Biden, relying on unreliable sources, says Trump is guilty

Andrew McCarthy:

Hard to fathom which notion is more hilarious. Is it that Joe Biden would get tough with the Taliban, or that Joe Biden would get tough with Russia?

The former veep wants you to know that he’s furious that President Trump sat on his hands for the past four months despite knowing that the Kremlin was paying bounties to the jihadists for targeting American troops in Afghanistan. Biden is sure this must have happened. No, he conceded at a rare press availability this week, he does not have access to classified information, nor has he been given an intelligence briefing on the subject. But Biden knows it must have happened because the New York Times and the Washington Post say so, relying on their crack anonymous intelligence sources.

Hmmm . . . The Times and the Post, relying on uncheckable sources of unknowable veracity, are peddling a story that Donald Trump has betrayed his country for the benefit of Vladimir Putin. Who wouldn’t take that to the bank after three years of collusion?

In this new and improved narrative, you’re to believe that Trump, who has dramatically beefed up military spending over Obama/Biden levels so that our forces can protect themselves, would knowingly endanger those forces; but that Biden, who last worked as a top official and strategist in an administration best known for imposing rules of engagement that made those troops sitting ducks, would back them to the hilt — against those diabolical Russians, who know Biden well, and who therefore know that, why, if they try any of that rough stuff, by God ol’ Joe would . . . um . . . you know . . . uh . . . the thing!

The thing being . . . he’d do nothing. And that’s if we’re lucky. His idea of doing something is to enrich the world’s leading state sponsor of anti-American terrorism while putting its regime on a glide path to nuclear weapons . . . all the while knowing that the mullahs are backing Taliban terrorists targeting our troops . . . and that the Russians are backing the mullahs.

On balance, I am not a fan of President Trump’s foreign policy. He’s done some good things — among the best was withdrawing us from the dreadful Iran nuclear deal that the Obama/Biden administration had to end-run the Constitution and collude with Russia to pull off. And, since the Putin regime is utterly corrupt and untrustworthy — just ask any Democrat, at least since November 8, 2016 — Trump is wise to have pulled us out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Open Skies Treaty. After all, it is counterproductive to remain strait-jacketed by an arrangement that the other side flouts at will.
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It is not my intention to make a case for Trump’s Afghanistan policy. Just to say the idea that a Biden Afghanistan policy would be an improvement does not pass the laugh test.

Biden acts like he’s suddenly outraged that Russia would back the Taliban. But according to him, the Taliban is not our enemy and poses no threat to U.S. interests, so it’s hard to see what the problem is, right? Don’t take it from me. Here’s Biden speaking to ABC in late 2011, as he and President Obama geared up for their reelection campaign:

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests.

As if to put its money where Biden’s mouth was, the State Department under Obama/Biden — like State under Bush 43 before it and Trump after it — declined to designate the Taliban as a foreign terrorist organization, notwithstanding its years of culpability in anti-U.S. atrocities. Why? Because Biden and the rest of the Obama administration wanted to negotiate with the Taliban but didn’t want to run smack into the American policy against negotiating with terrorists. So . . . let’s just make believe they’re not terrorists . . . problem solved!
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The Taliban have been trying to kill US troops since 9-11 caused the US to overthrow their regime.  They needed no additional incentive.  However, if you look at the casualties, They were heaviest under the Obama-Biden administration, and in recent years have dwindled to fewer than US troops killed in US car accidents.