Tony Blinken must go for Afghan disaster, trying to bury its ugly truth
By Post Editorial Board
September 14, 2021 7:47pm
Day 2 of the Antony Blinken show was worse than Day 1: Testifying to the Senate the morning after a savage House grilling, he still had no clear answers to basic questions about the Afghan-pullout fiasco — only gray evasion.
Even many Democrats hit hard. “The execution of the US withdrawal was clearly and fatally flawed,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). “This committee expects to receive a full explanation of this administration’s decisions on Afghanistan since coming into office last January. There has to be accountability.”
But Blinken, a yes-man at Biden’s side for two decades of disastrous foreign policy, took no responsibility, again fingering Team Trump for the whole debacle and sidestepping questions that would expose his own culpability.
Would he give the committee the July 13 State Department dissent cable in which Kabul diplomats warned the country could fall quickly after the US exit? Blinken paused. No: Releasing it would have a “chilling effect” on future dissenters. How?
Blinken speaks carefully so as to say . . . nothing. Another senator noted many insiders warned of Kabul’s collapse; he smoothly said every government has varying voices, “some worst-case, some best-case and some in between.” When Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) asked more specifically about reports that State had asked the Pentagon to tap the breaks on a quick exit, Blinken huffed, “Senator, I’m not going to get into any internal deliberations or discussion that we had.”
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https://nypost.com/2021/09/14/blinken-must-go-for-afghan-disaster-trying-to-bury-its-ugly-truth/
