Kabul Airlift: Biden has an opportunity.
Americans watched disturbing video: desperate people eager to get out of Afghanistan.
“Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of potentially unvetted refugees from Afghanistan? All day, we’ve heard phrases like, ‘We’ve promised them.’ Well, who did? Did you?"
Laura Ingraham, Fox News host.
"If history is any guide, and it’s always a guide, we will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our country, and over the next decade, that number may swell to the millions. So first we invade, and then we are invaded."
Tucker Carlson, Fox News host
We can be certain that footage of desperate people in Kabul will be shown prominently in upcoming GOP ads.
Biden will suffer from the reality and the images. The exit from Afghanistan is a mess. I have seen no images of orderly people in lines getting processed rapidly and exiting to somewhere safe. This is a chaos story. Frantic people trying to escape is memorable, whether it is children running from napalm in Vietnam, passengers on the Titanic in movies, or people clinging to planes leaving Kabul.
The smart thing for Democratic officeholders in tough races in 2022 would be to distance themselves from Biden. That defection will make things worse for Biden. It is one thing to have Monday-morning-quarterbacking from Trump, the GOP, and Fox, but not from fellow Democrats. Ideal for Biden would be if Democrats circled the wagons politically and defended him. Put the blame on those corrupt, ungrateful Afghan men, who shamefully abandon their own women.
But I expect many Democrats to join the criticism of Biden. Democrats include the Squad on the left, Blue Dogs on the right, Women, Blacks, college-town-liberals, Bernie-or-bust people, climate activists, union people, new immigrants. It is a team of teams, not a team. Biden does not have a commanding presence, nor can he scare Democrats into line. Biden communicates empathy, not strength. And now he communicates incompetence.
The defection of Democrats is likely because it is the central brand quality of Democrats to sympathize with victims of oppression, and it looks like Biden failed in that. The story from Afghanistan is that women left behind will be badly oppressed. A second core quality of Democrats is liberal guilt. News articles read by Democrats in The Atlantic and The New Yorker describe the plight of translators who served American troops and who will face trouble--possibly summary execution--by the Taliban. We have an obligation to save these refugees from violence.
Biden has an opportunity to surprise here. Republicans are uneasy about Afghan refugees, which makes unlikely meaningful Congressional action. The lesson of the 21st century, and especially the past four years, is that Congress is ineffective at stopping a president or passing controversial legislation. Only the president can act, and this is done with executive orders and within administrative departments. Biden can declare that all Afghans go to Guam or Guantanamo or Fort Hood or anywhere in the world for processing. Set up emergency housing. Some members of Congress will protest that immigration is a matter of law and what Biden would do is unlawful. Biden will cite emergency powers. Congress will submit.
It is an opportunity to set up a Berlin airlift sort of operation. The U.S. immigration services cannot process paperwork and the U.S. military does not understand foreign cultures, but the military does know how to do logistics. FedEx could do this. Amazon does it every day. The logistics of transport are what Americans are good at, including our military.
Biden caught a break. The GOP won't be able to create a consistent narrative of disapproval because they are of two minds. On one hand there is the duty to comrades in arms, which would support Biden. Moreover Republicans will see women as worthy victims because the issue would be a religious one--those nasty Muslims. However, the most popular Fox News hosts are sending up the alarm that the evacuation crisis in Kabul is a clever plot designed to import future Democrats--plus a few terrorists. Biden can expect criticism, but in multiple directions, making a muddle.
Biden can climb out of his political hole by taking clear, masterful action, by acting like a Commander in Chief. Do an airlift. Get translators and women out. That is what Democrats do: rescue the oppressed.