by Joseph Klein
All while selling out Americans stranded in Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden continues to humiliate the United States by letting the Taliban terrorists dictate the terms of his surrender.
Indeed, the president just capitulated to the terrorists’ threat to adhere to his own self-imposed deadline of August 31st
for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The evacuation
of U.S. troops from the Kabul airport has already begun.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned during a press conference in Kabul that:
August 31 is the time given and after that it's something that is against the agreement. All people should be removed prior to that date. After that we do not allow them, it will not be allowed in our country, we will take a different stance.
And Biden dutifully followed the orders.
The president is so infused with the radical agenda of his left-wing base that he began his August 24th address to the American people on the latest developments in Afghanistan with praise for the House of Representatives’ passage of the Democrats’ budget framework for their socialist $3 trillion budget bill. He went out of his way to thank Speaker Nancy Pelosi for pushing this "progressive" leftist program through the House. Then he put in a word of support for the Democrats’ partisan voting bills to federalize elections. He spent more than five minutes of his twelve minute address on left-wing domestic policies that had nothing to do with the Afghanistan crisis on most Americans' minds.
When Biden finally got around to discussing that crisis, he stated that his administration was on pace for an August 31st withdrawal. He added, however, that meeting this deadline depends on continued cooperation from the Taliban in allowing access to the Kabul airport.
The U.S. would judge the Taliban by their actions, Biden added. But his own actions can only be judged as an appeasement of the Taliban.
The president left himself a little wiggle room to adjust the timeline should that become necessary. He referred vaguely to the development of contingency plans just in case they are needed. But that is ultimately meaningless talk because the U.S. administration is operating from a position of weakness.
Biden failed as Commander-in-Chief to plan for a safe and orderly evacuation for as long as it takes, backed by a credible threat of overwhelming force against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and ISIS if they try to interfere with the evacuations.
Instead, Biden has allowed the Taliban to call the shots even when it comes to completing the evacuation of American citizens. As for those Afghans seeking to escape the Taliban’s wrath for working with the United States, they are out of luck. The Taliban are no longer letting them leave the country.
Biden has acknowledged that ISIS fighters are present in Afghanistan and that they represent a threat to the U.S. soldiers and citizens still in the country. In fact, one of the reasons cited for the U.S. military to quickly pack up and leave by August 31st is the added risk to our troops from ISIS attacks if the troops remain in the country.
But the president is clearly willfully blind to ISIS in Afghanistan being a long-term threat to the American homeland. He has assured Americans that ISIS and the Taliban are sworn enemies, implying that the Taliban will clamp down on ISIS severely enough to prevent them from getting out of hand and from using Afghanistan as a base from which to hatch attacks on Americans everywhere.
The assumption here is flawed.
The Taliban not only released al Qaeda prisoners as they took over Afghanistan; they released imprisoned ISIS terrorists as well. Yes, the Taliban may see ISIS jihadists as rivals for power in Afghanistan, but the Taliban, ISIS, and al Qaeda share a common enemy that transcends their internal squabbles: the infidels of the West, especially the United States. The three radical Islamist groups share the same jihadist ideology, which envisions the triumph through conquest of global Islam rule under strict Sharia law.
Biden has shown zero concern for any al Qaeda threat emerging from Afghanistan. In fact, according to him, the terror group is “gone” from Afghanistan, as he falsely claimed during his remarks to the press on August 20th. “We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as — as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did,” Biden asserted.
Biden’s claim is in sync with the Taliban’s own false claim that al Qaeda members “are not present in Afghanistan in the first place.”
Interestingly enough, however, even Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken contradicted the president’s contention that al Qaeda is “gone” from Afghanistan. During a Fox News Sunday interview on August 22nd, Blinken admitted that there are still “al Qaeda members and remnants” in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon's spokesperson also acknowledged on August 24th that al Qaeda remains a threat in Afghanistan.
True, U.S. special forces did get Osama bin Laden, against the advice of then-Vice President Biden -- who did not think the mission should have gone forward. But al Qaeda did not disappear from Afghanistan during the last 20 years. Far from it.
An official monitoring team analysis submitted to the United Nations Security Council last spring reported some chilling findings. The analysis revealed that despite the attrition of al Qaeda forces, including the killing of some senior figures, a “significant part of the leadership of Al-Qaida resides in the Afghanistan and Pakistan border region, alongside Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent.”
Moreover, according to the UN report, “Large numbers of Al-Qaida fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan.”
The UN report noted that “the primary component of the Taliban in dealing with Al-Qaida is the Haqqani Network. Ties between the two groups remain close, based on ideological alignment, relationships forged through common struggle and intermarriage.”
Along their road to victory, the Taliban released al Qaeda prisoners who have been joining the Taliban’s ranks. According to Thomas Joscelyn, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, several U.S. officials whom he spoke with think that “at least hundreds of al-Qaeda’s men were released during the Taliban’s jailbreaks this year.”
With the Taliban now in charge, more members of al Qaeda from near and far, along with would-be jihadist recruits, will be converging on Afghanistan. The Taliban’s promise that they will not give al Qaeda refuge in Afghanistan is a total lie. We are now facing the re-establishment of a national sanctuary for Islamic terrorists from all over the world.
Biden has argued that Afghanistan is no longer of significant strategic interest to the United States in the war against terror. The “threat from terrorism has metastasized,” Biden said. “There’s a greater danger from ISIS and — and al Qaeda and all these affiliates in other countries, by far, than there is from Afghanistan.”
Unfortunately, realities on the ground suggest otherwise. The Biden administration's catastrophic retreat from Afghanistan has given new life to global jihadists. They are boasting that their "long war" strategy is working against the infidels. And, to be sure, al Qaeda and other jihadist groups now have a safe haven to congregate, train, raise money, and hatch plots that can be executed from Afghanistan or from the other countries to which terrorism has “metastasized.”
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based largely in Yemen, has proclaimed the “beginning of a pivotal transformation” worldwide, according to the New Yorker article, "Afghanistan, Again, Becomes a Cradle for Jihadism—and Al Qaeda."
The Taliban have learned in the last 20 years how to manipulate the western media and to show a more “moderate” and “tolerant” public face to the so-called “international community.” Taliban leaders will say anything to drum up support for international recognition of the Taliban as the “legitimate” rulers of Afghanistan. It’s all about luring foreign aid into the country, which the Taliban will control. By negotiating with the Taliban, the Biden administration has conferred legitimacy on this terrorist group and their takeover of Afghanistan by force.
The Taliban’s new packaging is a complete sham. The Taliban remain the same bunch of murderous, misogynist thugs they always were. Their atrocities continue. They have been beating and harassing people trying desperately to enter the Kabul airport so that they can be flown out of Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters beat a woman to death who said she could not cook for them. Another woman was reportedly shot to death for not wearing a burqa. Girls were stopped and lashed last week for wearing “revealing sandals."
Women and girls have been told to leave work or schools and not come back.
Some girls have been forced into marriage or taken away as sex slaves for Taliban fighters.
Afghans who helped coalition forces or worked for the government overthrown by the Taliban have been hunted down in door-to-door searches. Captured Afghan policemen have been shot to death.
Biden has embarrassed the United States by handing these thugs the leverage to impose their will on the greatest nation on earth. Then again, Biden and his progressive left-wing allies do not believe in American exceptionalism. They would rather criticize America for its alleged “faults” than defend Americans’ freedoms against the true forces of evil.
Because of Biden’s surrender, terrorists taking American civilians as hostages may very well -- and tragically -- become our next calamity.
Joseph Klein
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/bidens-gift-global-jihadists-safe-national-joseph-klein/
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