Erick-Woods Erickson
Aug 16
Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden all wanted to leave Afghanistan. Only Joe Biden decided to pull the trigger.
It’s how he pulled the trigger that matters greatly.
As Afghanistan falls to the Taliban we know a few things.
Joe Biden ignored the advice of his top generals.
He relied on an intelligence assessment that was false.
He failed to consult American allies.
He ensured the Afghan military would be crippled as we exited.
He timed the department symbolically and with hubris to coincide with the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
As Afghanistan fell, Joe Biden went into hiding at Camp David.
These are not idle statements.
Press reports first circulated in April that Joe Biden rejected his generals’ advice. Right up to the end, the generals wanted a longer play to ensure stability, but Biden rejected them.
In so doing, Biden relied on intelligence that led him to claim the Taliban would not sweep back in like in Saigon. He rejected the idea that there’d be helicopter evacuations from Kabul. That is exactly what we got.
We also now know he failed to consult with our allies or consider their input. Today, American allies globally worry the United States is no longer interested in or able to lead.
U.S. allies complain that they were not fully consulted on a policy decision that potentially puts their own national security interests at risk — in contravention of President Biden's promises to recommit to global engagement.
And many around the world are wondering whether they could rely on the United States to fulfill long-standing security commitments stretching from Europe to East Asia.
This is perhaps the most damning one from the standpoint of four years of talking heads complaining about Donald Trump’s relationship to the international community. It was remarkable over the week to realize just how quiet so many pundits were who spent years blasting Trump for his international outings.
We also know Biden ordered the American military to cripple the Afghan Army’s ability to defend Afghanistan as we fled. Biden set up the Taliban to take back over. This is just damning from the Wall Street Journal.
In the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal decision, the U.S. pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore. The same happened with another failed American effort, the South Vietnamese army in the 1970s, said retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, who commanded the U.S.-led coalition’s mission to train Afghan forces in 2011-2013.
All this so Joe Biden could vacate the premises on the anniversary of September 11, 2001. The Taliban have now returned to power and the loss of American lives has been in vain.
It was never about nation-building. It was about holding a land so the terrorists could not. We did that and in the last year, we have had no casualties.
Now the Taliban is coming back in and is stronger than ever. Had Biden done nothing, we could have continued on with minimal to no loss of life and not had the Taliban controlling a country.
Joe Biden has surrendered to the Taliban. They now have our military hardware and weaponry and a whole nation from which to plot their revenge. This is disgraceful.
In leaving Afghanistan, Biden commanded our military to cripple the Afghan military and put American personnel in the unfortunate position of having to flee. Two months ago, instead of preparing for our departure, the American Embassy in Kabul tweeted about gay pride month with a picture of a rainbow flag.
Perhaps they have left behind the rainbow flag, but the Ambassador was last seen fleeing with the American flag. Tweets and virtue signaling are not enough to stop terrorists who wish us dead. But the Biden Team seems not to know or not to care.
This was objectively disastrous. Shame on Joe Biden. The best he can hope for is indifference from an apathetic America because this was truly damnable.
