Behind Biden's Afghan fiasco

 NY Post:

President Biden was so mentally fatigued that he skipped out on a phone call from the chair of the powerful House Armed Services Committee ahead of the US’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a report.

Biden, the oldest president in US history, was incredibly hard to reach — even for lawmakers in his own party — as his aides attempted to keep Biden’s evident mental and physical decline under tight wraps, a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal revealed.

That inaccessibility proved to be immensely consequential for one of the administration’s biggest snafus that would mar the remainder of Biden’s presidency.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, had tried to contact the president in 2021 to share his concerns about the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Smith said he was worried about the administration’s optimistic comments about pulling out from Afghanistan — which, after working extensively on the issue, the congressman believed would be significantly more difficult than White House officials were letting on and wanted to share his findings.

“I was begging them to set expectations low,” Smith told the Journal — but he couldn’t get the commander-in-chief on the phone.

Thirteen US service members and more than 170 Afghans were killed in the chaotic evacuation in August 2021, which ended the longest conflict in US history and left the Taliban victorious and in charge.

The US also abandoned some $7 billion in weapons and other military equipment.

In the aftermath, Smith commented to the Washington Post that Biden’s administration lacked a “clear-eyed view” of the toppled US-backed government’s durability.
...

 It was one of the many indicators that Biden was not all there.  The Democrats close to him had to know Biden was not up to the job of president, but they thought they could manage with him in office.  It turned out that they and Biden made several costly mistakes.  The US military can plan what it calls a retrograde operation, but Biden skipped that operation and ordered a disastrous bug-out leaving billions of equipment behind.


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