Tuesday, August 31, 2021

A Bitter -- and Angry! -- End to America's Longest War (VIDEO)

Certainly Americans are bitter --- and untold numbers of folks may very well be angry --- but it's the president himself who's the angriest of all.

And why? Well, he literally can't blame anyone but himself. And as most analysts now agree (on cable news, at least), this is the greatest military debacle in U.S. history. He's left to screaming his frustrations, blaming the pox of public opinion, for his failures, but it's all on him. What a craven and pitiful imitation of a man, gawd.

And angry? Shoot, I've been fuming with rage these last few days, and not just because he botched everything, but especially for the literally tens of thousands who've been left behind --- and don't be fooled, it's not just "100-200" Americans whom the administration's abandoned. Peter Bergen was on CNN a little while ago just hammering the president, excoriating him for leaving so many behind, and especially for turning Afghanistan into the #1 terrorist hotspot in the world, with Jihadis now surging into the country from around the globe.

And people are wondering if the U.S. is now vulnerable to a new attack on the homeland? Well duh, and it's all on Biden and the hypocritical and ghoulish leftists who put him into power --- and aren't Democrats supposed to be "antiwar" after all?

It's all horrifying and this country will reap the whirlwind of totalitarian Islam's rape, carnage, famine, and endless --- never-ending --- murder and terror. 

At LAT, "America’s longest war ends as last U.S. troops depart Kabul airport":


KABUL, Afghanistan — With the roar of a U.S. military cargo plane lumbering into the night sky over Afghanistan’s Taliban-held capital, the last U.S. troops departed the country at almost the stroke of midnight Monday, ending America’s longest war and leaving lasting but disparate wounds that cut across two nations.

The momentous final scenes played out in darkness. But Tuesday’s first light marked the dawning of incontrovertible knowledge: Afghans had once again been delivered into the hands of the Taliban, the medieval-minded Islamist group that horrified the world with its cruelties before being toppled in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

In a gesture by the Biden administration that was perhaps intended to bring closure to Americans but instead bestowed a bitter aftertaste of defeat, the final U.S. withdrawal came a dozen days before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks carried out by Al Qaeda, which used Afghanistan as a staging ground.

Death stalked and circled until the very end. In a war that cost the lives of nearly 2,400 U.S. service members, a final round of bloodletting came Thursday in the form of a suicide attack by Taliban rival Islamic State that killed 13 young troops and left more than 170 Afghans dead.

So long did this war last that to many, if not most, Americans, Afghanistan had slipped in and out of consciousness, like a disappearing Instagram story, until it was all but forgotten.

The war was eclipsed by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, its aims morphing and muddying with passing years. It wore on amid a dramatic shift in American politics marked by rancor and division that led to the election of President Trump, who in 2020 signed a deal with the Taliban to pull out U.S. troops. The move undercut Afghanistan’s fragile government.

The conflict tested four American presidents, left thousands of soldiers maimed, plowed ahead even after the death of Al Qaeda’s chieftain, Osama bin Laden, and marked the latest devastating blow to the image of an America that believed itself a force for good in the world. That reckoning is still resonating at home and abroad, a stark reminder that U.S. forays into other lands often have lasting consequences — and end with a degree of humiliation.

For Afghans, the war brought countless fresh graves and frequent doses of abject misery. But also, notably in Kabul, the U.S.-led military presence heralded a generation of economic opportunity and freedom — especially for women, who came out from beneath burqas to work as journalists, teachers and human rights activists. All this is now in jeopardy, even as the Taliban attempts to convince the world that it will not rule as before.

Like much of the war, this denouement was a long time coming but unfolded in a headlong rush.

The leader of the U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. Kenneth F. “Frank” McKenzie, said the last liftoff of an American military aircraft came one minute before midnight in Kabul — just before the start of Tuesday, the day set by President Biden as the deadline for the departure of U.S. troops.

Within moments of the final U.S. plane’s takeoff, Taliban fighters swiftly moved into Hamid Karzai International Airport, which had been the scene of a massive U.S.-led airlift that carried more than 116,000 people out of the country — and into uncertain lives — since the militant group seized power two weeks earlier in a quick but nearly bloodless offensive.

As if to symbolize the dizzying turnabout, the group’s foot soldiers surged onto the airfield wearing U.S.-supplied uniforms and carrying once-coveted U.S.-made weapons and gear such as night-vision goggles. They fired salvos into the air and shouted “Allahu akbar!’’

The final C-17 cargo plane to depart carried the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, and Ross Wilson, the acting U.S. ambassador, who stayed on at the airport after the embassy was shuttered two weeks earlier. Strings of tracers lit the sky as the last U.S. warplane — providing cover for the hulking C-17 below — flew toward the horizon, the sound of its engine fading.

Below, some of the arriving Taliban fighters appeared befuddled by their new domain; one walked up to a metal gate and fiddled unsuccessfully with the handle, then tried to bash it into submission. In cavernous hangars, the fighters unearthed odd finds: boxes of military MREs, or meals ready to eat, tool boxes and an especially large power saw.

One Taliban squad posed in front of an assortment of partially disassembled Chinook helicopters, calling for a Taliban cameraman to record the moment. The men lifted American M4 rifles into the air as they cheered...

Just awful. Biden's turned this great nation into a colossal, bumbling hegemon of despair. 

This is not the country I grew up in, and I'm sure I've said this before, but I just never --- I mean never --- could have believed how this country could be put so low.

I'm sure you're angry, too, dear readers. We can commiserate for a while, and then it's back to the front lines of resistance. This is not our destiny, and the American public knows it. A righteous repudiation of the president and his party is on the way, and it's going to the most awful and terrifying rebuke of rank political cowardice and perfidy in my lifetime.

Carry on...


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