February 2, 2022
"I kept being told by people in the [White House] the thing they were most concerned about was the optics of a chaotic evacuation. They treated us like we were Chicken Little. They didn’t believe the sky was falling."
Said Matt Zeller, a former CIA officer, quoted in "Scoop: Leaked document reveals Biden’s Afghan failures" (Axios).
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74 comments:
Impeach Biden.
Biden's Afghan failures is not a "scoop." Sure, there was incompetence. But were talking Biden here. He has be a fool his life. So no surprise. But another Biden trait is callousness. And this sentence is all you need to know what was really important and led to this disaster: "...and last April he announced his plans to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021."
Biden didn't take into account that the Taliban didn't run the country, when he made the governing agreements with them. Rogue elements still required being shot at and you can't tell who they are.
I trust no leaks from the CIA, the FBI, or any of the supposed intelligence services, even ones that are true.
in the [White House] the thing they were most concerned about was the optics of a chaotic evacuation.
They didn’t believe the sky was falling.
Well, technically,
it wasn't The Sky that was falling; It was Afghans out of airplanes.. Which Is BAD optics
China owns Joe Biden, and this is what China wanted.
I’m not surprised. Paying attention to people who are telling them things they don’t want to hear is not something one associates with Democrats.
The fundamental problem with Democrats is that everything is a matter of optics and messaging. Every. Thing.
The fundamental problem with Democrats is that everything is a matter of optics and messaging.
True. Their policies are unpopular so they say it’s bad optics and messaging- as a strategy. It’s a good strategy because they have studies that demonstrate how the media monopoly can alter enough American’s perception of reality…
If I could do that I’d probably complain about messaging, too…
The left's tone deaf echo chamber has been impenetrable for several years now.
"Optics" was their rationale for allowing Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, et al. to run wild with women for several decades before Madonna and the Pussy Hat Brigade suddenly became enlightened when Trump was accused of the same in 2016-2017.
"Optics" was their rationale for allowing BLM and Defund the Police events in 2020, leading to many more murders and an extensive loss of credibility.
"Optics" was their rationale for minimal policing on Jan 6, leading to terrible police-state optics in D.C. soon thereafter.
"Optics" turns out to be the problem in Afghanistan too...why is anyone surprised?
Short term propaganda over controllable negatives often causes long term failure and major negatives. We were all taught this when schools could teach failure and the criteria for success. The left eats itself when the ends justify the means to the extent that they forget what the ends are.
They weren't wrong about their optics issues.
It WAS what they considered most important. To them. Bad medicine doesn't get better with a pretty story. Keep asking your progressive friends - "how's it going?"
I bet they say things are "great!" Optics. Messaging.
Is it harder to be in charge than it is to watch the other guys screw it all up? So many people want to find the answer to that question. Be careful what you wish for.
It all happened because Joe Biden wanted to celebrate getting out of Afghanistan on 9/11/21. Instead, he fucked it up (as usual) and didn't get quite the celebration of himself that he had hoped to. This was all to appease the left, and he didn't give a shit about the Americans and the Afghan people who helped America at all.
America is back, baby! We needed to get out of Afghanistan, but the way we did it, by picking a winner among the factions, and then chucking our military prestige in the sewer, was the work of a guy with limited brain power.
Well...they certainly got their optics right, huh? My God. These are our leaders? How did such mediocre people get into such key positions?
In the upcoming "bipartisan committee" that will be investigating the event, the R's will be doing as much damage as they can to Biden and glossing over Trump failures while the D's will be doing as much damage as they can to Trump and glossing over Biden failures. It's sickening and maddening. There is no objective truth coming out of the federal government anymore. We are a reality show culture and we have a reality show government.
"This is especially surprising given the depth of experience on Afghanistan and contingency operations at that table."
Even more surprising when you consider the depth of experience sitting in the Oval Office. Joe has been in the Federal government, what, 40+ years, and he made this giant face plant despite all that experience.
People who have paid attention to Joe in action should not have been surprised. He is an incompetent blow hard.
Did Dan Rather provide the leaked memo? Our government seems to have pretty crappy printers for leaked documents.....
Bad optics have never been a problem for the Biden administration. They have enough optometrists on the payroll to cover them all. (Read: WaPoo, NYT, CNN, MSLSD et al)
The optics doesn't matter. No one cares now. The optics of a 20-year Trillion Dollar Military industrial complex murder-money pit don't matter either. 176,000 dead Afghans are long forgotten by American voters. We won the body count... Yay
Well it appeared that the most important thing was the stupid deadline Joe announced prematurely and never had the sense to change.
The big picture: President Biden...announced his plans to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021.
President Trump had previously cut a deal for a U.S. withdrawal by May 2021.
Sounds like it would be more accurate to say Biden announced his intentions rather than his "plans."
So what happened to withdrawal plans made under the previous administration? Were such plans created by DOD and State? If not, why not? If so, why did the Biden Administration start over from scratch?
Later this month, Congress will name members to a bipartisan, 12-person commission that will study the war and issue a report similar to the 9/11 Commission.
This will do more harm than good.
Maybe it looked like what it was, a chaotic evacuation.
That's right Howard, why bother trying to effect an orderly withdrawal when there is a political point to be made.
"Later this month, Congress will name members to a bipartisan, 12-person commission "
You can bet the war-mongering Dick Cheney's daughter will be appointed to make sure they don't actually reveal anything important.
There is no objective truth coming out of the federal government anymore.
@Mid-Life Lawyer, welcome to the real world. There hasn’t been objective truth coming out of the federal government since FDR was President.
Mindless grifter at the helm
Challenges still overwhelm
It's what he says
that makes you feel
Makes one wonder,
what’s his deal?
Why does he keep fuckin' up?
You can see him on the Hill
Comatose but talking still
Whispers cloud his
squinting eyes
Skull-fucked country
hears his lies
Why does he keep fuckin' up?
I think maybe Biden was just thought he could do in Afghanistan what Obama did in Iraq. Obama pulled out and things went to shit and ISIS emerged, but it was Obama so it didn't matter.
Biden forgot he's not Obama.
Sold American!
There hasn’t been objective truth coming out of the federal government since FDR was President.
Wilson.
The leaks are just to set the timing.
Joe Biden is no longer useful to the people who installed him.
Some very fun hearings where witnesses in Michigan and Arizona talked about Overseas Military ballots that somehow were 90+% for Biden and looked like xerox copy paper.
I am sure an audit would clear all of this up and prove Biden is legitimate.
That is why democrats fight against audits like cornered badgers and insist on tech oligarchs censoring discussion of the subject.
Half the country already wants him impeached.
It wont be long now.
Blogger Christopher B said...
The fundamental problem with Democrats is that everything is a matter of optics and messaging. Every. Thing.
When Obama was President, one of the Air Force Officer in our section at Air Mobility Command took an additional duty as part of the advance team for Air Force One. The job was to go to airports that AF1 was going to land, scout out parking, security, ground support, etc. He said at first they always got into it with Obama's people over where to park - the most secure locations were often further from the buildings. They finally got Obama's people to park where it was best by pointing out to them how much better the pictures would be as Obama left the aircraft. It worked every single time.
Bob Boyd said...
I think maybe Biden was just thought he could do in Afghanistan what Obama did in Iraq. Obama pulled out and things went to shit and ISIS emerged, but it was Obama so it didn't matter.
Biden forgot he's not Obama.
That is a good point.
The two acts were similarly incompetent and in effect evil. Thousands murdered and millions raped.
But Joe took the blame for one and Barrack did not for the other.
The only difference I see right off the top is loyalty. Barrack actually won his elections. Joe was installed.
I would say that Joe's installers didn't want to take the blame like they took it for Barrack.
Howard said...The optics doesn't matter. No one cares now. The optics of a 20-year Trillion Dollar Military industrial complex murder-money pit don't matter either. 176,000 dead Afghans are long forgotten by American voters. We won the body count... Yay
You do understand, don't you, that most people criticizing Biden are not criticizing the fact of the withdrawal (which they generally support), but the means by which it was accomplished?
"They didn’t believe the sky was falling."
Then the sky fell, and they said they did a great job sticking the landing.
And so what? Sure, the Afghan debacle stirred public dismay. But does anyone actually care? Do Dem voters care? Will they care enough in 2022, or 2024?
If Biden were not Biden, he would have demanded an accounting. The defense complex lied to the government, pretending they were actually building something in Afghanistan. A Potemkin war. I don't know where the line was, between the intentional liars and the suckers. Maybe nobody does.
But they picked their suckers well. The Biden administration could be counted on to protect them and pretend that they hadn't been fleeced, no matter that everyone knows better.
Biden would be a lot more popular today if he had turned on them. Not to cancel the evacuation, but to demand a full reckoning for those who lied to all of us so they could keep filling their pockets.
You people take everything so personally in addition to having no sense of scale, proportion and the outcome of realpolitik. The withdrawal was fucked up. It was the least fucked up part of the adventure. Nobody cares now except for you folks desperate to run down Biden who is doing a much more successful trashing of himself every day.
The chaos was planned, expected, inevitable, and flawless.
I have the Psaki talking points down pat.
I have no idea, but how many American citizens are still trapped in Afghanistan? That story fell off the news feed almost as soon as the last plane out.
What a shameful contrast to "America held hostage" 42 years ago.
Howard The Wishful Thinker; "The optics doesn't matter. No one cares now. The optics of a 20-year Trillion Dollar Military industrial complex murder-money pit don't matter either. 176,000 dead Afghans are long forgotten by American voters."
Precisely the opposite is true.
Republicans, independents and 1/3 of democraticals had the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan (with Gen Milli Vanilli Wokester) as the first major inflection point for Biden's Earpiece collapsing poll numbers, followed closely by further polling collapse for failing completely and utterly on Covid response and culminating in a two-fer whammy with our economy in shambles (see the 500,000 employment miss on jobs this morning?) Along with immigration (which includes the Afghan refugees).
Yes, its true, one can actually become dumber reading Howard's missives.
Recall Howard's earliest Afghan withdrawal preduction at the time?
He claimed no one would care after a month had gone by.....
And remember, standards have fallen so precipitously for the lefties at Althouse blog that Howard represents their prognostication posting pinnacle!
CWJ: "I have no idea, but how many American citizens are still trapped in Afghanistan?"
Many, along with thousands of Afghanis who directly assisted the US, so naturally alkng with leaving an entire army's worth of free gear and lots and lots of additional cash sent over, Biden's Earpiece made sure to leave lots and lots of useful hostages for the democraticals islamic supremacist allies.
Howard: "You people take everything so personally in addition to having no sense of scale, proportion and the outcome of realpolitik."
Yes, the guy who has gotten every single political prognostication completely wrong AND has already demostrated his utter subservience to democratical party self-contradicting narratives wrote that.
Just now.
Without irony.
As if no one else can remember something from more than 48 hours ago.
Howard, we are still waiting for you to explain how your Howard's Heroes antifa types could be lauded by you as herouc Normandy invasion types for months and months amd then suddenly have you claim they never existed at all and were a myth.
I suppose thats a performance you'd rather not revisit.
“You people…”
—- Massholio
It seems like it was just yesterday when Howard was lecturing all and sundry on inflation fears being over blown and how our roaring economic recovery was going to wash away any criticism of Bidens earpiece!
I mean, come on Howard! Even a blind man can hit a target with a dart once in a while!
Hey, remember when Howard was making fun of the idea that thousands of illegal immigrants were being held under elevated freeways in Texas....oh how funny that was to Howard...and then the helicopter videos were produced....
...and that was that.
Howard, are you still setting the standard st your gym by double masking!
Good times, good times...
" Nobody cares now except for you folks desperate to run down Biden..."
Nobody?
Oh, maybe a few grieving widows of servicemen killed because we screwed that pooch. Maybe a few hundred American and American allies that remain. Maybe the family, including the children, of the aid worker we hit with a drone strike. Maybe those likely to be affected because we have tens of thousands of unvetted folk we airlifted to save face. Maybe our Allies around the world who USED to think they could count on the US.
You people take everything so personally in addition to having no sense of scale, proportion and the outcome of realpolitik. The withdrawal was fucked up. It was the least fucked up part of the adventure. Nobody cares now except for you folks desperate to run down Biden who is doing a much more successful trashing of himself every day.
In other words, what difference, at this point, does it make?
Nobody cares now except for you folks desperate to run down Biden who is doing a much more successful trashing of himself every day.
Daniel Pearl was beheaded on video 20 years ago today. You didn't care about that either. You're getting pitiful, Howard.
"I kept being told by people in the [White House] the thing they were most concerned about was the optics of a chaotic evacuation.
It was clear they weren't overly-concerned with getting all the Americans out.
This seems the most damning line:
“ On the 13th of July, we offered to work with them to help evacuate our partners," Zeller added. "We all saw this disaster coming before the inevitable occurred. They didn’t get back to us until Aug 15, the day Kabul fell."”
"Nobody cares now except for you folks desperate to run down Biden"
It was the turning point in his numbers, people trust their sons to the military, and Biden breached that trust. If you expect Biden's political opponents to drop an issue that is working against him, while admitting that it's true, well, maybe you need the refresher on "realpolitik."
These were the choices the Biden administration had on August 14:
1. Keep Trumps’s May Day withdrawal deadline, which it was too late to do on August 14.
2. Cut and run on August 15 on the next flights after Ghana.
3. Organize an evacuation operation, as was done.
4. Resume the U.S. war with the Taliban.
There is a lot to be said for options 1 and 2, although those options would have had their own bad optics. The strategic mistake was in not realizing that the U.S. withdrawal plan relied on the Afghan government successfully fending off the Taliban for some number of weeks or months after we left, without considering whether the Afghan government would see any advantage in doing that, given we were leaving.
Howard said...
You people take everything so personally in addition to having no sense of scale, proportion and the outcome of realpolitik. The withdrawal was fucked up. It was the least fucked up part of the adventure. Nobody cares now except for you folks desperate to run down Biden who is doing a much more successful trashing of himself every day.
You supported Joe Biden.
You are responsible for this.
Your humiliation is not enough. We must prevent people as stupid as you ever getting control of our government ever again.
"There is no objective truth coming out of the federal government anymore.'
@Mid-Life Lawyer, welcome to the real world. There hasn’t been objective truth coming out of the federal government since FDR was President.
@Big Mike - I disagree. There was a time in the not too distant past when both sides would often work together with something akin to good faith. I think things began to go to hell with Watergate, primarily because the media became even more partisan toward the progressives post-Watergate leaving Democrats for the most part objectively unexamined. The only exception to this maybe being a Democrat vs. Democrat fight in which a side would be picked. Regardless, my primary point is that it has never been remotely as bad as it is today.
Oh joy! Now we get to revisit the 'Trump made Biden do it' gaslighting.
Biden abandoned Trump's 1 May exit date on 14 April 2021 and announced the new 11 September exit. In other words, he gave himself 5 more months to plan and execute a withdrawal that was already largely underway, as only 2500 troops remained in Afghanistan when Biden was inaugurated.
As has been subsequently reported, this troop level was considered by the Pentagon and on-the-ground commanders to be too low to either hold Bagram and evacuate from Kabul through Bagram, or to simultaneously hold Bagram and evacuate from Kabul through HKIA. Since Biden wouldn't allow the deployment of additional troops to support the withdrawal (bad optics again) Bagram was abandoned with no notice to anybody on 6 July 2021. Abandoning Bagram eliminated the ability of the US forces to back up the Afghan Army with air support, further hastening their inevitable collapse which Biden repeatedly claimed wouldn't happen until at least our departure was complete.
Basically, Biden broke Trump's plan which means he bought it and is responsible for the results.
When failure only leads up, this is what we get.
“Abandoning Bagram eliminated the ability of the US forces to back up the Afghan Army with air support, further hastening their inevitable collapse which Biden repeatedly claimed wouldn't happen until at least our departure was complete.”
Yes, this is exactly the thinking that led to the strategic mistake. Our withdrawal plan required the Afghan Army to hold off the Taliban until after we left. But the Afghan Army figured out they were going to inevitably collapse too, and realized it was in their best interest to cut side deals with the Taliban and run away. The Afghan Army might have hung in there if we had resumed the war against the Taliban, but even that is debatable, especially as a long term proposition.
Biden's numbers have been in freefall on a straight line path since day one. RCP. He's a drooling moron. No one cares about Afghanistan.
Howard: "Biden's numbers have been in freefall on a straight line path since day one. RCP. He's a drooling moron. No one cares about Afghanistan."
This is a lie.
Biden's Earpiece was holding roughly steady until the Afghanistan debacle.
Given your pronouncements at the time, its easy to understand why you'd like to do a little rewriting of history.
Won't work on this blog, but I'd bet you'd have a grand old time on yahoo or dailykos.
Left Bank of the Charles: "These were the choices the Biden administration had on August 14:
1. Keep Trumps’s May Day withdrawal deadline, which it was too late to do on August 14.
2. Cut and run on August 15 on the next flights after Ghana.
3. Organize an evacuation operation, as was done.
4. Resume the U.S. war with the Taliban."
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
How stupid do you have to be to think those were the only choices?
Well, to answer my own question, you'd have to be Left Bank stupid, which is sayin' something.
I can't wait for the next moron missive from Left Bank. It ought to be good.
In other words, a perfect real-life demonstration of the attitude in the White House as portrayed in the movie "Don't Look Up."
"I kept being told by people in the [White House] the thing they were most concerned about was the optics of a chaotic evacuation."
Wait! the only thing a bunch of Democrat politicians cared about with the "optics"? Say it isn't so!
It feels like Bagram is the new Khe Sanh. Except at Khe Sanh we fought back before we bailed.
Left Bank of the Charles: "These were the choices the Biden administration had on August 14:
3. Organize an evacuation operation, as was done.
No, that is NOT what was done.
An "organized" evacuation operation would have started the pull out from Kabul, and ended up with Bagram Airbase being the last thing left.
It would have involved finding the people we "owed" and getting them, as well as US Citizens, out
It would have involved destroying any military hardware that we couldn't take with us, that we didn't want teh Russians, Chinese, or Taliban to get their hands on.
None of these things were done, because what the Biden* Admin chose to do was to f*ck everything up in every possible way, rather than to "Organize an evacuation operation"
I really was trying to give Biden the benefit of the doubt in his presidency, waiting to see what he'd actually do with it. Then Afghanistan took away any remaining doubt. I think a lot about those seven children who were incinerated, and how no one even had to say, sorry.
Jen Psaki compared the evacuation of Afghanistan as the largest since Vietnam. Joe Biden was responsible for both debacles. He'd been a Senator for two years when the Democrat Congress cut off ammunition resupply to South Vietnam. No more bullets, tank rounds nor artillery shells. It's hard to fight off the North Vietnam Army when the South's army didn't have anything to resist the invasion. Joe has a talent for f*cking things up. He's learned nothing since 1975. Always betraying our allies. That's the Democrat's motto.
Sebastian said...
And so what? Sure, the Afghan debacle stirred public dismay. But does anyone actually care? Do Dem voters care? Will they care enough in 2022, or 2024?
The Afghan debacle ended the American public's willingness to cut the Biden* Admin slack on anything.
I doubt that the GOP would have swept VA if not for the Afghan debacle,
Are voters going to say in November "I voted against my local Democrat because Biden* f*cked up the Afghan pullout?
No
Will that f-up be the inflection point that caused people to no longer get snowed?
Yes
Howard said...
You people take everything so personally in addition to having no sense of scale, proportion and the outcome of realpolitik. The withdrawal was fucked up. It was the least fucked up part of the adventure. Nobody cares now except for you folks desperate to run down Biden who is doing a much more successful trashing of himself every day.
Damn, Howard, your flop sweat is pouring down your face.
wendybar said...
It all happened because Joe Biden wanted to celebrate getting out of Afghanistan on 9/11/21.
---------
and how do celebrate 9/11 >>>> by giving USA a second scoop of the same >>> Biden fooled y'all suckers again
@Mid-Life Lawyer, I accept your comment at 12:12.
People keep mentioning that 2500 troops were not enough to secure Bagram and bring people out of HKIA directly or via Bagram. That problem could have been solved by temporarily inserting an evacuation of appropriate size and resources. Biden didn't do that.
The Taliban asked US command if they wanted to secure Kabul themselves or have the Taliban do it. The least wise choice, let Taliban do it, was chosen by Biden.
All things military often need to be changed quickly. Adhering to a failed/failing plan leads to bad execution of the task. Stupid rigidity kills people.
The optics of using the word "optics" as PR jargon aren't that great, either.
Hey Left Bank Charlie:
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2022/02/03/left-behind-senator-risch-releases-blistering-minority-report-on-bidens-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal-n446064
The Biden* Admin isn't getting bashed for pulling out, they're rightly getting bashed for completely f*cking up the pull out
But of course you do know that
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