It was a good thing when Joe Biden finally ordered U.S. troops to rescue Americans in Afghanistan. But he didn’t want to at first.
How could an American president choose not to rescue Americans trapped in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban? Whatever happened to not leaving a man behind. How could someone who boasts about being commander-in-chief care so little about the lives of Americans he swore an oath to protect?
Sadly, the truth isn’t surprising to me at all. According to a report from the Daily Mail, Biden told military officials last week that “he was reluctant to deploy US forces outside the Kabul airport perimeter over fears of a Black Hawk Down-style tragedy.”
“In a video conference last week, the president also negatively commented on how quickly the Afghan government fell apart and told commanders he wanted them to be focused on beefing up security at the airport,” the report reads. “During the call, the president alluded to the ‘Black Hawk Down’ tragedy of the Somali Civil War, which saw 18 US personnel killed.” The bodies of some American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
Related: SHAME: Biden Caves to Taliban
Imagine being willing to leave thousands of Americans behind under Taliban rule because you’re worried about the bad optics of something potentially going wrong. Imagine thinking that the lives of American citizens were expendable in order to look better in the media.
Since changing his mind and beginning rescue operations, the Biden administration has been mum about the exact numbers—and it appears that the White House has been lying about the true numbers in the hopes of creating the narrative of a hugely successful rescue operation to help boost his poll numbers, which have taken a huge hit in the past two weeks.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey has Biden’s approval at 44 percent and his disapproval at 55 percent—a net approval of -11 percent. But these figures include “26% who Strongly Approve of the job Biden is doing and 47% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21.” Two recent polls showed Biden with a net approval rating in the negative double digits.
For the sake of Americans trapped in Afghanistan, let’s hope that they get all Americans out, but estimates from American officials suggest that we’ll leave over 5,000 American citizens behind in Afghanistan by the end of the Taliban’s August 31 deadline. Had Joe Biden evacuated American citizens before evacuating the military, or launched rescue operations sooner, that number could have been zero.