The Afghan Pullout August 15 2021
Leon Panetta, a longtime Democrat official, lambasted the Biden administration’s execution of the Afghanistan withdrawal, comparing it to the Bay of Pigs invasion by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 when U.S.-backed Cuban forces tried to land in Cuba but were rebuffed by the communist regime.
Panetta who has served in several public office positions, including the Secretary of Defense (Barack Obama), Director of the CIA (Barack Obama), White House Chief of Staff (Bill Clinton), Director of the Office of Management and Budget (George Bush I) , and originally as a U.S. Representative from California, lambasted the Biden administration’s execution of the Afghanistan withdrawal, comparing it to the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 when U.S.-backed Cuban forces tried to land in Cuba but were rebuffed by the communist regime.
“In many ways, I think of John Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs, you know?”
Leon Panetta to CNN on Monday, August 16, 2021. The referring article is here.
Well actually, Mr. Secretary, I don’t, so let’s explore this analogy.
The situation Panetta said “unfolded quickly and the president thought that everything would be fine and that was not the case. But President Kennedy took responsibility for what took place.” He added that he “strongly recommends President [Joe] Biden to take responsibility and admit the mistakes that were made,” the former Pentagon chief added.
“We have been through a difficult few days here in Afghanistan, and he’s got to make clear to the American people that as commander-in-chief, he is going to continue to protect our national security and that we are going to go after terrorists wherever the hell they’re at,” the former CIA chief added.
Biden, he said, has “to ensure that the United States of America remains a strong world leader that can work with our allies to protect peace and prosperity,” adding: “That is the message he’s got to give the American people and the world, because our credibility right now is in question.”
Leon Panetta’s conversation cont’d
The Bay of Pigs April 17 1961
The Bay of Pigs was an abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), or Playa Girón (Girón Beach) to Cubans, on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The U.S. government financed and directed the invasion.
It happened because within six months of Castro’s overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship in Cuba (January 1959), relations between Castro’s government and the United States deteriorated. The new Cuban government confiscated private property (much of it owned by North American interests), sent agents to start revolutions in several Latin American countries, and established diplomatic and economic ties with leading socialist powers. JFK fired Allen Dulles who reportedly instigated the scenario from his CIA post.
Castro himself often and vociferously accused the United States of trying to undermine his government. Several U.S. congressmen and senators, from early 1960, denounced Castro; and by June the Congress had passed legislation enabling President Dwight D. Eisenhower to take retaliatory steps: the United States cut off sugar purchases from Cuba and soon thereafter placed an embargo on all exports to Cuba except food and medicine.
The Monroe Doctrine Hemispheric Allegiance
In January 1961, Eisenhower, in one of the final acts of his administration, broke diplomatic ties with Cuba though he totally ignored China invading Tibet in 1959, because of the Monroe Doctrine and it was out of our “hemisphere.”
Thus the Panetta comparison is rather faulty in many ways: we are not leaving because the Afghanis forced us out but because our Commander in Chief and his Vice President want to leave before the 20th anniversary of 9/11/2001, while Kennedy was not leaving Cuba but invading it to get rid of Castro and his Commie comrades who were, and are still, and outpost for Soviet Russia.
If Biden wanted Hemispheric allegiance he would be sending down aid to earthquaken stricken Haiti where two thousand residents have died and typhoid because of lack of drinking water, is beginning to appear. Could Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1989 under Gorbachev be a better analogy? or should we just use American failures and say this is reminiscent of Jimmy Carter in Iran?
Depending how you view it, but which you choose, Panetta does not want to laud a Republican President. On the first side it is another former CIA executive, George Bush I who, as the preceding Veep, continued his president’s policies, and in the second it is actually Bush’s last boss, the nefarious Ronald Reagan. In either case, he would be slapping down a living Democratic President, aka Jimmy Carter, and supporting a Republican one, and didn’t Panetta leave the Elephant for the Donkey for greener pastures? Thus ii would just look rather gauche, and terribly disloyal, so the Pig Invasion with all its faults is the best he can do.
The Pig Chart
The Chart for the Bay invasion shows how Jupiter had just left the conjunction and was now in Aquarius. The time is the same as when according to new accounts; the US pulled out of Afghanistan on August 15 2021.
