Yes, it’s true that Biden’s policy choice to leave and Biden’s handling of the exit are two separate issues.
But no, it does not make sense to blame him for the tragic way the exit has transpired. Notably, the near-universal chorus of critics who condemn him for the recent painful and ugly atrocities committed by the Taliban virtually never provide us with the magical solution and plan that would have permitted a peaceful, graceful withdrawal.
There’s a reason. They cannot. They do not have an answer or a plan.
If he had telegraphed a collapse of the Afghan government, the same critics would, without question, now be blaming him not only for the violent departure, but also would be blaming Biden himself for the collapse itself.
It would be, of course, absurd to blame Biden for the failure of a government that did not inspire its brave rank and file soldiers to fight because that government literally stole their food rations from them, just as an example.
Yet it is also true that the best course for the Afghan people’s safety, for the advancement of universal human rights, and, in my view at least, for US geostrategic interests as well, would have been to dramatically increase troop levels again and then to finally put real teeth into robust and unbending anti-corruption measures and to have made that aid fully conditional.
But this last point is, in fact, debatable, and Biden also knew that it is also his first responsibility not to put more American and NATO troops in continued harm’s way unless he was convinced that such measures would work.
He made the decision based on that last consideration. Such a decision was a tough call, and he deserves our firm support and respect for making it, not our wobbly-kneed hand-wringing.
In sum, the current point of view of the lion’s share of the American press, that Biden made the right choice to leave but that he himself botched the execution, is literally diametrically wrong on both points.
That view is also shockingly ahistoric, utterly ignoring the fact that the only reason our troops were not being shot at for two years is that his shady, amoral, and foolish predecessor had already given up the ghost by handing the Taliban everything they asked for two years ago, literally behind the back of the Afghan government.
Joe Biden had it right when, as Vice President, he opposed the actions taken by Mr. Obama. He got it right as President in 2021. George W. Bush got it very wrong in 2001 when he jumped into this quicksand with both feet. Donald Trump actively betrayed American interests during his administration. I hope that he is eventually prosecuted and convicted for his seditious actions regarding Afghanistan (along with pretty much everything else)
I believe that history’s judgment of this evacuation will be very kind to Mr. Biden and very harsh on his predecessors — all of them.
We should also understand that in the real world, entities like the Taliban only understand force. Let’s leave Biden out of it for a moment. Do we really have no obligation to Afghanistan after all these years?
We lost soldiers, but they lost far, far more soldiers fighting Taliban.
We are kidding ourselves if we think that this withdrawal (which is certainly not Biden’s withdrawal, but instead is clearly a bipartisan withdrawal mainly created by the previous ‘president’.) will nit result in an ongoing series of unfathomable human tragedies, and for years, years, to come.
It is understandable that those who support Biden are seeking to find ways not to look this reality squarely in the eye, but that makes it no less real.
Again, despite that, I understand the decision. I would be lying to you though if I did not admit that I wonder if there is a way, some way, to stay, and make Kabul an international city like Tangier once was.
I tell you that the human suffering will be immense. Let’s not pretend that international aid administered by the Taliban will do anything. It will not.
The women and girls, non-fundamentalist Afghans, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities, and all those who worked with the west are being left to the dogs.
I do not blame Biden for this. I blame inexcusably sparse media coverage of Afghanistan over the past few years, Trump’s disgraceful ‘agreement’, and an incipient general American ‘turning’ away from involvement with the world.
The last time that happened, in 1920-1930, it did not go especially well.
It saddens me to see the Democratic party’s isolationist wing is uniting with the Republican party’s isolationist wing.
I understand that I am in a small minority of those who write for this blog in this view. Call me Cassandra.
I do not, by the way, believe that Biden is in that isolationist wing. Certainly not.
How about instead of Kabul we turn Riyadh into an international city. That would be more beneficial to women’s rights. Or maybe Jerusalem, that would prevent a lot of suffering and while we’re at it, or maybe Beirut, plenty of suffering there.
If any of this seems unpalatable, Terry, you’re welcome to join us isolationists.
I’ve thought for a while that Jerusalem should be an international city, accessible to all adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths.
“Physician, heal thyself”. I am no isolationist. I am instead convinced that the brazen hypocrisy that would necessarily accompany such attempts on America’s part will doom those attempts to failure just as the Afghan mission was doomed to failure from its inception.
America’s history — certainly since the 1970s — clearly shows that America is not capable of bringing about the changes you and I seek. America is, ourselves, too corrupt, too cynical, too greedy, and too racist to accomplish the mission you describe (and that I share).
We have explicitly betrayed ALL the values that underlie your noble purpose — not just once, but in virtually every overseas engagement. Not just Afghanistan, but throughout South and Central America. In Iraq, American forces perpetrated well-documented acts of abuse, kidnapping, and torture — crimes against humanity that we successfully investigated, prosecuted, and punished in the immediate aftermath of WWII — following policies ordered from the Oval Office. Yet we failed to prosecute even one official.
Our “war on drugs” created hundreds of thousands of refugees in Central and South America that we imprisoned in cages. We literally tore infants from their mother’s breasts.
The rest of the world should be spared the harm of further American efforts to “help” Afghanistan.
Do you envision something along the lines of how we helped make Sarajevo into an international city?
America is wracked with profound and willful ignorance, corruption, greed, suffering, and racism. I believe that it will take extreme and sustained effort over at least the next decade to restore the values and priorities we share to America itself.
While sitting American officials — such as the Lt. Governor of Texas — are blaming this pandemic on blacks, we are in absolutely NO position to tell the people of Afghanistan who should or should not govern them.
The very FIRST step in changing that unfortunate and sad reality is to ensure that America — starting with Massachusetts — opens our doors to the tens of thousands of Afghan refugees that we have created through our own blundering.
It appears to me that that alone will be a major accomplishment — and one that we here in Massachusetts are far more able to make happen.
You sound like you are arguing with Terry, yet I don’t think there is much of a gap between you on this.
I suspect I’m arguing with myself more than Terry.
I share his passion about the human tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan. For me, it is counterbalanced by another human tragedy unfolding in America.
Republican legislatures are poised to reverse legitimate election outcomes in a number of key states in the 2022 midterms. Fox News continues to spread brazen lies while pandering to out-of-control white supremacists across the nation. I fear that while Democrats dither and whine, the Seditionists will gain a House and Senate majority in 2022 — cheating as necessary in the absence of effective DoJ intervention to enforce the rule of law.
If the Seditionists win a majority of the House and Senate in 2022, I think representative democracy in America as we have known it since WWII is dead. Expect Donald Trump to be elected Speaker of the House, and expect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be removed using some pretext. Donald Trump will run in 2024 as the incumbent We sit by in idle complacency while the armed and violent Seditionists flagrantly and brazenly seek the overthrow of our government.
We MUST stop the cancer that is metastasizing through America. It appears to me that that requires the full focus of civilized Americans.
America is no longer the leader of the civilized world. Any attempted intervention in Afghanistan by America will do more harm than good.
I believe that the passion that Terry and I share is, today, best devoted to motivating other nations to stop the forces of evil in Afghanistan. That includes admitting that America has done its share of contributing to that evil.
You are peddling conspiracy theories again! No way in the world the requisite 2/3 of the Senate votes to remove Biden and Harris.
That’s certainly true if the Seditionists play by the rules.
Do you expect them to do that?
I expect them to not have the votes. In fact, I have seen it speculated in a couple of places that if the House impeaches over Afghanistan it will be Mitch McConnell who arranges for a near unanimous acquittal in the Senate. If you are thinking a violent coup the resources, ability, and will are not there. You really need to stop the doom scrolling! If the Republican Party tries anything close to what you are suggesting they really will get an up close look at what happened to the Federalist Party once THEY started looking like seditionists post War of 1812.
What would the Republican party have to do in order to convince that you they have “trie[d] anything close to what [I] am suggesting”?
They’ve already orchestrated a violent invasion of the U. S. Capitol. They’ve already spent the last six months explicitly promoting armed insurrection.
What must they do to convince you that they haven’t already done?
They will NOT drag Biden out of the WH or Harris out of the Naval Observatory absent a 2/3 vote in the Senate. Any hypothetical force will be met with force in the current administration. Kevin McCarthy very much wants to be Speaker which is exactly what I expect to happen if they get a majority in the next election, which unfortunately is what I also expect at this point. What does this country have to do in order to convince YOU that we are resilient?
Investigate, prosecute, convict, and incarcerate seditionists and brazen felons.
We’re working on it. Justice cannot and should not move faster than due process. We hear all the time of prosecutions moving forward and the 1/6 House committee is not getting a lot of sleep these days it seems.
The only prosecutions I’ve heard about so far have been for low-level players caught on camera. While they, of course, should be and are being prosecuted, that’s not who I mean.
Even Neal Katyal, former acting Solicitor General of the US under Barack Obama, has said multiple times on camera that it is past time for Mr. Garland to announce an investigation into the various activities of the prior administration.
The House Committee is little more than a media circus. If anything, its investigations will impede anything the DoJ might be doing. The House committee has no ability to bring criminal charges or to levy any actual punishment for those responsible.
I see no evidence that the perpetrators of this very real attack on the very foundations of America are even on the radar screen of those responsible for bringing them to justice.
I am reminded of the way we Democrats and the Barack Obama administration gave a pass to the perpetrators of war crimes in the George W. Bush administration.
We are still paying the price for our cynical and amoral decision to ignore those crimes.
But this guy says it won’t end with a Biden removal either. I’ve never understood why you are so down on the Congressional investigation, which absolutely can refer for prosecution and bring to light the parts we did not all see on camera, and I for one am not sure I want DOJ fanfare like we all cringed at when Comey announced there was more to the Clinton email investigation.
A recommendation to “refer for prosecution” is very different from an indictment.
I expect each and every important GOP witness to stonewall. No documents will be produced to any subpoena. The attempt will fill the mainstream media with more noise all during the mid-term campaign.
Donald Trump and his criminal co-conspirators have given us multiple demonstrations of how to paralyze ANY House “investigation”. I see no evidence that Ms. Pelosi or anybody else has found any way at all to defend against those tactics. Because they were so completely successful in the past, we can expect them to be frequent and well-practiced from here on.
I was as appalled by the completely inappropriate episode from Mr. Comey as you. The DoJ has been handling investigations like this gracefully for fifty years.
I’m glad that Mr. Garland has demonstrated his independence from the White House. I think it’s very unlikely that Mr. Garland would tolerate any sort of nonsense like we saw with the entire “Clinton Email” absurdities.
If America is unable to investigate, prosecute, convict, and punish those who organize, lead and fund the on-going Seditionist movement then that failure will be our downfall.
The American Taliban have already shown that they are passionate about ending representative democracy in America. If they cannot be brought to justice under the rule of law, then full-scale armed civil war will be the result.
That full-scale armed conflict is what Vladimir Putin and his American assets have sought from the beginning of this nightmare.
Indictments, convictions, and serious punishments are far and away the most effective way to end this insurrection.
I hope for your final sentence as much as you do. I eventually expect it and have more patience.