war” per se, it was about accomplishing the finite missions we set out to accomplish. It became “nation-building” under Obama/Biden.

As for Biden’s chronic malfeasance, recall that in 2014, Obama’s former Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” He even opposed Obama’s approval of the military raid to kill bin Laden.

Similarly, back in 2012, our friend Charles Krauthammer observed “[Biden] holds the American record for being wrong on the most issues in foreign affairs, ever.”

Historian Bill Bennett observed: “This was the most disgraceful act of foreign policy I believe a president has ever done. I don’t think there’s a parallel and i’ve been looking through history books for the last three days.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich observed: “We have not seen a president this incompetent. We haven’t seen a president surrender to an enemy in the way that Joe Biden has. And he’s allowed a seventh-century tribal group to defeat the most powerful country in the 21st century. It’s an astonishing outcome.”

Fact is, Trump was this nation’s strongest domestic and foreign policy leader since Ronald Reagan, and his terms and conditions for the Afghan exfil, all discarded by Biden, were right.

Anyone — ANYONE — who believes that the resurgence of the Taliban and their ISIS-K and al-Qa'ida thugs would have occurred under a second Trump term is so deeply deluded as to be in a state of complete denial.

When Trump left office, we had about 3,000 troops left in AFG. There had not been a military death in over a year until a week before Biden’s exit date, when 13 Americans military personnel were murdered — the worst loss of American lives in a decade. And those deaths, and more than 150 civilian deaths, were carried out by an ISIS-K terrorist who was released from Bagram Air Base once Biden ordered it abandoned.

For context, the U.S. has about 750 military base sites in almost 80 countries. We have almost 54,000 personnel in Japan and 26,000 in South Korea. In Europe we have 35,000 Americans in Germany, 13,000 in Italy, and 9,000 in the UK. In the Middle East, we have 4,000 personnel in Bahrain, 1,800 in Turkey, 1,500 in Saudi Arabia, and 1,100 in Kuwait.

But only one country has sponsored a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and that was AFG. Trump’s conditions for removing most of our remaining military personnel from that nation was a good plan. Then Joe Biden happened.

Given the resurgence of the Taliban, there is now a very real renewed threat of terrorist assaults on American soil and Americans abroad. Recall that Biden’s director of national intelligence warned him in April that the Taliban rise would result in an imminent and perilous threat to the continental U.S.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was clear about the looming national security threat. 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.”

Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was very clear about that threat: “This was a known. By canceling the insurance policy of having American and NATO forces fighting the terrorist … in Afghanistan, made it less likely we would have to fight them in the streets and skies over America. What has happened here is seen as a Taliban victory over the United States … and has given terrorists all over the Middle East a huge psychological boost. … There are many reports of foreign terrorist fighters already coming into Afghanistan … and we are going back to the pre-9/11 environment.”

So we leave the AFG theater after two decades with the Taliban thugs in a much more powerful position than when we arrived in 2001. In great measure, they are far more dangerous and deadly because of the more than $7 billion in U.S. military equipment Biden left behind.

Secretary of State Blinken put a smiley face on it: “A new chapter of America’s engagement with Afghanistan has begun. It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over. A new diplomatic mission has begun.”

Laughably, Biden’s State Department spokesman issued this directive: “The Taliban needs to meet its commitments and obligations in Afghanistan on freedom of travel, respecting basic rights of the people, upholding its commitments on counterterrorism, not carrying out reprisal violence against those who stayed, and forming an inclusive government.”

Or what? And who is going to confirm the Taliban is meeting its “commitments and obligations”? Maybe the UN can send in its inspectors…they have a great track record.

Apparently now, Blinken believes his leverage is giving the Taliban direct financial aid, ostensibly to help clean up the humanitarian mess Biden left.

As Biden’s former Senate contemporary, Joe Lieberman (D-CT) noted: “I’m disappointed and I think we are all going to pay for it, first of all, the people of Afghanistan. But we too, because there is no question not with standing all the sweet talk from some of the Taliban leaders, that’s not who they are. They are a radical Islamist terrorist group, and they’re going to welcome other radical Islamist terrorist groups to Afghanistan who will aim to strike us from there as al-Qa'ida did on 9/11. I mean, it’s just tragic and totally unnecessary. The country and America’s role in it had reached a balance. We should’ve left it alone, and it was worth it.”

Biden’s ineptitude, and that of his feckless administration, is epic, reckless, and deadly.

As I outlined previously:

1. The immediate concerns after Biden’s AFG retreat are the consequences for tens of thousands of Afghan allies, civilians, and families whom Biden abandoned. As the Taliban firms up its organizational structure and returns to its extremist tyrannical control, the bloody purges will be underway.

2. The intermediate concerns are that Biden has reseeded the al-Qa'ida and ISIL turf, putting the U.S. homeland at risk of another terrorist attack.

3. The consequences of Biden’s now-obvious failure as commander-in-chief have extended and dire implications for our national security far beyond the borders of Afghanistan. Biden’s AFG retreat will embolden far more powerful tyrants, notably our near-peer adversaries China and Russia, and of course Iran and North Korea are on the move.

The most significant threat is China. Understanding that Biden is likely to bow, Xi is now aggressively threatening Taiwan and even trying to co-opt the Taliban as a terrorist surrogate.

Power does not tolerate a vacuum, nor an inept and vacuous appeaser – Joe Biden.

The catastrophic failure of our AFG mission and retreat was certainly not because of any deficit of courage and commitment from our warfighters, but abject dereliction of duty by Biden’s senior military leaders.

But the buck stops with Biden. The catastrophe in AFG was not, first and foremost, the plan; it was the man. The Taliban, ISIS-K, [ISIL](https://patriotpost.us/alexander/38936], and al-Qa'ida all feared Trump — none fear Biden. But even most of Biden’s conservative media critics have yet to wake up to that reality as they keep focusing on his failed plan.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley just couldn’t figure this out: “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.”

However, what Milley, SecDef Lloyd Austin, and the rest of Biden’s 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 its people in just days. Again, with Trump gone, the Taliban summarily discarded all the conditions he set for withdrawal and ousted the Afghan government.

Back in 2010, even Osama bin Laden declared that then-VP Biden should not be targeted, because if he became president, he would “lead the US into a crisis.” Maybe that is why Biden objected to Obama’s authorization of the mission to kill Osama.

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

Last week, before the Kabul bombing, our national security analyst, Gen. B.B. Bell (USA, Ret.), strongly condemned Biden’s disgraceful exit from AFG, noting his “shameful presidential dereliction of duty” and declaring emphatically that not only should Biden’s military leaders resign, but also: “He should be impeached and removed from office immediately, and criminal charges should be considered.” That clarion call is even louder now.

Meanwhile, American veterans and NGOs have returned and completed hundreds of rescues of Afghans who served along side them, who faced certain death. And two congressional veterans secretly returned to AFG and what they found on the ground destroyed Biden’s false narratives. But Biden is still spinning that narrative, and his sloppy defense is easy to fact check for his fabrications.

One of the Afghans who served as an interpreter with Americans, and who in fact helped rescue then-Sen. Biden and Sen. John Kerry after their helicopter was forced down by weather on a “fact-finding” photo op in AFG, has not been able to get out. In communications to the west sources on 27 August, he noted: “I know people that are in the same situation as I am right now. They have fought for the United States, they have provided supplies for the United States. But guess what? There are people that are getting inside the airport that have never worked, they knew somebody with a green card or they know somebody with a passport, that’s how they got through…” His whereabouts are now unknown.

Amazingly, some of Biden’s hard-Left media are beginning to crack, though they are still largely ignoring the imminent danger faced by the Afghan people.

The New York Times’ Bret Stephens put it ever so gently: “This Sept. 11, a diminished president will preside over a diminished nation. … Joe Biden was supposed to be the man of the hour: a calming presence exuding decency, moderation and trust. … Instead, Biden has become the emblem of the hour: headstrong but shaky, ambitious but inept. … We find ourselves commemorating the first great jihadist victory over America, in 2001, right after delivering the second great jihadist victory over America, in 2021.”

But, as his critics on the Left build steam, Biden is now just ignoring the disaster he created, ducking any accountability for his plethora of lies and hoping to pivot back to the ChiCom Virus pandemic – which is also a disaster.

Likewise, Biden will ignore the fact that, as we now know, his retaliatory drone strike against that “high-value ISIS-K terrorist” in Kabul, was a political trigger pull distraction. Biden actually killed Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime U.S. aid worker, and nine other civilians, seven of whom were children. Ahmadi, who was among the Afghan people hoping to immigrate to safety, was bringing water to his family and neighbors.

And on the subject of strike in Afghanistan, though Biden insists he ended the war, legal analyst Andrew McCarthy offered evidence to the contrary regarding a case before the Supreme Court: “[Justice Brett Kavanaugh] put the question bluntly to Biden’s acting solicitor, Brian Fletcher: ‘Is the United States still engaged in hostilities for purposes of the AUMF against al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations?’ The AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) is the 2001 congressional resolution that served as the basis for the war in Afghanistan and for continuing U.S. military operations and detention of enemy combatants. Yes, Fletcher conceded, ‘that is the government’s position.’ And it is the position the Biden administration holds, he elaborated, ‘notwithstanding withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.’ Whatever the White House may say about the end of the forever war, the Justice Department has represented to the Supreme Court that "we continue to be engaged in hostilities with al-Qaeda and therefore that detention under law of war remains proper.”

We are still at war, “that is the government’s position.”

Amid all the exit fanfare 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 and deadly retreat by 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 and many other AFG war veterans are deeply concerned about the fate of Afghan security force allies with whom they worked. The Taliban has been brutal in its slaughter of those allies, thousands of civilians. and journalists as they advanced to Kabul.

The purge has just begun.

Notably, two days ago when Crenshaw and other congressional veterans attempted to name, on the congressional floor, their 13 military brothers and sisters killed last week, they were blocked by Democrats.

For the record, the deceased were SSgt Darin Hoover, Sgt Johanny Rosario Pichardo, Sgt Nicole Gee, Cpl Hunter Lopez, Cpl Daegan Page, Cpl Humberto Sanchez, LCpl David Espinoza, LCpl Jared Schmitz, LCpl Rylee McCollum, LCpl Dylan Merola, LCpl Kareem Nikoui, Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak and Army SSG Ryan Knauss.

Combat veteran Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), who was severely wounded in AFG, protested: “We took a moment of silence with pretty much all Republican veterans, then asked to be recognized to read names [of those killed]. [Democrat leaders] did not acknowledge us, and just closed the House down.” Combat veteran Greg Steube (R-FL) also protested: “House Democrats just refused to recognize Republican veterans on the House Floor to read the names of our fallen service members in Afghanistan. That’s how far our nation has fallen.”

Let me emphasize that the objective of Biden’s compressed Afghan exit schedule has been, for months, to time the exit in order to provide him a political “I got the troops out” victory lap ahead of the 20th observance of the 9/11 Islamist attack on our nation.

There will be NO victory lap – except for the one taken by the Taliban, celebrating 9/11 in our abandoned Kabul embassy. Biden kept his promise to the Taliban but did not keep his promise to the American people.

What we can assert for sure at this 20th 9/11 observance is that there WILL be more Islamist attacks against the U.S. and our people and installations abroad – and our allies.

As a result of Biden’s abject malfeasance, his public approval has tanked. But Biden and company are betting there will be no accountability and consequences for his ineptitude, and the current events will not result in midterm blowback next year.

Likewise, there is a lot of political pundit speculation about whether the public outrage over Biden’s disgraceful Afghanistan surrender and retreat will subside as the MSM news cycle interest subsides. But here is what the pundits are missing: Next year, the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attack – the one year anniversary of Biden’s AFT disaster and all of its consequences – will be revisited in full just before the midterm elections.

Anyone — ANYONE — who believes that the resurgence of the Taliban and their ISIS and al-Qa'ida thugs would have occurred under a second Donald Trump term is so deeply delusional.

The blood of thousands of Afghan men, women and children being readied for slaughter by the Taliban, is on the hands of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and every impenitent Biden/Harris voter.

As for the blood of our American military personnel murdered in Kabul, former advisor to President Trump, Michael McKenna, advises, “Next time you vote for a president, vote as if the lives of our soldiers depend on it.”

Brace yourself America – now that Biden surrendered to the Taliban, China and Russia are going to test his resolve to defend Taiwan and the Ukraine – and it WILL get ugly. North Korea and Iran will test his resolve to contain their nuclear ambitions. In all cases, they fully expect Biden will blink.

Update: The just-released 2,000-page Army assessment of Biden’s deadly exfil is an unmitigated indictment of this inept commander in chief. Army veteran Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) slammed Biden for his “catastrophic failure” and declared that Biden and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken lied to the American people to “cover up their gross mismanagement of that crisis.” Six months after writing this assessment, in February of 2022 Vladimir Putin’s forces are testing NATO and U.S. resolve, ready to invade Ukraine – and Biden’s feckless frontline negotiators are no match for Vlady. As for Biden’s emboldenment of ISIL, Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of CENTCOM, declared: “ISIS has nevertheless reconstituted as an asymmetric threat. … Their desire to harm us is as intense as ever.”

Update 2: Recall that mass media outlets pushed the narrative that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country with hundreds of millions of dollars? Intelligence analysts how believe that was Russian disinformation.

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

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