PrairiePundit

Federalist Wire:  ... In a stunning revelation of missed opportunities during the chaotic 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, top U.S. military leaders rejected proposals that could have blocked the Taliban from seizing Kabul. General Frank McKenzie, former CENTCOM commander, and Rear Admiral Peter Vasely, then head of U.S. Forces Afghanistan-Forward, turned away offers from both the Taliban and Afghan allies, leading to the disastrous scenes that unfolded at Kabul’s airport. McKenzie met with Taliban leader Mullah Baradar in Doha, Qatar, in mid-August 2021, a discussion that paved the way for the Taliban to control Kabul while U.S. forces depended on enemy fighters for airport security during the evacuation. At that meeting, Baradar proposed pulling Taliban forces back from Kabul, allowing American troops to secure the city and handle the evacuation without interference. McKenzie, however, dismissed the idea immediately. Today, McKenzie serves as Executive Director for the Global and Nat...

 Red State: It couldn’t have been much fun being Secretary of State Antony Blinken Wednesday. First, he was eviscerated in a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting by Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) over the disastrous U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan—for which finally Blinken  expressed regret —but then he was grilled by Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) over the estimated "tens of billions" of U.S. taxpayer dollars he says the Biden-Harris regime has been funneling to the Taliban. Mast, who was elected Tuesday to  become the new chair  of the Foreign Relations Committee in January, asked if Blinken had even been to Afghanistan since America’s 2021 ill-fated pullout, which left 13 American servicemen dead from an ISIS suicide bomb. Blinken admitted he had not, and that we are not in control of the U.S. embassy there. Then Mast  drilled down : "There's an American citizen out there, literally woke up this morning losing 30% of their paycheck. And a good percentage of that is...