Biden's Bungled Retreat

As President Biden's botched withdrawal plan goes from bad to worse, the White House is in full damage control mode. The president who intended to continue his summer vacation was forced to address the nation again over the weekend.

Yet every time Biden speaks, he makes it worse. And administration officials don't even seem to be talking to each other. For example, Biden has repeatedly justified his hasty retreat by claiming that Al Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan. He's wrong. 

The Pentagon contradicted Biden's claim Friday afternoon. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said, "We know that al-Qaeda is a presence, as well as ISIS, in Afghanistan. And we've talked about that for quite some time." 

Over the weekend, after telling Americans to get to the airport as quickly as possible, U.S. officials were forced to tell them to stop going to the airport because of a potential terrorist threat from ISIS. 

In his remarks yesterday, Biden said, "We have a long way to go, and a lot could still go wrong." Well, it looks like it just did. Gunmen reportedly opened fire at the Kabul airport's north gate this morning, killing one Afghan security officer and wounding three others. 

The bottom line is that it's almost impossible to come up with a worse way of getting out of Afghanistan, but Biden keeps digging his heels in. The worse it gets, the more he insists he's right.

Plummeting Polls

America's credibility around the world has taken a huge hit as a result of Biden's incompetence. The New York Times ran a story this weekend headlined, "Miscue After Miscue, U.S. Exit Plan Unravels." 

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair blasted Biden's retreat, writing that it is being conducted in "a manner that seems almost designed to parade our humiliation." Other British leaders expressed similar frustrations.

It's clear that the American people have noticed too – Biden's approval ratings are plummeting. A CBS poll found that:

·     53% of the American people do not believe Joe Biden is "effective." 

·     52% say Biden is not "focused."

·     51% say he is not "competent."

·     57% say he is not "unifying."

·     70% say the Afghan withdrawal should have been handled better.

·     74% say the Afghan withdrawal is going "somewhat" or "very badly."

The reality is probably much worse than these figures suggest, given the biased sampling in the poll.

The Ghost Of Spike Bauer

Every hour brings a new humiliation for the United States in Afghanistan. We surrendered control of Kabul and the perimeter around the airport to the Taliban. The result is that Americans are being assaulted and harassed.

But of all the humiliating things we witnessed so far, none was more dramatic than a group of Islamofascists dressed in American uniforms reenacting the iconic image of Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima. But in this case, the Taliban was raising its flag over Afghanistan.

I half-expected the ghost of Spike Bauer, who served the First Marine Corps Division in the South Pacific, to walk out of the fog and go back into battle. I can't imagine how demoralizing and infuriating that image was to millions of veterans and active-duty personnel.

"Dumkirk"

The New York Post, widely known for its blistering front pages, lived up to its reputation this weekend. The paper mocked Biden's disastrous withdrawal with the headline: "Dumkirk," a play on the famous World War II evacuation at Dunkirk.

Even if you know about Dunkirk, I want to share a story you may not have heard. As hundreds of thousands of British troops found themselves with their backs to the sea and surrounded by Nazi forces, one British commander sent a message to London before he was cut off. It said simply, "But if not . . ."

Everyone in still Christian Britain understood the reference to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were thrown into a fiery furnace by a godless king. As they prepared to go to what should have been their death, they said to the king that they were confident God would save them. But if He did not, they would not bow to the king's gods or his false idols. 

That's exactly what the British commander relayed to London. He believed there was a chance Britain would rescue them. But if not, he and his men would fight and die on the beaches rather than surrender to the evil Nazis. 

When that message swept through Great Britain, the British people set out across the English Channel in hundreds of small boats performing the greatest rescue in military history, saving more than 300,000 soldiers who would fight another day. 

Make no mistake about it -- this was a tremendous defeat. But in a way only he could, Winston Churchill rallied the nation and its citizens to do what the British military was incapable of doing. 

Every day, we venture further into uncharted and more dangerous waters, and we clearly do not have a Churchill at the helm. But take inspiration that no matter what happens, we will not bend or yield to our enemies, be they foreign or domestic.

We are seeing that same spirit as veterans and retired special forces operatives are launching a "digital Dunkirk" (here and here) to help rescue Afghans who served with them. 

As the left continues to deconstruct our history and the military, Americans like Allyson Reneau, who rescued the Afghan Girls Robotic team, are stepping up and filling the gap. 

Be inspired by these examples, and look for ways you can counter the negative effects of our woke leadership.

Everything Woke Turns To. . .

An estimated crowd of 50,000 turned out Saturday night in Cullman, Alabama, for the biggest Trump rally this year. They were on fire, wildly applauding Trump's defense of his America First policies. 

The line that brought the most raucous cheers was when the former president said, in the Trumpian way that only he can articulate, "Everything woke turns to sh-t." 

Some people might be offended by Trump's salty language, just as some folks didn't like his tweets. But Trump tells it like it is and the crowd loved it. 

With all the power of the media and all the backing of left-wing billionaires, it's doubtful that Joe Biden could get 50,000 people to turnout to hear him speak. I doubt if anyone in the GOP could command those numbers either.

For those who insist that the Republican Party must "move on from Trump," I have just one question: How? How do you move on and fill that vacuum?

The Deep State Attacks

Retired Air Force General Michael Hayden is raising eyebrows. As Afghanistan falls to the Taliban, Hayden isn't blaming Biden. He's lashing out at Trump supporters.

Last week, Hayden retweeted a picture that compared Trump supporters to the Taliban. Yesterday, he tweeted that it was "a good idea" to send unvaccinated MAGA supporters to Afghanistan. 

Just to be clear, Hayden isn't a creature of the Obama era. He was George W. Bush's CIA director, and he epitomizes the Deep State's contempt for the America First movement.

The Insurrection That Wasn't

There's a well-established tradition in Washington of publishing embarrassing details on Friday afternoon, hoping no one will notice or that the story will be forgotten by Monday. 

So, it's not surprising that the FBI waited until Friday afternoon, as Biden was addressing the Afghanistan withdrawal again, to admit that it has found no evidence of an organized effort on the right to overturn the election on January 6th. In other words, there was no "insurrection."

I would suggest that the FBI was looking in the wrong place. The effort to overturn the election took place on the left. The media grossly interfered in the election by hiding Hunter's laptop and Biden's radical positions. It mocked the idea that an election where laws were ignored and changed at whim, and where most people wouldn't vote on Election Day, could be subject to fraud.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi should shut down her biased January 6th committee immediately. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has found nothing to support the left's "insurrection" narrative. So, what could Pelosi's committee possibly be investigating?