Just six weeks ago, President Joe Biden promised the public that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would not echo our withdrawal from Vietnam.
“The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army,” Biden said. “They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy. … It is not at all comparable.”
It turns out Biden was right: He is presiding over a disorderly withdrawal far worse than Vietnam, with beheadings already underway and thousands of Americans reportedly stranded.
On Aug. 15, everyone could see this unfolding on their television sets. U.S. Embassy personnel were being evacuated via helicopter while black smoke from burning documents rose in the background.
Presidents have been proven wrong before, but never so vividly and so quickly as Biden has been proven wrong here. This has nothing to do with the decision to leave Afghanistan — it has everything to do with the incompetence of his officials in administering this withdrawal.
“I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war,” Biden had said. “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” But the Afghan military was not competent. The Taliban did overrun everything. Biden, as usual, was just wrong — horribly, arrogantly, catastrophically wrong.
Like any politician, Biden is now trying to pass the blame to anyone but himself. “When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor,” Biden mewed in an Aug. 14 statement.
Biden’s tone in that statement was quite different from that of his July 8 speech from the White House. “When I made the decision to end U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, I judged that it was not in the national interest of the United States of America to continue fighting this war indefinitely,” he said back then. “I made the decision with clear eyes, and I am briefed daily on the battlefield updates.”
Whatever explanations or excuses he offers now, the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan is 100% Biden’s responsibility. Yes, President Donald Trump did sign a deal with the Taliban that required all American troops to leave by May 1, but in every other policy area, Biden has shown no hesitation in ripping up deals Trump made. Why should Afghanistan have been any different? Besides, Biden already blew past the May 1 deadline anyway. Why not take the additional three or six months necessary to do it right?
The end of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan needed to happen at some point — indeed, we still do support the termination of this war. But it never needed to end this way, and it beggars belief that it was handled so incompetently.
The Taliban have always been seasonal fighters. There is no reason Biden couldn’t have waited deep into the fall or winter to withdraw, when most Taliban forces would have retreated to Pakistan for the season. He also did not have to draw down air support for Afghan forces as rapidly as he did. We could have pounded the Taliban from the air in order to buy time for more of our allies to leave. Given his zeal to have as many COVID-positive illegal immigrants admitted to the United States at the southern border as quickly as possible, Biden could have also expedited visa applications for tens of thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. and now face deadly reprisals at the hands of the Taliban.
Historians will debate for decades how and why Biden botched Afghanistan so badly. But his press secretary’s statement earlier this month is instructive. Jen Psaki was asked why the Biden administration was so confident that the Taliban wanted a negotiated peace. “The Taliban also has to make an assessment about what they want their role to be in the international community,” she told reporters. This incredibly, dangerously naive statement evinces the gullible belief that the Taliban care what the international community thinks about their legitimacy — or, for that matter, about whether the U.S. Embassy in Kabul tweets out support for Gay Pride Month. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should have spent more time studying threats to American security overseas and less time reading about “white rage.” Biden should demand his immediate resignation, so that he can spend a lengthy retirement writing essays about critical race theory.
This disgraceful exit from Afghanistan could hardly have been handled worse. It lays bare how hopelessly and dangerously out of touch Biden’s administration has been all along. Hopefully, whenever Biden comes out of hiding, this will serve as a wake-up call for someone.
