We Do Not Leave Americans Behind
"Our hope is that we will not have to extend [the deadline]... There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain.” - President Joe Biden
“A creed that we at NASA's Mission Control Center all lived by: 'Failure is not an option.” - Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, Apollo 13
It has been a longstanding tradition in the United States to leave no man behind. Almost every branch of the military contains references to this in their various creeds, and there are dozens of examples of our nation going to extreme lengths to rescue our men and women from behind enemy lines.
Against all odds, we have even rescued Americans from outer space.
On the morning of April 11, 1970, the United States launched its third mission to land Americans on the moon. Just two days after liftoff, during a routine stir of the spaceship's oxygen tanks, a spark led to an explosion that turned the moon mission into a rescue mission.
The story of Apollo 13 is iconic and inspiring because NASA, embodying the American can-do spirit, quickly went to work and accomplished the impossible by bringing our men home.
The mission wasn't easy, and problems abounded. After the explosion, it was determined that the safest course of action was to have the crew slip into the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), use its life support systems to keep the crew alive, and fire its engines to start a return course with earth after using the moon's gravity to slingshot back around.
Would the idea work? We now know today that it did and would, but that outcome was far from certain at the time. In the movie adaptation of Apollo 13, Flight Director Gene Kranz shares a tense exchange with the Grumman representative (Grumman had built the LEM being used for a life raft) in which Kranz responded "I don’t care what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do."
This exchange underscores a mindset that is quintessentially American: it doesn't matter what limitations are in place, we will do everything humanly possible to get our men home. If it means breaking procedures or utilizing tools in such a way that they were never designed to be used, by God, we will do it. For the crew of Apollo 13, there was no doubt that mission control was doing anything and everything to secure their safe return.
What a different world we find ourselves in today. We literally have a presidential administration that is more committed to adhering to an artificial August 31st commitment to the Taliban than it is to evacuating thousands of Americans caught in the crosshairs of our poorly timed and terribly executed withdrawal from the country.
As of today, there's only one way out: the airport in Kabul. It's currently under the control of our military, but the ways in and out are controlled by the Taliban which has now decided not to let any more Afghans into the airport to be evacuated. There are even reports that the Taliban is turning away Americans attempting to reach the airport.
The airport is the one way out, so what are we doing about it? We are complaining to the British special forces about their rescue efforts in Kabul because it was making our nation's efforts look bad.
The situation has gotten so out of control that the State Department has warned Americans around the area to leave the airport multiple times. Yesterday, attacks outside the airport in Kabul left at least 13 American service members dead, as well as 90 Afghans.
To make matters worse, "U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport." This borderline treasonous action, which has even been subtly acknowledged by President Biden, has essentially put Americans and our allies on a kill list.
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, it is hard to imagine we have an American president that refers to Taliban terrorists as "military counterparts" and has a press secretary that considers them part of the "international community."
President Biden was quick to declare to the world that America is back, and yet she seems further from her ideal than ever before.
It is obvious that Biden is cognitively not fit for office and has allowed himself to become a puppet for the incompetent, far-left activists that drive the agenda of his administration. It seems he is on the cusp of a forced resignation, the only question is could a President Kamala Harris be worse?
"It looks like the president and his team have a plan that is just to accept the risk that we will leave Americans behind. And leaving a single American behind is a disaster. It's a dereliction of duty. It's a national disgrace." - Senator Ben Sasse
