Reporter #1: “Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?”
President Biden: “No. It is not. Because you have the Afghan troops have 300,000 – well-equipped- as well equipped as any army in the world – and an air force – against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable”
Reporter #2: “Mr President, thank you very much. Your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse.”
Pres. Biden: “That is not true.”
Reporter: “Is it – Can you please clarify what they have told you about whether that will happen or not.”
Pres. Biden: “That is not true. They did not reach that conclusion.”
Reporter: “So what is the level of confidence that they have that it will not collapse?”
Pres. Biden: “The Afghan government, the leadership, has to come together. They clearly have the capacity to sustain the government in place.”
Reporter: “Do you see any parallels with this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam? With some people feeling…”
Pres. Biden: “None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy. Six if I’m not mistaken.”
“The Taliban is not the South – the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
– President Joe Biden, press briefing, 8th July 2021. Kabul fell on 15th August.
From Guido Fawkes’ post of 16th August 2021, “Biden’s tragically optimistic Afghanistan press briefing shows lack of intelligence”
The only possible defence for the comments and ACTIONS of Mr Joseph Biden is senility.
If Mr Biden is not senile – then he must be Impeached for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. For giving the Taliban 80 Billion Dollars in military equipment, and leaving American allies, including American citizens, to be slaughtered. With some desperately clinging to departing aircraft – till their grip failed and they fell, screaming, to their deaths.
And if Mr Biden is senile (the “Mental Incapacity” defence) then he must be removed under Section Four of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Yes I know that means “President K. Harris” – but that is going to happen in February 2023 anyway.
It needs to happen right now – the Biden farce must not go on.
President Ford in 1975 faced a different situation – CONGRESS had cut off aid to American allies, Laos, Cambodia and the Republic of Vietnam.
President Ford was little more than a helpless spectator in relation to Indo China.
Although President Ford was also a man who seemed to have very little, if any, knowledge of matters outside the United States. For example his comments in the televised debate with Governor James Earl Carter in the 1976 Presidential campaign – where President Ford repeatedly denied that Poland was under Soviet control.
After the debates the Ford Campaign claimed that the President meant Yugoslavia – not Poland. But the damage was done – President Ford was left at least seeming like a moron.
Biden was right. They weren’t remotely comparable, just not how he intended. South Vietnam survived for two years after the final removal of US forces. The Taliban took over Afghanistan before the US and its allies completed their withdrawal. The long maligned ARVN look very good in comparison to the Potemkin Afghan army NATO blew billions of dollars on.
The North Vietnamese if you recall had boatloads of Soviet and Chinese weaponry and other aid. The Taliban had AKs, RPGs and pick up trucks. They only become heavily armed after they inherited all the NATO gear after they seized the country.
Mr. Biden is mentally “challenged” as they say. But I’m not sure his press conference or anything his administration has done would be different if he were as cogent as he was say 20 years ago (there’s a joke in there somewhere).
The press conference quoted and most of what he’s said since are lies. He’s just not as aware of his lying as he used to be.
This is the same PR team that insisted that US inflation for July was 0%. To say they’re delusional would be an insult to the mad.
“Why are these lying bastards lying to me again?” seems closest to the mark.
Not quite on topic, but it is remarkable how little change is required to what the Estonian FM said about the Belorussian regime, to make it applicable to the “Biden” administration.
@Paul Marks – Ford, aside from serving in the pacific in WW2, was also senior on the defense appropriations committee for some years. I suspect he knew more about the outside USA world than, say, Jimmy Carter, who was governor of GA.
I don’t recall the big Nixon biography well enough to recall what roles he had as Ike’s VP for eight years, but I do recall that he got his foreign policy chops in congress and the senate as well.
The essence of classical tragedy (e.g. Shakespearian) is that a hero or heroine with many good qualities is confronted with the one situation they cannot handle because of a tragic flaw in their otherwise essentially noble nature. Maybe some of the woke see the Biden administration as purveyors of essentially noble purposes who are tragically unable to deal with circumstances a cruel fate keeps throwing at them. But I suspect more of the woke think it is Trump-inspired wreckers and thought-criminals, not a cruel fate, that hold back the millennium. And while it was a tragedy for many in Afghanistan, I did not then and do not now think classical tragedy had anything to do with the US end of the failure.
One essence of comedy, by contrast, is a double meaning, as I’m sure Guido appreciated. Biden was indeed showing his own lack of (colloquial) intelligence as well as his advisers’ lack of (colloquial and military) intelligence – but that was not excusably news to anyone.
IIRC, Guido was also wary of getting into the US vote fraud issue. Since Biden is a classical usurper at best, it is objectionable he be able to act as even a one-term president.
[…] Can you see the parallels between Saigon and Kabul now, Mr President? One year since the retreat from Afghanistan. […]
Is it wrong that when I read that the Taliban painted over a mural of the leftist Saint George Floyd in Kabul that I laughed? Even those crazy Islamists think BLM are awful
Snorri Godhi – you hit on a sore point for many people.
Many countries, including the United Kingdom, have sanctions against the regime in Belarus – because the election there was rigged.
The American election was also rigged – Mark Zuckerberg (that dead eyed censorship fanatic) spent almost half a BILLION Dollars helping rig it – he did NOT spend that money on political advertising to convince people to vote for Mr Biden (he knew that would be hopeless), he spent that money on where the voting would take place and on the counting of votes – and he was not the only person in the group that Time Magazine proudly (yes – proudly) called the “Cabal”.
Why bother trying to convince people to vote for Mr Biden, when you can just have endless fake “mail-in ballots”. Elections laws? What election laws – anything to get rid of “Trump”.
Yet there are no sanctions against the regime in Washington D.C. – none at all. The Double Standard is total.
“It is not the same Paul” – no it is not the same. The Dictator of Belarus is a very bad man, he has people killed who oppose him (the family of Ashli Babbitt and others will tell you how bad that is) – but he does not go around sexually mutilating children.
You are not going to hear the Dictator of Belarus, horrible person though he is, demanding (on national television) “Trans Rights” for eight year old children, and then claiming he got “81 million votes”.
In the old days they used to say that “in Chicago the dead vote” – and they all just happened to vote Democrat.
That is not needed any more – as many decent people have given up and have left Chicago (and Illinois as well).
What has happened is that there are many Chicagos now.
The counties that contain Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta (remember “Biden won Georgia” – say that with a straight face, go on try), Phoenix…
It must not continue – no more vote rigging. If the Democrats try it in the Mid Terms America will explode.
Yes the regime now has more armed security and intelligence agents, even as a proportion of the population, than Belarus does. But the American population is still better armed than the population of Belarus.
The regime is going to lose the House and the Senate – and, I repeat, if it tries to rig the election to keep them, things will not go well for them.
As for arresting Donald John Trump on some fake charge – or arranging for the man to have an “accident”.
Do not do these things – just do NOT go down that road.
@Paul Marks
“The only possible defence for the comments and ACTIONS of Mr Joseph Biden is senility“.
Harsh, possibly true, but I would not wish that on him.
The other possible defence, however, is a desperate willingness (by many politicians) to believe military advisers who promise that everything is going well, and the Alliance had massive superiority. My knowledge of such matters comes not just from active-service friends and colleagues in the UK military, but also in the US.
Re “what happened in Vietnam?”
Mention of that reminds me of accounts from a US friend of the 1980’s. His very first posting as a raw & very junior Military Intelligence officer was to Vietnam, to preparing body count reports of North Vietnamese casulties. He found later that whatever numbers he reported, more senior colleagues would routinely retype the reports, multiplying his original “on-the-ground” numbers by anything from x2 to x10, and that practice happened all over.
He couldn’t understand how anyone could find the reports believable after all the numbers were added together. But believed they were, and for many years.
It was (and remained) a Standard Operating Procedure. Especially the highly-optimistic models and future predictions that pleased Biden and his predecessors – “we just need one more big push” – until it all came tumbling down.
One of the rules of the US Presidency is that, if a president dies in office, the Vice President takes over and if there is less than 2 complete years to go, the remaining term does not count as a full term, allowing the V.P. to be elected another two times for a 10 year term.
My prediction is that Biden will, one way or another, join the ranks of ex-presidents in February 2023 allowing Harris 23 months as president, followed by potentially another two 4 year terms.
If she is stupid enough to select Hillary Clinton as her V.P. (or have her forced on her by the Democratic party) then within a week she will join the choir celestial (technically known as Arkincide) and allow Clinton a few months short of a 10 year reign.
Provided, of course, that they can ram through enough votes to guarantee the result … In which case, industrial quantities of popcorn will be needed by impartial observers.
That would be monumental stupidity. Is even Kamala Harris that stupid? It would be signing her own death warrant.
@John Galt – Hmmmm! We could get into a reverse auction scenario debating how stupid Harris is. My opening bid is a hydrocephalitic chimpanzee.
However I DID cover bases by saying that she may be forced to accept the Democratic party’s choice of V.P. Now THAT also raises a number of interesting possibilities, none of which will prove to be good for her health. I see three likely V.P. candidates:
1) Clinton – although I would technically argue that she has had two terms ruling the country under President Bill Clinton. Barak or Michelle Obama as V.P. once the late, lamented Harris met with that unfortunate accident or is forced to resign for her own health.
2) Barak Obama – I saw a meme which said that Biden heard that the President had caught COVID and phoned Obama to commiserate. Poe’s Law is operating here. It could be satire, could be true … He may be the hidden power behind the throne. Certainly the policies and behaviour of the Biden regime very closely resemble Obamas outlook and philosophy. Under Clinton, then he’d be at the source of power and able to directly operate the levers of power via Clinton.
3) Michelle Obama – a shoo-in allowing Obama to operate at one step removed from that outlined in 2) above.
Either way, it is a loaded deck with several jokers in play and you can bet your bottom dollar that the game isn’t Happy Families.
The mid terms will be the litmus test. If Biden increases his overall vote count and/or even scrapes by, even the most Kool Aid addicted Democrat must smell a very big Rattus Norvegicus. I know from various friends in the USA that they are giving the mid terms one last chance to vote their way out of the situation and then making a decision. Unless, of course, the forthcoming mid terms can be cancelled due to a “situation” such as Trump being jailed/assassinated, WW3, or simply martial law being declared.
Interesting times, right enough.
Phil B – I agree that Mr Biden will be retired in February 2023, if he lasts that long.
I do not see how, other than massive election rigging, the Dems can win in 2024 – but they may already be looking forward to 2028.
President Trump (or whatever Republican is elected in 2024) will inherit a collapsing economy and society – and it hard to see what can be done, the situation is just too terrible. The economy is a vast Credit Bubble – and society has been collapsing since at least the 1960s and now may be reaching the point of no return (societal collapse – which is what the “New Left” always intended).
Things in 2028 may be even worse than they will be in 2024 – thus leaving the door open to the election of “President Michelle Obama” (or some other such person) to usher in full Collectivist totalitarianism by the target date of 2030.
As you know, 2030 is the target date for the destruction of liberty (or what little is left of it) all over the world – not “just” in the United States.
On the Midterms – November 2022.
To keep control of the House and Senate the regime would have to engage in election rigging on a truly vast scale.
That would mean Civil War – and I do NOT think they want Civil War at this time.
I think they will play the long game. With “President Harris” in place and the lack of a two thirds majority in House and Senate, there is not much that the Republicans can do in terms of economic policy.
There will not be a Republican President till January 2025 – and by then it may well be too late to salvage much of the United States.
This leaves the election of 2028 open for the Collectivists to win (win without rigging it) – and, I repeat, put the United States on track for the destruction of what is left of liberty by the international target date for totalitarianism – 2030.
What matters is how a Republican President and Congress respond when they are finally in place in January 2025 – if they try and save the present system (with yet more bailouts for Credit Bubble Wall Street and so on), then they will FAIL.
The Republicans must have the courage to take what seems the more dangerous path – let the Credit Bubble economy go, and rebuild from the ground up. Rebuild on sound principles.
Sound money, Real Savings (as opposed to banker tricks), and productive work – producing real goods.
Such a real economy would have no place for the “Woke” (Crony) “capitalism” (which is not capitalism at all) of BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, and the Credit Bubble banks. That system of a tiny group getting endless Credit Money (at the expense of everyone else), must end. As most the Credit Bubble government – which already has over 32 TRILLION Dollars work of official debt (and far more than 32 Trillion Dollars if one counts the “entitlement” Ponzi Schemes such as Social Security and Medicare).
Actual human beings, and their families, must own real business enterprises (funding by investment from Real Savings – the sacrifice of consumption) – producing real products.
But such an economy depends on traditional society – the society that the New Left has been undermining for so many decades.
If they can rig the 2020 POTUS election so brazenly and nobody does a thing about it @Paul, why wouldn’t they just keep rigging POTUS elections? Screw the fact that the Democrats lost 18 out of 20 Bell-weathers.
Admittedly senatorial / congressional elections may be harder to fix because the electorate is more concentrated, but holding the Whitehouse is the key to executive power.
Just a reminder – a 50-50 Senate cannot confirm a new VP without at least 1 minority vote, as there is no sitting VP to break a tie. There is no way that Clinton or either Obama could be confirmed in the current Senate. If the Republicans lose a seat on net in the fall, AND fail to take control of the house then the deciding vote shifts to Manchin, again not the person the Clintons/Obamas would want to rely on for a VP confirmation. And of course, if the Dems actually control both houses a new VP is only needed to reduce the leverage of the marginal Senator (i.e. Manchin), yet another reason for the nomination to be blocked.
I can’t see a replacement VP being approved by an opposition Congress in the current political climate. Ford was only confirmed by the Democrats because they knew they couldn’t credibly threaten to actually convict Nixon if it meant House Speaker Carl Albert would become President. Rockefeller was basically irrelevant for the year or so afer he was confirmed as Ford’s replacement. None of that is true now.
Unless things shift dramatically pro-D in Congress I don’t see Biden resigning. The Dem establishment seems perfectly happy to keep Biden in a closet for most of the day and only wheel him out for the few hours he’s actually (mostly) coherent. If it gets to the point they can’t even do that then Harris may end up as acting president during any prolonged incapacity, but the only way she ends up actually President is if the two parties can agree on a compromise replacement (or Biden actually dies, which I see as very unlikely. You can keep a body alive with next to no brain function for a long time).
It’s possible by a literal reading of the 22A of the Constitution that if Harris resigns as V-P first, then the vacancy can be filled by a candidate nominated by the President upon confirmation by the House and Senate. If Mr Obama were nominated, he would become V-P for the first time, and he could succeed to the Presidency without having been ‘elected’ to the office should the incumbent leave office:
A V-P B H Obama could succeed his former V-P as President by this method, and then run and Pelosi’s V-P for 2024, rinse and repeat. Could a vote for BHO get by an 50/50 Senate with no V-P to break the tie? Watch the RINOs salivate at the chance.
Nope, because a Veep has the same eligibility requirements as the POTUS. Can’t bypass term limits for Obama that way.
JG.
It’s the word ‘elected‘ that matters, the prohibition in the 22A is on being elected as President, not succeeding to the Presidency or holding office. The 22nd Amendment is the only bar on holding the Presidency more than twice, but it only bars you if elected a third time. It says nothing about not being elected Vice-President more than twice.
And that is that.
Barack as POTUS next year does not sound as bad as Kamala as POTUS. (Except that Kamala would mean many more votes for Republicans.)
The fact is, Barack is constitutionally ineligible in 2024, and Kamala is ineligible because of her vacuous mind.
My thinking is, for the U.S., if a Democrat is going to win the next presidential election, and it’s one of those in the foreseeable lists, it hardly matters which one it is. There’s an entire system securely in place just below the figurehead slot, and they’ll still all be there no matter who wins.
phwest – Senator Manchin is not to be trusted, he and the Senator from Arizona have just shown on that on the Orwellian named “Inflation Reduction Act” (an orgy of yet more spending, taxes and regulations.
John Galt – if (if) the establishment rigs the elections, the midterms or the next Presidential election, then we move from the realm of politics to the realm of war. As Clausewitz reminds us – “war is politics by other means”.
The establishment is purging the military of people who believe in the Bill of Rights, and it is building a vast “army” or armed security personal (in everything from from the FBI to the IRS) who are prepared to abuse anyone the regime wants to be abused – the Federal “Justice” system is already a byword for corruption and abuse. People can be persecuted to bankruptcy with legal fees – and they have no way of suing their persecutors as INDIVIDUALS (and trying to get legal costs out of the Federal Government via the Federal courts is almost hopeless). People guilty of no common law crime have already been thrown in prison – indeed this has been going on for years. The “laws” are mess – and juries are often picked from Democrat populations (such as Washington D.C.) who will convict any Republican – before even hearing what the “crime” is supposed to be.
However, it is to be hoped that the establishment will NOT go down the path of war.