Turning on Biden

[George K]

The Atlantic: Biden’s Long Trail of Betrayals

“I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about morality, our moral obligation,” Joe Biden said in 1975. “There’s a point where you are incapable of meeting moral obligations that exist worldwide.” At the time, he was arguing against U.S. aid to Cambodia. But he could just as easily have said the same about his decision this year to end the American presence in Afghanistan, a catastrophic mistake that has led to a Taliban takeover, undermined our national interest, and morally stained Biden’s presidency.

It is the latest blunder in a foreign-policy record filled with them.

• In 1975, Biden opposed giving aid to the South Vietnamese government during its war against the North, ensuring the victory of a brutal regime and causing a mass exodus of refugees.
• In 1991, Biden opposed the Gulf War, one of the most successful military campaigns in American history. Not only did he later regret his congressional vote, but in 1998, he criticized George H. W. Bush for not deposing Saddam Hussein, calling that decision a “fundamental mistake.”
• In 2003, Biden supported the Iraq War—another congressional vote he later regretted.
• In 2007, he opposed President George W. Bush’s new counterinsurgency strategy and surge in troops in Iraq, calling it a “tragic mistake.” In fact, the surge led to stunning progress, including dramatic drops in civilian deaths and sectarian violence.
• In December 2011, President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden withdrew America’s much-scaled-down troop presence in Iraq; the former had declared Iraq to be “sovereign, stable, and self-reliant,” and the latter had predicted that Iraq “could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” Their decision sent Iraq spiraling into sectarian violence and civil war, allowing Iran to expand its influence and opening the way for the rise of the jihadist group ISIS.
• According to Obama’s memoir A Promised Land, Biden had advised the former president to take more time before launching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
• Ten years ago, Biden said in an interview that “the Taliban per se is not our enemy.” He added, “If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.” Indeed.

In his 2014 memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Robert Gates, who served as the secretary of defense under George W. Bush and Obama, said that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

So is there a unifying theory of why Biden is so consistently wrong on major foreign-policy matters? Does he misunderstand something about the world, or possess some set of instincts that don’t serve him well?

Perhaps the place to begin is by recognizing that Biden has never been an impressive strategic thinker. When talking about his strengths, those close to Biden stress his people skills: his ability to read foreign leaders, to know when to push and when to yield, when to socialize and when to turn to business. But that’s very different from having a strategic vision and a sophisticated understanding of historical events and forces.

What the Biden foreign-policy record shows, I think, is a man who behaves as if he knows much more than he does, who has far too much confidence in his own judgment in the face of contrary advice from experts. (My hunch is he’s overcompensating for an intellectual inferiority complex, which has manifested itself in his history of plagiarism, lying about his academic achievements, and other embellishments.)

On national-security matters, President Biden lacks some of the most important qualities needed in those who govern—discernment, wisdom, and prudence; the ability to anticipate unfolding events; the capacity to make the right decision based on incomplete information; and the willingness to adjust one’s analysis in light of changing circumstances.

To put it in simple terms, Joe Biden has bad judgment...

According to my colleague George Packer’s biography of Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Biden has argued that the United States does not have an obligation to Afghans who trusted the United States.

“We don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger got away with it,” Biden told Holbrooke. Biden also “reportedly pushed back on the argument that America had a moral obligation to women in Afghanistan,” according to The Washington Post.

[LuFins Dad]

@xenon said in Turning on Biden:

It was a horribly botched pull out. But, does it matter? Are a lot of Americans stranded?

Do Americans really care about Afghans? Seems like everyone got over the Kurds pretty fast.

1. Yes, a lot of Americans are stranded. Thousands. Possibly as many as eleven thousand and as “few” as two thousand.

2. There will always be a distinct difference with Afghanistan and the Taliban due to their harboring and protecting Al Qaeda.

3. The promises and investments (in money and blood) into Afghanistan stretched over 3 different administrations and 16 years.

4. Can’t stomach gross incompetence…

[Loki]

Who are the US citizens still in Afghanistan and why are they there?

And I predict they will get out alive.

[Doctor Phibes]

@xenon said in Turning on Biden:

Do Americans really care about Afghans?

Most of the complaining in both the US and the UK appears to be about how stupid it makes us look. Does that answer the question?

[LuFins Dad]

My bad. 15,000 Americans stranded according to Biden.

[LuFins Dad]

@loki said in Turning on Biden:

Who are the US citizens still in Afghanistan and why are they there?

And I predict they will get out alive.

Mostly State Department employees and contractors.

I predict “most” will get out alive.

Did you see the video @Jolly posted?

[Mik]

That video, and the accompanying article, if true, might just be enough to put Trump back in the office.

[Catseye3]

@mik said in Turning on Biden:

That video, and the accompanying article, if true, might just be enough to put Trump back in the office.

Thank you. Like I wasn't already depressed enough.

[Horace]

@xenon said in Turning on Biden:

Do Americans really care about Afghans?

Those of us with genuine human empathy care.

[Copper]

Yes, of course we care, that is what we do.