The Right Resistance: What moving out of a house could’ve taught Joe Biden about Afghanistan

We’ve heard it a lot, actually, that the 2020 election of Joe Biden essentially constitutes Barack Obama’s third term.

And if that’s the case, then both Biden and Obama have proven to not only be incompetent and shortsighted in their extended stay in the White House, both of them are downright criminal for their callous disregard for human life -- especially those of American citizens in Afghanistan. Arrogance and hubris have always defined the top leaders of the Democrat Party, but lately they’ve proven it to the ultimate degree. Why did you remain on vacation when Afghanistan crumpled in a matter of hours, president Joe? Biden should’ve been rushing back to the White House within minutes of receiving the word. His job entails overseeing the most urgent of crises, not cracking open another ice cream carton and munching on a crab cake. Even the most basic of citizens knows when it’s time to pay due attention to a situation spiraling out of control. The damage is inestimable. Just the stuff we left behind is head-shaking enormous. Rebecca Kheel reported at The Hill:

"Billions of dollars of U.S. weapons are now in the hands of the Taliban following the quick collapse of Afghan security forces that were trained to use the military equipment. “Among the items seized by the Taliban are Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft. Photos have also circulated of Taliban fighters clutching U.S.-made M4 carbines and M16 rifles instead of their iconic AK-47s. And the militants have been spotted with U.S. Humvees and mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles. “While it’s virtually impossible to operate advanced aircraft without training, seizing the hardware gives the militants a propaganda boost and underscores the amount of wasted funds on U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.”

I was about to say that heads need to roll over this, but the Taliban, equipped with all that shiny new weaponry, might take me literally. The booty tally was truly impressive for the Islamic side -- the U.S. spent an estimated $83 billion on training and supplying the Afghan government forces since the 2001 invasion. That dough ain’t comin’ back, either.

Consider if, instead of buying all that firepower for the ungrateful Afghans that our government dumped those kinds of numbers into U.S./Mexico border security and/or dedicated a portion of it to local and state police departments. Who knows, the murder rate in Chicago may have gone down a bit. But then again, Democrats hate the thought of citizens owning legal guns. And the police? Well, they need to be defunded or have resources redirected to more non-lethal social engineering endeavors, correct?

Theoretically speaking, the Biden people should take delight at the prospect of disarming the Taliban. But I wouldn’t count on the militants turning in their M16s as part of some liberal gun-hating “buy back” scheme. Should senile Joe ask Beto O’Rourke to lead the program? Think about all the “mass shootings” the new ideology-driven government wouldn’t be able to perpetrate!

Besides all that, it’s strange to see how the mentally slipping president continues to insist that the pullout couldn’t have been handled better, because anyone with a brain -- and common sense -- figures that just about anything would’ve been superior to the chaos that ensued last week and is still happening now. Perhaps even more shocking than the images of panicked locals running frantically for the airport were reports of tens of thousands of Americans and U.S.-supporting Afghanis trapped in the country, creating a logistical nightmare as to how to get them out.

Get this, we’re negotiating with and relying on the goodwill of the animalistic Taliban to secure the exit of the Americans and Afghani support personnel. Good luck getting the seventh century mentality Sharia-law propounding terrorists to keep their end of the bargain. If I were one of the innocents still in the country, I’d be making peace with the almighty right about now.

Of course, I’m not president of the United States -- and frankly, wouldn’t hope to be when there’s a man like Donald Trump who not only wants it more than I ever could, but also would do a much better job of handling the duties -- but here’s how the Afghan exit should’ve been done, Joe.

Think about it. Anyone who’s ever endured a move understands that you have to get a certain amount of “stuff” out before you put the property up for sale. Then, when the house is placed under contract, you devise a plan to grab the rest, which not only is a slow process, it’s emotionally and physically draining, too.

After having recently completed a move of our own, we understood that we couldn’t wait until the last day to get everything removed from the structure and property. I literally had nightmares about it coming time to turn the front door key for the final time and leaving possessions behind, only to hear the new owners complain loudly and then summarily toss our precious family heirlooms into a trash dumpster as we watched helplessly, unable to intervene because our day had come and gone.

Luckily for us, it didn’t end up that way. But it easily could have if we’d taken for granted that we had sufficient opportunity to look in every little nook and cranny of the space and merely rent a gigantic U-haul truck and stuff it to the rafters with 20+ years’ worth of accumulated living accoutrements. Even with all the preparation we’d done, the final hours were still filled with urgency trying to ensure everything was accounted for and safely extricated. And that’s just one family in one medium-sized house we’re talking about.

The task of pulling out of Afghanistan, as we’ve learned, was monumental. In addition to all the human souls who needed to be relocated from their domiciles, what about their belongings? What about the military hardware that, with a realistic time assessment, would’ve taken months to properly withdraw lest it be wrested by the resurgent Taliban?

You probably can hear Biden saying, “the Afghani army needed it all, right?” If the intelligence reports had been heeded by the Biden administration’s decision makers and the incompetent top military brass, it’s certain that much of lethal fighting tools could’ve been taken out of the country as simply as a couch from a living room. Or, in the alternative, the planes, helicopters, military vehicles, etc. could’ve been rendered useless to an invading enemy.

Ever watched a World War II movie where the army engineers rigged and then blew up a bridge to keep it from aiding the advancing enemy force’s onslaught? Or how about a film depiction of destroying the critical technology before it fell into the wrong hands? In the movie, Zero Dark Thirty, for example, the successful U.S. special forces (in the midst of the raid that killed Osama bin laden) demolished one of their state of the art stealth helicopters before pulling out so the approaching insurgents wouldn’t capture it.

Seizing the other side’s munitions is often the best way to arm oneself.

There’s plenty of historical precedent for the practice, too. In the Civil War, Confederate forces were quite proficient at bagging Union cannons, munitions and food stores to make up for being short on just about everything themselves. The Southerners couldn’t manufacture a lot of their own weapons of war, so they just used the equipment they took from the Yankees. Many a union soldier was killed by guns and ammo produced by his own side.

Invariably the Taliban would’ve taken possession of a good amount of the abandoned material, but as much as they did? It was poor planning on the Americans’ part. That’s a political and military leadership issue… and another glaring failure for senile Joe and comrades.

The much more valuable human element should’ve taken highest priority. Why couldn’t Joe Biden and his inept handlers have set forth a policy that no military pullout would be initiated until the innocents were taken out first? Didn’t we learn our lesson in Vietnam? It’s a no-brainer, actually. Using my moving analogy from above, my family located new living arrangements for every member of the household before taking all the furniture out. Therefore, there wouldn’t be anyone in danger of being left behind when the last second ticked off the clock.

The military adheres to a credo of “no man left behind”. There’s no reason why the Biden administration couldn’t have made a similar vow with the non-military people, but much earlier in the schedule. That way, when the last plane took off from the runway, supported by aerial cover fire, if necessary, every detail would’ve been seen to.

Afghanistan closes as perhaps the sorriest chapter in American history. Moving out and moving on doesn’t mean settling for utter surrender. Take my word for it.

• Joe Biden

• Afghanistan

• U.S. military equipment

• Taliban

• Afghan army

• Democrats

• Barack Obama

• Vietnam

• Kabul airport

• U.S. Citizens in Afghanistan

• airlift