I’m sorry, but I need to express my white hot disappointment in Joe, especially after today’s interview with George Stephanolnpous. He might be electable toast already damnit, and today denying the truth is just unacceptable. I, who really like Joe, almost wish he would fire himself, I am so unhappy with the failures we see, he is not admitting the truth and being a stubborn dude about it does not help. He needs to admit it was blown, at a minimum.
So, what to do now? Well, the administration’s plan might have to include going back to war, because no one did the actual damn planning beforehand that would have avoided the forever damning images of all we have seen, I just do not have the heart at this minute to list even one. But, make no mistake, this is now a huge, spreading, terrible indelible stain on this Democratic administration, for political ever and ever. And, truth is, it could and probably get much worse. Because, right at this very minute, all of our military personnel and all the other Americans and all the Afghans qualified to be evacuated, are deep behind new enemy lines of a devious and merciless religiously indoctrinated foe. One who loves revenge, and embarrassing governments that criticize them. Dicey does not begin to cover it.
The President should have already fired a number of advisers. They failed him. Period! All this nonsense about no one seeing this coming, it was not true back when Condi Rice tried to dodge 9/11 failure, and we will certainly see, it was not true this time, either. Who recommended shrinking to Kabul? Fire them. Who recommended not even enough troops to control and protect the one airport we shrunk to? Fire them! Who did not think to create a special interagency Withdrawal Study Group, specifically to ensure that this was not Saigon deja-vu-all-over-again ?
I mean, the last war we lost, that helicopter on the roof is two clicks away. Does anyone working in these jobs know about You Tube? The truth is, and the sooner Joe admits it, we should have had such a group tasked to do one thing: how to keep the withdrawal process from politically damaging the President? Had such a group been created, identifying the political risk of shrinking our forces to one place without adequate force protection at the end in a huge metropolitan city, seems like they would have seen that. Why Defense, State, and who knows who in the loop did not plan this dangerous withdrawal in a remote landlocked mountainous country much better, is almost unbelievable. Careers need to end for Joe to have a chance.
Of course at this moment, Special Operator forces in country, and many out of country, are executing vital missions, and we can be sure, preparing to essentially re-invade Afghanistan, as one of the options, or something close to it that entails enormous risks. Regular forces too, they might be needed. Hoping that the Taliban murdering maniacs will pretty please not decide to attack US forces (we have been bombing them even this past Spring) is a damn national embarrassment as 9/11 #20 approaches. If the Taliban decide that maybe letting all these planes leave is over, they can do that by just firing some shells at the only runway. Let’s hope they don’t. I think, personally, it is more likely than not.
Joe blew it, and he needs to stop pretending. And stop denying it!
And fire some of the team who should have served him infinitely better.