Category: Military

When I was stationed in Germany, our smallarms shop was the support shop for 3rd COSCOM’s headquarters. When Beretta came out with the large headed hammer pin and slotted rail slide as a fix for the slide breaks noted in early U.S. production, I got the job to swap them out on the COSCOM commander’s pistol. To be honest, except for the special serial number series, I could tell no difference from any other issue M9 I had seen.

EXCLUSIVE: RARE U.S. ARMY ISSUE GENERAL OFFICER BERETTA UP FOR GRABS

Typically, the only way to get one of the coveted and extremely rare General Officer pistols is to become a general in the U.S. military. About that…

The Army’s General Officer Pistol program dates back to at least 1972, when the service’s Rock Island Arsenal began producing M15 pistols for general officers, a gun that led to the now-popular Officer series of M1911s. Marked with serial numbers prefixed with the letters “GO,” the program switched to issuing M9 Berettas in the 1980s and, in 2018 in a story covered previously by Guns.com, to Sig Sauer M18 GO models.

Other than the special serial number range, GO models are issued for operational use and are essentially no different from standard-issue pistols.

According to U.S. law, at the end of their service, generals can purchase their issued pistols, which are unfathomably rare, museum-worthy collectibles if not retained by the family. As noted by the Army, famed WWII Gens. Omar N. Bradley, George S. Patton, and Dwight D. Eisenhower all purchased their guns when they left the military

A rarity, the General Officer M9 in the Guns.com Vault was obtained directly from a retired U.S. Army general who had more than thirty years of successful military experience spanning the Cold War and Desert Storm, including more than five years with the famed 82d Airborne Division.

General Officer M9 Beretta 9mm pistol
Its serial number, GO-00787, sets it apart from standard martial M9s or guns produced for the consumer market. (Photo: April Robinson/Guns.com)

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BARR: Milley And Biden Together Have Crossed A Dangerous Constitutional Line

Recently disclosed actions by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley highlight a serious fraying of the civilian-military structure at the very core of our constitutional republic and also reveal a deep public misunderstanding of that relationship. Combined, these factors pose a danger the likes of which the country has not witnessed in modern times, if ever.

Our Constitution on this point is crystal clear. There is one commander-in-chief, and that person is the President of the United States. The decision to place the elected civilian leader of our country at the apex of the country’s armed forces was purposeful as a means of protecting the citizenry and the states from an overly-powerful national army that could undermine the constitutional order the Framers had so carefully constructed. Without this safeguard, the Constitution likely would not have been ratified in 1788.

Notwithstanding this constitutional clarity on military matters, inter-service rivalries and bureaucratic shenanigans have cropped up throughout our history. In modern times, these practical problems led Congress to pass two major reorganizations of the military command structure.

The first of these was the National Security Act of 1947, which clarified the chain of command from the president on down by establishing the Department of Defense headed by a cabinet-level Secretary.

Then, in 1986 to address problems that hampered the conduct of the Vietnam conflict, and serious inter-service rivalries thereafter, Congress passed the Goldwater-Nichols Act. This law further clarified the lines of authority for military decision making, and made absolutely clear that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had no operational control or command over any military units or individuals. His responsibility is advisory only — to the president, the secretary of defense and the National Security Council.

Any action by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to make or direct operational, military decisions is directly contrary to the law; in a word, unlawful.

Yet, to Milley and those who support him, which apparently includes Democrat leaders on Capitol Hill, many major journalists and even President Biden himself, these legal restrictions are trumped by their partisan hatred of Donald Trump. Thus, in the days immediately preceding the November 3, 2020 election, and continuing through Biden’s inauguration the following January, Milley took it upon himself to brazenly violate Article II of the Constitution, the National Security Act, the Goldwater-Nichols Act and his own oath of office.

Just days before the 2020 election, reflecting his personal concerns that President Trump’s behavior might cause China’s military to respond adversely, Milley apparently called his counterpart at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to assure him that he – Milley – would make sure no such actions by the United States took place.

Subsequently, according to published accounts that Milley has not denied, in early January he directed that subordinate officers (over who Milley has no lawful command authority) inform him if they became aware of any orders with which Milley might disagree that concerned nuclear weapons decisions by Trump, presumably so he could countermand them.

By thus placing himself directly between the president and the Secretary of Defense, which is the person to whom the president issues operational commands as commander-in-chief, Gen. Milley was acting unlawfully.

Milley has not expanded on these allegations, beyond suggesting they were approved by the Secretary of Defense (which they were not) and that they reflected historical precedent (which they do not). Milley is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill next week, but severe damage to the constitutional fabric of our country already has resulted.

In the immediate aftermath of these startling revelations, Biden not only declined to fire Milley, but actually expressed “confidence” in him.

A president who exhibits so little regard for the constitutional authority of the office he holds, not only demeans and undercuts his own presidency, but by his actions encourage further and possibly even more dangerous erosion of presidential authority by military leaders who may harbor policy disagreements with Biden’s successors. Journalists who deem such gross insubordination as practiced by Milley to be acceptable because it was predicated on action against Trump, exacerbate the constitutional divide.

Milley and Biden have opened a can of constitutional worms that truly will plague future presidents of both major political parties.

Biden’s Drone War in Afghanistan Seems to Be Killing More Civilians Than Terrorists.

“On Friday, the Pentagon admitted that a drone strike in Kabul last month killed 10 civilians, not ISIS-K terrorists, as was originally claimed.”

“This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie of Central Command said.

McKenzie took responsibility “for this strike and this tragic outcome.”

I guess the buck doesn’t stop with Biden.

The Biden administration had originally claimed that at least one ISIS-K terrorist had been killed in the strike, but an investigation proved that wasn’t the case. All those killed were civilians.

Drone strikes were popular with Barack Obama for the limited risk to U.S. troops, but despite their incredible accuracy from the air, drone strikes often result in collateral damage. The Obama administration claimed in the summer of 2016 that Obama’s drone attacks resulted in as many as 116 civilian deaths, but human rights groups said the number was likely closer to 1,100.

In the wake of Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, some have predicted that the United States will have to re-invade Afghanistan to protect our country. Biden clearly thinks that an Obama-style drone war will prevent that, but like Obama’s drone war, Biden’s is resulting in the deaths of innocent Afghans. Last month, another drone strike reportedly resulted in the deaths of nine members of a single family, including six children.

After originally claiming a victorious strike, the Biden administration curiously refused to identify who was killed—prompting speculation that the Biden administration was simply trying to create good news to distract from the quagmire they’d created.

Given all the reports of civilians killed in Biden’s drone strikes, one has to wonder if the Biden administration has killed more innocents than ISIS-K terrorists. I’m not sure, but something tells me it’s the former.

US Military Courts Rules Bump Stocks Are Not Machine Guns

The United States Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled that bump stocks are not machine guns in the United States v. Ali Alkazahg.

Marine Corp Private Ali Akazahg was convicted of possessing two machine guns, in violation of Articles 83, 107, and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice [UCMJ]. These “machine guns” that Private Akazahg processed were bump stocks. The Private’s defense counsel argued that bump stocks did not meet the federal definition of machine guns. The ruling is found here and embedded below. US Military Courts Rules Bump Stocks Are Not Machine Guns.

The judges laid out a case that anti-gun activists put political pressure on Congress after a mass murder in Las Vegas that saw 60 people die. A bill was set forth in Congress called “Closing the Bump Stock Loophole.” The bill would have treated bump stocks as machine guns. The bill failed to pass either chamber of Congress.

The judges point out that after the bill failed in Congress that political pressure was put on then President Trump to act against bump stocks. The President said he was “looking into” banning bump stocks. Ultimately President Trump would order the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives [ATF] to ban bump stocks. The judges on the panel do not believe that the President had the authority to make de facto law.

The judges wrote: “Instead, the President directed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives [ATF] to issue a new interpretation of a rule—that contradicted the ATF’s previous interpretation—governing legislation from the 1930s. This Executive-Branch change in statutory interpretation aimed to outlaw bump stocks prospectively, without a change in existing statutes.”

The judges carefully go over the history of the bump stocks in their decision. They highlighted that the ATF never considered bump stocks to be machine guns until President Trump ordered the Bureau to reclassify bump stocks as machine guns. The panel points to the original letter issued to William Akins in 2002 for his “Akins Accelerator.” The level of detail shows the judges heavily researched the topic before issuing their decision. The original Akins Accelerator used a spring.

In 2006 the ATF reversed course and ruled the Akins Accelerator was a machine gun. Mr. Akins filed for a summary judgment in district court and lost. The judges in the case stated that a “single function of the trigger” means a “single pull of the trigger.” Since the Akins Accelerator used a spring, it was a machine gun. If the Accelerator didn’t have a spring, it would not have been considered a machine gun.

Modern bump stocks use recoil and do not contain a spring, and use recoil. Every shot requires a trigger pull. Since each shot was a single pull of the trigger, the judges ruled that bump stocks could not be considered machine guns.

The judges also point out the classification of bump stocks as machine guns relied on Chevron deference. The panel points out that the courts have not settled if the ATF can use Chevron deference to make bump stocks machine guns. They point to the GOA case in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and highlighted other instances in which the courts say that the government cannot use Chevron deference for a criminal statute.

Mark Milley, Jen Griffin Interview Goes Pear-shaped

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, granted an interview to Jennifer Griffin of Fox News Channel. Maybe he thought he would find a sympathetic ear. Maybe Griffin just let Milley talk and he hung himself with his words. Milley confirmed in the interview that he doesn’t give a spent shell about our military personnel, our national reputation, or his honor.

On his chest, Mark Milley wears an enormous amount of “fruit salad”. Fruit salad is military slang for the amount of ribbons, medals and devices on the dress uniform. With that many colorful ribbons, the public would be led to believe that Milley is possessed of intestinal fortitude. Maybe when faced with bullets on foreign soil, he is. He has proven time and again that against the vipers in the swamp that is Washington, D.C., he sinks like a leaky canoe.

He walked across Lafayette Square, with President Trump, to the Church damaged by BLM and Antifa and apologized for it, unnecessarily. Milley also talked about a “Reichstag moment”, according to a book by two Washington Post staffers:

“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides, according to the book. “The gospel of the Führer.” …
If someone wanted to seize control, Milley thought, they would need to gain sway over the FBI, the CIA and the Defense Department, where Trump had already installed staunch allies. “They may try, but they’re not going to f—ing succeed,” he told some of his closest deputies, the book says.

Worse than that, Mark Milley denigrated all of our military personnel with his “white rage” testimony. Since Joe Biden became the Oval Office resident, Milley has gone along with every thing President Asterisk wanted. No push backs. No leaks. No plotting. No throwing his rank on the desk and saying, “Not on my watch.”

In the last couple days, our Victory Girls Blog writers have told you about child brides being imported into the United States, Americans held hostage in Afghanistan, and the brave Afghan Special Forces still fighting after our Pentagon abandoned them.

Apparently, nowhere in Milley’s military education did they cover the First Law of Holes. Mark Milley just keeps digging and digging. And, Jennifer Griffin handed him the shovel in her interview. Griffin interviewed Milley at Ramstein Air Base where the Afghan refugees are being vetted in a tent city built by the U.S..

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Yeah, they’re gutless, spineless politicians, more concerned with their pensions and future positions with corporations that have goobermint contracts than with their real job of protecting the U.S. and the people.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: There’s A Problem In The Upper Reaches Of Our Military

It is the beginning of a never-ending bad dream. Joe Biden and the Pentagon have managed to birth a new terrorist haven, destroy much of U.S. strategic deterrence, and alienate our allies and much of the country.

In the hours after the horrific deaths of 13 service members, we have been reassured by our military that our partnership with the Taliban to provide security for our flights was wise. We were told that the terrorist victors share similar goals to ours in a hasty American retreat from Kabul. We were reminded that Afghan refugees (unlike U.S. soldiers) will not be forced to be vaccinated on arrival. Such statements are either untrue or absurd.

On the very day of the attack that killed American troops, the Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army reminded us in a tweet that diversity is our strength, commemorating not the dead but Women’s Equality Day. If so, then is the opposite of diversity — unity — our weakness? Will such wokeness ensure that we do not abandon the Bagram air base in the middle of the night without opposition?

The chief of staff at the Office of Naval Intelligence warned the ONI’s active duty and retired service members that they must not criticize Biden, their commander in chief, over the Afghanistan fiasco. The office correctly cited prohibitions found in the Uniform Code of Military Justice barring any disrespect shown to senior government leadership.

Indeed, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps was relieved of his command for posting a video accurately blaming military and civilian leadership for the Afghanistan nightmare.

Yet until Jan. 20, retired top brass had constantly smeared their elected commander in chief with impunity.

Recently retired Gen. Michael Hayden retweeted a horrific suggestion that unvaccinated Trump supporters should be put on planes back to Afghanistan, where they presumably would be left to die. Hayden earlier had compared Trump’s border facilities to Nazi death camps.

Other retired high-profile military officials variously called their president an emulator of Nazi tactics, a veritable Mussolini, a liar, and deserving of removal from office sooner than later. None of these retired four-stars faced the sort of repercussions that the Office of Naval Intelligence just warned about.

More than 50 former intelligence officials on the eve of the November election signed a letter suggesting that incriminating emails found on Hunter Biden’s missing laptop might be “Russian disinformation.” They used their stature for political purposes to convince the American people that the story was a lie.

Retired Gen. Joseph Dunford and retired Adm. Mike Mullen recently blasted retired brass who had questioned Biden’s cognitive ability. OK. But they should have issued a similar warning earlier, when the violations of fellow retired officers were even more egregious in election year 2020.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized for doing a photo op with Trump, erroneously buying into the narrative that Trump had ordered rioters cleared from Lafayette Square for the staged picture. Worse, he leaked to journalists that he was so angry with Trump that he “considered” resigning.

Think of the irony. If Milley considered a politicized resignation to rebuke Trump over the false charge, then surely he could consider a real resignation after overseeing the worst military disaster of the last half-century in Kabul.

Milley had promised to root out white supremacy from the ranks while recommending that his soldiers read Ibram X. Kendi’s racialist diatribes.

Something is terribly wrong in the ranks of America’s top commanders that reflects something wrong with the country.

The Pentagon needs to stop virtue-signaling about diversity days and culturally sensitive food for Afghan refugees. Instead, can it just explain why the Bagram air base was abandoned by night, or why Taliban terrorists are our supposed “partners” in organizing our surrender and escape?

Who turned over to the Taliban the lists of Americans and allied Afghans to be evacuated?

Who left behind biometric devices that the Taliban are now using to hunt down our former Afghan friends?

Somehow our new woke Pentagon is hell-bent on losing the trust of the American people — along with the wars it fights abroad.

Only in a military where the officer corps cares more for their own careers than for their job of protecting the nation and its citizenry will you find such despicable behavior.

In secret texts, U.S. military officials lamented leaving Americans behind in Kabul.

President Biden declared to a puzzled country on Tuesday that the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan was an “extraordinary success,” while his Pentagon portrayed a prosaic, workaday process to repatriate Americans still stranded in the war-torn country.

But text messages between U.S. military commanders and private citizens mounting last-minute rescues tell a far different story, one in which pleading American citizens were frantically left behind at the Kabul airport gate this past weekend to face an uncertain fate under Taliban rule while U.S. officials sought to spread the blame between high-ranking generals and the State Department

“We are f*cking abandoning American citizens,” an Army colonel assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division wrote Sunday in frustration in a series of encrypted messages that detailed the failed effort to extricate a group of American citizens, hours before the last U.S. soldiers departed Afghanistan.

The text messages and emails were provided to Just the News by Michael Yon, a former Special Forces soldier and war correspondent who was among the private citizens working with private networks and the military to rescue stranded Americans.

Yon told Just the News that a group of Americans were abandoned at the Kabul airport, pleading for help as military officials told them they were finished with evacuations.

“We had them out there waving their passport screaming, ‘I’m American,'” Yon said Tuesday while appearing on the John Solomon Reportspodcast.

The heart-wrenching scenes unfolded this weekend as the U.S. military prepared to exit the capital city on Monday, leaving both the airport and most of the country under Taliban control.

“People were turned away from the gate by our own Army,” Yon said.

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Bombshell Report: US Knew About Kabul Bomber, Had Drone Lock but Didn’t Take the Shot

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Pardo-Maurer dropped some incredible information during an interview and it’s huge, if true.

Director of MRC Latino, Jorge Bonilla, posted an interview of Pardo-Maurer. Pardo-Maurer, who was in the State Department for years, since at least 2001, said he was being told that the Department of Defense already knew who the bomber was ahead of time, before the bombing and when the Kabul attack would occur.

This goes along with a report that we did previously that they knew when and where it was likely to occur.

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US Navy helicopter crashes off San Diego coast, 1 rescued, 5 missing

A search-and-rescue operation was underway Tuesday night off the coast of San Diego for five crewmembers after the crash of an MH-60S helicopter from the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier about 60 nautical miles from shore, according to a report.

The helicopter was “conducting routine flight operations,” and crashed at about 4:30 p.m., Fox 5 San Diego reported. The Navy did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News. The U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement one crewmember was rescued.

US CENTCOM Now Backtracking on Drone Strike That Killed Children: ‘It’s Unclear What Happened’

We’ve been talking a lot about Joe Biden and the mess he’s made of Afghanistan. But all of his team appear to be clowns, right down the line. Now we have the problem of who is more honest: the locals on the ground in the now Taliban-controlled Kabul or our own leaders who have repeatedly lied to us?

The Pentagon told us just yesterday there were “no civilian casualties” in the strike they claim was against ISIS-K bombers near the airport.

As we then reported, there were multiple civilian casualties, with the latest reports saying 10 people killed, most members of one family — seven children, with four under the age of five, the youngest being two years old. They were killed while getting out of a car, reportedly. The remaining family told a local journalist that they were “an ordinary family.” “We are not ISIS or Daesh and this was a family home — where my brothers lived with their families,” a brother said.

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Last US troops have departed Afghanistan

The Pentagon announced Monday that all U.S. troops have departed Afghanistan. The final C-17 carrying service members lifted off from the Kabul airport at 3:29 pm U.S. Eastern Time.

The removal of U.S. troops meets the Aug. 31 deadline the Biden administration agreed to with the Taliban, officially drawing the country’s longest-ever conflict to an end.

 

Senator Seeks Investigation Into Americans Reportedly Denied Entry to Kabul Airport
400 U.S. citizens and others reportedly turned away.

The ranking member on the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has instructed the Biden administration to hand over internal information about its decision to reportedly prevent a busload of Americans from entering Afghanistan’s airport to be evacuated from the war-torn country.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) is using his oversight authority to investigate allegations that U.S. military leaders prevented U.S. citizens and others from entering the Kabul airport as part of emergency evacuation efforts coordinated by nonprofit groups.

Johnson says he has been “receiving reports that contradict the Biden administration’s narrative and are troubling to say the least,” according to an information request obtained by the Washington Free Beacon that was sent on Friday to the Biden Pentagon and State Department. This includes reports that “a group of over 400 individuals including U.S. citizens were turned away at the airport” on Thursday and told by a U.S. military commander that the “rescue is over.”

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Pentagon Releases Names of 13 U.S. Service Members Who Lost Their Lives in Afghanistan Terrorist Attack

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of 13 service members who were supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. They died Aug. 26, 2021, as the result of an enemy attack while supporting non-combatant evacuation operations in Kabul, Afghanistan. The incident is under investigation.

For the Marine Corps, the deceased are:

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, California.

Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, California.

Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska.

Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Indiana.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Missouri.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyoming.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, California.

Staff Sergeant Darin T. Hoover, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, Cpl. Daegan W. Page, Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, and Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, California. For more information, media may contact IMEFCOMMSTRAT@USMC.MIL.

Sgt. Nicole L. Gee was assigned to Combat Logistics Battalion 24, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. For more information, media may contact IIMEFCOMMSTRAT@USMC.MIL.

Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo was assigned to 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Naval Support Activity Bahrain. For more information, media may contact MARCENTCOMMSTRAT@USMC.MIL.

For the Navy, the deceased is:

Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio.

Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak was assigned to 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, California. For more information on Hospitalman Soviak, media may contact the U.S. Navy Office of Information at PTGN_CHINFONEWSDESK@navy.mil.

For the Army, the deceased is:

Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee.

Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss was assigned to 9th PSYOP Battalion, 8th PSYOP Group, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. For more information on Staff Sgt. Knauss, members of the media may contact Maj. Dan Lessard, Public Affairs Officer, 1st Special Forces Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at 910-908-3947 or by email at: daniel.j.lessard.mil@socom.mil.

 

 

So, we abandoned Bagram air base because SloJoe wanted the Kabul embassy secured with no additional troops brought into the country.
Not because of Trump.
And apparently General Milley didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to ‘advise’ SloJoe about the risks from this that we’ve all seen since Bagram was abandoned.

Opinions from some people with a lot of military experience:

Remember 2010? While the Obama admin was in the process of pissing away the win in Iraq, and giving that place to the Iranians, predictably precipitating the rise both Iran and ISIS, Biden was given the job of deciding what to do with Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was the war the lefties liked. But only to beat up on Iraq. They said all the resources should go to Afghanistan.

But when Petraeus put forward a surge/anti-corruption reform plan for Afghanistan, Biden, directed to look at that, dithered for six months. Or maybe it was nine, I forget. Then he cut the request in half.

Trump had the Taliban at the table. Biden dropped the ball on that.

Trump would not be leaving the people who helped us to be slaughtered by the Taliban.

It’s going to be a blood bath, and all that blood is on Biden’s hands. But whoever is actually running the Biden admin is shrugging about that. All they care about is it will make Biden look like shit.

Their lapdogs in the media will cast it as Bush and Trump’s fault, though. They’ll say Biden just inherited it. So they aren’t too worried about it

They’ll also wring hands and point fingers at their pals in the intelligence community, throw some blame that way.

Hey, in fairness, maybe if those guys hadn’t been so busy cooking up bs vs Trump the last four years …
There’ll be plenty of blame to go around. Go being the operative word.

Locals would have be crazy to cooperate with us in hostile zones, given our track record. That’s like marrying a wifebeater. Going on a carefree roadtrip with a serial killer.

It’s a debacle. But a sure sign that it won’t go well for Biden is that the military brass have already thrown him under the bus with “he didn’t take our advice” leaks.

Multiple things can be true at once:

The decision to stay in AfPak 20 years ago (as compared to punishing those who perpetrated 9/11) was a bad one. This is the first and hardest leason.

Having made it, the Powell Doctrine—“you break it you buy it”—only applies as long as there’s political will.

Afghans cannot be governed the same way as Western traditions hold as a model. Whatever way works isn’t that.

Pretending it can does not help. The mass delusion of everyone thinking it could, the “clap harder if you believe in fairies” model of wishcasting that has dominated the mission there, wasn’t as deadly as Ypres, but is just as dangerous.

The last twenty years show the US intelligence and military communities are led by no one you’d want there. The last year, especially.

Given the decision to stay, having attempted to help the Afghan peoples build a working government and army, at some point the Powell Doctrine expires. A decade was probably enough. I will stipulate “at some point” and leave it there.

So, then, two things can simultaneously be true in the above:

Americans are tired of forever wars, and

Americans assumed that the exit would look less like a complete hiding and defeat in detail, given the assurances to the contrary they heard from those in charge.

Ok, three: it IS a complete hiding and defeat in detail, with the news of mass murder and the usual Taliban slavery reinstated. Plus bonus gifts of an entire war machine given to seventh century mass murderers.

Then, on to the bonus round of things that are true:

There have not been US official casualties for over 17 months in theatre. That’s not to say operators didn’t eat it or that the Vietnamization repeat, echoes of 1971-75, didn’t play out horrifyingly fast. Not even four months, let alone four years. That there was, that it happened exactly that way, shows the mass failure of the USG and the Afghani power structure.

The Taliban didn’t even have to use a mass tank attack to make the Afghan “government” fall, a la Saigon. Does that mean the US should have kept propping up the wretched and corrupt Afghan government forever? I say “no”. Let’s say our lesson is: “insurgencies win when no one opposes them”, for now. What else we might learn from all this blood and treasure, I don’t know yet. But that, at least.

The Taliban’s new buddies are the ChiComs. Belt and Road. Whether they will fare better in the Graveyard of Empires than anyone else in the last 200 years is yet to be determined. But they sure are going to look to make a buck there.

As Africa, the West Pacific, and much of the ME show, the ChiComs don’t have to be world cops. World Ferengi works just fine for them. As HK, the Spratlys and Uighurs show, they don’t much care what anyone thinks or says.

The free people of Taiwan now know the US guarantees aren’t enough. Whether they remain free through the end of the year is yet to be seen.

And, most ominously for anyone who thinks the USG should do better, we know one very troubling thing: those who are willing to fight and die for our freedom will think at least one more time before they enlist.

Quote O’ The Day:

He should have spent more time fighting the taliban and less time fighting Tucker Carlson.

Milley moves up terror threat to US after Taliban’s gains in Afghanistan.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told senators on Sunday that he will move up the assessment of how soon terror groups like al-Qaeda could reform in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s swift takeover of the war-torn nation, according to a report.

During a ​briefing for a bipartisan group of lawmakers, Gen. Mark Milley was asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) if he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would revise an assessment to Congress in June that there is a “medium” risk of terrorist organizations reconstituting in Afghanistan in less than two years.

​”Yes,” Milley replied, adding that he would be happy to brief the senators further in a classified setting, Axios reported, citing three sources on the phone call.

The US and its allies launched the war in Afghanistan in October 2001 because the Taliban provided al-Qaeda support and safe harbor while the terror group planned the 9/11 attacks.

The briefing by Milley, Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken came amid rapid developments in Afghanistan.

The US military used helicopters to ferry diplomats and staffers from the US Embassy in Kabul after the Taliban entered the capital city on Sunday, catching the Biden administration flat-footed with their dizzying advance.

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The aircraft based there?
U.S. aircraft we provided to the Afghan air force.

B-52 bombers head to Afghanistan

American B-52H bombers are understood to be conducting an attack on the largest Afghan air force base in order to destroy the aircraft based there.

The aircraft are reportedly heading towards toward Mazar-e-Sharif.

The BBC report here that Taliban fighters recently captured Mazar-e-Sharif, the last major city in northern Afghanistan which was still under government control.

“The fall of the traditional anti-Taliban bastion marked a major gain for the militants, who have been advancing at speed as US-led forces withdraw.President Ashraf Ghani travelled to the city just days ago to rally troops. The Taliban are now in control of much of the country and are edging closer to the capital Kabul.

More than a quarter of a million people have been displaced by the violence, and many have headed to Kabul in hopes of finding safety. Women in areas captured by the Taliban have described being forced to wear burkas and the militants are also reported to have beaten and lashed people for breaking social rules.”

Countries are scrambling to evacuate their citizens, including the UK.