We didn’t want to talk about it on the day itself, but what a cloud President Joe Biden managed to cast over the 20th anniversary of 9/11. He’d clearly intended his Afghan pullout to allow a triumphant speech on the 20th anniversary of the world’s deadliest terrorist strike. But he was so determined to make political hay from ending America’s longest war as the country commemorated the attack that sparked it that he instead wrought a national humiliation.
Notably, Biden extended the deadline for exiting — right into the combat season, allowing the Taliban to plan an offensive that made it look like they were driving America into retreat. Then, as the Afghan army collapsed, deprived of air support and its morale shredded by events like the middle-of-the-night US abandonment of Bagram Air Base, he stubbornly stuck to his self-imposed deadline even after it became clear it’d mean abandoning Americans and allies.
His debacle leaves the Taliban far stronger than they..............
