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Three Years Later, Biden Still Hasn’t Said Who’s At Fault For Chaotic Afghanistan Withdrawal

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jake Smith

 

On the third anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration has yet to fire any leadership personnel for their role in the botched operation; instead, the administration has maintained that the decision to pull out was the right move.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was seen by many as a chaotic and abrupt operation that led to the deaths of several U.S. troops. But the Biden administration has largely refused to admit blame in the matter, and no leadership involved has been dismissed or resigned over the operation, according to a review of multiple records.

The Biden administration’s goal was to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021, but a failure of planning and preparation by leadership in Washington created a disordered situation for troops on the ground in Afghanistan, resulting in a disordered evacuation. There was also a miscalculation among military leaders who believed that the Taliban would not seize control of the country as quickly as the extremist group did after U.S. forces withdrew.

The Department of Defense, headed by Secretary Lloyd Austin, was intimately involved prior to and during the withdrawal, guiding U.S. military operations on the ground in Afghanistan and providing resources and intelligence for the operation. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCOS) Chairman retired Gen. Mark Milley — at the time the highest ranking member of the military — was also involved in coordinating strategy and operations for the withdrawal.

Both Austin and Milley attended planning sessions for the withdrawal, retired Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan at the time, told lawmakers during a closed-door hearing in April, according to The Washington Post. Miller had been privately warning the administration ahead of the withdrawal that Afghanistan’s stability would get “very bad, very fast” after U.S. forces departed.

Miller stepped down from his role in July 2023, after serving as the most senior U.S. officer in Afghanistan. Neither Austin nor Milley were removed from their roles over the withdrawal, though Milley testified in 2023 that he had advised the administration to keep troops in Afghanistan, arguing that the region would quickly collapse if the U.S. withdrew on the set timeline, according to The New York Times. Milley’s term as JCOS chair ended in September 2023.

For his part, Austin testified in 2023 that he supported Biden’s decision to evacuate U.S. troops in 2021 and said he didn’t “have any regrets” about the operation. Austin remains the current Secretary of Defense under Biden.

Similar to the Department of Defense, the State Department, led by Secretary Antony Blinken and tasked with overseeing U.S. foreign affairs, was also involved in planning and helping execute the Afghanistan withdrawal, especially regarding evacuating U.S. citizens present in the country. Thousands of Americans were initially stranded in Afghanistan; most of them were evacuated in the weeks and months following.

A State Department 2023 after-action report found that the withdrawal operation “was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the Department had the lead.” The report also noted that there was an “insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios.”

There have been multiple credible reports that the State Department on various occasions failed to properly vet or track millions in aid to Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, running the risk it could end up in the hands of the Taliban or other extremist groups.

The U.S. left over $7 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan. The Taliban, an Islamic extremist group ruling over Afghanistan, held a demonstration on Wednesday with American military equipment and vehicles left at a former U.S. base in the country.

Biden has not dismissed Blinken, and Blinken has not resigned from his role as Secretary of State. Nor has Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, who would have had his ear and offered him advice prior to and during the withdrawal.

A Biden administration 2023 report assigned most blame on the former Trump administration for the withdrawal, given that Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw U.S. forces by 2021. After taking office in 2021, Biden tried to abide by the agreement and withdraw forces by September of that year, according to the report.

Trump and his team argue that had he been president at the time, the withdrawal would have been executed in a safe and secure manner, and blamed the Biden administration for “trying to gaslight the American people for their disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that directly led to American deaths and emboldened the terrorists.”

Biden has defended his choice to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan when he did. He falsely claimed during a debate against Trump in June that he was “the only president this decade that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world.”

Following the withdrawal, Biden also reportedly told his top aides, including Sullivan, that he supported them and their decisions regarding the operation, according to Axios.

The Pentagon and State Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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US and UK authorize missile strikes into Russia, but are we really in danger of World War III?

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From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Hopefully a world war appears unlikely, but the decision to allow Ukraine to shoot U.S. and U.K.-provided missiles into Russia once again reveals the lengths to which the ‘neocon globalists’ will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.

News that the lame duck President Joe Biden has authorized long-range strikes into Russia using NATO systems was announced with the alarming warning that he had “started World War III.”

The following day, U.S.-supplied and operated ATACMS missiles were fired into Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the authorized strikes as an “escalation” showing that the West wants war.

“The fact that ATACMS were used repeatedly in the Bryansk region overnight is, of course, a signal that they want escalation,” he said, according to Reuters.

Lavrov continued: “Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles, as Putin has repeatedly said.”

Why would the U.S. president finally give the green light to use NATO systems to attack Russia? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to follow suit and supply German-made Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – because he does not want to see Germany drawn into a direct war with Russia.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by suggesting it is only a matter of time before U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles strike deep into Russian territory.

The U.K. government has been behind a long campaign to escalate the war in Ukraine, a move seen as an attempt to secure continued U.S. commitments in Europe. The Trump camp has long signaled its desire to draw down its security provision to leave a “dormant NATO.”

In an indication of the dangers of the U.K.-backed move by Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an alarming amendment of the Russian nuclear doctrine.

The policy change, announced in September and published following Biden’s announcement, says “an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia,” according to the BBC.

Russian nuclear doctrine has long included the use of low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons in “conventional” warfare – a significantly lower threshold than that of NATO.

While Russian officials urged Western leaders to consult the text, Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that “we strongly are in favor of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen.”

As Reuters reported, this latest provocation is “unlikely to be a gamechanger.” Western media outlets have moved from a narrative of Ukrainian victory to mulling how or even if the state of Ukraine can survive its “inevitable” defeat.

Yet it is not only Ukraine which faces an uncertain future with a Russian victory. The entire globalist order faces a significant blow should the war conclude. Statements from figures such as George Soros, U.S. General Mark Milley, E.U. chief Ursula von der Leyen, and the former head of NATO stressed that their liberal-globalist regime is threatened by defeat in Ukraine.

Biden’s decision has been seen as an attempt to frustrate Donald Trump’s declared agenda – to clear out the “deep state globalists” whose “neocons seeking confrontation … such as Victoria Nuland” have led the U.S. into endless wars since that in Iraq.

An escalation to all-out war with Russia would not only be a disastrous precursor to nuclear escalation, but would also preserve the dominance of the same “neocon globalists” whose “forever wars” Trump has pledged to end.

Arch-neocon Robert Kagan said Americans who support ending wars are “intolerant.” He went on to author two articles which Hitlerized Trump and appeared to incite the assassination of a man who promised in his 2024 victory speech, “I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.”

This follows a long series of claims in the same vein.

“I will end the war in Ukraine,” Trump declared in February 2023, saying he would also end “the chaos in the Middle East” and “stop World War III.”

 

This move by Biden has no military significance in improving Ukraine’s chances of victory. Russia claimed to have shot down seven of eight ATACMS fired into its Bryansk region. Yet prolonging or even escalating this war has enormous political significance.

Since the publication of the RAND Corporation’s 2019 paper “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” a strategy of bleeding Russia on the battlefield to collapse its government has been clear. Russia’s near-limitless mineral wealth would provide an obvious boon to a Western system self-sabotaged by sanctions and the destruction of the Nordstream gas supply.

The enormous significance of the war is found in its use as an attempt to extend and consolidate the power of the same system of neocon “globalism” which Trump has vowed to end.

This context explains why the U.K. government has consistently pressed for escalation since the 2022 intervention of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to have sabotaged peace in favor of an all-or-nothing gamble towards “regime change” in Russia.

Since then, the U.K. government has urged the authorization of long-range strikes into Russia, and it has supplied cruise missiles to attack Russian over-the-horizon nuclear radar warning systems, which play no role in the Ukraine war.

Reports have confirmed “terrorist operations” in Russia, including attacks on the Kerch Bridge leading to Crimea were U.K.-led. A recent expose by The Grayzone revealed that the British state appears to be training Ukrainians to fight a guerilla war, extending hostilities even beyond any ceasefire.

Ukraine’s recent and failed offensive into Russia’s Kursk region appears to have also been a British operation – to secure the kind of “morale boost” which Alastair Crooke says is the only significant war-fighting contribution of the authorization of “wonder weapons” like ATACMS.

The ATACMS authorization was heralded as a turning point in the war by Foreign Affairs. Yet the suspicion of Responsible Statecraft that it was a “sideshow that may become a tragedy” appears to have been confirmed.

The grim reality of this war is underscored by the fact that measures taken which will result in even more needless loss of human life are done so to legitimize useful propaganda headlines. This is undertaken to sell a war which has long been predicted to end as it now seems certain to do so: with a victory on Russian terms.

Though it appears unlikely that a world war will result from this latest reckless move, what has been demonstrated once more is the lengths to which the “neocon globalists” will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.

That lifeline is perpetual war, and when they end – so do the careers of so many whose livelihoods and reputations depend on keeping them going.

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Putin Launches Mass-Production of Nuclear Shelters for his People

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From Armstrong Economics

By Martin Armstrong

Russia has begun mass production of mobile nuclear bunkers. This is in response to Ukraine’s use of Western US and British missiles to attack deep inside Russia to destroy its conventional capability so NATO can launch an invasion by March/April 2025.

nuclear_doctrine Putin 11 2024

This has coincided with Mr Putin’s change of Russia’s doctrine to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons to include the use of conventional weapons by Ukraine. Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine attacked an ammunition stockpile in the Bryansk region using missiles supplied by the US military’s MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

Russia has also ordered the production of its mobile nuclear bunkers to protect citizens. They are shelters capable of protecting people from the light radiation of a nuclear explosion and radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment. These are known as “KUB-M” and will protect 54 people for 48 hours from the air shock wave and light radiation of a nuclear explosion; penetrating radiation and radioactive contamination of the area; high-explosive and fragmentation effects of conventional weapons; falling debris from building structures; dangerous chemicals; fires. Unlike traditional, stationary bunkers, mobile bunkers are built to be easily moved from one location to another, often on vehicles or trailers. They can be equipped with advanced shielding, air filtration systems, and other necessary survival equipment to withstand the harsh conditions of a nuclear event.

Zelenskyy Johnson

The Western press keeps putting out the Neocon and NATO propaganda that Russia will never fire a nuke and Ukraine can win the war. But this is all a smoke screen for NATO will invade Russia, and they are using Ukraine as our Hesbolla, the same as Iran is using Lebanon. Zelensky claimed he invaded Russia to force Putin to peace. But they had a peace deal. Boris Johnson ran to Kiev and instructed Zelensky he was not allowed to sign a peace deal, and now far more than 1 million Ukrainians have been killed so Europe can invade Russia.

Just as Robert McNamara said about Vietnam and the Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist in Iraq, what if these people are wrong AGAIN? There goes Europe! Not a single European leader cares about their own people.

Either the Ukrainian people rise up and take their country back, or Putin needs to nuke Kiev to show the world he is serious. Otherwise, we are sleepwalking into World War III. Our press will NEVER write a single word for peace. It is always Putin is bluffing. What if you are wrong again?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev was just shut down after Biden gave the go-ahead to use long-range missiles. Hm. If this was to win the war, then why flee Kiev? They know Putin will respond forcefully against Zelensky. Russians get nuclear bomb shelters, and we get Fake News – Don’t worry – he’s bluffing.

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