The American defeat in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s control of the country revitalizes the hopes of Islamists and jihadists around the world.

“President” Biden has gifted certain Islamic nations and all jihad organizations with a humiliating defeat of America in Afghanistan. 

One of them is Pakistan, which facilitated the Taliban rebellion while pretending to be an ally of the West – taking billions from America for …. what? Keeping a smiling face turned towards it?

Imran Khan, president of Pakistan, declared that now “the shackles of slavery” are broken in Afghanistan.

And the terrorist organization Hamas, offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood, that rules ruthlessly over the Gaza strip, is crowing with delight.

The Investigative Project  on Terrorism (IPT) reports: 

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas was among the first to congratulate “the Muslim Afghani people for the demise of the American occupation from its soil”.

We congratulate Taliban and its courageous leadership for this victory which culminates to its long Jihad for 20 years … We stress that the freedom from the occupation of America and its allies proves that the resistance of people and on top of the Jihad of our Palestinian people ends with victory and liberation.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh telephoned Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar … to personally congratulate him.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group also issued a congratulatory statement praising, “the dear Afghan people for liberating Afghan lands from the American and Western occupation. The Afghani Muslim people presented and staged the greatest jihadist glory against all invaders throughout their honorable history.”

IPT reports further on how the defeat of America is a model for all the jihadist movements:

Egyptian born Islamic Group (Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya) leader Assem Abdul Majeed hailed “The Conquest of Kabul: Praise be to God who honored the Mujahedeen (jihadists), [who] defeated the infidels and Today every believer rejoices And every hypocrite and atheist get angry.”

Separately, he wrote, “Have you seen how was power transferred to the Taliban quietly and without resistance?” He compared the Taliban’s determination to Egypt’s 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, saying it wouldn’t have happened “if the Brotherhood of Egypt had the courage and strength of the Taliban.”

Radical Muslim Brotherhood cleric Wagdy Ghoneim, who now lives in Turkey, posted a video in which he said, “God made Taliban victorious over America and the infidel western countries that united against it.”

From Yemen, where Islamists have been waging a bloody civil war since 2014, the spokesman for Houthi rebels boasted that “Every occupation has an end, long time or short, and now America is reaping failure after 20 years of occupying Afghanistan, so do the countries of aggression consider this?!”

But it is not just terrorist groups and jihadists celebrating the Taliban victory. Islamist affiliated governments and institutions joined the party.

Iran’s new ultraconservative president, Ebrahim Raisi, described the U.S. “military failure” as a chance for a lasting peace in Afghanistan. “America’s military defeat and its withdrawal must become an opportunity to restore life, security and durable peace in Afghanistan,” Raisi said on Iranian state television.

Tehran hosted Taliban officials last month to prepare for the vacuum expected after the U.S. withdrawal. “We are proud to have stood alongside our noble Afghan brothers and sisters during the jihad against the foreign occupiers,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said at the time.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s Islamist government is offering the security and technical assistance. Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is mulling meeting with Taliban leader. “The latest developments and the situation of the Afghan public are really, really troubling,” Erdogan told CNN Turk on Wednesday.

Pro-government Turkish media highlighted the Taliban’s willingness to forge strong relations with Turkey. “Turkey is our brother, we have many points in common based on faith,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said last month. “We want Turkey to leave the past and return to the present and the future. After that, we can ask for dialogue.”

Erdogan had strong ties with the Afghan mujahideen before becoming Turkey’s prime minister. He was seen in an old video sitting at the feet of Afghani warlord Gulbeddin Hekmatyar, known as the “Butcher of Kabul” in Afghanistan.

Turkey, it must be remembered is – incomprehensibly – a member of NATO!

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), Ahmed Raissouni, congratulated the Taliban for “the expulsion of the American and European invading forces. And this is a purely Afghan achievement that came thanks to continuous jihad, patience and sacrifices … We are ready to receive the scholars of Afghanistan and visit them and negotiate with them on issues of Islam and the application of Islamic Sharia as best as possible.”

Ahmed Bin Hama al-Khalili, the Mufti of Oman, congratulated “the brotherly Muslim people of Afghanistan for the clear victory and the valued victory over the aggressor invaders, and we follow this by congratulating ourselves and the entire Islamic nation for the fulfillment of God’s sincere promise.” Khalili’s statement is surprising since he is an official in a country considered a U.S. ally.

The Taliban previously allowed Afghanistan to be a safe haven for terrorists, including Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Muslim Brotherhood members already are mulling using Afghanistan as a new refuge, Al Arabiya reported. Their current home, Turkey, started clamping down on Brotherhood activities in an effort to mend strained relations with Egypt.

Brotherhood relations with the Afghan mujahedeen date back at least to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The ISIS affiliated terrorist group Boko Haram which has operates extensively in Nigeria, West Africa and African Sahel countries is believed to benefit emotionally from the recent withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. Boko Haram would like to replicate the Taliban’s success and now has a model to believe in.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Taliban’s takeover, turns Africa into the new frontline of terror, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari wrote in this Sunday’s Financial Times.

The Taliban victory reverses a decade of setbacks for jihadists and Islamists in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The American defeat in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s control of the country revitalizes the hopes of Islamists and jihadists around the world.

And, most dangerous of all, China fully understands the lesson of America’s defeat.

The Global Times reports:

Afghanistan situation a lesson for Taiwan authorities

The US troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan has led to the rapid demise of the Kabul government. The world has witnessed how the US evacuated its diplomats by helicopter while Taliban soldiers crowded into the presidential palace in Kabul. This has dealt a heavy blow to the credibility and reliability of the US.

How Washington abandoned the Kabul regime particularly shocked some in Asia, including the island of Taiwan. Taiwan is the region that relies on the protection of the US the most in Asia.

The situation in Afghanistan suddenly saw a radical change after the country was abandoned by the US.

From what happened in Afghanistan, [Taiwan] should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse in hours and the US military won’t come to help.

China is much more likely to invade Taiwan now, with the intention of annexing it, after America’s capitulation in Afghanistan.

But Taiwan will not necessarily “collapse in hours”, even without direct American help. It will fight. It has an army, and materiel. And it has cause: freedom.

We agree with the Global Times that Biden-ruled America is very unlikely to engage in war with China.

Biden’s America is a cripple.

China seems to be preparing to take Taiwan by force. Peacefully by force.

Hmmm.

In his speech on the 100th. birthday of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, dictator if China, “spoke very forcefully about reunification with Taiwan”.

We quote from Investment Watch.

Xi Jinping said:

Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the Communist Party of China. It is also a shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation. We will uphold the one-China principle and the 1992 Consensus, and advance peaceful national reunification. All of us, compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, must come together and move forward in unison. We must take resolute action to utterly defeat any attempt toward “Taiwan independence” and work together to create a bright future for national rejuvenation. No one should underestimate the resolve, the will, and the ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Most Americans have absolutely no idea how serious this situation is.

In Taiwan, there is a big push to formally declare independence, and if Taiwan formally declares independence, China will invade.

If China invades Taiwan, the U.S. military will intervene.

Will it? Under Commander-in-Chief Joe Biden?

If a military conflict between the U.S. and China suddenly erupted, it would probably not “go nuclear” initially.  But China has been feverishly preparing for a scenario in which nuclear weapons will be used.

China is expanding its missile silos. Satellite image analysis indicates that the country is increasing its nuclear weapon stockpile. At least 119 potential silos were identified in the desert in Gansu Province spread over 700-square-miles to increase their nuclear arsenal which is estimated to be made up of between 250 to 315 nuclear weapons. It comes as President Xi Jinping issued a warning to “bullying”foreign nations, telling them to stay out of China’s business.

Instead of focusing on making their military “more diverse” …

as the U.S. military top brass are absorbed in doing under “Biden’s” orders, and using the armed forces primarily to fight “climate change”  …

… the Chinese are actually working very hard to prepare for the next war, and the dramatic shift that we have been witnessing has stunned U.S. officials.

Because it could never have been predicted that China would make war – and especially not on Taiwan. Right?

Well, some were not stunned:

The discovery follows recent warnings by Pentagon officials about rapid advances in China’s nuclear capability. Adm. Charles Richard, who commands U.S. nuclear forces, said at a congressional hearing in April that a “breathtaking expansion” was underway in China, including an expanding arsenal of ICBMs and new mobile missile launchers that can be easily hidden from satellites.

In addition, the Chinese navy has introduced new nuclear-weapons-capable submarines to its growing fleet.

Would “Biden” take the US to war in defense of Taiwan?

If so, how?

By sending materiel to the Taiwanese?

By sending troops?

By attacking Communist China itself?

If that, and if China retaliates by attacking the US with nukes, would “Biden” counter with nukes?

Would allies – other NATO countries – fight with the US?

Would Russia fight with China?

And if the US did nothing to deter the annexation of Taiwan by China, how would its enemies interpret that?

A weak America is a temptation to its enemies. Whatever “Biden” might do, the price America will have to pay for letting a senile stooge of China become its president could be very great if China’s “peaceful” policy towards Taiwan is implemented.

Why would the oligarchy collectively named “Biden” expend blood and treasure to save the country it now governs when that country, the United States of America, is a rotten thing, sick with the disease of racism?

“We are  an imperfect union and have been since the beginning,” moaned Linda Thomas-Greenfield, “Biden’s” ambassador to the United Nations, speaking at a National Action Network convention recently.

The “Biden” Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, is too busy at present to be bothered with foreign affairs. He is dealing urgently with “right-wing extremism” – which is to say “racism” –  in the ranks of the US military, and “executing diversity and anti-extremism training” for every member of his department.

Will “Biden” see any need to take action if America’s two strongest enemies expand their power by making war on their neighbors?

We may soon learn the answer to that question.

Gordon Chang, writing at Gatestone, sees two wars coming:

War could break out on both ends of the Eurasian landmass at the same time.

Two large aggressors are threatening to break apart neighbors and absorb them.

Russian troops are massing on the Ukraine border.

Chinese vessels are swarming Whitsun Reef of the Philippines in the South China Sea, and China’s air force is flying almost daily through Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone.

Vladimir Putin in 2019 said that Russia reserved the right to protect ethnic Russians outside Russia. This month, Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration, said his country might intervene to “defend” its citizens. If it did, he suggested, Ukraine would not survive.

Russians perceive Biden as feeble. 

China’s leaders are saying they do not believe President Joe Biden would defend Taiwan.

The Dragon and the Bear appear to be coordinating moves, as they have for some time. At the very least, each is acting with an eye to what the other is doing. Once one of these aggressors makes a move, the other large state, taking advantage of the situation, will almost certainly follow.

All the elements for history’s next great conflict are now in place.

So “Biden” is surely preparing for it?

Seems not. Seems that as far as the “Biden administration” is concerned, history’s next great conflict will just have to wait, at least until the diversity training course has been completed by the Department of Defense.

Breitbart reports:

China’s latest military exercise near Taiwan on Monday “could be a rehearsal of a reunification-by-force operation”, China’s state-run Global Times suggested Tuesday.

The state’s organ makes the suggestion for the government of China to test American reaction.

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted an exercise near the island of Taiwan on Monday with the largest number of warplanes ever recorded, which could be a rehearsal of a reunification-by-force operation,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece wrote on April 13.

China’s PLA deployed 25 aircraft to fly over Taiwan, breaching its air defense identification zone (ADIZ), on April 12, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a statement.

The PLA’s exercise included “14 J-16 and four J-10 multirole fighters, four H-6K strategic bombers, two KQ-200 anti-submarine warfare (ASW)-capable aircraft, as well as one KJ-500 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) platform,” the military website Janes reported Monday, citing the MND’s statement.

The air sortie was the PLA’s largest near Taiwan since the sovereign nation began publicly reporting PLA aircraft movements over the island in September 2020.

“The number of PLA warplanes featured in the [April 12] exercise was a record since Taiwan’s defense authorities began to release information about PLA aircraft activities in the region on September 17, 2020, surpassing the previous record of 20 on March 26. The number of J-16s, a powerful fighter jet, was also the biggest of all exercises,” the Global Times boasted on Tuesday.

“The exercise could be a rehearsal of its [the PLA’s] combat plan over the Taiwan island, and it could feature air superiority seizure, and attack on land and maritime targets, including warships of interfering foreign countries,” Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the newspaper.

The PLA’s record-breaking exercise near Taiwan on April 12 was a direct response to the U.S. issuing new guidelines meant to “deepen” its unofficial support of Taiwan nation two days earlier on April 10.

“The exercise conducted by the PLA served as a warning to Taiwan secessionists and the US after the two had made a series of provocative moves,” the Global Times wrote on Monday.

“On Saturday [April 10], the US Department of State announced new guidelines to encourage US government engagement with the island that reflects their ‘deepening unofficial relationship.’ Officials on the island recently also claimed that the island is drawing a line 30 nautical miles away from the island, attempting to deny PLA aircraft approaches,” the newspaper noted.

Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province and has vowed to reunify the island, located off China’s southeast coast, with mainland China by force if necessary.

What is the “Biden” administration most likely to do if China invades and annexes Taiwan (in addition to blaming Trump)?

Go to war with China?

Negotiate with China?

Nothing?

Lending weight to the depressing forecasts examined in our post Is America in decline? (March 1, 2010), here is news of China’s ambition and intention to become militarily mightier than America:

As America unilaterally disarms, a Chinese officer in a new book touts a new reality — that China is prepared to rule the roost, and the U.S. better keep off the grass.

On April 5, 2009, in Prague, President Obama gave a speech in which he pledged America would work toward a “world without nuclear weapons.” Almost a year later, it seems we are moving toward a world without American nuclear weapons.

“To put an end to Cold War thinking,” the president said, “we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same.” The others, such as China, seem to have other plans.

“China’s big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power,” People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Col. Liu Migfu writes in a newly published book, “The China Dream.” This dream could rapidly become America’s nightmare.

These are heady days for China, flush with American cash and holding large chunks of our debt.

China today has nearly $2.4 trillion in foreign exchange holdings, with roughly $1.6 trillion of that in dollar-based assets. It’s the No. 1 holder of U.S. debt in the world.

The Chinese military, infuriated by America’s sale of $6.4 billion in arms to Taiwan, recently wanted to dump some of China’s vast holdings of U.S. Treasury and corporate bonds on the market, hoping to punish us economically. China has too much at stake to do it, perhaps, but the threat is real. And in an actual crisis over Taiwan, who knows?

It would be easy to dismiss all of this as bluster, but we’d do so at our peril. China’s economic advancement and military buildup are real, as is the threat in both areas. The leadership in Beijing does not let its military speak so publicly and bluntly unless it wants to send a message that is clear and unmistakable.

Col. Liu argues that China should use its growing revenues to become the world’s biggest military power, to the point where the U.S. “would not dare and would not be able to intervene in military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.”

That possibility is increasingly real. As Defense Secretary Roberts Gates said in a recent speech to the Air Force Association: “Investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare (by China), anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, and ballistic missiles could threaten America’s primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific — in particular our forward air bases and carrier strike groups.”

Of specific concern is a new Chinese missile, the land-based DF-21. It’s the world’s first ballistic missile capable of hitting a moving target at sea and is designed to attack and sink U.S. carrier battle groups. The conventionally armed missile has maneuverable warheads and a range in excess of 1,000 miles.

Against this backdrop we see the U.S. almost unilaterally disarming. The administration ended financing for a new nuclear warhead to replace our aging inventory …

The new strategy will also seek to abandon Bush administration plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons known as bunker busters to penetrate hardened underground targets like the nuclear facilities in North Korea and Iran.

We have abandoned long-range, ground-based missile defense in Europe and cut planned deployment in Alaska and California. We have stopped production of the fifth-generation F-22 Raptor and have no plans for a follow-on strategic bomber or to replace our aging strategic missiles in their silos.

“I’m very pessimistic about the future,” writes another PLA officer, Col. Dai Xu, in another recently published book. “I believe that China cannot escape the calamity of war, and this calamity may come in the not-too-distant future, at most in 10 to 20 years.”

The alarming fact exposed in this Investors’ Business Daily editorial is that China is actively assisting Iran to make nuclear weapons.

What it also reveals is that Taiwan, supposedly in perpetual fear of being swallowed by China, is actually proving highly useful to it. If the Taiwanese have calculated that being so is a surer way for it to protect its independence than by relying on American guarantees, they may be right. But are they in danger of alienating  the US  by indirectly helping Iran achieve nuclear war capability?  The US could order them to stop. But how likely is the Obama administration to do that? The only country Obama is willing and eager to bully is Israel. Taiwan can see the odds are in its favor and boldly take the risk.

For a while, China was selling the international community the line that there should be no sanctions on Tehran without the “consensus” of the global community. …

But the mask is off now: It turns out China has been helping the other side all along, not just by roadblocking U.N. efforts to stop Iran from destabilizing its region, but doing so at a profit.

In 2008, an unnamed Chinese company, probably with ties to the communist government, commissioned Heli-Ocean Technology of Taiwan to ship 108 pressure transducers to someone in Tehran. The Taiwanese firm went along and shipped the sensitive devices in violation of U.N. sanctions. The instruments convert pressure to analog electrical signals, and can produce the precise measurements necessary to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Iran has been trying to get these devices for years, according to the Associated Press, and so far every effort had been thwarted by international controls. It took China to breach the system and now Iran’s much further along in developing a nuclear weapon.

China’s act blatantly violates U.N. sanctions on Iran as well as bans set by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an international organization charged with controlling the export of nuclear materials. It shows just how duplicitous China is on Iran and highlights the growing need for a harder response from the West.

China has access to the best in Western nuclear equipment through Taiwan and ought to see some punishment for its profiteering. If the [US] administration can issue sanctions on cheap Chinese tires, it certainly can issue new restrictions on the kinds of equipment China has access to. Should Beijing be unable to keep its word on U.N. sanctions, it should be treated as harshly as Iran.

How harshly is that?

And isn’t the US deeply in debt to China?

And – the biggest question – why does China want Iran to be a nuclear power?  (Bet you Hillary Clinton couldn’t answer that one.)

It seems that Obama is willing to go to some lengths to ingratiate himself with the Chinese communist regime. Will he go so far as to feed free Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China?

Obama stated that Taiwan was not part of China, but rather part of the People’s Republic of China. This is effectively a denial of any sovereignty for Taiwan whatsoever. Obama has erased the deliberate ambiguity that the US has cultivated with regard to the position of Taiwan by stating that Taiwan is part of the PRC. This reduces it to the status of a rebellious province, a position that China has always held. And while Obama did not explicitly disavow further US arms sales to Taiwan, considering his disregard for the TRA and the Six Assurances, such a move may not be long in coming. …

This policy should not be seen as a complete surprise either. Rejected former nominee for Chairman of the National Intelligence Council [Charles Freeman] was openly on the PRC payroll and an apologist for its worst atrocities. By drafting the National Intelligence Estimate, Freeman would have been in an ideal position to put pen to paper and make the argument that Taiwan was no longer threatened by the People’s Republic of China, and thereby drastically limit or cut off arms sales to China entirely.

Dennis C. Blair, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, who nominated Freeman and backed him all the way, served as a collaborator in the Muslim Indonesian genocide of East Timor, also got rather cozy with China, assuring the Bush Administration that there was nothing to worry about with regard to an invasion of Taiwan, until he was finally forced out by Rumsfeld. That is the character of the Obama Administration’s position on Taiwan.

As a Senator running for office, Obama refused to back the sale of F-16’s to Taiwan. As Taiwan’s air force continues to age, it will have less ability to resist the People’s Republic of China, without additional US arms sales. Obama dodged the question about arms sales to Taiwan, and it’s likely that he will continue to dodge it, thereby weakening Taiwan and strengthening China.

In 1973 Mao assumed that the People’s Republic of China would have to wait another century to seize Taiwan. But he had not counted on Carter and Obama who less than 50 years later, have brought the vision of that red handed mass murderer closer to being than ever.

To read what he stated, or came very near to stating, and to follow the rather complicated history of US policy in regard to the PRC and Taiwan, see the whole of the article by Daniel Greenfield here.

 From the Washington Post:

China’s defense spending is far outpacing that of other nations in its region, and its aggressive development of ballistic and cruise missiles and attack submarines threatens to upset the balance of power in Asia and beyond, according to a Pentagon report released yesterday. China’s official military budget grew nearly 18 percent in 2008 to $60 billion, although the Pentagon estimates spending at $105 billion to $150 billion. Its 2005 military budget was 10 times as high as the 1989 budget, and if current trends continue, the 2009 budget will nearly double the 2005 figure, according to the report, mandated annually by Congress… The report also says China’s People’s Liberation Army is acquiring large numbers of "highly accurate" cruise missiles and modernizing its long-range ballistic missile force by making it more mobile and, therefore, more secure. "China has the most active land-based ballistic and cruise missile program in the world," it states. China continues to build up an arsenal of short-range missiles along its coast opposite Taiwan … The longer-range DF-31A missile, deployed in 2007, has a range of almost 7,000 miles and "can target any location in the continental United States," the report says …