Joe Biden emerged from his afternoon nap to address the nation about the end of our war in Afghanistan. He was all over the place. It was a chaotic address that was largely emblematic of our shambolic departure from the country. Regardless, our 20-year war is over. It was a failure—and we left Americans behind in Afghanistan. Why? Well, it’s because the Biden administration caved to the Taliban’s deadline. Biden said it wasn’t arbitrary. It was. And now, we have this empty promise that the US will work to get anyone who wants to leave Afghanistan to safety. That could prove difficult as hostage situations could arise and the country is primed to resume where it left off prior to our 2001 invasion. That being the Taliban fighting the now-reconstituted Northern Alliance and other tribes that oppose them. Civil war will break out and now that al-Qaeda and ISIS are on the prowl—this could get messy.
Biden lied, and people got left behind. pic.twitter.com/XgwoWUt4BZ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 30, 2021
Yet, circling back to our final hours, NBC News was there to throw cold water on an Afghanistan talking point that Biden had tossed out there with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. You might remember it? We’re going to stay in the country until every American is out. Well, that died a quick death and in the waning hours of our time in the country, Richard Engel was there to deliver that narrative it’s final kill shot (via RealClearPolitics):
NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel on Americans wanting to leave Afghanistan: "There's no possible way at this stage that the U.S. is going to get everyone out who wants to leave or who may have changed their mind and decided that they now want to go and don't want to ride it out with the Taliban."
"We're in the final hours now," Engel told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on Monday. "There is quite a bit of activity over in Kabul, according to witnesses, with drones and fighter jets in the air. The smaller the footprint gets, the more dangerous it is, and ISIS has made it clear that it wants to get its parting shot."
I hope those who want to leave can leave. The Taliban has lists with names of Americans and key Afghan allies on them. They were given this information by the Biden administration because…this is the new policy it would seem: trust terrorists. It was meant to help streamline Americans and SIVs to the airport in Kabul which was chaotic, to say the least. Now, the Taliban has kill lists.
Biden touted how so many people got out, around 90 percent of Americans. Ninety percent is the new 100 percent in Biden land. For days, all media outlets, even those friendly to the administration, called them out for peddling narratives that simply did not reflect the realities on the ground. This was yet another example of that, even CNN called out Biden for the serial failures at the airport. It was not easily accessible. Americans were being beaten by the Taliban. This wasn’t like checking in at Dulles, Joe. We all knew that and we all knew you were going to leave our people behind.
