A reminder of Biden 'foresight' about Afghanistan

 Tyler Durden:

Kabul's streets are clogged with panicked civilians fleeing the Taliban onslaught of the Afghan capital, American chinook helicopters are hovering above the US Embassy with an emergency evacuation in progress, and the national government propped up for two decades by US money and power is negotiating surrender with barely a fight.

One former CIA officer has observed looking back to Joe Biden's July 8 Afghan policy speech: "This may become the most infamous — and devastating — press conference ever held by an American President," wrote CIA foreign operations veteran Bryan Dean Wright on Sunday.

"When I announced our drawdown in April, I said we would be out by September, and we’re on track to meet that target," Biden had said. "Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31st."

Clearly the Taliban are on the cusp of declaring victory in Kabul far ahead of that date marker, and certainly very far ahead of the initially conceived September 11 symbolic 'mission accomplished' date (without doubt whatever plans were laid for an optimistic sounding 9/11 "we're out of Afghanistan" or even "mission accomplished" speech will be scrapped).

Here's the exchange from a bit over a month ago:

REPORTER: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

THE PRESIDENT:  No, it is not.

REPORTER:   Why?

THE PRESIDENT:  Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.

Perhaps this utter failure to grasp or predict anything close to reality on the ground in the conflict is a failure also shared by US intelligence, given that it was only in June that a widely reported intel assessment forecast that Kabul could fall within six months.

...

The Taliban decided to beat Biden's timeline for the drawdown of the US military operations.  As for US intelligence, has there ever been a more misnamed group of government employees?  Has there ever been a more mismanaged Presidency?  If anyone votes for another Democrat in future elections they can expect to have their own intelligence questioned.