St Joe says he is doing the exit from Afghanistan perfectly. It would have been very difficult a month ago, it would be very difficult a month from now, so no matter when we left, it would have been exactly as it is now as long as he is the one directing the exit, and a lot worse if some else (meaning Trump) had been directing it, because he is doing it perfectly.
Fox News, of course, disagrees vehemently, of course, because they're Fox. So does Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, but she was condemned by all her readers: they all wrote that St Joe is doing it perfectly, and if she were doing it, it would be a lot worse.
Some ask, if the exit were always going to be so difficult, if there is absolutely no way anyone could possibly get all our people out, shouldn't we have stayed, the way we did in Germany and Japan after WWII?
St Joe says we had one job to do in Afghanistan, we got it done when we killed Osama, and there was no point wasting even one more US life (except for those we'll have to leave behind to be murdered by the terrorists, but there would never have been a way to save any of them, and lots more US soldiers would die if we stayed any longer).
Again, Fox and Ms Dowd disagree with St Joe, but just about all the New York Times readers agree with him and hate both Fox and Ms Dowd.
The critics of St Joe do have a few flaws: he was warned that the Taliban could take over the entire country, making it very difficult to get all our people out, very soon after the end of August. But, of course, St Joe planned a massive evacuation, with the help of the Ghani government, before the end of August. No one believed the Taliban would take over on 15 August. All the warnings were that it might happen right after August (and St Joe said he didn't believe any of those warnings, he knew the Ghani government would last for years after the total US withdrawal).
I read about Saigon: Fred Reed wrote that Saigon actually went far, far better than Kabul. The helicopters took all the embassy staff, Americans and Vietnamese, to US ships that took them to the US. In Kabul, the helicopters took only the Americans in the embassy, and only to the Kabul airport, where there was lots of processing before they could be taken to someplace like Qatar, and more processing before they could make it to Germany, then more processing before they can make it back to the US.
Also, as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon, all Americans in Vietnam were told to go to an airfield. Most brought their Vietnamese relatives and friends, and refused to leave without all their relatives and friends. The US government was afraid of leaving any US hostages, so they agreed to take everyone, and got them all out before the North Vietnamese Army arrived.
In Kabul, of course, it is very difficult to get to the airport, and the US says, 'You're on your own to get to the airport, and you'd better have all your papers in perfect order or don't bother.'
And as St Joe says, we know we're going to have to leave a lot of people we promised to get out, but that we'll be leaving the fewest possible number because of his brilliant management of the evacuation, no one could possibly have left fewer behind that he will leave. And again, most New York Times readers figure he's telling the TRVTH, the whole TRVTH, and nothing but the TRVTH.
Sadly, most polls show the New York Times readers do not represent the majority of the voters, so the Democrats might have a teeny bit of trouble in the coming mid-terms, but the voters are likely to have forgotten Kabul by the next presidential election. And there's a very good chance St Joe will stand down about two months after the mid-terms, letting St Harris take over for the next 10 years.
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