Opinion: Biden Is Building Back Better—But for Whom?

By Paul Angel

When Joe Biden promised America he was going to “build back better,” we had no idea he was referring to Afghanistan. As we go to press, the Taliban is much better off than it was 20 years ago. Currently, although facts are sketchy (as are nearly all official statements coming from this administration), America has left behind as much as $15 billion in sophisticated U.S. military hardware. The Taliban—besides now possessing blackhawk helicopters, thousands of pairs of night vision goggles, tens of thousands of small arms, multiple attack planes and massive transport aircraft—now has a sophisticated military airbase that Biden abandoned in excellent shape. Yes, America has built the Taliban back better than it ever could have imagined.

Mr. Biden likes to brag that his ill-planned skedaddling from Kabul was the “biggest and most successful airlift in world history.” It was, in fact, the right move, but ended up being one of America’s most embarrassing moments. Today, critics of the Biden administration are characterizing the chaotic retreat from Afghanistan as “America’s Dunkirk,” which nobody with a straight face alleges was a victory of any kind for the British when their troops were driven to the shores of France by Germany in World War II. The only good news is that, hopefully, we are really out of Afghanistan, though we already hear warhawks on the left and right insisting we will “have to go back in” to deal with “ISIS-K and al Qaeda,” which evidently weren’t as “destroyed” as we were told.

In addition, as we go to press, an unknown number of our fellow Americans is still trapped there, with seemingly no way out. That is shameful.

When George W. Bush insisted U.S. soldiers march into that inhospitable nation two decades ago and “punish those responsible for harboring and aiding the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America,” he ignored the fact that those alleged to have hijacked multiple airliners that day had all been living in the United States for years, freely walking the country and even learning how to fly planes at a CIA-operated flight-training school, according to investigator Daniel Hopsicker. Thus, it was America—not the Taliban—that had been “harboring the 9/11 terrorists,” as the official story goes.

But that is par for the course for Democrat and Republican administrations, which have almost unanimously supported America’s bogus “war on terror.” Almost nothing we have been told about 9/11 or the Afghanistan war or the Iraq war or the “war on terror” has been the truth. And the people know it. In fact, a majority of Americans believe—and have believed for 20 years—that we have not been given the whole story about the events of Sept. 11. There are still hundreds of important  questions to be answered about the events of 9/11 and the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan.

So, in this issue, AFP authors discuss the events of 9/11 and the Afghanistan war in their own words. Rather than censor them—as we are seeing being done to anyone with any views at odds with the “official narrative” of our ruling elites—we let them have their say. You will find more truth in these articles than anything coming out of the White House, with minor exception, for decades.

Have we learned anything from our disastrous misadventures in the Mideast and Africa during America’s attempt to wipe out Muslims who object to U.S. interference in their nations? Evidently not, as you will see in an article by S.T. Patrick on page 13 of this issue. There, he informs us that we are meddling, yet again, this time in Somalia, where the failed model of arming and supporting insurgent militias is and has been backfiring for the past 10 years. Yes, America has been mucking around in Somalia for a decade with little or no success. When will our leaders abide by the advice of George Washington in his “Farewell Address” in which he warned the nation about foreign entanglements, saying:

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. . . . The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. . . . How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils?

There is much more advice in that document that space prevents me from including here, but one section in particular reflects the divisive and dangerous state of U.S. party politics in our nation today:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. . . . It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one [party] against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.

Consider what happened on Jan. 6, when hundreds of patriots, concerned about what they saw as the betrayal of this nation, stormed the U.S. Capitol. Find out the latest developments on this hyped event on pages 20-23.

Finally, I must also mention that this is AFP’s 20th anniversary. Less than a week after AFP was officially established, all hell broke loose in Washington, D.C. We stopped and looked out the back windows of the ghetto office building we were renting at the foot of the Sousa Bridge.  Black smoke was pouring from the Pentagon, several miles away. AFP itself was forged in the flames of 9/11 and, since that date, has tried to cut through the smoke to bring you the truth about our world in every word we print. Please see our special 20th anniversary centerspread.

Paul Angel is AFP’s managing editor.