I’m starting to think that the term “safe and effective” has lost all meaning in the Biden era.
National security adviser to President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, has declared that this summer’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed, dozens of Afghans wounded and hundreds of American civilians left behind when the last of the troops were removed was, in fact, conducted “safely and effectively.”
See what I mean? The Biden administration has a very funny definition of “safe and effective.”
So Sullivan rather deserved the scorching his comments ignited on Twitter after he gave his speech on Friday at the Council on Foreign Relations, particularly due to the fact that the withdrawal involved not only military deaths and civilian peril, but an incident that disgraced our nation before the whole world.
“Standing here in December, that strategic decision remains the right decision,” he said. “For the first time in 20 years, there are no U.S. troops in harm’s way in Afghanistan this holiday season. We safely and effectively drew down our diplomatic presence. We lifted tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans to safety in a unique American example of capacity, commitment and sheer logistics.”
Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: “We safely and effectively drew down” in Afghanistan.
13 U.S. service members were killed. pic.twitter.com/R3I5ielIvl
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2021
Interestingly, he didn’t mention the Americans who were not lifted and were abandoned — some of whom still remain, to this day, in Afghanistan.
What about them?
This was one of the many sore points over which Twitter sounded off in reaction to Sullivan’s comments:
Aren’t there Americans still stuck over there?
— ChuckDaCuck (@ChuckDaCuck2) December 18, 2021
No one seriously believes this. https://t.co/HeJv0qM2ki
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 17, 2021
“safely and effectively” https://t.co/Mu5X4aIm4C pic.twitter.com/fA8KMtkQyL
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) December 18, 2021
Fact Check: False.
— David Cicchetti ?? (@DavidCicchetti) December 17, 2021
Ah yes, we remember. Safely… effectively… pic.twitter.com/zK72KG3ITa
— Eric Sykes (@ConsiderEric) December 17, 2021
@JakeSullivan46 what about our 13 service member that were killed?? Where are they this Christmas season??
— Chavo Ramos (@santeros43) December 18, 2021
You call that safely?
— Kelly Cross (@KC120597) December 18, 2021
This kind of public gaslighting, this manner of talking to the American public as though we’re suffering a case of collective amnesia over President Biden’s chief disgrace on the world stage, this feckless bragging over one of our most humiliating failures as a nation in years, it’s all part of what we’ve come to expect from the Biden administration.
They think very little of the American public if they think we honestly believe this.
Afghanistan is and will likely remain one of the very lowest points of a presidency that has already been marred with incompetence and disaster.
If Biden runs again in 2024 — which, by all accounts, bless his heart, he’s actually planning on (he will be turning 82 shortly after election day, by the way) — he will most assuredly be pressed on his failings during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
At least, if the debate organizers have the backbone to find anyone tougher than Chris Wallace to moderate, and I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.
When President Donald Trump left office, he had a withdrawal all planned out, but Biden had to go and mess it up.
You can blame Trump all you want for the conditions of the withdrawal, the Biden administration made the choice to abandon Afghan air bases at a moment’s notice; they made the decision to leave millions of dollars worth of equipment for the Taliban to use; they treated these extremist terrorists like legitimate allies; they refused to call them “the enemy,” and they put the lives of Americans and allies at risk by handing over lists of people the Taliban would be most likely to want to kill as the U.S. allowed them to run security at the Kabul airport.
It was the Biden administration that let the Taliban bully it into sticking to their timeline for withdrawal, ignoring the please of our NATO allies to remain until every civilian could be rescued.
It was President Joe Biden who left Americans behind.
And Biden who was president when an ISIS blast killed 13 service members amid the chaos and turmoil of his own making.
There was nothing “safe” nor “effective” about it. Afghanistan is exactly as it was when the U.S. first entered in 2001, save the 2,401 Americans who died in the war and the generation of Afghans who grew up in relative liberty but are now living under the terror of Sharia law.
The only thing that the Biden administration can say is that there are no longer any U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and under the circumstances in which they conducted the now infamously disastrous withdrawal, I don’t even think that’s a point they can boast about.
Disgraceful.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
