Joe Biden's big Afghanistan speech

Joe Biden's speech this afternoon on Afghanistan was the most important speech of his lifetime. It's understatement to say that he blew it. A check of the speech's transcript exposes multiple straw-man arguments and some outright deceptions. Let's jump right into his deceptions.

Early in the speech, Biden said "U.S. forces had already drawn down during the Trump administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country, and the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001. The choice I had to make, as your President, was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season. There would have been no ceasefire after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1."

The most preferred option would've been to keep US bases, especially Bagram, open to conduct airstrikes against Taliban positions in support of Afghan security forces. Biden's portrayal of the US mission as one of fighting a hot war isn't true:

There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict.

Mike Pompeo said that the Trump administration had a plan:

That's what a real plan looks like. Then there's this deception:
After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.
If he thinks that, then he's an idiot. Analyst after analyst talked about getting out of Afghanistan during winter, not during the Taliban's "fighting season." Right now is the Taliban's peak fighting season. Unfortunately, that isn't the worst of it. Because the Biden administration didn't have close air support missions for the Afghan security forces, the Taliban was able to go on the offensive. With US close air support, there would've been an orderly withdrawal.

But I always promised the American people that I will be straight with you. The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.
A little context is in order. "Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country" after the US shut down Bagram and started pulling out forces. 'The Afghan military collapsed" after the Biden administration eliminated close air support.

Joe Biden had the opportunity to set the record straight on what happened. Instead, he gave a deception-filled speech, then flew back for vacation at Camp David. What a loser.

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