Biden's Afghan fiasco cause a lack of trust in Europe

 Washington Examiner:

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“The surprise moment that European capitals seem to have suffered is a bit awkward,” former NATO chief strategic policy analyst Stefanie Babst, who retired from that post in 2020, told the Washington Examiner. “I can only assume that everyone was in the summer mood, on autopilot, [satisfied] by the summit. ... Because NATO would have had time to plan for a more coordinated, less chaotic exit strategy. And this for some reason didn't happen.”

That failure has produced one of the most spectacular foreign policy embarrassments the United States has sustained since the fall of Saigon, just months after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed Biden’s inauguration as “a message of hope” for allies who felt alienated from Washington during Trump’s tenure. European officials, who followed the United States into Afghanistan, are more recriminatory — and doubly outraged to hear Biden argue the collapse of the Afghan military justifies the “hasty withdrawal” that disadvantaged the beleaguered Afghan forces.

“To see [the U.S. military’s] commander in chief call into question the courage of men I fought with, to claim that they ran — it’s shameful,” senior British lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons, said in a parliamentary debate. “Those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have.”

That anger is aggravated by disappointment. “We expected more empathy, strategy and wisdom from Biden,” former British ambassador Tom Fletcher wrote in an email to the Washington Examiner. “His messaging targeted Trump’s base, not the rest of the world, and not allies, past or (potential) future.”

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Anger over Biden’s “unilateral decisions” has sparked a new round of chatter about whether European allies should seek “strategic autonomy” from the United States — just in time for a new round of debates over the strategic courses that NATO and the European Union must chart in this era of U.S. competition with China. Tugendhat, the senior British lawmaker, voiced his desire “to make sure that we are not dependent on a single ally, on the decision of a single leader,” in a rare sign that London and Paris share a similar discontentment with U.S. leadership.

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There is much more.

The British ambassador is wrong about Trump's base which is just as angry as the Europeans if not more so at the disgraceful way Biden handled the exit.  The only defenders of Biden's bungle are a few libs.  I do not blame the European allies for being upset.  The lack of consultation is absurd.