The recent report released by Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pulls no punches in its critique of the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. This 600-page document meticulously dissects the military’s botched exit in 2021, revealing a shocking level of mismanagement that raises serious questions about the administration’s competence and motives.
Is this just another example of “Politics as Usual,” or is there something more sinister at play?
Now, after seemingly rushing to abandon Afghanistan, the report draws a direct line between President Biden’s past as a senator during the Vietnam War and his current foreign policy blunders. It highlights a “pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners,” suggesting that this administration is not just inept but also dangerously reckless. The report challenges Biden’s claim that he was bound by the Doha agreement made by former President Trump, asserting that he had the authority to act differently. It exposes the glaring truth that state officials had no viable plan to evacuate Americans and allies while troops were still on the ground to protect them.
“pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners” – Texas Rep. Mike McCaul
The findings are damning. NATO allies expressed their vehement opposition to the U.S. withdrawal, with the British Chief of the Defense staff warning that “withdrawal under these circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban.”
Yet, Biden’s administration chose to ignore these warnings, keeping Zalmay Khalilzad, a Trump appointee, in place as a special representative to Afghanistan. This move signaled an endorsement of the very deal that sidelined the Afghan government, leaving them vulnerable to the Taliban’s resurgence.
Col. Seth Krummrich, chief of staff for Special Operations Command, revealed the administration’s stubbornness: “The president decided we’re going to leave, and he’s not listening to anybody.”
This refusal to heed advice from military leaders and intelligence officials raises the question: was this a calculated decision, or sheer incompetence?
“withdrawal under these circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban.” – British Chief of the Defense staff
The report also highlights the State Department’s failure to act on clear warning signs that the Taliban were gaining ground. Instead of scaling back its embassy presence, the State Department built it up, demonstrating a shocking lack of foresight. Brian McKeon, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, infamously stated, “we at the State Department have a much higher risk tolerance than you guys,” a comment that Gen. Austin Miler, the longest-serving commander in Afghanistan, countered with a stark observation of “a lack of understanding of the risk.”
“The president decided we’re going to leave, and he’s not listening to anybody.” – Col. Seth Krummrich
As the situation deteriorated, former Afghanistan Ambassador Ross Wilson was “comfortable” delaying the noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) until the Taliban had already taken control. Gen. Frank McKenzie described this as the “fatal flaw that created what happened in August.” The chaos that ensued left many Americans and allies stranded, with the U.S. government providing little guidance on evacuation procedures. The only advice given was to “not travel to the airport until you have been informed by email that departure options exist.”
“immaterial” – Ned Price
The report paints a harrowing picture of the final days in Kabul, with Consul General Jim DeHart describing the scene as “apocalyptic.”
As the Taliban advanced, U.S. intelligence tracked multiple threats, yet the administration failed to act decisively. CENTCOM records revealed that the same ISIS-K terror cell responsible for the Abbey Gate bombing had “established a base of operations located six kilometers to the west” of the airport, yet no preemptive strikes were made.
“apocalyptic.” – Jim DeHart
The long-term consequences of this withdrawal are staggering. The Taliban not only gained access to $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons but also up to $57 million in U.S. funds initially allocated to the Afghan government. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister, has since declared that relations with the U.S. are “irrelevant” to their policymaking. Meanwhile, a NATO report indicates that the Taliban is using U.S. military biometric devices to hunt down former Afghan allies, with “nearly 500 former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces were killed or forcibly disappeared.”
“nearly 500 former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces were killed or forcibly disappeared.” – NATO report
The human cost is staggering, with reports of 118 girls sold as child brides since the takeover and families waiting for buyers. The Department of Homeland Security has identified “more than 400 persons of interest from Central Asia who had illegally crossed the U.S. southern border with the help of an ISIS-related smuggling network,” raising further concerns about national security.
“118 girls have been sold as child brides since the takeover and 116 families are waiting for a buyer.” – Report
The Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal is not just a failure; it is a glaring example of political negligence that has left countless lives in jeopardy. As we approach the 2024 election, one must ask: will the American people hold this administration accountable for its catastrophic decisions? The stakes have never been higher.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
