Biden Admin Blames Trump For Biden’s Botched Afghanistan Exit
The WH also finds time to praise itself on its response to…Ukraine.
The White House document supposedly “outlining the key decisions and challenges” concerning the withdrawal from Afghanistan is nothing but a TDS document.
The 12-page document mentions Trump 14 times. The Biden administration blames the disastrous withdrawal on Trump and the Afghan military and government.
It reminds me of a Seinfeld episode when George ruins Jerry’s car. Elaine runs up to Jerry’s apartment, makes it sound like crazy kids tried to go after them, and then drops the bomb that George hit a pothole, and the car now makes a bad sound.
But it doesn’t faze Jerry because thank goodness, his friends are okay!
The White House pulled an Elaine with the first three paragraphs. Make it seem like Trump set up a horrible situation for Biden so that no matter what he did, it would be an awful withdrawal:
President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor. When President Trump took office in 2017, there were more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. Eighteen months later, after introducing more than 3,000 additional troops just to maintain the stalemate, President Trump ordered direct talks with the Taliban without consulting with our allies and partners or allowing the Afghan government at the negotiating table. In September 2019, President Trump embolded the Taliban by publicly considering inviting them to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. In February 2020, the United States and the Taliban reached a deal, known as the Doha Agreement, under which the United States agreed to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. In return, the Taliban agreed to participate in a peace process and refrain from attacking U.S. troops and threatening Afghanistan’s major cities—but only as long as the United States remained committed to withdraw by the agreement’s deadline. As part of the deal, President Trump also pressured the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison, including senior war commanders, without securing the release of the only American hostage known to be held by the Taliban.
Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later, President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date. During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just over three months away.
Those two paragraphs go against National Security Council spokesman John Kirby claimed in a press conference: “Peter, the purpose of the document that we’re putting out today is to sort of create the chief views and findings of the agencies that did after-action reviews. It’s not — the purpose of it is not accountability. The purpose of it is — the purposes of it is to study lesson learned.”
Kirby said, “Transitions matter. That’s the first lesson learned here. And the incoming administration wasn’t much of one. Thus, President Biden’s choice was stark: either withdrawal of our forces or resume fighting with the Taliban. He chose the former.”
Let me get this straight. The withdrawal happened in August 2021. The Biden administration insisted it had to do something because the Taliban would have returned to war with America if the troops hadn’t withdrawn by May 2021.
So if Trump messed up that bad, why go ahead with the withdrawal?
Want even more confusion? Kirby claimed, “For all this talk of chaos, I didn’t see it from my perch. I just don’t buy the whole argument of chaos.”
Kirby admitted it wasn’t perfect, but “a lot went right.”
If there was no chaos and so much went right, then why go on and on about how terrible Trump did with Afghanistan and left a mess for Biden?
Thirteen American soldiers and 200 Afghan civilians were killed when a terrorist attacked the Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate.
The attack received a small blip in the document despite the section about the evacuation taking over a page and a half. The rest of the section about the airport and the gate bragged about how the administration reinforced security and the military killed two terrorists.
As the document continues, to soften the blow, whoever wrote it lavishes praise on the administration’s response to…Ukraine.
Ultimately, the Administration made a decision to engage in unprecedented extensive targeted outreach to Americans and Afghan partners about the risk of collapse, including numerous security alerts and tens of thousands of direct phone calls and messages to U.S. citizens in particular to leave Afghanistan, but to not broadcast loudly and publicly about a potential worst-case scenario unfolding in order to avoid signaling a lack of confidence in the ANDSF or the Afghan government’s position. This calculus was made based on the prevailing intelligence and military view throughout the early weeks of August that Kabul would hold beyond the end of the withdrawal. As Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated on August 18, 2021, “[the collapse] unfolded more quickly than [the Intelligence Community] anticipated.” In fact, the collapse was more rapid than either the Taliban or the Afghan government expected.
In a destabilizing security environment, we now err on the side of aggressive communication about risks. We did this in advance of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Months before the invasion, we proactively released intelligence with trusted partners. That engagement broadened—and grew louder and more public—in the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion. This approach met strong objections from senior officials in the Ukrainian government who were concerned such warnings would spark panic and precipitate capital flight, damaging the Ukrainian economy. However, our clear and unvarnished warnings enabled the United States to take advantage of a critical window before the invasion to organize with our allies, plan the swift execution of our response, and enable Americans in Ukraine to depart safely.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The full withdrawal was contingent to facts on the ground. There was no compelling cause to repeat Obama’s premature withdrawal and funding the Iranian proxy in the second Iraq war and its segue to the World War Spring series including [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform (CAIR), and Americans left behind, aborted, perhaps forgotten.
There are lies and there are damn lies. Biden loves both. Blame the other guy and pat yourself on the back. More evidence of the corruption and incompetence of our cruel Commander in Chief, the friend of bad guys.
Biden lied to the people who helped us, too. He left them behind while mostly getting out those who didn’t.
He left in the middle of the night like the coward he is
No no no you don’t get to claim that you followed the other guy’s plan and
It didn’t work when you unilaterallyIt didn’t work when you unilaterally changed the plans.
The speedy vaccine development that occurred under Trump* — all Biden’s credit.
The disastrous pullout that occurred under Biden — all Trump’s fault.
Talk about a “pattern of behavior.”
*All except for the actual rollout, which was deliberately delayed by that snake Fauci specifically so Trump would not get the credit.
He should be thankful
It’s not a vaccine, it’s murders hundreds of thousands and will continue to murder
Especially, for whatever reason, our youth
But that’s probably a bonus
Pres. Trump did do his best to speed the development of the “vaccine,” and Pfizer/Fauci screwed him over by not releasing the development news until after the election. Deliberately. Both lied to him. But nobody can blame Pres. Trump for its effectiveness or side effects. That too, was hidden by Pfizer/Fauci.
Biden took credit for it, also thinking it would work, and now owns it.
The compromised bribed generals were stonewalling Trump constantly saying that they couldn’t pull out of Afghanistan without a plan…. while at the same time refusing to make a plan. They had done this to him multiple times already.
They thought they could do the same with Biden, but he and his handlers were just SO STUPID that they ordered the withdrawal anyway, and then the military ‘leaders’ had to frantically scramble trying to do what they had refused to do for years.
That’s how you had insanity like closing Bagram and then trying to channel people through the freaking public airport in Kabul.
Don’t forget the State Department stuck right by the generals and kept as many people in Afghanistan as possible right up until Trump’s last day, therefore giving an excuse for the generals to keep the troops in to protect them. Every one of them expected Biden to waltz into office, handwave away the Trump plan, and resume the Forever War. The original withdrawal was scheduled for *winter* when fighting dies down so the ‘new’ government had a chance to get on their feet.
Then came Biden. Leaving Afghanistan was popular, so regardless of the fallout, a new concrete date was set. US Citizens wound up abandoned, interpreters who had been promised a ride out were not only abandoned, but the Taliban were given their identities and all the hardware needed to track them down. The military decided to dump the biggest airbase in the country by just shoveling all their people onto planes and vanishing in the middle of the night, leaving the rest of the evacuation unsupported. (a decision that undoubtedly saved the lives of many military, at the cost of far more civilian casualties) Oh, and this CF was promptly blamed on Trump, of course.
Truman’s desk sign, “The buck stops here,” was an oddity. Never accepting responsibility is a blood oath of every Democrat.
Signs are cheap.
Tweet from candidate Biden August 16, 2020:
Here’s my promise to you: If I’m elected president, I will always choose to unite rather than divide.
I’ll take responsibility instead of blaming others.
I’ll never forget that the job isn’t about me — it’s about you.
Obama “surged” troop levels from the Bush era level of 32,000 to about 129,000 troops – this was after months of supposed “detailed” briefings by our top military leaders. Media assured us that he toiled and sweated through every detail. Sheer agony! But Obama persisted! The mettle!
According to democrats the war in Afghanistan was the “good” war. That was before 2020. Chickenhawks.
The democrats extended the war with no exit date in mind. Remember that exit dates were very important during the Bush years. It was the most important thing until Obama got US troops trapped in a high desert quagmire.
And don’t forget 2010’s Matt Taibbi on his Rolling Stone high horse slashing and hacking Lara Logan. A true journalist-buccaneer.
CBS’s @EdOKeefe: “There’s 4 pgs of blame on the [Trump] administration…Nowhere…does there appear to be any expression of accountability or mistake by either [Biden] or others. Is there any”?
Answer: Aren’t the Emporer’s new clothes lovely?
The Emperor’s new clothes are lovely, too.
Gladiator: “AM I NOT MERCIFUL!”
As said by another weasel in charge.
They never talk about the billion dollar embassy that we vacated besides all the weaponry.
Talk about perfidy. Truth is a stranger to the Democrat Reich. It’s all lies and deception all the time. Kirby is a disgrace to the uniform he used to wear—an oath breaker. Prez Dullard is a disgrace to the nation.
There are lies and damn lies. There were no stark contrasts for this administration.
The agreement made by the Trump Administration was not a treaty, so there was no reason not to attempt either to renegotiate or ignore the deadline.
Almost anyone reading or listening to the news should have known about the published terms of the agreement. So there was no reason not to question the departing administration on the withdrawal schedule.
It is well past time to stop blaming Trump. The Biden Administration needs to act like responsible adults and accept the results of their actions.
The Trump plan included retaining control of Bagram Air Base until all Americans were withdrawn from Afghanistan. A large, sprawling site, Bagram has multiple airfields and other facilities .
“Emblematic of the mishandling of the entire withdrawal from Afghanistan was the fact that the Islamic State jihadist who murdered 13 American service members and numerous Afghans a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in August 2021 had just been released from prison at Bagram Air Base, the center of American operations in Afghanistan until the United States precipitously and irresponsibly abandoned it in July of the same year.” – Spencer, Robert, Who Lost Afghanistan?
Lots of blood on Biden’s hands.