Ian Miles Cheong

“Biden Had His Hands Tied” Nonsense Refuted

Published by Papa Giorgio

I AM COMBINING A COUPLE OF POSTS TO MAKE THE POINT — IN OONE PLACE — THAT THE BIDEN ADMIN COULD HAVE WITHDRAWN FROM AFGHANISTAN DIFFERENTLY.

100% FED-UP notes the following: “VIDEO Emerges of Biden Saying Timeline And Manner Of Afghanistan Withdrawal Was His Decision“

  • ….Social media and leftist mainstream media are frantically trying to spin the military failure in Afghanistan on anyone but Biden, but he said it was “his decision.” Biden ignored Trump’s phased plan to leave just as he ignored President Trump’s border policy. Both are now epic failures……

JUST THE NEWS had a decent little blurb worth sharing — because I care:

Trump bombed Taliban to negotiating table; some fear Biden let them waltz to Kandahar

…..“We’re going to come back and hit you harder than any country has ever been hit,” Trump said he told Akhundzada, recounting the threatened consequences if the Taliban failed to make peace. “And your village, where I know you are and where you have everybody, that’s going to be the point at which the first bomb is dropped.”

A few hours after that March 2020 call, Trump put an insurance payment down on the threat. When the Taliban attacked an Afghan checkpoint shortly after Trump hung up, U.S. fighter jets rained down fury on the attackers. A stung Taliban immediately called for de-escalation, saying it was committed to the “plans to implement all parts of the agreement one after another to prevent conflict escalation.”

[….]

Trump and his advisers relentlessly used air power to keep the Taliban in check, making the appearance of a deadly Predator drone or warplane a constant threat. In 2019, the year before the Taliban agreed to peace talks, U.S. aircraft flew 2,434 strike sorties, releasing 7,423 weapons, the highest total ever recorded by the Air Force’s Central Command.

But since the Biden transition, the Taliban have refused the negotiation table and instead marched with surprising speed, capturing control of two-third of Afghanistan after the fall of its second biggest city Kandahar on Thursday.

The U.S. Air Force recently acknowledged a steep decline in air sorties on Biden’s watch…..

  • The Trafalgar Group surveyed over 1,000 potential 2022 American voters and found that 69.3% of the overall participants disapproved of Biden’s handling in Afghanistan, according to the Convention of States Action’s Monday press release. The majority in the bracket, 59.5%, said they “strongly disapprove” of the president’s performance, while the other 10% said they “disapprove.” (DAILY CALLER)

FLASHBACK:

  • In March 2009 Barack Obama reached out to the Taliban terrorist organization for peace talks.
  • Joe Biden at the time told reporters “only 5% of the Taliban is incorrigible.”
  • In August 2010 Barack Obama removed the Taliban from the national terror list.
  • In May 2012 Barack Obama rewarded the Taliban terrorists with their own office in Qatar for peace talks.
  • Also in May 2012 the Taliban bombed Kabul two hours after Obama announced peace talks with the terrorist group.
  • In 2012 the Obama administration even paid for the Taliban peace office in Qatar.
  • In 2013 Barack Obama secretly released five deadly Taliban prisoners from Gitmo in exchange for peace talks.
  • In 2014 the Taliban officially released a statement on victory in Afghanistan 6 years into the Obama presidency.

(GATEWAY PUNDIT)

So, in a previous post it is shown the Biden Admin nixed many key components to the withdrawal part of getting out Afghanistan. Now, we know that the treaty the media, Democrats, and Biden keeps referring to….

    • But here’s the deal: You know — I wish you’d one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former President made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1. — JOE BIDEN

….was in fact conditional.

DEFINITION

    • conditional: subject to one or more conditions or requirements being met; made or granted on certain terms. “the consortium has made a conditional offer”
      1. synonyms: subject to ✦ dependent on ✦ depending on ✦ contingent on ✦ hingeing on ✦ resting on ✦ hanging on ✦ based on ✦ determined by ✦ controlled by ✦ tied to ✦ bound up with ✦ contingent ✦ dependent ✦ qualified ✦ with conditions (attached) ✦ with reservations ✦ limited ✦ restrictive ✦ provisional ✦ stipulatory ✦ provisory

ASSOCIATED PRESS update via SAN DIEGO TRIBUNE and WESTERN JOURNAL (and 17-ABC [WTVO]/FOX 39/EYEWITNESS NEWS) — will emphasize:

But according to the Associated Press:

… Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. IT HAD AN ESCAPE CLAUSE: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September.

Chris Miller, acting defense secretary in the final months of the Trump administration, chafed at the idea that Biden was handcuffed by the agreement.

“If he thought the deal was bad, he could have renegotiated. He had plenty of opportunity to do that if he so desired,” Miller, a top Pentagon counterterrorism official at the time the Doha deal was signed, said in an interview.

The piece goes on to acknowledge that that course of action may have led to difficulties of its own, but Biden should have been able to rely on the decades of foreign-policy experience he has boasted as having to craft a better deal…..

(LIBERTY UNYEILDING)

AGAIN, for the hard of reading, via ABC:

…IT HAD AN ESCAPE CLAUSE: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did…

So according to the “deal itself” and the Biden Admin ignoring that and getting rid of the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR) — as the original post details below — Afghanistan is 100% Biden’s issue. Period!

The UPDATED VIDEO can be found at the bottom of the post. (Originally posted Aug 18th)

Here is an excerpt, you should read the whole article!

Joe Biden’s State Department moved to cancel a critical State Department program aimed at providing swift and safe evacuations of Americans out of crisis zones just months prior to the fall of Kabul, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.

[….]

The document is dated June 11, 2021, though The National Pulse understands the decision to pause the program may have come as early as February, both undermining the original Trump-era date for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and certainly giving the Taliban time to threaten American assets and lives on the run up to Joe Biden’s September 11th date of withdrawal.

The subject line reads: “(SBU) Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau,” and the body of the document recommends: 

“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR), and direct a further review of certain associated Department requirements and capabilities.”

It goes on: 

“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, CCR, consistent with the applicable legal requirements, necessary stakeholder engagement, and any applicable changes to the Foreign Affairs Manual and other requirements.”

The document reveals the recommendations were approved on June 11th 2021. 

Speaking exclusively to The National Pulse, former President Donald J. Trump blasted Biden’s irresponsible move:

“My Administration prioritized keeping Americans safe, Biden leaves them behind. Canceling this successful Trump Administration program before the withdrawal that would have helped tens of thousands Americans reach home is beyond disgraceful. Our withdrawal was conditions-based and perfect, it would have been flawlessly executed and nobody would have even known we left. The Biden execution and withdrawal is perhaps the greatest embarrassment to our Country in History, both as a military and humanitarian operation.”

In a lengthy article in Vanity Fair from May 2021, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR) – also referred to in overlap with a predecessor/partner bureau called “OpMed” is described as a “little-known team of medics and miracle workers—hidden deep within the U.S. Department of State.”

“Even before COVID reared its head, OpMed was finding ways to do all sorts of things, serving as the hidden hand behind daring and often dangerous operations to rescue Americans from peril abroad,” the article states, before going on to quote Secretary of State Tony Blinken on the importance of the program’s goals.

“The Bureau of Medical Services’ Directorate of Operation—or ‘OpMed,’ as we call it—is a lifeline for the Department of State and the American people… Though perhaps lesser known outside of the Department, it’s vital to our operations. That’s because OpMed provides the platform and personnel to save American lives around the world, especially in times of crisis. During the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, OpMed was integral to our evacuation and repatriation of 100,000 Americans to the United States as countries began locking down their borders.”

But The National Pulse understands that career officials inside the State Department objected to the Trump-era aim of creating a Contingency and Crisis Response bureau with the express purpose of avoiding a future Benghazi-style situation for Americans overseas.

Instead, Biden’s team revoked the funding and the approval for the plan, even as the COVID-19 crisis reasserted itself, and and Afghanistan withdrawal loomed………

NEWSBUSTERS has this updated CNN clip where Darrell Issa schools Jim Acosta

There’s a reason why you don’t see conservatives on CNN very often. 

Hack journalist Jim Acosta couldn’t keep up as his Republican guest, Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA], schooled him on his own show, Sunday, over President Biden’s Afghanistan debacle. Acosta repeatedly tried to blame President Trump for the Taliban takeover, but Issa exposed the journalist’s pathetic hypocrisy…..

Another #FakeNews Story via the AP and NPR about Ivermectin

Published by Papa Giorgio

I posted this Rachel “Left of Mao” Maddow Tweet on my Facebook and was soon approached by a naysayer.

Say it ain’t so, lol.

And this is similar to another #FAKENEWS story regarding ivermectin from Rolling Stone magazine. A friend noted this article with his comment:

  • Hmm. I know some are disputing the claim. But here’s an article with some additional facts to back up the claim. I don’t doubt it. (NPR: “Poison Control Centers Are Fielding A Surge Of Ivermectin Overdose Calls”)

And he followed up that with this:

  • Seen on my timeline just now.

I will just bluntly state, I don’t buy it. And this is why — not what he requires of me and I do not of him. Not only was the Oklahomah hospital story bunk, but major parts that inform the NPR story are #FAKENEWS as well. So I posted this:

Jim G. then asked for confirmation of the story. So I quoted the NPR story and followed it up with the POST MILLENNIAL story:

NPR

  • ….In Mississippi, which has one of the lowest rates of vaccination against the coronavirus, the state Department of Health issued an alert about the surge in calls to poison control in August. The department said that at least 70% of recent calls to the state poison control center were related to people who ingested a version of the drug meant for livestock……

POST MILLENNIAL

It’s been revealed that the Associated Press has issued an embarrassing correction to its fear-mongering article claiming that 70 percent of calls to Mississippi Poison Control were about ivermectin ingestion. The actual number was 2 percent.

In an article published Aug. 23 about patients taking livestock medicine to try to treat the coronavirus, the Associated Press admitted it “erroneously reported” based on information provided by the Mississippi Department of Health that 70 percent of recent calls to the Mississippi Poison Control Center were from residents who had ingested the ivermectin version meant for animals.

The Associated Press updated the story on Aug. 25, entitled “Livestock medicine doesn’t work against COVID, doctors warn,” to correct that the number of calls to poison control about ivermectin was about 2 percent. Incorrect information provided by the Mississippi Department of Health had said the number was 70 percent, the Associated Press noted at the end of the report.

Before the correction, the Associated Press wrote that at least 70 percent of recent calls to the Mississippi Poison Control Center have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers, according to the state Department of Health officials. However, the exact number of total calls received were not specified at the time.

Now the current Associated Press report reflects that it was at least 70 percent of the 2 percent of recent poison control calls regarding the anti-parasite medicine.

Another version of the correction issued reiterated that the number of ivermectin-related calls to poison control was about 2 percent. And of those calls, 70 percent were by patients who had ingested the veterinary version of the medicine.

Based on the corrected Associated Press figures, the Daily Wire calculated Monday that a grand total of 1.4 percent of the calls to Mississippi Poison Control were from patients who had ingested the livestock form of ivermectin…..

The entire article is worth a read. But here is some of the responses:

  • Can you provide a direct link to the AP correction? I searched the AP site and can’t find such a correction. Maybe you’ll have more luck or maybe what you shared is not true. I honestly don’t know.
  • Why trust ThePostMillennial when they can’t even provide a legitimate link?
  • Oh, and archive today for something supposedly that recent doesn’t count. For all I know, that archive site is totally bogus.
  • You have no first hand AP retraction. It should be extremely easy to find but it’s not for some reason. Hmmm.

Lol. Oh boy… Archive Today a fake website? No “direct” link? Etc. And I am suppose be swayed from something “Seen on my timeline just now”? Lol.

In the story there are links to this (graphic is linked):

I followed that with this:

  • The archive is used because at time the papers involved remove or change text, titles, or the like. I used that same archive to hunt down The Atlantic change in a headline to get a better pic than what Twitter offered. To wit: “The President Is Making An Enemy of the People (Division)“
  • ….State epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers wrote in the memorandum that 85 percent of the callers had experienced mild symptoms, but only one individual was instructed to seek further evaluation due to the amount of ivermectin ingested….. (POST MILLENNIAL)

Steven M. followed that up with this: “Dear FDA: Are MERCK and Its Partners Treating Children with A Horse Drug?”

And this site linked in the pic:

At this point Jim G. tapped out with a switch of subject.

Biden Nixed Trump Era Evacuation Plans for Afghanistan (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio

ASSOCIATED PRESS update via SAN DIEGO TRIBUNE and WESTERN JOURNAL (and 17-ABC [WTVO]/FOX 39/EYEWITNESS NEWS) — will emphasize:

  • But here’s the deal: You know — I wish you’d one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former President made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1.

But according to the Associated Press:

… Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. IT HAD AN ESCAPE CLAUSE: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September.

Chris Miller, acting defense secretary in the final months of the Trump administration, chafed at the idea that Biden was handcuffed by the agreement.

“If he thought the deal was bad, he could have renegotiated. He had plenty of opportunity to do that if he so desired,” Miller, a top Pentagon counterterrorism official at the time the Doha deal was signed, said in an interview.

The piece goes on to acknowledge that that course of action may have led to difficulties of its own, but Biden should have been able to rely on the decades of foreign-policy experience he has boasted as having to craft a better deal…..

(LIBERTY UNYEILDING)

AGAIN, for the hard of reading, via ABC:

…IT HAD AN ESCAPE CLAUSE: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did…

So according to the “deal itself” and the Biden Admin ignoring that and getting rid of the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR) — as the original post details below — Afghanistan is 100% Biden’s issue. Period!

The UPDATED VIDEO can be found at the bottom of the post. (Originally posted Aug 18th)

Here is an excerpt, you should read the whole article!

Joe Biden’s State Department moved to cancel a critical State Department program aimed at providing swift and safe evacuations of Americans out of crisis zones just months prior to the fall of Kabul, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.

[….]

The document is dated June 11, 2021, though The National Pulse understands the decision to pause the program may have come as early as February, both undermining the original Trump-era date for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and certainly giving the Taliban time to threaten American assets and lives on the run up to Joe Biden’s September 11th date of withdrawal.

The subject line reads: “(SBU) Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau,” and the body of the document recommends: 

“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR), and direct a further review of certain associated Department requirements and capabilities.”

It goes on: 

“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, CCR, consistent with the applicable legal requirements, necessary stakeholder engagement, and any applicable changes to the Foreign Affairs Manual and other requirements.”

The document reveals the recommendations were approved on June 11th 2021. 

Speaking exclusively to The National Pulse, former President Donald J. Trump blasted Biden’s irresponsible move:

“My Administration prioritized keeping Americans safe, Biden leaves them behind. Canceling this successful Trump Administration program before the withdrawal that would have helped tens of thousands Americans reach home is beyond disgraceful. Our withdrawal was conditions-based and perfect, it would have been flawlessly executed and nobody would have even known we left. The Biden execution and withdrawal is perhaps the greatest embarrassment to our Country in History, both as a military and humanitarian operation.”

In a lengthy article in Vanity Fair from May 2021, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR) – also referred to in overlap with a predecessor/partner bureau called “OpMed” is described as a “little-known team of medics and miracle workers—hidden deep within the U.S. Department of State.”

“Even before COVID reared its head, OpMed was finding ways to do all sorts of things, serving as the hidden hand behind daring and often dangerous operations to rescue Americans from peril abroad,” the article states, before going on to quote Secretary of State Tony Blinken on the importance of the program’s goals.

“The Bureau of Medical Services’ Directorate of Operation—or ‘OpMed,’ as we call it—is a lifeline for the Department of State and the American people… Though perhaps lesser known outside of the Department, it’s vital to our operations. That’s because OpMed provides the platform and personnel to save American lives around the world, especially in times of crisis. During the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, OpMed was integral to our evacuation and repatriation of 100,000 Americans to the United States as countries began locking down their borders.”

But The National Pulse understands that career officials inside the State Department objected to the Trump-era aim of creating a Contingency and Crisis Response bureau with the express purpose of avoiding a future Benghazi-style situation for Americans overseas.

Instead, Biden’s team revoked the funding and the approval for the plan, even as the COVID-19 crisis reasserted itself, and and Afghanistan withdrawal loomed………

NEWSBUSTERS has this updated CNN clip where Darrell Issa schools Jim Acosta

There’s a reason why you don’t see conservatives on CNN very often. 

Hack journalist Jim Acosta couldn’t keep up as his Republican guest, Rep. Darrell Issa [R-CA], schooled him on his own show, Sunday, over President Biden’s Afghanistan debacle. Acosta repeatedly tried to blame President Trump for the Taliban takeover, but Issa exposed the journalist’s pathetic hypocrisy…..

SEE ALSO:

  • The Fatal Failure Of Gen. Mark A. Milley Over Closing Bagram Air Base (NY POST)

(Video hat-tip to POST MILLENNIAL)

Biden: Emboldening and Arming Our Enemies

Published by Papa Giorgio

My thoughts on the Middle-East have been pretty consistent., in that any hope of a stable area over there had the linchpin as Iraq. I think if we had committed to Iraq in a way we had with Japan and Germany, We would have had a country closer to Kuwait in governing, and headed in a faster pace than Kuwait toward more freedom. Once we pulled out of Iraq rather than continuing our presence there, all surrounding foreign policy was moot. Years and years ago I posted a short statement by KEN JOWITT that is still true today, but our chance to change the Middle-East was set on Iraq, in my opinion.

RELATED POST: Some SOFA/Iraq History (RPT FLASHBACK)

So, what I see Biden doing is both a horrible withdrawal as well as sending a message to our biggest enemies that we are weak. Before I show why I think both China and Russia will make some geo-political land grabs, here is an excellent article via PJ-MEDIA:

I’ve been fatalistic about the future of Afghanistan for so long now that I can barely remember when mission creep made our failure there a certainty.

Afghanistan isn’t a country. It’s a hole in the map where neighboring countries aren’t. Sometimes, a foreign power like Great Britain, the Soviet Union, or the United States will attempt to fill that hole. But as has been proven yet again, the hole labeled “Afghanistan” is essentially bottomless.

Absent occupying foreigners, Afghan localities typically rule themselves (badly) while the strongman-style central government tries to rule from Kabul (even more badly). In this age of renewed Islamic fundamentalism, the strongmen, local and central, were always going to be the meanest and most brutal fundamentalists.

Always.

Routing the Taliban in late 2001 was a necessary and proper response to the 9/11 attacks on this country. But there was never going to be a permanent fix.

Had President George W. Bush pulled us out when he damn well should have, in 2002 or ’03, the result would have been the same as it was on Sunday: a rapid takeover by the Taliban.

Had President Barack Obama pulled us out after killing Osama bin Laden in 2012, same result.

Had President Donald Trump pulled us out last year, yep, same thing.

But it didn’t have to be like this:

Dear God, not like this.

Presidentish Joe Biden told people just like the ones being shed from that cargo plane like so much detritus that he had a plan for getting them out.

He did not.

Biden told the world that we had weeks or even months to bring home those Afghans who had put their lives on the line to help our mission.

We did not.

In fact, the Biden administration gave the order that made the rapidity of this weekend’s Taliban takeover inevitable:

THIS is what people around the world will remember: that the United States left our Afghani friends and their families behind to be tortured and then slaughtered….

And the first to act? China… “China likely to recognize Taliban as Afghan rulers with fall of Kabul” (WASHINGTON EXAMINER). China is emboldened with US weakness in the region, the historic collapse of Afghanistan, and the frail puppet installed in Washington DC.

  • On Monday Steve Bannon warned that the US economy will implode if Taiwan falls to the Communist Chinese. According to Bannon he entire American economy centers around the chips, and in particular, the advanced chips designed, made, and manufactured in Taiwan. (GATEWAY PUNDIT)

All this said, I doubt Biden and his VERY progressive team would even bother with unenforced red-lines like Obama.

And then there is this:

The Taliban seized a staggering quantity of American military vehicles, equipment, and weapons when it overran Afghanistan in a week.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat obsessed with gun control, ended up giving billions of dollars of American weapons to the Islamist fanatics who helped perpetrate 9/11.

Only a month ago, Biden was bragging about the terrific quality of the modern “tools, training, and equipment” sent to the Afghan military at the expense of U.S. taxpayers over the past two decades.

Biden scoffed at the notion of an easy Taliban victory on July 8:

Together, with our NATO Allies and partners, we have trained and equipped over three hu- — nearly 300,000 current serving members of the military — of the Afghan National Security Force, and many beyond that who are no longer serving.  Add to that, hundreds of thousands more Afghan National Defense and Security Forces trained over the last two decades.

We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools — let me emphasize: all the tools, training, and equipment of any modern military.  We provided advanced weaponry.  And we’re going to continue to provide funding and equipment.   And we’ll ensure they have the capacity to maintain their air force.

“Do I trust the Taliban?” Biden said in response to a reporter’s question. “No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war.”…..

AMERICAN MILITARY NEWS has quite a few pics for the visually attentive:

On Friday, the Taliban seized control of Firoz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor, Afghanistan, marking at least 17 Afghan provincial capitals the Taliban have seized in the span of a week. Videos and photos have surfaced on social media showing the Taliban taking over swaths of U.S.-donated military equipment that the Taliban is using to continue overtaking Afghanistan.

Taliban forces have reportedly captured around 100 U.S.-made Humvees and MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) as well as U.S. ScanEagle drones left behind and the Kunduz Airport.

The Taliban captured Kunduz Airport on Wednesday and on Thursday, German journalist Julian Röpcke tweeted, “The #Taliban not only seized appr. a hundred US humvees and (MaxxPro) MRAPs at Kunduz airport, but also several US ScanEagle drones. Billions of US tax payer $ going to Islamist extremists, thanks to the administration’s hasty withdrawal without a peace deal or follow up mission…..

[pics of Tweets from article and more]

 

LOL! Cultural Appropriation At It’s Finest/Funniest

Published by Papa Giorgio

Ian posted the below in response to this:

FUNNY FOLLOW UP!