Afghan Syndrome or Internationalist Syndrome?

Justin Haggerty | The Daily Knight

(photo credit: wndnewscenter.org)

The Taliban are going door to door, searching for Afghans who worked with the U.S. government in the past twenty years. Deemed as traitors to the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," many are executed or imprisoned, if fortunate. The failures of the White House and the U.S. State Department have caused this bloodshed, because of their arrogance and incompetence in effective diplomatic and military operations, ringing in condemnations from around the world.

Earlier this week, a member of the United Kingdom's parliament, and Afghanistan war veteran, addressed his fellow members, chastising the White House's disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan that left the country vulnerable to a Taliban takeover within eleven days. The MP also ridiculed Biden for his statements, where he placed blame on the Afghan force that was "not willing to defend itself," to the effect that no one should criticize the sacrifices of others when they have never served to defend "the colors."

Afghan forces assumed the fight in Afghanistan since 2014, while coalition forces remained in support, assisting with intelligence, logistics, operational security, aerial support, etc. Taking the brunt of Taliban and ISIS offenses, Afghans suffered roughly seventy-thousand casualties (referenced by Ret. Gen. Jack Kean on Fox News). While not the most effective fighting force, such casualties don't illustrate a people not willing to defend themselves. Multiple veterans, who now serve in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, have come to the defense of Afghan soldiers who they once fought and bled with.

The most harmful comment made on the floor of the British parliament was that no country or commander in chief should have the authority to unilaterally make a decision that will and could effect the concert of nations and balance of power in the world. In a clear deduction of American power and hegemony, the MP asserted that Japan, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, and other nations should come together to determine such actions.

So, how could the White House and the U.S. State Department miscalculate the situation in Afghanistan so poorly? We are now aware of multiple reports, given to the State Department by research institutions on foreign affairs, that warned that the nation would fall to the Taliban by the end of the year. One report, submitted in May for the original withdrawal date, recommended that 2,500 to 4,500 soldiers remain in Afghanistan to reinforce stability. This was echoed by General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in his interview with Vox, where he claimed that he had recommended to the White House that 2,500 soldiers remain in Afghanistan. Biden denied, during the ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos, that he ever heard, to his recollection, such a recommendation.

One must question the reluctance of the White House to support Afghan forces with aerial bombardments as provinces began to fall to the Taliban over four months ago. Earlier this summer, in June, the White House conducted multiple bombings of targets of weapons cache's in Syria. Why would the White House and State Department not share a similar position of maintaining Naval and Air Force capabilities to apply force, if needed, in Afghanistan? At the least, such support could have been given to our Afghan allies, engaging Taliban targets, three weeks ago to prevent further advancement through Afghanistan and eventually to envelope Kabul. Perhaps the official visit of Taliban leadership to Beijing had something to do with that decision.

In addition, the White House failed to withdraw U.S. citizens, equipment, and military forces in that order. Military forces were irresponsibly removed first, leaving U.S. diplomats at the embassy, thousands of citizens, and $82 billion of military equipment spread across the country. The State Department, either from reluctance or ignorance, still reports that they "don't know" how many American citizens are in country. Unfortunately, the entire Afghanistan withdrawal, which President Trump began to coordinate over two years ago, was contingent on a cease agreement between the Afghan Ghani government and the Taliban. Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, former Assistant National Security Adviser to the Trump Administration, stated in an op-ed in Newsweek:

"The withdrawal plan was to be measured and gradual with a series of "gates" to measure progress. In February of 2020, we made a peace agreement with the Taliban. We would gradually withdraw and they would not attack U.S. Forces. For the next 17 months no American servicemembers were killed by the Taliban. Another essential part of the agreement was an intra-Afghan peace agreement between the Taliban and the government of President Ashraf Ghani....In April 2020, the president directed the military to come up with options for a withdrawal plan. We would keep, at a minimum 2500 troops and air support in place until May [or until a viable peace agreement could be signed between the Taliban and Ghani government]. The date was a forcing function [not concrete]. It gave Ghani's government a year to reach an agreement with the Taliban a reasonable expectation."

It is clear that the White House failed to secure such an agreement and decided to move forward with the withdrawal. In the interview on ABC, Biden affirmed that he "doesn't regret any decisions."

As the "Graveyard of Empires," many are insinuating that the United States is nearing its end, similar to the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan and the dissolving of its Communist government two years later. The U.S. government is well over $30 trillion dollars in debt, just reached a 40-year high on inflation, suffering from unemployment and a shrinking workforce, ailing from a stagnate domestic economy, and led by politicians in the White House and Congress who are looking to extend unemployment benefits, increase taxes on the wealthy and businesses, expand welfare benefits, and pass legislation for the largest spending programs in history ($1.5 trillion for infrastructure and $3.5 a trillion budget). China, Russia, and Iran are wolves circling a sick and lost calf, and Afghanistan has separated the U.S. from the herd.

Is this the Afghan syndrome? Is it truly the place where empires go to die, adding American M-4s, M-16s, M-240Bs, Blackhawks, and M1-A2 Abrams Tanks to the row of tombstones marked by T-72 Tanks, AK-47s, British rifles, Chinese spears, Arabian scimitars, Indian elephant tusks, Greek Athenian helmets and Macedonian shields, and Persian swords. Not quite, the U.S. Military was equipped with the weaponry, technological lethality, and personnel capable of destroying our enemies in Afghanistan a hundred times over. Yet, we isolated ourselves on forward operating bases (FOBS) and mountain outposts, hindered by unfavorable rules of engagement, only to build the 'hearts and minds' of future Taliban fighters. Career politicians, corrupt lobbyists, incompetent bureaucrats, inept diplomats, and a ballooning industrial military complex stole the victory out of the clutches of Afghan patriots buried in the Himalayas and American soldiers buried in Arlington.

Forever will the images of the C-17's evacuating Kabul be joined with the scenes of the helicopters over the U.S. embassy in Saigon. These disgraceful scenes are linked to a syndrome, not isolated to the "Graveyard of Empires" but connected to a widespread illness of internationalists who are imbedded through the halls of the White House, U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, and our intelligence agencies. These internationalists, in their false world view, sacrifice American interests and security for globalism, international-democracy, and money markets tethered to the IMF, the World Bank, and the BIS. Ever since marxist agents like Alger Hiss (who drafted the charter of the United Nations) and Harry Dexter White (who presided over the formation of the IMF and the World Bank) were top officials of the State and Treasury Departments in the 1930's and 1940's, internationalists have manipulated and influenced American policy against the interest of the American voter. The Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars were sabotaged by our own bureaucrats; add Afghanistan to the list.

When I was a Cadet at West Point, I took the mandatory International Relations course, which is a study of the diplomatic discipline pioneered by the Wilsonians and internationalist-socialists, who birthed the broken League of Nations after World War I and chartered the world's trajectory toward a second world war. My particular class was instructed by an U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, who was a member of the United Nation's international nuclear proliferation program. As a student of international history, in our quest to understand the human condition, facts are paramount. In our discipline, for an explanation of any event in history, there can be hundreds of theses, ranging from economics to anthropology, from politics to personalities, and from culture to religions, to name a few. All can be equally true, in their cause and affect, as long as the facts are supportive.

Now, back to International Relations and the Air Force Lt. Col. from the United Nations. The modern social science discipline, developed from the internationalist foundations of the world established after World War I, has many 'theories' on international conflict and diplomacy, which are centered around a premise that democracies have never and will never engage in warfare with each other. To protect 'democracy' as an ideology (for which International Relations has a very inclusive, yet exclusive in practice, understanding of what a true democracy really is) its theories are contingent on the removal of such variables as religious identities, 'reactionary' tendencies, cultural values and ethics, and leadership personalities. Thus, you are left with a socialistic concept of a 'democracy' that is absent of the human condition. Writing on the First World War for my International Relations' term paper, I received the lowest grade on any term paper during my time as a Cadet. In red ink, the Lt. Col., in all of his U.N. wisdom, declared: "Too much fact; Not enough theory."

We live in a world, tainted by a Internationalist Syndrome that runs supreme amongst the power brokers of the world, where theory, not fact, determines the fate of nations like Afghanistan, the future of innocent life, and America's foreign policy. May God save us.

In Christ Crucified and the Most Victorious Heart of Jesus.