US soldiers stand guard at the barbed wire fence at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty)
UPDATE, AUG 24:
I joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s The World on Monday for further examination of the effect of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
We review the situation inside the country, domestic politics in the US, and then the possible damage to American alliances from Europe to Asia.
Watch Discussion from 25:12
“The Biden administration may have miscalculated” the geopolitical consequences of its swift withdrawal from #Afghanistan, @ScottLucas_EA tells @YveYong. “Beyond Afghanistan, what does it mean about America’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific region?” #ABCTheWorld pic.twitter.com/R1lYaZvvkH
— ABC News (@abcnews) August 23, 2021
ORIGINAL ENTRY, AUG 23: I spoke with BBC outlets on Monday about the latest situation in Afghanistan, including Joe Biden’s attempt to reframe the crisis as an issue of domestic US politics.
I explain how Biden is trying to narrow the situation after the Taliban’s takeover, and erase almost all Afghans, through a “Dunkirk moment” in which the evacuation of Americans is a victory.
Listen to BBC Radio 5 Live from 6:57
Joe Biden’s priority, once those Americans are out, is not about what happens in Afghanistan. It’s about implementing his infrastructure bill and about getting this historic $3.5 trillion budget for social programs, the most ambitious in a century.
Listen to BBC Radio Scotland from 2:40.30
If this continues as headline news after Labor Day, with problems in the evacuation, then that short-term drop in Biden’s popular support could become a longer-term issue.
The Biden gamble is that this doesn’t happen: by September, Afghans will be expendable in American public opinion.
US media turning from obsequious darlings to screeching banshees in their treatment of Biden has been fascinating to observe, and immensely contemptible when you consider the implications. The architects of the 20 years of failure will never have to worry about paying any sort of price for their contribution to the criminal project costing hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives, and countless more displaced or maimed. Not in a court of law, and not in the public eye. Even their reputations won’t be discredited. The embezzling, and the mismanagement of funds? Won’t be punished either. Brazenly lying in order to mislead the public? Nothing again. Only the guy who finally pulls the plug gets the media hounds “holding him to account”. Rumsfeld, were he still alive, wouldn’t see much ire focused his way. Neither would the generals involved. Did any cable news networks grill Petraeus or McChrystal these past few weeks? Lol, of course not. Long-time neo-cons like Frum, Kristol, and Goldberg? Still peddling their trash as respectable FP “experts”. Maybe get a former CIA director and inquire about the intelligence agency’s warcriminal activities, since we’re supposed to believe the sudden concern about Afghans’ well-being is so genuine? LMAO.
Evidently the handmaidens of the national security state will happily see to it that only the guy pulling the plug catches any heat for it. The motives for that are obvious. The president’s role in a democracy is supposed to be that of the fall guy, in case the system needs one. Biden’s now fulfilling it. Everyone else will rest easy, and continue on as if they played no role in it. What a disgusting country and system.