The Columbus Dispatch

Hold Biden accountabl­e for US failure

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I respond to Diane Cottrill Miller when she asserts that “there is no one thing or no one person to blame” when it comes to the current tragedy and U.S. humiliatio­n in Afghanista­n.

It is that way of thinking that is responsibl­e for why we haven’t won a war since World War II. It is why our government is so absurdly incompeten­t. It seems that no matter how disastrous a government policy, no matter what a dismal failure a government action is no one gets fired, demoted or reassigned. Why is this?

Unlike Miller, I place the blame squarely where it belongs — President Joe Biden.

Even he admits the buck stops with him.

The president’s supporters want claim that former President Donald Trump and his negotiatio­ns with the Taliban are the real culprits. They say Biden’s hands were tied to a rushed pull out of Afghanista­n, but his hands certainly were not tied as he reversed Trump’s energy pipeline and fracking policies, his welfare and gender policies and his southern border policies.

Though to be fair, on the border, he did change Trump’s policy of putting unaccompan­ied minors in chain-link fence cages, preferring plexiglass cages instead. I do not fault Biden’s decision to end America’s forever war.

If a people will not fight for their own freedom, they do not deserve it. True freedom is not bestowed, but paid for with the blood of patriots. However, the disaster of Biden’s planning and execution of our withdrawal will surely forever live in infamy.

Many are saying that Trump’s Afghanista­n exit would have been exactly the same. I don’t know about that, but one thing I do know for sure, it could not have been any worse!

James Slone, London

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