Poor judgment multiplied by poor information flow equals debacle.
We know Biden lives in a bubble of fog. Now we know the entire White House is there with him:
A month before the Taliban stormed Afghanistan’s capital, two dozen diplomats in the U.S. embassy in Kabul sent a memo to the State Department warning of imminent collapse. The July 13 dissent cable warned Secretary of State Tony Blinken that the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul would quickly follow a U.S. withdrawal. They said an urgent plan to evacuate Afghan partners was needed.
But it went unread by the White House:
It was a message that never reached the White House and the National Security Council, which was coordinating President Biden’s directive to end the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
Well perhaps it got stuck on some desk in the Office of the Fuck-Up Fairy.
As an aside, I strongly disagree with the author's claim that Biden showed "political courage" in withdrawing from Afghanistan. With reports that Biden thought public opinion polling supported withdrawal even if Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, you cannot say political courage was involved at all.
Political courage was Bush 43 ordering the Iraq surge offensive in 2007 (exploiting the emerging Awakening among Sunni Arab Iraqis) in opposition to political and popular opposition. Whatever else you may say about Bush's domestic policies, he put his political reputation on the line in pursuit of victory in Iraq.
