Grandpa Does Dover and things keep getting worse
Like an arsonist returning to the scene of the crime, President Joe Biden and the missus traveled to Dover Air Force base Sunday to meet with the families of those thirteen US service members killed in last Thursday’s attack.
And because this is Joe Biden we’re talking about, during the Dover ceremonies, he got caught checking his watch.
Got somewhere more important to be, Grandpa? Missing a Matlock marathon?
Remember that awful moment during a 1992 town hall debate between George HW Bush and Bill Clinton when Bush checked his watch?
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw that clip.
Nothing says “dignified” like impatiently checking the time on your wristwatch during the dignified transfer of America’s fallen.
Honestly, at this point, I think it would have been better if Biden simply skipped Dover.
When a rumor swirled on Saturday that he wasn’t planning to go, I was kind of hoping the rumor was true. Like I said, Biden going to Dover is like an arsonist returning to the scene of the crime to admire his work.
Besides, I just knew he would do something that created an optics problem for the White House. And he did, didn’t he?
Checking his watch during a solemn ceremony like he didn’t want to be there. And, of course, invoking the name of his dead son Beau while he was supposed to be consoling the families.
Earth to Joe: stop making it about your loss. Beau, while a veteran, did not die in combat or during a terror attack while serving his country. Perseverating on Beau makes it all about you. It’s craven and contrived.
But as I mentioned on Friday, Joe always uses his son’s death as a shield.
I took the weekend off (well, not my day job) because I needed to get away from this shitstorm happening in Afghanistan. I needed a break from it because the news just kept getting me madder and madder.
I learned a long time ago never to say “Boy, can things get any worse?!” Because invariably they get worse.
And reading the news in the wee hours of the morning today, it was inescapable that things got worse.
Sunday the US launched another targeted drone strike, this time in the middle of Kabul, which ostensibly took out ISIS terrorists on their way to bomb the airport.
Problem is, reports on the ground conflict with the Pentagon’s. Ten people, all from one family, were killed in this airstrike – including an Afghan interpreter, an Afghan military official, and several children as young as two.
Today, the Pentagon refused to provide the identities of the alleged terrorists they killed in this drone strike because “It’s not the time right now.”
What I want to know is who gave them the lead on these supposed terrorists? Was it the Taliban? I mean, how the hell do they end up killing an Afghan interpreter and an Afghan military official by accident?
Then there’s the Washington Post report that came out yesterday that before Kabul fell, US CENTCOM commander McKenzie and other US military met with the head of Taliban’s political wing, Abdul Ghani Baradar in Doha, Qatar.
And according to the Washington Post story, Baradar told McKenzie that there were two options – either the United States military secure Kabul or the US permits the Taliban to do it. But Biden, hiding out at Camp David, “remained resolute in his decision” to remove all US troops from Afghanistan by August 31. And the collapse of the Afghan government didn’t change his mind.
So McKenzie, his hands tied by Biden, told Baradar that the Taliban could have the city, but the US would control the airport – but only until August 31.
This is why the US was dependent on the Taliban for security outside of the airport. Not because we had no choice; we had a choice. But the President of the United States didn’t want to bring in the troops necessary to secure the city because it would make his August 31 deadline impossible to maintain.
Today it was reported that the remaining flights out of Afghanistan are taking the US troops ordered into Kabul two weeks ago back out. As of yesterday, national security advisor Jake Sullivan claimed that only 300 American citizens “who want to leave” were left to evacuate.
That “who want to leave” talking point has been bothering me this last week.
To me, it seems like the Biden Administration decided that the best way to excuse leaving American citizens behind is to claim that those Americans weren’t among the ones who wanted to leave.
But how would they know that?
Is it that these Americans don’t want to leave? Or is it that they have been unable to get through?
I’m telling you, it is growing increasingly difficult for me to make it to the end of a column without dropping several dozen F-bombs. Jesse Kelly warned a couple weeks ago that things in Afghanistan were only going to get worse. And he was right.
And what happens after Biden’s precious August 31 deadline passes? What happens to those Americans left behind?
I don’t know. I have this sick feeling that there will be many more silver caskets making their way to Dover before the fallout from Biden’s withdrawal is over.
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