Joe Needs to Go - Now!

People on both sides of the aisle are suggesting that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is embarrassing for America. This past Sunday morning, Afghanistan's embattled President fled the country, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan and protecting America.

The world press looked at the video from Kabul of the thousands of people fleeing to the airport and many older reporters, including myself, thought it looked very much like the footage we all saw in the evacuation from the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam, when we watched in disbelief at the sight of helicopters landing in the embassy compound with people desperately trying to get on the helicopter and escape. This time it was people trying to cling onto a giant military transport plane and falling out of the sky much like people jumping off the World Trade Centers on 9/11 . 

The words of political leaders can come back to haunt them. In an interview on National Public Radio (NPR) President Biden said on July 8, "The jury is still out. But the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."  "None whatsoever, zero," Joe Biden said last month when asked if he saw any parallels between the U.S. withdrawals from Vietnam and Afghanistan. "The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They're not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There will be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the United States embassy in Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable." I find it interesting that President Biden moved the U.S. Embassy to the airport. He eliminated the Vietnam visual comparison, but we have seen new images of the Taliban army trying to overrun the airport. Unlike the desperate attempt in Saigon to get aboard a helicopter from the roof of the American embassy, people clung to a C-17 American transport and some were seen falling to their death out of the sky. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the U.S. pullout from Vietnam. The pictures tell a different story, Mr. Secretary. 

Look at the ineptitude of the United States leadership in planning the Saigon-style withdrawal from the Afghanistan capital. Why was the worst-case scenario not anticipated and more troops brought in earlier to secure an orderly withdrawal? One would think that the leadership of the Pentagon, many of who claim to have served in Vietnam, would remember their own experience when they let the country and the embassy be overrun. It wasn’t until Saturday that the President ordered 3,000 troops to help secure the U.S. Embassy and later in the day, American leaders decided to fly in additional soldiers adding at least 5,000.  

The belief is that the Taliban is beginning to enforce a version of Sharia Law as of this writing, in neighboring Pakistan. The Taliban feel empowered with their victory in Afghanistan and in the Malakand region of Pakistan have started correcting society's "moral wrongs" by banning women from shopping in public areas, as it is believed to be obscene. They have punished men by shaving their hair and mustaches for listening to music seen as un-Islamic. As non-Muslims living under sharia law, the Sikh community in Orakzai Agency is forced to pay 15 million rupees, approximately £130,000, in tax to live in peace. If Sikhs refuse, then the Taliban will take and occupy their properties. Why don't we listen to people who know about Sharia Law?  It empowers a Muslim negotiating with an infidel (any "non-Muslim" - that means us) to lie to the infidel and not be bound to the terms of the negotiation. The provision is called taqiyya in Sharia Law. I want to know if the people negotiating the exit deal are the same ones who struck the nuclear deal with Iran under Obama/Biden? We should not forget the plane loaded with almost $2 billion in cash sent to the Iranian government in the nuclear agreement that President Biden now wants to reopen.   

What is the similarity between what is happening at the Afghanistan border to what is happening at the Mexico and the United States border? Both are being overrun with illegals wanting to overthrow the government. Our President isn't capable of managing either problem. He has yet to go to the southern border and he waited until June to send Vice-President Harris and she has not been back. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point suggests that only 68% of illegals coming over our southern border are caught. That means that 320,000 out of every million illegals come into the United States undetected. 

The Taliban army has 60,000 core fighters and can access an additional 140,000 soldiers for a potential of 200,000 insurgents. Compare that to the nearly one million illegal immigrants who crossed the U.S. border from Mexico in the first half of this year, a 20-year high of 180,034 in May alone, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics. In all, a total of 929,868 illegal immigrants have entered the country year-to-date, almost as many as the 977,509 who entered during the entire year of 2019. Thanks in large part to the media's decision to ignore the crisis at the U.S. border, 85% of Americans think the number of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border is lower, often far lower, than it actually is. One in every five Americans underestimates the number of illegal aliens pouring across the southern border by more than 90%. 

President Biden has no more control over our southern border than he does over the Taliban in Afghanistan. I believe he is out of touch with what is happening in both the United States and Afghanistan, and many world leaders feel the same way. They and millions of Americans have lost trust in his ability to lead America. He vacations while, in the middle east, terrorism has had a rebirth. At the same time that the border patrol and customs officials are putting their lives on the line trying to protect our country at the southern border, they have a leader who does not have their backs in either place.   

The debacle in Afghanistan is one more dire issue that has reared its ugly head since Biden became President. He has destroyed the U.S. economy with higher food costs, higher energy costs, inflation, illegal immigration at the southern border, and his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. His administration has been sending confusing and misleading messages to the American people on COVID-19 to the point that the country is losing confidence in the CDC and other government health agencies. In a week, we have gone from the recommendation of booster shots for those most at risk to saying everybody needs a booster shot. I will be surprised if the President's approval ratings do not turn negative after this past weekend.

Last but very important. We have often been presented with Gold Star Families as a way to recognize all of those men and women who served as heroes of America. Now, many of the living heroes and the families of those who died or were wounded in Afghanistan are questioning their service.