Reporting from Afghanistan

Here, for your information, is some of the latest reporting from Afghanistan. It’s a portrait of a policy calamity, brought to us by the Biden administration. Apparently, the ever-so competent leaders of the new administration have truly botched their Afghanistan policy. The president, who does not know where he is most of the time, is sticking to his guns-- or better, to his surrender schedule.

One recalls, during the Trump administration, that the press was gleefully reporting its every foreign and domestic policy mishap. Now, not so much. And yet, the calamity is now so dire in Afghanistan that even the New York Times cannot ignore it.

Let’s begin with the Wall Street Journal, home of solid and sound reporting. It explains that the Biden administration, more concerned with equity and inclusion than in strategy, has miscalculated:

When President Biden this spring announced the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, his administration expected the Afghan military to defend key cities and perhaps battle the Taliban to a stalemate.

Before the current Taliban offensive, U.S. officials said they didn’t expect the takeover of any provincial capital until fall at the earliest.

Instead, a carefully planned strategy carried out by the Taliban has produced swift battlefield advances, allowing insurgents to seize a succession of provincial capitals since Friday. Three more fell Tuesday, bringing the total to nine, including several major cities.

The administration had imagined that the government of Afghanistan could hold out until the fall. The more optimistic liberal foreign policy analysts are now looking for a stalemate.

They have been wrong:

The latest U.S. intelligence assessment said Kabul could fall to militants in as soon as a month, officials said. U.S. officials now worry that Afghan civilians, soldiers and others will flee the city ahead of a Taliban assault.

And then there is the question of our allies around the world. We recall that the Biden administration excoriated the Trump team for weakening alliances, especially with Germany. Apparently, they imagined that paying for Germany’s national defense was in America’s interest.

Anyway, allies who contributed to the American coalition effort are dismayed at this new picture of American weakness and cowardice:

The rapid collapse of regular Afghan forces has dismayed allies, including those that have contributed troops to the U.S.-led coalition, and revived worries about the value of U.S. commitments overseas. India closed a consulate and sent a plane to retrieve its citizens this week. The U.S. military and State Department this week accelerated plans to evacuate the well-staffed American embassy if the situation in Kabul dictates it, U.S. officials said.

The Taliban’s swift takeover of swaths of Afghanistan, plotted for years, hinged on staging forces around the country ready to move on provincial capitals as soon as the U.S.-led coalition announced its exit, according to Pentagon officials.

Strangely enough, these same Pentagon officials did not foresee this. Apparently, they were too busy ridding the ranks of counterrevolutionaries.

America’s reputation is taking a hit in Afghanistan:

Each time a provincial capital falls, the Taliban gain a psychological victory, the defense officials said. They also pick up arms and equipment left behind or won from Afghan national security forces, and open prisons, freeing inmates to join their cause, the officials said.

“Every Afghan, they are really up to here with Americans,” said Ahmad Wali Massoud, a former Afghan ambassador to London and the brother of a legendary mujahedeen commander who fought Soviet troops. “You came to Afghanistan to root out terrorism. What happened?”

Of course, the Europeans like Biden anyway. He defers to them and makes them feel important. In truth, they cannot really mount any military campaigns by themselves, so they have very little to say:

European allies in the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan are critical of the way the withdrawal is being handled but haven’t called on the U.S. to change course or offered to contribute their own troops. Some say they understand there is no desire within the Biden administration to reconsider the decision. “It’s done,” one European official said.

Instead, they are asking for U.S. help to evacuate their embassy personnel should the Taliban sweep through Kabul, one European official said.

U.S. allies worry about the consequences of the withdrawal, including the rise of terrorism, a blow to democracy and women’s rights and the erosion of Western influence around the world. For Middle East allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, shifting U.S. priorities compound concerns about how much they can rely on Washington’s support to counter the influence of Iran, China and Russia in the region.

Mr. Biden in late January froze the sale to Saudi Arabia of precision-guided munitions that have caused widespread civilian casualties in Saudi-led air assaults in Yemen. The U.S. also is removing some military capabilities and troops from the Gulf region, part of a global realignment of forces.

After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, other countries in the region may also be more vulnerable to China and Russia, said Yaacov Amidror, a former national security adviser in the Israeli government.

“We cannot be sure that when the Americans will be needed they’ll be here to help,” said Mr. Amidror, now a fellow for the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

For some extra reporting, we turn to The Daily Mail. It’s slightly snide report makes a mockery of White House flack Jen Psaki. She is not talking tough about the Taliban. She is appealing to their better natures.

Keep in mind, talking tough about Afghanistan would perhaps equate to Islamophobia. Could it be that the Islamophiles in the Biden administration do not really have a problem with radical Islam. After all, they support Hamas and the struggle against patriarchal Israel.

The Daily Mail mocks Jen Psaki:

With the Taliban making rapid advances across Afghanistan, the White House tried a new tack on Wednesday as it defended President Biden's decision to withdraw U.S. troops: Appeal to the Taliban's better nature.

 

Press Secretary Jen Psaki said there was no getting away from the fact that Afghan government forces were struggling, but added: 'The Taliban also has to make an assessment about what they want their role to be in the international community.'

It was part of a strategy designed to nudge them to the negotiating table.

But the immediate impact at home was a wave of ridicule. 

'Psaki won't be able to tempt them to civility with a seat on the Human Rights Council or expect them to show up to a global warming get-together with Greta Thunberg,' said Jim Carafano, national security expert at the Heritage Foundation.

'This is an administration acting like a deer in the headlights on this issue.'  

America is becoming a laughing stock-- weak, feckless and cowardly.

As for our nation’s commitment to human rights and especially to the rights of women, obviously the Taliban has other ideas. Amazingly, only the Daily Mail and the Guardian have reported extensively on what is happening to the women of Afghanistan under Taliban rule:

Taliban fighters are going door-to-door and forcibly marrying girls as young as 12 and forcing them into sex slavery as they seize vast swathes of the Afghanistan from government forces. 

Jihadist commanders have ordered imams in areas they have captured to bring them lists of unmarried women aged from 12 to 45  for their soldiers to marry because they view them as 'qhanimat' or 'spoils of war' - to be divided up among the victors.

Fighters have then been going door-to-door to claim their 'prizes', even looking through the wardrobes of families to establish the ages of girls before forcing them into a life of sexual servitude. 

Sex slavery!! Then again, under the totally feminist Obama administration a caliphate arose in Iraq and Syria where sex slavery was the rule. The Obama administration allowed it to happen. The Trump administration put an end to it. Ergo, the Obama and Biden administrations were friends toward women. If it weren’t so flagrantly stupid, it would be sad.

But, writing for Bloomberg, columnist Ruth Pollard said that has now extended down to girls as young as 12.  

'Now the Taliban are going door-to-door in some areas, compiling lists of women and girls aged between 12 and 45 years for their fighters to forcibly marry,' she wrote.

Taliban fighters are permitted to do this under their strict interpretation of Islam which views women as 'kaniz' or 'commodities', according Omar Sadr, professor of politics at the American University of Afghanistan.

We await the Islamophile wing of the Democratic Party, the wing that is quick to denounce Israel for defending itself, to deplore these appalling criminal practices.