Stories like this are going to come out now. The Biden State and Defense Departments quietly arranged for an escape route in which Taliban members escorted Americans to gates at the Kabul airport in a secret arrangement with the US.
The left, the right, and nearly all of the press were crowing at the time about Biden being caught flat-footed. This was not true, as we now see. Those of us who have defended Biden’s handling of the exit from Afghanistan, whether or not we were in the small minority who do not agree with the full withdrawal from the country, are not surprised to learn that Biden and his team were working skillfully behind the scenes.
But now that the decision to leave has been made, we should support the president, and also support his coming efforts to use our remaining leverage (foreign aid, frozen assets, the need to have international support) to limit Taliban foreign reach and try to limit the coming humanitarian and human rights crises.
When the full story is written, President Biden will – and should – get credit as Commander in Chief for the monumental achievement of getting over 100,000 people and all but 200 Americans, so far, out of Afghanistan safely in nearly impossible circumstances. Circumstances that were not of his making.
There is a growing myopia on the left, causing it to lose sight of the stark reality that Biden’s success as president is critical to preventing a political catastrophe in 2022, which would result in the continuation of the assault on democracy represented by the 1/6/21 attack on our national congress at the Capitol.
As we were saying in 2015, wake up.
It’s frustrating for those of us who warned against staying in Afghanistan after our initial response to 9/11 to now see the country turn away from a people whose expectations we raised. I realize this is an unpopular perspective.
The frustrating thing is that it was also an unpopular perspective in 2001 not to stay in the first place. As I said back then, we likely should not have gone militarily. Instead, we should have had the patience to ride the wave of international sympathy and identification with us after 9/11 for decades.
Instead , we destroyed much of that soft power, first in Afghanistan, which at least was a logical – if unwise- response to 9/11, then swinging wildly by invading Iraq.
On thing is certain, we need to break the chain of bad decisions by supporting this president in his patriotic decision after Charlottesville to step forward to defend this democracy from racist fascism.
I wrote about this in an article in The Citizen, the newspaper at the Harvard Kennedy School in October of 2001 called “No Targets”.
By being baited into another foreign military intervention, we destroyed much of our credibility, as well as the good will toward us after 9/11.
Biden has been trying rectify this error since at least his time as VP in the Obama administration. And now he is showing the courage to follow through on his decision.
” It’s worth noting that many of the same people attacking the Biden Administration for leaving women’s rights behind in Afghanistan are eager to control women’s bodies and choices in the United States.” Dan Rather
None of the criticism of the Biden administration — from either party — has anything to do with any substantive reality.
Most of the right wing and too many of the “leftist” Democrats (I use scare quotes because these people are indistinguishable from their seditionist counterparts) have entirely jettisoned any attachment to facts, reality, logic, and rationality. This administration safely evacuated more than ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND civilians, including more than SIX THOUSAND American civilians, all in a matter of weeks. That is ASTONISHING. THAT is the story.
The cavalry did, indeed, ride in to the rescue. The media whores are up in arms because one of the privates on of the horses had zits on his cheek. For crying out loud!
The relative handful of Americans still in Afghanistan are, by multiple credible sources, still there because they made a conscious and intentional decision to stay there — many citing family ties after making families with Afghanis that they are unwilling to leave behind. This is what happens when an occupying force stays someplace for 20 years.
The harsh criticisms of Joe Biden would happen whatever steps he did or did not take. The critics would be dead silent if Donald Trump or any other Republican took exactly the same steps.
The most pressing action needed from Democrats in the House and Senate today is to IMMEDIATELY pass legislation that enables the DoJ to take aggressive steps to block states like Texas and Georgia from enforcing their new generation of Jim Crow laws.
The GOP is currently on track towards forcing a GOP majority in the House and Senate in 2022 — and a GOP president in 2024 — regardless of the outcome of sham elections that might or might not happen in either of those years.
CURRENT Georgia law says that there will be exactly ONE early ballot collection box in Fulton County Georgia moving forward. Does anybody here appreciate what that MEANS?
America is under siege from the seditionists, and we’re acting as though nothing is happening.
I must say that I predicted before I looked who downvoted this comment and I was right 🙁
I admit it was a really UGLY zit. 🙂