Biden’s Afghan Tragedy – Continues

One year ago this month, political expediency led to one of the worst US foreign policy disasters in American history. More than 100,000 US allies were left in Afghanistan, promised safe passage for helping the US military, abandoned to the Taliban. Women about to assume power, reverted to subservience and slavery; girls “instantly had their future taken away,” became chattel. Human rights went to dirt, America’s word to mud. By a stroke, Joe Biden condemned tens of millions to misery, oppression, torture, starvation, and hopelessness.

The tragedy is almost inconceivable, even now. The media will not cover it, but it deserves covering. None of this needed to happen. If the United States had kept order another two or three years, average loss of five service members a year, the two-decade-investment in a people’s economic, political, and cultural education would have produced self-governance. Instead, Biden just let go the kite string.

Today, the agony is palpable. Periodic missives from the ground, even around Kabul, reveal the Taliban hunting US allies for detention, torture, and worse. Names of thousands were inexplicably given to the Taliban by the US State Department. An orderly departure from Bagram was punted to give control of all assets to the Taliban. An investment of 2,400 killed and 20,000 wounded was lost for failure to plan.

The nightmare is one that sounds in Afghanistan today, echoes in America, and around the world. Tens of millions of Afghans, who were part of a working economy, who saw light and worked toward it, now face mass malnutrition, likely starvation this winter. That was all avoidable.

The reality is that Biden had no plan, or worse planned to depart knowing human calamity would follow. He pretended the Afghan government could lead with no top cover, no security envelope, no ground support. He pretended they were just fine, knowing they were about to be crushed.

Biden’s State Department summarily abolished the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau, responsible for coordinating extraction of Americans and allies in July. Having spoken with some involved, the reality was this forced Defense to catch a falling star, seemed to obviate State leadership.

Making matters worse, they put out a PR initiative saying nothing had changed, all was well. All was not well, and those at Main State and in the Embassy knew it. That was a lie. Truth was key personnel left.

An unthinking or uncaring president and his look-the-other-way, shift-blame, change-the-narrative political minions just decided to scamper, turned tail and fled from fear, no attention to lives being lost, ruined, changed forever. And fear of what? The terrorists we swore to supplant, who hit on 9-11.

The extraordinary misstep was observed in living color, until the Taliban turned off the cameras and began torturing those left behind. China saw it, Russia saw it, our allies saw it. It was like watching the United States hemorrhage 200 years of hard earned, blood-drenched, never-say-never credibility.

Bottom line: Biden’s team has objectively done more damage to this country’s credibility, international position, global security, security at our border and at home – than any administration in memory. The decisions have been so wrong, poor, unplanned, thoughtless, done such damage – it is hard to fathom.

Not only did that Afghan debacle leave 100,000 US allies trapped and hunted, tens of millions of Afghans suddenly rocketed back into the dark ages, but it also left – contrary to public statements – hundreds of Americans trapped.

That decision ran America’s word aground, surely contributing to Russia’s willingness to attack Ukraine, fearing little from us. It likely encouraged North Korea to restart missile launches, stopped under Trump.  It seems to have caused Iran to accelerate their drive for nuclear weapons, and China is leaning forward.

So, as we recall this anniversary of a calamitous withdrawal, an inexcusably thoughtless decision with tragic repercussions, we should not forget: These are Joe Biden’s killing fields. He owns thousands who have been killed, millions who will die of starvation, tens of millions who went from hopeful to hopeless in a day. His failure is profound, one of the worst foreign policy disasters in American history.