Joe Biden, Hang Down your Head in Shame

 I just listened to President Joe Biden's speech on Afghanistan. He was eloquent on the need to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, but he failed to take any real responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal of our personnel and close allies in the country. The ongoing humanitarian failure is there for the world to see and it will only get worse from here once the Taliban is in full control. There was no contingency planning for the near instantaneous collapse of the Afghan government. Why? It was likely a combination of a massive intelligence failure and groupthink in the highest levels of government.

Heads should roll. He should have opened his speech by announcing the resignation of his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. After our failure in Mogadishu with "Blackhawk Down" in 1993, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned. 

This was not rocket science in predicting what is now transpiring. In May I tweeted that "Biden would rue the day he ordered the pullout." At the beginning of August, I tweeted it was "game over". While America sleeped  the Taliban were making deals with the tribal warlords to enable them to seize power region by region. Once the Afghans realized which way the wind was blowing the cut the best deals they could.

The long term tragedy of the debacle in Kabul is that America has lost trust throughout the world. By betraying our in-country Afghan allies we have sent messages from Taipei to Tel Aviv that America cannot  be trusted and in host of places individuals and countries will recalculate their position in the world. Further with the Taliban victory Pakistan has improved its strategic position vis a vis India which will likely lead to increased tensions on the subcontinent. All in all, not a pretty picture.