President Joe Biden campaigned in 2020 on his supposed foreign policy chops, promising everyone he’d usher in a new, golden era of competent and effective U.S. diplomacy.
It has been anything but that.
Members of the British Parliament condemned the U.S. president this week for blaming the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan on the Afghan people, who have died by the tens of thousands since 2001 fighting the terrorist death cult.
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future,” the president said this week, defending his decision to retreat from Afghanistan with no planning or foresight. “What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.”
He added, “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?”
In response, British MP Tom Tugendhat, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, denounced Biden’s remarks, calling them “shameful.”
“To see their commander in chief call into question the courage of men I fought with is shameful,” he said. “Those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have.”
Tugendhat’s colleagues in Parliament responded with a hearty, “Hear! Hear!”
Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the humiliation, the chaos, the abandoning of allies should not come as a surprise. Indeed, the truest thing that has been said of anyone in Washington, D.C., in the past several years was when former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates asserted in 2014 that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Truth hurts.
Before royally mucking up everything in Afghanistan and putting the lives of thousands of U.S. nationals and Afghan allies at risk, Biden assured the public his withdrawal would not translate into the Taliban taking control of the country.
“The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” the president said on July 8.
He added, “The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
He’s right to say it’s not comparable. The situation in Afghanistan is far worse than what happened in Saigon in 1975.
Speaking of which, Biden has actually pointed to the undignified, ignominious fall of Saigon as a good guideline on how to retreat from Afghanistan, according to notes kept by then-special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.
Biden was allegedly asked a few years ago whether the U.S. has a responsibility to maintain a small military presence in Afghanistan to protect vulnerable civilians. In response, Biden reportedly answered, “F*** that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.”
In what world did Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger “get away with it”? Talk to anyone who is not attempting to ingratiate himself with decrepit elites. They have nothing but bad things to say about how the disgraced former president and his secretary of state conducted the war in Vietnam.
Biden would’ve had a point if he cited former President Gerald Ford, arguing the images of the “last chopper from Saigon” didn’t end his presidency. This would be true. It would also be true to say few blame Ford for how the Vietnam War ended.
But looking to Nixon and Kissinger, two real-life villains who cost the lives of thousands of men and women, as a guiding light on Afghanistan? And believing the political and social fallout in Afghanistan would be essentially the same as Saigon, despite the fact everyone carries a camera on their person these days? And to say later there is no comparison between Afghanistan and Vietnam? No wonder things are going as poorly as they are. The arrogance and ignorance here are overwhelming.
Then again, we should expect nothing less from the man who claimed this year he bears “zero responsibly” if the Taliban end up retaking Afghanistan.
There is so much more where this comes from.
In 1975, in response to the question of whether the U.S. was obligated to provide aid to Cambodia — which the American government devastated with a secretive, unauthorized bombing campaign — Biden said, “I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about morality, our moral obligation. There’s a point where you are incapable of meeting moral obligations that exist worldwide.”
That same year, he opposed providing aid to the besieged South Vietnamese, all but assuring the North’s takeover of the country.
In 1991, Biden opposed the Gulf War. Biden then had the gall to condemn former President George W. H. Bush for not fully deposing Saddam Hussein.
Later, after the 9/11 attacks, Biden supported the Iraq War.
In 2007, Biden opposed the so-called “surge” in Iraq, which, like the Gulf War, was a resounding success.
In 2011, he supported the Obama administration’s withdrawal from Iraq, assuring the public the country could “be one of the great achievements of this administration.” What we got instead was the Islamic State.
Biden opposed the infamous bin Laden raid. Of course, he had no problem sharing in the glory and bragging about the successful mission in the years that followed. In fact, to hear Biden tell the story, you’d think he personally dropped in Pakistan armed with nothing but a knife and took out bin Laden by himself. Tough talk from the guy who lacked the courage or will to greenlight the mission.
Later, in an interview, Biden said, “The Taliban per se is not our enemy.”
“If, in fact,” he added, “the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.”
The Taliban have done exactly that.
I’d say, “Your move, Mr. President,” but I’m terrified of what he’d do next. It’d undoubtedly be the wrong thing. After all, this is Joe Biden we’re talking about.
