By David Iwinski
Since Joe Biden took the oath of office, despite the exciting declarations of the left that “the adults are back in charge” and “American honor and respect have been restored” the country has been on a long, painful slide downwards.
With the primary campaign claim that President Trump had bungled the coronavirus response and that as a result, hundreds of thousands have died, the Biden team has been no more adept with confused claims and bad science. Energy independent under Trump, Biden quickly canceled the Keystone pipeline and within months the price of gasoline skyrocketed, gas lines were seen (last experienced in 1976) and now Joe has to beg OPEC to increase production, which has been refused. Ineptitude described every step of this Presidency but, until now, it was essentially a problem for Biden and Vice President Harris and, for the rest of the country, a temporary annoyance to be discarded by 2024.
Until now.
Donald Trump promised that we would exit Afghanistan and change our policy of endless war. However, when he established that policy and timetable, he made it crystal clear that he would not tolerate actions by the Taliban that would threaten U.S. citizens or those allies within Afghanistan who helped us over the last 20 years.
His exact words… “We are acting as a police force, not the fighting force that we are, in Afghanistan. After 18 years, it is time for them to police their own country. Bring our soldiers back home but closely watch what is going on and strike with a thunder like never before, if necessary!”
This comment, like many others, show that Trump was willing to have us exit Afghanistan with honor and protect our people as we left.
Biden and his team of experts bungled it so badly that it is likely that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of those who trusted our commitment to their safety will face threats of torture and death. Some will be Afghanistanis and some are likely to be American citizens. The Taliban was able to seize sensitive material from our embassy not destroyed in time and, further, hundreds of millions -- perhaps billions -- of dollars in sophisticated ordnance were left on the ground, ready to be used.
Bombs, helicopters, fighter jets, firearms, drones and all other manner of ordnance were abandoned in the chaos and will either be used by the Taliban against Afghans or against other nations. The items too sophisticated for the Taliban to use can be traded to Pakistan for hard currency, all of which will be used to fuel terrorism abroad and, particularly, against the United States.
Moreover, the failure of the Biden administration to secure our southern border means that thousands of terrorists let out of jail may soon be shipped off to Latin America to find their way across our porous border.
It’s bad enough that this stupidity and chaotic ineptitude would be brutal to the people that are our allies and extraordinarily disrespectful for the thousands of American soldiers who died in Afghanistan and the tens of thousands for permanently disabled, but if you can believe it, the legacy of Biden’s misjudgment may have even greater ramifications on other parts of the world.
China no longer fears us has already moved aggressively against Taiwan, even in the last few days. They have further notified American diplomats that we best not take any action on what they see as an “internal matter” of solving the Taiwan problem. Who knows how much additional suffering around the planet and economic disruption there will be with the clear signal that the United States cannot be trusted to protect its allies and haven’t the ability to plan well enough to prevent catastrophe?
Images of Afghanistan citizens clinging to departing planes, desperate to get away from the hell they will soon descend into, are the legacy Joe Biden will live by.
Iwinski is a contributing pundit. See On the Right
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The U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan -- MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021
As Democrats and other supporters of President Biden had a hard time defending the way he conducted his withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, their argument that the withdrawal did not go far with Fox News coverage and other conservatives of both the pro- and never-Trump nature.
Trump’s onetime national security advisor, John Bolton, largely blamed his former boss, but told NPR that Biden’s withdrawal was conducted in a “particularly ineffective way” (see center column).
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page put it this way: “President Biden’s statement on Saturday washing his hands of Afghanistan deserves to go down as one of the most shameful in history as Commander in Chief at such a moment of American retreat. As the Taliban closed in on Kabul, Mr. Biden sent a confirmation of U.S. abandonment that absolved himself of responsibility, deflected blame to his predecessor, and more or less invited the Taliban to take over the country.”
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