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You are here: Home / Politics / America / President Biden Just Presented the Clearest and Most Concise Strategic Assessment of the US, Its Actions in Afghanistan, and American Interests In Regard to Afghanistan

President Biden Just Presented the Clearest and Most Concise Strategic Assessment of the US, Its Actions in Afghanistan, and American Interests In Regard to Afghanistan

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In his response to the first question asked after his formal remarks, a question asked by Zeke Miller from the Associated Press. President Biden stated (I’ve transcribed this directly from the video):

Look, let’s put things in perspective here. What interests do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as well as, as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did. Imagine, just imagine, if that attack, if bin Laden had decided with al Qaeda to have launched an attack from Yemen, would we have ever gone to Afghanistan? Would there ever be any reason we’d be in an Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban? What is the national interest of the United States in that circumstance?

This is the clearest and most concise strategic assessment of the US’s interests both against al Qaeda and in Afghanistan that I’ve seen any senior elected or appointed official articulate since September 2001. And the answers to his questions, which are obvious, is that the US would never have begun Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan if bin Laden hadn’t used it as a base of operations to attack the US on 9-11. Absent that, the US has no national interests in Afghanistan.

It is long past time that an American leader – elected, appointed, uniformed – stated this clearly. Good on President Biden for doing so.

I want to make two additional quick, related points. Especially as one of them came up in the second question asked by Justin Sink from Bloomberg. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that two dozen or so State Department officers at the US Embassy in Kabul had written and transmitted a cable through the State Department’s dissent channel on 13 July warning that the Afghan government and military could collapse quickly after the US completed its withdrawal on 31 August 2021 leading to the Taliban quickly retaking control in Afghanistan and, as a result, evacuation operations should begin no later than 1 August. Everyone has latched on to this as evidence that the Biden administration, especially his national security principals, should have known that the Afghan government and military would collapse and the Taliban would quickly retake Afghanistan. As I type this David Ignatius is making this point on MSNBC. But there’s a chronological fallacy in this criticism. The dissent cable’s focus is on what might happen shortly after 31 August. Today is 20 August. Everything initially went sideways between 10 and 12 August, with the Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) beginning on 12 August. While what the Foreign Service officers in Kabul warned did happen, it happened almost three weeks before they had assessed that it would happen. It is important to note here that someone in the Biden administration took the dissent cable seriously because the day after it was transmitted, they announced Operation Allies Refuge, which is the name for NEO mission that is currently ongoing.

This is a non-controversy that a variety of pundits and reporters are trying to turn into a scandal. That President Biden and his team failed to heed the dissent cable and prevent the Afghan government and military from collapsing after 31 August. Which is eleven days from now! I’ve seen this used, by people who should know better, to demand all of President Biden’s national security principals resign or be fired immediately and that they, themselves would have gone to Afghanistan and easily planned this out from the pointy end rather than a bunch of people with advanced degrees in DC wasting time drawing up plans. There is a reason we don’t let people with massive amounts of tactical and operational experience, but with limited strategic experience develop strategy or set policy.

The second point I want to make actually relates to the attempt to use what has happened as a way to beat up on President Biden and his national security team. That national security team is not fully in place. Almost none of the senior appointed positions at the Department of State and USAID have been filled and neither have most of the key ambassadorships. This is not because President Biden hasn’t made the nominations; he has. It is because Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has put a blanket hold on all State Department and USAID nominations, including ambassadorships, which has led to dozens of key positions still unfilled. As a result Secretary Blinken does not have his team in place either at State proper, at USAID, nor in our embassies. Instead he is relying on career Foreign Service Executives to cover down on key jobs in addition to their actual duties, as well as Foreign Service officers below senior executive rank. Ordinarily a Foreign Service Executive from USAID’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) would be on site in Kabul coordinating the Special Immigrant Visa relocations of our Afghan allies. It is unclear if this is the case or if a more junior USAID officer who may not be a PRM specialist is covering down.

At the Department of Defense, it wasn’t until 10 August that the Senate finally confirmed the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities. Up until that point she was serving as an acting Assistant Secretary covering both the position she has now been confirmed too, as well as those for the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy as Senate Republicans were holding up the now confirmed Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Kahl because they didn’t like his tweets. There are at least a 1/2 dozen other of President Biden’s defense nominees still waiting for confirmation in addition to all the State Department ones that Senator Cruz is holding up. If you do not have your full national security team in place, it is going to negatively impact the ability of the Departments of State and Defense to properly function.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

211Comments

  4. 4.

    MomSense

    Thank you for this post. I’m going to read it a few times and hopefully I will be less likely to yell at my radio on my drive home.

  5. 5.

    artem1s

    If you do not have your full national security team in place, it is going to negatively impact the ability of the Departments of State and Defense to properly function.

    to the GQP negative impact on government functioning well = feature not a bug

  10. 10.

    Immanentize

    The idea that the pullout from Afghanistan is more humiliating than the U.S. spending $2 trillion and twenty years propping up a corrupt government while American military leaders misled the country about their progress seems backwards.— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) August 20, 2021

  12. 12.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Lucidamente: The replies to that tweet are universally negative, which I can appreciate.

    I see a lot of this from any tweets and so on. Reporters don’t seem to understand that they’re way over their skis on this with the vast majority of the population.

  13. 13.

    Fake Irishman

    @Wag:

    Do it With a rusty farm implement. Having control of the chamber Senate dems can force a vote on each of these nominees, but it chews up lots of floor time. (2 hours for each sub-cabinet appointee and there are lots of other key folks who need moved into place at the DOJ the EPA, Treasury, interior the judiciary etc etc etc The Senate has been steadily moving though the nominees, but it takes time. (Three more judges up for confirmation when the Senate reconvenes in a few weeks. They’ve actually been moving quite quickly on those)

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: We may have moral and humanitarian interests, but not national ones.

    And now I sound like Kissinger in 1973 talking to Nixon about what the US interests were vis a vis Soviet Jews. That’s the sad place where we are…

  17. 17.

    whomever

    Stepping back, but can you imagine explaining to someone from another country that a single elected official can stop the appointment of ambassadors?  Like this is totally nuts right?

  18. 18.

    banditqueen

    Here’s Chris Murphy today:

    This was 5am last Tuesday night. I asked Senator Cruz to release at least one of his holds on dozens of key national security nominees. He refused.
    As we manage through the crisis in Afghanistan, dozens of key national security positions are vacant.

    This is how dedicated the GQP are to addressing global security issues.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: Other than I think the ears were too short, I personally think the costume they used for Ben Affleck’s Batman was the best one I’ve seen. That said, my understanding is that the narrative of this costume in regard to the story being told in this movie is this is the first Batman costume for a very young and inexperienced Batman. It is supposed to be a starting point, not something that resulted from years of development. I’m also not sure we’re going to have a really good look at it until the film actually comes out.

  21. 21.

    Martin

    Absent that, the US has no national interests in Afghanistan.

    I’d qualify this. We have a political interest. We still care about civil rights there. But that’s not a national military interest.  I don’t think you disagree with that.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jackmac: I can. The State Department has a process for sending back cables – basically the term of art for the memos that Foreign Service personnel send to each other and to the leadership – to the State Department that disagree with a policy or a strategy or the implementation of a strategy or an assessment or a combination of all of those. Since they’re dissenting from the official position the cables are referred to as dissent cables and the system for sending them back, which is now via email, is called the dissent channel. The tradition at State is that any Foreign Service personnel – Foreign Service Executive, Foreign Service Officer – from any part of the State Department including USAID can use the dissent channel freely and without fear of recrimination or negative career implications.

    Did that answer your question?

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @whomever: Same way it makes no sense to anyone else that anything negotiated and/or agreed to by the US is not a treaty and can be simply abrogated and ignored unless a 2/3rds majority of senators vote in favor of it.

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Martin: No, those are humanitarian or moral interests. They may or may not be national interests.

    We also need to be clear, that if we hadn’t invaded Afghanistan to go after bin Laden and al Qaeda, we’d have little information beyond some NGO reports on what the Taliban were doing in terms of brutalizing the Afghan population. There would be no foreign correspondents there and, as a result, little to no reporting from there.

  27. 27.

    cain

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Oh when they find out that the public doesn’t share any of their sentiments – they will simmer down soon enough. Hell, I bet you anything they’ll be so ready to look at the polls and will be flabbergasted when his approval ratings go up.

  28. 28.

    DB11

    It is because Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has put a blanket hold on all State Department and USAID nominations, including ambassadorships, which has led to dozens of key positions still unfilled.

    Is respecting the hold(s) of individual senators simply another example of honouring Senate practice and tradition (like the filibuster), or is it enshrined in law?

    If the former, what would be the (political) implications of no longer honouring such holds — especially when their only motivation is, so clearly and solely, blatant obstructionism?

  30. 30.

    JustRuss

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The tradition at State is that any Foreign Service personnel – Foreign Service Executive, Foreign Service Officer – from any part of the State Department including USAID can use the dissent channel freely and without fear of recrimination or negative career implications.

    How’d that work out under the Trump maladministration?

  31. 31.

    James E Powell

    I would like to see more/louder pushback against this Republican plus press/media frenzy. Everyone needs to have Biden’s back on this. Not just for politics but because it was the right thing to do.

    The press/media are allowing the people responsible for this mess – including themselves – to dump all their frustrations on Biden. It isn’t right.

  32. 32.

    Lige

    If I was conspiratorially minded I’d wonder if Pompeo had made a deal with his ideological soulmates the Taliban to time their final push to take over the country in a way to cause maximum chaos for the Biden administration with favors to come later of course. Though that “deal” was bad enough.

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    @Adam L Silverman: We had some idea of what was going on in Afghanistan before the invasion.

    CNN (May 17, 2001):

    WASHINGTON — Warning that Afghanistan is “on the verge of a widespread famine,” Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday announced a $43 million package in humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people.

    Powell also called on other nations to send aid to the Central Asian nation.

    “If the international community does not take immediate action, countless deaths and terrible tragedy are certain to follow,” Powell said.

    The package includes $28 million worth of wheat from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $5 million in food commodities and $10 million in “livelihood and food security” programs, both from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

    Powell called the crisis a “looming catastrophe,” and said that he was working with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to press upon potential donors the need to respond to the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan “with energy and dispatch.”

    Almost 4 million at risk

    A nation of 26 million, Afghanistan has been hit by three consecutive years of drought. The nation has also endured more than 20 years of civil strife. The Taliban religious militia, which imposes a harsh brand of Islam, captured Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in 1996 and now controls an estimated 95 percent of the country.

    The Thursday aid announcement follows the return of a U.S. delegation last month from a visit to Afghanistan, where it found the population on the verge of a famine due to a devastating drought.

    Leonard Rogers, the deputy assistant administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Response, estimated that Afghanistan is nearly 2 million tons short of what the country needs to feed its people, a deficit two times more than last year. According to U.N. figures, 3.8 million people in the country are at risk of famine.

    Powell said the United States expects to announce additional assistance to Afghan refugees, and would continue to look for ways to provide more aid to Afghanistan, especially for farmers feeling the crunch from a ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the ruling Taliban that the U.S. welcomes.

    The United Nations estimates that the drought has forced more than 700,000 people to flee their homes, landing at camps for internally displaced citizens.

    The team visiting Afghanistan found the conditions of the camps woefully inadequate, and said that the shelter facilities, water and sanitation was very poor.

    Officials were especially concerned about refugees leaving Afghanistan for bordering countries, such as Pakistan and Iran, and expressed concern that those countries might send the refugees back to Afghanistan.

    One “holding facility” on the Pakistani side of the border in Jalozai was described as inappropriate for holding refugees.

    Alan Kreczko, acting assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration Affairs, said that while the United States “understands the frustration” felt by the border countries who have acted as “generous hosts,” he cautioned “this is not the time” to send the refugees back.

    U.N. to distribute aid

    While U.S. officials cited the drought as the major factor for the deepening humanitarian crisis, the members of the delegation said that Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban’s regime and the security problems it presents, hinders access and contributed to the situation.

    The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban in an effort to pressure the militia to hand over Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is accused of bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa. Humanitarian aid is allowed.

    Powell said the U.S. aid is administered by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, and bypasses the Taliban, “who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it.”

    The sum brings U.S. assistance to $124.2 million for this year, making the United States the largest Afghan donor for the second year in a row.

    In early 2001 our national interests in Afghanistan were similar to those in poor countries in other regions – preventing internal problems from causing issues with refugee flows and the like, and trying (via aid and similar support) to help minimize suffering. Those are our same interests now.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    Wag

    @Martin:   And no economic interest.

    There are lots of places where we have moral interests, but moral interests alone are not worth a trillion dollars and 20 years.   If moral interests are to be our focus, then there are many areas of the world where we could be better results more quickly for a better price.

  39. 39.

    Roger Moore

    @DB11:

    Is respecting the hold(s) of individual senators simply another example of honouring Senate practice and tradition (like the filibuster), or is it enshrined in law?

    If the former, what would be the (political) implications of no longer honouring such holds — especially when their only motivation is, so clearly and solely, blatant obstructionism?

    As I understand it, the basic issue is one of Senate rules rather than statutory law.  There are a lot of procedural steps in the Senate that theoretically require a vote but can be bypassed by unanimous consent, i.e. asking if there are any objections and moving on if there are none.  If one Senator chooses to be an obstructionist, he can deny unanimous consent and require an actual vote on all these things, which draws them out a lot.

    Putting a hold on something just means a Senator has made a formal threat to deny unanimous consent.  Because the Senate has lots of work to do, the people in charge of setting the calendar will usually put those things on the back burner in favor of ones that can move forward more expeditiously.  In some ways, it’s like a threat to make an old-fashioned filibuster; the Senate could challenge the attempt to slow things down, but they usually won’t until they decide the issue is high enough priority to be worth the disruption to the schedule.

    The Senate certainly could change its rules not to require a vote on so many things, which would make the threat less effective.  Or they could change the rules to speed up the process of taking a vote on this kind of procedural motion so the denial of unanimous consent would be less disruptive.  But this kind of thing is at least potentially a problem for any legislative body.  Unless you give the people setting the agenda a lot of power, people dedicated to obstructing can really gum up the works.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Sounds a bit like “stop work authority” given to all employees who spot unsafe work conditions and in more limited cases, observe non-functioning work processes (famously established for Toyota assembly lines).

    The unanswerable question has always been, “what happens if I actually use this?”

  44. 44.

    Immanentize

    Hmmm. My town is 80+% vaccinated (at least one shot) but we have had 60+ new cases in the last week. Mayor just announced a city-wide mask mandate for all city buildings. I expect businesses will be next.

  45. 45.

    Ramiah Ariya

    My understanding is that the US adventure in Afghanistan involved substantial corruption by American govt and corporates. Apparently the US contractors engaged also defrauded Afghans. I am surprised that the angle among American leaders and commentariat is that the corruption was solely on the Afghan side. I would guess, instead, that it was the massive amounts of money in play; and the ease with which Americans could lay their hands on said money, was the reason the Afghan Army fell apart.

    Biden’s statement is basically the America First doctrine. He is coddling the American public and his voter base by not talking about the corruption involved from the American side.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore: One of the recent “reforms” to the Senate rules was that Cabinet nominations (and many/most/all federal judges) couldn’t be filbustered.  I don’t know how far that list goes (if it’s just full cabinet seats then it seems like a hollow reform – the Plum Book lists over 7000 positions).

    IOW, are we sure it’s a filibuster threat? Or is it something else?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    Geminid

    @James E Powell: I was wandering around on the internet and found that at least one Congressman is forthrightly backing President Biden in this matter. Representative J. Auchingloss (MA-4), a Marine Corps veteran of Afghanistan, has spoken in the President’s defense on CNN and MSNBC, and on Twitter.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    Dave Puglisi
    @DavePuglisiTV

    The city of Orlando is asking residents to reduce water consumption IMMEDIATELY. Liquid oxygen used to treat water is being diverted to the hospitals to treat COVID patients. They believe if water consumption doesn’t change, water treatment could hit a critical point in a week.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @Immanentize:

    That can’t be right, because the Senate rules have been changed to eliminate the filibuster on nominations.  Also, sustaining a filibuster requires more than just one Senator, so a threat from a single Senator to hold a filibuster on anything is meaningless.  It has to be about denying unanimous consent, which is still required for many procedural steps and can be done by a single person.

  53. 53.

    John Revolta

    Would there ever be any reason we’d be in an Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban? What is the national interest of the United States in that circumstance?
    Come on Wall Street don’t be slow
    Why man this is “war a-go-go”!
    There’s plenty good money to be made
    Supplying the army with the tools of its trade
    Let’s hope and pray that if they drop the bomb
    They drop it on the Talibahn!
    And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for
    Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn, next stop Afghanistan!

    Plus ca change…….

  54. 54.

    Skepticat

    @MisterForkbeard: @Wag: “and fuck Ted Cruz” should really be appended to most any and all statements these days.

    And that may include “Good morning,” “Oh, hi there,” and “Thank you.”

  56. 56.

    Cacti

    The talking point that’s grinding my gears the most these days is “Why did Biden leave weapons behind?”.

    They weren’t left behind you fucking gits.  They were turned over to the Afghanistan armed forces, who abruptly surrendered.

  57. 57.

    Hoodie

    @Wag: We have moral, geopolitical and other reasons to care about Afghanistan, but none of those justify occupying the country.  War is politics by other means.   It’s not a particularly effective means under most circumstances and often doesn’t forward those particular interests if it’s employed.  For example, all those folks who want us to go guns blazing into Kabul or elsewhere to rescue Afghan allies don’t seem to have too much problem with all the collateral deaths that could come from that.

  58. 58.

    Chris

    @Ramiah Ariya:

    My understanding is that the US adventure in Afghanistan involved substantial corruption by American govt and corporates. Apparently the US contractors engaged also defrauded Afghans. I am surprised that the angle among American leaders and commentariat is that the corruption was solely on the Afghan side.

    That I can’t disagree with.

    It’s definitely something that occurred to me during the first Biden speech: yes, the Afghan government is corrupt as hell, but considering the MIC feeding frenzy of the last twenty years, the no-bid contracts, the oodles of money disappeared into thin air, it’s really rich of the U.S. government to be lecturing anyone about the evils of corruption, especially in the war on terror context.

  59. 59.

    Miss Bianca

    @Roger Moore:

    Republicans sabotage our government and then complain it isn’t working. Same as it ever was.

    And a certain portion of the dirtbag left insist on carrying their water for them. Same as it ever was, as well.

  60. 60.

    Cacti

    @Miss Bianca: Germany’s dirtbag left was sure that if they just let the Weimar Republic fall to the fascists, the worker’s paradise was just a step away.

    Then they ended up behind the wire.

  61. 61.

    Immanentize

    @Another Scott: I am pretty certain it is equal to a filibuster threat. The nominees have been passed out of committee, the only act left is a full Senate vote.

  62. 62.

    Joy in FL

    Today I spent about 90 seconds listening to NPR on my car radio. Usually I prefer podcasts or music or silence, but I wanted to hear some live news.

    Two NPR reporters were talking about Afghanistan. In the course of reporting about getting Americans and friends home, one of the reporters said that President Biden says that “the buck stops with him.” The other said, “Will that be enough?” I started to yell at the radio, but their idiocy had one more part: the reporter said, “No,” in answer to “Will that be enough?”

    I couldn’t believe the pointless stupidity of the question, but to say No, the president of the US being where the buck stops is not enough…..   I turned my car radio off for probably another several years.

  65. 65.

    gene108

    @Ramiah Ariya:

    the ease with which Americans could lay their hands on said money, was the reason the Afghan Army fell apart.

    Americans weren’t the reason Afghan Army personnel were not getting paid for months.

    There were definitely U.S. contractors who probably padded out their bids to make more money, and a few well connected ones who got contracts without going through a competitive bidding process, but these aren’t reasons for the army surrendering.

    Edit: Or Ghani fleeing the country first chance he got, leaving a massive disruption in the government that even the Taliban wasn’t expecting to have to fill so abruptly

  66. 66.

    Immanentize

    @Roger Moore: not on all nominations — on cabinet level nominations and judicial nominations.

    Adding — Even if you are right how does this differ from a veto threat in practice? It is a signal the person will not be placed.

  69. 69.

    Subsole

    @MisterForkbeard:

    I haven’t checked twitter since they decided to make it members-only.

    Was curious what kind of response they are getting.

    Granted, twitter isn’t real life, but hey… maybe they don’t know that.

  70. 70.

    Cacti

    Also too, the most eyeroll inducing hot takes have to be from washed up military brass like Petraeus, whose strategies in Afghanistan failed completely.

  73. 73.

    Peale

    @Kay: no. You must be wrong. Health care isn’t like a real system with material inputs that it must compete with other industries for. It’s just there. People can dilly about because it can infinitely expand as needed without any adverse impacts anywhere else.

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Scott: 
    Again, and I understand it a hold involves only a threat to deny unanimous consent on things. The problem is that denying unanimous consent is by itself enough to cause a lot of problems. Taking a vote takes time- I think Adam said it was about 2 hours- during which nothing else can happen. The Senate only has so much time during a session- at most a couple thousand hours per year- so denying unanimous consent can be a major time sink. If someone were willing to deny consent on every nomination, there wouldn’t be enough time in a Presidency to get through all 7000 nominations that require Senate confirmation, even if the Senate didn’t have any other business.
    The Senate rules obviously need a major reform, but we also need to have a look at the whole nominations process. There’s no way the Senate can give a serious vetting to everyone they are legally required to confirm. There simply isn’t enough time on the legislative calendar. We should reduce the number of positions that require Senate confirmation and either let the President appoint the rest without confirmation or turn them into civil service positions. The only other reasonable alternative is to give the Senate a limited time to act on nominations, after which their failure to give an up or down vote would be considered tacit consent. But giving the Senate responsibility to confirm more people than they have time and energy to seriously consider is just nonsense.

  75. 75.

    Fake Irishman

     

    @Immanentize:

    A simple majority is needed to confirm any nominee. It just takes floor time for debate (4 hours for any sub cabinet appointee and I believe 30 for a cabinet level appointee or higher than district judge; debate time is divided evenly between the majority and the minority, so usually the majority yields it’s time) and a vote if unanimous consent isn’t agreed to.

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Another Scott:

    I’m losing my damn mind. Twitter is now working “normally” for me with the Samsung browser on my phone. I just followed a link over there from here and was able to read not only that but also retweets and other linked tweets.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  77. 77.

    Ella in New Mexico

    I never thought I’d love any President as much as I loved Obama.

    Nice to be wrong, once again.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Immanentize: ​
     

    Even if you are right how does this differ from a veto threat in practice?

    The big difference is that a motion to proceed requires a simple majority, so the Republicans can only stall rather than completely block, a nomination by denying unanimous consent. The Senate could push these nominations through if they were willing to forego other business. They might decide to do it for the most important nominees, even if it would take too much time to try to push everyone through that way.

  79. 79.

    Fake Irishman

    @Roger Moore:

    this. You can actually read the executive calendar for any appointments on the floor for confirmation at a given time. There are scores of them right now, not even accounting routine military promotions or state department ambassadors. Each week includes 3-5 votes on appointments or so and more than a dozen or so moved through unanimous consent. Read the senate journal and the executive calendar at the Senate’s Web site to see progress every week.

  81. 81.

    Kathleen

    @Adam L Silverman: So do you think there are there darker impulses/forces than desire for clicks at work here? I think there is. ETA Oh, and thank you as always for your clear headed analysis and common sense! I learn more from you and Twitter threads about what’s been going on in Afghanistan than from any “reporter”.

  82. 82.

    Another Scott

    @Roger Moore:  Thanks.

    Made me look. To elaborate:

    CRS report via FAS.org:

    A hold is a request by a Senator to his or her party leader to prevent or delay action on a nomination or a bill. Holds are not mentioned in the rules or precedents of the Senate, and they are enforced only through the agenda decisions of party leaders. A standing order of the Senate aims to ensure that any Senator who places a hold on any matter (including a nomination) make public his or her objection to the matter.33

    [ Hmm. I seem to remember “secret holds” in the not too distant past. ]

    […]

    The Senate precedents reducing the threshold necessary to invoke cloture on nominations, and the recent precedent reducing the time necessary for a cloture process, could affect the practice of holds. In some sense, holds are connected to the Senate traditions of mutual deference, since they may have originated as requests for more time to examine a pending nomination or bill. The effectiveness of a hold, however, ultimately has been grounded in the power of the Senator placing the hold to filibuster the nomination and the difficulty of invoking cloture to overcome a filibuster. Invoking cloture is now easier because the support of fewer Senators is necessary, and in most cases, the floor time required for a cloture process is less. The large number of nominations submitted by the President for Senate consideration, however, might still lead Senators to seek unanimous consent to quickly approve nominations.

    Chuck should threaten to blow up that rule tradition, also too, if Rafael doesn’t get with the program.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  86. 86.

    Nettoyeur

    I thought Ignatius was OK journalist, but caught him tweeting conformist DC  Villager crap Abt Biden blowing it just to get clicks. Lots of others piling on, even younger generation like Julia Ioffe. It’s like the Wash Post replaced the brilliant Marty Baron with Perry White of the Daily Planet. Just watch, if this Kabul Foxtrot turns into the best executed strategic retreat since Dunkirk (it might, though there are tough days ahead), all the finger in the wind journoweenies will go with the flow, and their Biden Lost The War dreck will go down the memory hole.  Might be worth saving some embarrassing  screen grabs to wave…..

  87. 87.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Hehehe I can see why Biden drives these guys nuts.

    Policy Expert “Sir, we have a four hour multimedia presentation own how we can turn Afghanistan around”

    Biden “That’s fine, but I asked you define what are our interests are in Afghanistan”

    Policy Expert  “Sir, you need understand what our options first are”

    Biden “Oh come on bud, it’s just what do we need there, is that so hard? Do it in one sentence and I will watch your presentation .”

    Policy Expert” That’s easy, the nation’s interest in the region are, … that is, it is…. it…well, it’s, ,,, ah,,,”

    Biden “It’s ok son, come back to me when you have an answer.”

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack (phone): Twitter updated its code last week. When it did it it confused several browsers, like Safari into causing Twitter to ask one to join or sign in. All you have to do is clear your cookies and history for Twitter and it’ll work normally again.

  89. 89.

    SpaceUnit

    Hindsight aint worth a dime, of course, but we should have turned Tora Bora into a smoldering crater and then leveled the Saudi royal palace.  Maybe one of those options should still be on the table.

  91. 91.

    dilbert dogbert

    There is a saying in the military:   Fake soldiers talk tactics and real soldiers talk logistics.

  92. 92.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Not to go all Silverman on you, but I am aware. This has been an ongoing dialogue in many threads over the last week. The specific problem I have is that on my cell phone, in several different browsers, there is no way to delete cookies from one specific site.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kathleen: I think there’s a few drivers. The first is they want to frame the news they’re reporting. In the case of Biden they’ve been looking for something that can be framed as a scandal or a problem or a crisis since the inauguration. Each thing they’ve tried – Major nipping and biting, Biden going home to his house in Delaware one or two weekends a month to see his grandkids, Republican governors and state legislators screwing up their state’s COVID response as Biden’s problem, the inability to get McConnell and his GOP Senate caucus to compromise therefore nothing is bipartisan, the bipartisan infrastructure bill is going to destroy the economy – none of them have worked. So now they’ve got something and there’s compelling video and a whole bunch of people that have been galactically wrong about the US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years willing to chime in, so they’re off to the races.

    I think another issue, especially for the foreign correspondents, is they have teams of Afghans they’ve been working with. For security, to do sound and video, as interpreters and translators, as fixers. And so there’s a personal element that they don’t want these folks or Afghans like them to get left behind and hurt.

    A final issue is that there’s a lot of professional incest going on between foreign correspondents, foreign and nat-sec pundits, and the foreign and nat-sec professionals in the think tanks. A lot of these people are full time reporters and they’re senior fellows in one or more think tanks. Or they’re senior fellows in one or more think tanks and they have regular columns at one or more publications and contributor agreements at a network. And the bulk of them live in the DC and NY metro areas. So they work together, socialize together, etc. And you get an echo chamber and group think.

  94. 94.

    JWR

    I forget where I heard it, but I’m thinking it was one of those “liberal’ types, who said that Blinken, presumably, has all his own people in place. So damn Cruz the Ooze all over again.

    I also caught a bit of Thom Hartmann’s radio program, recent show, and he was still on this “Biden SUX because he botched the Afghanistan withdrawal” schtick. He’s pissed. At Blinken! Then he took a call, and was asked what he thought it was that Biden had done so terribly wrong. Bottom line, Biden should’ve loosened up the Visa application process for certain people, sooner. That was it. It’s as if he’s playing a game or something.

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: What’s sad here is when we teach the students at the Senior Leader Colleges how to make policy proposals, including how to format everything, clearly articulating the US’s national interest is one of the first things they have to be able to do.

  97. 97.

    germy

    I’ve been sitting on this, but can now report: WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials: US helicopters ferried 96 Afghans for evacuation, signaling military flights occurring outside Kabul airport. CIA/DIA/SOF collecting up U.S. and Afghans from outside Kabul Airport for sortie rescue.

    — James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) August 20, 2021

    Good news

  98. 98.

    Mary G

    Peter, Susan, and the Mean Girls are getting a lot of pushback from the nerds:

    Stop. Take a look at the past week in Afghanistan in a bigger context. Take a look at what this admin is actually doing in foreign policy & national security more broadly. The President is-at long last-ushering in the end of the post 9/11 era. My latest: https://t.co/896XRGD6RB— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) August 20, 2021

    I think @JoeBiden is a decent and good-faith @POTUS and I am relieved every day that we have a straight public servant in the role, doing the best he can, with a mostly good team. I said it. shutting off my mentions lol have a nice weekend everyone— Xeni (@xeni) August 20, 2021

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack (phone): I’m glad you’re aware. I haven’t paid much attention to the discussion of it till you mentioned it. So I wanted to make sure you were aware because I was aware. And now that we’re all aware, I feel much better.

    I don’t actually feel much better, but I thought it was a polite thing to write.

  101. 101.

    Timurid

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m worried that if this continues to snowball and Biden’s poll numbers drop far enough, some moderate Dems may bail on the infrastructure bills as a way to distance themselves from him.

  102. 102.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kathleen: It also has to be said who funds some of the think tanks makes a difference. I’ve been watching Ian Bremmer freak out on TV and Twitter for a week now. But Bremmer has been pushing a genteel isolationism since at least 2015 when he made it the thesis of the book he had published that year:

    https://www.amazon.com/Superpower-Three-Choices-Americas-World/dp/0143109707/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=ian+bremmer&qid=1629492347&s=books&sr=1-3

    He even set up a not for profit think tank spun off from his for profit risk assessment firm to further research the implications of America withdrawing from the world, as well as to promote the idea through educational programs. The funder for the project is the Kochs’ charitable foundation. Do you ever see this disclosed or mentioned anywhere when he is introduced to do a news media hit? Or he publishes an op-ed? No, of course you don’t.

  103. 103.

    germy

    I’m sorry I did not offer a near-instantaneous condemnation of President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. My immature desire to fully understand what I was decrying got the better of me.

    Here’s my full apology:https://t.co/f1G86VNHGO

    — Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) August 20, 2021

  104. 104.

    trnc

    @banditqueen: ​
     

    This was 5am last Tuesday night. I asked Senator Cruz to release at least one of his holds on dozens of key national security nominees. He refused.
    As we manage through the crisis in Afghanistan, dozens of key national security positions are vacant.

    This is how dedicated the GQP are to addressing global security issues.

    As bad as the filibuster is in its current state, it is absolutely dumbfounding to me that senate rules still allow a single senator to hold up nominations.

  105. 105.

    Roger Moore

    @Adam L Silverman:
    2000 is still too many for the Senate to give serious attention. Giving each of them 2 hours on the Senate floor would still take the entire schedule, ETA: and 2 hours isn’t nearly enough time.  We need to drastically reduce the number of positions requiring confirmation, because most of them aren’t getting serious consideration anyway.  The current process is the worst of both worlds.  It provides a way for assholes like Cruz to gum up the works without actually providing meaningful oversight.​

  106. 106.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: Burns is fine. Emmanuel’s posting is someplace where he can’t cause too many problems. Though I’d prefer he got nothing.

  107. 107.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Timurid: His numbers aren’t going to drop on this. It took a couple of days to get things under control and moving in the right direction. Things are now doing so.

  108. 108.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Roger Moore: I don’t disagree. A sensible reform would be that unless the Senate notifies the White House that it is going to require a full set of hearings and votes on a nominee, than the Senate’s requirement to advise and consent is fulfilled once the nomination is submitted and reviewed by the appropriate committee. This puts the requirement on the Senate to actively do something or the appointee is considered confirmed.

  109. 109.

    Mike in NC

    With his scruffy beard and hooked nose, how do we know that frickin’ Ted Cruz isn’t really one of the Taliban?

  110. 110.

    Emma from Miami

    @Mary G: See, I like us sending ol’ buddy Rahm out to exile. Ain’t nothing he can do except maybe insult the imperial family and be sent back unemployable.​

  113. 113.

    Roger Moore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    A sensible reform would be that unless the Senate notifies the White House that it is going to require a full set of hearings and votes on a nominee, than the Senate’s requirement to advise and consent is fulfilled once the nomination is submitted and reviewed by the appropriate committee.

    I think they also need to be given a time limit to hold hearings.  Otherwise, a Senate that wanted to obstruct the executive could just say they want to give everyone a full set of hearings and then never bother to hold them.  If they want to deny the President’s nominees, they should actually have to vote them down, not just stall them indefinitely.

  116. 116.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Adam L Silverman:

    A final issue is that there’s a lot of professional incest going on between foreign correspondents, foreign and nat-sec pundits, and the foreign and nat-sec professionals in the think tanks. A lot of these people are full time reporters and they’re senior fellows in one or more think tanks. Or they’re senior fellows in one or more think tanks and they have regular columns at one or more publications and contributor agreements at a network. And the bulk of them live in the DC and NY metro areas. So they work together, socialize together, etc. And you get an echo chamber and group think.

    Interesting, so less a shared vision and more of corporate culture?

  117. 117.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    Had he added, “and the citizens who chose to look the other way as their politicians stole millions for themselves and did not push against two fraudulent elections,” I’d say this was a comprehensive Tweet.

  119. 119.

    OGLiberal

    @Cacti: And imagine if, when we left, we took the weapons with us?  “How dare you leave the Afghan Army defenseless!”  No win with these folks, and that includes many people considered to be on “the Left”.

  121. 121.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Adam L Silverman: yes, and it’s quite obvious they aren’t, yet they don’t see it. It’s really surreal to see people at the national level making the same mistakes I’ve seen in something as petty as the group running a silly on line role playing game. Just…words fail me.

  122. 122.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MomSense: I’ve skipped a half-dozen or so of my usual podcasts/radio shows this week, though Molly Jong-Fast today had Jason Kander on today, and he had some common sense reactions from someone who was on the ground in AFG starting in 2005, and then next guest up (I had to turn it off for other stuff) was Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post columnist who’s been pushing back against the Engel/Baker type media coverage. I’ll be going back to finish that.

  124. 124.

    debbie

    @banditqueen:

    He or someone with a microphone needs to be even more direct. They need to state that Ted Cruz is the biggest threat to American security. Period.

    I hear complaints that by leaving Afghanistan, we will receive no intelligence about terrorist activities or pending plans. Well, assholes, what do you think the diplomatic corps does?

  125. 125.

    Mike S

    I work in the media and am embarrassed by some of what my outlet is doing. When even NPR and it’s member stations are using the same conventional wisdom, and bringing on some of the architects as simply interested parties without a self protection agenda, there really isn’t a lot of hope for people in Sinclair type listener/viewer areas getting anything other than simple minded, conventional wisdom.

  126. 126.

    Cacti

    @JWR: I also caught a bit of Thom Hartmann’s radio program, recent show, and he was still on this

    Thom Hartmann who used to broadcast from the Russia Today studios?

  127. 127.

    Amir Khalid

    I hesitated to bring this up because you can get touchy about it. But here goes:
    That headline tries to tell too much of the story. It would be fine as an intro/opening sentence, but as a headline it is much too long and detailed and fatiguing to read, and it would deter a casual reader/lurker from reading the post itself.
    In writing a headline, you should generally try to say the one thing that sums it up, concisely and in a way that piques the reader’s interest. I might have gone with “Presdent Biden: Why we needed to withdraw from Afghanistan”.
    I’m fine with the post itself, which is up to your usual high standard.

  130. 130.

    sab

    @Adam L Silverman: When I was in junior high school Metro DC wasn’t much bigger than my hometown. For some obscure reason my parents sent my older sister to a DC boarding school. Maryland outer suburbs were Bethesda Chevy Chase. Manassas was utter boondocks.

    Reagan came in, they shrunk the government, and now DC metro is nearly as big as LA.

  131. 131.

    topclimber

    @Cacti: I defer to the experts, but I believe it was the Christian Democrats or their like who refused to help the Commies when the brownshirts were winning the street war vs. the Reds. But you may be right that it was the Bolsheviks who refused a political alliance.

  132. 132.

    Cacti

    At this point, I’d describe the media’s reaction as akin to a heroin addict being placed into detox and deprived of their fix, or a toddler beating his/her hands and feet on the floor and screaming “You can’t take my war away, Daddy!!!!”

  135. 135.

    Mary G

    Good news if true:

    Full approval for Pfizer coming Monday. May the odds ever be in your favor.— Kavita Patel M.D. (@kavitapmd) August 20, 2021

    Now more mandates from private businesses or will they stall until Moderna and J&J also get final approval?

    ETA: it’s true, cause Andy Slavitt says so:

    NEW: The FDA is preparing to give full approval of the Pfizer vaccine as early as Monday. Per @noahweiland at the @nytimes.
    — Andy Slavitt ??? (@ASlavitt) August 20, 2021

  136. 136.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mary G:

    Some may still stall. Just found out today there’s a bill pending in the Ohio Statehouse that will ban private businesses from requiring proof of vaccinations among it’s employees. Fuck these people. I don’t think they have a veto-proof majority. I doubt DeWine would go along with it, but it’s insane that this is the hill the (at least some) in the Ohio GOP will die on WRT regulating private business. Who the fuck are they talking to in the business community that would want this? I can’t imagine anybody

  137. 137.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    OT good news:

    Kavita Patel M.D. @kavitapmd 8m

    Full approval for Pfizer coming Monday. May the odds ever be in your favor.

    I think people who bring up this issue are mostly looking for a valid-sounding excuse, but maybe this will move vaccine requirements forward

  140. 140.

    cain

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I went down the rabbit hole on that link – I had no idea Michael Keaton is returning to his role as Batman/Bruce Wayne.. pretty cool.

    ETA oh wow! #140 – that is like 1* 7 * 2 * 2 * 5! – what are the odds??!!

  141. 141.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Elizabelle:

    Maybe keep that tab open for future use. Twitter reverted to the block mode for me on all but one tab that I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet. I have saved that to use going forward.

  152. 152.

    TriassicSands

    This is the clearest and most concise strategic assessment of the US’s interests both against al Qaeda and in Afghanistan that I’ve seen any senior elected or appointed official articulate since September 2001.

    Biden has never been known for verbal clarity, but you are right Alan, this is a remarkably clear and sensible assessment of our relationship to Afghanistan. I expect it to be wasted on the MSM, but that doesn’t negate the importance of Biden putting it out there for the world to hear. Good job, Joe!

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    @germy:

    Adam, any thoughts on this costume?

    https://screenrant.com/batman-movie-robert-pattinson-reshoots-film-july/

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @germy: Other than I think the ears were too short, I personally think the costume they used for Ben Affleck’s Batman was the best one I’ve seen. That said, my understanding is that the narrative of this costume in regard to the story being told in this movie is this is the first Batman costume for a very young and inexperienced Batman.

    Am I the only person on the Innertube who is a little amused at the cross-threading of geo-poltical trauma and Batman? After all, you can’t focus down on geo-political tragedy all day every day…

    Did you guys see the NPR, etc, piece on baby bats and and the fact that at least one species of bat has babies who babel just like human babies babel?

    Yes, I know Batman was never a baby bat… still ~!!~

  157. 157.

    trollhattan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    For the twelve people who actually meant it when they said it. :-)

    My healthcare network sent out an email indicating they’re following CDC guidance and giving second booster shots of Moderna and Pfizer to immunocomprimised patients. Just call to set an appointment.

    Bit by bit, the barriers drop. Will anybody notice?

  158. 158.

    trollhattan

    @J R in WV: Wait, I thought little Bruce Wayne was bitten by an atomic bat as a child and thus babbled his way to becoming The Batman. Fight me!

  159. 159.

    banditqueen

    @trnc:   @debbie:   The senate has too many obsolete traditions and rules–so much time will now be wasted on cloture to get around cruz to ‘debate’ the merits of Biden’s hundreds of nominees. It’s time to end the excessive authority of ‘senate tradition’ already and start to move forward as Biden and the majority who voted for want to do.

  160. 160.

    Kathleen

     

     

    @Cacti:  George Stuffedituphisass interviewed Biden yesterday or today and the transcript included points where Biden stuttered. They actually transcribed the stutter. I went to the Twitter thread and shared my disgust. The pundiratties are just evil.

  162. 162.

    Steeplejack

    @mali muso:

    (Back on the computer now instead of my phone.)

    When I said keep a tab open, I meant for browsing Twitter apart from Balloon Juice, not for following links from here. You can still do the latter, but you may or may not run into the block-mo-tron. I am using the separate, “good” tab for checking on my usual Twitter sources, news, etc., and retweets/​threads that arise from there. (I hope this makes sense.) Note: This is about my Android phone. The cookie fix has worked successfully for me in Firefox on Win10.

    In any case, several of us are still searching for fixes and tweaks and will keep everybody updated here.

  163. 163.

    sab

    @Kathleen: George  StuffedUpHisAss ( NE Ohio native,  much to my chagrin) has been an ass his whole public life. Clintons for some reason promoted him beyond his skill level, and he has been furious ever since they were then forced to fire him.

    Networks have lower standards. All about access. Access to the guys that fired him? Whatever.

  171. 171.

    Another Scott

    NEW POLL: Despite implementation problems, 60% of Americans continue to support withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a poll conducted Aug 17-19. Only 22% oppose Biden's decision.

    67% want to prioritize domestic policy issues over foreign policy.https://t.co/zhU0nMG47J

    — Trita Parsi (@tparsi) August 20, 2021

    (CVA/YouGov poll)

    Eyes on the prizes.

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  175. 175.

    Subsole

    @Steeplejack:

    Yeah.

    That…um…that’s not a bunch of hacks looking for a scandal.

    That’s a bunch of above-it-all supersavvy cool kids discovering the peasants genuinely do not agree with them  and have zero interest in ignoring comon sense or objective fact for the sake of saint Broder.

    And the editor is getting really, REALLY pissy about it.

  177. 177.

    sab

    @J R in WV: God I never saw that. I love bats. Tiny scrubched faces. Big ears, big wings. I always wanted to move to the UK where bats are everywhere and don’t have rabies.

  179. 179.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    it’s insane that this is the hill the (at least some) in the Ohio GOP will die on WRT regulating private business.

    In this case, some of them will quite literally die over the issue, too.  That’s what both angers and confuses me.  I can understand how they would make a big political issue over some stupid symbolic stand, but making a big issue over something that will literally kill people is just insane.

  180. 180.

    trollhattan

    @JWR:

    On weed. If you are getting loaded and then waving a loaded gun at your intended bride, you’re doing it wrong.

    Apparently he also demanded she get a “Larry’s Girl” tattoo.

    Yup, fine governorship material there, y’all.

  181. 181.

    Geminid

    @Hoodie: Also, the Taliban could halt evacuations just by firing so many rockets into the airport. They have plenty to fire.

    Like it or not, the Taliban do have us over a barrel here. They want and need international recognition and international aid, though, and it is in their interests to demonstrate that they can be a responsible actor. They know they have won their war, and hopefully won’t try to prove their power, at least so far as foreign countries are concerned.

  184. 184.

    Kathleen

    @sab: I don’t know if the transcript was his fault but as Samuel L. Jackson said in (I think Jackie Brown) “That’s some egregious s**t.”

  185. 185.

    Kathleen

    @Steeplejack: Well they didn’t this time. They even included the b-b-b-b (repeat of first consonant). I’ve never seen that before. I hate these people.

  186. 186.

    Another Scott

    This could have been (and could still be) even worse. Imagine trying to evacuate people during street combat. Suppose someone fired a rocket at a plane. Or the Taliban were less interested in PR just now. Grateful for everyone who’s out so far and all who went in to get them.

    — Steve Inskeep (@NPRinskeep) August 20, 2021

    Inskeep can be very good.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  193. 193.

    Dan B

    @James E Powell: I haven’t read all the Comments yet but there are reports that at least one communications professional has bern trying to get people who support the Biden administration’s point of view on TV and print media and has not gotten any response, not even a no-thank-you.

    This stinks of right wing big money conspiracy to kneecap Biden and Democrats in general.

    I watched Amanpour pushback on Esper earlier this week and Esper did criticize Trump for his role in the Afghanistan debacle.  That was the brightest spot in the media this week.  Besides Adam’s brilliant posts.

  195. 195.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mary G:
    For reasons already cited, I found the headline unreadable. Yes, I know these long and winding headlines are an Adam thing. But I was taught how to be clear and concise in writing my headlines, and that is so not how you do it.

  196. 196.

    Geminid

    @Dan B: I noticed that Congressman Jake Auchingloss (MA-4) has spoken up in defense of President Biden on both CNN and MSNBC.  Auchingloss served a tour in Helmand Province as a Marine Captain in 2014.

    I think one thing keeping people from standing up for the administration is the possibility that the evacuation could still turn out badly. They are afraid to go out on a limb. This is no excuse for Democratic members of Congress. They should be standing with their President. But I think it was John Meachum who said there’s a reason Profiles in Courage has only one volume.

  197. 197.

    e julius drivingstorm

    @Amir Khalid:

    I see where you’re coming from. Myself, I was taught (probably before your time) to make headlines ambiguously challenging so the fifth grade level reader’s curiousity might be piqued enough to get them to read the lead paragraph (which had the 5 w’s and the h). Nowadays over the intertubes we’re lucky to find a dateline and often get stuck reading month’s old crap that’s already been debunked.

    Anyway, I think it’s probably more useful that Adam puts his lede right in the headline to call attention to the most accurate perspective that the beltway has no use for. (sorry I chose to use a preposition to end my last sentence with).

  200. 200.

    eddie blake

    @Adam L Silverman: it’s annoying, comics batman didn’t start wearing armor until jean paul valley’s azrael made the batsuit bulletproof, added claws and a flamethrower. that was in the nineties.

    every batsuit in the films has tried to make bruce a walking tank. i think they’ve lost the thread.

    (and looks like i’m here at the end of a dead thread.)

  202. 202.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I am actually interested in your assessment of operational & intelligence failures (or shortcomings, however one might want to term it) of the withdrawal process, especially leading up to Jul. & Aug.

    Biden is undoubted correct at the strategic level, & he was correct back in 2009 when the Obama Administration was debating the merits of different surge options. However, one can look at the extraordinary speed of collapse that happened over a week & half, & the mad scramble by the US & allies to evacuate their personnel & at least some of the Afghan partners, & can only conclude that there were serious screw ups somewhere. Sure, a lot of the debacle is inevitable, the final release for the accumulated of 2 decades of debacles, but the Biden administration was expecting the Afghan government to stay afloat for 18 mo., then 6 mo., then 3 mo. The reality was less than 2 weeks. Was there any contingency planning for the possibility of a much more rapid collapse, even if it was judged unlikely?

    Biden was giving a speech promising that there will be no scene of helicopters off embassy roofs a la Saigon ’75, Blinken was giving a speech promising that the US will remain diplomatically engaged in Afghanistan post-withdrawal, & that the US embassy will remain. This was 2 mo. ago. Clearly, the administration was still operation on the 18 mo. timeline. Yes, Biden was inheriting a lost situation made much worse by the agreement “negotiated” by the Trump administration, but all of these were known when those speeches were made. I thought they were going way out on a limb with those speeches at the time. (& I hear echoes of some of the administrations communication issues wrt COVID-19. In late spring Biden was making speeches about a return to normality by summer on the back of the vaccination campaign, & the CDC was telling the vaccinated population that they have little to worry about, but high vaccine hesitancy & potential complications from the Delta Variant were already clear.)

    These are failures of the entire national security apparatus. Were the failures because of the pathologies of Trump Mal-Administration has not been corrected in time, or pathologies of the apparatus in general (dating to at least the GWB administration), or oversight by the Biden team? The media feeding frenzy is, well, also entirely predictable.

    Reading media commentaries in East Asia, the damage to the US’ reputation as a competent & reliable geopolitical actor seems to be substantial (how long lasting remains to be seen). Much of that is baked in the cake, staying in Afghanistan would continue to hemorrhage the US’ reputation as a competent actor, too. However, I find it striking how many regional commentators are drawing lines to South Vietnam in ’72, Taiwan (in ’72 & again in ’79), the Kurds to show a trend of US’ unreliability. Most regional countries will continue to partner w/ the US (particularly in the security sphere), because which other actor is powerful enough to counterbalance China, but they will also play both sides & keep their options open. Then again, that has been their strategy all along (other than Australia & Taiwan), even Japan & India to a certain extent.

  205. 205.

    Citizen Alan

    @Mary G:

    I’m actually pleased with this. I mean, think about it. Is there any place we could send Rahm Emmanuel that would be farther away than Japan?

  208. 208.

    lowtechcyclist

    I realize this is a dead thread, but since President Biden mentioned Yemen, it once again crosses my mind that I’ve been aware for years that the U.S. is playing a nontrivial role in whatever the fuck it is that’s going on in Yemen, and I have no fucking idea what that’s about. (And I bet most Americans have no idea we’re doing anything in Yemen.
    So Adam, if you should see this, and if you ever have the time, energy, and interest, I for one would love a short explainer summarizing what’s going on in Yemen generally, and what role we’re playing there, and why. And whether there’s ever been any sort of Congressional authorization of that role.​

  209. 209.

    trnc

    @Roger Moore: 

    The Senate certainly could change its rules not to require a vote on so many things, which would make the threat less effective. Or they could change the rules to speed up the process of taking a vote on this kind of procedural motion so the denial of unanimous consent would be less disruptive.

    At the very least, one person being able to obstruct is insane. On the off chance that there may be a legitimate reason to allow some nominations to be slowed down (eg, more time to research background), several senators should be required to submit their concerns. I’d also put a limit on the number of nominations that can be slowed down like this, and each obstruction should expire automatically after some reasonable period of time.

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