Retired colonel: Biden’s ‘Inexplicable’ Disaster
“Afghanistan’s Taliban takeover was predictable. How did” President Biden “miss the red flags?” demands Jeff McCausland at NBC News Think. He “received numerous warnings,” including an April threat assessment from his director of national intelligence that warned the Afghan government would “struggle to hold the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws support.” Military leaders “advised against a full withdrawal” and said “government collapse was likely if US forces left in a rush.” And an “analysis of Afghan security forces found that of the 352,000 soldiers and police counted as members,” only 254,000 actively served. “The remainder were so-called ghost soldiers who padded unit payrolls and allowed local commanders to skim pay.”
Foreign desk: Beware of Joe, Canada
“Smug liberal Canadians should realize Joe Biden is no friend of the world,” warns Ben Woodfinden in the National Post. “Shake off” the mindset that “Canada must be wary” when Republicans hold the White House and “can relax” when Democrats do. Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline on Day 1 but waived sanctions on the Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2 and just “asked OPEC to increase oil supply.” After the “unmitigated disaster” in Afghanistan, many countries, especially Taiwan, are “wondering whether they can rely on” an “increasingly unreliable and inward-looking America.” Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said living next to America is “like sleeping with an elephant.” Canadians “shouldn’t be complacent about sharing a bed with an unstable donkey either.”
From the left: Hunter’s Unethical Art
“Why would anyone pay $500,000 for a painting by Hunter Biden?” wonders The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi. His “terrible” work looks “a bit like a COVID-stricken Mr. Blobby vomited on a canvas.” The president’s son’s “new career raises obvious ethical issues for his father,” but liberals aren’t “outraged,” as they’d surely be if “Donald Trump Jr. had been flogging art for oversized amounts while his dad was in office.” Yes, “the Trump family set the bar for ethical conduct lower than a dungeon in hell,” but: “We don’t need to keep the bar there.” President Biden should have “had a rigorous conversation with his 51-year-old son and persuaded him to do as much painting as his heart desired but leave off selling his work until daddy left office.” The prez “has made a big deal about how he is tough on Putin; if he gets an autocrat to do what he wants, surely he should be able to influence his own kid.”
Faith beat: Theological Roots of Afghan Failure
“The Afghanistan mission did reflect a genuine desire to help” born of the West’s “Christian inheritance,” reflects Tim Stanley at Spectator World. Why did it go awry? Because Western societies “are run by deeply naïve people operating on the fumes of a past culture without entirely understanding it” — or appreciating it: Can a “society that hates its past, that can’t agree on the fundamentals of existence, that has no common religion” win? “The West is today all about pushing back the boundaries of freedom, and we lionize the individual because they are individual, often regardless of moral content. Where is the social dimension to the West? What do we hope to achieve together? To build rather than just deconstruct?”
Cali watch: Dems Shun Law-and-Order Sheriff
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alejandro Villanueva faces an uphill re-election in 2022, as the Democratic “establishment that helped elect this law-and-order Democrat in 2018 has turned against him,” reports Kurt Hofer at City Journal. Villanueva’s “tough stance on homelessness,” repudiation of the systemic-racism canard and “willingness to issue more conceal-carry permits than his predecessors” have “earned him the scorn of prominent LA liberals,” even prompting the county party to demand his resignation for supposedly “perpetuating a culture of police brutality.” Villanueva argues his approach “reflects the will of the people.” The struggle, says Hofer, “is part of a larger battle for the soul of the Democratic Party” — a war between “the woke” and “common sense.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Boardᐧ