Below is an excerpt from President Biden’s speech to his people in which he justified America’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and hand that country over to the Taliban which was its sworn enemy for 20 years.
Remarks by President Biden on Afghanistan
AUGUST 16, 2021
SPEECHES AND REMARKS
East Room
4:02 P.M. EDT
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong — incredibly well equipped — a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies.
We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force — something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support.
Later , talking to the press , Biden said this too :
“Look, we spent over a trillion dollars over twenty years, we trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
That was in August 2021 ….
Now fast-forward to February 2022 and see the cruel irony in the double-speak of the same President Biden while talking about granting support to the Ukrainian people — who he most probably thought would be exactly like the Afghans too i.e. too unwilling to fight too — said this:
“Our forces are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine”. “Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine, but to defend our NATO allies and reassure those allies in the East.”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/caitlinhernandez/biden-us-troops-russia-ukraine
“We have no intention of fighting Russia,”. “We want to send an unmistakable message, though, that the United States, together with our allies, will defend every inch of NATO territory.”
It’s so bloody easy to see through the doublespeak of Biden and to understand what monumental error in a judgment call AMERICA made in Afghanistan and now in Ukraine :
In the former case a trillion dollars were spent in supporting a people who did not want to fight … and in the latter case, America baulks at spending even a tenth of a trillion dollar on supporting a people who are ready to fight.
Ukrainian President could not have said it more bluntly when he called out the hypocrisy of America and it’s Western allies:
“We have been left alone to defend our state,” . “Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid”.
It took 20 years for the Afghans to finally see through the mendacity of America… I am certain in my mind that whichever way the war in Ukraine now goes from here today … the Ukrainians will see through the mendacity of America and the West in no more than 2 years before the end of the Biden Administration’s term in 2024.
Sudarshan Madabushi