Tipsheet

Taliban: No Deadline Extension, No More Afghans Allowed Out After August 31 – and Biden Agrees?

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  August 24, 2021 1:15 PM

If the Taliban is essentially calling the shots at this point, with the Biden administration too weak and nervous to resist or contradict them, we are officially in a race against the clock.  Despite direct, private appeals from the CIA director, the terrorist group is very publicly rejecting any extension of America's self-imposed withdrawal deadline on August 31 -- adding that as of next Wednesday, they won't allow any Afghans out of the country, even if they have proper credentials from the United States.  They're humiliating us, and they're enjoying it:

The group's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said foreign countries should stop "encouraging" Afghans to leave, as Afghanistan needs their talents. He said Afghan nationals should head back to their homes, jobs and normal life, as there is “no danger” to them. “Let’s live together. The war for us has finished," he added. As we reported earlier, the UN has said there are "credible" reports that the Taliban is carrying out summary executions.

And it looks like because his Taliban bosses have ruled out an extended deadline, Biden has "decided" he agrees:


This comes despite our allies asking for an extension of the deadline, and as Leah noted earlier, even House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff seems to think 8/31 isn't workable:


Schiff also contradicted the Biden administration's line that the swiftness and nature of the current collapse was entirely unexpected, another blow to their 'planned for every contingency' claim:


Schiff is hardly a paragon of credibility, but in this case, he's making a statement against partisan interest by undermining the White House spin.  Another Democrat on the committee backed him up, saying the intelligence didn't fail on this front.  This disaster falls squarely on the president and his team.  The silver lining at the moment is that evacuation flights are being allowed to depart from Kabul, and that effort has really ramped up:

Recommended

Liberal Media Is Already Melting Down Over Pam Bondi Sarah Arnold
Trump Has a New Attorney General Nominee Matt Vespa


But this is hardly a well-oiled machine, as the desperate airlift intensifies.  There are reports of chaos and bloodshed, including the Taliban murdering Afghan SIV applicants near the airport.  This is sickening, and it only underscores the desperation of thousands of US citizens and allies who remain in-country with the apparently non-negotiable deadline drawing closer:


Last evening, I commented on the Biden administration's reliance upon the will of the Taliban, their woefully poor planning stretching back months, and the White House Press Secretary's very strange choice to feign indignation over the word "stranded:"


The Pentagon notably didn't object to that term in recent days, perhaps because it obviously applies.  Do these people not count as stranded?


Let's hope and pray that all Americans and other allies can be identified and evacuated within the next week.  Let's hope and pray that Schiff and others are wrong about the deadline (or that the Taliban is bluffing, or that the president reverses course and defies them, without triggering an explosion of violence) -- and that President Obama's former Homeland Security chief is wrong about this:


Leave it to the Vice President to attempt this argument:


We abandoned our embassy in a panic, mere weeks after Secretary of State Blinken said it would remain open and operational full-time, and the president said a total Taliban takeover of the country was "highly unlikely."  But the "drawdown of the embassy" was "successful," you see.  I'll leave you with these red flags about terrorism, the reason the United States entered Afghanistan in the first place: