Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Disbelief and betrayal: Europe reacts to Biden’s Afghanistan ‘miscalculation’
Politico.eu ^ | August 17, 2021 1:23 am | Matthew Karnitschnig

Posted on 08/17/2021 3:53:04 PM PDT by Olog-hai

Until Sunday, Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.

Now, the American president’s decision to allow Afghanistan to collapse into the arms of the Taliban has European officials worried he has unwittingly accelerated what his predecessor Donald Trump started: the degradation of the Western alliance and everything it is supposed to stand for in the world.

Across Europe, officials have reacted with a mix of disbelief and a sense of betrayal. Even those who cheered Biden’s election and believed he could ease the recent tensions in the transatlantic relationship said they regarded the withdrawal from Afghanistan as nothing short of a mistake of historic magnitude.

“I say this with a heavy heart and with horror over what is happening, but the early withdrawal was a serious and far-reaching miscalculation by the current administration,” said Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee. “This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.” […]

At a time when some European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, have been pushing for the bloc to pursue a security policy less dependent on America, Afghanistan is bound to be used as evidence for why “strategic autonomy” is necessary.

“Naturally this has damaged American credibility, along with that of the intelligence services and of the military,” said Rüdiger Lentz, the former head of the Aspen Institute in Berlin. “One can only hope that the damage to America’s foreign policy leadership can be quickly contained.” …

(Excerpt) Read more at politico.eu ...


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; biden; bideneffect; eussr; matthewkarnitschnig; waronterror
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121 next last

1 posted on 08/17/2021 3:53:04 PM PDT by Olog-hai
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Not a miscalculation’


2 posted on 08/17/2021 3:55:10 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Europe must get it’s Head out of Global Warming and WAKE-UP


3 posted on 08/17/2021 3:56:31 PM PDT by butlerweave
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai
Until Sunday, Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.

And therein lies the problem as they say.
4 posted on 08/17/2021 3:57:02 PM PDT by SpaceBar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai
‘miscalculation’

No, he has willfully abandoned Americans and its allies. Why are not impeachment hearings already in progress or the Cabinet convening to exercise the 25th Amendment?

5 posted on 08/17/2021 3:58:00 PM PDT by Ron H.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ron H.

The Uniparty still supports him, evidently.


6 posted on 08/17/2021 3:58:44 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Ron H.

phuck-em’


7 posted on 08/17/2021 3:58:50 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

They have Troops there and no clue to what was going on ?


8 posted on 08/17/2021 3:59:17 PM PDT by butlerweave
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Biden has been a foreign policy doofus for decades. Has he ever gotten a foreign policy decision right?


9 posted on 08/17/2021 3:59:47 PM PDT by Meah (The terrain is everything. ~Louis Pasteur )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

“Until Sunday, Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.”

Well, Europe is just incredibly stupid, isn’t it?


10 posted on 08/17/2021 4:00:20 PM PDT by FreedomForce
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: butlerweave

” Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.”

Forget glo-bull warming, that statement alone says it all about European political class and not-so-intelligentsia.


11 posted on 08/17/2021 4:01:12 PM PDT by Susquehanna Patriot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

“Europe thought Joe Biden was an expert on foreign policy.”

About the only thing BiteMe is an expert is royally screwing up everything he touches.


12 posted on 08/17/2021 4:01:18 PM PDT by LastDayz (A blunt and brazen Texan. I will not be assimilated.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Final Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan - February 15, 1989 - CBS Evening News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzsjys0bUsM&ab_channel=ShatnerMethod

How a professional military should execute an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan.
> 4 minute video from 1989
Soviet Army APCs cross a bridge. The last man across, walking, is the Russian general.

The US Army doesn’t have a bridge, but we did have Bagram Air Base, which, unbelievably, we abandoned with no notice on July 2, leaving us with only an urban air strip in the middle of Kabul.


13 posted on 08/17/2021 4:02:55 PM PDT by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Politico...Biden lost his base... this is what happens when you RIG ELECTIONS POLITICO. THE ELECTION WAS RIGGED IN AFGHANISTAN AND THE US. Biden knows he rigged it, he told us he rigged it. https://rumble.com/vatv55-biden-we-put-together-the-most-extensive-and-inclusive-voter-fraud-organiza.html


14 posted on 08/17/2021 4:03:52 PM PDT by WinstonSmith1984 (The DOJ is a far left militia.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

It can all be explained in one word.

China.


15 posted on 08/17/2021 4:05:16 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (I identify as fully vaccinated. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

As has been said before: Our enemies no longer respect or fear us, and our allies can no longer trust us.

What the Biden administration has done is a monumental disaster...and that is an understatement.


16 posted on 08/17/2021 4:05:33 PM PDT by Republican Wildcat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

Sucks to be them! They welcomed him into their effing “club”. 😡


17 posted on 08/17/2021 4:05:50 PM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear (RIP my "teddy bear". )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FreedomForce

And Biden hasn’t talked to a single foreign leader since the collapse began seven days ago; what the heck do people think?? I know what I think, he’s senile.


18 posted on 08/17/2021 4:06:02 PM PDT by laconic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Travis McGee

I posted the other day that President Trump is a dealmaker. He would have made sure a deal was LOCKED DOWN with all sides to avoid this chaos BEFORE he pulled the trigger on a withdrawl. He would NOT have left billions of dollars of our equipment over there to be used against us all over the world. And he would have seen to it that any violation of the agreement by any of the parties involved would result in swift and strong reprisal.

We had the most famous American dealmaker of the 20th and 21st centuries in the White House, working for US and for free.

What we have now is unmitigated disaster.


19 posted on 08/17/2021 4:07:45 PM PDT by JennysCool ('It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.' - Mark Twain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: butlerweave

“Europe must get it’s Head out of Global Warming and WAKE-UP”

Perhaps if they now realize we won’t lift a finger when Mother Russia comes to liberate them, they get off their high-horses and back to reality.


20 posted on 08/17/2021 4:07:51 PM PDT by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson