
Just minutes ago, President Biden spoke at the American Cemetery in Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. āThe price of unchecked tyranny is the blood of the young and the brave,ā Biden said as he honored veterans from the assault on Normandy Beach. āTheir generation, in their hour of trialāthe allied forces on D-Day did their duty. Now the question for us is, in our hour of trial, will we do ours?ā Happy Thursday.

D-Day
As I write this morning in Washington, President Biden is in France, on his way to the ceremonies commemorating D-Day. Heāll speak today at the American Cemetery in Normandy, and tomorrow at Pointe du Hoc.
Yesterday, Biden sketched out the theme of his visits in his proclamation of a National Day of Remembrance of the 80th Anniversary of D-Day.
He began, appropriately, by quoting President Franklin Rooseveltās address to the nation on the evening of June 6, 1944. (Which I encourage you to listen to here.)
But the heart of Bidenās proclamation was this:
On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, may we thank these service members for their bravery and sacrifice. May we honor their heroism, which liberated a continent and saved the world. And may we recommit to the future they fought and which many died for.
In other words: Gratitude. Honor. Commitment.
This tripartite structure seems to characterize commemorations.
It is, for example, the structure of the Gettysburg Address.
Itās also the structure of Ronald Reaganās remarks on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.
We tend to remember the first part of Reaganās speech, with its moving and famous tribute to the veterans seated before him: āThese are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.ā
But Reagan focused in the latter part of his speech on the lessons we should learn from World War II, and on the commitment we should now make:
We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. Weāve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent . . .
But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it . . .
Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for.
Biden will also speak over these next few days of gratitude, of honor, and of commitment.
Heāll speak in the tradition of Roosevelt and Reagan.
He probably wonāt explicitly remind us that there is a different tradition that the nation shunned. He probably wonāt remind us that Roosevelt had to confront and defeat the America First movement of his time. He probably wonāt remind us that the Republican party, with its 1940 nomination of Wendell Willkie, also repudiated America First.
But we now need to confront the fact that this once happily rejected traditionāa toxic brew of isolationism, nativism, and know-nothingismāhas come back to life with a vengeance.
In 1944 and 1984, the presidential candidates of both political partiesāthe bulk of both partiesāwere broadly committed to Americaās global task and responsibility.
Not so in 2024.
As a result, while the challenges we face abroad are far less challenging than those we confronted in 1944, or even in 1984, the challenge we face here at home in 2024 is greater.
President Biden spoke eloquently today in Normandy. But what matters most is what we, the American people, do this year, and in the years ahead.
āWilliam Kristol
In Plain Sight
While the world is understandably focused on the Ukrainian and Gazan battlefields, Al Qaeda and its allies are traveling freely across the globe. I didnāt get this information clandestinely or through some unnamed source. Instead, it occurred in plain sight. The Taliban announced it for the world to see.
On June 4, Afghanistanās Minister of Interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani, met with the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabiāa city housing thousands of American service members at Al Dhafra Air Base.
Haqqani isnāt just some no-name minister. I should know. I hunted him throughout my twenty years in the intelligence community and three years in Afghanistan. The son of the ruthless Jalaluddin Haqqani, he killed over two thousand American service members, thousands of our European allies, and nearly 70,000 Afghans.
Thereās also an FBI bounty on his head for $10 million for killing American citizens.
While most media accounts charitably described Haqqani as a senior Taliban leader, he also leads its most dangerous branch, the Haqqani Network. And most importantly, he has ālong-standing ties to Al Qaedaā and is a close ally of Pakistanās notorious Inter-Services Intelligence.
āSirajās second wife is a close relative of Abdul Azim Musa Bin Ali, who is Al Qaedaās expert covert operations leader,ā Colonel Abdul Rahman Rahmani, a former Afghan counterterrorism officer, told The Bulwark.
Whatever one thinks of President Bidenās decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, it has left the United States with few options in the Hindu Kush. The Biden administration is likely trying to exacerbate tensions between Haqqani and Taliban leader Haibitullah Akhanzada. But thatās a dangerous game to play with Siraj.
First, itās a slap in the face to thousands of Americaās Afghan combat veterans and Gold Star families. Itās been less than three years since the fall of Kabul. Rehabilitating such butchers will not land well with those who spent their lives fighting these men.
āThis man has the blood of thousands of service members and our Afghan partners on his hand,ā Maj. Jason Howk (Ret.), the Director of Global Friends of Afghanistan, told The Bulwark. āItās like spitting in the face of Gold Star families and veterans.ā
Second, playing back-channel games with men like Haqqani will almost certainly lead to disaster. Heās the same man who helped swindle the Trump administration into pursuing the Doha Agreement, which former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie (Ret.) recently called a ādisaster.ā
āIf any American agency thinks they can trust the Haqqani terror network, they are just joining the long line of others duped by Pakistani ISI,ā Howk said.
āThe idea that there are factions within the Taliban is a discredited example of the same wishful thinking that underpinned the Doha agreement in 2020,ā said Annie Pforzheimer, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Kabul. āHaqqanis have senior positions within the Taliban regimeās security apparatus for a reason, which is that they are demonstrably in step with Taliban leadership and act as part of the repressive structure that jails those who speak out for human rights, tortures prisoners, including young women, and kills former military and government officials. I cannot believe that those activities qualify as āAmerican interests.āā
Trusting men like Haqqani to be dependable counter-terrorism partners against the Islamic State will not work. Haqqani has ties to the Islamic State, too. Moreover, heās a terrorist. Heās not interested in working with us but will gladly take our help if it furthers his pursuit of power.
āWill Selber
Quick Hits
1. The āDouble Hatersā
Sarah has a great new piece up at the Atlantic coming out of her latest focus group. The question at hand: How are two-time Trump voters who have soured on him since 2020 processing the news of his felony conviction? How gettable are voters who fit that description for Joe Biden?
āIf Biden is going to win in November, these are the voters he must persuade to hold their noses and vote for him,ā Sarah writes. āAnd thereās reason to believe that Trumpās felony conviction just made it a little bit easier for them to do itā:
Spending 90 minutes with this group helps explain how the double haters are thinking about this race. Theyāre not all united ideologically, but theyāre united in trusting the judicial system over Trumpāat least for now.
These voters donāt speak for the majority; as swing voters, theyāre marginal. But the margins will decide this race. The conviction confirmed what many of them already knew: Trump is unfit for office.
Whether or not voters like this āgo homeā to Trump or choose to support Biden over the next five months will be a big factor in deciding the election. A lot of variables are involved: whether Trumpās daily chaos starts to make more of an impression; Bidenās performance in the debates; prices and interest rates; the salience of issues such as immigration and abortion; and what Trumpās sentence ends up being.
2. Who were these young men?
Up at the site today, Kami Riceāan American writer living in Franceāhas a beautiful piece meditating on the new āDawn of the American Centuryā exhibition currently running at the MĆ©morial de Caen, the World War II museum and memorial in Normandy:
For me, D-Day is no longer just an important international event from the past. Itās now a local event that marked my community then and still marks my everyday life in tangible ways. A bike ride through the birdsong-filled Orne River estuary takes me past graffitied German bunkers.
A friendly ābonjourā to a local on a walk turns into stories of his other summer strolls on the wooded path from his family beach home past the American Cemetery on the edge of the sea in Colleville-sur-Mer. He and his wife refer to it as a garden and say June 6 commemoration events are emotionally moving even if they snarl traffic for a week on tiny country roads.
My Uber driver tells me proudly how itās still a family event to put flowers on the grave of his great-grandfather who was among the 177 French commandos who fought ashore on D-Day. Great-grandpa died liberating the community his family lived in then and lives in now.
The reflection of world historical events on this type of normal life frames the MĆ©morialās exhibition. Rather than speaking of their deaths, KlĆ©ber Arhoul and the museumās scientific curator, ClĆ©ment Fabre, wanted to explore the lives of D-Dayās soldiers.
Cheap Shots
Lots of serious stuff today, so hereās an unserious clip for the road:
Cheap Shots - all I can say about that is I have a better relationship with God than Trump and I'm an atheist.
A quibble: "Whatever one thinks of President Bidenās decision to withdraw from Afghanistan..."
Biden decided to honor Trump/America's signed agreement to withdraw from Afghanistan; he didn't just wake up and say - "hey, let's get of Afghanistan by the end of May." Given the criticism he's received on this matter, it seems important not to miss the subtleties.