Civic Register
| 8.31.21
Biden Hails ‘Extraordinary Success’ of Afghanistan Withdrawal, Outlines Options for Americans & Afghan Allies Left Behind in Evacuation
How do you feel about Biden’s remarks on the end of the Afghanistan war and evacuation?
What’s the story?
- President Joe Biden delivered remarks on Tuesday about the end of the war in Afghanistan and the conclusion of the military evacuation from the country ahead of his August 31st deadline, along with the next steps for getting the American civilians and Afghan allies stranded in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan out of the country. He did not take questions from the press at the conclusion of his remarks.
- The president took credit for the end of “the longest war in American history” along with “one of the biggest airlifts in history” and said the “extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals” in a “mission of mercy.” He also acknowledged the ISIS-K terror attack in which, “Twenty servicemembers were wounded in the service of this mission. Thirteen heroes gave their lives.”
- Biden didn’t address his past statements in which he insisted he would keep U.S. forces in Afghanistan until all Americans were evacuated, such as on August 19th when he said on ABC that “if there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.” He did, however, tout that only “about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave” and added:
“The bottom line: Ninety percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.” (The White House’s transcript struck the 90% figure and added a 98% in reference to those Americans “who wanted to leave” being evacuated.)
- He also noted, “Since March, we reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan, with multiple warnings and offers to help them leave Afghanistan.” However, Biden didn’t acknowledge that his administration’s public expressions of confidence in the Afghan government’s stability may have deterred those evacuees from leaving, such as the president’s statement at a July 8th press conference that the “likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
- In his remarks Tuesday Biden said “for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.” At present, no commercial or chartered flights are flying evacuees out of Afghanistan, but Biden said there are efforts “to reopen the airport, as well as overland routes” for people to leave and added, “I was not going to extend this forever, and I was not extending a forever exit.”
- The president said he and the international community expect the Taliban to allow “freedom of travel, freedom to leave.” In recent weeks, the Taliban delayed or blocked outright a number of U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders, and their family members attempting to reach the airport to evacuate. There are reports the Taliban is searching house-to-house for Afghans who worked with the U.S. and executing or “disappearing” those they find.
- The president said that he inherited a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that had a deadline of May 1st from former President Donald Trump and framed the options available to him as being between a withdrawal or an escalation in troops along with a return to large-scale U.S. participation in ground combat. Biden’s framing omitted advice he received from General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that urged him to keep the roughly 2,500 troops in Afghanistan to ensure stability, per reports by the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. While Biden acknowledged that he extended the deadline to August 31st, he failed to note that he initially extended it to September 11th and moved it up to the end of August on July 8th.
- Given the number of Americans and Afghan allies left behind and the delayed start to the evacuation ― about 116,000 of the over 120,000 people evacuated were flown out since August 14th when the Taliban entered Kabul ― Biden also pushed back on assertions that the operation should’ve begun sooner:
“Now, some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner and “Couldn’t this have be done — have been done in a more orderly manner?” I respectfully disagree. Imagine if we had begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war. There still would have been a rush to the airport, a breakdown in confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission.”
- The Biden administration did not begin the evacuation of Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders until late July after all but 650 U.S. troops had been withdrawn, which ultimately resulted in troop levels having to be increased to roughly 5,800 in mid-August to ensure the security of Hamid Karzai International Airport amid the evacuation after the Taliban took Kabul. Biden did not address the early July closure of Bagram Air Base in his latest remarks.
- The president said Tuesday that “we were ready when the Afghan Security Forces ― after two decades of fighting for their country and losing thousands of their own ― did not hold on as long as anyone expected.” However, Biden said on July 8th that he intended to maintain the U.S. diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, but the Taliban’s sudden takeover resulted in the U.S. shuttering its Embassy in Kabul and shifting operations to the airport until the evacuation was completed (the Embassy’s operations have now been shifted to Doha, Qatar).
- During his remarks Tuesday, Biden claimed, “al Qaeda is decimated.” Earlier this year, Austin and Milley told Congress that it would take “possibly two years” for al Qaeda or ISIS to regenerate in Afghanistan after the departure of American forces. At a press briefing on August 20th, Pentagon Press Secretary acknowledged that al Qaeda already has a presence in Afghanistan but said that it isn’t significant enough to constitute a threat to the homeland. In the wake of the Taliban’s takeover, defense chiefs are going to reassess that estimate to see if it has advanced the timeline for al Qaeda or ISIS to reconstitute in Afghanistan.
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: Kabul Evacuation: U.S. Army photo by Master Sgt. Alexander Burnett, 82nd Airborne Public Affairs / Public Domain | Biden: White House photo by Adam Schultz via Flickr / Creative Commons)
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Uhhhh…. “We got 90% of Americans”..?!?? NO MAN / WOMAN LEFT BEHIND. Traitor to his own people. Biden is incompetent, deplorable, insensitive and a complete failure. IMPEACH - BIDEN / HARRIS MUST GO!!! For their crimes against this country and all of her people, in addition to our allies. Garbage administration speaking trash in a mic to play politics after murdering an innocent ally & children just to pretend he did ANYTHING about the loss of those 13 service members after his own complete and utter lack of leadership.
You sent your troops to war, You sent your Troops back home.
He is a disgrace! His whole administration is a disgrace! The only thing this meathead is worried about is the flavor of ice cream he’s getting before his 5pm bed time.
The news is freaking out about Pres. Biden's approval rating stating that people are "not happy" with Pres. Biden's response to the Delta Variant.....Really!? In the Biden Administration, the vaccines (which are free) are available for all those who want them.......You can make the vaccine, ship the vaccine, make sure that the equipment is available and the venues are available for administering the vaccine but, just like you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink......you can;t make the average person avail themselves of the vaccine. Thousands are currently being infected with the virus daily...many are dying BECAUSE they REFUSED to get the vaccine and people blame that on Biden?....On one hand they call him a Nazi because he has insisted that all Federal employees get the vaccine and that school children wear masks and on the other, they blame him for the continuation of the spread! There is a thing called "personal responsibility" and it is WAY past time that people remember this.
Our nation’s survival requires Joe’s impeachment.
Horrible you can’t leave any Americans behind. President Biden thinks 10% is good enough! Absolute disgrace!
Check out the new docuseries, “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” on Netflix. It is an expansive and detailed historical study about HOW & WHY we got to 9/11, with an almost complete history of WHEN & WHY Afghanistan became a focal point for the American government and the American people. This 5 episode series explains so much and in such detail, afterwards you’ll know EXACTLY WHY we left Afghanistan, and WHY we should have left much sooner than August of 2021! It’s ALL there. And it’s ALL the TRUTH! The main idea I got out of it is this: Never go to war without a clear exit strategy that leaves the invaded country better than you found it. NOT doing so will be catastrophic!
The senile lying old plagiarist must be removed from office.
Glad it's over. AF flew 124k people out of Kabul without a single accident or loss. The 13 soldiers who died by suicide bombing were only casualties. I salut the airmen and Marines who accomplished this mission in 14 days. Semper fi.
Jeanne: Thanks. I really think it would help our country of more people would take the long-view of things instead of just reacting to the crisis of the moment. I believe that Biden will be treated well by historians for actually having the guts to take the political heat for doing what needed to be done. … … … I have seen in Biden someone who leads to do what is honest, ethical and moral instead of just reacting to opinion polls. It takes a lot of principles and forward looking thought to do this. … … … I cannot see any leadership in the Republican Faction to do anything at all except find new ways to subvert the intention of legal strictures and norms to stay in their cushy very financially rewarding jobs, no matter how unprincipled, unethical or immoral that may be. The fact that I often see the rhetoric of peddled disinformation, much of it designed by Russian agents to cause divisiveness, repeated blindly by cultists really worries me. … … … I remember the intelligence reports months before the election that the Russians would use this strategy to disrupt the elections - including pushing the narrative that the election voting would be corrupted. That is why the FBI and counter computer fraud agencies spent more time and effort monitoring elections than they had ever done before. The Republican Faction saw it as an excuse to find ways for Republican State legislatures to politically rig many aspects of the voting process by giving themselves the means to do so. The Russian agents must be really gratified that their appeal to the wanton lust of the Republican Faction to win at all costs, caused them to adapt the Russian disinformation. Yet, so many cultists here repeat this and other Russian designed disinformation ad nauseam.
Impeach Biden!
First, salute to the historical level of evacuation effort. However - that still doesn't excuse the initial decisions to pullout without consulting NATO allies or closing Bagram airbase which was much more defendable with more airlift capability/runways. Had that been maintained the Afghan army's will to fight might not have evaporated as rapidly plus it would have given the our air support. This alone makes this much more poorly handled than when I was in the military watching Vietnam go down the tubes in 1975. All administrations of either party would try to spin this in the most positive way to reflect on them and to deflect blame to the other party if possible. But one can argue there is blame to go to every administration since we first went there in 2001. Still the final decisions on how this was handled fall to this administration.
Lynn E: Thank you. There are so many people on this site with a clear head and a clear conscience that inspire me. There are many that I learn from. There are many that bring great new perspectives to the issues of the day. I count you as one of them. I really do enjoy reading your comments.
I think Biden’s speech will long be remembered and lauded in the future as well as his ability to finally end a costly war after two decades. He had the guts to make this tough decision. He stood firmly by his principles and American values despite the chain rattling and clamor of the despicable Republican Faction desperately trying to discredit Biden at every possible turn solely for their own political benefit. … … … The nay-sayers will be silenced as the truth of the withdrawal becomes clearer, including leveraging a hostile newly formed governance to help extract over 123,000 people from hazard in record time, as our military suddenly found themselves located within a new unfriendly governance and not the expected allied Afghan governance. … … … Biden’s actions will show most of us just how much principles, ethics and honor mean to effective governance and how to honorably make tough decisions that will ultimately prove to be the best solutions to resolve a tough crisis in the most effective way, overall. … … … Now, Biden can continue to focus on rebuilding another Nation of great import to US interests- Ours!
@JimK, I agree and who's in Afghanistan now another djt gift and grift. I was telling someone today get ready for all Benghazi Benghazi, same with Afghanistan Afghanistan. Always important to remember,watch and know what they are actually doing behind scenes of all their phony vitreal. Look over here not over there. Of course you have to have a justice dept. that's on the up and up and hold people accountable also or all you get is more chaos and chaos agents stirring the propaganda as we are witnessing now so that you don't really see what's going on. We are definitely in a period of steadfastly remaining vigilant for our democracy. You don't know what you've got till it's gone. Thanks so much for all of yours and others wise postings.
This evacuation may have been the best available option but it was not a success. It was a dismal failure.
Laughable.
Biden made the best of a terrible situation. Was it perfect, no, was it necessary to get out, yes. Should the Afghan Government, the Taliban and the Americans sat around a table and negotiated the agreement, YES. Was it Trump who negotiated for our troop withdrawal with the Taliban and without the Afghan Government, YES. Plenty of blame to go around.
I’m glad we got out of there I did this war you can use that money for something else like for poor people.
USURPER BIDEN UTTERLY FAILED THE UNITED STATES WITH HIS AFGHANISTAN EXIT FIASCO. WHY ISN'T HE BEING IMPEACHED?