Andrew Bolt: The USA is a fickle ally under a clueless president

The disaster unfolding in Afghanistan is not just a cultural humiliation, but also shows the USA is a fickle ally under Joe Biden.

The US military ran a recruiting ad in May starring the kind of soldier it wanted– “a little girl raised by two moms” who’d joined gay pride rallies.

Today that US army is fleeing Afghanistan, leaving it to fall to an all-male army of Taliban extremists who’ve blown up girls’ schools and whipped women who won’t obey.

This disaster is in many ways worse for the US than the fall of Saigon to North Vietnam’s army in 1975, when American diplomats fled in helicopters from their embassy roof.

This is not just a cultural humiliation for a US tearing itself apart with identity politics.

It also shows the US is a fickle ally under a clueless president, Joe Biden. And Islamism returns as a menacing political force, in a country of 38 million people.

China, Russia and Iran – the new axis of evil - are gloating at the US failure, and all recently met Taliban negotiators.

Yet Biden seemed blind to what was coming after ordering out all remaining US troops by the end of August, 20 years after the US invaded to topple the Taliban and destroy the al Qaeda terrorists behind the September 11 attacks.

Taliban fighters sit over a vehicle on a street in Laghman province. Picture: AFP

Just five weeks ago Biden declared: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

Struggling to marshal his thoughts, he dismissed parallels with Saigon’s fall: “The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States.”

How wrong could he be? The Taliban, moving fast, now control two thirds of Afghanistan and have since captured its four biggest cities, after the capital Kabul. Analysts fear Kabul may fall in weeks.

Panicking, Biden ordered almost all embassy staff to leave Kabul over the weekend. Australia rushed in a plane to save Afghans who helped us.

The US, once the unchallenged superpower, now pleads with the Taliban to play nice. Don’t attack our embassy, Biden’s negotiators begged. Biden’s press secretary last week urged the Taliban throat-cutters to consider what “they want their role to be in the international community” to be.

Seem nice, the US pleaded, to extremists who’ve learned that violence works.