Afghanistan: The Aftermath

WASHINGTON, DC, Aug 23 — The debacle that was the inglorious Biden exit from Afghanistan was bad enough, but the president and his armchair warriors apparently don’t know what to do next. One can only imagine what Mr. Biden’s remarks will be when the nation marks the 20th anniversary of that ghastly day known as 9/11.

President Biden, it seems, had no rational game plan for withdrawal, if he had a game plan at all, judging from the questions that are being asked in the aftermath. Why did he not safely evacuate in advance innocent non-combatant Americans, allies, and the Afghanis who aided and abetted us while we were in control? Did he not consider the fate of the women and children who were free to live their lives openly during our occupation and now face retaliation from Muslim extremists?

And then there is the matter of the billions of dollars of modern, deadly weapons that were left behind for the Taliban to use — stuff the enemy could only dream of having in their ongoing war against civilization. It was a dream come true for their reinvigorated Al Qaeda allies; it is a nightmare for the rest of the world.

The president sought to change the narrative on Friday with a speech in which he strongly defended his actions and sought to say that evacuations are going as planned and that our allies have been understanding.

His remarks were immediately challenged.

Republican National Committee spokesperson Emma Vaughn issued this retort: “Biden’s claims that Americans can safely get to the Kabul airport and that our allies support his management handling of the crisis are verifiably false. Americans deserve accountability and transparency, not continued lies and failure.”

As for our allies being understanding, the British Parliament actually “condemned” President Biden last week for his disastrous decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, leaving those who were left behind to fend for themselves. Prime Minister Boris Johnson also came under fire for going along with the president.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had this to say: “Since the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan we have had to watch the Taliban, with breathtaking speed, province for province, town for town, reconquer the entire country,” she said. “This is an absolutely bitter development: Bitter, dramatic and awful, especially for the people in Afghanistan.” Armin Laschet, Merkel’s likely successor as Chancellor, called the Biden withdrawal and its aftermath the “greatest debacle that NATO has seen since its foundation, and it is an epochal change that we are facing.”

Giorgia Meloni, president of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, sarcastically suggested: “Let’s give a welcome back to the cynical Obama-Clinton-Biden doctrine: ‘If you can’t win, create chaos.'”

And, according to Newsweek, “Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of London’s Royal United Services Institute, said that Britain—which for much for the war contributed the second-largest number of troops to the mission—’was especially upset that the Biden administration didn’t consult it more fully about the decision to withdraw this summer. That is water under the bridge, but the fact that there wasn’t a coordinated alliance approach to the withdrawal makes it even more important now to coordinate a Western response—starting with the question of recognition of a Taliban government.”

Yet Mr. Biden continues to suggest to reporters that there have been no critical messages from abroad. After his speech on Friday, Zeke Miller, President of the White House Correspondents Association, asked him: “What is your message to America’s partners around the world who…question America’s credibility on the world stage?” To which the president replied: “I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world.”

Meanwhile, here at home, criticism of the president’s hasty retreat from Afghanistan and his lack of a plan for his “next moves” is coming from the right and the left. Senators Bob Menendez [D-NJ], chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Edward Markey [D-MA] and Jeanne Shaheen [D-NH] and 44 others from both sides of the aisle have issued a demand for action. In a message to Biden via his Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, they said that the least that could be done at this time is to find a way to provide “fast, humane, and efficient relocation to the United States” for those that were left behind.

And then there is the matter of the billions of dollars of modern, deadly weapons that were left behind for the Taliban to use — stuff the enemy could only dream of having in their ongoing war against civilization. It was a dream come true for their reinvigorated Al Qaeda allies; it is a nightmare for the rest of the world.

In an interview with Fox News, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell estimated that there are as many as 15,000 Americans who were left behind by the “precipitous” and “incompetent” withdrawal. He said that there were countless Afghan civilians who cooperated with us, and we’re left to fend for themselves without as much as a goodbye.

The interview prompted an online reader to comment: “A lot of Democrats are saying: ‘It was Trump’s plan’… Implying that it’s all Trump’s fault, but the truth is that the Democrats couldn’t figure out how to effectively implement the plan. Yes, Trump and his administration put together a framework for getting out of Afghanistan, but the Democrats couldn’t read the instructions.”

Interestingly, President Trump issued a statement on Friday in which he said, “Leaving Americans behind for death is an unforgivable dereliction of duty, which will go down in infamy. To imagine that you take out your military before you take out your U.S. citizens, and the civilians and others that may be helped us – to even think of that, it’s not something that can be believed.”

As Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead put it, “fanatical jihadists discouraged by the failure of ISIS sense a fresh and favorable turn of events with the arrival of their greatest victory since 9/11. Recruitment will prosper, and resources will flow—fed by the sophisticated weapons and tech we left in the field. The president may be finished with Afghanistan, but Afghanistan may not be finished with him.” Mead reckons that Biden actually believed he could oversee a retreat in “a dignified and orderly” manner, that surrendering to the Taliban would not negatively impact America’s stature in the world and “that voters wouldn’t punish him even if the withdrawal went pear-shaped.” As they say in baseball, three strikes, and you’re out.