IN DEFENSE OF JOE BIDEN: SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION

 

These have not been the best of times for

President Joe Biden’s administration. One crisis or another pops up every few days – the Afghanistan exit, surging COVID-19 infections, immigrants clamoring at the border, the debt ceiling. Then

there  are the potential catastrophes looming over the horizon – a divisive war over abortion, threats of inflation, potential failure in Congress of the

infrastructure bills, and, above all, a voting rights disaster that could help fuel a Republican takeover of Congress in 2022.

Not unexpectedly, Biden has drawn increasing fire from the right. The heaviest attacks have come from the usual suspects in the right wing

punditry like Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, a Trump apologist who recently railed about Biden’s “unprecedented string of self-inflicted disasters.” Moderate conservatives like The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens have also unleashed torrents of criticism. Stephens wrote that he voted for Biden in 2020 in the belief he would “restore dignity and prudence” to the White House but now sees him as “headstrong but shaky, ambitious but inept.”

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has dropped 14% since he took office to 43%, his lowest to date (Trump averaged 41% during his four years). Though presidential approval ratings often dip during the first year, we think the piling on hasn’t been right.

 

Unfair, Off the Mark, Unjustified

Stephens began his column with a critique of

America that seemingly blamed Biden for “a diminished nation.” He observed that the country couldn’t keep a demagogue out of the White House, couldn’t win or avoid losing a war against a “technologically retrograde enemy,” can’t conquer a disease for which safe and effective vaccines exist, and can’t bring itself to trust government, the media, the scientific establishment, the police, or “any other institution meant to operate for the common good.”

While this list offers literary flair, it bears little relationship to anything Biden caused or has failed in dealing with. The fact Trump got elected president certainly wasn’t Biden’s fault. Biden hardly lost or didn’t win the Afghanistan war. His three immediate predecessors get credit for that. He got out  as he promised and

as the American people clearly wanted. No one has promoted vaccines as the answer to the pandemic more vigorously than Biden. Development of a stubborn resistance to vaccination, mostly rooted in a group of irresponsible obstructionists in the opposition party, lies at Biden’s feet? Hardly. The lack of trust in institutions began a long time ago. Stephens and others launching such criticisms should recalibrate their artillery. They’re off the mark. A great deal of what they say is unfair and unjustified by the facts.

 

Bad Optics Don’t Mean a Bad Job

Much of the criticism leveled at Biden and

his team stems from the Afghanistan exit.  Yes, it looked bad, but how likely was a neat and tidy disengagement from a 20-year military involvement the planners had at most a few weeks to pull together? It’s true American intelligence overestimated how long
the Afghanistan government would survive without U.S. military support. Even with better intelligence, however, the exit likely would have looked ugly.  The bad optics – especially people hanging off airplanes – didn’t mean the United States failed, given the circumstances presented. After all, the American military evacuated 82,300 people in 11 days.

                                       

             

                  PhotoCredit: @adityaRajKaul/Twitter

Republican critics harped on the idea Biden “left behind” some Americans and Afghanis who helped the United States. People get left behind in military evacuations. Every student of the Second World War knows the 1940 British exit from Dunkirk, hailed as a  masterful

exercise in military logistics, left many behind. Britain’s leader, Winston Churchill, became a hero partly because of that operation. Movies got made about it. The British, however, “left behind” one allied soldier for every seven they got out. That’s the nature of the beast. Exits from war get messy. Anyone who says they don’t either has an agenda or hasn’t thought through the difficulty of such enterprises.

 

What’s Been Right?

Despite bad headlines and carping columnists, Biden has gotten things right in his eight

months and change in office. Start with the COVID relief package that provided a path breaking child tax credit from which millions of Americans can reap significant benefits. That administration-backed legislation also gave relief for health care workers, help for schools in dealing with the pandemic, and even funeral-expense assistance for those who lost loved ones to COVID. 

Meantime, the administration has undertaken foreign policy initiatives aimed at restoring the American position in the world following the isolationist, go-it-alone  approach of the Trump

years. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, long seen as a Trump ally, recently called Biden “a breath of fresh air.” Johnson likely had in mind the president’s reengagement with the NATO alliance and his decision that the United States would rejoin the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords.

A great deal of work remains for this administration. Sniping by critics like Stevens illustrates the difficulty inherent in politics now. No president has much margin for error. Any criticism can so easily take off like wildfire. So many seek something they can jump on. Biden operates in an environment poisoned by the efforts of former President Trump and his right wing allies to undermine democracy because it no longer serves their cultural and economic

interests.  We offer a simple caution. Let’s at least understand the facts concerning what mistakes, if any, this president has made and recognize what he’s done right.          

THE JANUARY 6 INSURRECTION INVESTIGATION: WHERE WE STAND

Investigations into the January 6 insurrection plod

along with three unmistakable  characteristics. In some ways, these characteristics typify and symbolize the state of our politics. They show the strengths and weaknesses of American democracy in 2021.

·     Democrats and a few brave Republicans in Congress keep moving methodically toward uncovering the truth, using tried and true tools and processes that fit the circumstances.

·     The courts are handling January 6 prosecutions as we’d expect – on a case-by-case basis, balancing the societal interest in holding those responsible accountable with individual rights afforded every criminal defendant, despite claims those  defendants are political prisoners.

·     Republican politicians stand in the way. The fact that’s happening –as odd as it is – represents a good starting place for an evaluation of where the investigation stands, nearly nine months after the deadly attack on the capitol.

 

The GOP Strategy: You Didn’t Really See 

WhatYou Thought You Saw

One remarkable thing stands out about the January 6 insurrection – we saw it on television.Republicans, however, continue their effort at convincing Americans it wasn’t what it looked like. In addition to outlandish statements from Republican members ofCongress about capitol rioters resembling tourists, the overall GOP strategy rests on the notion that if Republicans keep saying there’s nothing worth seeing, Americans will agree and lose interest.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy probably had that in mind when he threatened telecomcompanies asked to preserve phone records. Those records might show that Republican members of Congress helped facilitate the attack. McCarthy said those companies shouldn’t comply with document requests made by the bipartisan House Select Committee that’s conducting a probe into January 6. He claimed complying would violate federal law andRepublicans would remember that, presumably with dire consequences, if and when the GOP retakes the House of Representatives. McCarthy no doubt wants to minimize the importance of the investigation and make complying not normal. After all, what people thought they saw wasn’t big a deal. Wasn’t much to see, right?

Then there’s the matter of prematurely exonerating former President Donald Trump. Select CommitteeChairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, early in September, dismissed as “baseless” McCarthy’s claim that various federal agencies, including the Justice Department, had concluded Trump didn’t incite or provoke the January 6 violence. Many reasons exist for believing he did. It appears McCarthy thought he could give the public another reason for seeing the investigation as overblown and unnecessary. There’s just not much there, right?

 

Democrats (and two Republicans) Keep Doing

the Right Thing

While the Republican side show and misinformation campaign continue, the Select

Committee keeps moving the investigation forward methodically.  Federal agencies and private companies have now responded to the committee’s first round of requests for documents. Thompson indicated the panel needs more information from social media companies. Documents the committee wants could show the involvement of Trump, White House aides, Trump family members, and GOP legislators in the planning and execution of the insurrection.

                                    

It’s known, for example, that Trump talkedon January 6 with several Republican members of Congress while the insurrection remained in progress.  If it takes a little longer to get the documents that may lead to confirmation of the substance of those communications, so be it. Tracking down such facts requires painstaking investigation and analysis. The committee is doing that, as it should, using tools common to this kind of work. If the president of the United States committed treason against the American government, we want to know the details of that, right?

 

The Courts and Their Balancing Act

Some Americans no doubt would prefer the criminal cases against the January 6 insurrectionists move faster. More than 600 defendants have been charged with various crimes in connection with the attack. Most of them are not being held in jail while they await trial.  Some, however, have had their release conditions revoked because judges have concluded, in individual cases, that those defendants pose a threat. One, a former police officer, bought 37 guns after his arrest. That individual disrupted a court hearing and accosted a probation officer. A magistrate judge decided he should remain in jail.

That situation demonstrates how courts have balanced individual rights and concerns about

January 6 defendants who continue creating havoc. That’s the nature of the criminal justice system and things are likely to continue moving along that way for a long time to come. Meantime, Trump supporters and far rights groups spent a weekend demonstrating in Washington and elsewhere claiming the insurrectionists were just protesters exercising their constitutional rights and are being held wrongfully. Oh, really?

                                      

As much as everyone might hope the process of investigating January 6 and holding those responsible accountable might proceed differently or move faster, the current state of affairs seems like what we’ll have for a while. Republican

politicians have shown no interest in unearthing what happened. McCarthy once said the GOP would conduct its own investigation and seek “real answers.” No evidence exists that’s happening now or that it will happen. McCarthy and other Republicans

will likely continue doing  what they’re doing now – getting in the way, making disingenuous or outright false statements, and claiming nothing important happened.

Meantime, the Select Committee, which includes

only two Republicans, and the courts will keep

doing what they’re doing -- their jobs.

GETTING INTO AND OUT OF AFGHANISTAN PART II: WAS THERE A BETTER WAY?

                 

As the headlines screamed the story of

America’s messy exit from Afghanistan, we decided we should focus on how the United States got involved there in the first place. What lessons can we learn from two decades there and the ultimate failure that precipitated the sloppy exit?

Our last post began that examination when we looked at the legal mechanisms for committing the United States to war and the history of skirting them. We noted that Congress doesn’t declare war anymore, even though the constitution gives it, and it alone, that power. We looked at the 1973 War Powers Act and its purpose in reigning in executive

power to make war without legislative authority. We observed how it’s been ineffective in preventing presidents from starting and

waging wars on their own.  We closed by suggesting Afghanistan perhaps demonstrated how presidents have violated the constitution and that statue.

War Fever

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror

attacks on New York and Washington, Americans were angry.  They wanted retaliation against those responsible. U.S. intelligence quickly pinned

the blame on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists operating from safe havens provided by the Taliban in Afghanistan. President George W. Bush decided the U.S. would launch military operations against that regime.

Bush didn’t seek a declaration of war against Afghanistan. He asked for, and got, a resolution from Congress called an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). It targeted anybody and everybody responsible for September 11. It passed Congress with one dissenting vote, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

That AUMF imposed no time or geographic limits. It’s still in effect. It’s been used to justify military action in all kinds of places. A lot happened that was never contemplated in either the language or the intent of that AUMF. We ask now if Bush violated the constitution and/or the War Powers Act in starting and prosecuting the Afghanistan war. What about the two presidents – Barack Obama and Donald Trump – who followed him and continued the war?

The Start

Bush and the legislators who supported the AUMF didn’t say much about how the president could use it, except that it provided the tools for avenging the deaths of the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on September 11. The public, as measured by polls, overwhelmingly supported use of military force in Afghanistan. Hardly anyone said anything except, “Go for it!”

The War Powers Act never entered into the discussion because of the AUMF. Even if Congress hadn’t declared war, even if Bush didn’t stop military action after 60 days, the AUMF seemingly gave him authority for whatever he thought necessary. The problem was that the war dragged on and on and the issues of why we went there and remained there became embroiled in the deadly combination of politics and patriotism.

Nation Building

After a while, some political leaders

questioned what the United States was doing in Afghanistan and how long we should stay. Joe Biden, as Obama’s vice president, argued that once the United States captured and killed Bin Laden, no reason existed for a continued American presence.  Among

Obama’s senior advisors, only Biden took that position. The rest either thought American interests, or Obama’s political fortunes, or both required staying. Let no president, especially a Democratic one, stand accused of being unpatriotic about U.S. military involvement in a war.

It became obvious the U.S. role was no longer avenging the September 11 attacks, or even deterring future attacks, given how the American military degraded Al Qaeda’s terrorism capacity. No, the United States became engaged in a massive nation building exercise. We tried making Afghanistan, a backward, tribal county with no history of a stable, central government, into a western-style democracy. For some Americans the war became a crusade for Afghan women and shielding them from the Taliban’s brutal interpretation of Islamic law.

It Wasn't Working

Gradually American public opinion soured on

the Afghanistan war – indeed on foreign interventions generally. Donald Trump got elected president – unexpectedly – for many reasons. One was that he pledged he’d end what he called “stupid wars” that were really about nation building. Some feared Hillary Clinton wasn’t on board with that. It may have been another of the factors that sealed her fate.

As Trump’s term wore on, he became increasingly determined to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. He too likely had concerns about the political price of an exit that might look very ugly. Trump, therefore, may simply have preferred leaving the departure to his second term, or his successor if he lost in 2020. Regardless, the public wanted out. Biden ran for president as the anti-Trump, but the two agreed the time for ending American presence in Afghanistan had come.

The way the U.S. got into Afghanistan played a role in how the country came to see the war. We got in amidst the fever generated by September 11. We accomplished the things Americans saw as reasonable objectives – catching Bin Laden and preventing Afghanistan from being used as a staging ground for attacks on the American homeland. With those done, it was time to go.

                                                      

Neither the AUMF nor the common understanding of American purpose in Afghanistan included nation building. We never debated that in the halls of Congress or on cable television, the place these things play out now. Because there was no such debate,many Americans finally saw little or no point in the war. Perhaps if we’d set limited objectives and stuck to them, we could have had a better entry and a better exit.   

 

THE U.S. GETS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN: FIRST, HOW DID WE GET IN?

 

The United States is out of Afghanistan. On August 30 the last transport plane carrying American military personnel and equipment, U.S. citizens, and Afghan allies lifted off from  Kabul

International Airport. After twenty years and at a cost of  2500 U.S. military lives, 1200 soldiers from allied countries, 3900 contractors, 111,000 Afghans (31,000 of them civilians), and $2 trillion, the United States is done.

The Biden administration took a lot of heat for the
exit. Future investigations will determine if could have been done better. Polls showed Americans in favor of leaving, but the president’s approval rating dipped in light of the grim pictures of civilians
exit. Future investigations will determine if could have been done better. Polls showed Americans in favor of leaving, but the president’s approval rating dipped in light of the grim pictures of civiliansclinging to U.S. military aircraft at the Kabul airport. Republicans pounced on the optics and slammed Biden for how he handled the end game, ignoring the fact former President Donald Trump, before leaving office, set a deadline for an even earlier American departure.

We think the exit presents a topic for another time.

Today, and in posts that will come later, we focus on the way the United States got involved in Afghanistan, how and why we stayed as long as we did, and what lessons the  experience teaches. The issue involves fundamental principles of constitutional law, foreign policy, and the American role in the world.

                                    

The Legal Framework for War

America’s constitution provides a specific process for going to war. Since the end of the Second World War, it’s never been followed. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 gives Congress the power to declare

war. Though Article II, Section 2 makes the president Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Congress, not the executive, was supposed to have authority to involve the country in wars.

Why has this happened? First, Congress let

it happen. That’s what occurred with Afghanistan. President George W. Bush, after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington, sought and received from Congress  what’s called an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). It wasn’t a

declaration of war against a specific country, but a grant of authority that the president could use “all necessary and appropriate force” against those who planned and carried out the attacks.

The measure passed 98-0 in the Senate and with 

one dissenting vote – California’s Barbara Lee – in the House of Representatives. Lee said she voted ‘no’ not because she thought a military response was unwarranted, but because she believed the broadly worded AUMF provided a blank check for endless conflict. The record shows her foresight. Besides being the 

basis for two decades

of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, by 2016, that AUMF had been cited 37 times as a justification for military actions in 14 countries and on the high seas. Presidents from both parties used it in justifying their actions -- Bush 18 times, Barack Obama 19 times.

 

An Old Movie

The story of how the U.S. got involved in, and stayed, in Afghanistan so long seems uncomfortably familiar. The Korean War was never declared. American troops participated as part of a United Nations “police action.”  Seventy years later, we still have 28,500 military personnel in Korea. We understand the South Koreans want us there and we recognize that perhaps we have strategic interests we didn’t have in Afghanistan. There was, however, no declaration of war and we’ve stayed a long time. Those are just the facts.

Vietnam was different, but in degree, not kind.

Congress didn’t declare war. It authorized the use of military force in response to an incident involving an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. President Lyndon Johnson used that authorization as a basis for sending over half a million U.S. troops into a civil war that had been grinding on in South Vietnam for years. We stayed until we lost, at a cost of 58,220 U.S. military lives and $168 billion (a trillion in today’s dollars).

Our more recent involvements in the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) and the 2003 invasion of Iraq haven’t been different.  Those were presidential operations, accompanied by some kind of congressional authorization that amounted to a rubber stamp of what the president wanted. In neither case did Congress declare war. Desert Storm ended quickly, but Iraq dragged on and on. We still have 2500 troops there.

 

The Failure of Limits

As we’ll note in coming posts, Congress has tried reigning in the ability of presidents to wage war by themselves. In 1973, it passed the War Powers Act which seeks a balance between congressional oversight of the country’s involvement in war and

the commander-in-chief role the constitution gives the chief executive.  The president must tell Congress within 48 hours when he or she has ordered U.S. military forces into action and requires removal of troops from that involvement after 60 days if Congress hasn’t declared war or otherwise authorized the operation.  

This hasn’t worked. The statute has never ended a foreign military operation.  The 60-day time limit has rarely been triggered. Presidents from both ends of the ideological spectrum have ignored it -- Ronald Reagan in his El Salvador intervention, Bill Clinton in Kosovo, and Barack Obama in Libya.

How we got into and stayed in Afghanistan may well represent a case study in the way presidents violate both the constitution and the War Powers Act. We’ll dive into that question when we pick up this topic in our next post.