Why is the decision by President Biden, his Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, national security advisor, silent field commanders, pliant members of Congress – to abandon Americans in Afghanistan so abhorrent? It goes to the heart of who we are. That makes it unforgivable.
The phrase dates to Roman times, “Nemo resideo” or “no one left behind,” part of who we are, “We, Americans,” since our founding. Embedded, it applies to living and dead, goes well beyond the military.
When veterans come home wounded, they are tended with loyalty, care, and empathy because we “leave no one behind.” When emergency responders risk all to rescue others from burning buildings, engulfed cars, forest fires, high seas, hurricanes, and disease – it is for that: “We leave no one behind.”
When Rogers Rangers, in the French and Indian War – later as Continentals in the Revolutionary War – concluded a battle, they “left no man behind.” Thousands of heroic rescues are animated by this sacred principle.
Americans virtually breathe it with a collective voice: One life matters.
Why has every president, until now, put aside everything to defend, protect, preserve, and rescue Americans’ lives – even one? Why did FDR, in January 1945, commission the Raid at Cabanatuan, rescuing those held by Japan after the Bataan Death March?
Why did we pull all stops for sailors on the USS Squalus in 1939? Why risk all for airman Gene Hambleton, Bat 21 Bravo, shot down over Vietnam?
Why did Americans risk death to save Captain Philips on the Maersk Alabama, or Iraqi POW Jessica Lynch? Why did President Ford – despite losses – rescue the SS Mayaguez crew? President Carter attempt Operation Eagle Claw to rescue Americans? Why deploy Green Beret, Rangers, Seal Teams, and Delta Force into peril on every continent in every year of their existence to save Americans? See, List of operations conducted by Delta Force; List of operations conducted by SEAL Team Six; The Army Rangers: Missions and History; United States Army Special Forces;
Why do we search – to this day – for 30,000 fallen in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam? Or writ larger, why has America never failed to rescue our own and allies, WWI and WWII to countless modern rescues?
Why have we placed such a premium on rescue of Americans from the Revolutionary War to Patton’s Third Army in Bastogne, daring rescue of an American doctor from Afghanistan by SEALs in 2012 to SEAL Team rescue of US citizen Philip Walton in Niger in 2020. Why do we do this?
Even as civilians, we concentrate all – often risk all – for an American life. Why did Americans rush into the Twin Towers on 9-11?
Why did we care about Apollo 13? Why do 1,150 Search & Rescue teams exist across the US?
The answer forces focus. It is fundamental. We “leave no one behind” because of that precept, inner ticker, principle – that every human life is sacred, and that every American life is part of us, within the family, what we live for, what we are willing to die for – lives in all of us.
This is part of what makes us different and what makes us whole. It is not logical but love never is. It is not mechanical, robotic, mathematical, explainable by cost-benefit, return on investment or politics.
It is about heart, the soul, living to our fullest – an innate understanding of things that often escape understanding, that we are not the end, but stewards of ideals that outlive us, that we are defined to ourselves and history by our willingness to stand, serve, sacrifice if necessary lose all for who we are.
Put differently, if we are not true to who we say we are, if we will not risk all to save others if we will not be who we say we are – if we instead turn high principle into low politics, breaking faith with our fellow Americans, sworn allies, those trusted our word, then who are we?
We, Americans – have always stood with those who counted on us, who believed we were different, true to values so deeply held that no evil, no cowardice, no concocted reasoning could separate us from our True North. This is who we really are, and why we have prevailed – as a People.
Are we different?
Yes, we are. We have kept faith, as much as any society in history, with the idea that principles guide us, that we owe something indescribably gripping that calls us to a higher level, bonds us to the wellbeing of other Americans, and those to whom we give our solemn word.
Americans are not cynics but people of courage. Cheerful, we are serious when chips are down, when it is do or die when we must rise or fall on truth and our word. Never is that more so than when evil rises to challenge the conviction and to separate us from our hearts.
Not all Americans are Christian, but roughly two-thirds count themselves so. All respect the Constitution, drawn from natural law, the idea that freedom is God-given. Perhaps that is why we insist on being true, understand verses like John 15:13: “Greater love has no man than this, to lay down his life for his friends.”
Perhaps a nagging combination – our history, higher angels, sense of moral obligation, honor, integrity, and sanctity of our “word” is what makes us believe, when we say “no one left behind” – we mean it. And maybe that belief – held in every American heart – is why we feel revulsion at what has just happened. An American president has abandoned Americans – and those with whom we promised to keep faith – to face evil alone, knowing thousands will die. Unforgivable.
Heres more:
o Taliban gave US the airport for Evac
o Taliban wants US to unfreeze assets to extend deadline
I say Freeze assets & extend deadline
Blame Jo for all
Thanks. Needed to be said again. I try to understand why this is not as important to those who have not seen the suffering. Oh well.
Jackass Joe, the Progressively Communist wannabe, is an utterly complete failure as an example of what the typically average American male or female citizen is! In fact, his entire Administration are phony Progressively Communist wannabe screw-ups who are cowards that should be ALL PROSECUTED FOR TREASON!!! They don’t want to “fundamentally change America”, THEY ALL WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA! Death to ALL traitors, our ancestors demand no less!
When a serviceman/woman joins the service, they agree to be stewards of each other. I have etched in my memory videos of the military carrying the I injured & dead over their shoulders to safety. This is because they take an oath of “no man left behind”. It’s obvious our President was never in the military and neither were any of his handlers!
The Military Leader have to stand up for the American Citizens. This has gone to far against the security and Safety of America.
Senile stupid stubborn arrogant narcissistic
PINHEAD
Thanks for nothing Dr JILL
And the rest of the WH occupants
The USA is paying dearly for the Supposed 81 Mil
who voted for this catastrophe of a ? Leader
General Milley, Admiral Gilday, and the rest of the military “cabinet leaders” are nothing but a bunch of fools clamoring and ass-kissing to reach the highest dollar amount they can attain for their pending retirements. These buffoons and losers have no business leading a horse to water. They do not have common sense and it’s apparent they do not care about the men and women doing the real work. This is what you get when you vote for dumb0-crats.
Unforgiveable and Unbelievable that a President of the most powerful country on the earth would give into the enemy so cowardly. What difference is a couple of weeks going to matter to the Taliban? Tell the Taliban we need more time and if they don’t agree then bomb them.
Focus. This whole world is a mess. All signs point to the Day of the Lord approaching. It is something we each face individually. It appears God is judging the human race. A lot of people barely believe He exists, and not many want to love and obey Him. He sent His son to save us, and all we have to do and can do to be saved is to ask. The church will be removed before the tribulation, Day of the Lord, then it will be very hard to be saved because people will be deceived. The antichrist will look good for a time, and people will mistake him for Jesus. The ones who asked to be saved at that time and refuse the mark of the beast, the antichrist, will be unable to buy or sell, and many will be martyred. Bad as that sounds, it’s better than spending eternity apart from God who has prepared a wonderful place for those who love Him. Think about it.
Joe Biden and his entire administration are not worthy of the office they hold. With the abandonment of our people and allies in Afghanistan, they have proven their mettle. As such, impeachment be damned! Every single one of them should be arrested and dragged out of their office buildings into the streets. I don’t want to see them in prison, I don’t want to see them shot. I want to see them taken to Afghanistan and dropped off at what ever stinking airport we can get a plane in. That includes Joe Biden on down. Drop them off, then the airplane can take off and leave them there. Let the Taliban deal with them the same as they would or will for the Americans Sh&t Hou&e Joe has.
And you all thought Trump was bad!
Excellent article and should be required reading for every member of Congress and bureaucrats in DC. That’s why I am so disgusted seeing our so called leader embarrass himself and our country on the world stage. Our allies don’t trust our president, therefore they don’t trust our country and that is unforgivable. Afghanistan is front and center right now but everything that has been done since January is done to weaken our nation. God help us as I don’t know if the nation can survive another three plus years.
This president is an IDIOT.
Joe needs to go
What would one expect if Walter Mitty was voted in as president?
I can’t believe that the U.S. would leave any of their own behind. What I can’t seem to grasp is that we are leaving our guns, ammo, Huvee’s, helicopters and aircraft for the Talibans. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR GOVERNMENT?
Unforgivable. Not only Uncle Joe, but puppet Kamala, ice cream Pelosi , Schumer, and all the corrupt Democratic leadership leading this nation into the abyss must go.
There is no way from the day the military was ordered to pull out till a very long time in the future, will the name Biden be remembered in a friendly way. The name Biden represents cowardice, treasonous, failure to communicate, total disrespect of citizens in the worst way possible, complete failure to be human.
Can somebody answer this question for me…Since the US Military troop numbers in Afghanistan was no more than 100,000 at it’s peak involvement and was drawn down to 2600 just before this fiasco, and the number of Afghan troop”s were never more than 50,000 but claimed to be close to 300,000 and later found to be false. Why on earth were there more than 600,00 M4 carbines among other weapons that were left behind? The numbers don’t add up. It appears to me that we just armed that region of the world on purpose…so who is it that we left those weapons for???
This pathetic loser should be in prison/ this is the liberals choice of slime/ hope he gets his due/SOON
RBC,
I have just three questions for you.
1) Given we are abandoning at least a few hundred Americans and thousands of Afghani that we promised SIVs to, how many billions of dollars beyond the already frozen funds (IMF, Treasury, etc.) earmarked for the now deposed Afghanistan government would you estimate it would take to get at least our American citizens back and how long a time frame would you estimate? Would the time frame be several months or be stretched out over years?
I understand from more than a few Taliban statements over the last week, that Afghani citizens won’t be allowed to leave and anyone who aided us is marked for death by the Taliban. Unfortunately, those individuals realize that as well as several cell phone calls by SIV holders have already made some news networks.
2) From reports, none of the Americans outside of Kabul have made it to the Kabul airport to be evacuated. The real count of Americans being abandoned in Afghanistan being far higher than the numbers being released by the Biden administration. Given the nature of tribal factions that make up the Taliban, with no one person truly being in charge, do you think any of the Americans still in other Afghan cities will be held for ransom or will the local Taliban in those cities just do what they always do with what they call infidels? The last thing we need to be treated to, at this point, is nightly news stories out of Afghanistan of Americans being executed.
3) I keep hearing reports from around the world that we are going to be negotiating with the Taliban and may even recognize the Taliban as the lawful government of Afghanistan. Given the tribal nature of the Taliban and all the competing fundamentalist Islamic factions that are also in the country now (all Islamic terrorists just called different organization names), it sounds like we’re going to be legitimizing a whole lot of terrorist organizations in the name of establishing some sort of formal diplomatic ties with these groups. How would that play out exactly, as we can’t exactly have a so-called “war on terrorism” or “fight them over there” (wherever there is anymore) strategy, if we are recognizing one of more of these groups as the legitimate government of a nation?
I would really like your response to these questions, as you have actual background in dealing with these types of players. Thanks.
Will wait & see what Biden does with his August 31 deadline. He needs to step up & tell the Taliban that USA will stay until they evacuate every person that we want to & not give in to them.
We are supposed to forgive, per the Lord’s Prayer. In my opinion, that forgiveness is conditional, for lack of a better word, on the offender sincerely asking to be forgiven. No one from this regime will ever do that.
Jesus forgave those that were executing him without there seeking forgiveness. Guess that’s why I’m a flawed man trying to be better, but I have a long way to go to reach the kind of perfect love Jesus gave/gives. I still kinda need the “ask”, before I let someone “receive”…when it comes to forgiveness.
treason is all i can almost all gov should be tried for treason and we are paying the traders to ruin our country
Elections do matter … a heck of a lot. And the integrity of the election process must be dependable and honest … the last POTUS election was not … and now we can see the dangers that are posed by a rigged election..
Could it be that those people being left behind aren’t woke enough to bring home? They don’t concede to the demon craps ideology so therefore they will just kill them. One of them went so far as to spew that they should send all Trump supporters to Kabul. I don’t have any military training but I can say that I would give it my damndest to get myself and others out of that situation. I guess that’s the difference between being woke and being a God fearing American citizen who loves my country and what it stands for
I’m praying that president Biden is part of a ruse to draw the taliban off guard so that tomorrow they will be devistated by the air cavalry, USAF and Navy air operation, etc. My heart refuses to believe that an American Commander-in-Chief can turn his back on American citizens and Afghan support personnel behind enemy lines.
Impeach him. This is totally unacceptable behavior for US Citizens. What was he thinking?
UNCONSCIONABLE. It’s IMPERATIVE that Biden and his ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION be held accountable and sent packing. NOW. We CAN NOT wait untill 2022 midterms. AMERICA’S SOVEREIGNTY, SECURITY , INTEGRITY DEMANDS IT.
Another incisive article. This is the most wicked administration – I say in US history – but my son says at least 100 years. But wicked and evil it is.
A stolen election makes a stolen country
Remember Bengazi? Abdicating the supreme obligation to “protect and defend” American citizens is nothing new to this man whether serving then as VP under Obama or now as our sitting President.
We are where we are because the top military brass and top civilian authorities are officious timeservers, empty uniforms and empty suits. They believe in “no guts, no glory” as long as it is someone else’s guts. I have not seen any who are “fist in, last out” people. These people remind me of my Vietnam serve, in-country and later here at home. G. Knoll
C’mon folks, we all have questions about the same election, until we get to the bottom of it, which way is FORWARD??
Beautiful article. Makes us feel proud of who we are and what we stand for, all good but then why does anyone think we are anything but evil when we allow and even applaud the horrendous murder of those most innocent and most in need of protection in their mother’s wombs. We have killed well over 60,000 innocent American babies since Roe v Wade. Maybe this evil administration is the payback for allowing this to continue
“No one left behind” is a part of America. However, Loopy Joe and his gang of socialist/globalists are no longer Americans. They are Globalists bent on getting America into the one-world government by destroying our government, economy, miitary, education system, and Christianity. They are evil, wicked, and a spawn of satan. They cannot be trusted or believed in anything. Lying is what they do.
If our elected polictian’s are running amok, why is it , our elected officials already in place have been amok for the past nine months. See my reasoning!!
I could not have expressed it any better. Basement Joe and his entire administration had they had an INTEGRITY would and should resign. I served, albeit a long time ago 1953-1961 in the Marine Corps, I would never believe that any American let alone the current President could even contemplate such an action. In short it is disgusting and demonstrates just what kind of a low life our POS President really is!
I’ve been contemplating what I’ve seen on the news the last few days and I’m appalled. I thought, who have we been fighting in Afghanistan for the past two decades? Who did our commander in chief put in control of security for people going in to the airport to be evacuated? And, to whom did he give a list of names, American and Afghanis that need to be evacuated ????? And the answer to all three questions is the TALEBAN!!! JUST HOW STUPID CAN ONE MAN BE???????????
This is all a result of softening our nations temper and resolve. Reinsert God back into our lives as per the past . Inculcate Patriotic principles, and ideals, get back to our real Constitution, and bill of Rights. Drain the frigging swamp. Defeat the frigging leftist of our nation. And defeat the rinos who vote with the left. And impeach Biden and his whole admin. They’re all a bunch of brown nose’s. I’m a Patriot, and I’m on the downhill side of 86, and a retired Cpo or the USN.
Over throw the corrupt politicians in the whitehouse they are are part of the Chinese communists!!!
We need to get rid of the village idiot and his puppet masters
What are We The People waiting for ? The election was proven to be a farce, the newly “elected regime” is taking our country, our rights, and our freedoms! To them our Constitution means nothing.
Why have they opened our borders to terrorists, criminals and those infected with disease, only to come here and get on welfare, medicaid while we the people are burdened with the cost ? Since when do we arm our enemies and leave our citizens and military to those who torture and kill them ?
Why do we waste time and allow this horror continue” Lets give a vote of no confidence to a falsely elected president and all the politicians who do not represent the People of the United States!
No longer can I watch as Biden and his puppeteers commit treason on a daily basis! They should all be arrested, tried, locked up, and throw the key away!
Just a few months ago the United States was a world power with many allies and the example of strength and freedom.. Now look where we are. People don’t let this happen.
And these MUD-SLINGING, LOW-LIFE DEMOCRATS HAVE THE NERVE to call Conservative voters “DEPLORABLES”..?!?
Let us raise our voices in unison in a cry to impeach Joe Biden. Write, call, text email your Congressional Representative and insist that the House of Representatives initiate Articles of Impeachment against the President. Lets not simply use our voices in anger on AMAC-lets raise them where they might do some good. And remind your representative that you VOTE, and it won’t be for he/she if he/she does nothing in this situation because that means he/she is PART of the PROBLEM!
Only God can save the America we all have loved and served since the beginning and if we stand firm and not give in to those who want to destroy it, he will.
My heart breaks for every family who has lost a loved one to this horrific virus that was inflicted on us on purpose and for the brave soldiers who gave their lives to save others.
Please pray for and support every Christian conservative candidate running for 2022.
If you can’t support them monetarily, pray for them!
Pray for the truth to come out concerning the 2020 election.
It doesn’t really matter who won.
True Americans just want the next to be fair.
Your comment that every president has done this should exempt Obama after his Benghazi failure.
My father was a 6th Ranger in WWII and took part in the Raid at Cabanatuan. He would be so disappointed in his country now.
If Jackass Joe doesn’t step down it’s obvious from his destructive policies that are targeting GOP run states that he is intent on destroying America. It’s time Red States band together and talk about secession before he succeeds in destroying America, the Constitution and Capitalism! I bet the Blue States can’t survive on their own.
Stupid, incompetent and just un-trust worthy explains the current administration in Washington. Biden and his minions need to answer to the American people, not the Taliban, China or Russia. The world and our allies are looking at America with shame and skepticism. Have we as a nation lost our will to fight for what is right. I fear many of us have. This is not the country I grew up in, and it’s not one I want to live in under these conditions. We need to take America back from the Socialist Democrats who are destroying our nation.