Editor:

To all you Trump haters you got what you wanted Joe Biden is President, Kamala Harris is Vice President - Now What? Error after error after error! Four previous administrations cannot be blamed; this happened on Biden's watch. FUBAR!

I am referring to the debacle in Afghanistan. We have thousands of troops in Korea - shooting ended in 1953, thousands in Japan - shooting ended in 1945, and thousands in Germany - shooting ended in 1945. We had twenty five hundred in Afghanistan - no combat operation since 2014 no KIAs in eighteen months. The President has chosen to withdraw all military personnel (no make that a dishonorable retreat). How many American citizens with passports are now behind enemy lines? I don't know the answer, but one is too many. One estimate is 8,000 technicians, press, and contractors. Our President bragged on the capability of the Afghan Army 300,000 with an Air Force opposed to 75,000 Taliban. Why did this massive American trained infantry and air Force collapse in the face of so few? Why was ammunition, arms, artillery, and up armored vehicles left behind in operational condition? This sophisticated military hardware now in the hands of the Taliban.

I just learned from the words of four star General Jack Keane, (USA Ret.), that the Taliban retires from the battlefield during the winter months and escapes to the sanctuary of Pakistan. Why not wait until the winter months to withdraw?? Four months to make an orderly withdraw. One more error of many committed by this President; Robert Gates has stated that Joe Biden has been wrong on foreign policy matters for four decades - this disgraceful error starts the fifth.

The time to do this withdrawal correctly is past. There is no way now to correct - The 82nd Airborne and others will be in great peril in its attempt to rescue not only our people but our allies as well.

China is watching (beware Taiwan), Russia is watching (Beware Ukraine), Iran is watching (beware Israel, beware Middle East). I believe the United States is now more at risk of a terrorist attack than it was on 9/11 2001. Our Southern border is wide open; we don't know how many terrorists have infiltrated - and in place to do us harm. May God help us as it seems our leader is mired in intellectual concrete! Deliver us from the incompetent!

We have not won a major war since WWII. We have lost our focus and our will and ability to win. We must rewrite our ROEs (rules of engagement). Our soldiers and airman have served with honor and distinction our present leaders have not. We must not go to war in the future unless we have the will to win!

Regards,

John Stiegelmeyer

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JS August 17, 2021, 6:10 pm Spot on! The WHOLE WORLD is watching and taking notes. We are sitting ducks who are up a creek. Our president doesn't have a clue what's going on, so I'm comforted that the KING does and that HE is still and always will be in control!!! That's the only way that I've been sleeping at night.
GB August 17, 2021, 10:56 pm You would be correct John. You called it exactly the way it is. Our adversaries are watching and laughing at the incompetence we have in the White House. This fiasco would have never occurred under Trump. The silence is deafening from those on the left...
CS August 18, 2021, 1:25 pm You hit the nail on the head JOHN:: THANKS
SL August 18, 2021, 2:12 pm Let us not forget Biden just honored the deal 45 made. Politics being what it is some are already rewriting history.
RB August 18, 2021, 4:07 pm We were in Afghanistan for 20 years. The government we propped up collapsed and the soldiers we trained laid down or ran. So another 20 years would make things better? We overextended our mission under Bush. We were there to clean out the training camps and get those that planned 9/11. Obama did that almost a decade ago. The complete removal of our troops was set forth a little over a year ago by Trump. He has even bragged about it recently, saying I got the troops out and they couldn’t stop it. If I had voted for Trump and Bush I’d be writing anything I could to divert attention from two of the worst presidents in history. I actually still like George Bush as a person and really like Jimmy Carter. Doesn’t make them great presidents. Trump, on the other hand, is the most corrupt and despicable president ever. He belongs in jail!
NG August 18, 2021, 5:46 pm Kind of strange John that you listed all the wars but failed to say anything about Vietnam, another republican war that was a fiasco that lasted 20 years.
The president of Afghanistan got on a plane and flew out of the country. Did you expect the U.S.to stay there and take care of things for him. This war should have ended 10 years ago but the with drawl process was started by none other than trump and he has bragged about it. He will lie about it now which is usual for him but he always forgets that everything he said in the past is on tape so his lies are always proven to be lies. He lies about it now so he can blame President Biden like most of you commenters on here.

But to the commenters on here, President Biden can't do anything to please you so what you say doesn't matter.

Norma Gould
DL August 19, 2021, 9:21 am Gerald Bates, "The silence is deafening?" Maybe you should watch a few hours of MSNBC or CNN. Their 50 minutes per hour coverage hasn't skipped a beat, for the last 4 days. They, and a large majority of their guests have been discussing their outrage in this debacle. You also say that Trump wouldn't have done this. HE DID DO THIS! It was him and Pompeo that negotiated with the man that is sitting, in the equivalent of our, Oval Office right now! Trump was going to pull the Troops in May. Either way, the Taliban was just sitting back and waiting. Why don't you put a little blame on our military and security experts? They gave Biden the information he used in making the decision. They told him that the Afghanistan military would hang on for months.