President Biden
Joe Biden: Supreme Court blocks Biden eviction moratorium Night defense and national security: terror in Kabul as explosions kill and kill hundreds of White House: Biden “somber” and “outraged” after learning of Kabul attack MONTH he promised that the United States would not suffer a “moment of Saigon” in withdrawing from Afghanistan.
The reality has been even more bleak.
The attacks on Kabul airport on Thursday are a human tragedy. They are also a political catastrophe for the president.
At least 13 U.S. members have been killed and 15 injured. According to some reports, the death toll among Afghans rose to at least 60, with more than 140 injured. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the bombings.
The American people generally agreed with Biden’s decision to end the war in Afghanistan, which is close to 20 years old and is the longest in the country’s history. It had already cost more than 2,400 American lives and more than $ 2 trillion.
It is also true – as Biden once again pointed out at a White House press conference on Thursday afternoon – that it was then.President Trump
Donald Trump: The Capitoline police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt says he saved lives on January 6th. Biden presses Doocey of Fox on the deal between Trump and the Taliban. Biden says the deadly attack will not disrupt the U.S. evacuation mission to Afghanistan MORE who made the deal with the Taliban for a total withdrawal from the United States, which had been scheduled to take place even earlier, in May.
But none of this relieves Biden of responsibility for a withdrawal that has been, by any reasonable measure, a debacle.
The events of recent weeks will be searched in the public memory through a series of frightening images: desperate Afghans clinging to a US military plane flying on a runway and some falling shortly after the takeoff; a child hoisted himself over a razor to a group of Marines; and the carnage of Thursday’s attacks.
The end, for America in Afghanistan, is in sight. Biden’s August 31 deadline is just five days and so far he has rejected allies who want him to extend it. But getting to the end point can involve navigating new horrors.
On Thursday, at a Pentagon briefing, General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of US CENTCOM, warned of “very, very real threats” of more attacks than “could occur at any time.”
Biden tried to stabilize the ship with his White House statements, where he called for the nation to “stand firm.”
He also cited his own experience of losing his son Beau, an army major, due to brain cancer while trying to empathize with the families of the “heroes” killed Thursday in Afghanistan.
But it was also an address that never seemed to match the magnitude of the moment. At times, Biden looked tired. His commitment to exact retribution for the attacks seemed to sound empty with his own deadline for the withdrawal of the United States so close.
The White House had been trying to fight the kind of defeat in Afghanistan in recent days, emphasizing the number of people who had been evacuated.
These numbers are, to be fair, impressive. Since Aug. 14, more than 100,000 people have been evacuated directly by the U.S. military or facilitated by their evacuations, according to the White House. Even on Thursday, some 7,500 people were evacuated from Kabul in a 12-hour period.
However, the idea that the latest US operations would be seen as a kind of moral victory contrary to the odds: the British evacuation of Dunkirk and the Berlin Air Bridge were the two historical parallels most often cited by voices. friendly at the White House. – disappeared in the dust of the airport attacks.
There is no clear historical analogy, although perhaps the closest is the 1983 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy barracks in Lebanon. The death toll in this case was much higher, with 241 members of the US service, but the shock and trauma have some comparison to Thursday’s attacks.
Republicans are stepping up their already vigorous criticism of the president.
Republican National Committee communications director Danielle Alvarez criticized Biden’s White House statements as “inconsistent.”
Before, the senator. Josh Hawley
Joshua (Josh) David HawleyBiden says deadly attack will not disrupt U.S. evacuation mission to Afghanistan Hawley, Blackburn asks Biden to resign from GOP lawmaker, asked Biden to “resign immediately” after ‘a’ wrong withdrawal ‘from Afghanistan MORE (R-Mo.), Who infamously offered a closed fist salute to the crowds that would later revolt at the Capitol on January 6, has called for Biden’s resignation. So did the senator. Marsha Blackburn
Marsha BlackburnBiden says a deadly attack will not disrupt the U.S. evacuation mission to Afghanistan. Hawley and Blackburn call for Biden to resign from conservative radio presenter who laments vaccine skepticism dies from COVID-19 MORE (R-Ten.). Sen. Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Olin GrahamHawley and Blackburn ask Biden to resign. Those calls to accuse Biden: As wrong as with Trump “New normal”: GOP points big headaches to Biden after half periods MORE (RS.C.) wants the president to be indicted.
Republicans know there is no realistic chance that either will happen soon. But his rhetoric speaks to his sense of Biden’s weakness as he is shaken by the first self-inflicted crisis of his presidency.
Until a few weeks ago, Biden had garnered decent, stable approval ratings, having garnered widespread support for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But politics is changing at an astonishing rate.
It may change again.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan could disappear from the headlines and the minds of voters, sooner than some might think. There are a lot of political observers who doubt that it will be a big problem in six months and certainly not in the mid-term elections scheduled for November 2022.
Maybe that will turn out to be true.
But it is equally plausible that the chaos in Kabul has left a stain of weakness and incompetence on Biden’s White House that will not be erased soon, if at all.
For now, the only thing that is certain is that the toughest stretch of Biden’s presidency to date got even worse.
The Memo is a column reported by Niall Stanage.