Along with President Joe Biden's intentional illegal alien border crisis, his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan will go down in history as one of the worst decisions of his disastrous presidency.
On August 30, 2021, Biden withdrew the last American forces from the war-torn country. In the haphazard withdrawal, 13 US service members —11 Marines, one Navy corpsman, and one soldier — were “killed as the result of an enemy attack while supporting non-combatant evacuation operations,” according to a press release from the Department of Defense.
In addition, untold numbers of American citizens were left behind, some of whom have since been evacuated.
Despite Biden and members of his administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, continually defending the Afghanistan debacle, the unprecedented withdrawal has never settled well with a majority of patriotic Americans.
Now, more than three years later, Blinken claims he regrets the way the withdrawal was handled, particularly as it relates to the death of the 13 service members. Why now? Why wait more than three years to admit it?
During testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, Blinken finally expressed remorse that the Biden administration had not done more to protect the service members who were killed in an ISIS suicide bombing during the chaotic withdrawal.
I think today, especially of the 13 heroes that we lost at Abbey Gate. And I deeply regret we did not do more and could not do more to protect them. And to those families who are here with us today, you’re in my thoughts and my prayers.
Look, while it's above my pay grade to judge Blinken or anyone else, I don't for a nanosecond buy his long-overdue remorse — at least not for the reason he claims, which is not dissimilar to a criminal apologizing after he or she gets caught.
Here's more:
Blinken, 62, mixed a conciliatory tone with a defensive message during his hotly anticipated appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which came after months of bickering with the panel to answer questions about its probe into the botched bug out from Kabul in August 2021.
The secretary sought to deflect some of the blame over the debacle on the situation he inherited and stressed that he “firmly” believes President Biden’s decision to pull out was the “right one.”
Hold the bus.
Many who slammed Biden's precipitous withdrawal — yours truly, included — blistered Biden for the way his disastrous withdrawal was planned and executed, not for bringing home the US military and ending the 20-year war.
Blinken also told the committee:
Any attempt to understand, learn from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has to be put in the proper context of what’s preceded it.
By January 2021, the Taliban was in the strongest military position it had been since 9/11 [and] we had the smallest number of US forces in Afghanistan since 2001.
All of us, including myself, wrestled with what we could have done differently during that period and over the preceding two decades.
Oh, please. Not to get too deep, but as British literary scholar C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
Neither presidents nor their cabinet members are expected to "wrestle with what they would have done differently over the preceding two decades." What the American people do expect them to do is effectively deal with situations as they exist and use their expertise to affect the best outcome.
To suggest that Biden, Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley expertly affected the best outcome in the Afghanistan withdrawal would be a tragic joke.
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House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) secured Blinken's testimony last month after weeks of negotiations with the outgoing AG. McCaul told Blinken on Wednesday, “I have to say I’m disappointed,” after chiding him for “showing up only after violating a congressional subpoena.” McCaul also said:
With the warning bells … ringing loudly, you denied the imminent and dangerous threats to American interest. It was the deadliest day of the United States presence in … Afghanistan since 2012 and the saddest thing, sir, is that it did not have to happen.
Exactly. It didn't have to happen the way it did. Yet Joe Biden and Antony Blinken steadfastly claimed for more than three years that they did the best job they could. Now that I think about it, sadly, they were right.
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