Historic Kabul Airlift Is Already The Most Successful Withdrawal From A War The U.S. Has Lost

Not since The Berlin Airlift (1948–1949) of humanitarian aid into West Berlin has the U.S. military undertaken an airlift on the magnitude of the withdrawal of U.S. citizens, third-country citizens, and Afghan allies out of Kabul after the collapse of the U.S. puppet government in Afghanistan.

The Kabul airlift is already the most successful withdrawal of U.S. citizens and allies from a war which the United states has lost (after President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo negotiated the surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban).

The U.S. military is to be commended for its heroic efforts, despite a pro-war media who would like to remain in Afghanistan screaming “chaos!” and “disastrous!” These talking heads have no better strategy or plan to leave a war which the US. has lost when surrounded by a hostile enemy.

In fact, on Tuesday night,  Fox News’ Sean Hannity called for a military invasion of Afghanistan. Tell you what Sean. I will raise the funding for the charter flights to Afghanistan if you can guarantee me that every employee of Fox News from the on-air propagandists, to the front desk clerk, to Rupert Murdoch and his “spawn of Satan” sons are on that charter flight – we’ll even call you the Fox Brigade – to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and to show us how the Fox Brigade can do what the Afghan forces and NATO ally forces were unable to do in 20 years. No? What’s the matter Sean? You sniveling loud-mouthed coward.

As Scott Dworkin writes, Stop Blaming Biden for Afghanistan. He’s Cleaning Up Trump’s Mess:

So whose fault is it that so many of those who helped us are stuck in Afghanistan? The burden of that responsibility falls squarely on Trump’s shoulders. And it is Biden who is working diligently to get them out.

President Joe Biden said in a White House news conference Tuesday that the U.S. has evacuated a total of 75,900 people since the end of July, with the vast majority of them, 70,700 people, evacuated in the last 10 days. Biden: 75,900 Evacuated from Afghanistan So Far.

Politico’s Playbook:

— The MSM: The view in the dominant media, where highbrow foreign policy coverage is deeply influenced by the so-called “Blob’s” [the nation’s foreign policy elite] view of the world, is that Biden’s evacuation is an unmitigated disaster, that his every statement is at odds with the reality on the ground and that the botched pullout will have long-term political damage in 2022 and 2024.

— The White House: The administration’s view is that the media narrative is several days behind actual events on the ground. In voter judgments about foreign policy, “no American deaths” equals “no political price to pay.” So nothing is more important than wrapping up the operation before Aug. 31 and removing a fat target — thousands of American troops — for terrorists to hit.

— Our read: It’s true that until about Tuesday, there was a noticeable gap in coverage between the pace of evacuations at the airport in Kabul and the hair-on-fire headlines — in fact, 10 days, no U.S. casualties and [more than] 70,000 people evacuated is an impressive logistical feat.

UPDATE:

Biden Is Getting Nearly 1,000 People An Hour Out Of Afghanistan

evacuation of approximately 82,300 people so far. https://t.co/r9k3brr8D3 via @politicususa

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 25, 2021

That number is going up every hour. And so far, no American losses.

Politico adds, White House to media: We want our props on Afghanistan:

In the span of a week, the White House went from struggling to explain a rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan to beating its chest.

Top Biden officials and administration allies have begun aggressively touting the success of their evacuation efforts in the war-torn country, offering frequent updates on the number of evacuees. They’ve framed the operation as historic — in line with the Berlin airlift — declared that they’re “over performing” their own metrics, and trumpeted the president as “defying expectations.”

It’s a startling 180 from the defensive crouch Biden and his team occupied just days ago, one that reflects the sense of combativeness that has emerged in the West Wing as they sort through the first major, sustained crisis of the administration. And while it’s sparked accusations that the president’s team is trying to divert attention away from a crisis of its own creation, Biden’s defenders stress that, for now at least, he deserves to crow.

[T]he White House’s new posture comes as U.S. personnel scramble to remove American citizens and Afghan officials before the last American troops are slated to leave the country on August 31. Over the past 10 days, Biden said on Tuesday, the United States had evacuated 70,700 people and more than 75,000 since July. All of this has taken place amidst confusion over the troop withdrawal deadline and reports of a blocked entryway to the Kabul airport following the Taliban’s rapid takeover of the country.

“We are moving thousands of people every day out of Afghanistan and to safety, in what is one of the biggest airlifts in world history,” a senior administration official said in a briefing with reporters Tuesday.

Buoyed by the evacuation numbers, aides and allies have gone from feeling beleaguered to galvanized, taking to social media and the airwaves to let out the grievances about press coverage they’ve been harboring privately since the crisis began, and to make the case that the White House’s accomplishments should get more credit and attention. They’ve noted that the evacuation figures exceed the estimates the administration initially put out and that the press corps said was possible.

“In fact, it didn’t take 2 weeks to evacuate 50,000. It took 10 days,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted in response to a CNN reporter questioning last week the U.S.’s ability to evacuate 50,000 people in two weeks. “Lots of work still to do, but it might be time for a bit of a reassessment by the media of this operation given the actual results.”

Among those making the most aggressive play to reshape press coverage of the current situation in Afghanistan has been White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who has taken to Twitter to amplify praise of the president and the military’s evacuation efforts. He retweeted Murphy’s comment as well as MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell calling it “the best run evacuation from a war America lost.” He’s spotlighted lesser known figures too, including RT-ing a retired IBM executive who compared the current mission to the Berlin airlift, the post-WWII era operation that was one of the largest humanitarian aid missions in history.

Picking up on the theme later Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee blasted out a news release titled: “President Biden Defies Expectations (Again), Delivers Results in Afghanistan.”

Despite this historic success, the pro-war critics who would have liked the “forever war” in Afghanistan to continue, well forever, persist in criticizing.

For critics of the administration, and neutral foreign policy observers too [the Blob], the evacuation efforts are laudatory but don’t diminish their criticism of the botched ending to a 20-year war. Had the president more carefully planned for the drawdown, they note, he wouldn’t need to rush to get U.S. citizens and allied Afghans out now. And if he is to stick to his Aug. 31 deadline date, they warn, he will likely leave thousands behind.

At a press conference today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that there are an estimated 1,500 people who may be Americans left in Afghanistan. Approximately 1,500 people who may be Americans are left in Afghanistan, Blinken says:

Blinken said the US has “evacuated at least 4,500 American citizens and likely more” since August 14, and more than 500 were evacuated in the last day alone. “Over the past 24 hours we’ve been in direct contact with approximately 500 additional Americans and provided specific instructions on how to get to the airport safely,” he said speaking at the State Department.

“For the remaining roughly 1,000 contacts that we had who may be Americans seeking to leave Afghanistan, we’re aggressively reaching out to them multiple times a day through multiple channels of communication,” he added.

“As the President said yesterday, we’re on track to complete our [military] mission by August 31 provided the Taliban continue to cooperate and there is no disruption to this effort,” he said.

“There is no deadline on our work to help any remaining American citizens who decide they want to leave to do so, along with the many Afghans who have stood by us over these many years and want to leave and have been unable to do so. That effort will continue every day past August 31,” Blinked continued.

[T]here are “very active efforts underway on the part of regional countries to see whether they can play a role in keeping the airport open once our military mission leaves or if necessary reopening it if it closes for some period of time,” Blinken said Wednesday.

He noted that, of the people remaining in Afghanistan, some may have left the country, some may not actually be Americans and some may choose to stay. Blinken said the State Department believes “the number of Americans actively seeking to leave Afghanistan is lower, likely significantly lower,” but noted that they are “dynamic” calculations.

For Biden’s defenders, the evacuation resembles a truly concrete achievement, and underscores a new reality that deserves broader recognition: after taking heaps of criticism over the collapse of Kabul, the president now has a success story to tell.

“The nature of the withdrawal has dinged American prestige, particularly in Europe where it is seen as a total debacle and quite shocking. And that’s going to be difficult to recover from,” said a foreign policy operative who has been in touch with the administration. But, the operative added, “I don’t think that [the current] spin is wrong.”

“Tuesday of last week it seemed like the Taliban at any moment was going to start murdering people,” the operative added. “It looked like a total, total disaster … people are going to be left behind. But we’re getting tens of thousands of people out and it looks a lot better.”

[S]till, there is an inherent danger in the administration’s efforts to cast the evacuation as a smashing and historical success. As Biden himself acknowledged on Tuesday, the situation around the airport is unpredictable, with Taliban leaders insisting that U.S. forces leave no later than the 31st and the lingering threat of an attack by the terrorist group, ISIS-K. And in talking points that the White House sent to fellow Democrats on Tuesday evening, the same point was emphasized.

“With each day of operations on the ground, we have added risk to our troops with increasing threats from ISIS-K, and that completion of the mission by August 31st depends on continued coordination with the Taliban, including continued access for evacuees to the airport.”

But for Democrats who have felt under siege the past week, the new messaging from Biden — even when acknowledging the risks — is a welcome tactic.

Susie Madrak reports, Matthew Dowd: Biden Did ‘Unbelievable’ Work On Afghanistan Withdrawal:

Matthew Dowd was the chief political strategist for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, and he’s certainly come a long way. He was on CNN last night praising Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Kate Bolduan asked Dowd if Biden is simply counting on the American people to stand by him for the way he’s handled the withdrawal, “and if he’s making the right bet.” (Because it’s unthinkable to the press corps that they’re so out of touch that the public disagrees with their eager attacks on the Biden withdrawal.)

“Well, as you probably are aware, I actually have lauded the president from the very beginning about Afghanistan. He was dealt a horrible situation and as of today, he’s done an extremely good job in the situation,” Dowd said.

Former GWB Campaign Chief Matthew Dowd: Joe Biden Has Done an Extremely Good Job on Afghanistan and Deserves to Be Congratulated pic.twitter.com/sGQQhgkAiz

— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) August 25, 2021

“There were many people over the last seven days that said there is no possible way he could get 50,000 people out. no possible way, and that was the number of people we thought had to get out. He’s got 70,000 people out in the last eight days, 70,000 people out of Afghanistan in the last eight days, and I actually think the president, from what he was dealt and done over the course of the last week, should be congratulated on the way this was done.

“There are many things left to handle over the course of this situation. I think the president has done unbelievable yeoman’s work, and he’s the first president in four presidents to actually get done what the American people wanted done in Afghanistan, which was ‘get out.'”

Matthew Dowd earlier told CNN’s pompous asshole Brian Stelter on Reliable Sources, Matthew Dowd Defends Biden on Afghanistan Withdrawal, Says Media Coverage ‘Way Over the Top’:

Matthew Dowd defended President Joe Biden on Sunday over the avalanche of serious criticism he’s receiving for the chaos in Afghanistan.

Video link Critics slam ‘over the top’ coverage of Biden’s Afghanistan response.

CNN’s Brian Stelter discussed the coverage on Reliable Sources and asked Dowd how he would describe it.

“Way over the top and unconnected to a perspective on the issue from the beginning,” Dowd said.

“We should judge it on the data of what’s happened and not by anecdotes, and sometimes the press has a tendency to judge things by anecdotes and not the data,” he continued. “And the data for the last week shows Joe Biden has basically gotten 30,000 people out of Afghanistan without a single loss of an American life.”

Salon senior politics writer Amanda Marcotte said “there tends to be a bias in the press towards military intervention,” and said, “We also see why it was so hard for presidents in the past to pull out of Afghanistan. They were afraid of exactly this kind of press overreaction.”

Stelter asked, “Aren’t these reporters just doing their jobs, challenging the people in authority?”

“I feel accountability works better if it’s in good faith or if it’s rooted in something that’s factual,” Marcotte said. “There has not been accountability for 20 years for staying in Afghanistan. Over and over and over again, presidents have actually been rewarded for the bad decision of staying in Afghanistan by a press that kind of leans towards not ever wanting to see the ugly images of what leaving would look like.”

Dowd, who was chief strategist for George W. Bush’s re-election campaign (a few years later he said he lost confidence in the president), said, “George W. Bush is the one who should be lambasted the most in this coverage… The original sin of the problem we’re seeing unfolding and everything that’s happened in 20 years is at his doorstep. ”

Dowd continued criticizing the media coverage by saying, “The voices they’re putting on the air are all the voices that got it wrong from day one. All of the voices they’re having on the air criticizing — most of them — criticizing Joe Biden are all the ones that got it wrong for the last 20 years. Leon Panetta, George W. Bush — he hasn’t been on the air but people around him — all of them got it wrong, so why would we listen to them related to the pullout?”

That’s the right question.