Afghanistan
Surprise presidential visits to war zones to spend time with the troops during Thanksgiving or other holidays have become a bipartisan tradition that everyone can support. While most view such visits as a way to honor the troops and express amazement at the amount of planning and secrecy that goes into such trips, MSNBC Live host Stephanie Ruhle took Friday to call Trump's Thanksgiving visit to Afghanistan a "photo-op" and wonder that if he will plan more foreign visits as part of a strategy to counter impeachment.
Putting his life at risk by traveling to a war zone, President Trump traveled secretly to Afghanistan to spend Thanksgiving with our troops on the ground, he even served them dinner. It was something special but ABC and NBC refused to check their petty politics at the door. In addition to reporting on his holiday visit, those networks decided to serve up the attacks of former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who chose to resign recently after disagreeing with the President.
It's now been nearly a full generation since Sept. 11, 2001. There are people currently serving in the U.S. military who weren't born when that act of evil took place — and the military still has thousands of troops in Afghanistan, the home base of the Taliban-supported al Qaida attack on the United States that took nearly 3,000 American lives.
PARIS — President Trump was right to cancel a “secret” meeting with leaders of the Taliban and the Afghan government following two bomb attacks by the terrorist group that killed 10 civilians, an American soldier and a Romanian service member in heavily fortified Kabul. The president is eager to fulfill a desire to withdraw remaining American forces in what has been one of America's longest wars. Who isn't?
Is this an apple, or a banana? The usual self-confident and self-appointed defenders of truth at CNN aren't sure because the controversy at hand is not one that involves President Trump, but rather former Vice President Joe Biden and a story Biden has been telling about the war in Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the release of self-admitted “American Taliban” member John Walker Lindh “unexplainable and unconscionable.” Lindh, who was paroled last Thursday from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, served 17 years of a 20-year sentence for illegally aiding Taliban forces. Lindh had joined the terrorist organization before September 11, 2001. He was in Afghanistan at the time and was also there when a group of Taliban prisoners murdered CIA officer Johnny Micheal Spann.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested after being kicked out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London...finally. For media who have spent the fast few years focused on the narrative, Assange was seen as the face that symbolized the threat posed to the United States by Russia, second only to Vladimir Putin. However, it wasn't always that way.
Though not as hyperbolic or inconsolable as CNN and MSNBC were earlier in the day, Thursday’s Hardball still featured host Chris Matthews revolting over the President’s last-minute decision to cancel Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s overseas trip, dubbing it a “cheap shot” letter that “doesn’t look good for the country.” Beyond that, Matthews speculated without evidence about what would happen “if something goes wrong” with government workers furloughed and stressed.
File this one as yet another instance in which the liberal media took President Trump’s bait, hook, line, and sinker, launching into apocalyptic meltdowns and illustrating for the American public how, for those on the right not in The Resistance, they’re the opposition party. On Thursday afternoon, CNN suffered a network-wide meltdown over Trump’s letter canceling Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s overseas trip less than an hour before take-off, calling the President a “childish” and “cranky” schoolboy who’s only concerned about “pure politics.”
Osama bin Laden predicted it and his prophecy appears to be coming true. In his book, “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” Lawrence Wright quotes bin Laden as saying: “Look at Vietnam, look at Lebanon. Whenever soldiers start coming home in body bags, Americans panic and retreat. Such a country needs only to be confronted with two or three sharp blows, then it will flee in panic, as it always has.”
Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw doesn’t want a “hollow apology” from Pete Davidson and Saturday Night Live for Davidson’s mocking of the Texas Republican congressional candidate November 3.
A new character assassination, er, I mean biopic about Vice President Dick Cheney is set to hit theaters this Christmas. Starring Christian Bale in the titular role, Vice appears to be less of a thoughtful political drama detailing Cheney’s role during the Bush years, and more of a gritty, gangster movie, depicting the vice president’s quest for absolute power.