Delingpole: Europe’s Biden-Loving Leaders Are Now Reaping the President’s Afghanistan Whirlwind

US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hold a joint press conference i
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James Delingpole

Europe’s politicians have had enough of President Joe Biden, the man whose arrival in the Oval Office just eight months ago they were treating like the second coming of the Messiah.

Leaders such as Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Angela Merkel have been careful not to make direct criticisms. But their parliaments have done an excellent job of doing their dirty work for them.

In Britain’s House of Commons, for example, Biden was accused by various MPs of ‘throwing us and everybody else to the fire’, of ‘shameful’ behaviour, of being ‘distasteful and dishonouring’, and of making ‘absolutely the wrong call.’

In the House of Lords, Biden was accused (by former Tory leader Michael Howard) of ‘making a catastrophic mistake which may well prove the defining legacy of his presidency’.

Meanwhile in Germany, while Merkel has confined herself to a remark about the ‘bitter events’ in Afghanistan, her likely successor has been far more direct.

According to the Express:

Armin Laschet, who is expected to succeed Mrs Merkel as Chancellor after next month’s election, called it “the greatest debacle endured by Nato since its creation”.

He added: “This engagement of the international community was obviously not crowned with success.”

The same report quotes Norbert Rottgen, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democrats and till recently one of Biden’s most enthusiastic supporters:

Norbert Rottgen, chairman of the German parliament’s powerful foreign affairs committee, said: “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.

“This does fundamental damage to the political and moral credibility of the West.”

What were these people thinking? Anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of U.S. politics ought to have known that Joe Biden is a senile crook with worrying links to the CCP and a track record about his dubious as his presidential victory. This is not a new thing that has suddenly emerged out of the blue since his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden’s manifest failings were well-worn features dating back at least to the ‘Nam era, not bugs which only appeared to everyone’s surprise in extreme circumstances which no one could have predicted.

Not that you would have guessed this from the craven, cringeworthy tosh that preceded Biden’s election such as this particularly toe-curling offering from one Sajid Javid MP.

In October last year, he published a piece in the Telegraph headlined ‘Britain would be better off with Joe Biden’.

Biden is a foreign affairs veteran who understands the importance of building strong partnerships.

Javid’s bravura ability to say whatever is fashionable or expedient, regardless of the truth, has since been rewarded with a promotion to the position of Secretary of State for Healthcare and Social Service.

Really, though, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at all these European politicos suddenly getting buyers’ remorse about the lame-duck president they helped usher into the White House.

For four years during the previous presidency, they did little but criticise Trump for failures not even a tiny fraction as serious as Biden’s in Afghanistan – everything from his ‘rhetoric’ to his supposed killing of NATO.

Merkel especially made no secret of her loathing of Donald Trump. The feeling was mutual: he once called her ‘stupid.’

In the early days of Coronavirus, for example, she criticised Tump’s response, saying ‘You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation any more than you can fight it with hate or incitement to hatred.’ (Arguably there was some weapons-grade hypocrisy, here, given that Germany’s own response to Coronavirus has been just what she accused Trump’s of being).

Later, when former ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell claimed that Trump had charmed her, she looked bemused and then laughed.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, once (while Mayor of London) described Trump as ‘clearly out of his mind’ and subsequently accused him of a ‘quite stupefying ignorance that makes him, frankly, unfit to hold the office of president of the United States’. There was never much evidence of any special relationship between the two men. And when Biden took over, Johnson was one of the first to congratulate him while swiping at his predecessor.

Johnson blamed the Capitol ‘riots’ on Trump and said:

“I unreservedly condemn encouraging people to behave in the disgraceful way he did in the Capitol, I’m very pleased the President Elect has been confirmed in office and that democracy has prevailed.”

France’s President Macron too made little secret of his dislike for Trump. As recently as June, he staged a love-in with Biden, in which he agreed that America was ‘definitely’ back. The implication, of course, that under Trump, the United States had gone AWOL.

None of these frauds deserve any sympathy now that their presidential pick has turned out to be such a walking disaster.

By rejecting Trump and welcoming Biden, they sowed the wind.

Now let’s all sit back and enjoy our popcorn as those idiots reap the whirlwind.

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