Today at 1 p.m., the NYT reports.
But the reassurances from Washington belie the fear and futility on the ground.... As Afghans clutching travel documents camped outside [the airport] amid Taliban checkpoints and tangles of concertina wire, anxious crowds were pressed up against blast walls, with women and children being hoisted into the arms of U.S. soldiers on the other side....
“This is an operation that will continue at as fast a clip as we can possibly manage,” said Ned Price, a State Department spokesman....
“There are tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans literally at the gate,” said Sunil Varghese, the policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project. “This could have been completely avoided if evacuation was part of the military withdrawal.”
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38 comments:
Let’s see him take some live, tough questions.
My guess is prepared speech with maybe a few planted questions. They have had a week now to prepare the press and Psaki is back at work after cancelling her vacation.
In related news, Biden chooses decline for America, which was also a choice of Pres. Obama's
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/08/19/biden-chooses-decline/
“This is an operation that will continue at as fast a clip as we can possibly manage,” said Ned Price, a State Department spokesman
Is anyone satisfied or comforted or reassured with this answer? This sounds like an American Airlines rep in Dallas trying to reassure the crowds they've left stranded.
Legacy media has been outraged Joe hasn't provided them an opportunity to save him. I suspect they will get their chance today. They've had several days to craft their escape plan for Joe. They're ready now...
But will he address the growing list of contradictory statements that have come out of his own pie hole? His July 8 insistence that the Afghan Army was bigger (“400,000!”) and stronger and better trained and equipped than the Taliban has aged quickly like him. Half the grumpy annoyed at being questioned POTUS clips released by Stephy the Democrat operative make opposite claims (“of course it was chaotic”) and reveal a pompous and cold reaction to human suffering. He seems to not know or simply not care that his decisions brought this horror about. He has no patience for answering simple questions. As I wrote yesterday the Biden doctrine as presented is I DON’T CARE!
No 20-minute mumbled mush of bromides can or will reverse his slide into dementia or transformation into an object of global ridicule.
And how will it all end?
Taliban have ordered our remaining troops out. We have more people than we have capacity to locate and evacuate.
Allahpundit, faced with the unsettling fact that Biden didn't return Boris Johnson's urgent phone call for 36 hours, has decided that Trump would have been even worse and ordered the bombing of our own troops based on twisting Trump's words.
Face it, NeverTrumpers are so invested in their beliefs that even this clear and present evidence of Biden's utter incompetence combined with thoroughly documented evidence of his greed and corruption, and BTW, piled on top of much other such evidence, such as his cancelling Keystone XL and then begging Russia and the Saudis to pump more oil and charge us less out of altruism and love for the US and Western Europe.
I know we aren't supposed to say here "the stupid, it hurts," but at this point I can see how the stupid might actually hurt. Allahpundit isn't stupid, really. He just can't come to terms with his failure of judgement. This is the same Biden who campaigned from his basement and called "lids" in the early afternoon day after day, after all.
“There are tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans literally at the gate,” said Sunil Varghese, the policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project. “This could have been completely avoided if evacuation was part of the military withdrawal.”
Also, it would have been nice to have access to a few additional airfields spread out around the country to improve general logistics for an evacuation.
Oh, that right, we handed those over to the Taliban BEFORE we thought to evacuate our people and other valuable resources.
I wonder if he will take any questions.
Joe Biden, Mark Milley, Lloyd Austin, and the hapless Anthony Blinken are all at fault here. I'll give Kamala a pass because no one listens to her about anything anyway.
Blinken should never have been in this position at all. Look at John McCain's Senate speech in 2014 against Anthony Blinken's appointment as Deputy Secy of State back then. McCain had him nailed.
The UK is managing to take action and get their people and Afghans out of there. The French are doing the same. Our feckless leaders are trying to smooth this over and make it presentable for political purposes. And it's really going over well- all over the world.
Biden gave his interview to ABC and then ABC promptly censored it. They have yet to release the full video or transcript of the interview. But some of it has leaked out and it is scary. Biden comes off as demented. Unaware of time, or events.
The world sees this. Everyone. Do you think China is going to sit back on their planned 20 year takeover of the world while this opportunity is handed to them? They are taking action and moving things up on their schedule. (they already met with Blinken, told him he was weak and full of shit, and he just looked scared and said nothing).
Biden can come out and try to patch things up today. But the reality is that he should not be in office. NONE of these people should be in their positions. They are a clear and present danger. And with help, they rigged an election to put an ideological yet reality-disabled team in office. Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, our media, Big Tech all knew how bad Joe Biden was. Hell- WE all knew how bad he was.
Yet somehow he got 83 million votes? More than any President in our history? I'll never buy it.
I hope for the best, that's about all I can do at this point. Maybe a smidgen of Leadership from the President on this mess of his own making will be on view.
Apparently, the Biden administration closed Bagram airfield first. Numbskulls.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/08/19/biden-scrapped-trump-afghanistan-rescue-plan-n1470923
Other than antidotes of isolated acts of violence we are not reading about heavy combat or mass killings just a lot of confusion and chaos. It's probably a good thing that the Afghan army didn't put up any resistance if you are concerned about adding to the number of casualties in a lost cause.
Biden will "address the furor..."
The real problem for the Administration is the furor.
If it wasn't for the darn furor...I mean, careers are on the line here, don't forget that.
Where would we be, as a country, if our leaders were held responsible for the consequences of their actions every time they completely fucked things up? We could wind up with completely different leaders. Is that what you want? Because, make no mistake, that's what could happen. It's terrifying.
“Stymied by mayhem” is pretty fine phrasing. It sounds like a Times crossword clue. Or the pedigree of a Kentucky Derby winner.
What is particularly interesting in the locution is the way it obscures human agency. Nobody wrought this catastrophe: “mayhem” so me how magically arose and caused it; caused not merely a difficulty but absolute paralysis. In golf, a “stymie” occurs when the other guy’s ball blocks your putt; you cannot play unless he picks up. Here, I suspect the Taliban have no intention of playing by Western rules.
"Stymied by mayhem". That would be a good name for a new product by a woke cologne company. Advertised by emaciated non-binary models with ridiculous clothing.
Stymied, by Mayhem.
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? That abandoning Bagram in the middle of the night, and then pulling out all forces;
probably Shouldn't have been done first?
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? That there should have been some sort of staged procedure to follow when running out of a country?
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? Tht the US Army wouldn't have running out on a country, down in a play book,
i mean; they do it often enough
"There are tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans"
We're not taking the Afghans, are we?
What are Muslim countries doing to help their fellow Muslims?
If Biden lasts through September I’ll be surprised. He is a dead man walking. Complete and total display of what he always has been: a mean empty suit. And Obama parties on.
It appears the Taliban “Charm Offensive” lasted for approximately 48 hours.
You can’t teach a mangy, rabid old dog new tricks.
At first I brushed off suggestions that this cluster f**k is not a failure but an operation. I’ll be looking for signs that it is the latter in the Biden team’s words and actions.
All is proceeding according to my prediction.
Trump 21!
Joe Biden lacks the mental acuity to be POTUS. He has been deficient for a number of years now.
"Today at 1 p.m."
Have they called the 1:30 p.m. lid yet?
Too early for a Biden bye-ku?
Onion on his belt.
It was the style at the time.
Stymied by mayhem.
I don't want to hear how hard the President is working.
I don't want to hear this isn't a failure if we manage to get our people out by the 31st.
I don't want to hear now is not the time to place accountability on those to whom we clearly entrusted with it.
No, I don't want to hear the sound of goalposts moving every time someone from the Administration opens their mouth.
What I DO want to hear is why we shouldn't replace the people who got us into this situation with people who might have a fresh take on the problem.
And I with 11 days to go, I don't want to hear it's too late to change out the leadership now.
There's over a year until the next election, and the MSM will go back to unqualified support of whomever is President next Fall: Biden, Harris, Pelosi... Anyone with a "D."
The most interesting question about this whole debacle is who actually made the decision to do the withdrawal now and in such a completely incompetent way: semi-President Klain? Secy. Blinken? Secy. Austin? Or one of the big three listed above? Biden has a long record of utter callousness in throwing people and countries overboard.
"What did they know and when did they know it?"
As others have mentioned, there is a need to review the military leadership and other institutions and seriously reduce - if not eliminate - redundancy and the policy sclerosis.
It has been reported that there haven’t been any flights out of HKIA for 8 hours now.
Face facts, Biden voters and supporters: the president is not well, hasn’t been functioning for some time now and we have a deadly crisis on our hands. All those who propped this man up, knowing that this was the case? It will not wash off.
Owen nails what I was going to point out- this entire event is now being described in passive language- again, this is only done when the writers don't want to reveal who is responsible for what.
Howard- it ain't rocket science- you get the civilians out first, not last. There is no way you can blame this on anyone other than Biden at this point. You look foolish even trying.
Flights to resume after a 9 hour pause…
Other than [anecdotes] of isolated acts of violence we are not reading about heavy combat or mass killings just a lot of confusion and chaos.
Emphasis added.
Consider this the antidote to your comment, Howard.
LOL - how many times will Biden address the "furor over there"? This is what happens when your only concern is to undue everything Trump did!
Got to love the passive framing. Mayhem just happens, you know. And then it stymies you so you can't execute the excellent plans you had for just ignoring the chaos you have created by your incompetence.
Oh he tried to sound empathetic but soon devolved into the Nathan Thurm-like creature he’s always been, eliding blame and still trying to claim that we are following Trump’s plan. How weak. The press shouting almost sounded like a real WH briefing for once.
"Other than antidotes of isolated acts of violence we are not reading about heavy combat or mass killings just a lot of confusion and chaos."
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...
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