On Sunday, August 22, 2021, President Biden addressed the nation regarding the ongoing evacuation efforts of Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul, Afghanistan. Much like the war in Afghanistan itself, the President's speech was too long, not entirely coherent, and the very ugliest part was at the end. The President claimed the evacuation would have been hard no matter when it happened in his remarks. He then emphatically stated that all planes carrying evacuees were not coming directly to the United States, all Afghanis were thoroughly vetted at locations outside the United States before being transferred to the United States, and The United States would welcome Afghanis with open arms. The President ended his remarks by taking questions from pre-approved, friendly journalists. All in all, his speech was uninspired and contained many dubious claims.
The President's claim that the evacuation would have been ugly and painful no matter when it happened is a logical extension of the idea that we must pull out of Afghanistan. For years now, it has been said by people on both sides of the political aisle that we have to leave Afghanistan sometime. Why? The logic of this statement is never explained. It is always said as if the truth in it is self-evident. Nothing in history bears this out. What do Cuba, Italy, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Kuwait all have in common? These are places the United States has fought in over the past 123 years and has maintained a military presence. Staying for forever is typically what we do when we've won. The idea that we must pull out eventually is a defeatist attitude that should have been troubling for Americans. We certainly should not accept endless war as a given, but to abandon a country where we have sacrificed massive amounts of resources to include thousands of American lives simply because we have arbitrarily decided it is time to leave is illogical, gross, and inhumane. Did we set up an Afghan national government to replace the Taliban? Did we replace the Taliban because they allowed Al-Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a base of operations for their terror operations against the west? Is Afghanistan likely to revert to being what it was before we invaded? If the answer to these questions is yes, we have a moral obligation to see through what we started.
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Yes, this is a difficult task, but it's worth pointing out that we have fought this war with an entirely volunteer military. For the past twenty years, there have been plenty of American kids who have volunteered to go. So, who is this war really a strain for? Are we worried about the military who is actually doing the fighting and dying? Or when we call the war a strain, are we just saying that urban-dwelling progressives who have no connection to anyone who has ever served in combat are bored with it and want a new topic for discussion at brunch? The former is a serious matter that should be dealt with. The latter is an issue we should ignore entirely. However, one issue we can't ignore completely is the President's wordplay when trying to excuse himself from responsibility for this crisis.
President Biden emphatically stated that no flights from Kabul were coming directly to the United States in his speech. This is wordplay, and it is dishonest. The evacuation efforts in Afghanistan are barely even a week old. As of the early morning of August 21, 2021, at least 1,000 refugees have been brought to Northern Virginia to be temporarily housed at a local community college. The effort to meet the basic humanitarian needs of these people has been made haphazardly by the community college, local law enforcement, and local charities, who were not notified of their arrival until the very last minute. There was no plan in place for these people. Biden is essentially saying Americans shouldn't worry because the planes bringing these people here will have layovers before coming to the United States. The idea that the fleeing Afghans were thoroughly vetted before being brought into the United States is laughable. How could we have thoroughly vetted them when we don't even have an elementary logistical plan to feed them or provide them with cots in place?
Many of these people likely were part of the United States war effort in Afghanistan. If someone risked their lives by going out on patrol with American forces or participated in our war effort in any other profound way, those people and their families should be helped. However, we do not determine who those people are by whether they showed up at the airport in Kabul at the eleventh hour and hysterically tried to board a plane. A warlord who embezzled money from the United States for 20 years and did nothing to help his countrymen would almost certainly have that same reaction. That person should not be allowed into the United States. Just as abandoning our allies sends a terrible message to the world community about making a cause with us, so does helping people who defrauded us. Do we want to be seen by the world as hapless rubes who can be stolen from and will then turn around and thank the thieves? One of the major problems in Afghanistan is that those supposedly working with us were using their positions to pocket American money, which was supposed to be helping the Afghan people. To help Afghani civil servants who got rich by defrauding us makes us look just as ham-fisted and incompetent as abandoning our allies does.
After concluding his speech, Biden took questions from a list of pre-approved journalists who only asked softball questions. He still managed to bungle the questions by laughing and grinning about the situation, as if human beings falling to their deaths from jet aircraft is anything other than horrifying. Biden also took the opportunity to make a series of statements about the Taliban. He seemed optimistic about their control of Afghanistan, claiming they were seeking legitimacy and pointing out they had not attacked US forces at the airport yet. He also re-emphasized the talking point that we had to leave eventually. President Biden then shuffled off-camera, back to whoever writes his lists of pre-approved friendly reporters. Nothing about his comments were normal, sincere, or comforting, and his speech yesterday was an almost perfect metaphor for the war in Afghanistan itself.
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