Vice President Joe Biden pointed out in December last year that the Taliban “per se,” is not the enemy of the United States. In the typical nonsensical Biden fashion, however, he clarified that “If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.” See more on his remarks here.
On 15 April 2012, the Taliban claimed responsibility for attacks throughout Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan.
Terrorists attacked NATO Headquarters, the Afghan Parliament building, and several embassies. Included were the Russian embassy, the United Kingdom embassy and another feeble attack on the U.S. embassy.
While the Afghan National Security Forces immediately counter-attacked, it did take them several hours to defeat the enemy, which included killing 37 terrorists. Afghan National Security Forces lost about 14. Many more Afghan civilians were killed. To use a Vietnam term, not a good “body count” for the Taliban. Even members of parliament were fighting the insurgents. Perhaps the people are a little fed up with the Taliban, per se.
Quite the successful opening attack. I’m so impressed. The truth is, the insurgents made a lot of noise, but had very little effect on anything but clueless reporters.
However, the attack on parliament does show one thing: The intent of the Taliban to destabilize and attempt to “collapse,” to use a term from the VP, the Afghan government. That said, how long do we wait, Joe? How long does the Taliban get to attack the government, and American troops, before Biden gets his head out of his rear end?
What will it take to convince you, Joe? The Taliban are America’s enemy.
The author is a veteran with combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
