President Biden and (through his positional authority) America are in the process of irrevocably breaking the ties that bind us not only to our allies but also America as a people. When I say breaking faith I mean diminished strength and loss of trust. Our military left Afghanistan without notifying allies or American citizens alike. We now know that our government has provided the Taliban a list of American citizens and allies we are looking for. First, If you trust the Taliban with anything raise you hand. I thought so, if the average American understands our enemy of twenty years can’t be trusted to aid America then why can’t American leaders? Second, the Taliban has already spoken out saying no more Afghani people will be allowed to leave. So American people may have some safety due to citizenship but any Afghani on that list are either going to be arrested or killed.
What has been done the last two weeks have been a continuous show of what happens when leadership is replaced with politics.
Next challenges.
- We just gave the Taliban a capture or kill list for both stranded Americans, NATO allies and Aghani people. Our government just put literal targets on all of their and their families backs. And Taliban actions are probably not going to seen or captured on video. Even if it were, what could we do in response? We have the bare minimum of troops to occupy the airport and process civilians getting out. The airport is a small fishbowl or in more military verbiage a killing field. No matter what Biden says about responding to two bombings yesterday we aren’t going to do anything while troops and civilians are in harms way and practically defenseless.
- Every second we have troops at the airport in Kabul moving forward, our troops and civilians there will be at great risk for more terrorist attacks. And as I outlined above, Biden will feel powerless to respond.
- Most importantly, what happens next Tuesday may have repercussions around the world forever. We cannot allow Biden to pull out of Karzi airport on next Tuesday without all of American civilians, NATO allies, Afghan allies and our military. The resulting aftermath would be catastrophic and can’t be overstated. The worst will be the world being forced to see video of the killing for months to come of our Afghani allies. This may turn into the largest and longest hostage situation ever. Our relationship with NATO will be forever tarnished. China and Russia are being given the green light to act with impunity on the world stage. So, Biden seems stuck on stupid over this August 31st deadline. What can be done? We can call our congressmen and senators. The congress and senate are a co-equal branch of government. Do something! Demand to be heard. Walk out en masse and pick up signs and demonstrate on the steps of the Capitol if you must. If anything qualifies for public demonstrations it is now. I am prior military. We are not a group that really march or demonstrate in protest. If there were local marches on this issue, I would go.
Even though it looks more and more like the worst case scenario is also the most likely, please join me in hoping and praying for the best outcome.
Random Thoughts 