Massive Financial Aid Scam Hits California Community Colleges

This is nasty scam.

My division dean mentioned it last week and she sent out a long email notice to all department faculty members today.

Nasty --- and a bit unreal, to think about it.

At LAT, "More than 65,000 fake students applied for financial aid in wide community college scam":

California student aid official Patrick Perry was beginning a routine check of federal financial aid records a few weeks ago when he came across a mystifying number: 60,000 more aid applications from a particular group of students this year than last.

They were first-time applicants to California community colleges who were older than 30, earned less than $40,000 annually and were seeking a two-year degree rather than a vocational certificate. They were spread out across the state, applying to 105 of the 116 campuses in the California Community Colleges system — with the top number at Cerritos, Pasadena, Chaffey, Merced and Antelope Valley. And their applications began surging in May through mid-August.

“We were kind of scratching our heads going, ‘Did or didn’t 60,000 extra older adult students really attempt to apply to community colleges here in the last few months?’” Perry, director of policy, research and data for the California Student Aid Commission, said Tuesday.

He alerted California community college officials Thursday. Around the same time, chatter emerged about abnormal enrollment patterns on a research listserv for community colleges, on which faculty were beginning to question whether some of their “students” were actually fake bot accounts.

The colleges and student aid officials put their heads together and uncovered what is believed to be one of the state’s biggest financial aid scam attempts in recent history.

California Community Colleges officials declined to say whether any financial aid was disbursed to fake students and said they did not know of any confirmed Cal Grant fraud, but the investigation is continuing.

Perry said he thinks the attempted fraud was stymied before much, if any, aid was distributed because community college classes are just starting and campuses are now on high alert. “I can’t tell you whether any money has gone out or not, but my guess is probably not,” he said. “I think we’ve caught it.”

It was unclear what financial aid may be involved in the fraud — state-funded Cal Grants, for instance, federal Pell Grants or COVID-19 emergency relief grants. California community colleges have received more than $1.6 billion in emergency COVID-19 relief for low-income students.

In addition, the fake applications are roiling the ability of college officials to determine true student enrollment numbers at a time of declining community college attendance and major efforts to recruit students and offer them financial and emergency pandemic aid to help them continue with higher education goals. Many professors are crestfallen trying to assess whether they have a class of students or bots.

Since last week, Perry said, the number of suspected fake financial aid applications has surpassed 65,000, and the problem appears confined to state community colleges. No irregular patterns were detected with the University of California or California State University.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General confirmed it was investigating but declined to comment further because the inquiry is ongoing.

But the financial aid commission and community colleges have found similar red flags for both admission and financial aid. Applications were missing a phone contact or had the same phone number on multiple applications. Numerous applications used an Outlook.com email address, listed student ages as old as 90 and repeated addresses — most to a vacant house.

“We were looking at the financial aid and they were looking at applications for enrollment and we finally put the two together,” Perry said. “The two just matched up and at that point we went, ‘Yeah, this is fraudulent.’”

The community college system is beefing up internal reporting and security measures after finding that 20% of recent traffic on its main portal for online applications was “malicious and bot-related,” according to a memo issued Monday by Valerie Lundy-Wagner, interim vice chancellor of digital innovation and infrastructure.

Nearly three-quarters of that traffic was caught by new software called Imperva Advanced Bot Detection, which was installed in July, and the matter remained of “grave concern,” Lundy-Wagner said.

“I’m certainly alarmed,” said California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley, who is on temporary leave working for the Biden administration. “There’s lots of unscrupulous players right now trying to access and exploit benefits, not unlike what’s happened with unemployment insurance and any number of other benefits that have been made available recently because of the pandemic.

“But I’m confident that the colleges have been able to identify the activity and are working to mitigate the risk to campuses,” he said.

Keep reading.

 

Majority of Interpreters, Other U.S. Visa Applicants Were Left Behind in Afghanistan

Y'all know how pissed I am over all of this.

I need to keep my anger in check, actually. I'm not an angry person (which gives you an idea how infuriating all this is). 

In any, at WSJ, "U.S. still doesn’t have reliable data on who was evacuated from Afghanistan, a senior State Department official says":

WASHINGTON—The U.S. left behind the majority of Afghan interpreters and others who applied for visas to flee Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday, despite frantic efforts to evacuate those at risk of Taliban retribution in the final weeks of the airlift.

In the early days of the evacuation effort, thousands of Afghans crowded Kabul’s airport seeking a way to flee the country. Some made it through without paperwork, while American citizens and visa applicants were unable to enter and board flights out.

The U.S. still doesn’t have reliable data on who was evacuated, nor for what type of visas they may qualify, the official said, but initial assessments suggested most visa applicants didn’t make it through the crush at the airport.

“I would say it’s the majority of them,” the official estimated. “Just based on anecdotal information about the populations we were able to support.”

The Special Immigrant Visa program set up in 2009 aimed to help those at risk of Taliban reprisal for helping the U.S., including interpreters for the U.S. military and diplomatic and foreign aid workers.

The Biden administration has been under intense pressure by lawmakers, veterans and other advocates to do more to help the more than 20,000 Afghans who had already applied for visas when the U.S. decided to withdraw. Including their family members, as many as 100,000 Afghans may be eligible for relocation.

The U.S. had only just begun airlifting those in the final stages of the process when Kabul fell.

The U.S. and its allies evacuated more than 123,000 people out of Afghanistan on a combination of military, commercial and charter flights in the final weeks of the mission.

The State Department says it doesn’t have reliable data on the composition, but it says about 6,000 were U.S. citizens. It says fewer than 200 Americans that wanted to leave have been left behind.

The majority of those evacuated were Afghans, including those that worked for foreign embassies, aid programs, media and some that had simply made it through the crowd but had no paperwork.

“Everybody who lived it is haunted by the choices we had to make and by the people we were not able to help,” the official added.

On Friday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the U.S. had evacuated 7,000 Special Immigrant Visa applicants to the U.S. It wasn’t clear whether the figure included family members.

The State Department has repeatedly said it lacks complete data on the composition of the evacuation population.

“Much of that information is going to be forthcoming once these individuals have cycled through transit points in the Middle East, in Europe, and for those who are being relocated to the United States, relocated here,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday.

Among the visa applicants left behind was an Afghan interpreter who was part of a 2008 mission to rescue then- Sen. Joe Biden and two other senators when their helicopter made an emergency landing in blinding snow in a valley 20 miles southeast of Bagram Air Field.

His application had been snagged in the bureaucracy when the Taliban took over, and now he is in hiding.

On Tuesday, the interpreter, identified only as Mohammed to protect his identity, made an appeal for help to Mr. Biden in The Wall Street Journal.

“Don’t forget me,” he said. In response to the story, Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, said the U.S. wouldn’t forget him.

“We’re going to cut through the red tape,” he told MSNBC. “We’re going to get him and other SIVs out.”

In the final days of the evacuation leading to the withdrawal of all U.S. troops on Monday, the U.S. focused its efforts on U.S. citizens and permanent residents...

 

A Dishonest Afghanistan Accounting

Must read, at WSJ, "Biden spins a tragedy for U.S. interests into an antiwar victory":

American Presidents must make hard decisions, and we’re inclined to support them when they do so overseas in the national interest. But President Biden’s defiant, accusatory defense on Tuesday of his Afghanistan withdrawal and its execution was so dishonest, and so lacking in self-reflection or accountability, that it was unworthy of the sacrifices Americans have made in that conflict.

The charitable interpretation is that this is what Mr. Biden really believes about Afghanistan in particular, war in general, and how to defend the U.S. The uncharitable view is that he and his advisers have decided that the only way out of this debacle is to lie about it, blame everyone else, and claim that defeat is really a victory. Neither one is reassuring about Mr. Biden’s character, his judgment, or—most ominously—the long three-and-a-half years left in his Presidency.

***

Start with the dishonesty, although we only have space to cover some of the falsehoods. Mr. Biden again claimed he was hamstrung by Donald Trump’s bad deal with the Taliban.

Mr. Trump’s deal was rotten, but as a new President he could have altered it as he has so much else that Mr. Trump did. The Trump deal was based on the Taliban fulfilling conditions—such as negotiating a deal with the Afghan government—that they had already broken when Mr. Biden became President. Yet Mr. Biden claims he was both a prisoner of that deal and courageous for fulfilling it.

He also repeated that his only choices were total withdrawal or “escalation” with thousands of troops. His own advisers offered him alternatives in between, as did the Afghanistan Study Group. He was so bent on withdrawal, and so quickly, that he refused to adjust the military plan even as the Taliban made gains and the CIA warned that the Afghan government was likely to fall.

Mr. Biden described the evacuation as if it were a triumph, and that his Administration had planned for such a contingency in case the Afghan military collapsed. This is, literally, unbelievable. Multiple media reports have revealed that the White House was caught by surprise and preparing for vacation en masse when Kabul fell. The military had to scramble and stage a heroic effort to evacuate those who were able to get to the airport. Mr. Biden wants to take credit for putting out the fire he started.

The President even had the ill grace to blame Americans for not leaving Afghanistan sooner, and Afghans for not fighting. But his own government clearly felt no urgency, as the U.S. Embassy had to frantically destroy documents in the final hours. As for the Afghans, he demeans the sacrifice of the 66,000 who died fighting the Taliban, often next to Americans. They collapsed when they lost air support as the U.S. contractors left and after the military abandoned Bagram Air Base in the dead of night.

Most dishonest—and dangerous—was the President’s assertion that “the war in Afghanistan is now over.” No one in the jihadist movement believes that. The Taliban have won a major victory in the long war that Islamic radicals are waging against the U.S. They have secured Afghanistan for what is likely again to become a refuge for recruits for al Qaeda, ISIS-K and the Haqqani network.

Mr. Biden wants Americans to believe that the U.S. can counter this from “over the horizon,” by which he means drones and satellites. But now the U.S. has no military in the country, and no CIA listening post in Khost. It has no friendly government or allies to locate and gather intelligence on terror camps. The U.S. has all of those assets to counter terrorists in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria. Every expert we know says Mr. Biden’s claims of easy over-the-horizon capability are a fantasy.

***

The President finished his remarks with a discourse on the horrors of war, which no one denies. But in laying out the costs, and the human tragedies, he also sends a signal to the world about his own resolve. He is telling rogues and autocrats that he lacks the will to send American soldiers into harm’s way. He will conduct his counterterror war only from a distance, with unmanned drones.

Those are useful and can save American lives. But they are no substitute for soldiers on the ground who can capture or kill the likes of bin Laden, or rescue Americans held hostage. The hard men in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and the terror dens of Helmand will test Mr. Biden’s war-weariness.

Mr. Biden’s unapologetic speech also signals that the White House intends to close the books on Afghanistan and pivot to domestic affairs. No one will lose their jobs. They’ll all talk from the same script. Mr. Biden may never speak of it again. All the more reason for Congress and the press to explore the many bad decisions that led to this American security debacle...

 

Peter Bergen, The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden

At Amazon, Peter Bergen, The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Following-up, "A Bitter -- and Angry! -- End to America's Longest War (VIDEO)."

Via the New York Post:

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...

Afghan Interpreter Who Helped Rescue Biden in 2008 Left Behind After U.S. Exit

I've been upset by this whole Afghanistan withdrawal, but nothing gets me more furious than this. 

The president and his party are enemies of the American people. Though, keep in mind, while Biden's approval numbers are tanking, it's still well over a year until the 2022 midterms, and voters generally have short memories. 

That said, I'll be gobsmacked if Republicans don't take the House next year, and if they don't they're blubbering idiots. 

In any case, an exclusive piece at WSJ, "Interpreter stranded in Afghanistan makes a White House appeal: ‘Don’t forget me here":

Thirteen years ago, Afghan interpreter Mohammed helped rescue then- Sen. Joe Biden and two other senators stranded in a remote Afghanistan valley after their helicopter was forced to land in a snowstorm. Now, Mohammed is asking President Biden to save him.

“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” Mohammed, who asked not to use his full name while in hiding, told The Wall Street Journal as the last Americans flew out of Kabul on Monday. “Don’t forget me here.”

Mohammed and his four children are hiding from the Taliban after his yearslong attempt to get out of Afghanistan got tangled in the bureaucracy. They are among countless Afghan allies who were left behind when the U.S. ended its 20-year military campaign in Afghanistan on Monday.

Mohammed was a 36-year-old interpreter for the U.S. Army in 2008 when two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters made an emergency landing in Afghanistan during a blinding snowstorm. On board were three U.S. senators: Mr. Biden, the Delaware Democrat, John Kerry, (D., Mass.) and Chuck Hagel, (R., Neb.).

As a private security team with the former firm Blackwater and U.S. Army soldiers monitored for any nearby Taliban fighters, the crew sent out an urgent call for help. At Bagram Air Field, Mohammed jumped in a Humvee with a Quick Reaction Force from the 82nd Airborne Division and drove hours into the nearby mountains to rescue them.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Biden, who was then running for vice president, often spoke of the helicopter incident and the trip as a way of burnishing his foreign-policy credentials.

“If you want to know where al Qaeda lives, you want to know where [Osama] bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me,” he said on the campaign trail in October, just months after the February rescue. “Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down…in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.”

The trip to Afghanistan was on one of the many overseas trips the three senators took together... 

And for what? Biden Just. Does. Not. Care.

Afghanistan's slipping from the news cycle a bit, especially on cable news, but WSJ and NYT have prioritized coverage of the debacle, and I'm thankful.

In any case, keep reading here, and, as always, more later.

And thanks for reading!

 

Dexter Filkins, The Forever War

Very prescient.

At Amazon, Dexter Filkins, The Forever War.

10 Marines Killed in Kabul Attack Hailed from Camp Pendleton

That's a huge toll. 

Not far from here, and these troops' families, wherever they may be, are grieving.

At LAT, "10 Camp Pendleton service members among 13 killed in Kabul airport attack":

SAN DIEGO — Nine Marines and a sailor based at Camp Pendleton were among the 13 U.S. service members killed Thursday in a suicide bomb attack at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Saturday.

The Thursday bombing killed 11 Marines, one soldier and one Navy corpsman — the deadliest single attack against U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 10 years.

[For the record: 11:31 a.m. Aug. 28, 2021A previous version of this story included incorrect service branches of troops killed. It has been updated with the correct numbers.]

It was the largest mass-casualty incident of the war involving the sprawling base near Oceanside, home to the 1st Marine Division, the oldest and largest in the Corps. Four of those killed were California residents.

Maj. Gen. Roger Turner Jr., the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, said those who died did so while performing a heroic mission.

“I extend my deepest, heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the 1st Marine Division servicemen who lost their lives while heroically safeguarding the evacuation of thousands of U.S. citizens and faithful allies from Hamid Karzai International Airport,” Turner said in a statement. “Nine Marines and one Sailor paid the ultimate price to defend our nation and extend the reach of freedom beyond our shores.

Gov. Gavin Newsom also issued a statement offering his condolences to the families of those killed.

“California joins the nation in mourning the tragic loss of 13 U.S. service members, including those from California, and many other innocent victims in this heinous attack,” Newsom said. “Our heroic troops gave their lives to protect others amid harrowing and dangerous conditions, and we will never forget their bravery and selfless sacrifice in service to our nation.”

At least 170 other people, including children, were killed in the explosion. It was triggered by a suicide bomber at an airport gate where U.S. troops were searching evacuees hoping to the leave the country. At least 18 other service members were injured.

The Camp Pendleton-based Marines and sailor were part of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. They are:

* Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City. Rep. Blake D. Moore (R-Utah) said on Twitter about the 2008 high school graduate: He “spent his last moments serving our state and nation, and we’ll never forget his unwavering devotion.”

* Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, Calif. Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha. He joined the Marines in 2019 after graduating from Millard South High School, according to a statement from his family, and was with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. He liked hunting and the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team. “Daegan will always be remembered for his tough outer shell and giant heart,” his family said.

* Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Ind.

* Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Mo. A Marine since 2019, he was on his first deployment, his father, Mark, told radio station KMOX in St. Louis. “I’m so incredibly devastated that I won’t be able to see the man that he was very quickly growing into becoming,” he said.

* Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas. He graduated in 2019 from Lyndon B. Johnson High School in Laredo and enlisted because he wanted to help other people, his mother, Elizabeth Holquin, told the Washington Post. “It was his calling and he died a hero,” she said.

* Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyo. McCollum’s father, Jim, told the New York Times, “He was a beautiful soul.” He said his son signed enlistment papers on his 18th birthday. “He’s the most patriotic kid you could find. Loved America, loved the military. Tough as nails with a heart of gold.”

* Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

* Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, Calif.

* Hospitalman Maxton Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio. He was a 2017 graduate of Edison High School, which released a statement about his death. On Instagram, his sister, Marilyn Soviak, wrote, “My beautiful, intelligent, beat-to-the-sound of his own drum, annoying, charming baby brother was killed yesterday helping to save lives ... My heart is in pieces and I don’t think they’ll ever fit back right again.”

Two additional Marines and a soldier were also killed. They are:

* Marine Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Mass.

* Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23, of Sacramento.

* Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tenn.

* Rosario Pichardo was assigned to the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade in Bahrain. Gee was attached to Combat Logistics Battalion 24, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Knauss was assigned to the 9th PSYOP Battalion, 8th PSYOP Group at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

Family members began sharing their grief in media interviews and on social media after being notified this week.

Among those killed were two Marines from Riverside County, Lopez and Nikoui...

Keep reading. 

There's a photo of Marine Sergeant Gee at the article. She's holding a baby in the pic, and her story has been widely lamented on Twitter.

It's all so ghastly. Beyond words.

Pray people. Pray for all of them and their families --- and for our country.

It's Wasn't a Choice. Biden Just Abandoned U.S. Citizens to the Barbarity of Islamic Jihad

As yesterday's report noted, potentially millions could be left behind, to meet the possibly of murder and even mass slaughter of millions. 

At NYT, "All in or All Out? Biden Saw No Middle Ground in Afghanistan":

As the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan capping an ill-fated 20-year war turned uglier and deadlier in recent days, President Biden has stood by his decision but at the same time repeatedly singled out one person in particular to blame: his predecessor.

Because President Donald J. Trump struck an agreement with the Taliban last year to pull out, Mr. Biden has insisted that he had no choice but to abide by the deal he inherited or send tens of thousands of American troops back to Afghanistan to risk their lives in a “forever war.” It was, in other words, all in or all out.

But that reductionist formula has prompted a profound debate over whether the mayhem in Kabul, the capital, was in fact inevitable or the result of a failure to consider other options that might have ended in a different outcome. The unusual confluence of two presidents of rival parties sharing the same goal and same approach has led to second-guessing and finger-pointing that may play out for years to come in history books yet unwritten.

In framing the decision before him as either complete withdrawal or endless escalation, Mr. Biden has been telling the public that there was in fact no choice at all because he knew that Americans had long since grown disenchanted with the Afghanistan war and favored getting out. The fact that Mr. Trump was the one to leave behind a withdrawal agreement has enabled Mr. Biden to try to share responsibility.

“There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict,” Mr. Biden said as the Taliban seized Kabul this month.

Critics consider that either disingenuous or at the very least unimaginative, arguing that there were viable alternatives, even if not especially satisfying ones, that may not have ever led to outright victory but could have avoided the disaster now unfolding in Kabul and the provinces.

“The administration is presenting the choices in a way that is, at best, incomplete,” said Meghan O’Sullivan, a deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush who oversaw earlier stages of the Afghan war. “No one I knew was advocating the return of tens of thousands of Americans into ‘open combat’ with the Taliban.”

Instead, some, including the current military leadership of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asserted that keeping a relatively modest force of as few as 3,000 to 4,500 troops along with the extensive use of drones and close air support could have enabled Afghan security forces to continue holding off the Taliban without putting Americans at much risk.

“There was an alternative that could have prevented further erosion and likely enabled us to roll back some of the Taliban gains in recent years,” said Gen. David H. Petraeus, the retired commander of American forces in Afghanistan and former C.I.A. director who argued the mission was making progress while serving alongside Mr. Biden under President Barack Obama.

“With the Afghans doing the fighting on the front lines and the U.S. providing assistance from the air,” he added, “such a force posture would have been quite sustainable in terms of the expenditure of blood and treasure.”

But the White House rejected such a middle ground, contending that it amounted to more war. At her briefing on Friday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said the only real choice was sending tens of thousands more Americans to “potentially lose their lives” or getting out.

“There are of course other options, but there are consequences to every option,” she said. “That is my point.” As for the critics, she said, “I think it’s easy to play back seat” driver...

The most cowardly and craven administration in U.S. history. I'm furious at what's happening --- and of course at a loss for all of those who've suffered with loved ones killed. 

Still more. 

Biden Warns Another Attack in Afghanistan Likely as U.S. Begins Final Stage of Withdrawal

Yeah, and another, and another, and another -- ad infinitum.

Shoot, Biden might as well have campaigned on bringing the war to an end in 2099. *Eye-roll.*

At WSJ, "Pentagon says it believes two militants killed in U.S. drone strike; Kabul is on high alert":

Evacuation efforts in Kabul began to wind down Saturday as the Afghan capital was on high alert for possible terrorist attacks in the wake of a U.S. strike against Islamic State.

President Biden said that his military commanders informed him that another attack in Afghanistan is “highly likely in the next 24-36 hours.” Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack Thursday outside Kabul’s airport that killed nearly 200 people, including 13 members of the U.S. military.

“The situation on the ground continues to be extremely dangerous, and the threat of terrorist attacks on the airport remains high,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. He said he directed military commanders “to take every possible measure to prioritize force protection.”

The U.S. and its allies have evacuated more than 117,000 people from Afghanistan in the two weeks since the Taliban toppled the Afghan government. About 1,400 people were inside the airport and waiting for flights on Saturday.

After the U.S. told partners that it was wrapping up evacuation efforts, thousands of people intent on fleeing but unable to get into the airfield began to shift their attention to other possible escape routes, including the land border with Pakistan.

The U.S. military carried out an airstrike on suspected Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan in response to Thursday’s suicide bombing, which targeted crowds of people hoping to get into the airport and seek refuge abroad.

The U.S. military said it believed the drone strike had killed two Islamic State militants and wounded one other. The Pentagon said there were no civilian casualties. Parts of Nangarhar province, where the strike occurred, have become a sanctuary for Islamic State’s regional offshoot, along with other spots in eastern Afghanistan.

In Nangarhar, Rahamunullah, a neighbor, said three people were killed and four others were wounded, including a woman.

The strike appeared to cause limited damage to a house. Video from the scene viewed by The Wall Street Journal showed a small blast hole outside the home next to a fire-charred auto rickshaw. The walls were pockmarked with shrapnel, and the windows of the building had been blown out. Clothes, sandals and furniture were tossed around the rooms.

Asked about the strike, the first that targeted Islamic State since the Taliban took control of the country, a Taliban spokesman said the group was looking into the matter. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. didn’t coordinate the operation with the Taliban. Meanwhile, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the U.K. wasn’t accepting any more applicants trying to leave Afghanistan and would evacuate only those already inside the airport.

The number of people flying out of Kabul has dropped significantly: American and coalition partners flew out about 6,800 on Friday, down from a daily high of nearly 22,000 earlier this week.

The Taliban tightened their security cordon around the Kabul airport as the throngs of Afghans crowding the gates subsided. Americans and a few others escorted by Qatari officials were allowed to come to the airport, according to people involved in the evacuation effort. But the Taliban turned back many people trying to leave the country.

Americans still trying to get people out of Afghanistan expressed frustration with the evacuation effort as the window of opportunity closed for most.

“A lot of people are being left behind,” said Kimberley Motley, an American attorney who was trying on Saturday to get four U.S. green-card holders to the Kabul airport. “It’s a reflection of our lack of preparation in making sure this was done in a responsible, ethical and moral way. We’ve put thousands, if not millions, of people at risk.” Western officials said they were on the lookout for another attack. The U.S. Embassy issued new warnings to Americans in Afghanistan on Saturday telling them to avoid the airport.

“Due to a security threat outside the gates of Kabul airport, U.S. citizens located in the vicinity of the Kabul airport gates should depart immediately,” the warning read. “U.S. citizens should avoid traveling to the airport and avoid all airport gates at this time.”

In Kabul, the Taliban worked to extend their authority as they seek to form a functioning new government.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid directed women working for the Ministry of Public Health to return to work, offering one sign of their willingness to allow women to work—something the Taliban hadn’t allowed when they ruled the country in the 1990s.

The Biden administration appeared poised to stick with its Tuesday deadline to pull the last of the nation’s forces out of Afghanistan and end the 20-year war...

Pfft, the forever war is right --- and to think, the dolt Biden campaigned on this, that is, he campaigned on lies. 

And those Afghan women brought back to work? Once the new regime is fully established and functional, these same women will once again be locked down in burqas and nikabs. It won't be long. Back to the future of the Stone Age.

Still more.

 

Colin Clark, After the Caliphate

At Amazon, Colin P. Clark, After the Caliphate: The Islamic State & the Future Terrorist Diaspora.

Dumping the Browser Tabs

Hey dear readers!

I honestly haven't been able to blog.

Right now I'm doing heavy prep work. My college starts its fall semester on Monday and I'm teaching six classes. I'm excited, but the prep is exhaustive, as my school is once again mostly online for fall, and the Canvas (online learning) system takes time to revise from semester to semester.

By the end of this term (second week of December), I'll have taught almost two full years since the start of the lockdown in March of last year. More specifically, the spring term starts up in early February next year, so altogether, at that time, it'll be about 23 months since I've taught on campus.

Not only that, of course I've been glued to the TV in my remaining time this last few days, and of course I was completely glued to the set after the bombings yesterday at the airport. Things are so bad: It's astonishing what's happening, and events are moving so fast you shouldn't trust anyone claiming they know what's going to happen --- this weekend or years from now. 

So, I've have read a few articles I've been meaning to share. The old veteran blogger Jimmie Bise used to have a saying, something along the lines like "dumping the browser tab," as in my title to this post. Sometimes you read so many articles before you know it you've got a dozen tabs open, and that's too much to blog! You've gotta dump 'em! (And I see that Jimmie's doing very well, has published a recent book, and is interviewed at this podcast). Good for him!

At any rate, a few of my tabs:

At YouGov, "Americans who think the withdrawal from Afghanistan went poorly blame Biden." 

If his numbers are crashing now, it's going to be like a rockslide down Mt. Whitney before too long. Again, you can't predict the future. The best I can say is it's going to be a rough few years ahead, and I'd be surprised if the Democrats can hold on to their congressional majorities in next year's midterm elections (and if G.O.P. candidates are prepping new attack ads following the news out of Afghanistan --- these dolts need to get new campaign managers. *Sheesh.*

Also, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K)." 

This is a very good piece, and it's interesting because the New York Times is out with this today, "What Is the Islamic State Khorasan, a.k.a. ISIS-K?"

If you're not up on it, "IS-K" is definitely the preferable term. Note that "ISIS" stands for the "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," but the group dominated that part of the world way back in 2014 --- almost eight years ago --- and since then they were completed routed by the Trump administration --- and if it weren't for the debacle in Afghanistan they'd still be long forgotten. (Not by me, but almost all of the American public, of whom most are more concerned with domestic affairs --- like the economy --- than U.S. incursions in hotspots around the world. It's been that way a while, and political science research going back decades has established this point as fact. (But note this 2014 piece on the topic at the Washington Post . More, a 2015 Gallup Poll found that just 21 percent indicated that foreign policy was a top concern. See here and here, too, for more examples.)

In any case, top analysts for a while have preferred simply the "Islamic State." The goal of this organization, perhaps the most violent, merciless, and indiscriminate terrorist group in the world, is a global caliphate. That is, the group's interpretation of Islam is totalitarian, in more ways than one, but especially in that its ideology calls for Muslim domination of the entire world. All non-believers would be placed under the yoke of extremist Islamic rule, and no one would be safe --- frankly, I hesitate to say it, but if such a thing were to ever to come about, it's not out of the realm of the possible that Islamic jihad could murder more innocent people than the Nazis during WWII.

Finally, read this great piece from Henry Kissinger, who at 98 years remains one of the most important international relations scholars ever. See, "The future of American powerHenry Kissinger on why America failed in Afghanistan."

That's all for now. Thanks for reading and check back soon for further updates. 

Candace Owens, Blackout

At Amazon, Candace Owens, Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation.

The Last Neocons

I rarely post from the American Conservative, as it's a controversial publication with views I frequently find repugnant. 

That said, neoconservatives are on the defensive now, big time, so this is interesting.

See, "The Last Neocons on the Island":

NEW: "By pointing to Germany and Japan, the hawks have let the cat out of the bag," writes @mattpurple5. https://t.co/MRGaTHkF90

— The American Conservative (@amconmag) August 25, 2021

Told the Post I'd be voting for @TerryMcAuliffe for governor. His opponent, @GlennYoungkin, embraces the model of @GovRonDeSantis and FL on COVID, and Sam Brownback and KS on fiscal policy. Ugh. Proven moderate competence > reckless right-wing pandering. https://t.co/ZmOhC0M575

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 24, 2021

If you want to understand the delusions that permeated the early-stage war on terror, pick up a copy of An End to Evil by Richard Perle and David Frum. Published in 2004, it reads like a fever dream one might have after playing Age of Empires on fast mode right before bed. Iraq? Saddam indicted not just himself “but all Arab tyrannies and all of their supporters.” Syria? “Why have we put up with it as long as we have?” (The entire country, apparently.) Everyone from the South Koreans to the peacekeepers in 1994 Rwanda are presented as appeasers for having failed to sufficiently confront evil.

Against all this criminality and cowardice, there can be only one tonic: a whole lot of American bicep-flexing. “When it is in our power and our interest,” Frum and Perle declare, “we should toss dictators aside with no more compunction than a police sharpshooter feels when he downs a hostage-taker.”

The difference, of course, is that sharpshooters tend to not get trapped for the next 20 years in the office buildings they help clear. So it is that even most hawks don’t talk this way anymore. Frum spends his time on Twitter pretending An End to Evil never happened. The antiwar blog LobeLog, meanwhile, noticed a few years ago that Perle had effectively vanished from public life. Some of their fellow neocons have gone and reinvented themselves as realists, asserting that American empire is a hardheaded necessity rather than an idealistic choice. Others have even moderated a bit.

Yet there remain a few stubborn holdouts, those stranded on the island who really do believe the “long war” is still going on. And it is they who have yelped the loudest as President Biden finally withdraws from Afghanistan. This is best illustrated not by a single personality but by an argument, heard from hawkish quarters in recent days. It goes like this: Why shouldn’t the United States remain in Kabul when we still have troops in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, decades after those conflicts ended?

It’s a sloppy comparison for several reasons. In none of those three theaters did America face an active civil war 20 years after the occupations began. And in none of those cases did the government we helped build turn out to be a weak, dysfunctional, on-the-take narco-state. It is also hardly a credit to the interventionist cause to point out that America still has military bases in the most powerful country in Europe and the third largest economy on earth 75 years after World War II ended. It tends instead to confirm what their opponents have said all along: occupations encourage dependence and mission creep.

But more important is the mentality that runs beneath this contention...

Keep reading.

 

Country Beauty

On Twitter.

Also, Victoria Justice.

And Lauren Gray.

Candace Owens on Slavery (VIDEO)

At Prager University:

How Many Remain in Afghanistan?

I've been thinking about this, especially the number of Americans are deadly risk of being left behind.

At the New York Times, "How Many People in Afghanistan Need to be Rescued? The Number Remains Elusive":

WASHINGTON — More than 70,700 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan as of Tuesday evening. Nearly 6,000 American troops are protecting the international airport in Kabul, the capital. And additional U.S. flights are leaving every 45 minutes.

The Biden administration has provided a stream of updates about its airlift of Americans, Afghans and others since Aug. 14, when the Taliban closed in on Kabul. Yet U.S. officials are reluctant to offer an estimate of the one number that matters most: How many people ultimately need to be rescued.

That tally has never been more critical, with the American government preparing to wind down evacuations as the U.S. military begins its final withdrawal from Afghanistan. On Tuesday, President Biden reaffirmed his plan to remove all American troops by Aug. 31, although he left room “to adjust the timeline should that become necessary.”

But U.S. officials believe that thousands of Americans remain in Afghanistan, including some far beyond Kabul, without a safe or fast way to get to the airport. Tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government over the last 20 years, and are eligible for special visas, are desperate to leave.

And refugee and resettlement experts estimate that at least 300,000 Afghans are in imminent danger of being targeted by the Taliban for associating with Americans and U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

Recounting his conversations with other world leaders, Mr. Biden said Tuesday evening at the White House that they had agreed to “continue our close cooperation to get people out as efficiently and safely as possible.”

“We’re currently on a pace to finish by August the 31st,” Mr. Biden said. “The sooner we can finish the better.”

But other senior U.S. officials doubt the evacuations will be complete by then.

“Americans want us to stay until we get our people out, and so do our allies,” Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said Tuesday. Mr. Biden, he added, should “tell the Taliban we’re getting our people out however long it takes.”

Administration officials say the numbers are changing on an hourly basis, if not minute-to-minute, especially since other countries have their own evacuation operations.

But the American effort is unquestionably the largest. Given the resources and risk the United States is putting into the evacuation, how can the government not know how many people it is planning to fly out?

“Very good question! We are wondering the same,” said James Miervaldis, the chairman of No One Left Behind, a nonprofit that advocates the relocation of Afghan interpreters to the United States. Here is what we know...

Keep reading.

 

Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan

At Amazon, Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan: A History.

Desperation Sets In

The U.S. issued a warning on Afghanistan today, and of course, hopes have been shattered among the people.

At NYT, "Desperation sets in for Afghans after return of Taliban":

For many Afghans, desperation is deepening. At least a quarter of a million people have fled their homes since the end of May as the Taliban marched steadily across the country. About 80 percent of them are women and children, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

At a park in central Kabul on Saturday morning, people who had escaped the Taliban’s march across northern Afghanistan in recent weeks were stuck in dust-blown makeshift settlements, washing their clothes in a stream and unsure of where to turn.

Days after they reached Kabul, the Taliban seized the city of six million, and now they may be stranded without assistance as international aid groups try to evacuate staff members who they worry are at risk of Taliban reprisals.

Known for barring girls from school and chopping off the hands of thieves when the group led the country in the late 1990s, the Taliban have presented conflicting signals of how they intend to govern this time. Top leaders have pledged to protect the rights of women and the free press, even as fighters beat protesters and search for supporters of the former government or its Western allies, according to the United Nations and witnesses.

The former insurgents have also demonstrated little aptitude for administering basic services in a country that is heavily reliant on foreign aid...

Keep reading.