August 21, 2021

By David Jay Morris

What is the Biden brand?  What makes so many people like and trust him? Why do we have faith that he is the right man to be President in these oh-so-troubled times?

Two words sum it up nicely – compassion and competence.

Not since Jimmy Carter have we had a leader with so much clear empathy for the people he governs.

Not since Bush 1 have we had someone who brought so much governmental experience and understanding of how things work with him to the White House.

How then has this man, the eminently qualified Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., made such a mess out of our withdrawal from Afghanistan?

We can argue about whether or not his basic decision to honor Trump’s fundamentally flawed agreement with the Taliban was the right one. 

Many people with sound military backgrounds have argued that leaving 2,500 U.S. troops in the country indefinitely would have sufficiently bucked up the morale of the Afghan governmental forces and intimidated the Taliban to have allowed the status quo to continue for years.

They might be right.

Other experts stress that what Trump bought with his promise of unconditional withdrawal was a Taliban commitment not to target U.S. and coalition forces prior to their departure. If that if that hadn’t started to happen, they argue, the attacks on our troops would have begun.  If we wanted to stay, they say, a much larger presence would have been needed and we would have soon found ourselves back in direct military conflict with an effective insurgency.

They might be right, too.

In the end, it was the President’s call, and Biden made it.

Some Americans might disagree with his choice, but most can recognize the logic behind it. 

Which brings us back to the question of how the Biden administration could have messed up the end game so badly. 

Lots of questions, actually.

Why hadn’t most of the interpreters and others who had so bravely assisted the American forces been quietly extracted and brought to safety long before the actual withdrawal began?

Why was the heavily fortified and easily defended Bagram airbase abandoned so early, instead of keeping it as a secure base for potential evacuations?

Why wasn’t the whole thing delayed until late fall, so that the weather would have made a rapid Taliban advance much more problematic?

Why were all the troops withdrawn before a critical mass of civilians - both Afghan and foreign - could be evacuated?

And why was the whole thing so set in stone?  Why wasn’t there any flexibility built in to handle very negative situations when they arose?

Hindsight might be 20-20, but would it really have been so hard to imagine that some simple measures such as these could have prevented so much needless human suffering?

In spite of all his wisdom, compassion and governmental know-how, for President Biden it seems that they were.

Why?  Why was this so competent a man suddenly so blind?

The only thing he seems to have cared about was getting the U.S. troops out as quickly as possible, without any further deaths or injuries – at any cost.

Was this the issue? 

When he steps in front of the cameras, Biden usually seems the very picture of thoughtful deliberation.  If you’re paying any attention at all, you get the feeling that he has listened carefully to everyone and weighed the pros and cons of every argument seriously before reaching a policy decision.

This time was different.

This time he seemed stuck in stone, as if he wouldn’t even consider looking at the matter from any other perspective but his own.

He seemed almost Trump-like in his stubbornness.

Could it be down to Beau?

Or more specifically, to the deep pain Biden felt at his beloved son’s passing.

The cancer which took Beau was quite possibly related to contaminants he encountered during his overseas military service.  If he hadn’t answered the call of duty, there is every chance he would still be with us today. Could it be that the deep personal pain Biden experienced over his son’s passing was so intense and all consuming that he just couldn’t bear the thought of putting any other American parents through such agony?

So unlike Trump, Biden also cares deeply and truly for each and every American serviceman or woman and their families.

Could his compassion itself be the very thing that blinded him?

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