Biden staff break ranks over Afghanistan: 'I am absolutely appalled'
By: John Bowden (MSN)
Dissent?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Joe Biden is facing the most serious test of his first year in office as broad swaths of the American public say they disapprove of the way he handled the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
© Getty Images
President Joe Biden faces internal criticism over his management of the pullout from Kabul.
- Getty Images
That criticism of his administration's management of the evacuations reportedly exists inside the White House as well.
Two White House officials signalled their dismay over the end result of Mr Biden's efforts to extract Americans and vulnerable Afghan civilians from the country in interviews with Politico published on Thursday; one of the officials told the news outlet that they were "absolutely appalled and literally horrified" that more than 100 Americans remained in the country after the last flight departed Hamid Karzai International Airport, including some who had said they wanted to leave.
"It was a hostage rescue of thousands of Americans in the guise of a NEO [noncombatant evacuation operations], and we have failed that no-fail mission," that official added to Politico.
A second official characterised the US mission in Afghanistan as unaccomplished as long as any Americans who wanted to leave remained in the country.
Their remarks come after the president's most forceful defense of his management of the situation thus far, which came in the form of a national address on Tuesday in which Mr Biden said that he was not willing to keep troops in the country indefinitely to continue extracting Americans.
"I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit," Mr Biden said.
"The bottom line, 90 per cent of Americans who were in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave," the president continued, adding of those still there: "We remain committed to getting them out if they want to get out."
The president has been on the defensive in the face of both Republican and Democratic figures on Capitol Hill criticising the White House over the chaos that unfolded as Afghanistan's capital fell to the Taliban, while many are wondering how the US intelligence apparatus was apparently caught by surprise in regard to the speed with which the Taliban overran the entire country.
Not helping the situation for Mr Biden are his own statements from July, when he expressed confidence in the ability of Afghanistan's ousted government to defeat the Taliban, and new reports claiming that he asked former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to make similar statements regardless of whether they reflected the reality of the situation.
US evacuations from the country concluded just hours after US officials announced that a second attempted terrorist attack on the airport by suspected Isis-k militants had been thwarted with a drone strike.
It was revealed later in local media reports, however, that the strike led to the deaths of more civilians, including seven children, than it killed suspected militants after either a rocket from the drone itself or the secondary explosion of a vehicle-borne IED completely destroyed a nearby house and killed an entire family.
A steady majority of Americans has supported a withdrawal from Afghanistan for years. Over the course of the US's nearly 20-year war in the country, more than 171,000 Afghans including tens of thousands of civilians as well as roughly 2,500 US service members were killed.
The US signed an agreement with Taliban officials last year to begin a withdrawal from the country under former President Donald Trump, a process that was continued and extended from May to the end of August by Mr Biden after he took office.
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Can't please them all. In this case, can't please very many.
Strange bedfellows. At least now he can talk to Ann Coulter.
It didn’t need to be forever. How about a couple more weeks? How about we say to the Taliban, “We’re done when we fucking say we’re done. You want to fight about it?”
It’s like moving out of a house. You can just leave all your shit, and maybe your uncle behind. Or you can take a little extra time, make sure you have everyone, all your stuff, and the house is clean before you leave for the last time. This did not need to suck this bad.
You could have started evacuated Americans BEFORE your July 2021 quid pro quo phone call to Ghani instead of pulling our our MILITARY first and then leaving thousands of Americans, journalists, and allies STRANDED on August 31.
Exactly how many people are 90 per cent? Ten? One hundred? One thousand? Thousands?
It does not matter.
They were warned repeatedly since March to leave in no uncertain terms.
It is their right to live where they wish is it not?
They are going to listen to the Embassy in Kabul over the PoTUS? I bet 90% of the Americans in the country never went into the US Embassy unless they needed to.
Again the Biden Administration was speaking out of both sides of their ass.
Ross Wilson blaming the victims again. If they really wanted to get the word out they would have used the main stream media and social media. Screaming "get out!" in the Embassy office is not the same thing.
Were they? Or is that just more after-the-fact Biden/MSM spin ? Here's Biden's qu i d pro quo phone call to Ghani -- July 23, 2021 - from Reuters
No one can spin Biden and his lying Administration/Cabinet out of this debacle. As he said , ( when he wasn't repeatedly blaming Trump and other Americans) , the buck stops with him , and he owns it. Period.
What so many of these "blame Americans first" folks don't want to understand is that there could be only one US citizen but his/her family could still be Afghan citizens. As a (hypothetical) US citizen husband and father, I sure as hell wouldn't abandon my non-citizen US wife and children (especially daughters) ... which is exactly what Biden, his Administration, and other left-wingers have said should have been done.
As far as the airstrike business - if they want to trust tollybonn intelligence for conducting runs on douche, they will find that ten times out of nine they have been suckered into doing dirty work.