Well, if there’s one thing you can count on from Joe Biden, it’s that when the going gets tough—he’ll just abandon thousands of American citizens. Like the rest of liberal America, the narrative is more important. To Biden, ending the war in Afghanistan was essential no matter what. It didn’t matter if Kabul fell. It didn’t matter if American troops died in the evacuation process. It didn’t matter if we left thousands of our people behind.
‘I hope you make it to the airport.’ That’s the Biden Doctrine.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing’ is the Biden Corollary.
We also have learned, to no one’s surprise, that the Biden administration might have lied to us about the number of Americans they initially abandoned in our ignominious and shambolic exit from Afghanistan. We keep hearing figures ranging from 100-500. Overall, it’s ‘in the hundreds’ when asked about the Americans who are still there. A new Senate report from Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) of the Foreign Relations Committee has the figure at around 9,000 minimum (via Daily Caller):
As many as 9,000 American citizens were left in Afghanistan when the U.S. military withdrew from the country Aug. 31, according to a report released Thursday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In public statements, Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claimed that only 100-150 Americans remained in Afghanistan and had contacted the U.S. government with a desire to leave. The State Department and Defense Department officials stuck to that number, even as the government publicly admitted that large numbers of American citizens were still leaving the country.
The report, signed by Foreign Relations ranking member Jim Risch of Idaho, reveals that State Department officials believed that between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans were in Afghanistan as late as Aug. 17. In the next two weeks, only 6,000 Americans were able to escape the country ahead of the Taliban takeover. In testimony in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, Blinken claimed that “approximately 100-150 remained in Afghanistan who still wished to depart.”
Estimating the number of Americans residing or visiting a country like Afghanistan is “50% art and 50% science and educated guesswork,” staffers of the former Kabul Embassy reportedly said, since Americans are encouraged but not required to register with the State Department when they enter a country. The staffers noted that host countries are generally able to provide better estimates than the embassy, but that Afghanistan was not capable of doing so.
They don’t know. They don’t know what’s going on. Remember, this is the administration that thought Kabul would never fall. It did. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and President Joe Biden were all on vacation when Kabul fell to the Taliban. They felt it was fine to remain on vacation days after, only returning after media pressure forced them to do so. These are the adults, folks. And they’re not handling this Ukraine situation any better.
