Miranda Devine

Miranda Devine

Opinion

Callous Biden showed his true colors by tanning at the beach on the anniversary of his Afghanistan withdrawal horror

Joe Biden was sunning himself at his Rehoboth Beach house and Kamala Harris was holed away with staff in Washington this week on the third anniversary of their disastrous ­Afghanistan withdrawal.

Only Donald Trump bothered to show up to the wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery for the Gold Star families of the 13 service members killed by a suicide bomber in the chaotic evacuation from Kabul.

For a man damned as an unfeeling monster by Democrats, Trump always manages to outshine Biden and Harris in the empathy stakes, whether he is meeting victims of a toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, visiting a bodega in crime-wracked Harlem or consoling the families of women and children murdered by illegal-migrant sexual predators.

On Monday at Arlington, where he was the guest of the Gold Star families whom Biden and Harris have ignored and disrespected for three years, the images of the former president solemnly placing a wreath while a woman wept so enraged Democrats, who feared it was a political masterstroke, that they cooked up another hoax to discredit him.

Trump-hating outlet NPR alleged an ugly confrontation between his entourage and a cemetery staffer objecting to their camera.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden sit at the beach in Rehoboth Beach, Del
Joe Biden was sunning himself at his Rehoboth Beach house and Kamala Harris was holed away with staff in Washington this week on the third anniversary of their disastrous ­Afghanistan withdrawal. AP

But Trump’s campaign produced what appeared to be written permission to bring “an official photographer and/or videographer” to the ceremony.

In any case, the only people who matter are the families who invited him, and they issued a statement of “heartfelt thanks and appreciation” to Trump Wednesday.

“We are deeply grateful to the president for taking the time to honor our children and for standing alongside us in our grief,” they said.

Conspicuous absence

They didn’t need to point out the conspicuous absence of Biden and Harris, who have never met with the families or even uttered the names of their loved ones.

In fact, in his disastrous debate with Trump in June, Biden forgot all about the 13 fallen and boasted — falsely — that he was the “only president this century” not to have troops die on his watch.

In separate statements from the White House this week, Biden again insisted the biggest debacle of his presidency was a “success” and Harris hailed Biden’s “courageous decision.”

Harris has boasted that she was fully involved in the debacle as the “last person in the room.”

She reportedly “staunchly” backed Biden’s foolish demand that his generals abandon Bagram Airfield and draw down troops to zero even while advisers in the room were urging caution.

Two careless and hubristic leaders forced wiser heads to fall in line.

Biden’s poll numbers plunged and never recovered afterward.

Watching desperate Afghans falling to the ground from US planes to which they had clung, voters suddenly saw him in a new light — incompetent, lacking empathy and refusing to take responsibility for his mistakes.

His callous treatment of the Gold Star families was an eye-opener for a nation shaped for 40 years by the mythology of Biden’s fabled empathy earned through tragedies in his own life.

In reality, he kept glancing at his watch on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews during the dignified transfer of the flag-draped coffins, then insisted on talking only of his own grief over the death of his son Beau, to the disgust of the bereaved.

The retaliatory drone attack on ISIS-K that Biden ordered and that Gen. Mark Milley boasted was a “righteous strike” was also botched, killing an innocent aid worker and his children, but no terrorists.

The whole catastrophe was a stain on the reputation of this nation, precipitating new boldness from America’s adversaries that led to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine six months later.

And yet three years later, nobody has been held accountable for the failure that left $85 billion of equipment in Taliban hands and abandoned US citizens and Afghan allies to a terrible fate.

Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and theater commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie should have offered their resignations when Biden insisted they follow his absurd demands.

They might have averted the disaster.

They didn’t resign afterward, either, initially calling the operation a “monumental accomplishment” before belatedly admitting regrets two years later.

The Republican-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee, tasked to get to the bottom of what went wrong, is due to deliver its final report on Sept. 9. Former committee investigator Jerry Dunleavy, co-author of “Kabul, The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco,” resigned in protest earlier this month at what he said was kid-gloves treatment of the generals by committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas).

But the committee’s report is expected to apportion blame to many of those who deserve it.

It will excoriate Biden as well as Harris, who backed his decisions and has been a part of the lies and cover-up since.

Biden-Harris administration officials — including those at the State Department and the DOD — will come in for a shellacking, especially White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who the committee believes played a crucial role in Biden’s decision to reduce troops to zero, abandon Bagram, fail to adapt to Taliban advances and accept incorrect assurances from military commanders about Afghan military strength.

McCaul also has demanded the testimony of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and is threatening to subpoena him and take further punitive steps if Blinken doesn’t come in.

His report will serve as the first draft of an indictment for the prosecution of those who should be held accountable for America’s most humiliating military failure.

The families deserve no less.

As for the desperate spin emanating from the White House this week that the debacle was Trump’s fault, nobody buys it.

Biden’s incompetent execution was the problem, not Trump’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan.

This was a uniquely Biden screw-up, with the “staunch” backing of his hapless VP.

  翻译: