President Joe Biden had an entire weekend to prepare his defense of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. However, he somehow still managed to make himself and the country he leads look even weaker.
Perhaps the only respectable part of Biden’s speech on Monday afternoon was when he stood by the decision to leave Afghanistan and said he would rather face criticism for that decision right now than pass it down to the next president. But Biden’s willingness to take responsibility for this tragedy stopped there. He blamed former President Donald Trump, who initiated our withdrawal; the Afghan army, which crumbled almost immediately after we left; and his own military officials, who apparently did not anticipate how quickly the Taliban would gain power.
And he refused to admit the rushed way the United States left turned this withdrawal into a crisis. All Biden could do was offer a brief comment on how the videos of Afghan men clinging to U.S. planes as they took off upset him.
This is pathetic. Biden is the reason those men fell from our military’s plane to their deaths. He failed to evacuate the Afghani people who helped our troops, and now they can’t even secure visas to seek refuge in the U.S. Many of our own officials are still trapped in Afghanistan because Biden cared more about getting our troops out by his hypothetical Sept. 11 deadline than protecting American lives. We have left them to the mercy of Taliban terrorists who could break their vow not to harm them at any moment.
Our failure to stand by our allies and protect our own citizens is a disgrace, one that Biden alone has caused. He has made us a weaker nation, and his refusal to admit as much has made him a weak president who does not know how to lead.
