Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker said Friday that he has "some grave questions" about President Biden's "ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief" after the Taliban seized control of the country following U.S. troop withdrawal.

Crocker, who led the U.S. Embassy in Kabul from 2002 to 2003, then again from 2011 to 2012, told The Spokesman-Review:

"I'm left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief. To have read this so wrong - or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care."

Crocker, who also represented the U.S. in Afghanistan under the Bush administration from 2002 to 2003, said the collapse of Afghan forces amid the U.S. troop withdrawal was the result of

"a total lack of coordinated, post-withdrawal planning on our part. That's why this is all so sad. It is a self-inflicted wound."

The former ambassador told the news outlet that the "direction" of the Taliban's military offensive was "predictable," but the "trajectory was not."

Unprecedented numbers of known or suspected terrorists have crossed the southern border in recent months, the outgoing Border Patrol chief said.

The head of the Border Patrol, Rodney Scott, told his 19,000 agents before retiring on Aug. 14 that their national security mission is paramount right now despite the Biden administration's focus on migrant families and children who are coming across the United States-Mexico boundary at record rates. Scott said in a video message to agents, obtained by the Washington Examiner:

"Over and over again, I see other people talk about our mission, your mission, and the context of it being immigration or the current crisis today being an immigration crisis. I firmly believe that it is a national security crisis. Immigration is just a subcomponent of it, and right now, it's just a cover for massive amounts of smuggling going across the southwest border — to include TSDBs at a level we have never seen before. That's a real threat."

TSDB refers to known or suspected terrorists, as identified in the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database.

"Your peers or you are taking criminals, pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and like I said before, even TSDB alerts off the streets and keeping them safe from America. Even if we processed several thousand migrants that day and even if thousands of them were allowed into the U.S., you still took those threats off the street, and I think that's worth it. So please don't ever undersell how important your mission is."

Following the Taliban's takeover of the country on 15 August, the US announced it wouldn't allow the new regime to access government funds, including financial assistance to Kabul from Western governments. Washington also said it was not planning to recognise the Taliban's government right away.

The US administration has frozen accounts at American banks that hosted part of Afghanistan's national reserves, cutting off the Taliban's access to the money left over from the previous government, The Washington Post has reported. The decision was made by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the media outlet said, citing an anonymous source in the government.

Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban", the newspaper cited the anonymous US government official as saying. The asset freeze was reportedly carried out under sanctions implemented against the Taliban in the follow-up of the 9/11 attacks.

International Monetary Fund data shows that the ousted Afghan government had $9.4 billion in national reserves back in April 2021, prior to the Taliban offensive. It is unclear, however, how much of it was kept in the coffers of US banks. Washington also used to send $3 billion per year in financial assistance to the Afghan government - a practice that is likely to be halted with the Taliban's ascent to power.

The US should have admitted failure earlier in Afghanistan, but now is time to learn lessons and not repeat mistakes. That's according to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who pulled his forces out of the same country in 1989.

Speaking to news agency RIA Novosti, Gorbachev called the US invasion of Afghanistan "a bad idea from the very beginning," suggesting that it was doomed from the start. He explained:

"Like many similar projects, it was based on an exaggeration of the threat and not very clear geopolitical intentions. Unrealistic attempts to democratize a multi-tribal society have added to this."

The Soviet Union sent troops to Afghanistan in 1979, in support of the socialist government, to fight against the Mujahideen. The conflict is seen by many as a proxy of the Cold War, as the Islamic guerrillas were backed by the US, the UK and other Western nations.

"The important thing now is to learn lessons and make sure that similar mistakes are not repeated," Gorbachev said.

President Biden's approval among Americans has plunged, as demonstrated by numerous separate polls.

Politico reported on Wednesday, "SIREN: President JOE BIDEN's average approval rating is below 50% for the first time this year. 538: 49.8% ... RCP: 49.4%."

The 538 poll found Biden with a 44% disapproval rating. The highest average approval rating the RDCP poll has ascertained for Biden during his presidency was at 55.8%; he has dropped over five points.

A new Reuters poll conducted on Monday found that Biden's approval rating had dropped by seven percentage points to rest at 46%, leaving him at his lowest level of his presidency.

"A separate Ipsos snap poll, also conducted on Monday, found that fewer than half of Americans liked the way Biden has steered the U.S. military and diplomatic effort in Afghanistan this year. The president, who just last month praised Afghan forces for being 'as well-equipped as any in the world,' was rated worse than the other three presidents who presided over the United States' longest war." Reuters reported that in the Ipsos poll, 44% of respondents said Biden has done a "good job" in Afghanistan. "In comparison, 51% praised the way former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama handled the war."

U.S. intelligence agencies warned of the collapse of the Afghan military and government at the hands of a resurgent Taliban over the summer, as President Biden publicly downplayed the possibility of a government rout.

While Biden assured Americans on July 8 that the Afghan regime's disintegration was far from inevitable, quieting fears of a "Saigon-like" foreign policy fiasco, previous intelligence reports indicated that Afghan security forces as well as the seat of government in Kabul were weakening and could falter, current and former American government officials told the New York Times.

A specific July report affirmed the increasingly vulnerable position of the capital to attack as the Taliban advanced across the country, capturing a chain of major provincial cities and towns, a person familiar with the intelligence informed the Times.

Immediately before the events of last week, the U.S. intelligence community was largely in agreement that the Afghan government could endure for at 90 days at most, providing at least some breathing room for an organized, efficient withdrawal of American boots on the ground. This prediction was already a downgrade from a spring assessment, however, which gave the Afghan regime two years to hold together.

We've reached the point where state actors can penetrate rectums and vaginas, where judges can order forced catheterizations, and where police and medical personnel can perform scans, enemas and colonoscopies without the suspect's consent. And these procedures aren't to nab kingpins or cartels, but people who at worst are hiding an amount of drugs that can fit into a body cavity. In most of these cases, they were suspected only of possession or ingestion. Many of them were innocent... But these tactics aren't about getting drugs off the street... These tactics are instead about degrading and humiliating a class of people that politicians and law enforcement have deemed the enemy. — Radley Balko, The Washington Post

Freedom is never free.

There is always a price — always a sacrifice — that must be made in order to safeguard one's freedoms.

Where that transaction becomes more complicated is when one has to balance the rights of the individual with the needs of the community.

Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau envisioned the social contract between the individual and a nation's rulers as a means of finding that balance. Invariably, however, those in power grow greedy, and what was intended to be a symbiotic relationship with both sides benefitting inevitably turns into a parasitic one, with a clear winner and a clear loser.

We have seen this vicious cycle play out over and over again throughout the nation's history.

Just look at this COVID-19 pandemic: the whole sorry mess has been so overtly politicized, propagandized, and used to expand the government's powers (and Corporate America's bank balance) that it's difficult at times to distinguish between what may be legitimate health concerns and government power grabs.

After all, the government has a history of shamelessly exploiting national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes. Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, civil unrest, economic instability, pandemics, natural disasters: the government has been taking advantage of such crises for years now in order to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.

This COVID-19 pandemic is no different.

Yet be warned: we will all lose if this pandemic becomes a showdown between COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the right to bodily integrity.

A text from an FBI agent instructed an informant in the alleged militia plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to delete messages and shift blame onto another man, casting further doubt on the already doubtful case.

Five people are currently awaiting trial on federal charges that the "Wolverine Watchmen" militia they supposedly belonged to wanted to kidnap the Democrat governor. The FBI announced the plot and arrested them in October 2020, shortly before the US election.

In a court filing last week the attorney for one of them sought text messages from FBI special agents Henrik Impola and Jayson Chambers, citing an exchange with one of the informants, identified only as "Dan." A screenshot of it appeared online on Tuesday.


"Be sure to delete these," the agent - allegedly Impola - tells 'Dan,' and later instructs him to deflect accusations of being an FBI informant. "Best thing to do is deny and accuse somebody else," the agent texted, naming a man who wasn't charged in the plot.

Even the Taliban must be surprised at the immense speed of its victory in Afghanistan. The collapse of the US-backed government affects more than just daily life in Kabul, however, causing political echoes across the continent.

One of the last bastions of Euro-Atlantic influence in the Eurasian heartland has collapsed. As the US and its allies absorb the consequences of their defeat in Afghanistan, the major powers on the continent, such as Russia, China and Iran, will attempt to reorient the country towards a solution consistent with the Greater Eurasian Partnership.

A long way from Washington

Police in the Ukrainian city of Krivoy Rog have opened an investigation after its mayor, Konstantin Pavlov, was found dead at home from a gunshot wound to the chest, amid a crackdown on the country's largest opposition party.

Pavlov's body was discovered on the veranda of his house in the industrial city, which is around 400km (250 miles) south of Kiev, with a weapon reportedly lying close by. The 48-year-old politician was a member of the Opposition Platform - For Life party, which is the main opposition group in the country's parliament. The faction is known for its criticism of President Volodymyr Zelensky's government, and for calling for closer ties with Russia.

The authorities say it isn't yet clear whether Pavlov's death was suicide or if foul play could have been involved. However, Vadim Rabinovich, a prominent businessman and fellow party member said the mayor had been "killed" and that suggestions he took his own life were "a deliberate lie." A source told local news outlet Strana that, after being hit by the bullet, Pavlov managed to stagger around 10 meters before he fell to the ground.