Blame Anyone But Biden
Blame Anyone But Biden
The president knows he’s disposable – and surrounds himself with scapegoats.
By Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Biden and his cronies are busy blaming anyone and everyone else for Afghanistan.
Culprits for Biden’s folly thus far include the Trump administration, intelligence people (who warned him this would happen), the military (which also warned him this would happen), and Trump supporters whom the media implausibly alleges he was too afraid of to defy.
By next week, the media will find some way to blame Afghanistan on the unvaccinated, on systemic racism, and Ron DeSantis. Except that all the excuses aren’t working this time.
And that’s a problem because blaming other people for his failures is all Biden knows.
The Biden administration is one long search for scapegoats to protect the old goat at the top.
When gas prices soared, the Biden administration turned to OPEC to lower prices by raising output. OPEC’s response was a contemptuous shrug that didn’t even acknowledge the little man in the big house while making it clear that it’s happy with the way things are.
Biden has no leverage with OPEC. He can’t open up American production because he’s in thrall to the Big Green lobby that is gobbling up a trillion dollars of the economy with its subsidized Chinese junk projects. A huge chunk of Biden’s infrastructure dollars are going to Big Green.
Some OPEC members have crucial security concerns about Iran. But Biden has made it clear that he’s going to appease Iran. If Iran goes nuclear, it will be able to choke off much of our oil supply from the region. And even before then Iran’s expanding terror sphere threatens OPEC members like Saudi Arabia which were shelled by Iran’s Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
The Biden administration cut off support for the campaign to dislodge the Houthis from Yemen.
Even without nukes, Iran’s terrorist proxy wars risk creating all sorts of instability. And that will affect energy prices and lead producers to act conservatively out of fear of the next crisis.
Biden won’t allow American energy companies to compete with OPEC. And he isn’t offering any real sense of security to OPEC members in the region. Why should OPEC raise production?
But Biden wasn’t serious about expecting OPEC to raise production.
A recurring theme of his failed administration has been finding someone else to blame for his disasters. The lousy economy, the pandemic, and the collapse of Afghanistan are always someone else’s fault. The Biden administration’s messaging machine exists to play politics with the pandemic while blaming its latest setback on DeSantis, Trump, or disinformation.
The Biden administration didn’t expect OPEC to do anything. They were just seeking another scapegoat for Biden’s bad decisions. The media will receive its administration talking points blaming high energy prices, not on Biden’s Keystone XL pipeline cancelation, his hostility to the domestic energy industry, and the rising instability due to the rise of Iran, but on OPEC refusing to boost production. But who made America dependent on OPEC and, by extension, Iran?
The same politician who made Americans trapped in Afghanistan dependent on the Taliban
Biden wanted credit for withdrawing from Afghanistan when he thought it would make him look good. Once the Taliban took over, he began whining that he had “inherited” the withdrawal.
The only thing Biden inherited, based on his family tree, was a lack of moral fiber.
The dumbest and most destructive elements of the withdrawal, the evacuation of soldiers before civilians, the stealthy withdrawals from bases, the refusal to coordinate with NATO allies, had nothing to do with Trump or even the general idea of a withdrawal. It was Biden’s call whether to withdraw the troops before the civilians, and it was the absolute wrong one.
Even in the final hours before the fall of Afghanistan, Biden could have secured Kabul.
The Taliban kept indicating that they didn’t want to enter Kabul. Whether they really meant it or were testing our response, this was the opportunity to send in forces, secure Kabul, and create a safe evacuation zone for Americans. Instead, Biden dithered. Having American soldiers secure the city would have made it very difficult to then pull out the troops.
Biden and his people decided that it was better to abandon Americans behind Taliban lines and hope that they can negotiate their way out, than to be stuck being responsible for Kabul.
Since then the Taliban have reportedly handed over security in Kabul over to the Haqqani Network which is a component of the Taliban that is intertwined with Al Qaeda, has carried out numerous terrorist attacks, and is holding an American hostage.
But Biden prioritized forcing a harsh break at any cost over the lives and safety of Americans.
Now that the strategy has failed, in the sense that it’s widely unpopular, the Biden administration is searching for scapegoats. Biden is blaming intelligence and the military. The intelligence people are blaming the military and the diplomats. The diplomats are blaming the military. And the military knows that its job is to take the fall for every stupid thing that the politicians do.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, beginning with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Milley, Secretary of State Blinken, and CIA Director William Burns. But their underlying failure was following orders. Milley had boasted of undermining President Trump by refusing to go along with his proposals, but he was happy enough to enable anything that Biden wanted.
The intelligence reports were there. And it’s impossible to imagine the military brass and their aides didn’t understand the risks of a scenario in which the Taliban trapped Americans behind enemy lines while only a meager force of 600 American troops remained to protect them.
They gave Biden what he wanted. And now Biden is blaming them for giving it to him.
Whether it’s oil or Afghanistan, Biden became the agent for enabling leftist ideological goals. His value, like that of any good agent, lies in being able to “humanize” a radical agenda with his grins, gladhandling, and malapropisms without looking like a radical. But that just makes him the final fall guy when the tattered remnants of his charm aren’t enough to deflect attention from the leftist wizards behind the curtain. And then it’ll be time for him to retire and spend “more time with his family”. His family being his crackhead artist son who almost cost him the election.
Biden knows he’s disposable and surrounds himself with scapegoats. And that leads to a work culture in which no one goes out on a limb to avoid becoming one of Biden’s scapegoats.
Why did none of the brass, the intel people, or the diplomats stand up to Biden?
Why does every interview or press conference by an administration official seem like a parade of excuses for inaction? The safest thing for anyone to do is to do nothing and let the blame rise, like hot air, up to Biden who, for at least one term, is considered too big to fail.
Biden’s age and mental state have created an unprecedentedly weak administration.
Few expect him to run for a second term. And whether he’s replaced by Kamala, another Democrat, or a Republican, there will be a clean sweep leaving few of the old gang.
A weak king inspires little loyalty. Biden’s loyalists don’t expect him to be around for long and they have little incentive to prop him up for a second term that isn’t likely to ever happen.
They have no loyalty to Biden, he has none to them, and none of them have any to America.