Afghanistan: Don’t blame the soldiers, blame entrenched D.C. elites

America cowers and runs from yet another country in which we should never have had a military presence. What is it going to take for us to limit the power of Washington in all matters of importance?

The chaotic images of our botched evacuation of Afghanistan should further enforce what we all should know by now: we are not the world’s policeman. And watching what is going on in Chicago, Portland, Atlanta, etc., it’s clear we can’t even police our own cities.

This botched pull-out of Afghanistan and the disjoined and dishonest speeches about it, is what you guys get when you elect a 78-year-old career politician with early-stage dementia. Rescuing Afghan translators that helped us is viewed as a must by Americans. We need them in the White House, because daily Jen Psaki, the Pentagon spokesman and the Secretary of State Blinken rotate trying to interpret what Joe Biden is trying to say.

After Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan, when will we learn? We’ve slipped so many times. It is like Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell are walking down the Capitol rotunda and see a banana peel 20 feet in front of them; they say, “Oh shoot, here we go again!”

This victory by the Taliban will only strengthen it. Had we left them alone they would not be this powerful and emboldened. The only thing spreading faster than COVID is Sharia law under the Taliban. The problem with America negotiating with these thugs under international law is that they use Sharia law while our “diplomats” seem to negotiate according to Murphy’s Law.

We had plenty of time to plan for a pullout that would have protected the folks there who helped us, plus not giving the Taliban 600,000 weapons, 75,000 military vehicles, $85 billion in funding and 200 aircraft. The next Taliban assault will not be with a beat-up Russian machine gun in the back of a 1981 Toyota pickup truck. It will be in one of our own armored tanks.

Just think about this for a second. The Biden administration and the Democrats are actively seeking to take or limit the guns of law-abiding American citizens while they hand over 600,000 of our assault weapons to the Taliban.

We should have taken our taxpayer-funded guns and equipment with us when we left, a pullout we have been telegraphing since the Obama administration. Joe Biden’s messy exit from Afghanistan was like a drunken high school boy on prom night.

I do not put this buffoonery of our government on just the Biden administration. Only one person in Congress voted against this war, so the collective wisdom of Washington comes to about zero. Generals at the Pentagon like war. When you have a hammer, you always are looking for a nail. But one hopes that in future situations, we will not clamor for war in lands we do not have a strategic interest in or understand.

The images of the Taliban cavorting and traipsing through cities should haunt us. They are laughing at us, riding bumper cars at a park, playing cricket, eating gelato at an open-air market, and otherwise enjoying leisure time in Kabul as they enter. I find it personally troubling that they seem to have a better work/life balance than I do.

The Taliban seems to have better PR than Delta Air Lines or Coke. Its spokesmen take to Twitter to get their message across – and to recruit new fighters. The leftist Twitter, of course, allows them on but permanently bans Donald Trump. Let that sink in.

Most troubling to me is that one of the first people the Taliban killed was a comedian named Nazar Mohammed. He was known for making jokes about the Taliban, which in my view, is the best way to marginalize a group which takes itself very seriously. So they murdered this person whose thoughts and humor they could not censor. Both Facebook and Twitter took note and are looking into the concept.

It is curious to watch the lamestream media, usually the spin doctors for Biden. Many suggest putting a mirror to his face over his inept handling of this crisis. ABC and NBC seem to be leading the way in this rare feat of journalism; CNN has yet to get on board. They are working diligently to pin the Lindbergh baby kidnapping on Trump.

Ron Hart is a syndicated op-ed humorist, award-winning author, and TV/radio commentator; you can reach him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or Twitter @RonaldHart.