The fall of Kabul

 Mark Steyn:

To reprise a line from a decade-old column of mine:

Afghanistan is about Afghanistan – if you're Afghan or Pakistani. But, if you're Russian or Chinese or Iranian or European, Afghanistan is about America.

That's the point to remember: if you're an Afghan schoolgirl, today is the fall of Kabul; elsewhere, in the chancelleries of allies and enemies alike, it's the fall of America. Even by their usual wretched standards, the world's most somnolent media are struggling to stay up to speed on the story. Here's the scoop from USA Today:

Taliban's Afghanistan Advance Tests Biden's 'America Is Back' Foreign Policy Promise

You don't say! Did he misread the prompter, or mishear the guy in his ear? "America is on its back", surely?

But don't worry, the world's most lavishly over-funded "intelligence community" is on the case:

Kabul Could Fall To The Taliban Within 90 Days, U.S. Intelligence Warns

Thank you, geniuses. That was Thursday. So it turned out to be well within ninety hours - which is close enough for US intelligence work.

Was this the same "seventeen intelligence agencies" who all agreed Russia had meddled in the 2016 election - and with whose collective intelligence only a fool would disagree?

Or perhaps it was only one intelligence agency - most likely the crack agents of the highly specialized Federal Unitary Central Kabul Western Intelligence Tracking Service.

To modify Hillary Clinton, what difference at this point would it make if the US government simply laid off its entire "intelligence community"?

Indeed, what difference would it make if it closed down its military? Obviously, it would present a few mid-life challenges for its corrupt Pentagon bureaucracy, since that many generals on the market for defense lobbyist gigs and board directorships all at once would likely depress the going rate. But, other than that, a military that accounts for 40 per cent of the planet's military spending can't perform either of the functions for which one has an army: it can't defeat overseas enemies, and it's not permitted to defend the country, as we see on the Rio Grande.

So what's the point?

Oh, oh, but, if a nation doesn't have an army to defend it, a quarter-of-a-million foreign invaders could just walk into the country with impunity every month!

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But don't for a moment think this is just some rushed, bungled, memo-incinerating abandonment of the US embassy. State Department diplomats have been preparing this move all summer, under cover of a highly sophisticated deflection operation on their Kabul Twitter feed:

The month of June is recognized as (LGBTI) Pride Month. The United States respects the dignity & equality of LGBTI people & celebrates their contributions to the society. We remain committed to supporting civil rights of minorities, including LGBTI persons. #Pride2021 #PrideMonth

I do hope they've managed to evacuate the embassy's LGBTQWERTY flag before the sacking commences.

One of the depressing aspects of the Swamp is that everything becomes a racket - including even your armed forces. Look at that buffoon at top right, the guy who heads the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Thoroughly Modern Milley: that's an awful lot of chest ribbonry for a nation that hasn't won a war in three-quarters of a century. During his recent wokier-than-thou Congressional testimony on "white rage", I wish someone would have asked Thoroughly Modern what they were all for....

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There is more.

The derision is well earned.  While Gen. Milley is worried about the phantom of "white rage" he manages to lose a real war in world record time with the help of dementia Joe Biden.