Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chief’s Chairman Mark Milley held a Pentagon press briefing today about the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan. [Full Presser Here] As the Taliban has taken full control over the country and capital, the U.S. presence in Kabul has been reduced to securing the airport as a temporary fortress, and telling U.S. citizens to try and get there.

When asked about the Taliban surrounding the airport, constructing checkpoints and the inability of Americans to reach safety for evacuation, Defense Secretary Austin said the military “don’t have the capability to…extend operations.”  The follow-up question was then about the U.S. essentially having to negotiate safe-passage with the Taliban… and rather than say, “Yes, that is accurate“, the question left Secretary Austin speechless.  WATCH:

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Ooof… THAT, my friends, is exactly what FUBAR looks like!

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We must be cautious in reviewing any/all media articles about the fluid situation in Afghanistan, as both Leftist and NeoCon media are framing the crisis story to fit their preferred narrative.  All DC media reporting should be viewed through the prism of cynicism and skepticism.

CNN is reporting the State Dept. Narrative that Taliban have surrounded the Kabul airport and there is no safe way for Americans to reach the evacuation point.   However, the Pentagon is reporting that the Taliban is “not interfering in their mission” to facilitate the evacuation of Americans, and  Taliban members “are not stopping U.S. citizens with American passports” from traveling to the airport.

When we review a State Department position (DoS) on anything, it should be noted that DoS personnel are, by ideological tribe, very dramatic, tender and pearl-clutching leftists in their worldview.  State Department officials are the wokeist of the international woke community. As a consequence of their alignment and role,  CNN is almost identically predisposed to the dramatic flair.

CNN takes the DoS bulletin and proclaims that Americans are trapped outside the airport by the Taliban. There is no evidence of this claim being accurate. There’s a difference between “we cannot ensure safe passage”, and “your passage is unsafe.”  Yes, things are sketchy and unstable, but there have been no reports of safety incidents with any Americans.

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Earlier this evening President Trump appeared for a lengthy and detailed interview with Sean Hannity.  The topic of the failed Biden administration effort to withdraw from Afghanistan was the primary focus.  [Note: These raw videos are likely to be removed overnight. If you missed it, watch while you can].

https://youtu.be/2tNSQBOdi3Y

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How would you like to be one of the 15,000+ American citizens in Kabul, or surrounding region, and getting this notice from the United States State Department:

“A congressional aide tells CBS News we have no partners left in Afghanistan to safely get Americans in-country to Kabul.” (link)

…. But they planned for every contingency right?

The number of Americans trapped in Afghanistan is actually unknown.  According to Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby,  somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000 are known, but the number could be 20,000.  Those U.S. citizens are not at the airport in Kabul, and need to reach the airport in order to be evacuated.

Several media reports outline that the Taliban have checkpoints around the airport presumably looking for people who were aligned with the former government.  Unfortunately, given the nature of media bias and previous propaganda, it is challenging to determine the level of risk or threat to any American.  There have been no reports of Americans killed or taken hostage.  Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby outlines the current priority is to secure the airport, that’s what the additional troops are intended to do. WATCH:

…”Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up“… ~ Barack Obama

There is no such thing as “idiot proof.”  As soon as you think you’ve developed an “idiot proof” system, you will discover Joe Biden.

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Facing domestic and international ridicule for his abject failure to plan, organize and successfully withdraw a U.S. military presence from Afghanistan without creating a massive international crisis and humanitarian nightmare, the installed occupant of the White House has announced he will address the nation today at 3:45pm ET.

The diplomatic and humanitarian crisis the Biden team have created is so bad, even CNN cannot cover for them. As a consequence, Joe Biden is being pulled from his bunker at Camp David and pushed to read the teleprompter from the White House. WATCH:

Four decades on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee….Eight years as Vice-President of the United States…. Eight months as acting President…. and the mess Biden has created is stunning.  Even the water-carrying media is having a hard time with it.

Biden’s key national security handler Jake Sullivan attempted to deflect earlier today, and even he made more of a hot mess over everything.

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This is a painful interview between furrowed brow Jake Tapper, painfully wanting to defend the administration and yet the total failure is too insurmountable to defend, and an abjectly overwhelmed and clueless Secretary of State Anthony Blinken – who is trying to explain the complete mess they have created.

The background here is the history of foreign policy failures and boondoggles by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton…. and the transferring of those same geopolitical outlooks into the Biden administration.  Blinken talks in platitudes of diplomacy that are irrelevant today.  The Chinese, Russians and Afghanistan Taliban don’t give a tinkers-damn what the dementia nurses around Biden are talking about.

The pearl-clutching Biden/Blinken approach is just as irrelevant as the bomb-dropping Obama/Clinton approach.  Team Biden act as if the Taliban cares about what Facebook, Twitter and Instagram voices say about them; it’s nuts.  The single-minded totalitarian Taliban don’t care about the United States or United Nations any more than they care about Tik Tok or CNN opinions.

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I’m left wondering where Ayman al-Zawahiri is in all of this?

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CNN is reporting that the White House is contemplating pulling Joe Biden from the bunker in Camp David to give a national address “over the next few days”, in an effort to try and reset his transparent foreign policy failures.   Meanwhile, President Trump is calling upon Biden to resign:

(VIA CNN) President Biden is expected to address the nation in the next few days about the crisis in Afghanistan, according to a senior administration official.

One option under discussion is to have Biden return to the White House, though the official cautioned that they had not completely ruled out making the remarks from Camp David.

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Throughout the night and today U.S. personnel were evacuated from the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  The U.S. flag has been removed.  The airport in Kabul is no longer safe and flights have been suspended.  Afghanistan President Ghani has fled the country.  The Taliban are on the streets of Kabul as fighting around the airport continues.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is a stuttering and stammering mess as he appears on television attempting to obfuscate the complete FUBAR that is unfolding.  Joe Biden is being kept hidden in his bunker.  U.S. personnel who did not make it to the airport have been told to shelter in place and await rescue.  Some reports of negotiations with Taliban leadership for safe passage for Americans.  The embassy is being abandoned.

Why the rapid collapse? “In the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal decision, the U.S. pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore. The same happened with another failed American effort, the South Vietnamese army in the 1970s, said retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, who commanded the U.S.-led coalition’s mission to train Afghan forces in 2011-2013.” (WSJ link)

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In July, Biden said Kabul would never fall.  Four days ago Biden said it would take more than 90 days for Taliban to reach Kabul, if at all.  Today, Biden sends 1,000 more additional troops to Kabul as it is expected to fall within 72 hrs.   That is correct.  By Monday the Taliban could control all of Afghanistan.

The AP is reporting that emergency evacuations have sped up the timeline to avoid the most embarrassing optics for the Biden administration.  An additional 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne are en-route to support the previously announced 3,000 U.S. troops handling the evacuation.  That is a total of 4,000 new military troops sent to Kabul to support the previous 1,000.  Keep in mind the original Afghan withdrawal was 2,500 troops in total.

(VIA AP) – The Latest developments on Afghanistan, where a weeklong Taliban offensive is now approaching the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, after the insurgents captured most of the north, west and south of the country, just weeks ahead of the final pullout of all U.S. and NATO troops:  “WASHINGTON — A defense official says President Joe Biden has authorized an additional 1,000 U.S. troops for deployment to Afghanistan.

That raises to roughly 5,000 the number of U.S. troops to ensure what Biden calls an “orderly and safe drawdown” of American and allied personnel. U.S. troops will also help evacuate Afghans who worked with the military during the nearly two-decade war.

The Pentagon said earlier that 3,000 troops are being sent to Kabul to join the nearly 1,000 already there. Biden’s statement on Saturday didn’t explain the breakdown of the 5,000 troops he said had been deployed.

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