According to former Rep. Pete King, the “arrogance” of President Joe Biden is what is responsible for the fall of Afghanistan by the Taliban. And you know what? He’s on to something.
“Somehow he was willing to take the chance that this might happen,” the New York Republican, who is now a Newsmax contributor, stated during an interview on “John Bachman Now.” “It collapsed just to satisfy his goal, his drive to make sure we got out by Sept. 11.”
via Newsmax:
He also slammed the administration for allowing people who served as military interpreters to remain behind as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, without making sure there would be enough military there to protect them until the withdrawal of troops was completed.
“This is indefensible,” King went on to say just before the president came out to address the nation on this unfolding situation.
Further, King said that the weekend’s fall of Kabul is worse, as “far as a president’s responsibility” than was the fall of Saigon in 1975 because back then, it was Congress that made the call to shut off military troops, not then-President Gerald Ford.
“In 1975, President Ford wanted to have the military force to defend the Americans in South Vietnam, and it was Congress who shut it off,” King said, responding to a video clip from earlier this summer of Trump denying the similarities to how the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, both of which were controversial and long-lasting, ended. “In this case, it was the president who was driving us, and it’s total ineptitude.”
King then went on to add that while he hasn’t been in Congress in eight months, nor has he been on the Intelligence Committee in over two years, “but from whatever I knew, this was almost bound to happen, if it was done this way now.”
The former congressman also made it clear that he didn’t completely agree with former President Donald Trump when he made the call to pull out troops from Afghanistan either, but with Trump, the move was condition-based.
“If you are going to withdraw, you have to do it under strict conditions,” King said of the plans Trump had made. “If Taliban violates anything at all, all bets are off and we use that power and whatever military power we have, and that is make sure that our people are protected.”
That was “precisely what happened” once the Trump administration reached its agreement with the Taliban, said King, because the insurgents “stepped out of line and they were met with swift airstrikes.”
That is a much better approach than the one that was taken by the Biden administration which has led to the complete loss of the country to control of the Taliban, which is spitting in the face of the men and women who lost their lives in Afghanistan over the course of all these years.
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