As Afghanistan falls to Taliban, Jen Psaki goes on vacation

Nothing going on anyway ...

The capital city of Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban, and the White House press secretary is out on vacation.

Taliban forces stormed Kabul Sunday, announcing they will soon declare “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” from the abandoned palace of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country. The American flag at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which was hastily evacuated this weekend, was taken down by a staffer as Islamic militants invaded the capital city.

The “war is over in Afghanistan,” a Taliban spokesman said Sunday.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, who is supposedly monitoring the situation from Camp David, is still on a scheduled vacation. He is not expected to return to the White House until Wednesday. Administration officials said the president will soon speak on the U.S. losing all of its gains in its longest war “in the next few days.”

This means the president will likely talk about the situation in Afghanistan only after he returns to the nation’s capital from his scheduled vacation.

I emailed White House press secretary Jen Psaki Sunday evening to clarify. I asked her if the president plans to speak on the matter only after his vacation. Psaki did not respond personally to my request for comment. Rather, her official government email account sent back an automated reply, which states, “I will be out of the office from August 15th-August 22nd.” The automated note directs all inquiries to lower-ranking White House communications staffers.

That the White House press secretary chose now — of all times — to go on vacation is astonishing, considering everything that happened this week building up to the fall of Kabul.

On Friday, just two days before Psaki’s scheduled vacation, the Taliban had already retaken 12 provincial Afghanistan capitals, following the U.S. military’s May 1 withdrawal from Bagram Airfield.

Before we went into the weekend, the Taliban had already captured 69 of the country's 407 districts, including those previously considered impenetrable government strongholds by American and Afghan officials. By Friday, the Taliban held 142 districts and was fighting for control of 170 more.

Washington now plans a desperate bid to dispatch some 6,000 U.S. combat troops to Kabul airport to assist in the evacuation of American citizens, government officials, and designated Afghan nationals.

Meanwhile, Afghans who aided U.S. military operations are begging for help, pleading with federal authorities to help them escape Taliban reprisals. They have good reason to be desperate. Of the 20,000 Afghan interpreters who aided the U.S. military, the Biden administration has evacuated only 2,000 since the announced exit in April.

All this comes amid reports that Taliban forces are also executing “detained soldiers, police, and civilians with alleged ties to the Afghan government.”

On Sunday, the start of Psaki’s vacation, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a "shelter in place" alert to all American citizens in Kabul following reports of gunfire near the airport.

“The security situation in Kabul is changing quickly including at the airport,” the alert states. “There are reports of the airport taking fire; therefore we are instructing U.S. citizens to shelter in place.”

The embassy's security alert came as U.S. troops scrambled to evacuate diplomatic staffers from the embassy as Taliban fighters entered the city.

In other words, Psaki couldn’t have picked a worse time to go on vacation.

Or maybe she picked just the right time.