Biden Killed Trump-Era Bureau to Help Americans Trapped Overseas: Memo
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbro...-kabul-n2594381
Spencer Brown@itsspencerbrown
|Posted: Aug 19, 2021 9:30 AM


According to new reporting from The Washington Free Beacon and other sources, President Biden and his State Department took action in June to end operations of an entity created by Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that could have provided emergency resources to Americans overseas in crisis situations.

As the Taliban was routing Afghan forces with its sights set on Kabul, Biden's Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon issued a memo authorizing "discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR)," according to The Free Beacon:

The Biden State Department moved in June to cancel a program overseeing the protection and evacuation of American citizens stationed overseas in the case of an emergency, just as the Taliban was taking over Afghanistan, according to an internal State Department memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon and multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The State Department's Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau was set up to provide "aviation, logistics, and medical support capabilities for the Department's operational bureaus, thereby enhancing the secretary's ability to protect American citizens overseas in connection with overseas evacuations in the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster," according to the memo.

Sounds like the kind of support that the State Department might have found handy this week as it found itself in the inconvenient position of relying upon the goodwill of the Taliban to allow U.S. citizens, Afghan allies, and others deemed at-risk under Taliban rule to access the American airlift taking place at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport.

The Biden administration pushed back on the allegations that it had dissolved a program that could have assisted in the boondoggle now unfolding in Afghanistan, claiming "that not only would the proposed Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau not have introduced any new capabilities to the Department, it was never formally established," according to Fox News:-- excerpt, rest at link above --

Clarissa Ward@clarissaward
·
23m
Soldiers by the runway at Kabul airport tell me that there are 10,000 people here processed and ready to go… but nowhere to fly them to because Qatar is refusing to accept more Afghans because they’ve reached capacity. “It’s abysmal… someone needs to step up.”

Glenn Beck's audience raises staggering $22 million in 2 days to rescue Christians trapped in Afghanistan
https://www.theblaze.com/news/glenn-beck...Breaking%20News
Sarah Taylor
August 20, 2021


Glenn Beck's audience has raised $22 million — and counting — in two days to benefit the Beck-founded Nazarene Fund, which tirelessly works to rescue Christians and other religious minorities from persecution and slavery in the Middle East and across the globe.

What are the details?

Blaze Media previously reported that the Nazarene Fund is gearing up to extract approximately 5,000 people — mainly women and children — from Afghanistan as the newly Taliban-controlled country descends into violence and chaos.

During Beck's Wednesday morning radio show, the conservative firebrand and humanitarian urged his listeners to "give until it hurts" — and his loyal audience delivered beyond belief: Beck's audience donated even more than the $20 million goal by early Friday morning.

On Wednesday, Beck pleaded, "Every single penny that you can come up with will go to flying those planes and getting those people out. We need, obviously, an enormous amount of money. These are people that are marked for death for what they believe in. This is why we started the Nazarene Fund. Don't wait around for anyone else to do it. Don't wait around. Please, go to theNazareneFund.org and donate. ... We need your help as soon as possible. I ask that you would give until it hurts today, because these people are entirely alone. And they will be crucified, if you are marked as a Christian, with the Taliban. You know what will happen to them. We can get them out. Be an Oskar Schindler today. Go to theNazareneFund.org." -- excerpt, rest at link above --

The Question That Made the Taliban Burst out Laughing!

US left Afghan airfield at night, didn’t tell new commander
By KATHY GANNON
July 6, 2021
https://apnews.com/article/bagram-afghan...3251aaaa167e623


BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.

Afghanistan’s army showed off the sprawling air base Monday, providing a rare first glimpse of what had been the epicenter of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on America.

The U.S. announced Friday it had completely vacated its biggest airfield in the country in advance of a final withdrawal the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August.

“We (heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram ... and finally by seven o’clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram’s new commander said.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett did not address the specific complaints of many Afghan soldiers who inherited the abandoned airfield, instead referring to a statement last week.

The statement said the handover of the many bases had been in the process soon after President Joe Biden’s mid-April announcement that America was withdrawing the last of its forces. Leggett said in the statement that they had coordinated their departures with Afghanistan’s leaders. -- excerpt, rest at link above --

Despicable.

US general tells British special forces: Stop rescuing people in Kabul, you're making us look bad
by Tom Rogan, Commentary Writer |
| August 20, 2021 05:25 PM
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini...ing-us-look-bad


I understand that the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division has told the commander of the British special forces at the Kabul airport to cease operations beyond the airport perimeter.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue has told his British Army counterpart, a high-ranking field-grade officer of the British army's 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, that British operations were embarrassing the United States military in the absence of similar U.S. military operations. I understand that the British officer firmly rejected the request.

This show of rare tension between the U.S. and British command groups in Kabul reflects three factors.

First, it shows the obvious stress of attempting to extricate thousands of personnel under a situation of increasing terrorist threat. Elements of the Haqqani network, the Islamic State in Afghanistan, and possibly al Qaeda are now operating in proximity to Kabul airport with some degree of command separation from the Taliban.

In addition, the British military has more operational latitude in Kabul than the U.S. military, including the Navy SEAL elements present at the airport. I understand that the SAS has conducted operations to bring American citizens, as well as British citizens and at-risk personnel, through checkpoints and to the airport. This is not an indictment on U.S. capabilities or special operations intent, but rather, it's a reflection of political-military authorities. In part, this difference is understandable. Large-scale U.S. military operations beyond the Kabul airport perimeter would entail significant risk absent prior Taliban approval. But there is a sense, at least by allies, that the U.S. military could be doing more to leverage the Taliban into providing greater ease of access to the airport for those most at risk.

A bureaucratic tug of war between the State Department, Pentagon, and White House is also disrupting evacuation operations out of Kabul. This is aggravating British, French, and other Kabul-present military authorities. I understand that these governments have been further aggravated by the failure of the White House and Pentagon to communicate adequately, or in some cases, to communicate at all, on their intentions and actions. All these allies admit, however, that only the U.S. military could provide the airfield defense and air traffic control capabilities now on display.

Still, as I noted on Wednesday , the Biden administration's conduct of the Afghanistan withdrawal has raised deep concerns by allies as to the administration's credibility and confidence. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, allied officials reemphasized this concern to me on Friday.-- excerpt, rest at link above --

John Cardillo@johncardillo
·
15m
The Taliban is wearing our gear, mocking Iwo Jima.

Biden must resign or be impeached and removed.

Dems can never hold power again.

Heshmat Alavi@HeshmatAlavi
WARNING - GRAPHIC

Aug 21—Kabul, #Afghanistan
12 to 1 pm local time

The situation is deteriorating drastically as the Taliban opens fire on people trying to enter the airport.

WARNING - GRAPHIC

https://twitter.com/i/status/1429092825073848320
0:11
40K views
From
Alex Thompson
9:47 AM · Aug 21, 2021·Twitter Web App

Biden Admin Has No Plan to Stop Taliban From Seizing Billions in Assets and Cash
Ian Cheong
August 21, 2021
https://conservativebrief.com/biden-billions-48935/


The Biden administration may be inadvertently providing the Taliban with a massive cash inflow of up to $10 billion dollars due to its inability to act against the Islamist militant group in Afghanistan and prevent them from seizing US assets and cash.

Following the fall of the Afghanistan national government and President Joe Biden’s disastrous pullout, few plans have been put in place to secure billions of dollars in assets and between $10 and $20 million in cash in Afghanistan. If the assets and liquid currency should fall into the hands of the Taliban, it would add even more spoils to their coffers, already flush with Taliban’s seizing of US military hardware, including billions of dollars in guns, ammunition, helicopters, heavy artillery, drones, and armored vehicles.

As the administration scrambles to evacuate trapped US citizens and their allies from Afghanistan, the Biden administration may be overlooking the Taliban’s plans to seize some $10 billion in assets currently held in Afghanistan’s central bank, according to congressional foreign policy leaders.

According to a new report by the Washington Free Beacon, there sits somewhere between $18 and $20 million in cash in the Afghan bank’s central vaults, which will likely be seized by the Taliban unless the United States attempts to intercept the funds and fly them out of the country or otherwise destroy the cash. Sources told the Free Beacon that any move on the money is unlikely as the Biden administration continues to struggle with the evacuation.

The Free Beacon reported:-- excerpt, rest at link above --

Asaad Hanna@AsaadHannaa
· 15h
Meet the new Taliban teams, American car, American weapons, American costume.

"This is the worst day by far."

@ramsaysky
says the situation at Kabul's airport is "utterly horrendous", and that 'hardened soldiers' told him its the "worst thing they have ever seen in their entire career"
321.6K views
0:18 / 4:37
From
Sky News
4:00 AM · Aug 21, 2021·Twitter Web App

Taliban soldiers wearing U.S.-made gear mock iconic World War II image of Marines raising flag on Iwo Jima in 1945 and release propaganda footage showing them armed with American weapons while on patrol in Afghanistan
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...g-Iwo-Jima.html


The Taliban's Badri 313 Battalion released a collection of propaganda footage this past week
Among the collection was the recreation of the famed 1945 World War II picture of soldiers raising the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima
In the Taliban version, a group of soldiers is seen hoisting the Taliban flag in a similar fashion while sporting U.S. weapons and gear
The Badri 313 is a special unit of Taliban fighters that dress like U.S. soldiers by wearing camouflage, combat boots and body armor
Analysts expect the unit to continue to grow in the next few months

By Chris Jewers and Christopher Eberhart and Natasha Anderson For Dailymail.Com

Published: 13:04 EDT, 21 August 2021 | Updated: 14:30 EDT, 21 August 2021



A group of Taliban fighters released a collection of propaganda footage, including a photo where they mocked the famed World War II picture of soldiers raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.

In the original 1945 photograph, a group of six Marines are depicted hosting the flag on Mount Suribachi.

The Taliban's Badri 313 Battalion recreated the image this week.

In their version, a group of soldiers is seen hoisting the Taliban flag in a similar fashion while sporting U.S. weapons and gear that was likely stolen from allied militaries during patrols of Kabul.

A group of Taliban fighters recreated a fame U.S. WWII photo in a collection of propaganda footage they released this week. In their recreation (above), a group of soldiers is seen hoisting the Taliban flag while sporting U.S. weapons and gear

In the original 1945 photograph (above), a group of six Marines are depicted hosting the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima

The Badri 313 is a special unit of Taliban fighters that dress like U.S. soldiers by wearing camouflage, combat boots and body armor. The soldiers drive armored Humvees and carries M4 carbines.

The Badri 313 was reportedly named after the Battle of Badr that is written about in the Qur'an, in which the Prophetbandit Mohammed successfully defeated an enemy force with just 313 men - some 1,400 years ago.

The unit, previously unveiled by the Taliban in promotional material, are reportedly highly trained and equipped with state-of-the-art military equipment. -- excerpt, rest at link above --