As I type this, US forces are on the way to evacuate the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The country is crumbling as the Taliban advance, with the fundamentalist group taking over at least ten provinces at this point, murdering and pillaging along the way.
(related How US Tax Dollars Were Squandered on Fraud and Waste in Afghanistan)
The situation is untenable for the few Americans to remain in place, and the fall of Saigon is being reenacted in real-time.
BREAKING: @CBSNews David Martin reports: A U.S. official tells CBS News the Pentagon is sending in troops to Karzai International to help with the evacuation of the embassy.
— Ruffini (@EenaRuffini) August 12, 2021
What’s happening on the ground today stands in stark contrast to Joe Biden’s pronouncement of confidence just weeks ago. He not only expressed belief in the Afghan military despite the lacking evidence they were up to the job, but he also assured the American people that there would be no evacuation of the embassy as there was in Vietnam.
Asked by @steveholland1 if a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is inevitable, @POTUS Biden says, "No."
The Afghan military is now well-equipped "against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable."
— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) July 8, 2021
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 12, 2021
Though I’ve seen some suggest it, there is essentially no going back at this point. To retake the parts of the country that the Taliban have taken in just days’ time would require a major offensive fueled by a reinfusion of troops and war materials. That’s simply not going to happen as there is no appetite for it. What’s done is done, and Biden owns the consequences and carnage that promise to continue.
That’s not to say that pulling out of Afghanistan was wrong in general. We’ve been there for 20 years and if the Afghan military isn’t ready now, when exactly are they going to be ready? At some point, we had to leave. But clearly, Biden and his cohorts did not have a viable plan on the table to do things properly. There appear to be zero measures in place to try to enforce the peace treaty to the point where we are having to rush to save embassy personnel at the last minute because things are so chaotic.
Regardless, let’s say that this was always inevitable, which may be a fair point. Then Biden shouldn’t have lied to the American people about it. He should have just been upfront that the Taliban taking over was the most probable outcome. Instead, he attempted to play the tough guy and now has egg all over his face. He deserves the criticism he will now get.
None of this is surprising, though. Joe Biden has not been right about a foreign policy issue in his over 40 years of public service. Why would he start now?
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Our Hollie McKay is in Afghanistan, filing video dispatches of what she’s seeing. Her posts can be found here. Please join us in praying for her safety and for the safety of the innocents.)
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