Recently President Biden asked for a moment of silence for the three dead American troops killed by Iranian proxies. He mentioned no immediate action for retaliation or future acts to protect our troops. Biden has not spoken nor met with the families of these troops.

In 2021, the family of a Marine killed in Afghanistan slammed President Biden’s meeting with them as scripted. They said Biden appeared to show a "total disregard to the loss of our Marine. Biden spoke about the service of his veteran son, Beau Biden, and his death from brain cancer -- a topic Biden also brought up while both addressing the nation after the deadly Kabul suicide bombing and speaking with the new prime minister of Israel. Many parents of our dead troops sensed a disconnect with President Biden’s empathy about their grief.

President Biden's intended empathy toward the parents of the dead troops did not connect because his son Beau did not die in combat, as Joe Biden often implies. Until his battle with brain cancer, Biden’s son Beau had a career, a family, and full life. Joe Biden's unresolved and pathological grief causes him to blur his son Beau's life with our U.S. troops.

An Important and Emotion-laden Tale of Biden and Sons

As described in his 2008 memoir, Promises to Keep, Joe Biden decided to commute to D.C. and back to Delaware every day, making sure to be there when his sons woke up and went to bed. The devotion to family life helped Joe, Beau, and Hunter recover from the life-altering loss of their wife and mother and forged an unusually tight bond.

Beau, a natural leader, was elected to the Delaware Attorney General's office in 2006. He also joined the Delaware National Guard in 2003, eventually rising to the rank of major. Beau also developed into an invaluable campaign presence for Joe Biden. Shortly before being deployed to Iraq in 2008, Beau made a speech at the Democratic National Convention describing his father's impressive efforts as a single parent. Four years later, Beau delivered another speech at the Democrat convention that concluded with him citing his dad as "my hero" and calling for a vote by acclamation to renominate him for Vice President.

In 2013, Beau was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He opted for an experimental treatment and attempted to carry on business as usual, even announcing in spring 2014 that he planned to run for Delaware governor in 2016. By early 2015, the pressure was on for Joe to announce whether he intended to run for president. Biden was already leaning toward the affirmative, but that dream turned into a nightmare as Beau's condition took a turn for the worse in April. Brief recoveries turned out to be illusions, and Beau died at Walter Reed Medical Center on May 30, 2015. Joe Biden said, “his absolute honor made him a role model for our family and was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known."

In his memoir, Promise Me, Dad, Biden wrote that he came to understand that, more than anything else, Beau wanted him to remain active in public service. That engagement led right back to the campaign trail with Joe's announcement that he was running for president in 2020. On the TV show Morning Joe in January 2020, Joe Biden said, "Beau should be the one running for president, not me," he told Joe Scarborough. "Every morning I get up Joe, not a joke, and I think to myself, 'Is he proud of me?'"

At the end of each speech Joe Biden almost always says, “And may God bless America and may God protect our troops.” On August 25^th, 2021, after his definitive insistence about getting our troops out of Afghanistan by August 31, Joe Biden ended his short speech before turning his back on the U.S. press by saying, “And may God bless America and may God protect our diplomats.” Biden’s diplomats, U.S. citizens, and Afghan allies will certainly need God’s protection, as well as “our troops.”

Joe Biden’s Denial, Defensiveness, and Defective Empathy

Joe Biden clearly shows ambivalence and conflict about the U.S. military and the use of military power.  Joe Biden had presided with Barack Obama over the premature troop reduction in Iraq before the rise of ISIS there. Joe Biden opposed the surge of U.S. troops that helped quell ISIS in Iraq. Biden opposed the raid to get Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. He said it was too dangerous for the troops.

At an unconscious level, Joe Biden has seemed never to have fully resolved his grief over the loss of his ‘good son’ Beau Biden. Beau had urged his dad Joe to run for the presidency in 2016 but Joe declined at that time. Beau had a distinguished military career but did not die in combat. Joe Biden never served in our military. I think Joe Biden links in his mind an overprotective feeling about "our troops" with his beloved dead son Beau. For Joe Biden to leave any troops in Afghanistan would be to leave his beloved son Beau (who had served in Iraq), to symbolically die there in perpetuity.

In that sense, Joe Biden repeatedly said that he will take it on his presidential soul to be the heroic president to get us out of Afghanistan. No future president, Biden said, will have that task. To even leave a residual strategic force there would be an anathema for Joe Biden -- no more symbolic Beaus will die! -- even if it actually saved America from future Al Qaeda or ISIS-K attacks. Joe's mind, heart, and soul is invested in "protecting our troops" -- symbolically, Joe Biden’s beloved trooper Beau is protected in perpetuity in unconscious godlike fashion by Joe Biden.

Joe Biden's denial over this obsession about currently protecting the troops apparently prevents him from empathizing with troops and their families who served there over the last 20 years. Biden has not even mentioned those troops and their families in his sparse public comments about his Afghanistan debacle. The chaos and pain -- Joe Biden told Stephanopoulos -- was 'priced-in' to his lonely calculations!  Joe Biden says he has no regrets about his decision.

Joe Biden's “prodigal son” Hunter is referred to by Joe Biden as "The smartest man I have ever known." I think Joe Biden's over-protectiveness of Hunter reflects massive denial of the major character flaws of Hunter and Joe Biden himself. Joe Biden’s protectiveness of Hunter is really self-protection. Hunter’s addiction, alleged corruption, and sexual boundary problems -- even incest with his widowed sister-in-law -- are described by Hunter in his book. Like father, like prodigal son.

Joe Biden’s ambivalent but powerful psychological protective and loving merger with his beloved sons results in a tragic flaw and psychological blind spot in his political decision-making. Biden's unresolved grief causes him to blur his son Beau's life with our U.S. troops. Joe Biden’s rigidity, defective empathy, and signs of early cognitive decline render him unfit for decision-making regarding protecting our troops from real danger.

Image: White House