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SEPTEMBER 5,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

GIVE THE BRITS CREDIT; THEY PLAN SOME THINGS BETTER THAN WE DO.  FROM THE JERUSALEM POST:  The plans for Queen Elizabeth II's death were revealed last week after years of them being shrouded in secrecy, Politico reported.  The plans, codenamed Operation London Bridge, lay out the proceedings for the first ten days after her death including Operation Spring Tide - the plans for Charles's accession to the throne.  The 95-year-old queen is reportedly in good health, but the plans were revealed anyway.  The day of the queen's death will be named D-Day, with each day following being referred to as D+1, D+2...
D-Day
In the hours following the queen's death, calls will be made to inform the prime minister, the cabinet secretary and a number of the most senior ministers and officials. The prime minister will be informed by the queen's secretary.  The royal household will issue an official notification to deliver the news to the public.

The ministers and civil servants will receive an email, and upon receiving the email, the flag at Whitehall will be lowered to half-mast, ideally within ten minutes.  The UK parliament will adjourn. If they are not sitting at the time, they will be recalled.  The royal family's website will change to a black holding page with a statement confirming the news of the queen's passing, and the UK government website will show a black banner at the top. All governmental social media pages will change their profile pictures to their crests and also display a black banner. Only essential content will be published and retweets will have to be cleared with the government head of communications.  The royal family will announce the time of the funeral, which will be ten days later, and the prime minister will make a statement.  Please read the rest.  Just remarkable how everything is laid out in detail.  There are arguments for the monarchy.

September 5, 2021     Permalink

THE SITUATION – OVERNIGHT:  Some of the liberal media are trying to "move on" from Afghanistan, as if they can wave their magic wand, or magic Obama, and make it happen.  It is not happening.  Indeed, the news from Afghanistan is essentially getting worse.  From PJ Media: 

Earlier Sunday PJM reported that Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) sounded the alarm about six civilian aircraft that have been waiting to depart the airport at Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. According to McCaul, those aircraft have an unknown number of Americans along with Afghan interpreters who helped the U.S. military during the 20-year war.

Rep. McCaul said the Taliban is making demands while blocking the aircrafts’ departure, effectively creating a hostage situation.

When pressed by Wallace on what demands the Taliban are making, McCaul said the circumstances are “turning into a hostage situation.”

“Well, they are not clearing airplanes to depart. They’ve sat at the airport for the last couple days, these planes, and they’re not allowed to leave,” McCaul said.

“We know the reason why is because the Taliban want something in exchange. This is really, Chris, turning into a hostage situation where they’re not gonna allow American citizens to leave until they get full recognition from the United States of America,” he added.

That situation continues.

Now a satellite image purportedly of the aircraft has emerged on Twitter.

Newly released satellite images show six commercial airplanes at Mazar-i-Sharif airport in northern Afghanistan that are not being allowed to depart by the Taliban. American citizens and Afghan interpreters are reportedly waiting to board the flights.

The Washington Examiner reached out to the State Department about the ongoing standoff. The State Department has promised to get all Americans who want to leave Afghanistan out of the country. The State Department issued a statement saying essentially that its hands are tied because it has no ground or air assets available.

“We understand the concern many people are feeling as they try to facilitate further charter and passage out of Afghanistan. However, we do not have personnel on the ground, we do not have air assets in the country, we do not control the airspace — whether over Afghanistan or elsewhere in the region,” the State Department statement says.

The United States did have all of those assets available until Joe Biden ordered a full and hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan which included abandoning Bagram Air Base in early July.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan’s northern Panjshir province, anti-Taliban fighters continue their fight. But with no support from outside of Afghanistan, while the Taliban are now armed with U.S. weaponry left behind in the withdrawal, and with reported Pakistani support, the Taliban are closing in on the last force resisting them. Afghanistan’s last remaining elected leader present in the country, former Vice President Amrullah Saleh, is reportedly calling on the United Nations to intervene to prevent “genocide.”

Saleh says hundreds of thousands of displaced Afghans are under direct threat from the Taliban and “if no attention is paid to the situation, a full-scale human rights and humanitarian catastrophe including starvation and mass killing, even genocide of these people are in the making.”

Mass killings followed the U.S. exit from Vietnam in the 1970s, including the heinous genocide the woke communist Khmer Rouge perpetrated in Cambodia, in which they killed about 25% of their own countrymen.

COMMENT:  What is striking is the lack of urgency in Washington.  I really don't think the Democratic Party cares much about Americans trapped overseas.  And our State Department is what it has pretty much always been – a culture apart.

We are declining, and we the people are the only ones who can stop this frightening display.

Donald Trump may not have won the Man of the Year award from finishing schools, but he never would have let this happen.

September 5, 2021       Permalink

SEPTEMBER 4,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT: 

THE POISON THEY'RE TEACHING OUR KIDS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A University of North Carolina course titled “Global Whiteness” puts the onus on the United States and the West for the conflict against Japan in World War II.  Professor Mark Driscoll’s class also involves student presentations on topics such as Donald Trump’s racism and “interracial hookups on campus.”  Campus Reform obtained the syllabus for the course, which describes WWII’s Pacific theater fight as “the first global attack on white Anglo-American hegemony” and “Japan’s attempt to roll back Euro-American colonialism.”  The course’s required text is Theodore Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race, vol. 2: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America.”  Driscoll, an adjunct in Global Studies, notes in the syllabus’s “Methods” section that he cannot “emphasize enough” how “partial and incomplete professorial knowledge is,” and hence students have a “right and duty” to seek out “alternate truths” about topics discussed in the course.  Selected topics throughout the semester include “Introduction: Racial Science” (which includes a reading from Ibram X. Kendi), “Enlightenment or Enwhitenment?,” “Criminalization of Blackness” and “Whiteness Dispossessed (Whiteness After Obama).”   We read this stuff and maybe we start understanding the mentality behind the Afghanistan debacle.  Truly great nations don't have junk like this taught in their schools.

September 4, 2021       Permalink
  

THE START OF THE SEASON – OVERNIGHT:  In the political world, the "season" starts Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.  We'll see a quickening of the pace, and serious planning for the 2022 midterms.  We'll see issues starting to emerge.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the Afghanistan disaster will fade away because voters don't vote on foreign policy.  I reject that.  In normal times it is true that the economy dominates all in political maneuvering.  But these are not normal times.  We can almost feel the power of the political vacuum cleaner sucking us back to south Asia, whether we want to be there or not.  I would not be surprised if we were going into the midst of a foreign-policy crackup that will engulf our political future.  From The Hill: 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said he believed it was "likely" that conditions for a future civil war could develop in Afghanistan following the U.S. troop withdrawal.

The general also stated that civil war in the region could lead to the resurgence of groups like al Qaeda and ISIS, among others. 

During an interview with Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin in Ramstein, Germany, that aired on Saturday, the reporter asked Milley if the U.S. was safer today since the country had withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan.

“Well you know this is something that I've thought a lot about. And I personally think that my military estimate is is that the conditions are likely to develop of a civil war. I don't know if the Taliban is gonna be able to consolidate power and establish governance - they may be, maybe not,” Milley told Griffin.

“But I think there's at least a very good probability of a broader civil war, and that will then in turn lead to conditions that could in fact, lead to reconstitution of al Qaeda or a growth of ISIS or other myriad of terrorist groups,” Milley added, who noted that officials do not yet know for sure the fate of Afghanistan. 

Milley noted that it would be a “very difficult policy choice” when asked if he could envision a situation in which U.S. troops would have to return to Afghanistan.

“I wouldn't say yes or no to anything actually. I think those are, it's too early to say anything like that at this point,” Milley said, adding that they needed to continue to monitor the intelligence situation. 

The general's comments came after a chaotic August, in which the international community watched the rapid deterioration of the Afghan government at the hands of the Taliban. The insurgent group consolidated power in a matter of days, and on Aug. 15 took the capital city of Kabul. 

The U.S. withdrew its troops on Aug. 31, marking an end to a 20-year conflict that was sparked by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on American soil. 

COMMENT:  Trotsky wrote:  "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."  Please remember that.  This nation's destiny can be influenced by factors beyond our borders, and beyond our control.  The next year, leading up to the 2022 elections, will be a year of tremendous uncertainty, with life itself on the line.  What happens if the terror groups based in Afghanistan strike us again?   Many political consultants will be up nights thinking about just that.

September 4, 2021       Permalink