Biden Did Not Treat Evacuation of Afghans Who Helped US With Urgency
By: Sarah Al-Arshani (Business Insider)
- Axios reported that leaked documents showed basic decisions hadn't been made as of August 14.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Joe Biden in Nevada on January 8. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
- US officials were making decisions on Afghanistan evacuations hours before the Taliban takeover.
- Axios reported that leaked documents showed basic decisions hadn't been made as of August 14.
- The Taliban took over Afghanistan on August 15, and US troops withdrew by the end of that month.
Get a daily selection of our top stories based on your reading preferences. LoadingSomething is loading. Email address By clicking 'Sign up', you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
President Joe Biden's administration reacted slowly and was unprepared to evacuate Afghans who helped the US after the Taliban took Kabul in August, according to notes from a White House Situation Room meeting obtained by Axios.
The outlet said a National Security Council "summary of conclusions" document from an August 14 meeting held between 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET, when Taliban fighters were closing in on Kabul, showed the Biden administration made several crucial decisions just hours before the Taliban took over on August 15.
Senior officials were still talking over basic mass-civilian-evacuation actions. Axios reported that though the document it obtained featured the word "immediately" several times, officials on August 14 were still determining which countries would be transit stops for evacuees.
The document also said officials in that meeting decided the embassy in Kabul should "immediately" inform locally employed workers "to register their interest in relocation to the United States and begin to prepare immediately for departure."
Gen. John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was among senior officials said to have attended the meeting.
Axios added that earlier in 2021, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who ended up fleeing the country, had asked Biden not to start a mass evacuation because he was worried it would show a lack of faith in his government; at the same time, Biden officials overestimated the Afghan military ability to withstand the Taliban.
More than 120,000 people were ultimately evacuated from Afghanistan by the August 31 deadline to withdraw troops.
The White House didn't respond to a request for comment from Insider. In a statement to Axios, a National Security Council representative, Emily Horne, said: "While we're not going to comment on leaked internal documents, cherry-picked notes from one meeting do not reflect the months of work that were already underway."
Tags
Who is online
361 visitors
You still happy with your vote?? What ineptness. This is just one more example of the epitome of incompetence.
Trump and his supporters are off topic. Those who respond to themselves to avoid keyboard cooties by actually replying to the person they are quoting/mocking/refuting will have their comments removed.
Thanks for reading
Lol she reported your first post ..... hilarious!
I didn't know I had a fan club.
Those who respond to themselves to avoid keyboard cooties by actually replying to the person they are quoting/mocking/refuting will have their comments removed.
I know this is referring to me.
Tell me otherwise.
Nah, you’re not that important, quite the opposite really .....
Why you asking me? It’s not my seed.
That said, if the shoe fits ...... put it on.
You know this refers to you?
Is THAT what you do? And you are unique in that?
I am very happy with my vote. I have no remorse whatsoever. I'm sure all my DEMOCRAT/LIBERAL/PROGRESSIVE friends agree with me.
President Biden is in no way, shape or form inept or incompetent.
I'd tell you to provide proof but President Biden has already proven your statement wrong. Hence this article.
The denial is strong in that one.
Help her it doesn’t
Three “I’s” and me. Stop making yourself the topic of the seed.
Oh, yeah, the Afghanistan withdrawal went swimmingly well, didn't it?
[Deleted]
And because of that slow reaction and incompetence there are hundreds of Afghani dead and 13 service members killed.
Any comment other than "we fucked up" is completely unacceptable. The Biden Administration abandoned these people.
But if you illegally cross the southern border Biden welcomes you
That's not true.
Where's your feral cats remark?
Comment about feral cats restored. I have used "Feral Cats" and Tessy has used it back to me many times. To suddenly change this is unfair and leaves something missing to following comments. I do not consider this to be taunting to me. thanks Charger
These must be a different kind of cat. There are Afghan Hounds maybe there are Afghan cats
The Afghan cats were the ones already at the airport when the US started the evacuations. They were never vetted. Just crammed on board planes out as fast as they could- so Biden could make his inane remark about how many people he rescued. They weren't the right ones; many of which are still stranded in Afghanistan.
With that, just imagine how many that were brought here are Taliban.
Hoping that we would forget that these are the same people he, in essence, left to die. This was a total failure on the part of the Biden Administration.
Exactly. He has forgotten about them and moved on. He is counting on the American people doing the same. Sadly he is partially right some Americans have forgotten or just didn’t care to begin with.
There are millions of Veterans who haven't forgotten and won't forget. For many of us, this was an act of betrayal not only to the Afghani who helped us for so long but to us as Veterans as a whole. He showed cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Although I myself never served my husband, brother, grandfather’s, numerous cousins and friends have and are. None of us will forget!!
I did multiple deployments to Afghanistan. I work on an active duty installation. Nobody here has forgotten.
He'll even fly you anywhere in the country for free.
Unless you are a border guard who contracted COVID sorting through Biden’s new illegal alien votes at the border.
Then they'll have you patrol the most remote areas of the border.
They were unprepared before, during and after. Totally abandoned Americans and the Afghans who aided them all those years. A huge embarrassment and betrayal.
The story illustrates the complete clusterfuck that is the Biden Administration.
Sadly, some lemmings still think Biden is competent.
And the fact that his plummeting approval ratings tell a different tale, heck he's under 50% in his own party, subterranean range in the overall population...
I wonder how many people think they now made a mistake last November.... Probably a lot more than half...
I doubt anyone who voted for President Biden thinks they made a mistake.
We know he's competent.
Many of them just can't recognize it yet. They will, maybe.
Do you have any evidence to support that claim?
Can you let us know why you think he is competent?
(deleted) as duplicate comment by charger
removed by charger, no violation
You should leave it.
The question will HAVE to be asked at least twice to get an answer.
But give time for an answer to be fabricated.
Well, Tex, here we are 24 hours or more later, and there has been no answer, and the original poster is posting all over the site since that time.
My guess is that poster is embarrassed they posted such bs in the first place.
They'll either double down on their stupidity or cut and run. I've seen both happen several times.
Right now it looks like the cut and run option is the preferred one
you didn't really think you'd get an answer!
No, not really, but it is fun to watch the silence of the embarrassed.