(FreedomBeacon.com)- The disaster unfolding in Afghanistan along with President Biden’s desperate attempts to either defend his decision or pass the blame off to others have gotten so bad even the Washington Post’s fact-checker Glenn Kessler came out of hibernation to call Biden out for his bogus claims.
On Wednesday, Kessler fact-checked the president’s repeated claim that the Afghan military forces were “300,000 strong.” This is a statement Biden has made on a number of occasions – including during his Monday address on the unfolding disaster.
In his Monday address, Biden not only repeated the 300,000 number, he also claimed that the Afghan force is “larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies.”
Only, neither claim is correct.
Kessler points out in his fact-check that Biden’s 300,000 number is not the Afghan military only. Instead, the president is including in that total the number of civilian police in Afghanistan. The total the Afghan military, Kessler explains, is only 178,800 – 171,500 in the army and an additional 7,300 in the air force.
Kessler concludes that perhaps part of the reason the Afghan forces were no match for the Taliban is because President Biden was basing his assessment on a wildly inflated number.
What’s more, Biden’s claim that the Afghan military forces are larger than many of our NATO allies is also inaccurate – both because the president’s total number is wrong and also because NATO forces, unlike Afghan forces, also include reservists.
In the end Kessler slapped the President with Three Pinocchios for his statement. The Washington Post’s worse rating is Four Pinocchios.
Kessler explains that the reason Biden didn’t get Four Pinocchios is because sometimes the term “security forces” can be “broadly defined” to include the police.
That seems slippery of Kessler.
In the context in which Biden was speaking, it is clear he was talking, not about civilian law enforcement, but the Afghan military. Why compare its size to NATO militaries if he was including civilian police?
Then again, like the rest of the American corporate media, even when calling out Joe Biden, they have to grade on a curve.
