Afghanistan: Amidst chaos, Biden tries to show new image | US President insists on focusing on advancing late arrival evacuation

From Washington DC

The White House is keen to show the progress of the evacuation from Afghanistan, But news from Kabul International Airport shows the chaos continues. US troops, which President Joe Biden wanted to repatriate by August 31 at the latest, will remain indefinitely, focused on resolving the emergency. The United States government does not rule out sending more and has already ordered their extension beyond the perimeter of the airport, to which they were limited since the Taliban took control of the city.

“We have continued to improve since I spoke to you last Friday. We continue to displace thousands of people every day by military and civilian flights, ”Biden said Sunday from the White House. A new appearance focused on trying to show a different image than the one she had given at the start of the crisis.

A week ago, the return of the Taliban to Kabul found the US president on vacation, outside the White House, with meetings with its national security team via video conference. There were no public appearances until Monday afternoon, when the president simply delivered a speech and left without answering questions from the press. For almost a week, the government kept saying that it was necessary to leave Afghanistan and end the war after 20 years. The targets, the administration insisted, were Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and both were hit.

Rain of criticism

But the reviews have not abated. They ranged from obvious questions quickly raised by the Republican Party to questions coming from the ruling party itself, activists, the media which had their collaborators in Kabul and international allies, especially NATO members who followed. the United States until the war. years ago. These are criticisms that focus mainly on how the withdrawal from Afghanistan was implemented.without ensuring that the United States’ own personnel, their allies and the Afghans who collaborated with the United States were safe before the troops left.

The White House seems to have taken note of the terrible image left by the crisis in Asia. After all, it was the administration that during the campaign made empathy its emblem and insisted it was ready to work from day one. The inflexible tone of the first hours after the Taliban’s return was followed by an insistence on showing the government dealing with the evacuation. For the drift, it took the release of polls that showed a sharp decline in Biden’s approval. According to a Reuters / Ipsos poll last Monday, 46% of adults in the United States agree with the performance of the president, who took office in January. The figure was 53% three days earlier.

Since then, the focus has been on showing progress: This weekend, Biden suspended his trip to the city of Wilmington, Delaware, where his home is located. He remained in Washington and the White House was responsible for disseminating details of the meetings the president had with his security advisers. Afghanistan is not the only problem facing these days as Tropical Storm Henri affects the northeast coast of the United States.

G7 meeting

The administration also published the appeals the president has had in recent days with leaders of allied nations, such as Spanish government president Pedro Sánchez and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This Sunday, press secretary Jen Psaki announced that the G7 will meet virtually on Tuesday. “The leaders will talk about continuing our close coordination in Afghanistan and the evacuation of our citizens, the courageous Afghans who have supported us over the past two decades and other vulnerable Afghans,” he said.

According to the latest figures released by the US government, there are nearly 6,000 US troops in Afghanistan to keep Kabul airport under control and provide assistance while the evacuation continues. More than 33,000 people have left since last July. Some 28,000 have done so since August 14. The number includes U.S. citizens and residents, their family members, and Afghans who have applied for special visas. “The United States maintains its commitment to these people, and that includes other vulnerable Afghans, such as women leaders and journalists,” Biden said last Friday and repeated this Sunday.

Why didn’t the evacuation start sooner?

The main criticism addressed to the government is precisely why this operation did not start sooner, if the threat of the return of the Taliban was known and the deadline for the withdrawal of the troops was so close. The White House does not provide an answer to this question. He prefers to focus on promises that “any American who wants to go home” will be able to do so, even if he warns that the evacuation mission is dangerous.

In the past few hours, the Defense Ministry has asked a group of six commercial airlines to help move the evacuees from Afghanistan. It’s not about those planes that fly to Kabul, but rather about transporting those already on bases in neighboring countries.

According to the White House, the government is also attentive to “any possible terrorist threat in the airport or its surroundings”, which includes, above all, a concern for local groups associated with the Islamic State. In his speech on Sunday, Biden said his administration feared that the “avowed enemies of the Taliban” would take advantage of the current situation.