House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s press office is circulating a document that it is describing as “White House Talking Points on Afghanistan.” The document does not inspire confidence.
“The administration knew that there was a distinct possibility that Kabul would fall to the Taliban,” the talking points read. “It was not an inevitability. It was a possibility.”
This is a pretty lame attempt at rewriting history. Here is what President Joe Biden actually said at his July 8 speech announcing his Afghanistan policy:
“I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war. … The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Biden wasn’t just saying a Taliban conquest of Kabul “was a possibility” — he was saying it was “highly unlikely,” an assessment that looks dangerously naive in retrospect.
The White House talking points are also contradictory. On the one hand, they claim that any effort to delay Biden’s August withdrawal deadline would have amounted to “a third decade of conflict” that would require a “surge in thousands of more troops to fight in a civil war that Afghanistan wouldn’t fight for themselves.”
But then these very same talking points also note that “the administration has deployed 6000 US military to Afghanistan to secure the airport and ensure evacuation flights, commercial, and charter flights can safely depart.”
So which is it? Was any effort to deploy troops to Afghanistan “a third decade of conflict” that amounts to our involvement in a civil war? Or is Biden now admitting he is involving the United States in a third decade of conflict and civil war?
Either sending more troops was impossible then and now or Biden is admitting he is wrong to send more troops now. He can’t have it both ways.
Finally, the talking points promise to hold the Taliban “accountable” if they allow al Qaeda a safe haven. “There will be consequences that we’ll pursue,” the document says.
What consequences?
And considering how weak Biden has been in deciding to use U.S. air power to slow the Taliban this week, why should they fear his threats in the future?
Hopefully for Biden, his 3:45 p.m. speech today will be better than these talking points.
