UPDATE 4:15 p.m. Monday: President Joe Biden attempted to pass the blame around to his three presidential predecessors—particularly former President Donald Trump—while addressing the recent US military defeat in Afghanistan.
Biden also sought to reframe the underlying issue over his strategic military failure by focusing on his justification for withdrawal—a point disputed by few on either side of the aisle.
“I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me,” he claimed. “I know my decision will be criticized, but I would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president.”
Nonetheless, Biden reiterated the earlier claims of Secretary of State Antony Blinken that it was Trump’s fault for having negotiated a May 1 withdrawal, even though the Biden administration failed to implement it as provided and neglected to project the necessary strength when dealing with the fundamentalist Taliban forces.
“The Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001,” Biden claimed, despite having reassured the public only last week that the US would not see scenes unfold as they did in the Vietnam defeat.
Biden acknowledged that he and his administration were caught off guard by the apparent intelligence failure, which comes as the military prioritizes indoctrination of troops to critical race theory and as intelligence officials have focused on scapegoating the domestic terrorist threat while ignoring those abroad.
“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” Biden admitted.
Yet, “If anything the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan was the right decision,” he said.
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future,” he added. “We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future.”
Trump issued a flurry of statements over the weekend hammering Biden for the string of recent failures both foreign and domestic.
“First Joe Biden surrendered to COVID and it has come roaring back. Then he surrendered to the Taliban, who has quickly overtaken Afghanistan and destroyed confidence in American power and influence,” Trump said in a statement.
“The outcome in Afghanistan, including the withdrawal, would have been totally different if the Trump Administration had been in charge,” he added. “Who or what will Joe Biden surrender to next? Someone should ask him, if they can find him.”
Biden was in absentia for much of the weekend while vacationing at Camp David, but the growing wave of criticism prompted his return for the public address Monday.
—Ben Sellers, Headline USA
Original article below
(Headline USA) President Joe Biden will address the nation on Monday about the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan, after the planned withdrawal of American forces turned deadly at Kabul’s airport as thousands tried to flee the country after the Taliban’s takeover.
The White House says Biden will travel back to Washington from the Camp David presidential retreat to speak at 3:45 p.m. from the East Room. It will be his first public remarks on the Afghanistan situation in nearly a week. Biden and other top U.S. officials had been stunned by the pace of the Taliban’s swift routing of the Afghan military.
“Joe Biden is weak, and they are not fearing him,” said Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Fox News on Sunday. “This is weak leadership. It is ending in chaos and in destruction. This is a disaster.”
Even the Biden sycophants at CNN are reporting that the president is “facing a crisis of competence.”
Senior U.S. military officials say the chaos at the airport left seven people dead Monday, including some who fell from a departing American military transport jet. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss ongoing operations.
Afghans rushed onto the tarmac of the capital’s airport as thousands tried to escape after the Taliban seized power. Some clung to the side of a U.S. military plane before takeoff, in a widely shared video that captured the desperation as America’s 20-year war comes to a chaotic end.
Another video showed the Afghans falling as the plane gained altitude over Kabul. U.S. troops resorted to firing warning shots and using helicopters to clear a path for transport aircraft.
The Pentagon confirmed Monday that U.S. forces shot and killed two individuals it said were armed, as Biden ordered another battalion of troops — about 1,000 troops — to secure the airfield, which was closed to arrivals and departures for hours Monday because of civilians on the runway.
The speed of the Afghan government’s collapse and the ensuing chaos posed the most serious test of Biden as commander in chief, and he came under withering criticism from Republicans who said that he had failed.
“This situation is so much worse now than it was in 2001; the Taliban is in charge of the whole country,” said Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. “Back then they didn’t control the north. And just look at all the weapons and equipment they’ve been able to seize as well. And they can claim that they drove America out of Afghanistan in a chaotic, disorganized withdraw.”
Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in international relations and has spent months downplaying the prospect of an ascendant Taliban while arguing that Americans of all political persuasions have tired of a 20-year war, a conflict that demonstrated the limits of money and military might to force a Western-style democracy on a society not ready or willing to embrace it.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that the “speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated.”
He blamed the government’s fall on the Afghans themselves, telling NBC’s “Today” show that the U.S. ultimately could not give Afghan security forces the “will” to fight to defend their fledgling democracy.
“Despite the fact that we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to give the best equipment, the best training and the best capacity to the Afghan security forces, we could not give them the will and they ultimately decided that they would not fight for Kabul and they would not fight for the country,” Sullivan said.
The turmoil in Afghanistan resets the focus in an unwelcome way for a president who has largely focused on a domestic agenda that includes emerging from the pandemic, winning congressional approval for trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending and protecting voting rights.
Biden remained at Camp David over the weekend, receiving regular briefings on Afghanistan and holding secure video conference calls with members of his national security team, according to senior White House officials. His administration released a single photo of the president on Sunday alone in a conference room meeting virtually with military, diplomatic and intelligence experts.
He is the fourth U.S. president to confront challenges in Afghanistan and has insisted he wouldn’t hand America’s longest war to his successor. But he will likely have to explain how security in Afghanistan unraveled so quickly, especially since he and others in the administration have insisted it wouldn’t happen.
“The jury is still out, but the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” Biden said on July 8.
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
