Ed Timberlake writes for the American Thinker about President Biden’s questionable response to the Afghanistan debacle.

On what was arguably the worst day of Joe Biden’s presidency, he was scheduled to address America and the world at 5 p.m. on August 26, 2021. We’d been told earlier that day that the President and Commander-In-Chief was going to address the bomb that killed Marines and a Navy corpsman in Kabul. Biden was 25 minutes late.

That delay is not trivial. It has direct consequences on an ever-present 24/7 strategic threat that Russia, China, and North Korea pose to America. All three have “ready now” ICBMs with multiple warheads aimed at targets in the continental United States.

I know this because I was President Reagan’s Principal Director of Mobilization Planning and Requirements in the Pentagon at the height of the Cold War. …

… The delay could have been excused if the White House National Security staff and leaders had high-level actionable information that justified a delay in ensuring that the information presented was accurate and fact-based. But that was proven not to be the case. …

… Those Americans who watched and, more importantly, our world leader friends and enemies, just saw a president needing an additional twenty-five minutes to get prepared after having earlier announced a hard deadline time.

It may appear to be just a typical Biden trivial time-delay moment. However, the entire American strategic deterrence posture, especially during the Cold War, was measured in thirty minutes. That was the time of flight for incoming missiles to destroy us. Today, I suspect the time is even shorter. Regardless, the fundamental building block to make sure we would never be attacked was competent, determined Presidential leadership with the “football” launch codes to unleash hell on our enemies.

If anything leads Russia, China, or North Korea to believe strongly that President Biden is not mentally together—and his 25-minute delay may have proven that—America is in even greater danger than we thought. The global consequences of terrorism with Afghanistan’s fall to committed fanatical killers are yet to be seen.