President Joe Biden rolled the dice on removing U.S. military support in Afghanistan. He could have reversed President Trump’s executive order to get troops out of Afghanistan until he was absolutely sure that the Afghan government and army was strong enough to protect the nation of 39 million people from certain Taliban thuggery, oppression, violence, rape and death.
He didn’t. He rolled snake eyes. He surrendered Afghanistan in such a chaotic manner that it will take its place beside President Jimmy Carter’s inept handling of the Tehran American Embassy hostage crisis in 1979 and the collapse of Saigon in 1975 under President Gerald Ford as one of the most humiliating failures in American military combat and foreign policy history.
86,000 Afghan translators, intelligence-gatherers and American sympathizers have been left behind by President Biden. They deserved U.S. protection for the service they gave our country.
Former Bush 43’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote about then Vice-President Joe Biden in 2014 in his book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” saying, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Make that almost 50 years now. Now, however, he is president of the United States and commander-in-chief where his every decision has life-and-death consequences, not just one screech owl in a 100-voice U.S. Senate or an inconsequential vice-president.
President Biden seems to be gambling on a lot of things now that he is in the White House. His administration is on track to allow 2 million people to enter the country illegally in 2021. He is surrendering on border security and betting no one will notice.
With gas prices going through the roof, Biden begged OPEC — OPEC of all people — to increase their production of gazillions of dreaded carbon molecules in millions of barrels of Middle Eastern oil, in a gamble to ease the upward pressure on U.S. oil consumers at the local gas station pump. He surrendered American energy independence when he restricted U.S. domestic production of gas and oil so now America can become dependent on the whims of Arab sheiks and kings once again.
President Biden is challenging President Jimmy Carter of the late 70s for colossal public policy failures on inflation, gas prices and foreign policy. He has only been in office for seven short months.
President Biden’s gambling habits are spilling over to everyone in Washington it seems. Nineteen Senate Republicans, including both North Carolina Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, joined with 50 Senate Democrats to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill last week.
Not only do all of them want billions of federal taxpayer dollars for road and bridge projects in their states, they are also betting that their support will satisfy Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kristen Sinema of Arizona who want the same for their states. Republican senators think they can hold Manchin and Sinema to their public promise to not abolish the filibuster if they get what they want in this first infrastructure bill. They are gambling that both moderate Democrats will then vote against the next $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure,” AKA “mandatory entitlement spending” bill, which is an abomination of a budget-buster if there ever was one.
Unfortunately, immediately upon passage of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, Manchin and Sinema voted for the budget resolution, which passed 50-49, that kicked off consideration of the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” bill that seeks to provide free childcare, free community college and free everything without paying for it.
Budget resolutions are not legally binding law but they do set the parameters for further consideration of a budget reconciliation bill which will become binding law if passed by 50%+1 of the House and Senate, and if President Biden signs it, which he will.
Senate Republicans are betting Manchin and Sinema are going to be the next inductees into the “Profiles in Courage” Hall of Fame. They are also betting that none of the 50 Senate GOP senators will get ill or, worse, pass away, before now and the final vote, which will make it easier for Majority Leader Charles Schumer to force a bad bill through the Senate.
When public policy coming out of Washington, D.C. looks more like spins at the roulette wheel or throws of dice at a craps table, the American people have a right to be concerned.
The big question now is, “What’s next?”
