The New York Times front page this morning has a disheartening story revealing that President Biden’s assertion to the American people that the collapse of Afghan forces was considered unlikely (but possible!) by U.S. intelligence was untrue. He must have known it was untrue too, or they really are keeping poor Joe in a closet and pulling him out for public appearances with a secret ventriloquist doing his voice. The Times:
“Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former American government officials. By July, many intelligence reports grew more pessimistic, questioning whether any Afghan security forces would muster serious resistance and whether the government could hold on in Kabul, the capital. President Biden said on July 8 that the Afghan government was unlikely to fall and that there would be no chaotic evacuations of Americans similar to the end of the Vietnam War.…”
The Times is perplexed! The existence of these reports “raise questions about why Biden administration officials, and military planners in Afghanistan, seemed ill-prepared to deal with the Taliban’s final push into Kabul, including a failure to ensure security at the main airport and rushing thousands more troops back to the country to protect the United States’ final exit.” After all, there must be some legitimate reason a good, progressive Democratic President would “seem” to screw up so completely and lie about it! It would never be that he is completely incompetent and evil, like that last President! “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” Even when it is forced into reporting a total, massive, historic botch by the party it works for, the Times cannot be objective or approach the same tone and attitude it would apply to an equivalent blunder by that other party.
It seems clear that if the Times could ignore those leaked reports entirely, it would. Burying the story on page 36 might also be an option. But the Times has a reputation to protect: it’s not going to be much good to the Left if it becomes obvious to everybody that its a politically motivated mouthpiece that has mothballed its “ethics principles” in order to lead the public to a socialist paradise. Enough people are furious about 20 years of war, three trillion dollars of taxpayer funds and many dead soldiers achieving absolutely nothing that it was inevitable that this story would come out somewhere, and fast. This isn’t like Joe Biden being accused by a named former female staffer of sexual assault, which the Times refused to mention for weeks. After all, that was during the election campaign: the Times could justify hiding bad stuff that would benefit the Bad Orange Man. Nobody would think less of them for that.
As it is, the Times does try to muddy the story so casual and careless readers might not quite grasp what happened. “Contradicting Biden, Reports Warned of Rapid Collapse” reads the small headline over a column second from the right. Oooh, the reports only contradict Biden! So he might be right, then, and the reports wrong, right? After all, who do you believe, the President or some anonymous spooks? No, since Biden falsely told the public that the intelligence reports, didn’t say what he claimed they said, the reports prove intentional deception by the President of a magnitude that would have triggered “second coming” headlines had the POTUS been Trump (or even Bush). In this case, however, the President of the United States lying through his teeth (while the Secretary of State and the Speaker of the House praise him for being brave and clear) didn’t even rate the Times’ main front page headline.
In half inch, black block letters across the entire page, it reads, “Violent History Clouds Taliban’s Vows.” Under it is an 8X6 inch photo of the Taliban leader speaking, not of Biden lying. I measured: each letter in the Taliban headline is five times the lettering in the equivocal Biden headline, and what it says isn’t even news!
What we are witnessing is a deliberate, panicked effort by the news media, progressives and Democrats to tamp down justified public outrage at the dishonesty, arrogance and incompetence displayed by this administration, and to minimize any long term consequences at the polls. The assumption was, obviously, that Americans were sick of this war, that many didn’t even know why it started, and that enough didn’t care what happened in Afghanistan after we left. Even with a foreign police and humanitarian disaster requiring obfuscation and a cover-up, any negative reaction would be minor, mainly partisan, and of short duration.
And you know, they could still be right.
Ethics Alarms 
Like Hillary, they are banking on this crisis burning hot, fast, and out, hopefully in time for the midterms. It’s well known or at least well believed that the American public has the attention span and memory of a jellyfish (they have no brain as such and almost no memory capability) and the ability to be led astray of a puppy. The sad fact is, last year the American public showed them that this is probably true. If the American public could be led to turn against not only its government but its history because of one police officer fatally mistreating one man, what is to stop it from being deftly led away from a foreign policy disaster like this?
The missing part of this is the deftness. So far it has been a complete c**********, the government is acting like a really does not care one way or the other. The American people will only put up with so much being treated like they are idiots. They will be slavishly loyal to a movement, they would be slavishly loyal to a Messiah, but Biden is neither.
“…hopefully in time for the midterms. It’s well known or at least well believed that the American public has the attention span and memory of a jellyfish (they have no brain as such and almost no memory capability) and the ability to be led astray of a puppy.” This is what I keep telling the guys I walk with every morning at dawn; only my description isn’t quite as vivid as yours. I keep hearing about a purge in the upcoming midterms. I keep saying the American public will have long forgotten all this by then; only the events in the few months leading up to the midterms will matter. I’m not the historian you are* but it seems to me that everyone thought George H. W. Bush was a lock for re-election back in 1992 but only the few months prior to the 1992 election mattered and Clinton won.
“So far it has been a complete c**********”
In the words of Gunnery Sergent Thomas Highway, “It’s a c**********.”
* I’m always amazed at all the historical content in many of your comments.
Clusterfuck! Took me a while. Hah!
“George H. W. Bush was a lock for re-election back in 1992 but only the few months prior to the 1992 election mattered and Clinton won.”
Trust me, this is just wrong. Bush I was briefly popular because of Desert Storm, but the blush was off the rose quickly. He was a weak President; the half-ending to the Iraq war was unsatisfactory, and he was never an appealing successor to Reagan. He might well have beaten Clinton head to head, but once Perot got into the race, he was going to lose. He was a weak campaigner and a terrible speaker. That kind of candidate is never a “lock.”
Well, I’m sure you’re correct there after reading your reply. I was working on my Masters in EE in the evenings at that time and for some reason my memory was that Bush was the favorite going into the election. I knew he was weak going into his presidency and some people even refered to Bush as a wimp – that is if I’m remembering that correclty. I guess his popularity because of Desert Storm was the event foremost in my memory. And, to top it off, I had forgotten about Perot.
Everybody has forgotten about Perot.
Bush also lost a substantial number of votes from supporters of the Second Amendment when he banned import of “military looking” semi-automatic firearms by executive order in 1989. The NRA withheld its endorsement as well. Some gun owners voted for Perot, but many more voted for Clinton or stayed at home.
Half of Americans, roughly, will accept anything as long as it doesn’t help Trump or Republicans. Anything at all. Credibility is totally optional.
Glenn
It might be as high as 40% whose TDS clouds their judgement but other Polls typically suggest there is only about 25% who continue to support every proven disastrous decision made by the Democrats. I saw one poll on the Afghan pullout that 20% think the pullout is successful.
Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. What I do see is that nearly half of Americans have shrugged at Biden’s malfeasance despite multiple catastrophic failures.
Calling it a c********** is an insult to c**********s.
The current hysteria in the media reminds me of the first few days after Trump won. They have been completely side swiped by an event that has torn the bandage off the eyes of the public to reveal the utterly shambolic condition of the Ron Klain administration. The media had no plan for this inevitable development. They are floundering. I’m sure they just think it’s only a matter of time before they get the narrative back under control. Somehow. They’re not sure right now, but … somehow.
Any attempts by conservative politicians or media pundits to remind American with short-term memories of this will be painted as being obsessed, fixated on “old news” that, by that time, will be airbrushed or pushed down the memory hole.
You’re right, A.M. They’ll regain their footing as quickly as possible. They’ll just ignore Afghanistan and switch back to student loan debt and childcare credits and global warming and systemic racism. They’ll rediscover their drums and go back to beating on them. They’re just a little off their feed right now.
I think that’s unrealistically cynical. There are an estimated 80,000 people the US supposedly wants to get out of the country, I just heard a Congressional Democrats say. Well, that’s not going to happen. This isn’t going to be Dunkirk, it’s going to be a long, unfolding humanitarian and political disaster. “As quickly as possible” won’t be quickly enough.
Maybe it won’t work, but I think that’s the strategy the media will deploy.
80,000 people who accomplished … what?
Just 80,000 Americans and Afghans who helped the US and now are going to be slaughtered if they can’t leave.
You never know. The Taliban may try to legitimize themselves. Maybe the Pakistanis and the Chinese will try to keep them in line. If they get too out of control, they may have to head back to Tora Bora. I just don’t see it becoming another Cambodia.
The Chinese won’t worry about “keeping them in line”. As a Chinese client, you can expect the relationship to look like a larger territorial mafia taking a local neighborhood gang under protection. The mafia doesn’t care about the crimes and brutality the local gang engages in to keep order, it just needs free access to whatever other neighborhoods the local gang can provide.
You see, bad countries aren’t bound by the same ethics we are.
But hey, it’s worth the advance of bad actors to avoid a little risk, right?
https://thehill.com/policy/international/china/568572-taliban-spokesperson-says-china-could-contribute-to-afghanistans
But if they can’t get their country in order, why is that our problem? right?
Just because we broke it, doesn’t obligate us at all to anyone in these backwards-can’t-be-fixed-nations… right?
What’s the cut off number of people we’re obligated to and why? People the Taliban will kill? They’ll kill far more than those who just helped us…all ultimately as fall out from our “breaking things”.
1. If it’s our problem, than why isn’t every non-functional country our problem? What’s the UN for, exactly?
2. We didn’t break it. I addressed Powell’s silly “rule.” It was already broken, and has been for a thousand years.
3. “Breaking things?” If someone attacks me and I break his nose, I defy anyone to claim I have have an ethical responsibility for his medical bills. Do you argue that the US had an obligation to rebuild Hiroshima? Dresden? Berlin?
1) I’ve already answered this protest. Recall you responded by saying “failed nations would attack us just to get rebuilt”.
2) “Silly rule” – I’ve answered this too, there is *ampled* precedent that we stay around as part of our national magnanimous culture (one of our values, so to say) and try to get a place back on its feet.
3) While nations, in many ways act towards each other like individual children on a school yard, and so analogies like these are helpful, these analogies do break down. This one in particular breaks down because Afghanistan didn’t attack us. Al Qaeda, aided and abetted by the Taliban, did. We are obligated by national self interest to try and establish an Afghanistan in which neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban have a safe haven to do so again.
3) It’s exemplary ethics and in our interests to do so. We could survive not doing so, but likely establishing the conditions to have to dedicate another generation to bloodily fix messes down the road.
4) You have avoided the implication – if we have no reason to stay around and help the Afghanis, then as the stark base of it, we have no real reason to stay around and evacuate those who so believed in our intervention that they helped us.
And the Taliban are Muslims. The media will cast them as diverse and interesting and exotic and wonderfully austere and devout. There will be “it ain’t so bad” stories popping up soon. Michael Moore will be dispatched to do a documentary about the Taliban health care system and unionization of the poppy field workers.
Sorry, Other Bill. CNN beat you to the punch. They declared that chanting “Death to America” by mostly peaceful Talibanistas was perfectly acceptable.
jvb
Got it, JVB. The Taliban is just part of The Squad!
It will be forgotten if we allow it to be. Every message should remind people of the litany of policy choices that have cost us dearly.
“Republicans Pounce!” cannot be far behind…
Shoot, as early as yesterday it became clear by media talking heads that the orders went out to start pivoting from attention on Biden/Harris.
Some idiots began talking about how if Christians got their way in America it would be a Handmaid’s Tale like the Taliban would want.
Some idiots began discussing the similarities between the 6 January riot and the Taliban takeover.
Some idiots pivoted straight to GOP supporting democracy in another country while trying to undermine it here.
My guess is by the end of the week, the media will have finished their “critical” takes of Biden/Harris and be in full whitewash and diversion mode.
In two weeks they won’t even be discussing the disaster much less avoiding talking about the Biden/Harris role in it.
Looks like the narrative is beginning to coalesce around blaming Trump (which was the obvious avenue of blame here).
Even when it is forced into reporting a total, massive, historic botch by the party it works for, the Times cannot be objective or approach the same tone and attitude it would apply to an equivalent blunder by that other party.
Well, that’s because the Times, like most of the media, has become little more than propaganda. But the most critical issue is that they fear if they give in to reality, they’ll be responsible for assisting a Republican, possibly even a * gasp * Trump comeback. That’s too much for them to risk for any reason at all including credibility. The conversion of the US to full-on Western European socialism is much too important to risk to fairness.
Oooh, the reports only contradict Biden! So he might be right, then, and the reports wrong, right?
I usually hate to descend into what ifs, but it’s just too tempting here. If this were a DeSantis administration (never mind Trump II!), I suspect the content and dimensions of that headline might be juuuusst a bit different. Call me cynical.
What we are witnessing is a deliberate, panicked effort by the news media, progressives and Democrats to tamp down justified public outrage at the dishonesty, arrogance and incompetence displayed by this administration, and to minimize any long term consequences at the polls.
Yes, and it will probably succeed to a significant extent. A lot of people, particularly left-leaning independents, are so sold on the idea that Trump was such a horrible, mean man that they are willing to believe anything if it is the least bit plausible. They fear him much more than media lies.
The hard Left doesn’t care, of course, whether Biden lied or not, or if he has the intellectual acumen of a hunk of Vermont cheddar cheese. They only care that whoever is pulling Biden’s strings is on the side of the angels.
By the same token, I doubt the hard right would care (as far as Biden was concerned) if the withdrawal went off without a hitch. The million-dollar question is, will enough moderates recognize this as signature significance?
Which moderates? The ones that fear and loathe Trump as much as the Left?
I really don’t know the answer to your question, of course. I think a lot of moderates wouldn’t understand the concept of “signature significance,” let alone be willing to embrace it. But then again, I am very cynical, so…
Among the worst aspects of all of the coming introspection will be that the people who voted for the problem will make a generalized excuse of “This was going to happen to whoever was in charge” or “this is a fundamental flaw in American foreign policy” or they make a hyper specific excuse “Biden was clearly not up to the task”.
They’ll not once ask themselves if the problem was an inevitable result of the worldview they voted for when they cast a ballot for the Democrats. They’ll not once ask themselves if there are fundamental flaws in the political attitudes they espouse.
Among the worst aspects of all of the coming introspection will be that the people who voted for the problem will make a generalized excuse of “This was going to happen to whoever was in charge”
I can’t tell you how many times I heard a version of that statement from my parents about Richard Nixon — and they didn’t even vote for him! Jack (and to some extent, I and many others in here) have one thing very much in common from his (and my) father’s generation — reverence for the presidency. Unlike many, Jack is unwilling to let that reverence dominate his perspective and allow him to rationalize failure.
But too many are, and they are willing to use the “everybody does it” rationalization to allay their fear that the man in charge really might be as utterly incompetent as Trump and the Republican party (and even former president Obama) said he was.