https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/18/parliament-holds-joe-biden-contempt-afghanistan/ Parliament holds Joe Biden in contempt over Afghanistan MPs and peers unite to condemn ‘dishonour’ of US president’s withdrawal and his criticism of Afghan troops left behind to face Taliban 18 August 2021 • 9:30pm Joe Biden's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal was condemned as "catastrophic" and "shameful" on Wednesday as the Houses of Parliament delivered an unprecedented rebuke to a US president. MPs and peers from across the political spectrum, including Boris Johnson, put some blame for the Taliban's takeover and the chaos that followed on Britain's closest ally. Mr Biden was accused of "throwing us and everybody else to the fire" by pulling out US troops, and was called "dishonourable" for criticising Afghan forces for not having the will to fight. Former defence chiefs who led British troops in the Middle East were among those to speak out, while there were warnings that the West's withdrawal would embolden Russia and China. The interventions mark a deterioration in UK-US relations almost exactly 20 years after Britain joined America in invading Afghanistan to root out terrorism after the September 11 attacks
These guys were all kissy faced with Biden- along with Angela and the rest of EU gang just a couple months ago. They were sitting around in a circle singing kumbaya and self-stimulating while Joe sang "America's Back." Always a shame to see good love go bad. “America is back”: Brussels upbeat on eve of Biden’s Europe trip Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...els-upbeat-eve-bidens-europe-trip-2021-06-08/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...aster/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr Joe Biden has been a monumental disaster At home and abroad, the most Left-wing White House in history is actively driving America’s decline NILE GARDINER19 August 2021 • 6:00pm The past few days have been among the most painful in over half a century for the United States on the international stage. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a humiliation for the world’s superpower. It may take decades before America’s standing is restored, and faith in American leadership is fully revived. The fallout from Afghanistan will exceed even that which followed the end of the Vietnam War, not only in terms of the damage to America’s self-confidence but also the threat it will pose to its security. The Taliban will inevitably turn their country once again into a safe haven for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to strike against the US. Nato has also been undermined. The retreat from Afghanistan has weakened the alliance, and squandered nearly 20 years of collective effort by its 30 members. Advertisement As commander in chief, Joe Biden carries ultimate responsibility for a decision that will haunt America for a generation or more. His legacy will be one of failure, exceedingly poor judgment and staggering incompetence. His advisers, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, must also shoulder some of the blame. Upon entering office, Biden’s team promised to “restore America’s credibility” following the supposed unpredictability of the Trump years. Instead they now look like a bunch of amateurs, outplayed by the Taliban, a movement frequently depicted as living in the Dark Ages. The handling of Afghanistan has been so bad that even Biden’s cheerleaders in the Left-wing US media, from CNN to The Washington Post, have loudly denounced him. Unfortunately, the Afghanistan debacle is not an aberration for the Biden presidency. It exemplifies the Biden approach. On practically every foreign policy front, the Democratic presidency is driving US decline. Advertisement On a visit to London this past week, where I met with British officials and MPs, I was struck by the tremendous disillusionment expressed with the Biden administration, a sentiment shared by many of their counterparts in the European Union, especially in eastern and central Europe. As one senior British politician put it, Biden makes Barack Obama, whose own advisers famously boasted of America “leading from behind”, look like wartime leader FDR by comparison. From Biden’s disgraceful surrender to Moscow over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, to his shameless appeasement of the Iranian regime in his doomed efforts to revive the flawed and failed nuclear deal, this is a president who kowtows to America’s enemies, while kicking US allies such as Israel and Poland. Even the special relationship is under threat as the White House puts a US-UK trade deal on ice while arrogantly lecturing Brexit Britain over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The key beneficiaries of Biden’s weak-kneed approach have been China and Russia, who are no doubt relishing the disarray in Washington and cheering the sight of US personnel fleeing the Afghan capital. Both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have grown stronger since Biden entered the Oval Office. They sense an opportunity in his weakness, and grow more assertive by the day. Advertisement Biden’s presidency has been a monumental disaster at home, too. From its appalling handling of the massive border crisis to saddling the American people with trillions of dollars of additional debt, it has lost any real credibility. While undermining American power globally, the Biden-Harris administration, the most Left-wing in US history, has presided over a surge in illegal border crossings, with more than one million migrants entering the United States this year through the southern border with Mexico. The de facto open-borders approach of the Biden White House is so extreme that even the most socialist and liberal of European governments would dare not go down the same path. The tragedy in Afghanistan should and will be a wake-up call for America’s allies. Biden isn’t leading the free world. He is actively eroding it. It will be up to the next president to clean up the mess, and restore US leadership on the global stage
Pretty much true but however painful it may be there is some value in seeing the Brits and Europeans break out of their trance state earlier rather than later since there are so many global threats. As much as they are feeling scorned today, the Brits and Europeans were nevertheless active participants in promoting the charade that that if you vote for Joe Biiden it will be a sign that America is Back and is civilized and part of the global Eu type of club. And if anyone believed otherwise it was only because they were an uncouth American cowboy or barbarian. In regard to the Brits and the Europeans, circumstances are even more dire than the rant in the above article acknowledges. The tone of the article is that daddy fucked up but we are going to kick his arse and get him sober again and back to running the free world because we still need him. Nope. Our population is rapidly being replaced by people who dont give two shiites about America other than as an economic platform to make some bucks to send home. And they certainly have no interested in all that white guy stuff in Britain and Brussels. They are committed to taking that down as soon as they can. Some of the are home grown too such as the californian birdbrain that Harry married who is actively pushing the Crown into the toilet and Harry sits down when he pees now. Non Americans are not worried about us. They are worried about themselves. And they damn well should be. The next time Americans have an election a lot of people will have to decide whether they want someone who can stand up for the free world even though they might be rough around the edges or whether they just want some wokester. Brits and Europeans damn well better think about it for their countries too. Ditto for the Australians. They are in sparring match with China but "know" that the Americans are there for them if they get in for their head. Don't count on it anymore. The free world needs to break out of its trance state and stand together. It is not pretty to be an American and look at some of these other worthless-tit countries either. I remember back to the Libyan attack/war when the Brits wanted the Americans to get involved to because they were afraid that if the Libyan rebels won they would take over all the British Petroleum oil rigs. The British PM (who would that have been, Cameron?) argued to the Americans and the UN that the Brits and the French together did not have sufficient air power to take out the Libyan air force. JESUS H! Everyone in the free world needs to up their game. The Israelis were never in a trance state. They have always known that if Biden were elected they are screwed blue and tattooed. And they are. The Americans have a problem for sure. A big one. And he is only eight months in on a four year term unless something is done. A lot of the brit and european anger is related to the fact that they know that they were part of the problem and were suckered. Allies embraced Biden. Did Kabul lay bare “great illusion”? By RAF CASERTyesterday https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-europe-climate-change-kabul-84ee5e455a70def86647bbfd22bdfbd7
Apparently Sleepy Joe is days behind the news cycle. Who knows - he may think it's still Christmas in July because he's watching QVC or something. Dementiatard. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9912725/This-one-difficult-airlifts-history-Biden-says.html
Yup. Biden refuted any suggestion that our allies and the rest of the world have issue with current events. That, my friends, is Exhibit A in public of how Biden's mind works. Does anyone here now have any doubts that Biden could be given a boatload of intelligence information and still see no threat? The media and airwaves are and have been wall-to-wall commentary and video of foreign leaders commenting. Biden says he has seen no indication of their discontent. None. He is on some other planet. Idiot.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/19/politics/joe-biden-presidency-under-scrutiny/index.html Biden's presidency is under scrutiny as never before over Afghan chaos Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN Updated 1857 GMT (0257 HKT) August 19, 2021 [paste:font size="5"] intensifying examination of his judgment, competence and even his empathy over the chaotic US exit from Afghanistan. And each attempt the administration makes to quell a furor that's tarnishing America's image only provokes more questions about its failures of planning and execution. A defiant Biden on Wednesday rejected criticism of his leadership, as he battled the most significant self-inflicted drama of a term that he won by promising proficient government and to level with voters. "I don't think it was a failure," the President said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, referring to a US pullout that sparked scenes of desperate Afghans clinging to, and falling to their deaths from, US evacuation planes. The President had repeatedly pledged the withdrawal from the country's longest war would be orderly, deliberate and safe and that there were no circumstances that Afghanistan would suddenly fall to the Taliban. But in the ABC News interview he changed tack, saying there was no way the US could have left without "chaos ensuing" and that such scenes were always baked into the decision to get all troops out this year. privacy policy. "I'm not sure I would have predicted nor would you or anyone else, that when we decided to leave that they'd provide safe passage for Americans to get out," the President. In the chaos at Kabul airport, however, it is far from clear that the Taliban is cooperating. While hundreds have people have been getting through, CNN's Clarissa Ward in Kabul reported Thursday that there was no process, only mayhem of Afghans who worked for the US and are seeking exit visas because they fear for their -- and their families' -- lives. Some lucky people got through Taliban checkpoints but many others were turned back or beaten, Ward said. Biden is failing to adequately explain why he so badly failed to predict the swift collapse of the Afghan state. And his credibility has been sullied because his confident downplaying of the risks of the withdrawal has been repeatedly confounded by events. Seven months into his term, Biden no longer gets credit simply for not being Donald Trump. The President spoke to ABC News after details emerged from a high-level Pentagon briefing that appeared to confirm the US never had sufficient troops left in Afghanistan to facilitate the orderly, deliberate withdrawal Biden had promised. And the deeply awkward session in which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the nation's top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, spoke to reporters also left open the grave possibility that the US military would be unable to rescue all American citizens and potential Afghan refugees before it departs for good. Biden's defensiveness, imprecision and apparent changes of position hardly project confidence or competence during an extraordinarily sensitive crisis on hostile foreign soil. Anytime a commander in chief does not appear in control or is in denial of obvious developments is a moment that threatens to inflict political damage. A changed presidency[/paste:font] The atmospherics around a White House that was on a roll have shifted in a matter of days. Just over a week ago, Biden was taking a victory lap for his unlikely feat of passing a bipartisan infrastructure deal in the Senate and also ramming a $3.5 trillion spending framework through the chamber. As the pandemic rebounds, his July Fourth partial declaration of independence over the virus looks like a "Mission Accomplished" moment, even if the reluctance of millions of Americans to get vaccinated has fueled its spread. He has given Republican foes their clearest opening of a presidency in which he has been a hard political target. It may well be, if the rest of the evacuation goes smoothly, that Americans will buy Biden's argument that the chaos and collapse of Afghanistan proves the US should have left long ago. [paste:font size="5"] See 'breathtaking' scale of evacuation effort at Kabul airport 01:49 But the GOP is seeking to bolster impressions of incompetence by hammering Biden over the pandemic, rising inflation and record southern border crossing attempts to foster a narrative of political decay. In close elections like next year's midterms, unflattering impressions that take hold among voters can be disastrous. Biden's appeal lies in his candor and competence. Both are taking a hit. The President's image abroad is also taking a beating. His goal of reviving US relations with allies after declaring "America is back" following the Trump administration have been complicated by dismay over the possibility that interpreters and other workers who helped US troops over 20 years could be left behind to face reprisals from the Taliban. Questions Biden must answer[/paste:font] Despite Biden's efforts to portray the current situation as a simple choice between staying in Afghanistan and fighting a never-ending war, the President is not being held to account for the mistakes of the three previous administrations, whose missteps turned the war into an American failure. The Trump administration especially left Biden with some tough choices in a strategy that left the US with a skeleton garrison and poisoned relations with Kabul by negotiating with the Taliban behind the government's back. The issue is not even over the President's decision to leave a war that long ago lost public support. Joe Biden isn't talking. At least not to the media. Instead, he is being asked to answer for things that were in his power to influence: the poorly planned evacuation effort, the failure to speed up visa processing for thousands of Afghans and the missed opportunity to get US citizens out earlier. As that pressure mounts, the President raised the possibility in the ABC News interview that the effort could stretch beyond August 31, his previous deadline. "We're going to do everything in our power to get all Americans out and our allies out," Biden said. The operation at Kabul airport is cranking up, with hundreds of people leaving on flights from the US armed forces and those of other nations. But CNN reported that some of those hoping to leave were being stopped at Taliban checkpoints, reflecting the extent to which US evacuations rely on the forbearance of an enemy force. At the Pentagon news conference, Milley and Austin inadvertently revealed the deficiencies of the US evacuation. They said there were insufficient forces at the airport to keep its perimeter secure and to venture behind enemy lines to collect Americans or allied Afghans as they shelter from the Taliban in Kabul and elsewhere. "We don't have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people," Austin said. Austin also said US forces would try to "deconflict" the situation with the Taliban to "create passageways for them to get to the airfield." But he also admitted he didn't have enough forces to do much more. "I don't have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul," he said. Milley revealed that a lack of resources was also behind the decision to shutter the vast former US base at Bagram airfield further out of Kabul, in comments that implicitly confirmed that the forces were never in place to assure Biden's vow for an orderly withdrawal. "If we were to keep both Bagram and the embassy going, that would be a significant number of military forces that would have exceeded what we had," he said. "So we had to collapse one or the other, and a decision was made." Both Milley and Austin, a retired general, appeared deeply uncomfortable at the news conference. "This is a war that I fought in and led. I know the country. I know the people. And I know those who fought alongside me," Austin said. [paste:font size="5"] Fareed Zakaria: This withdrawal is a stain on Biden's foreign policy 02:59 "We have a moral obligation to help those who helped us," he added. "I feel the urgency deeply." With the Taliban celebrating an extraordinary victory over the United States, they may lack an incentive to orchestrate clashes with US forces confined to the airport. But the extent of the group's patience is unclear. And there are no guarantees its extremists will not hunt down Afghans it sees as US collaborators before they can escape to the airport. This position of powerlessness, in which the US is at the whim of a ragtag militia, is hard for many Americans to accept, especially those who served in uniform. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, had harsh words for the position in which the United States now finds itself in Kabul. "Now we are in a position where we are disgracefully begging the Taliban for permission to save Americans," Kinzinger told CNN's Jake Tapper. An 'America First' moment[/paste:font] Events of the last few days have done more than damage Biden's reputation for competency. They have also exposed as never before the cold-eyed calculation behind a foreign policy that includes some elements of the "America First" approach of Trump. On Tuesday, Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said it was heartbreaking that Afghan women and girls would now face repression under the Taliban. But he indicated the President chose that option over more US blood being shed in Afghanistan. All presidents face impossible choices. And Biden is honoring his duty to protect Americans. But his chosen course and failure to speed up processing of Afghan refugees months ago, despite warnings from veterans and members of Congress, call into question his commitment to civilians who trusted the US. Biden's harsh criticism of the Afghan Army has been particularly poorly received abroad and may damage his ability to wield US soft power. 'I do not regret my decision': Biden on US military withdrawal from Afghanistan 02:01 The President argued with reason last week that US forces should not have to fight a war that Afghan soldiers refuse to wage. But in blaming Afghans he ignored savage losses of life among armed and police forces built with US dollars, which far exceed US casualties. His stance fueled anger in Britain's House of Commons on Wednesday, in a debate in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a backlash because of his association with the US President. Tom Tugendhat, a member who served with the British Army in Afghanistan, lambasted the US President's comments. "To see their commander in chief call into question the courage of men I fought with, to claim they ran. It's shameful," Tugendhat said. "Those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have."