British Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat is the Chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. He served in Afghanistan as an officer in the British Army. He sat in a packed House of Commons days after the Taliban took Kabul. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had recalled Parliament to discuss the disaster of the defeat.
When he spoke, his words were full of real emotion about the good men he saw “go into the ground.” It was with real anger he said, “To see their commander-in-chief, the U.S. president, Joe Biden, call into question the courage of the men [of the Afghan Army] I fought with – to claim that they ran – is shameful.
Prime Minister Johnson aimed a swipe at Joe Biden when he said,“The West could not continue this U.S.-led mission, a mission conceived and executed in support and defense of America without American logistics, U.S. Airpower and without American might.”
I won’t challenge here the lies and mendaciousness of President Biden’s White House speech justifying his dismissal of the advice of every single Army general and expert advisor who told him his policy was a huge mistake. No one could. He followed his own Afghan policy and ran from the room, refusing to take any questions.
I will recall what the BBC, hardly a friend of the Jewish people or their state, wrote about the President’s actions.
In a piece entitled, “Afghanistan: What’s the impact of Taliban’s return on international order?” The BBC’s Jonathan Marcus wrote:
“What really matters are the ramifications among Washington’s allies. What will they take away from the Afghan experience? Beyond the immediate crisis, will the NATO countries, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea or Japan see the U.S. as a less reliable partner? If they do, then Mr. Biden’s decision to quit Afghanistan will prove fateful, indeed.”
The answer to that rhetorical question about America’s allies seeing her now as a less reliable friend and supporter is obvious. “Duh!”
As the President insisted that there was not the slightest possible comparison between the fall of Saigon to the fall of Kabul, the world’s media, even those who are normally happy to turn a blind eye to the Biden administration’s missteps, issued their response. Almost every newspaper across the globe showed two almost indistinguishable photographs, one from Vietnam and the other from Afghanistan. In both, American helicopters whisked American diplomats from embassy roofs and to safety.
I posted the quote from President Biden along with those two photographs on my Facebook page. A Left-leaning friend called Mark replied, “It’s a horrible mess. If anyone has a logical solution for Afghanistan, let us know.”
So I did…
“It would start with the realization that the West is at war with the Islamist world, or rather the other way around. This Islamist imperialism is dynamic and determined. It has to be fought as aggressively as it fights.
What comes next is the realization that Pakistan is not an ally but an enemy. It should have been sanctioned at the very least to discourage its support for the Islamist Taliban (and sanctuary for Osama Bin Laden.)
India would be crucial in this.
Other financial backers of the Taliban should have been financially crippled for their actions too.
Then should come a firm realization that wars don’t stop when you run away from them. Only when both sides agree to peace, does peace have a chance.
The Taliban et al. don’t want peace.
All of that, together with the knowledge that if you don’t fight them in their turf you’ll very soon be fighting them in yours, should have and still can direct the correct response.
The West doesn’t want this war to go on forever, the Taliban doesn’t mind if it does.
The West has to commit to the same time scale and a ruthless commitment to winning.”
And all of my angst and frustration expressed in those words is of course simply irrelevant.
A truly great American President, Abraham Lincoln said long ago, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
The American philosopher, Will Durant wrote, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.”
America has been divided against itself for a long time now. Its enemies, Russia, China and the rest, see clearly, from the debacle of Kabul, an administration that is an international joke and a society that is busy destroying itself from within.
The second item on the list of the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus’s list – “Israel” – cannot but fail to realize that its greatest ally can no longer be relied on (at least until 2025).
As for the Jewish community in the United States, they too will have to reach the same unpalatable conclusion.
For 25 years I was the officially recognized rabbi for the fourteen Universities of the Northwest of England, taking care of around 3,000 students every year. Many faced anti-Semitism from other students. Some faced anti-Semitism from staff or faculties.
In all the time it was my job to defend those students, I am (please forgive me) proud to tell you that I never lost a single fight.
The reason is quite simple. I realized that I sometimes had to go to war with anti-Semites, or rather the other way round, they had gone to war with my students. I knew Jew hatred is dynamic and determined and it had to be fought as aggressively as it fights. Oh! And in this cause, the cause of the Jewish people, frankly, I don’t mind a fight.
After Kabul, when Washington has shown it can no longer be relied on to protect its friends abroad, America’s Jews must be concerned that it won’t protect them at home either. We are going to need lots of American Jews who are willing to stand up here and fight anti-Semitism for ourselves.