Joe Biden and his defenders say a messy evacuation from Afghanistan was inevitable, though if that’s true, why didn’t they plan accordingly? Now they argue that criticism of the execution of the withdrawal is tantamount to remaining indefinitely.
Quit Bellyaching About Afghanistan
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
5 Comments. Leave new
Unlike invasions with superior force, retreats from war zones are by definition dangerous, tricky, messy, and unpredictable. By what standard should this one be judged? Maybe “abrupt” was the right way. Nobody has proposed a plausible alternative. Diplomacy achieved an 18-day period of “safe conducts” for 124,000 evacuees. Just sayin’.
I think the term for what guiriguay is arguing in their first sentence is “begging the question.” Certainly, in an unplanned retreat there is danger, tricks, and so forth. But (and I am growing mighty mighty tired of repeating this) Biden’s retreat was not forced and it was not unplanned. The problem is that Biden “planned” it very badly.
Contrary to Guiriguay’s third sentence, plenty of people have “proposed a plausible alternative.” The Taliban advanced into Kabul two weeks after Joe Biden — purely for political symmetry and symbolism — announced that all U.S. forces would be out by Sept. 11, 2021. He wanted that PR angle. And he wanted it so badly he announced the U.S. withdrawal “at the START of the fighting season.”
The winter season starts around December. The Taliban disperse. The U.S. could have organized a very effective evacuation, safely, in the run-up to December and then implemented it efficiently. At the very least, the U.S. could have finished processing all that paperwork backlog.
Many Biden Boosters keep insisting, contrary to fact, that Trump’s agreement with the Taliban forced Biden’s hand. That is not correct. From the AP: “But Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. It had an escape clause: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September.” In other words: Biden. Had. An. Opportunity. To. Gain. All. The. Time. He. Needed. The winter season was coming, which would have given him probably until May.
Lastly, the comment by Guiriguay that 124,000 evacuees got out (just sayin’)? That’s the total figure, Americans, Afghans, all of it. Even NBC, which (like all good media) usually has its tongue so far up Biden’s ass it can tell his brand of toothpaste, points out that as many as 265,000 Afghans were left behind. So let’s de-bias that statement: “124,000 evacuees (31.88% of the total) got out. Just sayin’.”
I have spend much too many characters typing this all up, and I apologize for bogarting the comment section, but enough is enough. There is no defense, zero, nada, zilch, for how Biden cluster-effed this whole thing. Planning an evacuation? First thing you do? It’s called logistics. It’s the backbone and central nervous system of how the military operates.
And I am sick of the rewriting of history that is already being undertaken by so many people who don’t or can’t or won’t admit to themselves what a lot of Ted’s readers actually have known for many years: whether it’s a democrat or a Republican, they can’t be trusted to the right thing. Biden is simply a less embarrassing version of Trump’s over-the-top imbecility.
And all those chumps who voted for Biden are having cognitive dissonance as they watch him screw up on every crisis he’s been handed. The moratorium expired, everyone still has to face unpayable student loans, back rent/credit card bills are coming due, millions are still unemployed, forest fires, floods, hurricanes. New Orleans still has a couple hundred thousand people without power. Greg Palast did some great coverage on this and how Entergy profits from keeping the lights off due to market deregulation. And sure as Biden invokes his dead son every chance he gets, the Biden administration won’t do a thing about it. That’s another crisis he’ll fail to address.
Stop defending Biden. He’s incompetent. I only wish he were irrelevant and immaterial as well.
Oh, mea culpa. My 31.88% figure (from a comment still in pending status — Ted, this is getting exasperating) is in error. If you just want to talk about the Afghans who got left behind (a topic the Biden administration sure as hell doesn’t want to discuss) the actual success percentage is a lot lower. I don’t have the time or patience to weed through all the nothing-content press releases that don’t provide the numbers. I leave that to the Biden Cheer Squad.
Ghani warned that Kabul was about to fall. Biden told him to keep saying Kabul was secure, everything was under control, and the Taliban wouldn’t dare advance.
In Vietnam, as they saw the North Vietnamese approaching, they did not ask the South Vietnamese government to lie that everything was under control. They helicoptered all the Americans in the Embassy to safety on US Navy ships, not to the Saigon Airport, and they told every American who wanted to leave Vietnam to show up at an airfield a day or so before the North Vietnamese arrived. Many of the Americans (who had to show proof of citizenship) brought all their Vietnamese friends. The USAF said, ‘Only family,’ so they wrote affidavits that their friends were all family and the USAF got them all out.
Joe Biden, M.D. = Manic Depressive