While the Biden administration’s chaotic and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan was unfolding in August 2021, a suicide bomber murdered 13 American service members, and at least 170 Afghans, at the Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. It was one of the deadliest attacks on our troops in our 20 years in that nation.
“Know this,” President Joe Biden said after the bombing. “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” This turned out to be face-saving political theater. Three days later, an air strike killed ten Afghans, seven of them children. Not one of the dead, as far as we know, was an “ISIS facilitator,” as the administration had alleged.
In fact, the Pentagon now says that the bombing was the work of a lone terrorist rather than a “complex” network, as the Biden administration had initially maintained. At the time, Gen. Mark Milley not only referred to the strike as “valid” and “righteous” but went further to describe a “secondary explosion” and a supposed plethora of evidence justifying the bombing. None of that, it seems, was true.
We also learn through ProPublica’s recent investigation into the Kabul suicide bombing that, despite intelligence warning of terrorist attacks, U.S. military commanders encouraged use of the routes. Some U.S. officials even provided maps to evacuees trying to bypass Taliban fighters stationed at a checkpoint outside the airport.
The fact that the murderer of 13 Americans “likely” gained access to troops via a path that U.S. officials were encouraging people to use seems quite noteworthy. As does the fact that we were helping evacuees circumvent the Taliban even as the Biden administration was assuring the American public that the Islamic militants were facilitating the extraction of Americans.
These are the same Taliban with whom the Biden administration had reportedly shared a list of “American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies.” It is the same Taliban that the administration declared had comported themselves in a “businesslike and professional” manner.
You will recall as well White House press secretary Jen Psaki contending that no Americans had been “stranded” in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would later say that there were “under 200” Americans remaining in Afghanistan who “want to leave.”
A new Senate Foreign Relations Committee report from ranking member Jim Risch (R- Idaho) contends that State Department officials estimated that in August, 10,000-15,000 Americans were trapped in Afghanistan. Over the two weeks the Afghan forces disintegrated, 6,000 Americans were able to escape. I’m not a math whiz, but that leaves a lot more than zero, or even 200, stranded. How many of those American citizens, green card holders or Afghan allies had their names handed to the Taliban? Were the interpreters on that list being hunted down or beheaded by Islamists?
The Pentagon investigation into the bombing, relying on hundreds of witness interviews and drone footage and reports by medical examiners, concludes that the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate was “not preventable.” In truth, the attack became unpreventable only after the Biden administration evacuated secure positions without having extracted those who wanted to leave.
A recently declassified report by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, which was submitted to the Department of Defense in January 2021, also warned the administration that the Afghan air force would quickly collapse. Military personnel would have been “much better prepared to conduct a more orderly” evacuation, said Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top U.S. commander on the ground, “if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground.”
Yet none of this advice stopped the president from abandoning the Bagram Airfield. Nor did it prompt him to set up military safe zones to retrieve stranded Americans or Afghan allies before retreating. His failure to do so caused a bottleneck at the Kabul airport that put troops and civilians in needless danger.
Biden was wedded to the Taliban’s timeline. Given that he’s shown reliably disastrous foreign-policy instincts over 50 years in public life, this isn’t exactly surprising. It’s also increasingly clear that the administration ignored warnings because it believed leaving Afghanistan, which was quite popular in polls, would be a political slam dunk early in his term.
That was Biden’s prerogative. The president has no obligation to follow the advice of his generals. Undoubtedly, many of them would advocate for a U.S. presence in Afghanistan in perpetuity. As a policy matter, Biden’s botching of the evacuation is a separate issue from whether the United States should have withdrawn. However, once Biden decided to embrace what the Trump administration had begun, the responsibility to protect American lives was his. There are numerous questions yet to be answered on why he failed to do so.
David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and author of “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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Does anybody know why this site is putting out less content than usual?
The operable question is this – The Taliban got 80 billion in Military weapons and a free airbase,,,what did Joe and the Biden Crime family get in return. Just how richer has his family got since taking office? Making Pelosi reveal her increases in wealth and the sources of where it came from also an imperative. Are we not entitled to know these things? These are the questions that once answered will reveal the reality of what is really going on in America. THE PEOPLE have a right to know and will never know so long as the Democrats control all leverages of power.
“Let’s Go Brandon” Because of the negligence, the hasty and incompetent withdrawal led by this commander in chief, all of the $85 billion dollar’s worth of equipment has been left behind and fallen into the hands of the Taliban, without any plan, there was never a plan by this administration or the Pentagon to destroy or evacuate any of that equipment. … Leaving $85 billion of equipment. Vehicles, weapons and ammunition, night vision goggles, medical supplies, biometric devices and data of our allies. All of it falling into the hands of the Taliban.”
“All of it falling into the hands of the Taliban.”,,,which soon will be falling into the hands of the Russians for 10 cents on the dollar who they sell it to, and when the final delivery is made,,,Bye Bye Ukraine
AND why keep telling us HOW BAD BIDEN messed up, when we all know, NOT A DAMN SINGLE THING, will ever get done about it.
Everything Biden has touched looks worse and worse. How are we going to take three more years of this madman?
I hate to shudder to think how muc MORE shanked up things can get…
>> Everything Biden has touched looks worse and worse <<
As former president Obama said, "Don't ever underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up."
The traitorous, dishonest, destructive, socialist Democrat Party revolves around and its philosophy is based on Total Control, Hate, Lies, Cons, Deceptions, Immorality and the lack of Integrity, Ethics or Honor.
The Treasonous, Dishonest, disgraceful, Socialist Democrat Party game plan is to lie, cheat and steal in order to take total control of the American people, increase Taxes on everything and bring American commerce and economy to its knees and to promote Socialism.
Then access power and retain it by any means available –
no matter the costs to the people, the government or the nation.
This treasonous, dishonest, corrupt, unethical, immoral, socialist Democrat Party is our country’s most destructive and deadliest ENEMY!
Assuming that not ALL people that vote for democrats are criminals, why do you think that the non-criminals vote for democrats? Do you think they are mentally ill? There are studies showing that liberalism is indeed a mental illness. It is well known that criminals support democrats, because democrats support criminals. This all makes sense.
Either they are mentally ill, OR THEY ARE JUST as demonic as the dems are.
Hopefully voters who previously only voted party line have now opened their eyes to the disaster that is here and will continue unless a stop a put to the current agenda being directed by someone else and not the current puppet.
SO many are too brainwashed, to EVER “Wake up and smell the roses”…
No mention in the article about the murder of seven Afghani children by a US drone attack. And via the Pentagon and an “investigation” nobody will be held accountable. Nice message to the rest of the world.
“Biden’s Afghanistan Debacle” Biden is a “Debacle”!!!!!!
Is he planing on pulling people out of Ukraine or is he going to wait until it’s too late on that, too?
SINCE they’ve been talking about Ukraine for what, 2+ WEEKS NOW.. IMO ANYONE stupid enough to have NOT ALREADY GOTTEN THE HELL OUT of there, doesn’t DESERVE US coming in to save their demented butts.
Debacle? This was an out and out democrat made and implemented murder plan that has backfired on them and now they know they will be crying the blues in November.