Biden ignored Boris Johnson for 36 hours as Afghan chaos grew: report
By Samuel Chamberlain
https://nypost.com/2021/08/19/biden-ign ... ew-report/
August 19, 2021
Joe Biden. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
President Joe Biden ignored British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s https://nypost.com/2021/08/18/biden-spe ... -of-kabul/ attempts to contact him for approximately 36 hours as the Taliban cemented its control over Afghanistan, a report said.
Johnson tried to reach Biden on Monday morning, UK time, but wasn’t able to get him on the phone until 10 p.m. Tuesday (5 p.m. Washington time), according to The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... ghanistan/
The lengthy wait took place as desperate Afghans swarmed Kabul’s international airport in the hope of catching evacuation flights out.
The White House had no immediate comment on the report, but on Tuesday afternoon, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan https://nypost.com/2021/08/17/biden-tea ... ghanistan/ told reporters that the president had
about the Afghanistan catastrophe.not yet spoken with any other world leaders
Sullivan added.Myself, Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken, several other senior members of the team have been engaged on a regular basis with foreign counterparts, and we intend to do so in the coming days,
Once Johnson got Biden on the phone, the Telegraph reported, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... ld-allies/ the British PM urged the American president not to throw away
an apparent response to Biden’s insistence in remarks from the White House https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/biden-to- ... ghanistan/ Monday that the USgains made in Afghanistan,
mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building.
Johnson and Biden weren’t able to talk to each other until Tuesday night. Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas – WPA Pool/Getty Images
A White House readout of the call states that Biden and Johnson
and agreed to hold a virtual meeting with other leaders of the G7 nations next week.discussed the need for continued close coordination among allies and democratic partners on Afghanistan policy going forward
On Wednesday, British lawmakers united across party lines to condemn the botched withdrawal as well as Biden’s remarks defending it, using some of the strongest parliamentary language toward an American president in memory.
Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative MP and former British Army officer, went viral for his remarks in which he called the US president’s impugning of Afghan security forces and their will to fight “shameful.”
said Tugendhat, who concluded by telling his colleagues:Those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have,
Labour Party MP Dan Jarvis, another veteran of the Afghan War, called Biden’s commentsThis doesn’t need to be defeat, but at the moment, it damn well feels like it.
while Ed Davey, leader of the center-left Liberal Democrats, described the US withdrawal from Afghanistan asparticularly distasteful and dishonoring,
Johnson also came in for criticism, with his fellow Tory and predecessor as prime minister, Theresa May, recalling that he and Biden had said as recently as last monthnot just a mistake [but] an avoidable mistake, from President Trump’s flawed deal https://nypost.com/2021/08/17/pence-cla ... h-taliban/ with the Taliban to President Biden’s decision to proceed, and to proceed in such a disastrous way.
that they did not think that the Taliban were ready or able to take over control of the country.
Armed Taliban militants in Mehtarlam, Afghanistan on August 15, 2021. ZUMA24.com
she asked.Was our intelligence really so poor?
Johnson, who had called lawmakers back from their August recess to attend the emergency session, insisted that the UK could not continue its Afghan missionWas our understanding of the Afghan government so weak? Was our knowledge of the position on the ground so inadequate? Did we really believe that, or did we just feel that we had to follow the United States and hope that, on a wing and a prayer, it would be all right on the night?
without American logistics, without US air power and without American might.
the prime minister added.I really think that it is an illusion to believe that there is appetite amongst any of our partners for a continued military presence or for a military solution imposed by NATO in Afghanistan,
With the Taliban now in charge of Afghanistan, the immediate priority of the British government is to evacuate the 4,000 or so UK citizens still in Afghanistan and the thousands of Afghans who have helped the UK over the past 20 years.
Johnson said a new “generous” refugee settlement program would allow up to 20,000 vulnerable Afghans, primarily women and children, to seek sanctuary in the UK in the next few years, including 5,000 this year. The total for this year is in addition to the 5,000 or so Afghan allies that the UK is now trying to evacuate from Kabul’s international airport. https://nypost.com/2021/08/19/family-of ... -her-body/
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‘Imbecilic’: Ex-UK leader Tony Blair slams Afghan withdrawal
By PAN PYLAS
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-eu ... 080c40ed31
yesterday
LONDON (AP) — Tony Blair, the British prime minister who deployed troops to Afghanistan 20 years ago after the 9/11 attacks, says the U.S. decision to withdraw from the country has
In a lengthy essay posted on his website late Saturday, the former Labour Party leader said the sudden and chaotic pullout that allowed the Taliban to reclaim power risked undermining everything that had been achieved in Afghanistan over the past two decades, https://apnews.com/article/religion-afg ... 6ca77927a0 including advances in living standards and the education of girls.every Jihadist group round the world cheering.
said Blair who served as prime minister during 1997-2007, a period that also saw him back the U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003.The abandonment of Afghanistan and its people is tragic, dangerous, unnecessary, not in their interests and not in ours,
he added.The world is now uncertain of where the West stands because it is so obvious that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in this way was driven not by grand strategy but by politics,
Blair also accused U.S. President Joe Biden of being
The former prime minister, whose reputation in the U.K. took a dive from the failure to find the alleged weapons of mass destruction that were cited as justification for U.S. coalition’s invasion of Iraq, said Britain has a “moral obligation” to stay in Afghanistan until everyone who needs to be evacuated is taken out.in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending ‘the forever wars’, as if our engagement in 2021 was remotely comparable to our commitment 20 or even 10 years ago.
he said.We must evacuate and give sanctuary https://apnews.com/article/europe-middl ... c88a59a1fe to those to whom we have responsibility — those Afghans who helped us and stood by us and have a right to demand we stand by them,
Like other nations, Britain is trying to evacuate Afghan allies as well as its own citizens from Afghanistan, but with a U.S.-imposed Aug. 31 deadline hovering into view, it’s a race against time.
In addition to the 4,000 or so U.K. citizens, the country is thought to have around 5,000 Afghan allies, https://apnews.com/article/europe-migra ... 056760e947 such as translators and drivers, earmarked for a seat on a plane. The Ministry of Defense said Sunday that nearly 4,000 people had been evacuated so far.
Blair conceded that mistakes were made over the past two decades but added that military interventions can be noble in intent, especially when challenging an extreme Islamist threat.
he said.Today we are in a mood which seems to regard the bringing of democracy as a utopian delusion and intervention virtually of any sort as a fool’s errand.
Blair also warned that the decision by the U.S. to keep Britain largely in the dark about the withdrawal risks relegating the country to
However, he said the U.K., in its role as the current president of the Group of Seven nations, was in a position to help coordinate an international response tothe second division of global powers.
Britain’s Conservative government has been working diplomatically to ensure there is no unilateral recognition of a Taliban government in Afghanistan.hold the new regime to account.
Blair said.We need to draw up a list of incentives, sanctions, actions we can take including to protect the civilian population so the Taliban understand their actions will have consequences,
