I had not heard that part; but I had read about Biden not even evacuating the civilian Americans before he removed the military. President Trump would NEVER have left innocent Americans to face the Taliban and he would not have moved our military before the civilians were safely flown elsewhere. It is no wonder that more and more people are hating Biden every day, and that he has gone into hiding and so has his press secretary. What a useless person this man is !
I heard that he specifically did not evacuate personnel beforehand because the optics would have been to echoic of Saigon.
And now I understand Biden is going to address the nation to explain how this debacle happened. The radio news even played excerpts from his recent speeches stating how the Afghan security forces were so strong, trained and well-equipped that the "likelihood of the Taliban taking over the country is remote at the least". Now they have all our weapons and any civilians who helped us to torture, not to mention all the girls going into slavery. I wonder if he is going to surrender to China in advance to avoid any fighting? American prestige is at its lowest point ever, even worst than 1975.
He can’t blame Donald Trump for the strategy being used but he can throw Anthony Blinken, the present Secretary of State under the political bus. Ya’ll see, Blinken served as the Deputy Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton. Benghazi anyone?
Biden did blame Trump when the Taliban began its takeover. It was stated at the beginning that the Pentagon advised against this policy, but Biden over ruled them, thus taking this entire thing upon his shoulders.
Here is the link to Biden's speeches: link and then we get this: link What does all of this mean? The Biden administration appears to all be on vacation. And then we have the stupidest, most naïve statement ever made at the U.N. by a U.S. representative. link
I heard parts of it and had to turn it off. "300,000 well-armed dedicated trained Afghan troops vastly outnumber the 75,000 Taliban fighters." We spent $84 billion in training and weaponry (to include standing up an air force), and it now belongs to the Taliban. A more cynical person would think this was the desired outcome. But cooler heads know how much The Left loves our country.
We can wind this back for decades. The reason for 9/11 -- whether anyone likes it or not -- was a reaction to Washington's foreign policy in the Middle East since WWII -- this is what bin Laden himself said. How many presidents does that cover? Who is to blame? The military/industrial complex is to blame, along with the idea that "war" is the granddaddy of all government programs and politicians simply cannot resist jumping in and exerting power. "War is the health of the state." -- Randolph Bourne, 1918 The CIA called 9/11 "blowback."
Sure, there's truth in that. Just as there's truth that there are truly evil people in the world with expansionist desires, and it's mostly better to fight them "there" than here. No one is pure. But I do believe that those who purport to have the higher moral ground have the greater duty, and in that respect we have failed miserably. And look at the spin that's already happening over this mess. (ABC was right on it last night with a full one hour "extemporaneous" program.) What politician can stand up for what's right, knowing full well that he/she will be thrown under the bus both then and later, with conflicting accusations? Ask regular people the party of the sitting president when wars have been declared in modern times and see what most of them say. Or does having that viewpoint make me part of the problem??? (It may.)
The then President Trump definitely did post a tentative pullout date but he also said, “if the conditions are right” which makes your statement even more relevant. If one American civilian gets killed, if one Afghani woman is raped or child harmed in any way, it’s all on Biden. The one thing that makes me absolutely furious over the whole thing is I know the feelings of the soldiers who are pulling out. Yes, they all love the idea of coming home but on the flip side, a major portion of them will never forget being forced to leave a mission unfinished. For all intents and purposes, the Taliban was beaten but with the news of a pullout they came back two fold. The same thing happened in Nam.
As I see it, to reduce this to a partisan issue is to distract from the real problem: An activist government involved in "endless foreign wars," always finding an enemy somewhere to demonize, and having military bases in 120 or so countries of the 190 or so that exist (that's old info from my brain, it's probably worse now). I'm with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with their warnings of "foreign entanglements." I don't believe this advice is outdated because today's technology is so different from their era, as many claim. It is still solid advice because it has to do with human nature, which has not changed. Trump seemed to share this vision also, who was the first president in my lifetime who did (many claimed to, but really didn't believe it). But these are just my opinions.