8.22.21: Mr. Biden's Obstinate Strategy Owns the Chaos In Afghanistan Right Now

So many head-scratchers, they seem more like head-slappers. As more stories come out of Kabul over the week, one thing is for certain and that is that the 'chaos fear and desperation,' as Mr. Todd described it, is only going to get worse.

Everything that Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) said made sense; the panel was brutally accurate; and even National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan's explanations were direct and sober. So why are we left scratching our heads?

The flat truth of the matter is that President Biden has been completely off the mark, in his remarks and his inability to see the bigger picture and plan appropriately. This is why he is justifiably being criticized from all sides, including from our NATO allies. President Biden wanted to own and said that the buck stops with him, but you can not then pass the proverbial buck.

Mr. Sullivan explained that 'no plan survives first contact with reality,' which makes complete sense and therefore adjustments need to be made. However, this forgets the initial premise of having a comprehensive plan in the first place, which it seems did not consider all the circumstances of what would happen on the ground. He also explained that the United States planned to have a diplomatic presence in Kabul after the withdraw, which was a farcical notion since the Taliban have no interest in diplomacy. To that point, Mr. Sullivan said that they have agreements with the Taliban to allow Americans safe passage out of the country and if they didn't honor those agreements, the U.S. would respond militarily - that's the diplomacy the Taliban understand. The last thing the Taliban want is an open space conflict with the U.S. military who they truly are afraid of, the same military that airlifted 7,900 people out of country just yesterday, 30,000 total.

Dispatch founder, Stephen Hayes was pointedly correct in contesting what Mr. Biden said in his speech - that our allies were inline with us, that Afghans didn't want to fight, that Americans can get out safely, and that Al Qaeda isn't already in country. 

Our closest allies are furious with us as while this is mostly a stain on the reputation of the United States, it's also a blow to trust in NATO. Seventy-five thousand Afghans died fighting the Taliban and their moral back was broken with the final blow of closing Bagram Airbase, which Military Times editor Leo Shane III explained. And while the Taliban is indeed harassing Americans and Afghans alike throughout Kabul, terrorist groups are definitely making their way in. 

But on that last point, they have been planning the move for a while, from May 2020 in fact. Representative Cheney explained the entire progression and that we're in fact in this situation at present because of the agreement the Trump Administration, the deal then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo specifically made with the Taliban back in May of 2020, in which the Taliban conceded nothing for the United States pulling out in a year, and completely undercutting the Afghan government that lead to its quick collapse. Ms. Cheney also explained her concern for Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorists once again, but unsurprisingly there were shades of her father in her statements that are meant to say that we should keep a force in country indefinitely, which simply isn't sustainable given what she earlier explained as the inevitability of the Taliban taking complete control. - at Kabul's airport.

But despite that inevitability, Mr. Sullivan didn't really have a good answer for Chuck Todd when he asked him, why didn't the administration get the civilians out before the military so that maybe some of these tragic consequences could be mitigated? 

What Mr. Sullivan couldn't answer was left to Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and Helene Cooper of The New York Times. Ms. Cooper, the paper's Pentagon correspondent, explained that the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs recommended keeping troops in country to get everyone out, but Mr. Biden didn't heed that advice, and now there is a lot of blame shifting going on. More pointedly, Ms. Mitchell said that the stance of Joe Biden in 2009, to just get out is the president's prevailing thinking and that the optic of troops leaving Afghanistan has blinded him to the immediate consequences.

This is certainly a blight on Mr. Biden's record as president and his poll numbers presently reflect that, along with his handling of the pandemic. However, let's be honest, on the latter the president's performance is being sabotaged by state governors who are putting political and ideology gain over public health.

One last noted for the week on Afghanistan, its immediate future isn't certain. There is already resistance in the Northern provinces lead Ahmad Massoud whose father was the leader of the Northern Alliance back in 2001 and assassinated two days before September 11th. Also, seventy percent of Afghans are under 25 years old, and in Kabul too young to ever know life under the Taliban. Twenty years of being able to live how you want to live accompanied by hope for the future are notions not easily crushed as history has shown us.

 

Panel: Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Stephen Hayes, The Dispatch; Leo Shane III, Military Times

 

8.15.21: In All War, There is the Right and the Very Wrong

There was a lot to digest from today's "Meet The Press" on the pending collapse of Afghanistan's central government and take over by the Taliban as the U.S. completely withdraws from the country, leaving only core diplomatic personnel on the ground.

As with all war and conflict, there is the right and the very wrong.

We'll start with the former first, which is whether the U.S. should keep a residual force on the ground in Afghanistan. Given that the previous administration set a deadline for complete withdrawal for May 1st, the Biden Administration had its hands tied... loosely. They gave themselves an extension hence the newsreel images we're seeing, but going far past any deadline starts the clock ticking on when American soldiers become targets. And if not that, it's inevitable that American soldiers will be forced to engage with the Taliban. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken explained that our capabilities to closely monitor the situation on the ground to mitigate the a resurgence of Al Qaeda or other terrorist activity is very strong, to which anyone would respond, "It better be."

But it's time to go and it's the right thing to do, and it's very true what Secretary Blinken said that our adversaries would like nothing better than to see us bogged down in Afghanistan for another 5 to 10 years. It is not in the United States national interest to do that. And yes, how do you ask another soldier to make the ultimate sacrifice for a mission that has clearly changed but isn't clear.

However, the bad is egregous given that all this was forseeable, back in January as a matter of fact. Coming into office the Biden Administration knew that it was faced with this deadline. Even this column, sitting in the cheap seats, could see that it was inevitable that the Taliban would once again control the country, but the Biden Administration was slow to act and didn't have a plan in place to get the tens of thousands of Afghans out of the country (if they want to leave) and others who worked for the U.S. The forseeable tragedy of the oppression of women will once again take hold in Kabul, a humanitarian crisis waiting to happen.

One thing that particularly draws our ire is the fact that the U.S. military has been in Afghanistan for 20 years, trained a local force of 300,000, spent a trillion dollars, and gave them an airforce. The U.S. gave them all the tools, but once again as NBC's Richard Engel reported, the Afghan military is just 'melting' away without even confronting the Taliban. If the Afghan military refuses to defend the country themselves, how can you expect the U.S. to continue to do it after all that? 

Rightly, as Mr. Engel also reported, Afghans are angry at everyone - the U.S. for the quick bail on the country, the corrupt Afghan government and of course the Taliban because everyone knows what life is going to be like when they take complete control again. 

During the panel discussion, Mr. Todd posed the question of why the U.S. couldn't have something in Afghanistan like we do in South Korea or Germany or Japan  - a permanent base in place. The panel agreed, but it's not that simple. The last of these bases was established in South Korea in the 50's, and much has changed since then. Too much to make it geopolitcally tennable to have such a presnce. But South Korea was and is an ally. Germany we we have a base, we're surrounded by allies. In Japan after the war, the country didn't have a military as part of the conditions. The U.S. helped to rebuild Japan and has become one of our greatest allies, which we were positioned to defend against an aggressive China. With all that said, you have to ask, is Afghanistan our ally, really? Our geographically closest ally is Pakistan, which we wouldn't say is an ally per se, but a country that we have to deal with. Plus they have their own problems considering their tasty combination of extremists and nukes.

The previous administration set the parameters, but make no mistake, the Biden Administration owns this policy now and the tragic repurcussions inevitably to follow. But this demoralizing devistation isn't the only crisis in country as Afghanistan is in the midst of a historic drought already causing food shortages and let's not forget the covid pandemic.

Speaking of which, we'll just say this as to what is happening in the United States at present. With the numbers we're seeing today, we're basically back where we started, probably worse considering the Delta variant spreads twice as quickly and the fact that Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota explained that we have to start using better masks. How is that going to happen when Republican governors - yes, Ron DeSantis in FL and Gregg Abbott in TX - are actively thrwarting mitigation efforts. Cynical sadists letting their own constituents die for political power. A**holes.

Panel: Anne Gearan, The Washington Post; Kristen Solis Anderson, Republican Strategist; Peter Baker, The New York Times; Cornell Belcher, Democratic Strategist

8.8.21: Delta Level Polarization

"The pandemic we're experiencing at this time is a 'pandemic of the unvaccinated.'"
                                                                        -says Everyone.

Republican officials, such as Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), are shifting their position on vaccinations and mask mandates, but it's too late. The political distrust that has been baked into the cake writ large is the toothpaste out of the tube so to speak. Cook Political Report's Amy Walter explained that as the coronavirus delta variant has become more prevalent, the political attitudes of the right and left are becoming even more hardened. 

So where does that leave us? 

In a bad spot, according to Dr. Fauci who explained that if you give the virus the oppotunity to circulate, it can further mutate which could possibly become a strain that also affects the vaccinated. This is really virology 101 and should be common knowledge for anyone who has gotten a vaccination, which is 99 percent of the U.S. population, at some point or another.

Forty percent of the covid cases are coming from two states, Texas and Florida. Governor DeSantis has decided to ban mask mandates and is relying on people making a personal decision on getting vaccinated, not letting industries like cruises require vaccination. The result is that it is putting millions of people at risk of infection and death. Governor DeSantis is willing to take that risk for the sake of politics. 

The panel agreed that Joe Biden's presidency depends on his handling of the pandemic and without the cooperation of Republican governors in the aforementioned states along with others like South Dakota who won't get out of the way, making our way forward is not going to come anytime soon.

At this point, people are learning to live under this constant threat and as long half the country refuses to take it seriously, it will continue to be the circumstance.

The real tell will be when kids go back to school in little over a month. Pediatric hospitals are seeing a rise in childhood covid cases and one can only imagine that even if it isn't a dramatic spike in cases and hospitilizations, there will be increases. Even with 90 percent of teachers in the United Federation of Teachers represented by Randi Weingarten, she is worried about the delta variant, so much so that as a matter of personal conscience she is advocating for vaccine mandates for teachers. Dr. Fauci, on the subject, said that the best way to protect the kids is to surround them with vaccinated individuals and to have everyone mask indoors. Both of which aren't going to happen in Florida or Texas.

And it's not the people, it's the civic leaders that are doing their constituents are disservice by not being honest with them. The ethos of love thy neighbor but trust no one seems to be the American way and it's killing us.

Panel: Amy Walter, Cook Political Report; Jake Sherman, Punchbowl News; Donna Edwards, fmr. U.S. Congresswoman (D-MD); Sara Fagen, fmr. White House Political Director for George W. Bush

One More Thing...
This column called for Andrew Cuomo to resign when these allegations first came to light. The allegations are worse than first revealed and the resignation should be immediate, post haste.