Afghanistan
September 21, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Unintentional killings of innocent civilians are an unfortunate but inevitable occurrence in sustained wars. The wars associated with our attempt to curb terrorism seem particularly prone to producing such killings by American forces. I don’t think there’s any doubt that the wars fought under Presidents Bush (43) and Obama resulted in U.S. forces unintentionally killing innocent civilians. This might well have been the case under President Trump too, despite the
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September 21, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the Hoover Institution posted Peter Robinson’s Uncommon Knowledge episode A Lost War: A Conversation with Victor Davis Hanson and H. R. McMaster on Afghanistan’s Past, Present, and Future. Victor is the prominent classicist and military historian. He is also our friend. McMaster is a military historian in his own right, a retired Army lieutenant general who served in the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Most
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September 20, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Associated Press reporters Bernard Condon and Julie Watson have a compelling story on Americans left behind in Afghanistan: “Fearful US residents in Afghanistan hiding out from Taliban.” The story belies the Biden party line about the extraordinary success of our departure in disgrace from Afghanistan. It even belies the line about unceasing efforts on their behalf (“A U.S. State Department official contacted [a green card-holding couple] several days ago to
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September 18, 2021 — Scott Johnson
On September 1 Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley pronounced the August 29 drone strike in Kabul “a righteous strike.” The strike allegedly prevented a horrendous ISIS attack. The Biden administration touted the drone strike as proof of our so-called “over the horizon” capability to deal with national security threats in Afghanistan following our departure in disgrace. On September 10 the New York Times reported that the evidence suggested “no ISIS
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September 17, 2021 — John Hinderaker
On August 29, military sources claimed that a U.S. drone had taken out an ISIS suicide bomber en route to the Kabul airport: American forces launched a drone strike in Kabul on Sunday that killed a suicide car bomber suspected of preparing to attack the airport, U.S. officials said, as the United States nears the end of its military presence in the Afghan capital. *** “We know that there were
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September 17, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Transcript and video of the State Department’s September 15 press briefing are posted here. This exchange with department spokesman Ned Price is worthy of note: QUESTION: I wanted to ask if there have been any movement on the flights out of Mazar. A week ago [Secretary of State Antony Blinken] said, quote, “Those flights need to move.” And also the Secretary had said State would be coordinating with veterans groups
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September 15, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Scott has provided video of the exchanges between Sec. Antony Blinken and several Republican Senators yesterday during a hearing on the Afghanistan fiasco. He has done a great service to those of us unwilling to watch Blinken in full. All of the clips Scott presented are worth watching. In this post, I want to focus on Sen. Rob Portman’s comments (the video is below). Portman presented the best data made
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September 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Following up on his remote appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in person yesterday. The State Department has posted the text and video of his opening statement here. The song remains the same. Blinken continues to fire blanks. However, some of the senators had live ammo. Blinken faced a barrage of critical questions and
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September 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. He gave a 15-minute opening statement and responded in his fashion to questions posed by members. The State Department transcript and video of Blinken’s opening statement are posted here. The State Department video of the entire hearing is posted below. The hearing commences at about 45:00 of the video. The New York Times account of the hearing
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September 13, 2021 — John Hinderaker
John Ondrasik (Five For Fighting) released a song yesterday titled “Blood On My Hands.” It expresses his dismay at the consequences of Joe Biden’s inept withdrawal from Afghanistan. John has a long history of patriotism and of supporting American troops in many ways, including many performances overseas. This song expresses those values. Ondrasik wrote about it: Like all Americans, I was stunned and horrified at the images of falling bodies
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September 12, 2021 — John Hinderaker
I am not sure how much U.S. newspapers have been covering Afghanistan lately. I see that there is no reference to events there on the front page of today’s New York Times or my home town newspaper, the Star Tribune. The Times is back to waging its non-stop war against Republicans: “G.O.P. Seethes at Biden Mandate, Even in States Requiring Other Vaccines;” “False Election Claims in California Reveal a New
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September 12, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
A reader responded to my post about the shunning of Joe Biden by family members of troops who died at Kabul airport with this trenchant message: The heartbreaking ritual at Dover AFB, too often repeated, is inherently theatrical. It fixes our national attention, ignites the glare of media coverage. Every word and gesture is pregnant with emotion and meaning. We know this very well. And our leaders know it, or
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September 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Last night the White House released President Biden’s recorded statement on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. This was to be the day that Biden celebrated our departure from Afghanistan. As our departure turned into the epic humiliation of the United States at the hands of forces that were instrumental to the 9/11 attack itself, he had a change of plan. While the 9/11 attack was still underway, Rick Rescorla understood
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September 10, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
When George Bush was president, parents of armed service members killed in Iraq received special attention from the media if they denounced the war and criticized Bush. Cindy Sheehan gained a huge profile for bitterly attacking Bush after her son was killed. Eventually, she became a fringe figure, to put it as politely as I can, but this was only after Barack Obama succeeded Bush. Before then, the mantra on
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September 10, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times has just posted this intensely interesting investigative scoop by Matthieu Aikins based on reporting by him as well as Christoph Koettl, Evan Hill, and Eric Schmitt: ” In U.S. Drone Strike, Evidence Suggests No ISIS Bomb.” Subhead: “U.S. officials said a Reaper drone followed a car for hours and then fired based on evidence it was carrying explosives. But in-depth video analysis and interviews at the
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September 10, 2021 — Scott Johnson
President Biden is set to attend events at all three 9/11 memorial sites — in New York City, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon — on the twentieth the anniversary of the attacks tomorrow. We can be thankful that he will not give a live speech to commemorate the anniversary. Rather, he will instead speak in “in the form of a video in advance — or if that will be available
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September 8, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we’re seeing assessments of the 20 year war on terror. We’ll see many more in the next few days. The ones in the mainstream media will probably be along the lines of a piece in the Washington Post by the paper’s book review editor, a leftist of course. He argued that 9/11 put America to the test and America failed. I think
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