After a disastrous week, President Biden tried Friday to clean up the mess surrounding his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. He aimed to be all things he hasn’t been — clear, resolute and compassionate.
Strike one, strike two, strike three.
Biden didn’t just fail. He made everything worse. His lies, contradictions and occasional incoherence must be ringing alarm bells across the United States and among our allies around the world.
For our adversaries, Biden is a gift that keeps on giving.
This was his third speech in the last five days on the unfolding crisis in Kabul, and the president should bring a shovel to the next one. It would be an appropriate prop for a man who is determined to dig himself deeper into the hole every time he opens his mouth.
As it is, the props he used — Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — were worse than useless. The silly masks they wore made them look as if they were trying to hide their faces in embarrassment.
You couldn’t blame them — except they all share in the responsibility for this epic failure.
Even before we know the final outcome, the terrifying chaos so many Americans face in Kabul and our government’s dependence on the kindness of bloodthirsty terrorists mark this as a singularly humiliating experience for the world’s greatest superpower.
Before Friday, the Afghan calamity had been likened to previous low points in modern American history. They include the unforgettable images of the desperate departure from Saigon, the long hostage drama in Iran, the “Black Hawk Down” debacle in Somalia and even the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba.
Now come references to Dunkirk, the massive World War II evacuation of more than 300,000 British and Allied soldiers trapped on the French coast, mostly by small civilian boats. The miraculous rescue was an enormous morale booster for the war against Hitler.
Biden could reap a similar bonus if he can rewrite the script and use American and allied military to rescue the reported 10,000 US civilians and 60,000 or more Afghans who helped us over the last 20 years.
But if that’s his plan, the president is keeping it a secret. Though he talked boldly at various times, saying, “We’re going to do everything, everything we can to provide safe evacuation,” and, “Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home,” he refused to explain how. The clear impression he left is that he doesn’t have a plan to accomplish what he promises.
Worse, the facts make him a liar.
His attempt to sugarcoat the dangerous journey to the airport was infuriating. He claimed Washington had received no reports of Americans unable to get there, despite scores of media reports to the contrary. And members of Congress have had contact with Americans who say they can’t get through Taliban checkpoints.
In fact, Biden’s own government still cautions that it cannot guarantee the safety of those who try to get to the airport. Ominously, it also adds that entrances might be closed without warning.
But, hey, good luck.
The policy is coldhearted, and contrasts with the way British and French soldiers retrieved trapped nationals and brought them to the airport.
Meanwhile, our military force has more than tripled, but its only mission is to protect the airport and the people in it. They are limited to the perimeter, with the Taliban controlling everything beyond. Playing defense only is not going to be enough.
Of his three speeches, this is the first one where Biden took media questions. Now we know why.
The selected reporters are all from lefty outlets, but generally asked good, probing questions. The answers were the problems.
The only light they shed was that Biden lives in a land of make-believe.
He claimed there had been no criticism of his decision by our allies, when, in fact, officials in Germany, France, Great Britain and others had roasted him not only for his decision but the bungled execution. They, too, were caught off guard.
Stunningly, he also again defended the results, insisting “there’s no way” of leaving Afghanistan “without seeing some of what you’re seeing now.”
That doesn’t make sense. In a time frame of what was supposed to be a continuing withdrawal of the last 2,500 soldiers, he has added as many as 6,000 more. By definition, that proves he didn’t expect this result.
His refusal to admit it robs his reassurances of any credibility.
The one time he was honest and coherent was in repeating that he had opposed the mission for a very long time. He clearly came into office determined to get us out of Afghanistan and would not be deterred by warnings from his own military and many others, including in our Kabul embassy.
Yet even then, he justifies the exit by saying the military will be able to keep terrorists at bay from “over the horizon.” It sounds plausible, until you realize that we succeeded before only because we had the help of tens of thousands of Afghan interpreters and accomplices, not to mention the 300,000 members of the country’s armed forces.
With our departure, many of those people are running in fear for their lives and that of their families. Of those we leave behind, many likely will be killed by the Taliban.
As analysts have noted, without those eyes and ears on the ground, our “over the horizon” military will be in the dark and too far away.
But don’t bother telling Joe Biden any of that. As always, he’s the smartest man in the room and knows everything.
Unfortunately, what he knows best is how to create a humanitarian tragedy and a national security disaster.