"Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home." - President Joe Biden, August 20, 2021
That's been the talking point from a number of Biden administration officials over the past week as the situation in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate. If you're an American who wants to leave Afghanistan, Biden will ensure your departure. This is a lie.
A close look at the language, combined with the official policy that the United States will be leaving the country on August 31 even as the airport in Kabul is blocked off by miles of Taliban checkpoints, gives away Biden's strategy.
Americans can't safely get to the airport and the administration knows it. They've had their passports confiscated and destroyed by the Taliban. They've been beaten in their attempt to follow instructions from the U.S. government.
When the mission to get Americans out of the country fails, Biden will blame the Americans for "not wanting to leave" or for not properly getting in touch with the State Department to file their paperwork. Keep in mind the Taliban has seized cell towers and shut off electricity in a number of areas, making it impossible to receive updated instructions from the U.S. government about how to proceed.
For days, the State Department has told Americans to go to the airport, not to go to the airport, to go to the airport, and yet, they are already being blamed for their demise.
"People chose not to leave. That's their business," Acting U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson told CBS News in an interview this week.
Wilson of course ignores Biden's own statements in July that a Taliban takeover of the country was unlikely.
"The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely," Biden said during a press conference on July 8.
This was a lie and Biden told it anyway while Americans stood in harm's way.
In just a few short days, pointing fingers at stranded Americans will continue to be the cynical, despicable excuse for the administration's decision to leave our fellow countrymen behind. It will be invoked after President Biden allowed the Taliban to overtake the country in record time, abandoning Americans behind enemy lines.
"We will continue to evacuate as many people as we can until the end of the mission," Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said, indicating the mission is to leave on August 31, not to get Americans out.
As of August 26, the drawdown has started and 600 U.S. troops have already left the country. With dual suicide bombings outside of the airport Thursday, the exit is quickly escalating.
"Military continues to retrograde and depart airport. Almost a certainty that Americans will be left behind. They will have to be extracted after-the-fact through either Taliban negotiation or unconventional means," Fox News reports.
By August 31, Americans who can't make it to the airport due to suicide bombings, Taliban checkpoints and Biden's incompetence, will be abandoned. Without U.S. troops in the country to get them out, they are all but doomed.