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Aug. 31, 2021 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:00:18

Biden’s Sickening, Cowardly, Pathetic Betrayal | Ep. 1330

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	American troops leave Afghanistan and leave hundreds of Americans, thousands of green card holders and tens of thousands of Afghan allies behind.
	The Biden White House pats itself on the back for a job well done and the Taliban take over our helicopters.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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	Slash Ben.
	We'll get to all the devastating news in just one moment.
	First, your reminder that as the American empire dies, it's about time that you diversify into something that actually has some lasting value, like precious metals.
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	Text BEN to 474747 to claim your free no obligation information kit on holding gold and silver in a tax sheltered account again. Text my name Ben to 474747 to take the first step in protecting your savings today. Text my name Ben to 474747 to get started today. Alrighty, so Americans are going to have to decide whether we wish to be a world power, whether we wish to be the most powerful country on planet earth, whether we wish our values to be promulgated around the world,
	or whether we wish to just sink back in a warm bath, eat ourselves to death, and then slit our wrists in our gluttony.
	That seems to be the choice being made by the Biden administration.
	That we ought to spend money that has not yet been created in the trillions of dollars.
	That we ought to pay ourselves to do nothing.
	That we ought to pat ourselves on the back for doing all of this in the name of equity and social justice.
	And meanwhile, that we ought to allow other more up-and-coming countries to fill the vacuum left by the United States in the wake of our surrender to world events.
	That seems to be the plan.
	Which is pretty ugly.
	It's a pretty ugly plan.
	Because here is the thing.
	Empire is generally not a choice.
	Very often, empire is simply a reality of the world.
	This does not mean the United States must go around conquering countries and then taking them over as colonial assets or anything like that.
	It just means that when you're a very powerful country, you have a lot of interests in the world.
	Those interests are frequently challenged.
	And if those interests are challenged, you have to defend yourself.
	And when you leave a vacuum, somebody else fills that vacuum.
	So for all the talk about how America needs to shirk off its burgeoning empire, how America doesn't have to be an empire, how we need to bring all the troops home, how we need to consolidate it at home, the history of world powers demonstrates that this is not actually an option.
	You either are aggressive in foreign affairs, in defense of your own propriety, in defense of your own priorities and your own values, or that gap is filled by somebody who hates you, who ends up taking those resources and using them against you.
	That is the history of world affairs.
	It applies all the way from the Spanish empire through the English empire, certainly through the American empire, applies to the Roman empire as well.
	Somebody fills the gap.
	Always.
	Always and forever, somebody fills the gap.
	And so, your choice is, do you stand up for your prerogative as the world's leading state, or do you not?
	Do you have enough confidence in your own values that you stand up for that, or do you not?
	Are you so busy worrying about whether our troops learn about transgenderism and Genderless bathrooms and whether our kids learn about critical race theory that you don't care about world affairs or that you believe that America is so evil that it has no place on the world stage.
	Or do you believe that America still is a repository of phenomenal values and that the world is done an enormous good?
	When the United States fills the gap left by great powers.
	Great powers are not going away, gang.
	They're not.
	China is about to fill that gap in Afghanistan.
	Russia is about to fill that gap in Afghanistan.
	Iran is about to fill that gap in the Middle East.
	These are all malevolent powers, and they all are not shy about spreading their power around.
	The United States, again, has a choice.
	We can do what Joe Biden wants us to do.
	We can sink back into that warm bath, and we can eat ourselves into oblivion.
	We can essentially become the fat blobs from Wall-E wandering around in space.
	But our end is not going to be particularly nice.
	Cowardice has bloody borders.
	Cowardice and retreat end with your friends getting killed.
	And that is what we are watching in Afghanistan today.
	There's a Greek myth.
	There's a king of Thessaly who is called Erysichthon.
	And I apologize if I mispronounce the name.
	But this particular king in Greek mythology, he was so greedy that he decided that he was going to cut down a sacred forest outside of his castle.
	And he was warned by everybody, don't cut down the sacred forest outside the castle because that is a repository of our values.
	If you cut down that sacred forest, then something bad will happen.
	He cuts down the sacred forest, and in return, he is cursed.
	He's cursed with an unquenchable hunger in his stomach.
	And no matter what, he cannot satiate himself.
	He must eat.
	He must eat.
	And it becomes so bad that he impoverishes himself by eating and eating and eating.
	He has to eat all the time.
	He sells his daughter into slavery.
	For food.
	So that he can eat.
	And then eventually he runs out of things to eat and he ends up eating himself to death.
	He literally ends up eating himself.
	That is, I think, an excellent metaphor for what a large swath of the country would have us do at this point.
	That we ought to satiate our own hunger by eating ourselves, by cannibalizing our own society, by cannibalizing our values.
	And we've cut down the sacred forest of our values.
	And now the only question is, what is going to satisfy that hunger?
	And apparently what's going to satisfy that hunger is endless social welfare benefits, endless spending, endless deficits, destruction of many of the key institutions that were fundamental to our society because those were tied to that sacred forest that we just cut down.
	And then, what inevitably happens to crumbling empires?
	They crumble.
	I mean, in the end, crumbling empires do not survive.
	And again, that is not because we opted to be an empire and then we spread our domain too far, and then because we had imperial overreach, then we had to regress.
	None of that is true.
	Afghanistan is a case in point of that not being true.
	We were expending minimal resources to keep that country stable and to prevent it from falling into the hands of terrorist enemies and to the hands of our geo-strategic enemies.
	Minimal resources.
	This was not about imperial overreach.
	This was purely and simply about an America that does not have the willpower to be what it is and recognize what it is on the world stage.
	It's about an America that is rightly uncomfortable with colonialism and imperialism.
	But is wrong-headed when it comes to the realities of the world.
	And that is somebody always fills the gap.
	And the people who are filling the gap are some of the worst people on earth.
	Which brings us to the actual news of the day.
	The final American military pullout from Afghanistan.
	We should put an asterisk by final because the chances that in the future we'll have to go back into Afghanistan in order to kill terrorists or in order to rescue American citizens are quite high.
	We'll get to that news in just one moment.
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	Okay, so as of yesterday, last night, Sometime in the evening, Eastern Time, the last U.S.
	military plane carrying evacuees out of Afghanistan took off and left Afghan airspace.
	General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S.
	CENTCOM, said at a press briefing the Biden administration was still in the process of trying to get American citizens out of Afghanistan, even though the United States no longer has any presence either diplomatic or military there.
	According to the New York Times, the last vestiges of the American presence in Afghanistan departed the Kabul airport on Monday, halting an occupation that cost more than 170,000 lives and ended with a complete takeover of the country by the adversary the U.S.
	military spent two decades fighting.
	American military leaders had said the United States would continue evacuation efforts and fully withdraw no later than August 31st.
	But those efforts were wrapped up a full day early.
	Just days after an attack on the airport by IS-Khorasan, which is the Islamic State, killing 13 U.S.
	service members and as many as 170 civilians in one of the war's deadliest days.
	So basically, Joe Biden still had another 12 hours to theoretically get people out, and he was like, nope, we're out.
	It was a full-scale disaster.
	The country is now completely in the hands of the Taliban, which we'll discuss in just one moment.
	onto transport planes before loading the remaining service members.
	The last Air Force C-17 with the call sign Moose 85 departed at midnight local time and carrying the final American remaining forces, a US military official said.
	It was a full-scale disaster.
	The country is now completely in the hands of the Taliban, which we'll discuss in just one moment.
	Everything that could have been botched here was botched.
	From the complete destruction of the Afghan military at the hands of the Biden administration, which removed all close air support and military contractors, to the complete surrender of Kabul, even though the Taliban apparently offered, according to the Washington Post, control of Kabul to the Americans to help broker some sort of agreement with the interim government.
	And even if that hadn't worked, to at least ensure that Americans could get out, the Biden administration was like, nope, just give us Kabul airport and you guys provide the security.
	And then apparently on the way out, we allegedly killed an Afghan family.
	So because Joe Biden was humiliated by that terror attack at the Abbey Gate at Kabul International Airport, according to local reports on the ground, the United States fired a drone missile at what was supposed to be a suicide bomber.
	And now the credible reports from the New York Times are that actually we didn't hit a suicide bomber.
	We instead killed a person named Zamari Ahmadi, who apparently had ties to the American military in the past, and that killed 10 people, seven of them kids.
	That was on our way out.
	So it is not clear exactly what happened there, so we're still waiting for the details to emerge.
	Suffice it to say, it is hard to imagine a more blown withdrawal than this one.
	Even if you think withdrawal was a good idea.
	Last night, the Biden administration did not release the president from his rubber-padded room.
	He is still trapped in the basement watching Madlock and eating oatmeal.
	You would imagine that after the United States withdraws from a 20-year commitment in Afghanistan and leaves behind hundreds if not thousands of Americans, Thousands of green card holders, hundreds of thousands maybe, of Afghan allies who worked with us, and millions of people who don't wish to live under the predations of the Taliban, that after all of that happened, you would imagine the President of the United States might make an address.
	Wrong you would be.
	Last night, Joe Biden was busy hiding in the basement.
	He actually put out a written statement, and then he sent out the head of CENTCOM and the Secretary of State to take the heat.
	Here is the statement put out by President Joe Biden.
	He said, quote, I want to thank our commanders and the men and women serving under them for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from Afghanistan as scheduled in the early morning hours of August 31st Kabul time, with no further loss of American lives.
	The past 17 days have seen our troops execute the largest airlift in U.S.
	history, evacuating over 120,000 U.S.
	citizens, citizens of our allies and Afghan allies of the United States.
	They've done it with unmatched courage, professionalism and resolve.
	Now our 20 year military presence in Afghanistan has ended.
	So he's going to pat himself on the back for all of this.
	For the 13 dead service members, for the 170 dead in that suicide bombing, for the millions of people who are going to be living under the wonderful Taliban regime, for the re-rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS.
	All of that's good, according to Joe Biden.
	He did a wonderful job.
	According to Joe Biden, Joe Biden is the best president he's ever seen.
	Biden continues, tomorrow afternoon, I will address the American people on my decision not to extend our presence in Afghanistan beyond August 31st.
	For now, I will report it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned.
	Okay, first of all, if that's true, if it was the unanimous recommendation of all military members on the ground to leave Americans behind, every single person in that chain of command should be fired.
	Unanimous?
	Everybody was like, yeah, you know, we got a couple of hundred more people who are out there minimum and probably we should just leave.
	If that was unanimous, then the cowardice doesn't just rot from the head down, it comes from the bottom up.
	Their view, says Joe Biden, I love that he's blaming his military commanders.
	He can't just take the hit.
	No, it's his military commanders.
	Their view is that ending our military mission was the best way to protect the lives of our troops and secure the prospects of civilian departures for those who want to leave Afghanistan in the weeks and months ahead, which is just nonsensical.
	Right now, Joe Biden is claiming that the best way to secure the exit of Afghan allies, of green card holders, and of the Americans who are stuck in Afghanistan is to leave.
	Makes perfect sense.
	I know that when somebody has been kidnapped, the best strategy for getting the kidnapper to release them is to completely leave them alone.
	Never bother them.
	Just, you know, just leave them alone.
	They'll probably be fine.
	Says Joe Biden in this long statement.
	Again, he did not appear on camera last night because the president is not sentient, the president is not with us, and the president happens to have just done one of the great immoral acts in American foreign policy history.
	He says, I've asked the Secretary of State to lead the continued coordination with our international partners to ensure safe passage for any Americans, Afghan partners and foreign nationals who want to leave Afghanistan.
	This will include work to build on the UN Security Council resolution passed this afternoon that sent the clear message of what the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on Notably, freedom of travel.
	Oh man, a UN Security Council resolution?
	Woo boy!
	By the way, noticed yesterday this big statement touted by the Biden administration including over a hundred countries supposedly?
	It didn't include China or Russia, calling on the Taliban for freedom of travel.
	The Taliban, says Joe Biden, has made commitments on safe passage, and the world will hold them to their commitments.
	What, with fluffy dolls and rubber hammers?
	How exactly will we hold them to their commitments?
	Using what power?
	Using what threat?
	The threat of economic failure?
	They've been living in caves for the last 20 years.
	The threat of military power?
	You just withdrew the most powerful military on planet Earth and destroyed the Afghan military in the process.
	What's the threat, exactly?
	Diplomacy has been characterized as the velvet glove around the iron fist, but there's no iron fist, it's just a stupid glove.
	And that's basically the Biden administration's strategy.
	He says it will include ongoing diplomacy in Afghanistan.
	Oh, weird, because we withdrew all of our diplomats.
	And coordination with partners in the region to reopen the airport, allowing for continued departure for those who want to leave and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
	Oh, interesting.
	Who's going to be handing out that humanitarian assistance?
	Would that be the Taliban?
	So basically, he's now saying that we are now going to become the chief financial sponsors of the Taliban.
	That's what he is saying right there.
	This is amazing.
	Then he says we should be grateful.
	Joe Biden says we should be grateful in this statement.
	You ready?
	I'll get to Joe Biden's statement that we should all be grateful in a second.
	That's astonishing.
	We should be grateful.
	There are no words to describe the unmitigated gall of this human being.
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	All right, back to Joe Biden's cowardly, ridiculous, pusillanimous statement.
	This is the part that really astonishes me.
	He says that we should all join him in grateful prayer.
	Prayer for the people you're leaving behind.
	Prayer for the future of an American nation that seems to be tottering on the brink of complete collapse.
	I mean, that is what it feels like.
	Not that the United States is going to collapse overnight.
	I should say that we are on the brink of irrevocable decay, I think would be a more accurate way of putting it.
	What exactly should we be grateful for?
	So here's what Joe Biden says.
	First, for our troops and diplomats who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul and at tremendous risk with such unparalleled results, an airlift that evacuated tens of thousands more people than any imagined possible.
	Really, did any imagine that possible?
	Really, is that what happened?
	So, you should be grateful for me, right?
	He says we should be grateful for the service members.
	We're all grateful for the service members.
	Only one of us put them in direct harm by ISIS suicide bombers.
	That would be you, President Biden.
	All of us are very grateful to the service members for the sacrifices they've made over the last 20 years.
	Only you decided to hand over the country to the people who were killing our troops for the last 20 years.
	Only you.
	So, I am perfectly grateful for the people who made the sacrifices that I did not.
	I am not grateful at all for a Commander-in-Chief who is a buffoon and a fool and who has made all of those sacrifices nugatory over the passage of time.
	But he says we should be grateful.
	When he says we should join him in grateful prayer, he says we should pray for the troops and diplomats.
	But what he really means is that we should be grateful and prayerful to him because, of course, he's the one who organized this massive, incredible, victorious airlift.
	Second, to the network of volunteers and veterans who helped identify those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport, and provide support along the way.
	By the way, if you talk to the network of volunteers and veterans, they will say the Biden administration was essentially no help.
	Why was it left to a network of volunteers and veterans voluntarily working outside the auspices of the American government to get people out?
	Why?
	That's Joe Biden.
	And third, to everyone who is now and who will welcome our Afghan allies to their new homes around the world and in the United States.
	You know what would have been better is if they could have stayed in Afghanistan.
	You know what that would have required, by the way?
	A presence on the ground of about 3,000 American troops, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, And a continued financial obligation of less money than we just handed to the Taliban in terms of military weaponry.
	We apparently handed about $85 billion in military weaponry to the Taliban.
	We were spending about $70 billion a year in Afghanistan to simply hold up the country.
	And then finally, says Joe Biden, I want to end with a moment of gratitude for the sacrifice of the 13 service members in Afghanistan who gave their lives last week to save the tens of thousands.
	And then he lists off all of the people who were killed in the suicide bombing that he made possible by handing security over to the Taliban.
	What unmitigated, really, the utter shamelessness of this president.
	He should be ashamed.
	He should feel a deep and abiding shame.
	Instead, he is sitting at home in his recliner, Thinking about what a wonderful job he has just done.
	Not only in effectuating the decay of America as a country, but also in putting American troops in harm's way and forcing volunteers to do the work that he wouldn't allow the military to do.
	What a disgrace the President of the United States is.
	My God.
	And for all you people out there who are like, well, yeah, but Trump, you know Trump didn't do this.
	Whatever problems you had with Trump, you know what he didn't do?
	This.
	Okay, so, the President was apparently too embarrassed to actually go out and announce this thing himself.
	So instead, he sent out his lackeys to do it for him.
	Today, we are going to get the President of the United States wobbling his way through another lackluster speech, I am sure.
	But, as of last night, he wasn't going to take any of the questions, so he sent everybody else to go out and take the hit.
	Here is General Kenneth McKenzie of CENTCOM announcing the completion of the removal of final troops yesterday.
	I'm here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, third-country nationals, and vulnerable Afghans.
	The last C-17 lifted off from Hamad Karzai International Airport on August 30th this afternoon at 3.29 p.m.
	East Coast time.
	And the last manned aircraft is now clearing the airspace above Afghanistan.
	Okay, and then he continued, he said, this is the end of our 20-year mission, which is pretty incredible.
	The end of our 20-year mission was handing the entire country back to the Taliban.
	And as we will see, the Taliban are having their day in the sun.
	Here is a General Kenneth McKenzie.
	Again, every single person who's part of this chain of command should be ashamed of themselves and should be fired.
	Why is it that nobody gets fired over this?
	You lose a 20-year war to a bunch of ragtag cave dwellers who you handed American military equipment and you're patting yourselves on the back.
	Tonight's withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation, but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001.
	It's a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to a just end, along with many of his al-Qaeda co-conspirators.
	And it was not a cheap mission.
	The cost was 2,461 U.S.
	servicemembers and civilians killed, and more than 20,000 who were injured.
	Okay, so how's all that going back in Afghanistan, by the way?
	Well, we'll get to that in just a moment, because suffice it to say that all the purposes for which we went have now been completely overthrown.
	Remember, Joe Biden said we only went there for two reasons.
	One, to kill Osama bin Laden, which was one reason, but that was not the biggest reason.
	And the second was to stop the threat of Afghanistan being a terror base.
	Afghanistan is now a giant terror base, run by the same exact people who housed Osama bin Laden.
	And by the way, who have welcomed back in Al-Qaeda.
	ISIS is now extremely active in Afghanistan.
	And with the tacit backing of not only the Pakistani ISI in many ways, but also the Chinese military, I'm sure.
	So things are significantly worse than they were in 2001.
	By the way, they're armed with $85 billion of sophisticated American military equipment.
	They didn't have that crap in 2000.
	In just one second, we'll get to the Taliban who are celebrating wildly because this is the Biden legacy.
	We'll get to that in a moment.
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	Alrighty, so meanwhile, the Taliban proving that they are back and back with vengeance.
	So here's some video last night.
	You could be forgiven if you saw this video and you thought these were American military members walking into an American base.
	They are not.
	These are members of the Taliban who have American gear.
	They are outfitted in American uniforms.
	They're wearing American night vision goggles.
	And they are walking into an American airbase where there are, in fact, American helicopters.
	So well done, everyone.
	Oh.
	They are carrying American rifles.
	They're clad in American uniforms.
	We're here right now with the Taliban as they enter into what was only minutes ago an American-controlled portion of the military airport.
	Now, they've taken over.
	And there they are, all wearing American gear.
	So they didn't just defeat the Americans in their own view, they're now wearing around their skin.
	So that is pretty amazing.
	Also, remember there was this talk about their goat herders that can't fly our helicopters?
	Yeah, yesterday they were flying around our helicopters.
	Here's some video from Kabul.
	So apparently they found somebody who knows how to at least fly a helicopter.
	Glad we gave them a helicopter.
	So you, the law-abiding American citizen, you cannot have an AR-15, but the Taliban will just hand them our helicopters.
	And they're using it to good effect, the helicopters, allegedly.
	There's video that emerged from Kabul yesterday of them using our helicopters to excellent effect, namely to take their enemies and tie them to the bottom of the helicopters and then hang them, Scarface style.
	So this video emerged yesterday.
	You can see there is a person who is hanging from the bottom of the helicopter.
	So, things are going incredibly well in Taliban land already.
	Meanwhile, remember that time that Joe Biden said Al-Qaeda wasn't in Afghanistan, that we defeated Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, so our purpose there was done?
	Oh yeah, one of the Al-Qaeda leaders is back.
	In fact, this is one of the co-founders of Al-Qaeda, along with Osama bin Laden, good friend to Osama bin Laden.
	he arrives back in Afghanistan to plot its and cheers.
	There he is.
	Okay, you can get out.
	Taliban leaders are back.
	And Al-Qaeda comes with them.
	A good thing that we said that we wouldn't allow any country that harbors Al-Qaeda to its regime to survive.
	I've noticed not only it's surviving, but they're back.
	And they look exactly the same as they did 20 years ago.
	So I hope you enjoyed that.
	Meanwhile, women are sitting outside the Kabul airport pleading, speaking English, saying, where the hell are we supposed to go now?
	And they have a good question.
	There was some of that video emerging yesterday.
	President Biden, President of the United States, please save us.
	Save us, our families.
	Save us, our lives.
	We don't know what to do there.
	Please help us.
	Please help our families.
	We don't know.
	We are in danger.
	It is many days that we are outside the HKIA and we didn't get access.
	What should we do?
	Please help us.
	We should be thankful and grateful, guys.
	We should be praying in gratitude to the President of the United States.
	By the way, Jen Psaki was asked, OK, so you said that there's going to be, quote unquote, over the horizon capability here, right?
	You said that we're going to be able to strike at targets inside Afghanistan, terror targets inside Afghanistan.
	She was asked about this yesterday, and she had no good answer as to whether we have any sort of actual over the horizon capacity.
	Is there any concern that we're limited in our ability to respond in a timely manner if we've got eight hours of flight time and then they can only hang out over the target for like four or five hours before they've got to turn around and go back?
	Is there a future sort of ongoing worry that we're going to be behind the eight ball again?
	Well, first I would say the fact that we have had two successful strikes confirmed by CENTCOM tells you that our over-the-horizon capacity works and is working.
	Oh really?
	Because I noticed that that over-the-horizon capacity was not over the horizon.
	That was that we had people in Afghanistan at the time.
	Now we don't.
	Also, one of those airstrikes allegedly killed an entire family.
	So, um, yeah.
	It turns out that the targets that you're striking are only as good as the people who are painting the targets.
	But all of this puts aside a rather large American-specific issue.
	Forget about the geopolitical and geostrategic interests the United States holds here.
	Let's talk for a second about the actual acute issue.
	America is now admitting that we left people behind.
	That's an unbelievable statement.
	Jimmy Carter became not president because there were 50 Americans who were taken hostage in Iran.
	We have left at the very least 250 Americans under the tender care of the Taliban, plus thousands of green card holders, plus tens of thousands of people who worked with us.
	Now, this administration's been lying about this all along.
	Remember, it was just a couple of weeks ago that Joe Biden said, if there are American citizens left behind, we'll get them out.
	Remember, he said this to George Stephanopoulos.
	This is like a week and a half ago.
	Are you committed to making sure that the troops stay until every American who wants to be out is out?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	How about our Afghan allies?
	Does the commitment hold for them as well?
	The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone should come out.
	And that's the objective.
	That's what we're doing now.
	That's the path we're on.
	And I think we'll get there.
	So Americans should understand the troops might have to be there beyond August 31st?
	No, Americans should understand that we're going to try to get it done before August 31st.
	But if we don't?
	If we don't, we'll determine at the time who's left.
	And?
	And if there's American citizens left, we're gonna stay till we get them all out.
	Liar, liar, liar, godly liar.
	What a liar he is.
	What a liar.
	Remember, Jen Psaki got very upset with Peter Doocy for saying there were Americans stranded in Kabul.
	Again, this is a week and a half ago.
	I think it's irresponsible to say Americans are stranded.
	They are not.
	We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home, home.
	We are in touch with them via phone, via text, via email, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans to get them home if they want to return home.
	There are no Americans stranded is the White House's official position on what's happening in Afghanistan right now.
	I'm just calling you out for saying that we are stranding Americans in Afghanistan when we have been very clear that we are not leaving Americans who want to return home.
	We are going to bring them home.
	And I think that's important for the American public to hear and understand.
	It's important for the American public to be lied to by Jen Psaki every single day, repeatedly.
	And then for all of her cheerleaders in the press to start clapping like seals.
	So here was the head of CENTCOM, General McKenzie, yesterday saying, yeah, we didn't get everybody out.
	There's a lot of heartbreak associated with this departure.
	We did not get everybody out that we wanted to get out.
	But I think if we'd stayed another 10 days, Louie, we wouldn't have gotten everybody out that we wanted to get out.
	And there still would have been people who would have been disappointed with that.
	It's a tough situation.
	But I want to emphasize again that simply because we have left, That doesn't mean the opportunities for both Americans that are in Afghanistan that want to leave and Afghans who want to leave.
	They will not be denied that opportunity.
	I think our Department of State is going to work that very hard in the days and weeks.
	Oh man, the Department of State is going to work it super hard.
	We'll get to the Department of State in a second.
	They're going to tickle the hell out of those Taliban members.
	They're going to hit them with pillows made of foam.
	They're going to send them some strongly worded statements to those illiterate cavemen.
	Let me just tell you that.
	What a humiliation.
	Really, like, if you're General McKenzie, at some point don't you just have to say, I'm not going out there and I'm not gonna repeat this garbage?
	Aren't you gonna say, like, get somebody else to be your spokesperson on this?
	Because this is pathetic.
	Yeah, man, I mean, we're taking out the most powerfully armed military in the history of the world.
	But let me tell you, Ned Price and that team over at State, Tony Blinken, he's going to be on his phone with those people.
	At the other end of the phone, they're going to be picking up an actual rock connected to a wire like Fred Flintstone.
	And they're going to be talking to him.
	And let me tell you, we are going to exert such unbelievable leverage.
	We are going to absolutely threaten not to open a Planned Parenthood in Kabul unless they give us back our people.
	I mean, we are going to send them so much literature about their lack of opportunity for LGBTQ people in Afghanistan.
	We are going to chide them so hard.
	We are not going to send them a Pride progress flag unless they let our people out.
	Our State Department will not stand for any of this sort of stuff.
	Pathetic.
	Here's General McKenzie explaining, oh, you know, they're just low hundreds.
	Low hundreds?
	No, we don't exactly.
	No?
	But it's in the low hundreds.
	At least it's not the high hundreds or the thousands or something.
	It's the low hundreds.
	Oh, the low hundreds?
	You mean like at least five times as many people as the Iranians had during the hostage crisis of 79?
	Interesting.
	The military phase of this operation has ended.
	The diplomatic sequel to that will now begin.
	And I believe our Department of State is going to work very hard to allow any American citizens that are left, and we think the citizens that were not brought out, number in the low, very low hundreds.
	I believe that we're going to work, we're going to be able to get those people out.
	I think we're also going to negotiate very hard and very aggressively to get our other Afghan partners out.
	We're going to negotiate hard with John McClane.
	So much negotiation.
	Underneath this pillow, I have a gun.
	And underneath this gun, I have another pillow.
	That last pillow is the one I'm going to be using in this negotiation.
	You removed every capacity we had.
	You removed all the leverage we had.
	You're now begging the Taliban.
	And by the way, you're going to bribe them.
	The only question is whether you're going to do it illegally.
	The Biden administration is now claiming, as we will see, that they are going to funnel the money through the UN, which presumably will make it legal.
	Which, by the way, we've done before.
	I mean, we fund the UNRWA, which funds terror groups all over the Palestinian Authority in Hamasistan.
	So why not?
	We can do it here too.
	General McKenzie said, you know, we couldn't get everybody out, but we did do a good job given the challenges.
	Yes, I mean, who created those challenges?
	Where did those challenges come from?
	I wasn't aware there were any challenges.
	I was told this was smooth.
	It was all part of the plan.
	So, funny how you mention there are challenges.
	Would you like to discuss what those challenges were and how they got there, General McKenzie?
	Or would you prefer to continue kissing the feet of the people who continue to maintain your position at the head of CENTCOM?
	You would like to bring out everybody that wanted to come out?
	We're not able to do that.
	The situation wouldn't allow it.
	I think we did a very good job of getting everybody that we could get out, given the unique challenges of the tactical situation on the ground.
	The fact that really, not all Americans wanted to leave.
	There are Americans that, for a variety of reasons, want to stay for a while.
	I think we'll go back and they'll have the opportunity to revisit that and come out if they want.
	Um, yeah.
	Great.
	Also, by the way, remember how we left early?
	We left early.
	Not only did we leave early, none of the last jets had Americans on them.
	So for all this talk about how we were working until the last minute to get people out, we absolutely were not.
	Here's McKenzie saying, yep, we sent some empty jets back.
	No American citizens came out on the last, what we call the joint tactical exfiltration, the last five jets to leave.
	We maintained the ability to bring them in up until immediately before departure, but we were not able to bring any Americans out.
	That activity ended probably about 12 hours before our exit, although we continued the outreach and would have been prepared to bring them on until the very last minute, but none of them made it to the airport and were able to be accommodated.
	So, you know, no biggie.
	We left early, and we left a bunch of people behind, and the last few flights were empty, but we did a great job.
	McKenzie also is playing defense for the Taliban, which of course they have to do.
	If you surrender to a group of people who obviously are outclassed by you militarily, you have to have an excuse.
	The excuse from this administration is that the Taliban are now our friends.
	They're our best friends now.
	Here's General McKenzie, just unreal, talking about how wonderful the Taliban have been.
	I will tell you, the Taliban have been very pragmatic and very businesslike as we have approached this withdrawal.
	We did not turn it over to the Taliban.
	General Donahue, one of the last things he did before leaving was talk to the Taliban commander that he had been coordinating with about the time we were going to leave, just to let them know that we were leaving.
	But there was no discussion of turning anything over of that at all.
	They were pragmatic.
	They were businesslike.
	You know, really, I was kind of surprised at their pragmatism and their businesslike manner as they allowed a suicide bomber to kill a bunch of Americans and as they threatened to kill all of our allies and were dragging people out into the streets house by house and beating women.
	It was really pragmatic, though.
	I mean, super duper pragmatic.
	In a second, we're going to get to the State Department, which again, remains.
	When you talk about the quote-unquote deep state, you know, career bureaucrats who continue to design policy despite being lifelong incompetence, the State Department is the repository of all these ne'er-do-wells.
	It's just a repository of useless human beings.
	We'll get to the pathetic State Department in just one second and its head, Tony Blinken, who never should be in charge of anything up to and including a popsicle stand.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Alrighty, so by the way, we didn't just leave Americans behind.
	For those of you who are in the category of I care about dogs more than I care about human beings, I'm just going to point out that the U.S.
	military abandoned its contracted working dogs to the Taliban, which means they're just going to shoot them.
	The American Humane Society condemned the effective death sentence the U.S.
	withdrawal from Kabul in favor of the Islamist Taliban militia has spelled for contract working dogs.
	According to Robert Ganzert, American Humane's president and CEO, these brave dogs do the same dangerous life-saving work as our military working dogs deserve a far better fate than the ones to which they've been condemned.
	It sickens us to sit idly by and watch these brave dogs who valiantly served our country be put to death, or worse.
	Mr. Ganser said the contract dogs should have their status upgraded to prevent such future abandonments.
	Well, presumably they won't be abandoned in the future the same way because Biden won't be president forever.
	But, you know, just a pathetic capper.
	Meanwhile, the State Department trotted out the inimitable Tony Blinken.
	So Blinken, who always has a deer in the headlights look.
	I mean, just consistently.
	He has never looked not overwhelmed by his job.
	He continued to look overwhelmed by his job while taking a victory lap for this debacle.
	So, he said he wants to commend our diplomats.
	Yes, our diplomats did such a stellar job here.
	What a great job by our diplomats.
	Many, many people made this possible.
	Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's true.
	I want to commend our outstanding diplomats who worked around the clock and around the world to coordinate the operation.
	They volunteered for duty at the Kabul airport.
	They flew to transit countries to help process thousands of Afghans bound for the United States.
	They deployed to ports of entry and American military bases to welcome Afghans to their new homes.
	Oh man, look at those diplomats.
	They've been doing such a wonderful job.
	In fact, they're doing such a great job that we're leading with diplomacy while having no diplomats on the ground.
	This is the new line.
	By the way, this is a line that you hear so much from people on the foreign policy left, which is, why don't we unleash diplomacy?
	Okay, diplomacy is a tool.
	It is not a strategy.
	Okay, diplomacy is one of many tools in the toolbox when it comes to foreign policy, but it is not a strategy.
	You hear people on the left talk about diplomacy like it's a strategy.
	Well, you know, we have to, our strategy is, wait for it, diplomacy.
	That's not a strategy at all.
	Okay, that's just the thing that you can use.
	And if it doesn't work, you better have some other tools in your toolbox you are willing to use, but we have no other tools.
	That means diplomacy is the strategy and it's not a strategy.
	So here is Tony Blinken saying, we're now gonna lead with diplomacy.
	Um, yeah, that's worked out well so far.
	A new chapter of America's engagement with Afghanistan has begun.
	It's one in which we will lead with our diplomacy.
	The military mission is over.
	A new diplomatic mission has begun.
	Oh, and it's a new diplomatic mission.
	Wow.
	I'll bet that's going to go great.
	Because if there's one thing the Taliban love, it's diplomacy.
	It's worked out fabulously in the past, the diplomatic mission.
	It ended with the Taliban completely eating our lunch and taking over Afghanistan and all of our military equipment to boot.
	So probably it's been great.
	Also, Blinken said, let me just give you an example, says Tony Blinken, of how effective our diplomacy is.
	We have already put together a super, a super miffed and pissy diplomatic letter to the Taliban.
	I mean, man, that letter is pissy.
	Woo!
	The attitude on that letter.
	Let me tell you, if I read that letter, says Tony Blinken, I would probably stop for a moment and I would think about it very seriously.
	Here's Tony Blinken talking about this incredible, masterful letter.
	The kind of letter that changes the world.
	More than half the world's countries have joined us in insisting that the Taliban let people travel outside Afghanistan freely.
	As of today, more than 100 countries have said that they expect the Taliban to honor travel authorizations by our countries.
	And just a few short hours ago, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that enshrines that responsibility, laying the groundwork to hold the Taliban accountable if they renege.
	So the international chorus on this is strong, and it will stay strong.
	Amazing.
	Wow.
	The international community is so strong that all of NATO has been ripping the United States up and down.
	The British Parliament is screaming at Joe Biden.
	And Tony Blinken put together a letter with like a hundred countries that doesn't include China or Russia.
	But it's super duper important.
	Also, you know, he says there's a UN Security Council resolution.
	This is from Politico, quote, A divided UN Security Council pressed the Taliban on Monday to live up to its pledges to let people leave Afghanistan after the US withdrew its forces.
	But China and Russia refused to back the resolution, which they portrayed as diverting blame for chaos surrounding the US pullout.
	Oh, so like he says it was the UN Security Council resolution.
	And so everyone's on board, except for like the two countries that now have the biggest stake in Afghanistan because we left.
	China, which is there for the rare earth minerals, and Russia, which is there to basically rub America's nose in it.
	So the two other competitive world powers with the United States, China and Russia, are both not interested in whether the Taliban allow people to leave.
	But Tony Blinken says diplomacy is the way forward.
	The measure also calls for letting humanitarian aid flow, upholding human rights, and combating terrorism.
	Well, I mean, if the forces that just left in ignominious surrender call for upholding human rights and combating terrorism, then probably that's what's going to happen.
	French Deputy Ambassador Nathalie Brodhurst said after the vote, quote, The eyes of all Afghans are watching this council and they expect clear support from the international community.
	Wow.
	Wow!
	The international community.
	Wow!
	French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday the resolution would propose a UN-controlled safe zone in Kabul for humanitarian operations.
	But instead, the resolution called for, quote, all parties to allow full, safe and unhindered access for aid groups.
	Oh, so there won't be a safe zone in Kabul, but there will be a call for the Taliban to be nice.
	Probably it's going to work, guys.
	They're like hanging people from helicopters already.
	Probably if we... Guys, Tony Blinken is... We got this, man.
	Our diplomacy is top notch.
	Then, Tony Blinken gets really mad.
	He put on his Mr. Potato Head angry eyes.
	And he says, any legitimacy will have to be earned.
	From whom?
	He had just surrendered!
	Every step we take will be based not on what a Taliban-led government says, but what it does to live up to its commitments.
	The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support.
	Our message is, any legitimacy and any support will have to be earned.
	And if you don't earn it, then you won't get it, you cavemen who can't read, but who have our military equipment and who we just surrendered to.
	Okay, then Blinken decided, you know what?
	Not taking any questions.
	I'm out.
	He makes a statement, turns around, just for the exit.
	Who risked or sacrificed their lives as part of this long mission right up to today.
	Thanks for listening.
	Everybody will be left behind the Biden administration's back.
	Such courage, such unbelievable courage.
	All righty, meanwhile, you can start to see the media turning in real time from Joe Biden is a disaster and this is horrifying to probably Joe Biden was right and he knew this was coming.
	It was only a matter of time.
	So the coverage from the people on the ground in Afghanistan who have spent time there, who have dealt with the American military there, who have spent years there covering the conflict, that coverage was universally negative last night.
	And the media were fighting mad about it on all the networks.
	They were saying, you know, this is brutal.
	It's vicious.
	It's terrible.
	It's cowardly.
	And it is.
	It's all of those things.
	So take, for example, David Martin on CBS.
	He said, there's no question we're leaving for political reasons.
	This is not about military necessity.
	This is, again, David Martin from CBS News reporting from the Pentagon.
	It's on us.
	And by us, I mean us.
	Not the 800,000 who fought there.
	They did what they were told to.
	But we in this country made political choices that led to where we are today.
	And they may turn out in history to be the right political choices.
	They may turn out to be the wrong political choices.
	They may be, but they're political.
	Yes, they are political choices.
	And they are the wrong political choices.
	And we can see it happening in real time.
	NBC's Richard Engel, who's been very good on this particular issue, right?
	Richard Engel's been reporting on the ground in Afghanistan.
	I was at an event at which Richard Engel spoke fairly recently, like just a few months ago, and he was predicting all of this.
	He was saying, yeah, I've gone to Bagram Air Base and I'm like going around.
	I'm looking.
	He did a report where he went and he like looked into empty airbases.
	There was no one there.
	It had been basically a band in the United States was turning over the whole thing to the Taliban.
	And Engel says, yeah, we've turned this country over to the Taliban.
	This was a humbling day for the United States, a day of humility for a world superpower.
	Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of empires.
	The British Empire fought in Afghanistan and withdrew in defeat.
	The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan for 10 years and withdrew in defeat.
	The United States fought in Afghanistan for 20 years and is now, tonight, withdrawing, just completed its withdrawal in defeat.
	Okay, meanwhile, ABC's Ian Pinnell says we're abandoning these people on the ground, which of course is true.
	I think many people will be left questioning tonight about the way those decisions were made, the way the evacuation was handled, and a final thought, really, just to those people still stuck in Afghanistan, at home, afraid, and feeling abandoned.
	That, of course, is all true.
	But you can see, in real time, as the media try to switch the narrative.
	So, for example, the New York Times has a piece called, quote, So, they just went and they interviewed a bunch of people who agree with Joe Biden.
	It's basically the story.
	And the New York Times is holding up California's 39th congressional district.
	That's the district with Hacienda Heights in it.
	They're holding up that district as a swing district.
	It went 54-44 for Joe Biden in the last presidential election.
	So, the New York Times found a Democrat-lean district And then they found a bunch of people who agree with Joe Biden.
	Quote, Brenda and Leo Ortiz had paid enough attention to the news from Afghanistan that it was hardly a surprise when their 11-year-old son asked them a question.
	How could so many Americans be killed last week?
	Ms.
	Ortiz, 41, tried her best to explain, giving their son a brief history lesson on Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and ISIS.
	But by Saturday, Ms.
	Ortiz was focused on more personally pressing matters.
	Her three children were completing their first month of in-person schooling since the start of the pandemic.
	She said she was saddened by the death of Americans, but she wondered aloud how she could possibly focus on a crisis on the other side of the world when there was more than enough to worry about in the United States, in her own backyard.
	I don't think it was ever going to be easy to leave, Ms.
	Ortiz said while watching her children play soccer.
	At the end of the day, our country is where we need to be focusing.
	We have our own issues, getting the kids to school, healing our communities.
	It's not our war to fight anymore.
	At a time of deep partisan division in a Southern California congressional district, where Democrats narrowly outnumber Republicans, voters interviewed over the weekend were largely united on at least one issue.
	After a two decade war, President Biden was right to pull American troops out of Afghanistan.
	Well, look to the New York Times to immediately ignore all of the current polling, which shows that this move is deeply unpopular, that Joe Biden blew it in massive fashion.
	And instead, find anecdotal evidence that a bunch of people agree with the decision to pull out of Afghanistan more broadly.
	Now, that's not a shock.
	In every poll, Americans say they don't want us to be in Afghanistan.
	Then when they are asked, how do you feel about having like 2,500 troops in Afghanistan just to make sure the Taliban don't take over the country and so we can hit Al Qaeda, a majority of Americans support that.
	This is the problem with polling data.
	Polling data very often depends on exactly what you are polling.
	If you poll Americans on the broad question of whether we ought to have troops in far-flung lands, Americans will say no.
	If you poll Americans on the exact number of troops, the exact cost, and what it is we are seeking to prevent, Americans are generally in the assent.
	That is how it works on everything.
	Americans generally, when asked, would you like to cut government services?
	They're like, absolutely.
	And then you say, okay, would you like to cut this service?
	And they're like, no.
	This is true throughout polling data.
	So what the New York Times does here is they just go and they find a couple of people who agree with Joe Biden and they weave it into a front page story.
	The bombing at Kabul airport says the New York Times had done little to change their minds.
	The killing of 13 soldiers leaving them more numb than saddened.
	Many said they were simply too overwhelmed to pay close attention to another overseas crisis.
	We have a lot of mending here to do, said Ms.
	Ortiz, who considers herself a political moderate and voted for Mr. Biden.
	Afghanistan could be ignored, say many of the voters in Hacienda Heights.
	But the possibility of their too young to be vaccinated children getting sick could not.
	Again, like, this demonstrates everything, right?
	Okay, the reality is that you're too young to get vaccinated.
	Children are not getting particularly sick from COVID.
	The New York Times is pushing that narrative.
	Leaders in Washington might worry about the threat of terrorism or America's standing with allies, but voters in Hacienda Heights said they were far more concerned about issues directly affecting them.
	COVID-19, homelessness, and climate change, to name a few.
	Who wrote this?
	The New York Times wrote this.
	Climate change.
	So I'm not worried about what just happened in Afghanistan, where America completely humiliated itself and handed over an entire country to America's worst enemies.
	I'm really worried about climate change, says the mom from Hacienda Heights.
	Climate change.
	If you said COVID-19 and homelessness, I might go along with you in LA.
	Climate change?
	Seriously?
	They seemed hesitant to hold Biden accountable for last week's attacks, at least for now.
	When you have no good choice, you still have to pick one, said Patrick Wong, a 65-year-old independent who has voted for both Republicans and Democrats.
	So I would love to see a quote from someone in this article who was like, Actually, divided about this decision.
	Instead, they found somebody who voted for Trump named Tanya Chang and Andrew Chang in downtown Fullerton saying they may be exited more quickly than they should have, but I think it was right to be out.
	It was multiple presidents missteps. We couldn't have stayed there forever.
	Even representative Young Kim was less critical of the president than many lawmakers in her party.
	She said, we don't have the luxury to be sad about what is happening, but we have to be resolute, gather information and get people to safety.
	This is not the time to point fingers when people are desperate and people are dying.
	But she added she was hearing from her constituents who are not satisfied with what they're seeing and hearing from our commander in chief.
	They commit, they quote one person who's a national Trump voter here who said, quote, about Biden, he left Americans behind.
	It's two thirds of the way down in the article, of course.
	He left how many people there?
	He led them to become sacrifices.
	He is old.
	He allowed young people to die.
	The only thing that makes me optimistic is that Trump is willing to fight back.
	So watch, this will be the narrative.
	This is what Biden is hoping for.
	He's hoping that everybody just forgets about the 250 people they admit are stuck on the ground in Afghanistan who are American citizens.
	They're hoping that the foreign policy reporters who were stationed in Afghanistan get less and less airtime.
	That Richard Engel goes to reporting somewhere else and that Ian Pinnell goes reporting somewhere else.
	And that all of them just sort of recede into the background.
	And then we go back to talking about Joe Biden's big spending plans.
	And then we go back to talking about the insanity of masking your children, but you should very much mask your children.
	And then we talk about climate change.
	They want a change of topic and the media are going to grant it to them.
	Now that the American troops are out, this is why Biden accelerated the timeline, by the way.
	Remember, we still had 12 hours to get people out.
	He didn't take it.
	Biden wanted out now, not because that was the best policy, but because he wanted the headlines to stop.
	And his assumption is the headlines will now stop because getting these people out, watch, the language is going to change over the next 24 hours.
	Getting these people out will now be a protracted process.
	We're negotiating with the Taliban.
	We're figuring out ways to get them out.
	And don't you worry, even though it's taking a long time, it'll be OK.
	I mean, after all, the international community is using the power of hashtag.
	They're using the power of diplomacy to get these people out.
	They're hoping that you get bored and you get tired and you get sleepy.
	And by the way, they may be right.
	They may be right.
	Because after all, isn't that the story of what just happened in Afghanistan?
	We got bored and tired and sleepy, and three quarters of the arguments made about Afghanistan were completely unrelated to the actual figures on the ground right now.
	And when you talk to people about Afghanistan, as this withdrawal began, people were like, yeah, we got an endless war.
	And you're like, yeah, there are 2,500 troops there, and zero people have died since February of last year.
	And you're like, well, yeah, but it's still an endless war.
	And you're like, yeah, but it's not.
	But everybody is still, because the American attention span is five seconds long, this is how empires crumble, it's how countries crumble, frankly.
	And America right now is so bored and so fat and so stupid that we have decided that it is not important to stand up for foreign interests.
	We don't have to have any long-term vision at all.
	We don't have to think beyond the next five minutes, which is why we can spend money that our grandchildren will not be able to repay.
	It's why we can blow out inflation and then assume the government is somehow going to magically take care of it.
	It's why we can take COVID policies that are designed to have short-term impact but serious long-term ramifications and then champion those.
	All of this is dependent on Americans having an attention span that is shorter than the average Looney Tunes cartoon.
	And dependent on a media that is willing to lie in favor of Democrats and move on from a news cycle as soon as that news cycle is no longer important to them.
	And we'll see if it works.
	We'll see if it works.
	As a cynic, I think it probably will.
	Which is why I think that for all the talk about Joe Biden being a disgrace, which he is, and pathetic, which he is, for all the talk about the cowardice and the betrayal here, and there's plenty of both, I think Joe Biden knows that everybody will just move on.
	And that was his plan all along.
	If we have to leave Americans, we'll leave Americans.
	If we have to leave allies, we'll leave allies.
	If we have to leave green card holders, we'll leave green card holders.
	So long as six weeks from now we're not talking about this, Joe Biden does not give a damn.
	He's checking his watch, gang.
	That's all he cares about.
	He's checking that watch.
	Because every second that ticks by is a second until we stop talking about this.
	He knows it.
	That's why he's checking his watch.
	All righty.
	We'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content coming up soon.
	The Matt Walsh Show airs at 1.30 p.m.
	Eastern.
	Be sure to check it out over at dailywire.com.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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