Biden defends harshly criticized Afghanistan evacuation
Congressional correspondent Jacqui Heinrich has the latest from the White House on 'Special Report'
As the chaos of the United States’ "successful" evacuation from Afghanistan envelopes America’s collective psyche, many are asking the question: "What exactly is the Biden Doctrine on foreign policy?"
Well, on Aug. 19, Joe Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos and gave his most telling indication yet.
Though ABC News attempted to scrub the interview of some of Biden’s less than flattering moments, the news outlet still managed to capture and air one of the most incredible exchanges ever witnessed involving "the leader of the free world" on television.
While questioning Biden on the increasingly humiliating withdrawal strategy out of Afghanistan, Stephanopoulos commented, "There's still a lot of pandemonium outside the airport right now."
To which, Biden replied, "But look, no one's being killed right now," then literally knocked on wood. "God forgive me if I’m wrong about that," he concluded.
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Biden’s "Knock on Wood Doctrine" was born in that exact moment, and it has left 13 servicemen tragically dead and hundreds of Americans stranded.
In eight short months, America has gone from the Doctrine of America First and "peace through strength," to that of American weakness, literally trusting terrorists to keep our troops safe. The few times Biden has lowered himself to taking questions about his failures in Afghanistan, he has demurred, placing much of the blame on a previous treaty signed by President Trump.
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This is nonsense, of course, and there are a few very obvious reasons why. Since taking office Biden has been pathologically bent on reversing nearly every single Trump-era policy he could by executive fiat.
Trump left the World Health Organization; Biden promptly rejoined. Trump rejected the Paris climate accord; Biden promptly rejoined. Trump established the very successful Remain in Mexico policy for illegal immigrants; Biden immediately cancelled MPP, which led to a historic migrant crisis at the southern border. (Thankfully, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Biden administration must restart MPP).
At every turn, Biden’s record-breaking executive order onslaught was designed with one guiding principle in mind: Whatever Trump did, do the opposite, the consequences be damned. And yet, we’re supposed to believe that Joe Biden inherited an unworkable mess from President Trump and he wasn’t able to reverse course?
The other glaring issue with Biden’s gaslighting attempts to blame President Trump for this foreign policy disaster – and the perfect embodiment of the Biden Knock on Wood Doctrine – is that while Trump terrified the Taliban into compliance, Biden’s hope and prayer execution is marked by weakness, which has only emboldened America’s enemies around the world.
Biden didn’t just withdraw, he surrendered. At every step he has deferred to the demands of the Taliban
Even as Biden threatens to "hunt" the terrorist that killed our servicemen and bring them to justice, it has lacked conviction. Then as news that an ISIS-K planner was killed in retaliation, swirling news reports suggested he was not a high-level target after all, directly contradicting the White House narrative. As if that weren’t bad enough, the strike killed innocent Afghan civilians, including nine family members and six children.
It’s no secret that Trump wanted to end the war in Afghanistan as soon as he took office, but his was always a conditions-based withdrawal. He proved it, too. In September 2019, he shocked the world while drawing widespread criticism, canceling peace talks when he felt the Taliban weren’t living up to their end of the bargain.
Trump eventually signed a peace deal in February 2020, but it was always predicated upon strict compliance by the Taliban. Trump even warned the Taliban that he would bomb their family villages if so much as a hair on the head of an American was harmed.
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo reiterated the Trump administration’s willingness to take aggressive action in an appearance on Fox News on Friday:
"…the Taliban understood that if they acted against Americans and took actions that were inconsistent with what they had promised to do, we'd respond and we did. We did it multiple times. When they pushed on us and the Trump administration, we responded with American power and American might…"
By contrast, Biden didn’t just withdraw, he surrendered.
At every step he has deferred to the demands of the Taliban. He has refused to dictate the terms of engagement or extend his own arbitrary timelines. He knocks on wood and hopes the Taliban won’t act like terrorists. Why? So he could have a photo-op on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and claim victory ahead of the 2022 midterms.
The Biden Doctrine has led to hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to America, billions in high-tech military equipment handed over to our enemies, the emergence of a new terrorism super state, a power vacuum Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran are sure to fill, and 13 dead Americans and countless Afghan civilians. Oh yeah, and the Taliban once again rule Afghanistan.
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Instead of ending America’s longest war, Biden’s weakness threatens to indefinitely embroil the U.S. in the land of blood and sand.
May God protect our troops, as it’s been said. Joe Biden’s disgraceful Knock on Wood Doctrine certainly won’t.