https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/14/joe-biden-afghanistan-crisis-blame-game
The war in Afghanistan will rank alongside Vietnam
as one of America’s great modern failures of strategy and execution,
Rothkopf added. “The bulk of the responsibility for that failure lies
with past administrations and with the leadership in Kabul (and to some
extent with Taliban enablers beyond the country’s borders). Biden is
doing what is right and what must be done. It is time to turn the page.”
It's a rule in politics - whoever's in charge when the disaster happens wears it. Could be their first day on the job. Could be they opposed the decision that led to it. They're in charge. It's their fault.
ReplyDeleteAnd it makes sense in a way. Biden isn't just Biden. He's the President of the United States. He represents every US decision on this since Bush II invaded. It's not that he failed. It's that the US failed and he, as the current president, has to take the blame on behalf of the country.
But here's the thing: as long as the Taliban keep to themselves, then who cares? And given that while they feel triumphant they likely don't want to piss off the US again, they probably will.
It's a rule in politics - whoever's in charge when the disaster happens wears it. Could be their first day on the job. Could be they opposed the decision that led to it. They're in charge. It's their fault.
ReplyDeleteAnd it makes sense in a way....a principle that blipped out of existence for you the 70 days Trumo ignored the Covid-19 outbreak?
Nope, Trump was responsible for the bad and the good at the start of the outbreak. He called for closed borders and was called a racist. He set up Operation Warp Speed and the same folks who said they wouldn't use a vaccine developed under him then ran to take it and deny he had anything to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Trump is that he was not only blamed for his mistakes but for those that the media invented out of thin air too.
...all of which "good" was effected from April 2020 onward, after months of denial, obfuscation, & public endangerment.
ReplyDeleteIf you apply with clarity the principle you cited (quoted by me above), you would Trump responsible for the lions' share of the US's Covid woes.
(All that "good" matters little after expiry date. As with so much in Trump universe, is all trumped-up window dressing. It was a presidential term built on rallies, rhetoric, and pretty much nothing else.)
A good chunk of the CoVID woes are Trump's fault, and a good chunk are just the general stupidity of the American population.
ReplyDelete...a very zealous evasion of, what I 'once' read somewhere, "Whoever's in charge when the disaster happens wears it."
ReplyDeleteOf course, doesn't help any that the man is pathological incapable of taking any responsibility. The Clintons, GWB, Obama, etc., along with every other politician, would squirm every which way to avoid having to take responsibility, but they at least possessed the adult ability actually to do so.
Trump, not a scientist, created a coronavirus task force long before April 2020, and it was full of good advisors like Fauci telling him people just need to wash their hands for now and CDC can control any outbreaks. Fauci was massively wrong like he is about a lot of things. Do you consider him a hero? "Follow the science!"
ReplyDeleteFollow it all the way to Fauci's embarrassing Feb 2020 oped where he completely underestimates the virus created from the dangerous work he funded, whose risks he also completely ignored, underestimated, and downplayed.
Also follow the science to the head of the NY Dept of Health who told people to get out and celebrate Chinese new year and go about their lives as normal, deep into late February. But yeah all Trump's fault for sure.
Kind of a strange spin-off here. The point was a most unprincipled commentator's obvious double standard and disingenuous application of "principle"...
ReplyDelete...which now somehow plays a springboard for your litigating pandemic handling? Um,OK. Hey I get it by now; you got issues.
As for those ravings: Bob Woodward's Rage (Sept 2020) tells a very different tale.
Bittom line, which no amount of timelines & false dichotomies will undercut, is that one can't sit on their hands when a fire starts and then, once it begins raging, complain that "Well, what do you expect, wildfires can't be controlled." Time is the only capital in such crises.