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.
Over 4000 members of the U.S. military and non-governmental contractors were killed during this war, and 20,000+ were wounded. The cost of this engagement should be the subject of wide-ranging public inquiries which would naturally lead to prosecutorial action in any just world. And why the hell can a human being still not take a can of Coca-Cola on a plane?
Real accountability is probably more of a pipe dream than thinking the Taliban was eradicated after 2001. The next best thing is to reign in the power of the state, and that’s where one would hope the Republican Party would come in.
There have, of course, been a handful of hyper-effective Republicans on Capitol Hill and beyond in the past few months. The media launches daily incursions against the characters of Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Ron DeSantis. CNN’s own technical director Charlie Chester who was caught on hidden camera:
“If the agenda, say, is to get, like, Matt Gaetz right now, he’s like this Republican… He’s a problem for the Democratic Party because he’s so conservative, right? And he can cause a lot of hiccups in passing of laws and whatnot. So, it would be great for the Democratic Party to get him out. So we’re going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him and make it so that it can’t be buried and, like, just settled outside of court. And just like, you know, if we keep pushing that, it’s helping us. That’s propaganda because it’s helping us in some way.”
The propaganda merchants don’t just stop and smearing the opponents of their political bedfellows, either. CNN’s coverage of the downfall of America in Afghanistan has been woeful, with White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond scrambling for words to excuse the Biden regime’s abdication of responsibility.
But Republicans scarcely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Instead of getting up and holding the microphone on the subject all weekend long, Republican leadership simply called for Biden to address the nation himself, effectively demanding the left controls the narrative. Weak.
