We Have Been Reduced to Almost Begging in Afghanistan

As the collapse happens in Afghanistan, the United States has been, in effect, reduced to begging the Taliban not to attack our embassy in Kabul.  While the sub-headline in The New York Times talks of our “demand” that the Taliban not attack our embassy there, what we really said was, in effect, if you attack our embassy and we have to close it, we won’t give you money after the war is over

While Joe Biden doesn’t seem to care what happens in Afghanistan, he very much wants to avoid a helicopter-off-the-embassy-roof end to our time there.  That, and apparently only that, would be an unacceptable end of our war in Afghanistan.

However, it is important to emphasize that no matter how bad Afghanistan ends under President Biden, very much the same thing would have happened under Donald Trump.  Former President Trump is the one who entered into the agreement with the Taliban last year.  Former President Trump is the one who wanted to invite Taliban leaders to Camp David.  And former President Trump said we were going to get out of Afghanistan last year; he just couldn’t get it done because he was incompetent at governing.  

Former President Trump’s comment yesterday, “Tragic mess in Afghanistan … – DO YOU MISS ME YET?”, is just baloney.  What President Biden is doing in Afghanistan is terrible.  Former President Trump would have been just as bad.