I have had it with coverage of the Kabul evacuation. The plain fact is that, under the circumstances, it’s going fairly well. Both Americans and Afghan allies are being flown out safely and bloodshed on the ground is surprisingly limited. Sure, the whole operation is going to take a few weeks, but what did everyone expect?
But you’d never know this thanks to an immense firehose of crap coming from the very people we should least believe. This includes:
1. The hawks who kept the war in Afghanistan going for years with lies and happy talk, and who are now desperate to defend themselves.
2. Republicans who figure this is a great opportunity to sling partisan bullshit. Their favorite is that Biden has destroyed America’s standing in the world, an old chestnut for which there’s no evidence whatsoever.
3. Trumpies trying to avoid blame for the execution of their own plan. It is gobsmacking to hear them complain about slow processing of Afghan allies when they were the ones who deliberately hobbled the visa process in the first place.
4. Democrats who, as usual, are too damn cowardly to defend the withdrawal for fear of—something. It’s not always clear what.
5. Reporters who are sympathetic to all this because they genuinely care about the danger that the withdrawal poses for people they knew in Afghanistan.
The only real mistake the military made in this operation was in not realizing just what a terrible job they had been doing all along. Everything else flows from that. If the Afghan government had been able to hold off the Taliban for even a few weeks, everything would have been fine. But they didn’t even try. Ghani just grabbed a few suitcases of cash and took off.
All by itself, this should tell you how hopeless the situation in Afghanistan has been all along.
And, once again, I would just add that the alternative all these people seem to think would have been so much better for the Afghans is a bloody civil war that would kill many thousands ending up with the Taliban taking over anyway, which everyone expected would eventually happen. It’s a horror. But unless you wanted permanent occupation by American troops, the choices weren’t great. If that’s what you wanted, you should say it.