Three years after the Afghanistan debacle, John finds it “impossible to understand how the Biden administration could have organized the withdrawal so poorly.” The simplest explanation comes from Biden, who called the withdrawal an “extraordinary success,” so it was what the Delaware Democrat wanted to happen. That invites a look back at one of Biden’s key handlers.
Tom Donilon worked in the Carter administration and served as campaign coordinator for Walter Mondale. Donilon first advised Biden in 1988 and in 1992 served on Bill Clinton’s transition team, and as chief of staff for secretary of state Warren Christopher. After a disastrous run at Fannie Mae, President Obama tapped Donilon for National Security advisor. That drew fire from Robert Scheer of The Nation, who wondered “why in the world would President Obama, whose legacy has been sabotaged by a housing crisis that Donilon helped create and conceal, have hired him to run the most sensitive position of public trust in his administration?”
In Foreign Policy, James Mann described Donilon as “Obama’s Gray Man,” seldom mentioned in the press but wielding “enormous internal control” over American foreign policy. In Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of State at War, Robert Gates wrote that Donilon characterized the United States military as “in revolt” and “insubordinate.” The attorney, who had never been in the military, “bridled” when Gen. McChrystal announced a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. As Gates explained, “troops risking their lives need to be told that their goal is to ‘defeat’ those trying to kill them. But such terms were viewed in the White House as borderline insubordinate political statements by generals.”
The composite character president formerly known as Barry Soetoro, whose Dreams from My Father was a novel, contends that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” In a military conflict with the Taliban, a belch from the ninth century, America must not be seen as an outright victor. This creed authorized Joe Biden to hand over billions in high-tech military gear, and an entire airbase, to the Taliban. The 13 American dead and Americans allies left behind were written off as collateral damage, and according to Biden the whole operation was an “extraordinary success.”
Vice president Biden also got control of China policy through Tom Donilon, who touted “a deeper U.S.-China military-to-military dialogue” and saw only “potential competition” between the two powers. Donilon is doubtless the source of Biden’s view that the Chinese are “not bad folks,” and not even competition for the United States. Under Biden, the Chinese are free to conduct to conduct aerial surveillance of strategic American military bases all across the nation.
With Biden physically and mentally dysfunctional, it remains unclear who, exactly, runs the country. Under Biden, the military has been fundamentally transformed into a force deployed against “climate change” and a DEI boot camp now short of recruits. Going into battle with the second-best military is like playing with the second-best poker hand. You have two choices, bluff or fold. Should China, Iran or Russia throw down in the next five months, Biden’s Afghan withdrawal could preview the outcome.
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