“Anyone who isn’t confused really doesn’t understand the situation.”

Just saw Mitch slam the withdrawal from Afghanistan as a stain on the US blaming Uncle Joe. I hope Joe doesn’t give a proverbial flying fuck about what Moscow Mitch says about it, or anything for that matter. 

A comment at WaPo form “zeiner 73” responding to Aaron Blake’s piece about Clarissa Ward’s coverage from Kabul:

What else would you expect from Better Dead Than Ted, the Coward of Cancun?

Now THAT’S GOOD.

And Dumbass the Former and his minions, lying about the agreement with the Taliban, criticized the withdrawal as done incompetently.  Never mind that the “conditions based” agreement had only conditions that can best be characterized as low hanging fruit and had no enforcement mechanisms built in.  BTW, the Biden administration has found the lever that may allow the US to keep some measure of control over the Taliban and this clusterfuck for the time being.  WaPo:

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FREEZES BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN AFGHAN RESERVES, DEPRIVING TALIBAN OF CASH
The move comes as the White House has scrambled to redraw its Afghanistan policies
By 
Jeff Stein
Today at 1:30 p.m. EDT

The Biden administration on Sunday froze Afghan government reserves held in U.S. bank accounts, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. institutions, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The decision was made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials in Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people said. The State Department was also involved in discussions over the weekend, with officials in the White House monitoring the developments. An administration official said in a statement, “Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.” The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss government policy not yet made public.

Cutting off access to U.S.-based reserves represents among the first in what is expected to prove several crucial decisions facing the Biden administration about the economic fate of that nation following the Taliban takeover. Afghanistan is already one of the poorest countries in the world and is highly dependent on American aid that is now in jeopardy. The Biden administration is also likely to face hard choices over how to manage existing sanctions on the Taliban, which may make it difficult to deliver international humanitarian assistance to a population facing ruin, experts say.

The Afghan central bank held $9.4 billion in reserve assets as of April, according to the International Monetary Fund. That amounts to roughly one third of the country’s annual economic output. The vast majority of those reserves are not currently held in Afghanistan, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Among those, billions of dollars are kept in the United States, although the precise amount is unclear.

Spokespeople for the White House and Department of Treasury declined to comment on the process for blocking the funds, or the fate of U.S. economic assistance to Afghanistan. A spokeswoman for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where much of the money is presumed to be held, also declined to comment.

The U.S. did not need any new authority to freeze the reserves, because the Taliban is already sanctioned under an executive order approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Adam M. Smith, who served on the National Security Council and as senior adviser to the director of the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control during the Obama administration.

* * *
International powers may also entertain new sanctions against Afghanistan, a suggestion already made by Britain’s foreign minister earlier this week. Sanctions can help force foreign adversaries to adopt U.S. policy by penalizing their trade partners. However, they can also exact brutal humanitarian tolls on civilian populations.

Daniel Glaser, who served as assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said cutting Afghanistan off from the reserve funds is the obvious first move.

“It’s the least they could do. I, personally, would not trust the Taliban to be responsible custodians of Afghanistan’s reserves,” Glaser said.

Haven’t heard this mentioned by the Biden critics – I guess its importance eluded them.  Plus, it doesn’t have the emotional impact that a cell phone video of a C5-A rolling on a taxiway with Afghans hanging on it does.

Smoke ruins wine grapes , even if the vines are saved. 

OK, now I’m PISSED.