Explosions ripped through Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 11 U.S. Marines and a Navy medic. Dozens more were injured.
U.S. officials are on high alert now, preparing for the likelihood of additional bombing attacks. Meanwhile, a contingent of overwhelmed U.S. combat troops are scrambling to process frantic American citizens and Afghan allies fleeing for their lives.
And to think it was just 48 hours ago the White House assured everyone the United States’s evacuation efforts in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have seized control, have been a “success.”
“I would say that this is now on track … to be the largest airlift in U.S. history,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki bragged. “And that is bringing American citizens out. It is bringing our Afghan partners out. It is bringing allies out. So, no, I would not say that is anything but a success.”
The “success” she is talking about is the government’s chaotic, half-baked operation to airlift thousands of U.S. nationals and Afghan allies from Afghanistan after the Biden White House made a series of inexplicably stupid decisions, including shuttering Bagram Airfield, evacuating U.S. military before civilians and allies, and designating an international airport surrounded by the Taliban as the sole evacuation point for the entire country.
So, bragging that this is the “largest airlift in U.S. history” is a bit like a grown adult bragging he changed his soiled sheets in record time. Congratulations. Aren’t you a big boy.
Earlier, Psaki also claimed it was “irresponsible” to say the White House is on track to abandon U.S. nationals in Afghanistan, even though it is clearly on track to do exactly that.
“Does the president have the sense that most of the criticism is not of leaving Afghanistan, it’s the way that he has ordered it to happen, by pulling the troops before getting these Americans who are now stranded?” asked Fox News’s Peter Doocy. “Does he have a sense of that?”
Psaki responded, “First of all, I think it’s irresponsible to say Americans are stranded. They are not. We are committed to bringing Americans who want to come home home. We are in touch with them via phone, via text, via email, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans to get them home if they want to return home.”
What is this “want to return home” language? Can the White House provide a single example of a U.S. national who has opted to stay in a county that will soon be controlled entirely by the Taliban?
If Psaki is embarrassed by her premature bragging and faux indignation, she has nothing on President Joe Biden, who told everyone on July 8 there was no way the Taliban would retake Afghanistan.
Biden also told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos last week the administration has “control of the airport now.”
“Still a lot of pandemonium outside the airport,” the anchor correctly noted.
Biden, who crawled from whatever hole he has been hiding in to give an exclusive interview to a former Clinton aid, responded, “But no one’s being killed right now. God forgive me if I’m wrong about that, but no one’s being killed right now. We’re going to get those people out.”
As it turns out, “knock on wood” isn’t an especially robust foreign policy strategy.
None of this had to happen this way. The administration could’ve used Bagram to evacuate the vulnerable population first, using the U.S. troops already in Afghanistan to act as a rear guard, and then pull out the remaining combat troops. But the Biden White House didn’t do it this way. It chose instead to do the withdrawal in the most dangerous and unruly way imaginable.
And now, 11 U.S. servicemen and dozens more Afghans are dead.
