The presidency of Joseph Robinette Biden has been an unmitigated disaster from the get go. There’s no other way to say it, and the political left knows it as much as the right.
Afghanistan may be the latest example of how Biden and his team (actually, mostly his team) took a Trumpy idea and butchered it. The same goes for his coronavirus strategy, his U.S. border policy, and even with the “infrastructure” bill.
It’s not just a return to declinist, uniparty politics. Joe Biden’s government has thus far appealed to the worst instincts of a totalitarian left at home, and the worst instincts of the relativistic left abroad. Still, why should we be surprised? Even Barack Obama tried to warn America prior to the November 2020 election.
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up,” Obama was quoted as saying last August. He went further, asserting: “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”
That’s about as damning as Obama could’ve been considering the man served as his Vice President for eight years. He had a point. Joe didn’t and doesn’t have it. But it’s not really Joe Biden leading this monstrosity of a government.
I don’t think that lets Biden off the hook. Had Trump presided over such a pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan, House Democrats would’ve drafted articles of impeachment by close of business on the day the presidential palace got taken by the Taliban. Today. As I write this.
And it’s especially galling to watch this take place from New York City, as Afghan expats march in the streets of America instead of the streets of Kabul, demanding someone does something. There’s the problem. They already did.
Afghanistan was obviously a fool’s errand, perhaps unavoidable in some way after 9/11. But what could have been avoided was 20-year deployment, and the mission creep from defeating the Taliban to founding a Jeffersonian republic in South Asia. Blame for such things lies at the feet of every American man and woman who didn’t protest vociferously enough to stop such a moronic endeavor. You can’t just keep blaming politicians. This is what they do. The public has a duty – especially when it’s costing $2 trillion and 240,000 lives – to intervene against its governing class.
