It's still a humiliating defeat for Mr. Biden.
Regardless of your partisan status. This does not look good.
Even CNN is questioning the administration: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/15/blinken-intv-...
What do you think?
Regardless of your partisan status. This does not look good.
Even CNN is questioning the administration: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/15/blinken-intv-...
What do you think?
That's not what Biden said. Just over a month ago, on July 8th, he actually argued that the Afghan army could win:
Q Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not.
Q Why?
THE PRESIDENT: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.
...
I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
And why tell a lie that will soon be disproven so spectacularly?
(To be clear, I'm not arguing whether he lied or really believed what he said. I'm responding to "even if he is relatively confident of an eventual Taliban victory")
Be the change you wish to see. If you think Biden was lying here, don't defend him for it.
Even in terms of realpolitik this was clearly a mistake. He obviously didn't think his words would be disproven so quickly; it would be foolish to lie about what's going to happen almost immediately.
Me criticizing Biden on an internet forum for offering comforting falsehoods will do nothing. He's responding to a tendency in human nature or perhaps American culture that is far too big to be moved significantly by so small an act, or even thousands or millions of such acts. So I'm happy to continue discussing this in realistic terms rather than idealistic ones.
Or the account of this former Army colonel who mentions how poorly managed Afghanistan was all this time, with basically no real attempt at establishing institutions over the last twenty years: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-americ...
Or the WSJ editorial board's suggestions to rescue Afghanistan from a few days ago: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rescue-plan-for-afghanistan-t...
There are plenty of ways this could have been handled better. It all comes down to having better leadership. The US hasn't had good leadership for a long time. Four different presidents came into office based on populist sentiments more than competence, and the result is they completely mismanaged all of this while we still incurred the immense expenses that a more successful plan would have required. Worst, they lied to the public and assured the public of how things were going well - this too came from multiple presidents.
Look at the southern US border. Another disaster.
Barack Obama himself said it: "Never underestimate Joe's ability to f** things up".
Obama's ambassador to Afghanistan mentioned that the Taliban's recent blitz was avoidable (https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflict...). In the same interview he also says:
> “I’m left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief,” [the former ambassador] said. “To have read this so wrong – or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care.”
This is a failure. Don't downvote because of politics.
It's certainly a bad "look" for Biden, but the real error was going there in the first place. That was when this outcome was decided. Whoever finally pulled the plug was going to have a PR issue on their hands, but this is hardly Biden's defeat.