Biden’s purely political Afghanistan timeline got Americans killed

Columbus OH

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When President Joe Biden took office, the United States had an agreement with the Taliban to remove all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1. It was contingent on the Taliban negotiating with the government in Kabul. On April 14, however, Biden announced he was altering the deal. Troops would begin to leave the country by May 1 and would be completely gone by Sept. 11, even though the Taliban were not negotiating but instead moving toward the violent overthrow of the government. The only reason Biden chose Sept. 11 as the date on which the last U.S. troops must leave (and turn out the lights) was so he could give a purely political victory speech saying the war was over on the 20th anniversary of its beginning. He decided the timing entirely because he wished to leverage the anniversary of the epochal terrorist attack on America to his own advantage and announce a new vision for counterterrorism operations throughout the world that we are asked to accept. Biden knew his rationale for removing U.S. forces by Sept. 11 was collapsing or he would not have scheduled a second speech and press conference on July 8. It was then that the "leader of the free world" accelerated the rout, moving up the exit date to Aug. 31 because, he claimed, "speed is safety.” “Thanks to the way in which we have managed our withdrawal, no one — no one, U.S. forces or any forces, have been lost,” Biden boasted. If only that were still true. Nemesis swiftly followed on the heels of his hubris, and 13 members of the American military are now dead as a consequence.