GETTYSBURG -- On an overcast day, the national park that has preserved the history of one of the bloodiest and most significant battles of the American Civil War is filled with people from all over the country. It is a testament to the desire everywhere not just to know our history, but also to honor the soldiers who fought and lost their lives to protect our country.
They mattered, and we as a nation want them to know they are not forgotten.
This week, President Joe Biden made a dark political bet that Americans would forget a 20-year war. Biden and his aides, many of whom have lived and worked inside the bubble of Washington for most of their adult lives, believed the political fallout would be limited because people were war-weary.
Their exit strategy was based on internal and public polling that showed the Afghanistan withdrawal was popular, even though the same polls showed it was not something people were paying attention to.
In short, it was all about what made Biden popular with voters.
This has backfired. The Biden administration, filled with people who make their living in a plastic world of political calculations, believes based on polling that this will blow over. It will be just fine.
Biden fails to understand why the United States is transfixed by these images and reports. In televised statements and interviews, he has repeatedly failed to make a distinction that any child could -- one between the decision to leave Afghanistan and his appalling execution of that evacuation.
The exit has been chaotic, deadly, gruesome and humiliating. It has caused many people to lose faith in the leadership of the military.
Biden has defended indefensible failures and inexcusable ignorance of conditions in Afghanistan. He has defended pulling our military out at the same time as he left so many U.S. citizens still in the country.
This disaster will not fade from the headlines. Even those who did not want the war to continue had watched our neighbors, co-workers, siblings, parents, sons and daughters go off to Afghanistan for the sole purpose of keeping us safe back at home.
We wept and prayed every time a soldier was lost on some remote post or killed in battle with Taliban forces. As a local reporter, I covered too many events of mourners who would line the streets of their local communities to honor those who came home in body bags, their flag-draped coffins carried by fellow soldiers to their gravesites.
Many of those mourners had never met the deceased soldier whom they were honoring by taking time out of their day. They just believed it was the right thing to do.
And even though American soldiers are a rapidly shrinking minority among our neighbors, in part because we are an all-volunteer military and in part because base consolidations have made the military a smaller component of most communities, we should all want them to know that what they did mattered. They alone kept us safe for 20 years.
They should know the stain that Biden and his military leadership left in their shadow does not reflect on the service they did for our country.
After Gettysburg, 51,000 casualties were left behind on the rolling farmlands. The Union had reached a turning point in the war. Descendants, history buffs and ordinary tourists often find themselves following in the footsteps of Pickett's Charge, the main event that turned the battle, and ultimately the war, in the Union's favor.
They walk it because they know it is important never to forget. That is the calculus that Biden missed.
Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
35 comments:
Trump released 5,000 Talbian last year, that is the cause of this.
More war mongering from the fringe right. It's shocking that you haven't learned a thing.
@5:50p- Now do Obama.
Despite your efforts to blame Trump for the current shit show, you are INSANE if you think the news of the last week would look the same if Trump was currently in office.
This is 100% on Biden. He ignored intelligence. He made the wrong choices. Stop deflecting and suck it up, buttercup.
Wasn't it Trump who had his administration negotiate with some of the 5,000 Taliban they had just released?
Cut a deal that committed the US to withdraw this year?
Trump signed the deal while he was still president?
Republicans should remember that frequently when they smell it they have dealt it!
The President Sleepy Joe Biden is a killer. He should be arrested and put on trial for accessory to murder.
ISIS-K has killed 13 American troops & 70 civilian Afghans.
Scores more are wounded.
He's been President sense January. He had plenty of time to plot a strategy to get the Americans out safely. I guess he took to many Naps to address it.
@6:35p- Trump would NOT have continued without action when intelligence showed it was souring. YOUR guy effed this up! Stop blaming the man who would have put the Taliban in their place if they tried this shit with him. The terrorists KNOW Joe is weak! They KNOW the libs and all their political correctness allow them to do whatever the hell they want to do!!
As far as your Republican jab, the politicians on both sides are despicably willing to sacrifice their own people for power and greed.
If you haven’t learned by now, Trump was not an establishment politician… and they ALL STILL consider him an outsider.
Come on man… keep up!!
7:17 - Trump couldn’t be bothered to even listen to an intelligence report. He would have listened to Fox News and gone with his gut from the info he heard. This is on George Dubya.
Maybe people will learn that allowing the news media to pick our president was not such a good idea after all. Biden could not have handled the job of president when he was younger. Dementia is not something we should look for in a president. We do need to know who is in charge. They were the people who caused this fubar. Joe just listens to the voice in his ear. Without that he would get lost going to the bathroom.
Our system of civilian leadership of the military has a very serious weakness and it's on display in Afghanistan. The political imperative to withdraw is far more important to a political panderer like Biden than the importance of
an efficient military operation like withdrawal. There was no reason to turn tail like a whipped dog abandoning equipment and allies on the way. Our troops had the upper hand and needed only to withdraw in phases, providing cover to each stage of the withdrawal as they go. No big deal, it's been done for thousands of years, but not by some selfish politician who values the potential vote more than the lives of soldiers and allies.
@7:27p- You’re an idiot if you believe Trump didn’t listen to intelligence reports.
You are, however, right about W. He definitely put us in this situation.
Blame goes all the way back to Clinton, some say Reagan. But either way President Mumbles McTruckDriver along with his clueless woke officials and CRT generals have seriously botched this and can’t unfudge it, not even his media lap dogs can protect him now. But 80 million Democrat voters approve of dead Americans and allies, I guess they can chalk it up under a late term abortion.
Appreciate this perspective
The Afghans are too lazy to fight, why should we continue to do it for them. The lost of life is regrettable ( they new what they signed up far) bin Laden been dead for over 10 years our mission was accomplished, we can use the money wasted over there and fund more things here at home.
I get the "blame W" comments. But I tend to give the guy a break as we were reeling for answers and payback from 9/11 at that time. That was on all our minds then.
For those that still don't get it, here's how the withdrawal was drawn up under Trump.
1. Decide to withdraw
2. Get all of your citizens out
3. Get any Afghans that you need to get out
4. Get your non-essential equipment out
5. Get your essential equipment out. helicopters, planes (200 left by Biden), vehicles (75,000 of which were left by Biden), biometric devices and data, guns, ammunition, computers, papers
6. Get your troops out
7. Leave behind small special forces group to destroy any remaining useful things
8. Let the special forces group turn out the lights when they leave and let the Afghans have the country back.
9. Done
Biden started at 6, and went completely backwards.
This is all the fault of Millard Fillmore.
All the "blame-assigners" are out in force on this item. We are going to lose hundreds or thousands of American Citizens in a very gruesome way and it didn't have to happen. Yes, part of the deal with the Taliban (Biden's go-to security) was to release these 5,000 people and these former prisoners are probably attacking us NOW. But, we would not be there NOW if Trump had been in office. We would have been completely out by May 1st. Biden scrapped the Trump plan, closed Bagram, and created an impossible situation. Our whole nation is shamed, hurting, and our Citizens are going to be killed or tortured and then killed, possibly in your living room on TV. This did not have to happen. It happened because of poor planning an stubbornness and a refusal to follow another's plan. Hate built this Federal Administration and nothing they do will prosper.
6:08 you can’t source your comments even to an ONAN story. Trump had a plan is total bullshit. Biden certainly made mistakes but at least this albatross is soon to be off our hands. Let China, India and Russia sort the mess out. They are the ones who have a vested interest in how the Taliban behave.
Considering how vocal the left was a year ago with the election as well as with anything regarding the prior administration, their silence at this point is deafening. Remember the people who were so vocal about voting in Biden over Trump and how much better he would be. There aren't saying a peep but posting about international dog day or some other nonsense on social . We now have 13 American casualty's where there should have been none. It's not the time to say "I told you so", but....
It ain’t perfect 8:37 the lives lost are regrettable, but as one commented before, they knew what they signed up far. It is taking courage to stay the course and get us out of the never ending conflict in this region. You can say I told you so and then what. You are going to “nanny nanny BoBo”.
8:37 AM The LEFT hates the United states! The LEFT love seeing this major screw up in Afghanistan. This is the LEFT chant! Defund the police! Defund the military! Defund the govt!
What Biden doesn't understand ? Well, that is just about everything. 47 years in government.....his racist past and war mongering voting record is all anyone needs to know. With that said, he isn't really in charge and for those blaming Trump ? He hasn't been potus for 7 months and NO SERVICE MEMBERS died there on his watch !!!
I remember back in 1993 when, for the entire year, Clinton took credit for every bit of positive news and blamed everything bad on "12 years of Reagan Bush". This is old school Democrat politics - blame the former administration(s) for all the bad. It looks bad and juvenile and amateurish, but when the MSM and half the posters in this thread are toting your party's water, you can get away with it, just like in 1993.
and 9:02, it ain't courage to hide at Camp David on vacation when your foreign policy plan (or lack thereof) is responsible for destabilizing an entire region. That's called cowardice.
13 dead servicemen, 90 dead civilians and more to come. When there should have been none. A reasonable plan was in place and ignored so Joe could keep the status quo of undoing "orange man bad". Look at what it's come to.
@9:50 correct. Also, Obama inherited a mess, and Trump inherited the good economy under Obama. They cant ever make up their mind how they want it, just that they are ALWAYS the winner. You cant have it both ways. They tried to blame the housing crisis on a Republican, when it was Clintons fault for making lenders approve sub par loans. It's ALWAYS someone else's fault when its bad, and they are ALWAYS the reason someone else does good. I just laugh. Ignorance truly must be bliss in their world and while we are out here being productive and making money, they think Republicans are idiots.
9:02, not I wont say that. We needed to be out. It is the clusterfuck that Biden put us in that put these guys in a much more dangerous situation than they needed to be in. They are sheep dogs. They know what they are getting into because they have a servants mentality. But just because they do, doesn't mean they have to. I have many friends who are elite contractors or servicemen. Several over there now trying to get people out. They don't disagree with us getting out, but they saw the writing on the wall months ago as to how big of a mess it was going to be with the plan(or lack thereof) Biden was implementing.
I find the notion of comparing our Civil War and exiting Afghanistan bizarre.
A better comparison would be the withdrawl from Vietnam.
Or the attacks on Americans overseas by terrorists since the late 70's.
It is tragic that members of our armed forces and innocent civilians died. But, unlike Afghanistan or Vietnam, very few families in this Nation have a family member in the military anymore. Few know anyone personally who died over there.
DL and Zito both are illogical. If they ever took the SAT, they failed and entire section.
Biden has screwed up more stuff and embarrassed the United States more in the last six months that Trump could in an entire day! This new found concern for spending and war dead among Republicans is really heartwarming. Biden needs to get to a golf course, ASAP!
Preach 9:50! MY president (Trump, who, by the way, was the best preseident ever and who loves america more than you can ever know, and everyone knows that you can ask them) never blamed anything on Obama or went golfing in the middle of major catastrophes. These lefty pukes could lern something about leading from the front [nine].
In his fantasy, Joey is not a naked emperor in a farce. He's a hero loved by peasants invading our Border, by adoring commies in Congress and by the Taliban he has enabled and armed.
In his fairyland, does Bidenistan have a Kevorkian Club for f-ups?
Will Dr. Jill bring the pill?
@4:56
"The lost (sic) of life is regrettable, they new (sic) what they signed up far (sic)."
They signed up to fight & win not to be sacrificed in Biden's fantasy.
Amen, 5:50 and 6:35.
6:27, you are describing the behavior of the previous president, "Buttercup".
You Trump cultists need to get a clue.
He negotiated with terrorists, which you do not do.
His deadline for the exit was in May, and no, he did not have a plan. And NO he would not have listened to anyone's advice, because he is egotistical and thinks he knows everything.
Important side note, he is completely responsible for the attack on our capitol and our freedom.
How can you not see what he is, his mental illness, his incapability of truly loving and caring for anyone but himself.
Blame for the unwinnable war can go back to at least the Clinton administration, as W had hardly gotten his seat warm prior to the attack on 9/11.
My heart is broken for the many lives lost on that day up to the lives being lost today. God help us..........
1:50 doesn't understand between winter and summer in Afghanistan. The difference in May and August means a lot. One, they are holed up in caves. The other is fighting season.
On the negotiating with terrorists. Biden has admitted he negotiated with for the 8/31 deadline. He admits he gave the Taliban names and contact info for those we got out. He has talked and negotiated more than you want to admit. But let's not talk about that.
Zito is a zombie, not to mention an illegal alien. With that name, she should be a stripper. She errs in her opening statement. Gettysburg is host only to the bodies of deceased yanks as it was and is illegal for Confederates to be under the turf there. And Confederates were also fighting for what they thought was best for their nation at that time...The reason, arguably, anybody goes to war.
We could (but won't) argue all day about the rights and wrongs of Lincoln's War, but we will never get away from admitting that the dead on both sides were patriots to their causes, however distant and distinct.
Along with Salter and the Meridian Malcontent, Zito is in the race for irrelevance.
'Biden certainly made mistakes but at least this albatross is soon to be off our hands.'
What 8:14 just told you is this: With a short passage of time, what difference, then, will it make? None. By then, the albatross will be gone and grass will have sprouted over all the cemetery plots (of the few whose bodies were recovered). Joe will be at Baskin-Robbins and the families will have gotten over the losses. Success!
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