BREAKING: The Resurrection of ISIS

Breaking news today on secular the resurrection of ISIS. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever.

This is secular. We know that terrorists may seek to exploit the situation and target innocent Afghans or American troops are maintaining constant vigilance to mom we're maintaining the consequences to monitor and disrupt threats from any source, including the likely source being ISIS, ISIS-K, the Afghan affiliate referred to as ISIS-K. But we're under no illusions about the threat. We want to hear from you.

Share and post your comments. Recall 1-800-684-3110. How real is this ISIS threat? The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent, and it is something that we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome to Sekulow. Listen, the title of the show today, the resurrection of ISIS. No joke, there has been a resurrection, a return of the Islamic State in Afghanistan utilizing the withdrawal of U.S. troops to begin amassing their own troops, their own fighters. They've taken some actions before in regional provinces, even some attacks in Kabul. But what we are seeing is a combination of two different terror groups who are now utilizing Afghanistan. The Haqqani Network, that is a mixture of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. I'd explain it as the foreign terror force of the Taliban, like how Iran has the Al-Quds Force, which is their foreign terror force. This is the Taliban version of that.

They work with Al-Qaeda to then plan attacks overseas, targeting non-Afghans, targeting Americans. We've also seen a rise by the Taliban who have said, by the way, if you don't get this done by August 31st, we're not extending any kind of safe haven. However, that's actually been an operation since we've seen reports of violence and death out of the Kabul airport, that they're not going to extend past August 31st. On top of that, we went from 2,500 troops that were keeping Afghanistan relatively calm, keeping the Taliban out of power, keeping the Afghan government in power. We're now up to 6,800 troops just to secure an airport. We are on the brink, unfortunately, I think, of one incident leading to another war in Afghanistan.

So that's the problem. Then you've got Khalil Haqqani, the Haqqani Network, which is a leading Taliban figure. He was out of Afghanistan.

Here's the problem. He's the one who trained with and his network is kind of a hybrid of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He trained Osama bin Laden.

That's who he trained and radicalized him. So the people that are now coming back into the country with influence, not just coming back into the country, but they're coming back into the country with influence, are the very ones that caused the terror attacks in the United States. So when we say the resurrection of ISIS, we wrote a book when ISIS first became prevalent called Rise of ISIS.

It was the number one New York Times bestseller. Now you've got in Afghanistan, you have ISIS, you have the Taliban, and then you have these splinter groups from them. They're calling ISIS-K because the province that it controls is both part of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now 2,500, I was all in favor of getting troops out in an orderly process. Let me tell you what this is not.

Orderly or a process? No, and I think, listen, we have not gotten into it yet, but the way that the administration talked about this in the lead up to the withdrawal, you would have imagined that ISIS was no major threat there at all, no major threat from Al-Qaeda either, that yes, there were going to be some bumps along the road with the Taliban, but that those outside players who are now the reason why the airport in Kabul is more dangerous is because of the resurrection. Think about this. Donald Trump and his administration eradicated ISIS.

They are back now operating in Afghanistan, which will become a safe haven for them to operate if U.S. troops do withdraw, which is exactly what happened and how 9-11 was planned by Al-Qaeda is that Afghanistan became a safe haven and they were able to make their plans, travel freely, and then ultimately release, unleash that deadly attack on the United States. We don't want to see history repeat itself. We've got our FOIA prepared on this. We are doing the work we can do on this as the ACLJ.

Rick Rinnell will be joining us on the broadcast today. We want you to support the work of the ACLJ, our matching challenge, month of August, double your impact, your donation at ACLJ.org. We'll be right back. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases. How we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists. The ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later. Play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry. And what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Alright so as we're reporting today and doing the image from Drudge Report we can put up on the screen for people.

We'll check that out. It was the return of ISIS was the headline on Drudge. We'll call it the resurrection because ISIS was eliminated.

Their top leadership was eliminated. Now this is an ISIS that operates in Afghanistan but shares the same goal. ISIS pretty much had lost their caliphate. The world threat from ISIS under Trump was relegated to nothing. There were different groups in northern Africa and there were groups like in Afghanistan trying to claim the banner of ISIS. But was it really ISIS was a question.

Well now we've got answers to that. But before we got the answers from the administration on yes ISIS is back. Three days ago President Biden in his address to the nation said this about the threat of terror groups inside Afghanistan.

Let's play it. Look let's put this thing in perspective here. What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with Al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as as well as getting Osama bin Laden and we did. But now these terror groups are back. Yeah and they're saying well let's play the bite where the spokesperson acknowledges that ISIS threat is acute and present. And this is where what is the President doing? And who's briefing who? Who is briefing him? Who is telling him to give a speech to the nation, to the entire country and say that ISIS is gone. They're not a threat. And then three days later have to deal with an acute and present is exactly what the words are.

Listen to them. How real is this ISIS threat? The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and it is something that we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal.

Now play the bind bite again. I want people to understand that. This is what's going on, just the beginning of it. Look let's put this thing in perspective here.

What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with Al Qaeda gone? Okay so there it is. Within 72 hours he gets it completely wrong. So here's my question to Than. There's talks at hearings, there's bipartisan concern here.

What is the temperature in Washington on all of this right now? Because Jake Sullivan's statement had to be prepared too. He didn't just get up there and say acute and present without getting that approved from the White House.

Well and Jay he wouldn't have said it unless the evidence was so abundant that it was unavoidable because that is not an admission that he wanted to make. Here's the concern that I hope is apparent on Capitol Hill today. That should have been readily known to them before this Jay.

I mean ISIS has been looking for a safe haven from which to operate for the last how many decades now? Of course this was going to be an obvious place for them to re-emerge if we have a withdraw that is this disorderly. Jay this week on the Hill look there are as many as five committees who have said they're going to have hearings on this. We don't have a formal notice for one yet.

The House is just returning today so I think there's a high likelihood you'll see a notice today. I think probably Wednesday is a day that we're looking at. But look Jay I mean having hearings is one thing. Asking real questions of this administration that will improve the situation on the ground as we speak it's another.

I think that remains to be seen whether or not that will happen. On the same day President Biden said Al Qaeda was gone. And now they've admitted ISIS is back too. But on the same day just an hour later it wasn't even that much later Admiral Kirby from the State Department spokesperson said this about Al Qaeda.

He's a real confidence builder by the way. We know that Al Qaeda is a presence as well as ISIS in Afghanistan and we've talked about that. But here's my question for everybody out there listening especially if you served in Afghanistan or are just thinking about this. If 2500 American troops working alongside the Afghan National Military were able to make these threats minimal from ISIS and Al Qaeda to the point where they weren't really able to operate.

Why was the Biden plan to just cut and run like this if things were working. You could end the conflict keep enough troops in place like we have in Germany like we have in Korea. But not like what we did in Vietnam.

But enough troops in place so that these groups who ultimate their ultimate goal is to get attacks restarted. I mean is this what we're going to be waking up to again? New attacks in America by radical Islam?

Think about how long it's been since you've used that kind of terminology. Where that was a consistent threat to the United States was radical Islamists who were being radicalized by groups like ISIS by groups like Al Qaeda. Is that a new threat now? Because I want you to understand what the Taliban told Joe Biden is not what they are telling you. They're telling you if we need to extend past August 31st we can. You know what the Taliban said? The Taliban said if you go past August 31st US and UK. One the answer from the Taliban is no.

Two if you stay there will be consequences. Again could this this is on the cusp of a second US Afghan war. And as you said we've seen an increase of troops from 2,800 to almost 6,000. Now you have an August 31st deadline.

Okay and by the way on top of that we'll talk about this in the next segment. The critical response unit that the Trump administration had with our military in Afghanistan or around Afghanistan. Gone in June which is why we're filing a FOIA lawsuit on that. Listen to the reporter question which is August 31st and listen to the response from Joe Biden. We're nine days away from the August 31st deadline. Will you extend that deadline or what is your thought process on extending the evacuation operation? There's discussions going on among us and the military about extending. Our hope is we will not have to extend.

But there are going to be discussions I suspect on how far along we are in the process. We don't even know how many Americans are in right now in Afghanistan. No I mean the number is so broad.

It's 10,000 to 40,000. That's not a number that the military can then figure out. Okay hey we've got 5,000 Americans out and they won't tell us those numbers by the way.

They say oh we've flown 30,000 people out. They're not telling you a breakdown of who the people are. Because let's say you know you got up to 25,000 Americans. Well that would be sizable if you thought it was between 10,000 and 40,000.

But if you're not giving us that number what I'm guessing is it's very very minimal. Because they don't know. Now they said they were moving forward. They can't get through the checkpoints. Yeah well the checkpoints are the reports from the ground. Now this is important. Reporters on the ground are saying that the passports are being ripped up by the Taliban at these checkpoints along the way.

We're going to get into this a little bit later too. Christians are being targeted specifically by the Taliban going door to door searching for Christians. Inspecting their iPhones to see if there are any kind of Bible apps or Christian content on them.

This is a report in the Christian Post. So Christians are being specifically targeted. But everybody's being targeted.

If you're not Taliban you're being targeted. And where is the critical response unit? Disbanded in June.

Why didn't you not disband it? What were you thinking? Or are they not? And when these generals get up there with due respect does it give you confidence? When Admiral Kirby gets up there and speaks is that a confidence builder for you?

Because it's sure not for me. No the woke generals are not just damaging the US military internally here in the United States for recruitment and things like that. But you see the problems when they're focusing on whether or not they should be teaching. You know Millie's wondering whether they should be teaching critical race theory instead of how they're figuring out Afghanistan.

There's a problem. They should all, I mean this is such a big failure you would think they'd all be resigned fired. But the problem is that from the Biden team I don't know if they're competent enough to pick the next replacements.

I mean certainly Joe Biden has shown the levels of incompetence of his leadership. Kamala Harris has left the country. Who is she? She's running away. Vice President.

Yeah she's running away. And so you have spokespeople giving us the updates on what people should be taking action on the ground in Afghanistan. Let me tell you something folks. If you're a woman in Afghanistan your life is significantly changed now if it's not overdraft.

I mean there are reports of fathers handing out weapons to their daughters saying either use it to defend yourself or to take your own life. That's how serious it's gotten because of being captured by these monsters that is the Taliban which is very similar because we got to know ISIS very well. They're different regions of the world and different cultures but the way they operate very similar.

Very similar. According to counter-terrorism analysts at a variety of different organizations and this is kind of the common consensus is that ISIS has been waiting for an opportunity like this where its fighters can now exploit what unfortunately is clearly chaos. So Thanh let me ask you this. We know Congress is concerned about this which is one thing but let's talk about what we're doing and we've only got a minute and 20 seconds here. We've got a FOIA going up probably today on this especially in that critical response team. Well one of the things we've learned Jay it's good that Congress gets involved but it often takes groups like us pushing them to look in the right directions and demand actions in the right direction. This FOIA Jay we want to know why they didn't evacuate first. We want to know why the resources and weapons on the ground were not either secured or destroyed in advance of this.

And we also want to know why descent cables inside the State Department were either ignored or not elevated as high as they needed to go. Jay look I mean it's a good thing that Congress is looking at it but we have learned time and time again we actually have to focus them in on the questions that need to be asked and answered if they're going to be effective. Folks we're going to take your calls, your comments. Rick Rinnell our Senior Advisor for Foreign Policy and National Security is joining us in the next segment of the broadcast. You can get your comments in Facebook, YouTube, Periscope.

Also you can call the broadcast especially on the air. Yeah we'd love to hear from you 1-800-684-3110 that's 1-800-684-3110. So as always let me remind you during the month of August our matching challenge, double the impact of your donation to the ACLJ. It's critical, it's important, it's how we continue to expand as an organization ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive and that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. There's a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, the play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family.

Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Secular. We're joined by our Senior Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy, Rick Renell. Rick, I want to ask you this right off the bat because we saw this response from the Taliban saying it was a direct response to President Biden and also the UK saying that if you try to go past August 31st, we're going to say no to get people out of Afghanistan. They call it a red line, interesting enough, the Taliban using that language. What concerns me now with 6,800 U.S. troops there, up from 2,500 troops, and the Taliban making that kind of claim that we'll start attacking basically after August 31st, what makes me concerned is that are we looking at part two of the Afghan war instead of the drawdown?

Yeah, that's such a great question, Jordan. Look, let's be very clear. On January 20th of this year, we had a very, you know, in Afghanistan, we had freedom, and the Afghans were looking forward to creating more freedom. And the embassy, the U.S. embassy, was working well. All of that on January 20th of this year. And now look at the chaos that we have. We went from Donald Trump telling the Taliban exactly what to do and the Taliban in fear that they would be bombarded from the air. And now fast forward to today, the Taliban is telling us what to do.

They're telling us to get out by a date certain. The whole script has been completely flipped. This is a political crisis. I want to be very clear, I keep saying this, this is not an intelligence failure. For those listening, you should understand that your government, the U.S. government through intelligence and State Department Foreign Service officers and men and women in uniform at the Pentagon, they all did their job. They presented warnings to the political class.

It was the politicians that messed this up at the end. We need to be very clear with our U.S. military. They protected the United States. They went to Afghanistan. They got rid of the immediate threat. They did their job.

They should be very proud and we owe them a debt of gratitude. The politicians in Washington are the ones who messed it up. Rick, the reports are, I mean, Jake Solomon has said this, he talks about the ISIS threat as being acute and persistent. This comes three days after Joe Biden saying that ISIS is not a factor in Afghanistan, so totally gets that wrong. Then another troubling report, and I'm not just doing this because it's Christian's fault because I know that the persecution of what the Taliban is doing to women and other groups is just outrageous. But we're now finding reports coming out of Afghanistan that the Christian, there are a lot of Christians in Afghanistan, but they have to operate pretty much underground as you can imagine, as you would know firsthand. But now the Taliban is literally, they've got a list because there's these house churches almost like China and they're going door to door.

They're asking for their phones, seeing if there's any kind of Christian content or Bible apps on their phones, and then they destroy these people, kill them. And this is what we're dealing with. And Joe Biden then decides in June to remove and dismantle the critical response unit that when you were in office was right there in the region to prevent exactly that. What are they thinking? Who is advising the administration? It's like you said, it's not intelligence here.

It's what? This is a policy move? Let's talk about who's advising this administration. Susan Rice is considered to be the domestic policy advisor.

You all know that that's phony. She's actually running the foreign policy. But do you know who her two deputies were when she was the national security advisor? One deputy was Anthony Blinken, our secretary of state now. The second deputy was April Haines who runs national intelligence. She's the director of national intelligence now. Those were Susan Rice's two deputies. Our national security advisor right now, Jake Sullivan, is the individual who sent Hillary Clinton classified emails on her laptop.

This is a group of people that are highly, highly partisan. They gave us Libya disaster in Benghazi. They sat on their hands during Syria when it unfolded into a genocide and ISIS took over. Now they're delivering us Afghanistan. Look, Susan Rice is the one who was Bill Clinton's advisor when the Rwandan genocide unfolded. This is a history of failing up in Washington. That's what happened. You're failing up is the right word because these people get promoted from the State Department to the White House.

I mean, that's how they were the number two. Now they're the lead person. You mentioned Benghazi. I think we're seeing Benghazi replayed on a much broader scale because we're the United States of America and the Taliban and Al Qaeda are not fearing us. They are controlling the situation. I wrote a book called The Rise of ISIS.

The end of that was we finally defeated them. The caliphate was destroyed when you were in office and now not only is it reconstituting, it's more dangerous. I want to make two points that are very important for our audience. One is that when Donald Trump was in office, he wanted our troops home a long time ago.

He adjusted the deadline constantly, not because he wanted to, because of facts on the ground, realtime information that forced him to adjust. You can have a goal of bringing our troops home, but you have to pay attention to the information that's coming on the ground. The second point, which is very important, is that yes, the Trump administration spoke with the Taliban consistently.

That's not the problem. Speaking to the Taliban is not the problem. The problem is what does the Taliban hear? They heard when Donald Trump was in office that if they made a move on cities, they would be bombed and that they would face severe military pushback. Through the Biden administration, the Taliban is not hearing that. They're rushing to take over Afghanistan. You know, Rick, you actually tweeted out today, it was a very simple tweet, but that the Pentagon and the State Department have no idea how many Americans are trapped in Afghanistan. So we get these numbers about evacuations, about how many people are on the flights.

We have got no breakdown yet of how many Americans have actually been able to get out of Afghanistan. How serious is that? It's very serious. Our Secretary of State, I think, is a disaster. This past weekend, he was talking about talking to, in his words, President Karzai. Now, President Karzai is not the President of Afghanistan. What's scary is I'm wondering, was he speaking to the former President, pretending like maybe he was still the President?

Did he not know or did he mix up the names? Either way, we have a press corps in Washington that is disinterested in the facts that are racing to cover up already and move on and talk about masks and COVID issues. Look, this is relevant to every single person listening because if Afghanistan becomes a safe haven for the Taliban and for ISIS and Al Qaeda, which is exactly what's going to happen, they will be able to plan future attacks. And that's what we wanted to guard against. That's why we wanted to utilize technology.

The Trump administration wanted to utilize technology to push back maybe bombing from the air or other forms. But we were watching them and there were conditions on the Taliban that were always going to be met. Rick, as always, we appreciate your comments, your insight into this, always something unique. And folks, we have people on this team like Rick Grenell because of your support for the ACLJ, August of Matching Challenge Month.

We didn't know everything that would occur with Afghanistan, but having Rick, having Mike Pompeo on the team because of your support for the ACLJ financially, that's why we could do it, folks. Donate online at ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org.

We'll be right back on Secular. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20. A $50 gift becomes $100. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org.

Keepin' you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Secular. And now your host, Jordan Secular. It's always good when the Department of Defense has no policy solutions for you. That's actually direct quoting from the Department of Defense spokesperson, Admiral John Kirby.

I think most of you have gotten used to hearing from him. First of all, he was the one who said right after Biden said there was no Al Qaeda, he said yes, there was. Same day within hours, when you start seeing that kind of conflict in the messaging, you realize you have a dysfunction in government. That's not good when you've got an active conflict going on around the world, focusing on Afghanistan. So we now know, one, that the Taliban has said you cannot go past August 31st or there will be consequences. Does that mean that's when the Taliban says we'll start firing on those aircraft, if they even wait that long? Is that, you know, that's a major threat. Yet our President's saying, well, maybe we will have to go past August 31st. Well, if we have to go past August 31st and the new weapons that the Taliban have now collected are being utilized against these transport flights, well, and they're no longer giving quote-unquote safe passage through their checkpoints, which they're not really doing already. Let's increase all this, say this all gets worse.

What does it turn into? A full-on war zone. We got almost 7,000 U.S. troops there.

I think there's still 5,000 NATO troops there. That's a war. We are on the brink of a potential war restarting, a war that was done in Afghanistan, restarting because of the failed policies of the Biden administration. But what do you expect when their own spokesperson at the Department of Defense answers questions like this about all the weapons being taken by the Taliban?

Listen to Byte 55. We have a vested interest, obviously, in not wanting that to happen. But I don't have any policy solutions for you today about how we would or could address that going forward. Policy solutions already put in place by the Trump administration to destroy any of the weaponry we couldn't bring back. Or return it. Yeah, return it or destroy it.

You make it inoperable, unusable. President Trump going so far as to say they were going to do that to the ports in Afghanistan. So even the infrastructure that we had built, if we couldn't move it with us, we were going to destroy it. So don't tell Americans that there's no solutions.

You missed the solutions because you withdrew the troops who could have carried that out and you just left the Taliban and ISIS and Al Qaeda with sophisticated weaponry so that they could first terrorize Afghans and any Americans still in Afghanistan and potentially start another conflict with our U.S. troops, the brave men and women who serve our country. Because there's an absence at the Department of Defense. That's for sure.

I mean, Lloyd Austin, give me a break. He loves doing congressional hearings on diversity in the military and critical race theory in the military and vaccinations in the military. What he doesn't like doing press conferences on is Afghanistan and the additional, what, 4,300 troops he just said to be in harm's way against Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban. Do we need to see another beheading video of an American to realize the threat that these guys pose?

So here's what you have. Reuters headline late last week says, Planes, Guns, Night Vision, Goggles, The Taliban's New U.S.-Made War Chest. An official said that while there are no definitive numbers, which they have definitive numbers about nothing, the current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban are believed to control, ready for this, more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including U.S. Humvees, up to 40 aircraft, including 60 Black Hawk helicopters, Scout attack helicopters, and Scan Eagles helicopters.

Scan Eagle military drones. Why in the world, when we were planning this pullout, was this stuff not removed? And that's where, Than, I know we only have 50 seconds here. Congress needs to get answers.

We are, because we're filing a lawsuit. Well, because the plan that Jordan was talking about was well underway. I mean, the drawdown was all the way down to 2,500 troops.

And guess what? Just like Rick said, Jay, there was calm. The Taliban was at bay.

There was still an environment where you could make these extractions. And yet when you accelerate it and you abandon the plan, this kind of chaos happens. And quite frankly, Jay, you hear the Taliban saying there's consequences and provoke a reaction. That's their way of saying war, Jay. I'm telling you first, they also are utilizing the rhetoric of the Biden team against us. So first we told you the Taliban said that August 31st is their red line. And in response to, you know, talking about Syria, the chemical weapons there, China now saying that the U.S. is the root cause. That's the word they used, the term they used, root cause. Remember that was the root cause of the immigration crisis that hasn't been solved?

They're using the language against us. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our Matching Challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. You know what I was talking about as we were finishing up the last segment was the idea that we're being trolled by our enemies and adversaries around the world. So you have the Taliban using the famous red line, which was a direct shot at the Biden and Obama team, because they used the red line language about the chemical weapons in Syria that did nothing to protect the Syrian civilians when Assad unleashed chemical weapons on their people.

They just ignored it, walked away. So they're using that and saying, August 31st, that's our red line. And by the way, I have a feeling their red lines are more serious than the Obama-Biden team's red lines have ever been. On top of that, you've got the Chinese calling the U.S. the, quote, root cause. Where did you hear that?

A million times. Root cause of the Afghanistan crisis. They're using the same language that the Biden team used to describe how they figure out the border crisis, which we all knew was a joke. They were going to other countries instead of figuring out what was happening at our own border, because they don't want to put in a wall. They don't want to use the security. They don't want to make the arrests.

They don't want to do the removals of those who have been here illegally, even during a pandemic where they have even more ability to take action. But also the Taliban continues to troll Americans by, again, utilizing what is a famous image out of Iwo Jima, utilizing their new uniforms and the new technology they have. That's why they kind of look like U.S. troops there.

That is not. That is the Taliban special forces that you're seeing on our team. They have special forces, too. You can see how those special forces could blend right into any situation, and you would think they were coming from a Western military. They are no longer hiding in caves, which is what was going on. Their political leaders still dress like that. Their militants, their top-level military looks like ours. I'm not saying they're trained like our level. This is the scary part of it. And they're mocking us.

Yes, they're mocking us. So, Wes Smith is joining us. Colonel Smith, he's on the road today, but he's called in. So, Wes, we just reported that 2,000 armored vehicles, Humvees, 40 aircraft, including the UH-60 Black Hawks, Scott attack helicopters, Scan Eagle military drones, countless ammunition left in the hands of the Taliban. You're a military guy.

What in the world are they thinking here? You know, Jay, the insanity just keeps multiplying over and over in all what's going on with Afghanistan and the Biden administration. You know, billions and billions of dollars of military equipment, ammunition, supplies. Normally in military operations, as you're getting the civilians out ahead of time, which is what they should have done as well, you're also getting your military equipment out. And if military equipment is about to fall into the hands of the enemy for 100 years, for more than 100 years, what the military has always done, you destroy the equipment. You never let heavy armament and equipment like that fall into the hands of the enemy.

We did nothing. We didn't use our air power to even hold the Taliban in check to keep them from taking Kabul, and we had that capability. But we also gave up Bagram Airfield, you know, surrendered without a fight there, which is where most of our military equipment is.

And went to Kabul's airport, which is a single runway airport that now, because the bungling just kept going on and on, that airport where our troops are is literally surrounded by the enemy, surrounded by Taliban. You know, Jay, this has made our NATO allies feel uninformed and somewhat betrayed. We're getting chastised by our NATO allies. I know, yeah, and the American people are alarmed, but tell you who's happy today, Jay? Our enemies. Yeah, including China and Iran and Russia.

Oh, yeah, they're watching this with delight, and it also emboldens them. I've been thinking about Taiwan a lot the last week, 10 days, because what this is doing is giving China tacit permission that they can perhaps take Taiwan militarily, because what we're seeing here is an administration that is not willing to take decisive action. There's a difference between having force and having the willingness to use the force on behalf of your nation and its people. And at this point, they're not doing that. One of the things that the Biden administration decided to do in June, Wes, is to remove the critical response unit militarily.

Explain to everybody what that is. Yeah, we keep, it operates through the State Department, actually, in coordination with DOD, but we keep a team on alert because incidents can happen anytime, in any place with the world. They are a quick reaction force. It's this kind of force, although it was a little more loosely organized during the Benghazi disaster, but it was that kind of force that back then, the Obama administration refused to let that force deploy to Benghazi to rescue the people in the embassy there.

But we do have that team always on duty, always on alert. And what did President Biden do in June? He disbanded that team, the critical response team. Why? I mean, what is the reason? Because it had to do with Benghazi.

Okay. So, I mean, it's all politics. They don't, it's not about actual, you know, what is going to be best for the Americans there to keep these in place. It's, oh, if this was in response to something we bungled, which that was another situation where American lives were lost, and they didn't respond with that critical response team.

They didn't even allow them to move forward. So, they don't like that idea. So, they got rid of it because it reminded them of another bad decision they made. You know, I put out an image. Do we have the elections have consequences image, one of those two? I mean, because literally it's an image I put out over the weekend, but I think more of you should see it than just on social media. And it's a picture of President Biden and a picture of a Taliban fighter.

And it just says elections have consequences. We're bringing back, unfortunately, as we get close to the 20th anniversary of 9-11, they're back. They're back because of our policies. Not because of how great they are, because of how bad our policies have been in a matter of months. Months is all it took.

Twenty years of battle to get them under control, and it worked with 2,500 troops left in Afghanistan, which is very small. And in weeks of policies put in place by this new administration, which isn't new anymore, and never really was new because it was the same people from the past when Rick was going through. Well, that's why they know they can do this. Because they've experienced what Obama would do and Biden would do in the past, which is nothing.

Now, here's my question to Than. The fact is, there is bipartisan condemnation of this going on right now. Even the left media has turned on Biden on this. They have, Jay.

I don't know how long it will last, but to me, this just proves the point that Jordan was making all the more. If you rewind just a few weeks ago, there was not only consensus that there should be drawdown in Afghanistan. There was really consensus, Jay, which is almost impossible to find in Washington, D.C., that it was being carried out effectively.

Because it was happening without additional harm to U.S. troops, without additional intelligence of terrorist gathering. That has all flipped on its head. But Jay, I want to quickly make one point, and it's one that Rick and Jordan were alluding to.

Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken, Susan Rice, Avril Haines. This is what we were talking about when we said the foreign policy of the past will repeat itself. Jay, we should have known in advance that if you put the same people in the same places, you're going to get the same results. Congress has to come together in a bipartisan way this week, Jay, and demand that something change. Now, a lot of damage has already been done, but we are in the middle of this still, and we can still get evacuations out if they will right course. But Jay, without personnel change, I don't have a lot of confidence that will happen.

This is what I posted to my Instagram. Those who are watching the broadcast will be able to see it. Just take a look. I mean, this is reality of the elections having consequences, not just domestic policy, but especially when it comes to a present foreign policy. They have so much more leeway to act without Congress being able to step in. And so this is a direct consequence. We are now, it is 2021, and we're going to be talking about ISIS again. That is, again, we're going to be talking about Al Qaeda again, and the Haqqani Network, and Pakistan again. And all these places are going to rise to the top of places that were relatively calm, where these people may have harbored the feelings, but they didn't have the ability to carry out these attacks. And with 2,500 troops, I think you can remain there, have an embassy, keep the embassy protected and other consulates, and this wouldn't happen. Instead, we armed the Taliban, armed Al Qaeda, just like Fast and Furious, but this time, instead of drug cartels, the Obama-Biden team is – because Obama also deserves a lot of blame for this.

He drew the red lines that never mattered. He went in there, you know, the root cause of immigration crisis. But understand, they have armed the Taliban. They have armed Al Qaeda. They have armed ISIS with more and the newest and best advanced military equipment possible. There's no excuse for that. You could have literally just blown it all up.

If you didn't think you had the planes, just destroy it. I think the American taxpayer would have been a lot happier with that policy solution, John Kirby, than no solutions, which is what he's saying right now, or letting our taxpayer pay for weapons just go to the Taliban. It's disgusting as an American.

But the world – we play that minister, the parliament member, the MP, who has served Afghanistan, who has talked about the diminishing role of the United States in the world. We have told you that there is a difference between America first and what this group is all about. They don't want America to be first. I question whether they want America to even be a superpower anymore. They are so much – I mean, their whole thing is making money. The Bidens are bought and paid for by the Chinese. We know that.

We've got Hunter Biden selling $5,000 pieces of artwork now to Chinese. So you think they're going to hold them accountable? No. The pandemic that they caused?

No. They're not going to. But we've got to keep pointing this out. Like Rick said, they're going to try to move to the COVID. They're going to try to move to other stories so that you don't see the atrocities that happen in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Al Qaeda and the Taliban and ISIS are pretty good at making sure the atrocities are seen. No, this is exactly right. And this is a catastrophe right now that's unfolding. And there are people being killed and hurt. And what a foreign policy failure.

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Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. I talked a lot about how I think the woke military is destroying the military and also putting our lives at risk. I'm not talking about people who serve. I'm talking about those who rise to the very tip top. We're talking about the Secretary of Defense, the guys who go from generals to CIA director. One of those is Mike Hayden, who was very involved in Afghanistan, but is a virulent anti-Trump person. So he actually retweeted this image. I want to show it to everybody to understand that our military leadership and former leadership is pretty disgusting. So on top it's a picture of ISIS. It's actually a similar picture from the Rise of ISIS book that was the number one New York Times bestseller that you wrote. It says, They're Taliban. Then it says, Are Taliban. It's just a picture of Americans in trucks and cars flying US flags with Trump 2020 flags and saying, Are Taliban. This is how our military is thinking about our own citizens.

Then it says we should ship those people back to Afghanistan, ship those Americans to Afghanistan. This is the guy that was running intelligence agencies at CIA. They're not that smart. They're partisan hacks and most of them at this point in their career are being paid by a foreign government.

He's probably making more money from majority Muslim countries or the Chinese, one of the two or both, than he could ever make in the United States. I say that because that's what they all end up doing and then they become these, to survive their Washington circles. It's disgusting.

It's disgusting. But yet we've got an actual conflict on our hands that is scary. It's scary because not just on the ground getting the 10,000 to 40,000 Americans out but are we allowing again the restructuring of terror networks whose goal is actually not to terrorize Afghanistan. They let the bigger Taliban group do that. While that's going on, they plan attacks right here in the United States. Radical Islam is not totally dead. We defeated a lot of its main elements, its rallying elements, if you will.

And its land mass. And the people who were recruiting, we were destroying it. Now we've given them a safe haven with new weapons, new materials, a newfound purpose, if you will, and what they will do immediately is start planning on how to attack Americans abroad.

So, Thanh, let me ask you this. We've got a Freedom of Information Act request that's going out maybe even today where we're going to raise a lot of questions about this and we want documents, especially why the critical response unit was taken down just eight weeks ago, also about the various cables that came in. Now there's also supposed to be congressional hearings.

What is the status of that? Because we're going to do this, but we know what we're going to get from the White House and the State Department on this. We're going to have to probably go to court once again, and that includes against the Department of Defense, which we're going to do.

I mean, I've authorized that as soon as they don't respond, we go to court. What is the situation right now with these oversight hearings? Well, the reason we're getting out ahead, the reason we're not waiting for these hearings to actually be held, Jay, is because we've learned that we actually are going to have to push Congress on this. I mean, look, it was days ago, it was the middle of last week, when we heard from Gregory Meeks and Robert Menendez that there would be hearings this week on Afghanistan.

Well, guess what hasn't been scheduled yet, Jay? The hearings on Afghanistan. Now, look, I think they're going to happen, but D.C. moves at a snail's pace, Jay, and when you're in the middle of a catastrophe like that, you cannot wait for it. So, look, we're not going to have an answer from the State Department and others by the time these hearings take place, but what we will have done is put them on notice that we will not accept a non-answer or an incomplete answer as a response. We are going to find out why they made this change, why they disbanded that critical response team, why they ignored the dissent cable, or how high that dissent cable got. Jay, when Americans are in harm's way like this, we have to get answers, and there has to be accountability at the State Department, at the military level, and, yes, at the commander-in-chief level. So, look, are the hearings going to happen this week?

My guess would be yes, Jay, but how effective will they be? I think that remains to be seen. And one other thing I'd say, Jay, you and Jordan talked about how China is saying that U.S. is the root cause.

Of course, Al-Qaeda and the terrorist organizations were the root cause of this, Jay, but if you look around the world, U.S. standing in the world is definitely taking a hit because, look, the United States was the security lead on this, so the United Kingdom and all of the others, they're in chaos over this as well now. I mean, I'm looking in our studios. We have all the TV cameras up. One of the chyrons right now is report Taliban taking Christian women and children. We know that they're going house to house with lists of Christians looking on their phones to see if they could verify it's them with apps and then killing them because of their faith. And then we've got this report that the Taliban are taking Christian women and children. That's all going on right now.

Besides the fact it's total chaos, I don't care what your religion is there right now, it's totally out of control. Let's take a call. Yeah, Julie Collard from California Online 2. Hi, Julie, welcome to Sekulow, you're on the air.

Hi, both. I think it's time to start thinking about impeaching the President because he is not even performing his most basic duty of protecting the United States of America, of blatantly Afghanistan, and also people and drugs coming in from the border. Sure. And can you start thinking about impeaching them, how we can do that? Well, here's the issue with that. You know, Julie, who would be your President then, right? Kamala Harris. She'd be equally disastrous. Right, so you have to question then, do you go through, you act like the Democrats and do this just for political purposes, which, by the way, they don't have the votes for.

Republicans are in the minority in the House, so it doesn't even move forward. But second, I mean, be careful what you wish for because she disappeared into somewhere else in Southeast Asia, not the problem area in Southeast Asia, by the way, Afghanistan or somewhere around there, but she disappeared, and when was asked about an Afghanistan question, she went to Vietnam, which, by the way, some interesting symbolism there because the Vietnamese leadership there, the ones that beat the United States, they are still also a horrendous regime, not quite as much of a threat internationally to the U.S. Obviously, we do work with Vietnam now, we've normalized relations, but, I mean, they're not terrorists. Those people that are my age, you remember what it was like when the helicopters were, you know, taking off in Hanoi. I mean, this is just, we are reliving, it's, you know, I'm not, I don't want this to be a political discussion, but it's just ironic that it's always in these administrations, it's Jimmy Carter, nice guy, horrible policies, okay? You know who kind of was the exception? Bill Clinton. Clinton was pretty tough when he needed to be. The others, Obama, I don't know what he was doing, and then now. Well, I think it's a new world view, it's a new world view, it's shifted a lot.

In 2000, it's shifted. Remember, a lot of Democrats, the reason why Hillary Clinton was always kind of having issues getting over the top, versus Obama first and then second even, you know, versus President Trump, was that the progressives really didn't like her. They thought she was too much of a hawk, is the term, too pro-military. And I think we can both attest to your work in the State Department that we disagree with her on most policies. When it came to foreign policies, and especially when it came to having to take military action, remember, she didn't get to make the calls, but she was tough.

Yeah, she was tough. That shifted from the Democrat Party, that's a different Democrat Party. Well, it certainly, yes, it was, and then Joe Biden decided what he was going to do was go back to this kind of previous Obama administration, or even flashback this back, I'd say he's flashing it back to Jimmy Carter right now. Yeah, I mean, the one exception for Hillary Clinton was, of course, Benghazi. But even that, remember, she was trying to walk a line for an administration that had put in this new policy.

I do want to say, I want to play Vice President Harris, because you brought that up. If you impeach Joe Biden, this is who you get as President, running away to Vietnam, which the symbolism there, horrendous right now, cancel that meeting. It's not even important. What is so important in Vietnam right now, with all the issues facing the world, that you need to be in Vietnam? But this is how she answered the question on Afghanistan. On the issue of Afghanistan, and to that end, we have seen a successful drawdown of the embassy.

This is today. You mean the embassy got raided, it was about to be raided by the Taliban? There is no more U.S. embassy. Do you know where the U.S. embassy in Kabul is now?

The airport. The building that was the embassy has been taken by the Taliban. So she's lying. Again, I think it's one of the most expensive embassies we've ever built. Unreal. And that is just, they're not telling you. But we're fighting back, folks, at the ACLJ.

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