Media

Wall Street Journal blasts Biden for blaming Afghanistan crisis on Trump: A ‘pathetic denial’

by Dominick Mastrangelo 08/16/21 08:58 AM ET

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal issued a forceful rebuke of President Biden’s response to the crisis in Afghanistan, a calamity that Biden over the weekend suggested is partly the result of former President Trump’s policy toward the war-torn nation.

“President Biden’s statement on Saturday washing his hands of Afghanistan deserves to go down as one of the most shameful in history by a Commander in Chief at such a moment of American retreat,” the editors wrote on Sunday. “As the Taliban closed in on Kabul, Mr. Biden sent a confirmation of U.S. abandonment that absolved himself of responsibility, deflected blame to his predecessor, and more or less invited the Taliban to take over the country.”

Trump, Biden said in a Saturday statement issued from Camp David, “left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on US forces.”

“Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict,” the president added.

The Journal’s editors said that portion of Biden’s public statement blaming Trump for the crisis “exemplifies his righteous dishonesty.”

“This is a pathetic denial of his own agency, and it’s also a false choice,” the newspaper argued. “It’s as if Winston Churchill, with his troops surrounded at Dunkirk, had declared that Neville Chamberlain got him into this mess and the British had already fought too many wars on the Continent.”

Biden said in his announcement on Saturday that the U.S. would send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan to assist with evacuating U.S. personnel following Taliban advances. Afghanistan’s government fell on Sunday after the Taliban entered Kabul and U.S. personnel were evacuated to the capital’s airport.

The Journal’s editorial board also called Trump’s plan to withdraw troops from the nation “a mistake, which Biden could have maneuvered around.”

“Instead he ordered a rapid and total withdrawal at the onset of the annual fighting season in time for the symbolic target date of 9/11,” the paper noted.

“The illusion, indulged on the left and right, that the U.S. can avoid the world’s horrors while gardening its entitlement state, is sure to come home to haunt,” the editorial concluded. “Adversaries are taking Mr. Biden’s measure, and there will be more trouble ahead. The costs will be all the more painful because the ugliness of this surrender was so unnecessary.”