Three years ago, Joe Biden pulled out of Afghanistan without a real plan and clearly no contingencies for things going wrong.
While Biden still tries to blame this on Trump, House GOP members have finally released their report to call Biden out for the historically horrific mistakes that were made.
Talking Points…
- The Afghanistan withdrawal
- The report
- Analysis
This process for the withdrawal started during the Trump administration. Donald Trump was in the process of negotiating with the Taliban when he was in office, but his term was up before he could complete the process. So, it was handed off to the Biden administration. Biden rushed the withdrawal, which, as we all know, resulted in the deaths of 13 American troops and about 170 Afghans.
Last year, the White House issued a summary report on its investigation, largely pointing all the blame at Trump, which is utterly ridiculous. The summary stated:
"President Biden's choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor.
"The outgoing administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans or Afghan allies."
There were terms in place for the withdrawal to continue, and when Biden moved on this, the Taliban was not meeting those requirements. Not only that, Biden could have pulled back or moved forward, and he chose to move forward with his own plan, which ended up being a complete and utter disaster. If you notice, this administration has no problem taking credit for what it deemed to be the positive aspects of the withdrawal while trying to finger Trump for everything that went wrong. That withdrawal was roughly eight months after Biden took office, so this plan was on him, not Trump.
One of the first things that the report does is debunk Biden's narrative that his hands were tied regarding the withdrawal of the Doha agreement. Biden was not bound by any of the deadlines in the agreement, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were advised at the time that the Taliban was in violation of the agreement, so the United States was not obligated to leave at that time. Still, Biden moved forward against his advisers' advice.
NATO allies had also touched base with Biden about the withdrawal at the time, agreeing that "withdrawal under these circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban." Then-State Dept. spokesperson Ned Price backed up the fact that the administration was not relying on the Doha agreement restrictions, saying at the time that the agreement was "immaterial" to Biden's decision to move forward. The report starts with a knockout punch against the administration and then continues. It opens:
"As a result of the Biden-Harris administration's failure to plan for all contingencies, the U.S. government conducted an emergency evacuation without the necessary personnel, supplies, and equipment. The administration's dereliction of duty placed U.S. servicemembers and U.S. State Department personnel in mortal danger, where the Taliban – our sworn enemy – became the first line of defense. As a direct result of the failure to plan for all contingencies, 13 U.S. servicemembers and 170 Afghans were murdered in a terrorist attack at Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021, and 45 U.S. servicemembers and countless Afghans were injured. This was preventable.
"It has damaged U.S. credibility. It has emboldened our adversaries, and it has made the United States more at risk of an attack emanating from Afghanistan. And the moral injury to our veterans and servicemembers is generational. The administration's unconditional surrender and the abandonment of our Afghan allies, who fought alongside the U.S. military against the Taliban – their brothers in arms – is a stain on this administration."
After the report was released, the Biden administration responded:
"The President acted in the best interests of the American people when he ended America's longest war. This decision ensured another generation of Americans would not fight and die in Afghanistan, while putting the United States in a stronger position to face challenges to national security and international stability. It remains deeply disappointing that House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans used this process to politicize Afghanistan policy instead of working on legislative solutions to strengthen our country.
"They have done a disservice by relying on false information and presenting inaccurate narratives meant only to harm the Administration, instead of seeking to actually inform Americans on how our longest war came to an end. The State Department remains immensely proud of its workforce who put themselves forward in the waning days of our presence in Afghanistan to evacuate both Americans and the brave Afghans who stood by over sides for more than two decades."
Clearly, Republicans wanted to release this just before the election so it would have the most impact against Joe Biden and Democrats in this election. The key now will be to tie Kamala Harris into this since she is the one running for president, not Joe Biden. The White House is already spinning this, as you read above, and the Harris campaign is doing the same thing, but the American people clearly know this was on Biden and one of the biggest failures of the Biden-Harris administration. I just don't see any way that Harris will be able to distance herself from this.
To read the full House Foreign Affairs Committee report on the Afghanistan withdrawal, click here.
