President Biden’s address to the nation Wednesday featured two statements that were, at best, self-serving interpretations of events, but I would categorize them as falsehoods. First, the president said he and his national security team “have been closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every constituency — and contingency — including the rapid collapse we’re seeing now.” Not only did the administration not have plans in place for every contingency, it did not have plans in place for what any casual observer of the withdrawal might consider all but certain to occur contingencies such as an emergency evacuation of our Afghan partners trapped in the country and under grave threat from the Taliban. Beginning in April, a bipartisan group of more 30 members of Congress, led by Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.), both veterans, petitioned the president for meetings at the White House and a plan for how to evacuate key Afghan personnel. Their requests were met with silence.

Source: Washington Post August 19, 2021 13:41 UTC