From News Nation:
“Biden calls Afghanistan
withdrawal ‘extraordinary success’”
President Biden defended the
United States’ exit from Afghanistan as an “extraordinary success,” in the face
of criticism over the hundreds of Americans who are still there and the 13
American troops who died in a terrorist attack. After two decades, the United
States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan just before midnight in Kabul
Monday, ending America’s longest war. It’s likely to be remembered for colossal
failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of
more than 180 Afghans. Hours before Biden’s Tuesday deadline for shutting down
a final airlift, and thus ending the U.S. war, Air Force transport planes
carried a remaining contingent of troops from Kabul airport late Monday.
Thousands of troops had spent a harrowing two weeks protecting the airlift of
tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and others seeking to escape a country
once again ruled by Taliban militants. In
remarks at the White House on Tuesday, Biden pointed to the 120,000 people the
U.S. airlifted out of Kabul during the evacuation. He also said the U.S.
government had reached out 19 times since March — prior to his public
announcement that he was going to end the U.S. war — to encourage all American
citizens in Afghanistan to leave. He acknowledged that 100 to 200 were unable
to get out when the airlift ended Monday. “I was not going to extend this
forever war,” Biden said in an address from the White House State Dining Room.
“And I was not going to extend a forever exit.” Biden asserted that his
administration was ready when the U.S.-backed government in Kabul collapsed in
mid-August and the Taliban took over. But the airlift that began Aug. 14 has
been heavily criticized by many as initially unorganized and chaotic. House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Tuesday described the Biden
administration’s handling of the evacuation as “probably the biggest failure in
American government on a military stage in my lifetime” and promised that
Republicans would press the White House for answers on what went wrong. “We can
never make this mistake again,” McCarthy said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
called the end of the war a “milestone of extraordinary solemnity.” She said
Congress and the White House would work to address the humanitarian crisis that
could result from the Taliban takeover.
Biden said that 5,500 Americans
eventually got out, and that “arrangements” will be made to get the remaining
Americans out if they so choose. “To those asking for a third decade of war in
Afghanistan I ask, ‘What is the vital national interest?’” Biden said. He
added, “I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is
enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending
billions of dollars in Afghanistan.” In announcing the completion of the
evacuation and war effort. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command,
said the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. Washington time
Monday, or one minute before midnight in Kabul. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken praised the military-led evacuation as heroic Monday and said the U.S.
diplomatic presence would shift to Doha, Qatar. Biden said in a written
statement Monday that he asked Blinken to coordinate with international
partners in holding the Taliban to their promise of safe passage for Americans
and others who want to leave in the days ahead. The closing hours of the
evacuation were marked by extraordinary drama. American troops faced the
daunting task of getting final evacuees onto planes while also getting
themselves and some of their equipment out, even as they monitored repeated
threats — and at least two actual attacks — by the Islamic State group’s
Afghanistan affiliate.
Triumphant Taliban occupy
Kabul airport The Taliban triumphantly
marched into the airport Tuesday, just hours after the final troops withdrew.
Standing on the tarmac, Taliban leaders pledged to secure the country, quickly
reopen the airport and grant amnesty to former opponents. “After 20
years we have defeated the Americans,” said Mohammad Islam, a Taliban guard at
the airport from Logar province, cradling a Kalashnikov rifle Tuesday. “They
have left and now our country is free.” “It’s clear what we want. We
want Shariah (Islamic law), peace and stability,” he added. The final
pullout fulfilled Biden’s pledge to end what he called a “forever war” that
began in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000
people in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania. His decision, announced
in April, reflected a national weariness of the Afghanistan conflict. Now he
faces criticism at home and abroad, not so much for ending the war as for his
handling of a final evacuation that unfolded in chaos and raised doubts about
U.S. credibility. More than 1,100 troops from coalition countries and
more than 100,000 Afghan forces and civilians died, according to Brown
University’s Costs of War project.
^ Biden’s delusions continue.
Someone needs to adjust his medicines so he can start seeing reality. The Fall
of Kabul, the US-led Evacuations, the ISIS Bombing, the abandonment of 200
American Citizens and thousands of our Afghan Allies and the Chaos and Death
brought by the Taliban all show that the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan was
anything BUT an “‘extraordinary success.” Even our Allies (the Brits, Germans,
etc.) have said Biden didn’t do everything that could for a smooth evacuation
and withdrawal. ^
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